9 Ingredients of a Loving Relationship

Hey, good people -  Happy Valentine's Day! I've made a shrine dedicated to LOVE and filled it with a few ingredients I think is important in a relationship - whether it's the romantic kind or one between close friends. 

 

Stampes used - all from Rubber Dance:

 Nostalgic Couple, Vintage Script, Grungy Harlequin, Da Vincy Body Sketch,

digits from Pick a Number, Paper doll stamp from Collage Elements, 

Other Supplies:

That's Crafty: Shrine Kit, Multi Purpose Craft Adhesive, Multi Surface Paint.

Prima: Finnabair White Crackle Texture Paste

Tim Holtz: Corked Vials

Various embellishments from my stash.

For a step by step tutorial on how I made this shrine, 
please see my post today on the Rubber Dance blog. 

 

The text on the tiny bottles represent what I personally think are important in a relationship, and the labels read as follows (except for the first, they're not listed in a prioritied order). 

Curiosity:

This is number one for me. By curiosity I mean being genuinely interested in understanding the other person, to acknowledge where they're coming from and seeing things from their perspective. That doesn't mean I have to agree with their opinions, but curiosity leads to tolerance. I want to know what makes them tick, to learn and understand about their inner dreams and fears. I want to learn what's important to them, their needs as an individual. When I manage to stay curious (it's not always easy), I don't get upset if they do or say things I otherwise would think were dumb, mean or unfair.

Respect: 

From Latin, re-spectare: To look back; to see once again. There is so much more to a person than what meets the eye. Again, be curious (I can't stress that enough), find out about and respect one another's core values; never force anyone to change those. Respect your differences and the fact that you're not always right. Respect one another's individuality and uniqueness.

Dialogue:

Communication isn't important, but good communication is! Mutual curiosity makes good communication a lot easier. A whole bunch of piles lot more easier!

Praise:

Give compliments to one another. Say nice things about the other person - also when they're not around! I think it's really sweet when people praise their partner/friend, and of course it warms my heart when someone tells me what my partner had said about me! Aww, my mushy, mushy heart! ♥

Forgiveness:

Don't keep scores. Let go of old grudges. Would you still be angry at your pet for something it did last month or even three years ago?? Far fetched, perhaps, but it makes me think twice when I compare. What if I, if just for a split second, could have the same unconditional love for my partner as I have for my dog? Feels rather nice, actually! And it makes me condone any of his blunders and excuse how he smells when it rains. Oh, wait - dogs smell in the rain! Alright, moving on:

Humour:

Be silly, be goofy! Laugh together! It's a scientific fact that laughter creates a stronger bond between humans. If you don't believe me, laugh and see for yourself! Alternatively, google it. 

Honesty:

I don't lie to my partner (nor to my friends), but I might not tell him everything - unless he asks. We have agreed to never ask questions if we're unsure whether we can handle an honest answer. It's not like we have any juicy secrets going on, but it can be little questions such as 'Does my butt look big in this?' (heck, I know it always does!), or questions that can be risky to ask, 'Did you miss me while you were away?'.  Let's add sincerity to the mixture: I say what I mean and, more importantly, I mean what I say. Knowing my partner always will be honest and straight-forward with me makes me feel secure - I don't have to doubt or wonder. If he said it, he meant it.

Intimacy:

To me this word means different things. Intimacy is being close; sharing, trusting, being confident in one another. It also means being affectionate, verbally as well as physically; whisper sweet little somethings, hold hands, hug. Kiss your partner, every. single. day.

The 9th Ingredient is Love:

Love is a feeling that might come and go. The trick is to keep doing all of the above also in times when the feeling of love might not be evident. Love is the attitude you have towards your partner/friend. Love can be a decision; I love you no matter what; I love you even if I think you're an idiot, because let's face it - so am I, at times ...

What ingredients would you add? Please share in the comments below!

May the Love be with You

 

I'm entering my shrine to these two February challenges:
That's Crafty!: I Heart You
Craft Stamper: Anything Goes (with stamping)

New Stamps - on Sale!

Have you seen the February sale over at Rubber Dance? I'm really happy with the two new sheets of stamps and they're a hoot to play with!

Below are two tags I've made with the new stamps.

Tag 1: Stamps from Carved Whimsy Wood.
I stamped the three leaves with black Versafine ink (which is waterproof) and gave them a coat of Glossy Accents. Once that was completely dry, I made the background by using make-up daubers and brown and green Distress Oxides, and a light spray of water. While the ink was still wet, I wiped it off the leaves - it comes right off the Glossy Accent. This way you can see the colour of the tag through the veins of the leaves:

 

Tag 2: Stamps from Four Seasons.

I made the background first, using a light green ink through a leaf stencil from That's Crafty. After stamping the images with black Versafine ink, I coloured them in using Zig clean colour markers:

The stamps used are from the new sets - both on sale all of February!

 You can get either sheet at 15 % off in the Rubber Dance web shop.

OR

order both the new sets and save even more!

 

You can find the stamps right here.

 

Thanks for looking!

Wooden House for Rubber Dance Challenge

Our house, in the middle of our street ...

Hey, good people! Are you ready for a new challenge? We have one over at the Rubber Dance blog today and you have all of February to come up with a gorgeous creation! I know you can ;-)

Here's what I made, using the challenge colours as well as theme (hearts). You can use our colours OR theme, or a combo of both.

My sweetheart made me some wooden houses for Christmas (you can see another house here). They are really easy to make (you have a saw, right?), or ask the person at your local wood shop (or whatever it's called) to cut them up for you. Wooden houses are quite popular now, so maybe you can find some cheap ones in a local shop and just sand them off if they're painted.

Anyway - here's another view of my little house. I painted, sanded, painted again and sanded some more till I was happy with the weathered look. All sides and the roof were stamped with stars and music notes, both from Rubber Dance. After stamping, I added the hearts using a That's Crafty dinky stencil.

  I twined the wire around a thin paint brush to make the curls.

The cute hearts below are whiteboards that a friend of mine makes;  you'll find them in her shop here: Deb's ArtZone.  

I gave the hearts a coat of white gesso before adding colour by pressing the hearts into ink pads in blue and green Distress Oxide. When the ink was dry, I added Glossy Accents, left to dry overnight, then finally added gold paint around the edges. The hearts are attached to the wire with clear glue dots on the back. If I had a much thinner wire, I'd just wrap it around the hearts instead.

The "i love us" text is from Tim Holtz' Small Talk stickers.

I was going to give this house to my sweetheart on Valentine's day,  but I couldn't wait that long so now I'll just have to make something else for the 14th ...  My darling and I aren't the most romantic couple on earth, but I try my best - once a year. My idea of a romantic gesture was when he, out of the blue, bought a new dustpan and broom set for the kitchen floor - in MY fave colour!! I thought that was really sweet, so I guess it's safe to say that I'm not hard to please. He does give me flowers for Valentine's, though, so perhaps he has a romantic streak somewhere...or maybe he thinks he has to, it being THE Most Romantic Day of The Year, supposedly. I dunno, but I love flowers, no matter what or why :-)

Whether you're a hopeless romantic or not - come join our challenge over at the Rubber Dance blog.

There will be prizes, fame and glory! ;-)

 

See you there?

♥ ♥ ♥ 

Thanks for looking!

Vinterbilde med Votter (Norwegian challenge)

The text below is not gibberish - it's my mother tongue! 😜 Since I made this for a challenge in Norway, this post is in Norwegian. You can still look at my very, very pretty winter picture and leave a sweet comment - in any language but Klingon (mine's rather rusty).

Hei på snei! Her er et vinterbilde jeg har laget til grublisen på Scrappelyst. Jeg brukte en tykk kartong på 15 x 15 cm som base og malte den først med hvit gesso, deretter fargela jeg himmelen med to blånyanser Distress-blekk, som jeg ga en liten dusj med vann for å illudere dalende snøfnugg.  Bakken dekket jeg med hvit krakkeleringsmasse. Når den var tørr, klinte jeg på litt glitterlim her og der så det ser ut som glitrende snø.

Vottene og de andre stemplene er fra Rubber Dance, som er mitt eget stempelfirma. Jeg stemplet motivene med vannfast blekk på tynt akvarellpapir og fargela dem med ZIG Clean Color-tusj. Hytta er limt rett på bakgrunnen, de andre motivene festet jeg med 3D-puter for å få litt mer dybde og liv i bildet. Legg merke til at vinterbildet mitt hviler på et par votter - måtte bare ta med denne fine julegaven, ettersom votter er temaet for grublisen.

Nedenfor er et nærbilde av de stemplede vottene og litt av gullramma rundt. Den lagde jeg ved å ha på masse embossingblekk og tjukt embossingpulver. Mens den fortsatt var varm, trykket jeg kanten av et blomsterstempel nedi den bløte embossingmassen. (NB! Dette går helt fint med gummistempler - jeg vet ikke om clearstamps tåler varmen. Noen andre som vet det?)

Nedenfor ser dere de fine vottene jeg fikk til jul av en venninne som har sydd dem selv. Snøkrystallene er av refleksfolie som hun skar ut på Silhouettemaskina si. Vottene er av ullstoff og fôret med skikkelig myk fleece, utrolig deilige å ha på når det er bikkjekaldt ute! Det har fortsatt ikke vært ordentlig vinter her i Fredrikstad; snøen og frosten kommer og går med regnet, men vintersesongen er jo ikke over ennå. Kanskje blir det litt Tiddelibomm og huttemegtu snart! (Ikke det at jeg liker å fryse, men jeg vil jo gjerne bruke de nye vottene mine).

De sydde vottene er ikke et bidrag til grublisen, de er bare fine :-)

Minna syr for det meste barnetøy, og har en egen side på Facebook: Minnasydd

 

Jeg deltar på grublisen hos Scrappelyst

Takk for at du kom innom!

Alle stemplene er fra Rubber Dance:

Votter, Hytte, Tre:  Whimsical Winter

Blomst til gullramma: Crazy Flowers #1

Dessuten har jeg brukt:

That's Crafty! - Greyboard,  Prima - White Crackle Texture Paste,

Ranger - Distressblekk, embossingblekk, EP i gull, Stickles glitter,

Canson akvareallpapir, Versafine onyx black, ZIG Clean Color Markers.

 

50 Euro Worth of Stamps Challenge

Heyyy, good people! The December challenge over at the Rubber Dance blog is one you really don't want to miss. The lucky random winner will get a 50 Euro voucher to spend in the Rubber Dance web shop, and the DT Fave pick will get €25!!

I know many of you are busy right now, but the challenge is quite easy: Either use the challenge colours, OR enter any make with glitter.

I have combined the colours and a bit of glitter on my reminder card:

 I made the background mixing three colours of Distress Oxides. For the light blue, I mixed a couple of drops of blue reinker into the texture paste. I picked a Christmassy patterned stencil (Tim Holtz) to go with the stamped tulips, which was a Christmas flower here in Norway - I don't know if that's common all over the world, but we love tulips this time of year - usually white or red, but I love tutti-frutti :-)

I stamped the tulip randomly on two backgrounds and cut them out. 

Same with the stems and leaves - all stamps from the Rubber Dance set Crazy Flowers #1.

 

I arranged the cut out images over my background till I liked it, took a photo for reference and glued them all down. Quick and easy Christmas card, if somewhat unusual perhaps.

The challenge runs till 31st of December, so there's plenty of time still.

 Thanks for looking!

Mixed Media Beach Bathroom Decor

Heyyyy crafters! Let me first remind you of the release sale at Rubber Dance - with 20 % discount on all the new stamps. The sale ends on Tuesday, midnight CET. (Between you and me: I'm rarely up that late, so the sale ends after I get up on Wednesday morning, usually around 5 o'clock-ish, and get a chance to change the reduced prices).

I made this wall decor to send to Anti-Santa, or whatever the Santa in Antarctica is called. Since there are no penguins on the North Pole, it would be so silly to send this to the Santa up north, wouldn't it?

Turns out I didn't have the southern Santa's address in my Rolodex (remember those?), so I hung the sign up in our downstairs bathroom (aka loo), which has a beach theme. Not that we live on the beach, but a few times a day I can always pretend... (Raise your hand if you just starting singing "The Great Pretender", Freddy Mercury version! Grab a banana and slap me over the head if you can't get the song out of your mind!)

Properly propped on the bathroom basin with bath towels and sea shells (and a lighthouse to the left):

I posted this photo over at the Rubber Dance blog for my stamp release last week, but I thought I'd share some details with you. I stamped the Playful Penguins on watercolour paper, coloured them in with Zig clean colour makers, cut them out and set aside.

The surface I used is a 15 x 15 cm white/greyboard panel with rounded corners, from That's Crafty in the UK (you can find it here - pack of 5 for only £2.25!). These are white on one side and grey on the other, and I used the white side - without adding gesso first.

I wanted to test the crackle paste I had bought after a friend recommended it. I have tried quite a few crackle mediums, but frankly not been all that impressed with them - but I really liked this one! I'm not affiliated with the brand, which is Finnabair/Prima's Texture Paste White Crackle. I covered the whole board with the crackle paste, using a broad palette knife. I made both thin and thick layers to achieve different sized cracks. After having left it to dry for the cracks to appear, I smeared some acrylic paint in blue and green on top and wiped off some of the paint with a baby wipe.

The MFD signpost (below) is from Calico Craft Parts in the UK, and you can find it here (I'm not affiliated, just a very excited customer!). I love that it's so big - over 10 cm tall and 12 cm wide. I painted the signpost with white gesso and aged it with brown ink. The text was painted with blue acrylic paint, then some glitter on top to make it look more frosty (it does sparkle in real life...).
The "snow" is made with art stones (Finnabair/Prima), which I hadn't used before so I wasn't sure how to glue them down... but it worked fine with a thick layer of matte medium.

The very same day I was working on this, I received some happy mail - and one of the postal stamps was this with two penguins!!

So, there it is - Frankie goes to Hollywood has nothing on my Penguins goes to Anti-Santa!

The rest of this post is a promotion of my stamp company, Rubber Dance.
Just skip to the end if you're not interested.

 This is what the set of Playful Penguins looks like

(13 x 18 cm, or 5 x 7 inches if that's how you roll ...)

Other new sets, also at 20 % right now:

These two 9 x 13 cm sheets, packed full of funny sentiments

(at least I find them funny..... that's why I made'em!)

 ..... and this 13 x 18 sheet of lovely winter stamps:

 Hurry if you want that 20 % discount, 

the sale ends verrah soon!

All the new stamps are in the Rubber Dance web shop.

Thanks for looking! 

Deep Sea Diva - Cards for That's Crafty!

Hi everyone!

That's Crafty! has launched two new stamp sets designed by Donna Gray! I have had the pleasure to work with these stamps a bit ahead of time and so far I've made the three cards below. To see many more sample cards with these beautiful stamps, pop over to That's Crafty's blog for a look.

I LOVE everything beach and sea, so I'll make more cards with these stamps when time permits. But for now, here go you - my first three cards using stamps from the Deep Sea Diva collection:

 

 

Here are the two sets. 

These clear stamps are both available in the That's Crafty web shop

Full Disclosure: Yes, I am affiliated with That's Crafty! and the designer of these stamps, Donna Gray, is a very good friend of mine. She's designing stamps for my own rubber stamp company as well. That's Crafty! gave me these two stamp sets to make sample cards. They also carry stamps from my company, Rubber Dance, which you can find in their web shop here. They will be addding more stamps from Rubber Dance soon (I'm working on their order as we speak; ready to ship later this week!)

I had great fun making these sample cards

and I hope you like them.

Thanks for looking!

 

Rule of Three - Rubber Dance Challenge

Hi everyone!

I would like to invite you to join our challenge over at Rubber Dance, where the theme is Rule of Three. You can make anything where you use three things - see our challenge post for more info. I've used three flowers on this card:

 

The flowers are from a set of stamps called Beki from That's Crafty!

Text and smaller stamps from Rubber Dance.

Join us over at the Rubber Dance blog!

You have until midnight CET on May 31st to join.

Thanks for looking!

Quick & Easy Dinosaur Card

Hello everyone! Our youngest grandson turns 1 year today so I made this card for him:

 

This is not my idea. I found it on Pinterest here and she got the idea from someone else, so I don't know who first came up with it. No matter - I thought it was super cute! I made my own version of the card, tweaked it a little bit here and there.

I used an embossing folder that I thought might resemble the skin of a dinosaur. I never saw one (I'm not THAT old), so who knows ... The nostrils are made of white buttons that I dyed with red alcohol ink, adhered to circles of black cardstock. The original card had black nostrils, but I wanted something red to suggest that flames might come out...

This is what happens when you open the card (which was totally my idea):

I aligned the teeth circles on the inside of the card with those of the outside flap.

There's room to write a greeting below the tongue.

To make the tongue pop up like that, I scored the edge 

and adhered it to the front flap with strong red tape :

The eyes were made with circle punches and goggle eyes.

I lifted the eyebrows up with foam dots:

This card is very appropriate, considering the gift we are giving our grandson ... Grampa Tom made it! The rocking dino has goggly eyes, too, like my card :-)

We debated back and forth whether the dino should be painted, 

but the wood is so pretty with furniture oil only, isn't it? 

The dino was made of ash tree, the rest from pine.

Under construction in Tom's woodshop. 

See how much lighter the wood is without oil.

 

 I know this rocking dinosaur will be a big success  - not just for the little toddler, 

but I bet his parents will love it, too!

So now you see why I had to make this card:

 

I'm entering my dino card to this challenge:

That's Crafty!, Round and Round challenge (use circles)

Deadline: Friday February 10th.

I have another idea for this challenge, so stay tuned ....  

Thanks for looking!