It has been a long time since I updated my website. I usually take a summer break because I have so much other things to do during summer. This summer the break became extra long because sometimes things happens in life that you never can prepare for. My dear mother passed away in beginning of August. We knew that she soon wouldn’t be with us because of her illness, but we where completely unprepared that she would pass away so suddenly. Life goes on, but it is hard to get used to the fact that she is not with us anymore.

Because my father soon will move to a flat, we are fully occupied to clean out all the buildings on the family estate. We want to finish the clean out before snow comes because the property will be sold somewhere during next spring. It is so sad, the property has been in the family for over a hundred years.

Later on I will make a memorial page about my mother. There I will show most of all the paintings (more than 350) she made during her life and also some of the huge amount of embroideries she created. It will take a lot of time and work to prepare this because she was so productive. I have already taken photos of all her paintings, but I have to find time to put all this together.

I know you will understand that I will not do so many new cut files for a while!

Monica

Now we are only waiting for the trees to turn green. Spring is so late this year! Only some early spring flowers have started to bloom, but not yet the daffodils. Today has been quite warm and I have cleaned the pond and put down the pump and the filter. I love to hear the water splashing again, it’s so peaceful. Tomorrow I will rest in the sun reading a book and listening for the birds singing and the water splashing. Maybe I also will plant the seven dwarf lilac bushes that I bought a week ago. First I have to check that the ground frost is gone in the place where I plan to plant them.

All my plants are growing well in the greenhouse. Today I brought out my cucumber plants that I have been growing indoors. Hopefully it’s not too cold for them in the greenhouse now.

Our last remaining snow is on the north side of our house. I hope it will melt tomorrow so I can clean up the flower bed there.

/Monica

Spring is late this year. The first of May we usually have just smaller piles of snow left in the more shadow areas. Yesterday we got about 3 inches more of this white fluff that seems never to disappear. Today the sun is shining and almost all of the snow that came yesterday has melted. The only thing is that we still have loads of the old snow left!

Today I will spend most of the time in the greenhouse. I just brought all my small plants there and they need bigger pots now. This year I will not grow as many plants as I use to do. I always grow too many but now I’m afraid I will get too few, we will see. 🙂

/Monica

This time of year the winter days are really lovely when the sun is shining. We have lots of snow and it’s quite cold at nights. This morning when I woke up, I stayed in bed for a minute and just listened for the traffic noise from the high way that are not far from our house. I could hear that it was quite cold outside! When I looked at the thermometer it said -18 degrees C. The noise from the traffic gets much higher and sharper when it is cold outside!

I have started to sow a lot of flower seeds but this year I will try to not grow as many plants as I’m used to. Every summer after planting out all the flowers I need, I always have loads of plants left over. I usually give them away to family and friends but this year I will try to just grow what I need and not so much more. Wish me luck with that task! 😉

A new hobby

One day some weeks ago, when I was surfing on the net I found something that really caught my eye, diamond embroidery!

You place tiny resin diamonds on a adhesive canvas with a printed design on. The diamonds are just 2,5 mm in square. I bought one from Aliexpress, just to try. The design is a picture of a fractal. Of course I had to choose a large one, 60x60cm. This means about 57 000 tiny diamonds to put in the right place on the canvas. Ha-ha!

When I got the package and opened it, I started wondering what I got myself into. This will take for ever, I thought. I started to work with it and it’s so fun!

Now I have spent less than a week, a couple of hours a day and almost a quarter of it is already finished. I will certainly buy another one when I have finished this!

Monica

I love to create these type of pattern. They look so nice!

You can find the new designs here.

/Monica

Here are three new lattice designs. You can use them as a background on a LO or maybe cut them out in a plastic sheet and use them as stencils.

You can find the new designs here.

/Monica

Different leaf shape edges. I don’t know which one I like the most. 🙂

You can find the cards here.

Monica

Here are two new cards. I have used the same designs as earlier but in a new way! 🙂

You can find the cards here!

Monica

This is the parts I have used lately to make some more complex designs. I hope someone may be interested in using them as they are. 🙂

The file can be found here.

Monica

This time of year the days are getting shorter and shorter and it darkens quite early in the evenings. The lack of daylight make you feel more tired and you don’t have the same inspiration as before. The winter is almost here! The pond has frozen and we have got a tiny amount of snow on the ground. The temperature is constantly below zero so the snow will not melt, at least not for days.

We have prepared everything in the garden for the winter and nothing more is to be done outside. Now I can focus on work that can be done indoors!

During the past months I have been busy making lots of concrete flowers. I’m still working on them but not as much as before. It will be fun to paint some of them.

It feels as it was a long time since I drew something new. Earlier I made some designs with flowers and leaves on and I wanted to use them to make something new. So here we go, the first one is a lattice design.

You can find the new file here.

/Monica

At last all the snow has melted. The early spring flowers are blooming. I’m busy cleaning the flower beds from leaves and dead plant material.

Just a week ago I could walk on the ice on the pond. Today I have cleaned it up and just started the pumps. I love the sound from the streaming water and from the fountain.

All my seedlings are growing fast now when I have moved them out to the greenhouse. It seems that I managed to reduce the amount of plants this year. I only have about 600 of them now. Earlier years I used to have more than 1000. 🙂

The tomatoes have started to bloom. Here they are transplanted in the biggest pots I have. Next, the final transplant will be in big buckets.
The cucumbers are still indoors, they don’t like the low temperatures at night in the greenhouse. I have a heater on but I can’t heat it up as much as the cucumbers needs. They have to wait one or two weeks more before the temperature is high enough.

Sorry, I have no fresh pictures of the other plants but this is how it looked 24 April when I just had carried them out and transplanted them. Now they are much bigger. Soon we will have daylight around the clock, this makes the plants grow very fast.

Monica

I got a request for a tea light box with a heart theme. Of course, I had to do this! 🙂
The box fits well with the hearts and the card I made earlier.

You can find the new file here.

I have made some new hearts that I think will match the card I made earlier. Hope you like them!

You can find the new designs here!

The snow keeps melting!

It has been quite warm the last weeks and the snow has thawed quite a lot. Now it’s no problem to get to the greenhouse but it is still to early to move all my seedlings out.

Here are some pictures from today. In the first picture I’m standing in the greenhouse looking out to the garden. The second picture is from the backside of our house and on the last picture you can see that the strawberries are on their way out of the snow. 🙂

Monica

It’s still winter here

Still, we have lots of snow left. Two weeks ago it was really beautiful outside when I woke up one morning. All the trees where white of frost and I had to go out just to take some photos.

Now two weeks later some of the snow have melted and soon it will be possible to enter the greenhouse. I have spent a lot of time to take care of all my seedlings and I still have lots more to sow.

Here is how the greenhouse looks right now and also a picture of all my seedlings.

I am truly addicted to casting

That was what my daughter said to me some days ago and she is right! I just can’t stop making moulds and I cast different items every day. It takes more than two weeks to finish a latex mould. When it’s finished I can use it many many times. Here is some of all the items I have casted lately. I have several big boxes full of finished items and there are things everywhere right now. I really don’t know yet what to do with them all. 🙂

Here is just a minor part of all things I have made.

Earlier in January when it was really cold, I used some silicone lego moulds and made some ice lego figures. I placed them outside the kitchen window and glued them with water on the windowsill, it froze instantly as it was about -30 degrees C. It looked quite cool to have them peek into the window.

At last a new cutting file

As you can see, I have been quite busy lately and it’s hard to find time to make new designs. I also work almost full time at a company nearby and this makes it even harder to find time to do everything I want.

This time I have made a new gate fold card. I know I already have made lots of them but I couldn’t resist to make one more. This card is really suited for wedding invitations, I think.

You can find the new card here.

Monica

This house is made with inspiration from Italy. I have cut it in 180 grams cardstock and glued it
together using permanent high tack tape runner.

You can find the new design here.

There is an assembly instruction also included in the zip file.

Monica

Today it has been really cold weather. In the morning it was -31°C. We had planned to go to town for shopping and I was a bit worried that the car wouldn’t start, but it was no problem at all!

Usually when it’s this cold, it does not blow. But in our city, Luleå, it’s always blowing. We use to call it “the city of the 4 winds”. The wind chill factor made it feel like -45°C and my cheeks started to ache straight away when going from the car park to the shops.

Now in the evening it’s still -29°C. We have to wait until tomorrow evening before it will get a little bit warmer.

I think this will be the last tea light boxes, at least for a while now. 🙂

You can find the new files here.

Monica

At last I have finished these designs. It’s the last two with candles on. I hope it’s not too late now when Christmas is over and the new year is here.

For the folded one, I have cut out six pieces and then glued them together. Then added a string and some pearls.

It’s a little bit tricky to fold the design due to the thin lines. I use two rulers when folding, this makes it much easier.

I don’t put glue on the whole design, just some small dots on the thicker parts. I love to use the E-Z Runner that gives small strips. I pick them up one by one and put them on the design.

You can find the new files here.

I hope you all have had a wonderful New Year!

 
Monica

December 22 have the shortest day and the longest night of the year, it’s the winter solstice.
Where I live, the sun just rise above the horizon and then turns down again. Today the sun rose at 9:55 and went down at 13:06. Three hours of daylight is what we get, and then the sun is right in your eyes if you are driving. Cloudy days, it never really gets bright.

Knäck

I have been busy making more Christmas candies. I always make knäck for Christmas, it’s a Swedish toffee that is very easy to make. The recipe is:

2 dl sugar
2 dl heavy cream
2 dl golden syrup
2 tbs butter

Put all ingredients in a heavy based saucepan and stir it all together. Simmer it for a long time until the temperature is about 134 degrees C, this gives a hard knäck. If you want a softer knäck, 124-128 degrees C is recommended. I use a cooking thermometer for this. Then pour it up in waxed paper cups. Leave to cool.

You can also add chopped almonds or grated zest of one orange plus a few drops of orange aroma when you have reached the right temperature. The orange knäck is really delicious!

Monica

I have made some new designs of traditional Swedish electric candlesticks. The electric candlesticks, I use to put in almost every window during Christmas.

You can find the new files here.

The snow has almost melted away and turned to ice. It has been raining every now and then but I hope soon to get more snow. The daylight keeps disappearing, now the sun rise at 9.00 and goes down at 13.40.

Monica

Now when winter is here, it’s time to light up our homes. Here are some more tea light boxes to use for this. You can never have too many tea lights!

You can find the new files here.

A little more snow have arrived, not much but it’s enough to make everything white and beautiful.

Monica

Today we got our first snow for the season! It’s still on the ground but I think it will melt pretty soon. The days are also getting quite short and right now the sun rise at 08.00 and goes down at 14.30. When Christmas comes it will be much darker than now, but then we will light up our homes with lots of electric candles.

This is some old traditional Swedish candlesticks I have. When I looked at them, I thought that they would be great to use for some new cutting designs.

I made some different designs and made two versions of each because I couldn’t choose which one to use. This is the first set of candlesticks. There will be more of them later.

You can find the files here.

Monica

Here are some more tea light boxes, as I promised before!

When not using the boxes, you can just unfold them and store them flat until next time you want to use them.

You can find the new boxes here.

I’m happy to say that we have not had any snow yet. The autumn has been quite warm and with good weather. Actually, I was out sowing some seeds during the last week. This has never happened at this time of the year before, because the ground is usually stiff with frost. The seeds will germinate when spring arrives.

Monica

It’s a little bit late but I couldn’t resist to make a tea light box for Halloween. I also included a spider for decoration. 🙂

You can find the new file here.

Monica

Now when the days are getting shorter we need to light up our homes. For this I have designed some tea light boxes. These will be nice to put on the table for Christmas, I think. Only use battery tea light for this!

I have put vellum inside so the light will look softer. There is a design for the vellum insert included in each file.

I hope you don’t have any problem cutting my intricate designs. When cutting on my Silhouette Cameo, I mostly use 180 grams cardstock. The settings I use is “Heavy cardstock” the knife on 2, thickness 30 and speed 10. I don’t know if the setting window have changed in the newer version, as I use an old version and will not update if I don’t have to.

This is how one of the boxes look like when cut and lifted off the mat. I don’t have to weed at all. All scrap is left on the mat. I just use a small aluminium ruler to scrape the small pieces off.

This is how I assemble the box:

There will be more of these boxes later on. Why just make a few when you can make a whole bunch of them! 🙂 I just have to cut them out and prepare all the different file formats before I can upload them.

The first four boxes can be found here.

Monica

I’m sorry that I haven’t updated my blog in a loong time. There has been so much to do in the garden during summer and there is still a lot to do before winter. I also work almost full time and have a very stressful job that drains my energy quite a lot. I hope that soon I will have time and energy to make some more designs.

The weather this summer has mostly been cold and rainy, so all my planned work in the garden has been affected by this. One of the plans was to build a bigger place for the strawberries. It took the whole summer to finish this. I started in the end of June and it took two month to finish it, or almost finish it. I will continue next summer putting small concrete tiles around the big blocks to make it easier when moving the lawn.

Today I tried to clean up and organize my paper and cardstock storage. What a tremendous amount of cardstock I have! I will never have time to use it all up! Furthermore, I can’t just skip buying more, when I see a great offer! 🙂

Monica

This time of year we have daylight around the clock. Sunset and sunrise are within the same hour so it’s only getting slightly less bright at night.

I love this time of year, it’s so uplifting after the dark winter. You can be outside working in the garden as long as you want (except for the mosquitoes that are terrible in the evenings and make you want to go inside).

I was up in the attic last night at half past twelve, it was half way between sunset and sunrise, and I took this picture. The sun will rise a little to the right of the picture.

Monica