Project Life: January 2017.

At first I planned to make a separate post about my memory keeping plans for 2017 like I did for 2016. However, since I am not making any big changes compared to last year I decided to skip it. As was made apparent by my 2017 title page that I shared in January, I am sticking with the 12x12 size. I will also keep using mostly the same templates and the same font, and document monthly. What I will switch up is, of course, the products I use. Now that I'm not on the PL Creative Team anymore I imagine it'll be more of a mix between different designers than before. Just let me know if you have any questions about my memory keeping!

Project Life: 2016 album cover.

Life Lately: January 2017.

Watching | We started the year out by watching Lion at the cinema and I loved it so much that I immediately wanted to rewatch it. It's the best film I've seen in a long time. Seriously, go watch it now! ;) Other than that we watched Keeping Up With the Joneses which I found really funny.

Listening to | Mostly various P3 documentaries.

Consuming | Blood oranges still :)

Reading | Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs which has been waiting on my bookshelf for years. It's okay but a bit slow so far.

Visiting | My parents, my sister + my cousin to celebrate her birthday.

Enjoying | The beautiful wintery days we were blessed with at the start of the month, finishing + seeing my 2016 photobook in print (photos to come!), noticing that the days are becoming longer again, bringing home bouquets of colourful tulips, our trip to Stockholm, doing my annual decluttering and making tentative plans for the year ahead.

Making | Project Life pages for my 2017 album :) And working on a 1SE video of 2017.

Looking forward to | Some potentially good news we're expecting, lighter days + hopefully more sunshine.

Project Life: December 2016.

I had grand plans to update this little blog of mine more frequently this month, but as usual life got in the way... With that said, I'm finally sharing my Project Life spreads for December. I would say better late than never but it might not be true in this case because I am sure everyone is over Christmas photos and documenting the holiday season at this point ;)

2016 Top 5.

I'm sticking with my tradition of putting this little Top 5 together, even though I am not sure it's of any interest to anyone other than myself since my picks tend to be such a random mix :)

TV shows


The Affair | Så Mycket Bättre 2016 | Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life | Historieätarna | Det sitter i väggarna
Only two American TV shows... In my fangirl days a decade or so ago I watched a dozen TV shows every week but these days we don't really watch a lot of TV. I think I've grown reluctant to start watching new TV shows because I don't want to commit to watching a show for years to come. Spending that much time watching TV is just not a priority in my life anymore. It's different with the occasional documentary or entertainment show like the three I've included here because they only last for a season or so. With that said, I loved revisiting Stars Hollow, something I thought I'd never get to do. There were some parts that I didn't really see the point of and some that were disappointing, but overall it had the feel of Gilmore Girls in the good old days, and although it surprised me I actually loved the ending!

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Films


Captain Fantastic | The Light Between Oceans | Bridget Jones's Baby | Room | The Danish Girl
As usual I watched quite a lot of films in 2016 and these are the gems that really stood out to me. Some of these came out in 2015 but I watched them for the first time in 2016. I looked forward to watching most of these for months or more before they came out in Sweden because I had a feeling I'd love them, and they all lived up to my expectations!

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Books

Girl At War | Speak | Purple Hibiscus | Necessary Lies | Goodbye Sarajevo
Clearly my tendency to choose novels with powerful stories about strong female characters continued in 2016... It feels very fitting for a year like 2016, in many ways.

Life Lately: December 2016.

Watching | After months of waiting for it to premiere (the Swedish release date was actually pushed back a couple of times for some reason), I finally got to watch The Light Between Oceans. I read the novel a couple of years ago and was really excited to see how it would translate to the big screen. I definitely lived up to my expectations, both the acting and the beautiful scenery, and was one of the films I enjoyed the most in 2016.

Listening to | Christmas music, all the time. 

Consuming | All the Christmas food + sweets.

Reading | I finished To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey which I started in November, which means that I completed my goal of reading 12 books in 2016. I liked the story but I'm a bit torn when it comes to the structure of the novel (it consists of journal entries, drawings, photos, diary entries, newspaper articles etc). I liked Eowyn Ivey's previous novel The Snow Child much more. 

Visiting | My parents and Per's mother around the holidays. 

Enjoying | The holiday season and all the preparations for Christmas, the delicious food + buying presents. 

Making | I finished my 2005-2009 Project Life album at the very end of the month and am so happy with it. Photos to come.

Looking forward to | Going to Stockholm in mid-January.

Project Life: 2017 title page.

Chronologically there are many blog posts I should have posted before this one, and I probably should have wrapped up my 2016 album first before taking the time to put this together. Still, there's something about the start of a new year that makes me so eager to create the title page for that year's album that I just couldn't wait!

It actually didn't take me very long at all to put together. I used last year's title page as a template and picked some cards from the Project 52 Fresh Edition. I tried out some more colourful cards at first but somehow I came back to these neutral cards, just like I did last year. You might say that I am a bit obsessed with the photo of us + Elsa, considering that I used it for our Christmas cards and have included it in my 2016 album as well. It is the first photo of us as a family though and will always be very special to me + Elsa's expression is just the cutest thing I ever did see!

I replaced last year's "Come what may" card with "Let's do this!" and it says a lot about how differently I feel going into this year... A year ago I felt reluctant to let 2015 go because it had been a great year in many ways and I was afraid of the changes and uncertainty that 2016 would bring. (As it turned out not all of my fears materialized and 2016 ended up being far less dramatic than I had expected.) I feel so much calmer going into 2017 and I'm mostly curious to learn what it has in store for us. So, let's do this!

Around here: New Years Eve.

Around here: Christmas 2016.

Project Life: November 2016.

Here are my spreads for the month of November which is finished a couple of days ago. Only one month left of 2016 before I can order my photo book, I can't believe how fast this year has gone by! I used quite a lot of different products for these ones so I'm very pleased that they came out looking relatively cohesive :)