Project Life: August 2017.

Today I'm finally sharing the Project Life pages I made documenting the month of August. I actually finished them quite a while ago and have since finished all of September so I will be sharing those soon as well. I really need to hurry up and get caught up with the rest of the year so I can order the physical book in early 2018! In any case, these are the pages I made documenting August:

Life Lately: November 2017.

Watching | Tjuvheder and The Glass Castle - the first films we watched since the move so it must mean that November was a bit less busy than September + October! I was so excited when I learned that The Glass Castle had been made into a film - I read the novel many years ago and it's one of my favourites. On TV we continued to watch Så mycket bättre and started watching the new Swedish mini series Enkelstöten which happens to be set in Kalmar. I actually walked past the production crew when I was out shopping one time ;)

Listening to | Towards the end of the month I dusted off my Christmas playlist. Other than that the music from Så mycket bättre was pretty much the only thing I listened to.

Consuming | Lots of hotel breakfasts, fancy lunches + dinners while away on training + work meetings.

Reading | In November I made up for my lack of reading so far this year by finishing four books. All those hours spent travelling + nights in hotel rooms paid off. Most notably I finished The Pearl That Broke Its Shell which was my favourite read of 2017 so far (along with All the Light We Cannot See).

Visiting | My mum's godparents on a wintery Saturday.

Enjoying | Beautiful sunny autumn days (still), attending the Christmas fair in Huseby, visits from friends + family and the first snow.

Making | Progress with our various house projects - figuring out how we're going to furnish the yet mostly unused half of the livingroom + finally settling on a wall colour for my craft room. Other than that I've been working away on my Project Life pages.

Looking forward to | The holidays - they're getting so close now!

Project Life: Croatia & Venice 2017.

Today I'm sharing the second installment of my July pages. You can find the first half here. The year isn't quite over yet but it's safe to say that July will be the month with the most pages in my 2017 photobook, mostly because I filled up 20 whole pages documenting our trip to Croatia and Venice. When I document a trip or event that will fill up several spreads I usually choose one scrapbooking kit and try to stick to that to make the pages cohesive. Last summer I used Summer Manifesto by Paislee Press to document our trip to Parga and this year I had my eyes set on the Joie de Vivre kit already before we left for Croatia. I ended up mixing it with Memory Keeper and threw in some Everyday Edition and a little bit of the aforementioned Summer Manifesto.

Life Lately: October 2017.

Watching | Aside from the usual (Sofias änglar etc), we watched season 2 of Top of the Lake (so exciting!) and started watching the new season of Så mycket bättre.

Listening to | As always I discovered a great new artist through this year's Så mycket bättre - Sabina Ddumba. I had heard her hits on the radio before but I never actively listened to her. Now I am hooked :)

Consuming | Apple pie and chocolate cupcakes among other things - I've started baking a bit more since we moved to the house because we're having more visitors over than we did in our cramped apartment.

Reading | I started reading The Pearl That Broke Its Shell and really enjoy it so far.

Visiting | My sister in her new apartment, my parents and Per's mother.

Enjoying | Getting the boring side of moving mostly over and done with and being able to focus more on the fun parts like decorating and slowly adding new things. Decorating for Halloween with some cute little pumpkins and a big one for our front entryway.

Making | I got fully caught up with my infertility album and made some pages for my 2017 album. I also updated my dollhouse a bit by adding some new things, among other things a new family.

Looking forward to | I'd be lying if I said I was looking forward to November since it's my least favourite month, but I am starting to look forward to December and the holidays!

Project Life: July 2017.

Last week I finally finished documenting the month of July! It was the busiest month of the year so far for us, which obviously means there were many things to document. Most notably, we were on vacation from work and travelled to Croatia and Venice and I also attended a big family reunion. I filled up 38 pages (don't worry, I won't be sharing them all in one post!). It is a lot, but since I don't limit the number of pages I create for each month it doesn't stress me out. I am still behind with August, September and October, but I have planned out 38 pages in total for those months, so now that July is in the books I should be able to catch up with the rest of the year quite quickly (I've actually already completed about a third of those pages). Today I will be sharing the pages I made documenting everything but our week in Croatia/Venice, and I will be back to share those pages later.

Around here: Glimpses from around our house.

Life Lately: September 2017.

Watching | Literally zero films or TV shows... we've been too tired in the evenings to watch anything other than some reality shows/documentaries on TV. Arvinge okänd has been my favourite show on Swedish TV in recent years and I really hope they make another season.

Listening to | The most random mix including Tracy Chapman and Diana Ross (not at the same time though).

Consuming | The same answer as always at this time of year - satsumas :P

Reading | Just as I expected I didn't have much time for reading (or any of my regular activities for that matter) in September. I started reading Before the Rains, but haven't made it very far yet.

Visiting | Just some family, if I remember correctly (it was a busy month!). But we have had quite a few visits from relatives and friends who wanted to check out our new house.

Enjoying | Decorating + settling into our house and getting the move over and done with. All our visits to Ikea - I swear I will never grow tired of it! The occasional sunny days. Being a guest on the Paislee Press Creative Team.

Making | A few Project Life pages for my 2017 album, plus some pages for my Infertility album.

Looking forward to | Being able to just spend a weekend relaxing and working on my creative projects without feeling like there's a hundred things on our to-do-list that we should take care of first ;) It's getting shorter and shorter though! Just thinking back to how much work we still had ahead of us a month ago makes me exhaused.

Infertility: Documenting my journey.

Project Life: Paislee Press CT.

This month I am honored to be a guest at the Paislee Press Creative Team. If I had known back in January when I said that I would be available to participate in September that it would end up being one of the busiest months of the year for me, I would probably have picked a different month. However, it actually felt good to be "forced" to take a break from the process of moving and sit down and create some Project Life pages and I'm happy with how these turned out :)

Life Lately: August 2017.

Watching | Before the exhausting process of moving started we had time to watch some films, most notably Their Finest. We also started watching the new season of Sofias änglar on TV, it's my biggest guilty pleasure show.

Listening to | ABBA! I turned to the happiest music I know in an attempt to feel less stressed about the move :P

Consuming | Lots of Ikea lunches, because we've spent so much time there haha.

Reading | I read Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty and while I enjoyed it at times I was one again reminded of why I don't love chicklit (too silly/frivolous). Other than that I read Mindy Kaling's Why Not Me? which I liked much better. She seems to be such a sweet, likeable person.

Visiting | Does Ikea count? Well, we also visited my sister in Malmö, some relatives at their summer house on the island of Öland as well as my parents and Per's mother.

Enjoying | Our final week of summer vacation at the beginning of the month (already feels so long ago!). Visiting the Ikea museum (where the top left photo was taken). Getting to pick out new things for the house. My little birthday celebration at the end of the month that we managed to squeeze in despite being so busy preparing for the move. And last but not least, getting the keys to the house of course!

Making | I didn't have as much time to devote to my creative projects as usual so I only made a few Project Life pages for my 2017 album. I have only made some pages for July and I haven't started documenting August yet. I know that I will stay behind until things settle down again, but that's okay.

Looking forward to | Getting the move over and done with and settling into the house.

Project Life: June 2017.

Today I'm sharing the 26 (!) pages I made documenting the month of June. It was a busy summer month filled to the brim with beautiful memories and I think that's reflected in these pages. They are my favourite by far out of the ones I've made so far for my 2017 album. I ended up using a random mix of a great number of Paislee Press products as well as the kits that Liz Tamanaha has designed for the Becky Higgins brand. This is always a winning combination if you ask me :)

Around here: We're moving!

Project Life: May 2017.

During my vacation I was finally able to catch up with my 2017 Project Life pages. I finished documenting both May and June, which means that I am back on track again, working away on my July pages. Today I thought I'd share the pages I made documenting May.

Life Lately: July 2017.

Watching | We watched The Zookeeper's Wife since I had just finished the book last month. I found the film version rather disappointing what with all the unnecessary changes to the storylines and I had a hard time getting past the ridiculous accents (why not just use native speaking actors?). We also watched the Danish film Under Sandet which was infinitely better. Such a powerful story.

Listening to | Nothing that really stood out.

Consuming | Fresh strawberries and nectarines, all the ice cream plus lots of other delicious yet unhealthy food while being on vacation.

Reading | I read All the Light We Cannot See by the pool in Croatia. It's such a beautiful and moving read. I also read Glöm mig which wasn't the best but interesting enough to occupy me on my journey home from Croatia. Other than that I read The God of Small Things which is one of my all time favourite novels. I hadn't read it in a decade so it was about time I reread it.

Visiting | My parents, Per's mother and my aunt.

Enjoying | Being on vacation, going to Croatia and the awesome family reunion I helped arrange at the end of the month.

Making | Some real progress with my Project Life album for 2017. I finally finished documenting the month of May, as well as most of June. I'll be sharing the pages I made soon!

Looking forward to | Above all, moving into our new house in September! It makes me so much less depressed than usual about my summer vacation being over.

Project Life: Croatia 2015.

With our second trip to Croatia just behind us I thought I'd share my Project Life pages documenting my first trip to Croatia, in September + October 2015. I never got around to sharing them here back then (nor any photos from this trip for that matter), even though they were my favourite pages in my 2015 album. They were the last pages I made for the album and by then I had developed my style a bit more (2015 was my first year doing Digital Project Life). When I look at these it annoys me that I didn't think of adding drop shadows to the photos until after I finished this album ;)

I mostly used the Everyday Edition for these pages. It was brand new at the time and I found that the pink, gold and blue hues complemented my photos from Croatia really well. I also used a bit of the Moments Like These, Sunshine and Midnight editions as well as the Be Bright themed cards and the This & That value kit. This was my first time including (scanned) memorabilia in my pages.

Life Lately: June 2017.

Watching | We watched Despicable Me 3 and Kongens nei at the cinema. I was somewhat disappointed by the former because it didn't include the Minions enough. Kongens nei was very well-made and I enjoyed learning more about a part of history that I wasn't very familiar with. Other than that we've continued to watch The Office although our pace has slowed down because summer means that we're spending less time indoors. We are about to finish season 7.

Listening to | My summer playlist on Spotify (it's mostly filled with classic Swedish summer songs).

Consuming | Fresh strawberries as often as I can get the chance!

Reading | I finally finished The Zookeeper's Wife. I know many people think it is filled with too many irrelevant passages and descriptions, but I kind of liked it anyway? I have read several (fictional) novels about life in Warszaw during WWII in the past years and it was very interesting to compare them with a non-fictional story. Also, I liked the extra facts that the author provided about Polish Culture and customs. I realize that it's probably more interesting to me because of my Polish heritage though.

Visiting | Family in Stockholm.

Enjoying | Going to Stockholm for a weekend, celebrating Midsummer in one of my favourite places on earth, warm sunny summer evenings, taking Elsa (our kitten) out on longer outings, swimming in the sea, oh, and finally buying a house after four years of house hunting!

Making | Pages for my infertility album + 2017 Project Life photobook.

Looking forward to | I have a lot to look forward to right now, especially our upcoming summer vacation, going to Croatia for a week (including a daytrip to Venice!) and moving into our new house at the end of the summer :)

Infertility: My third ectopic pregnancy.

Last spring I wrote a bit about my struggle with infertility up to that point. In the most recent entry I shared my feelings about having to go through a bilateral salpingectomy (i.e. removing both of my fallopian tubes), and what it would mean for my future TTC journey. Here’s an excerpt:

Some studies suggest that a salpingectomy can increase the success rate of IVF for patients who have had repeated ectopic pregnancies. Moreover, it would prevent me from having another life-threatening ectopic pregnancy in the future.

This is what my doctors told me in 2015, and I fully believed them. When you’re struggling with infertility, you quickly learn more than just the basics about how babies are made, and you learn to question everything people, including doctors, tell you. However, with my understanding of the female reproductive system, it seemed logical that no tubes would equal no place for a pregnancy to get stuck, and I saw no reason to question what I was told in this instance. A year and a half later, I would learn the hard way how wrong this was.

Project Life: April 2017.

My intention is to finish documenting each month during the following month, when memories are still fresh on my mind, but this didn't really work out in March and April. The reason why I fell behind is that I've been focusing on some other projects and also because documenting March (especially the trip to Budapest) took longer than usual. Last week I finally finished documenting April though, so now I am almost back on track. I've already started working on my June spreads and I hope I can finish my May spreads before the end of the month. For now, I thought I'd share my spreads for April:

Project Life: Budapest 2017.

Today I thought I'd share the spreads I made documenting my trip to Budapest in March. I filled up eight whole spreads, which might seem like a lot, but since I don’t make separate travel albums I want to document everything in great detail in my annual photobook. Not having to limit the number of pages I fill up is one of the main reasons why I prefer digital Project Life for my current memory keeping. At the end of the year it won’t matter if my book is 150 or 250 pages long, but it would have made a huge difference if I were using physical 12x12 albums.

To make the pages cohesive I tried my best to stick to one kit, and after trying out a bunch of different ideas I went with Sunny Days Ahead by Paislee Press. I threw in some cards from the Everyday, Midnight and Moments Like These editions and Weekend Vibes + an element (Go See Do) from Summer Manifesto. (Some items have been recoloured.) As you can see I also included some memorabilia which I scanned when I came home.

Life Lately: May 2017.

Watching | Believe it or not, we did not watch a single film in May! I don't if that has ever happened before. It says a lot about how many episodes of The Office that we watched throughout the month. We've made it up to season 7 by now :)

Listening to | I dusted off my summer playlist to get in the mood for summerrrr :)

Consuming | Nectarines that are finally in season.

Reading | Still The Zookeeper's Wife. Thank goodness my summer vacation is coming up so I can catch up on my reading. Haven't finished a book since March!

Visiting | Our parents + some other relatives.

Enjoying | Warm and sunny days, all the beautiful flowers that were in bloom, feeling close to achieving my dreams for a little while (until it all came crashing down, unfortunately).

Making | Project Life pages for my 2017 album + my (physical) infertility album. Also I added a second extension floor to my dollhouse so I spent a lot of time making plans for that :)

Looking forward to | Summer, especially our trip to Istria in July!

Trips in 2017: Budapest.

Life Lately: April 2017.

Watching | We watched The Beauty and the Beast at the cinema for Per's birthday. I was impressed by how beautifully made it was! Something that surprised me was how well I remember the 90s version, considering that I haven't actually watched it since the 90s. I recognized many lines + songs. It was my favourite Disney film growing up though, along with the Lion King, so I guess I must have watched it a hundred times :) Other than that we didn't watch many films in April, because we started watching The Office from the beginning. I was a huge fan of The Office back in the day - it's one of the TV shows I was the most invested in during my fangirl days (Jim and Pam will forever hold a special place in my heart!). Per had never seen it though and suddenly I felt like rewatching it so we started and he fell in love with it too. He actually asked why I hadn't shared it with him before in our five years together, "considering how many crappy films and TV shows I have made him watch" haha :) We've finished the first four seasons already so we have five more to go, which means we probably won't be watching much else anytime soon.

Listening to | Still the Moana soundtrack, on repeat. It's that great! Per decided that I can only listen to each song five times a day haha. But, we also listened to Lisa Nilsson a lot after seeing her in concert at the beginning of the month (she was amazing!).

Consuming | Easter food + more barbecue food.

Reading | I started The Zoo Keeper's Wife but I didn't finish it yet. Not because I don't like it but simply because I have been too preoccupied with other things to be able to focus on reading.

Visiting | My parents for Easter and Per's mother for Walpurgis Night + other occasions, and my cousin to celebrate her confirmation.

Enjoying | All the flowers, spending time outside with Elsa, sunny days and getting some extra days off for Easter.

Making | Project Life pages documenting the month of March and some pages for my infertility album.

Looking forward to | The weather turning warmer soon, I hope. SUMMER. Getting more time to work on my creative projects - April was filled with social + some work engagements that meant I had less time to spend on my projects than I usually do.

Project Life: March 2017.

This weekend I finished my spreads for the month of March. Only four this time, but that isn't the whole truth because I have yet to finish documenting our trip to Budapest and I expect that I will fill up about six spreads or so doing that. I will share those spreads + photos from the trip in separate entries later.

Project Life: My finished 2016 photobook.

Life Lately: March 2017.

Watching | Several great films, especially Moana, The Edge of Seventeen and Sameblod.

Listening to | The Moana soundtrack on repeat, especially How Far I'll Go, We Know The Way + You're Welcome. So catchy!

Consuming | The weather allowed us to have our first barbecue food of the season! Yum.

Reading | Det är något som inte stämmer by Martina Haag was my book-of-the-month. I liked it much more than I thought I would, it was both funny and heartbreaking at the same time.

Visiting | My parents and Per's mum like we seem to do at least once every month.

Enjoying | The lovely spring weather we had at times this month, and the fact that winter seems to be gone for real. Slowly shedding our winter layers and being able to spend more and more time outside + bringing Elsa outside more. Lighter evenings. Our wonderful long weekend in Budapest. Something super exciting that happened to a close family member.

Making | Project Life pages for February and taking plenty of photos throughout the month that I am looking forward to sharing and scrapbooking (sometimes I start the month's pages before the month is over but most of the time I wait until the next month).

Looking forward to | Warmer weather + seeing the world slowly turn greener and greener with each passing day. Getting some extra days off from work for Easter. Learning the ins and outs of my new job which I just started.

Project Life: Glimpses from 2008-2009.

Project Life: Glimpses from 2005-2007.

Project Life: February 2017.

In some ways February felt long but at the same time it went by so quickly! I "only" filled up five spreads this month but that's still one more than February of last year.

Life Lately: February 2017.

Watching | I watched three new (to me) films in February - Tallulah, Loving and Manchester by the Sea. All were watchable but I found Loving the most memorable + moving. It's so hard to wrap my head around that this was the reality for many people not very long ago (and is for many in the LGBTQ community today, still). On TV we didn't watch anything very memorable other than my guilty pleasure show Sofias änglar.

Listening to | Nothing really stands out that I can remember. I spent a lot of time at home in February, but I preferred silence over music.

Consuming | My beloved semlas of course.

Reading | Nowhere's Child which was one of the books I bought on the annual book sale. I read it quickly because I was so curious to learn what would happen, but in the end I was a bit disappointed by it because I feel like there were questions that should have been answered and parts that were included that felt somewhat unnecessary. Nonetheless it was fascinating to read about an aspect of WWII that I wasn't very familiar with the details of beforehand.

Visiting | My parents, P's mum + my mum's godparents.

Enjoying | All the shopping I did. Most notably I bought a Sigma 24mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens which I've had my eyes on for quite some time. I haven't had the opportunity to try it out all that much yet, and I am looking forward to getting to know it better. Other than that I bought some clothes for spring, booked a weekend trip for March, bought some books on the aforementioned book sale + a whole lot of other things when my mum and I went to Ullared. Retail therapy, yes, and I don't feel the slightest bit guilty about it ;) Other than that I enjoyed the arrival of spring, the sunny days we had at the end of the month + the outings we went on.

Making | Little changes around our home + Project Life pages.

Looking forward to | Going to Budapest in March!

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.