Happy Anniversary to an old collegue - and a birthday card

Hi There,

I hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas holiday (some of you might still be on holiday).

On December 23rd I was invited to celebrate a 12½ year wedding anniversary with a collegue of mine at the school and her husband. The celebration was held in the café area of the school where a lot of people can be gathered.

I had bought a gift card for a Romantic dinner for 2 persons for the happy couple and instead of presenting them with the original box for the card, I'd made one of my personalized boxes.

When I got the boxes I also bough a christmas red one, already knowing I was going the this celebration. I had bought the dies for the decorations and as a symbol of the family (dad, mum and two kids) I made four decorations. The holders are made with copper coloured paper as is the 12½. I had some fir dies which I used in the corners. Seen in retrospect I should have put some red berries on them. Well, that's too late to remedy now. 

On the lid I added a great border that I have - also in copper coloured paper. The border goes all the way round - yes, also on the back, and that's the finishing touch that make the box so special for the occassion in my eyes.
In the box I put some pale green paper, which matched the background paper and on the top of that rested the gift card.

Next I had to make a gift tag of course. And I used this awesome garder die in combination with his house (I don't remember, if that's the same die set) and a flag set, where I could make a Danish flag. The sentiment is written on the back.

I had to leave the celebration early as I had to go to the north of Jutland to celebrate Christmas with my family and I wanted to arrive there before it got too dark.

Right - now to the birthday card.

I have a great friend whose birthday is in the middle of December and I wanted to send her a nice card of course.

I'd bought the bauble die in early october (I think it was) and of course this should be used for a December birthday. I used some nice stickers as ribbon to hang them on and added some fir branches as well.

Then I added a kind of pocket die at the bottom - I honestly don't know why, other than I thought it looked nice.

There's probably a lot of ways to use that "pocket" die, but right now, my head is quite empty for ideas, so if you have any, please let me know.

That's is for now, but feel free to leave me a comment if you like my projects and if you'd like to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my instagram.

And of course HAPPY NEW YEAR, I hope you have a prosperous and productive one. 

Be happy crafting!

A couple of boxes

Hi there,

Today I just fetched my glasses from the shop - WHAT a relief. I felt a huge difference the minute I put them on. I've been straining my eyes for 1½ week now wearing my old glasses, so you can imagine what I felt like putting them on again.

Well, back to the important things.

While not being able to colour very well, I made these 2 cute boxes (and two not yet assembled, but also with a Christmas theme.
Front of box 1:

The back has no decoration on the roof and no door. Otherwise it's the same.
And both sides

 Front of box two:

The back is decorated like the back of box 1. 

And both sides:

The base carton I bought at a hobby outlet with colouring on it in mind, but when I wanted to make the houses, I found that this carton was perfect for it.

The window die cuts are a little too big for the box, so I ended up cutting a little bit of each side.

The first box I gave to my colouring buddy, Susanne, who is always great to exchange ideas with and a great, and very knowledgeable card maker, that I get lots of inspiration from. The second box I've given to my big sister, who needed a little chearing up as she's been hit by the flu and missed her holiday abroad. The text on the side says "Christmas hugs" in Danish.

Both boxes took some time to prep as there's no less than 14 rows of snow (10 for the roof and 4 around the house) for each house, and there's only one die for it. And a lot of other bits and pieces. I'm glad I'm a patient crafter.

Please feel free to leave me a comment if you like my projects and if you'd like to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my instagram.

Be happy crafting!

No problem

Hi there,

As promised last weekend I'm going to show you my monthly Kit and Clowder November 2019 pencil class today, but first the result of my visit at the eye specialist clinic.

Good news! After eye dripping, photos and a general eye check by a nurse, I was called into the specialists room and was told that I have 100% vision on my right eye and much to my surprise 90% vision on my left eye. My problem is that my eyes do not work together - can be remedied by a new left glass in my glasses and that I have beginning cataract. The latter will not need any operation for the next 5 - 10 years (hopefully 10 years) depending upon how fast it develops.

Well, I went back to the optician and told them what was said, and it being Black Friday, I had hoped to be able to get the glass half price since I got completely new glasses a year ago and they are not very cheap - but NO, that only applied for completely new glasses. In the end the price would be almost the same, so I thought I'll make do with a new glass in my three sets of glasses and was able to save just a little bit by doing this.

I had to leave all my glasses at the shop. They'll send them to Hungary to fit the new glass and it's going to take a couple of weeks before I see them again. Luckily I'd kept (just in case) my old glasses from last year, otherwise I would not have been able to drive home as I cannot see a thing without my glasses - which is weird considering the above message from the eye specialist. :-)

But overall it was good news! And now to the pencil class.

I love the November classes which usually feature a Christmas theme. The Paper Shelter digi is called Holy Night and it's soo cute.

We do not have the best light for taking photos here in Denmark at the moment, it's so dark outside so taking a decent photo is not possible. I have the flashlight on, which is why the colours are much lighter than they are in real life. The sky should be much darker (Holy Night). However, considering the vision problems I'm quite satisfied being able to colour within the lines even though it was a strain on the eyes.

I LOVE how the deer turned out and the clothes too. The white specks on the rear end of the deer should be done with white pencil, but I didn't think they were white enough so I used my white Poska on top of the pencil. I also used my white Poska to dot in the snow all over the image.

It was an awesome image to colour and I love the Paper Shelter images which are so cute.

I think that's all for now. Please feel free to leave me a comment if you like my projects and if you'd like to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my instagram.

Be happy crafting!

Quiet period

Hi there!

I'm in a very slow period craft wise at the moment. I've been doodling a little bit on a few Post It notes which you might have seen on Facebook, and I've started my November pencil class in Kit and Clowder.

The reason I'm not crafting much right now is, that I've been having some eye problems since late September. I cannot seem to focus with my right eye when reading and I got new glasses only a year ago. 

In October I went to my optician shop and had an extended eye test, which according to them showed absolutely nothing, but since my problem has continued, something must be wrong, so I contacted an eye specialist and am going there for an appointment on next Wednesday. I do hope it's nothing serious.

I'll be quiet till next weekend, where I hope to have finished my November pencil class. Then I'll let you know how it went with the eye specialist. Please send me some positive thoughts Wednesday morning.

Be happy crafting!

Christening in the family

Hi there,

This past weekend was a big thing in my family. The latest addition to it was christened and afterwards was a great lunch followed by coffee and cakes everything arranged by the now parents of three children ages 7, 4 and 5 weeks. I was duly impressed with the work they put into everything.

"Linus" is the name of the little 5 week old boy, and he's the son of my eldest nephew and his wife. The Christening took place on Saturday - usually it's on a Sunday, but Cæcilies family come mostly from Zealand and it was arranged with the priest, so nobody should hasten back home late Sunday afternoon.

Here is the box project I made for Linus and of course there was a gift inside, which will remain a secret to you. The first photo is the box viewed from above.

The next photo viewed from one side

and now from the other side. 

I had the shop, where I bought the gift, wrap the box in nice boyish paper and then I added the below tag. When it is opened you get to see the information regarding Linus' birth (except where he was born, because then you'd know where he lives) and Christening. On the back I made a greeting for him, but it's a secret too, what I wrote.

I stayed at my big sisters summerhouse and my little sister and her family stayed next door, where we'd borrowed the neighbors summerhouse. So we had some sister time this weekend which was quite nice. 

As a thank you for having me stay, I'd knitted a couple of cloths for my sister and to accompany them I'd made the below card to her. I'm happy to say that she liked that. 

Well, that's all for now. I'll be back later this week with some inky drawings from week 2 of Inky Art School, which finished on Friday November 1st. I just have to catch up viewing the last video and making the last project. 

In the meantime, please feel free to leave me a comment if you like my projects and if you'd like to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my Instagram.

Be happy crafting!

Inky Draw School

Hi there,

The first of two weeks of Inky Draw School has now passed. Gosh! times fly by. I'm learning so much and I'm certain that when next week is over, I will have the confidence to draw in my Inky Wonderland book and then colour it too.

I'm learning so much about drawing from Johanna Basford during the 1 hour per day. I'll show you some of the stuff I've drawn so far in relation to the classes. (I'm also experimenting afterwards, but I'll not show you any of those small pieces yet - that'll come down the road).

So this is my project from day 1. - How to align flowers in a circle. Knowing myself and empty spaces I added the flower in the centre.

.

The day 2 project was more scary as this is a page from the book Inky Wonderlands that we had to fill with more flowers.

I think it's quite obvious what's the book and what's me, but I'm proud of my work and had so much fun drawing it.

Day 3 - Drawing wildflowers.

The first 4 flowers in each row Johanna showed us how to make. So after class I mirrored them just to know how to do them turning the opposite way.

Day 4 - It's all about fish.

All but one of these fish are outlined in the Inky Wonderland book and we had to draw the patterns on them. Can you guess, which one isn't in the book? LOL I just couldn't help myself so did a fun fish.

Day 5 - Swirls and a crest

These are very versatile. The swirls can be used as borders or letterheads and the crest can be used
as an ordinary crest or you can put your personal info into the empty space in the middle.

It's really fun to see how creative the group members are, both how they combine flowers and you can immediately see, if they've invented a new flower or using another flower from somewhere in the book.

The book is certainly worth the money, so if you like drawing and am a bit anxious about doing it, you can learn lots from just looking in it. Johanna certainly hit the head on the nail again this time. This book is a best seller on Amazon US as well as on Amazon UK.

Please feel free to leave me a comment if you like my projects and if you'd like to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my Instagram.

Be happy crafting!

Hi there!

So I have something to tell you before the end of the month after all. I did tell you in my last post that I was forgetful, didn't I?

On Tuesday my new pencil colouring class from Kit and Clowder arrived, I did tell you that much :-).
It's called Festive Fun and the image is from "Lili of the Valley". We have previously used their images for our classes. Well, I might as well reveal to you, that Christmas is getting closer real fast, so this will be my first Christmas project this year - although Halloween hasn't been around yet.

I love this image, don't you? There are sooo many techniques in this class, you can't believe it!

Flooring, sky, tree, presents, walls, photos, the rug, shining lights, baubles, stairway, garland, window and walls and last but not least: FUR.

I need to practice a lot more on the fur, I do love how the puppy turned out though, I'm much more confident on how the fur on a puppy or dog lies than on a cat or a bunny. But they're ok.

As always I've used my favourite pencils: Faber Castell Polychromos.

I was dead set on finishing this class today as tomorrow I'm starting another adventure: Inky Draw School.

What is Inky Draw School, you might ask. Many of you probably know Johanna Basford, author of colouring books like "The secret garden", "Lost Ocean", "Ivy and the Inky Butterfly" and more. She has just published "How to DrawIinkyWonderlands" in which she reveals her secrets (I'm sure she still has some left) on how she draws.

Johanna's determined to share this with those that signed up for her Inky Draw School in september. It's a 10 day - and here's the best part, it's a TOTALLY FREE online drawing course from October 21st - November 1st.. I signed up as I love to colour and what would be more fun than being able to draw the images yourself. I've already made two small images that I've coloured. Maybe I'll show them to you one day :-). I'm sure there's room for improvement.

I'll keep you updated on how this project goes. Meanwhile, please feel free to leave me a comment if you like my project, and if you'd like to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my Instagram.

Be happy crafting!

Forgetful

Hi there!

This morning I had my morning walk in the rain. It was quite beautiful and the smell on trees and grass was awesome. It's been raining since I got out of bed early not so much that a raincoat and ambrella wouldn't keep me dry during my walk. Did I tell you that I walk between 3.5 - 4.5 kilometers every day? I've only had less than ten days since I retired, where I've been unable to walk and it shows on my scales too. So far I've lost 5 kilos - woohoo, I'm proud of myself, not so much about the weight, but especially that I can keep up the walking :-).

When I got home, I made a cute CAS card which I am going to use as a gift, but not thinking further about it, I accidentally giftwrapped it before I remembered to take the usual photo of it. So, unfortunately, I don't have anything to show you today, but early in November I'll have a few things if not before.

I got my colouring classes from Kit and Clowder yesterday, have you seen them?They are gorgeous Christmas projects both of them. So far everything is downloaded and printed and I'm ready to go. Only need to find the actual Polychromous pencils I'm going to use for the pencil class.

Oh, I forgot to warn you against cutting the excess metal from your dies. I made a deep cut on my left thumb yesterday, bleeding all over the kitchen zink until I got hold of a bandaid to stop it. It was quite sore the rest of the day, so please take good care if you use to cut this excess metal off your dies.

I hope that my being forgetful and not take the photo will prevent you from coming back to see more later.

Please feel free to leave me a comment, if you like my project, and if you want to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my Instagram.

Be happy crafting!

A birth and another birthday card

Hi there!

Two weeks ago my eldest nephew (Kåre) and his wife (Cæcilie) welcomed their third child into this world and into our family. It was a healthy and very cute boy with quite long dark hair. He was the spitting image of his father, when he was a newborn. Kåre and Cæcilie already have two gorgeous girls, Freyja (7) and Luna (4), who are now very proud big sisters.

The new baby will be Christened "Linus" in the beginning of November.

I gave Kåre and Cæcilie this card to celebrate his birth:

Maybe you remember seeing this card on my Instagram - @kipekr - when I made it last year in August. I'm glad I still had a baby boy card laying around, as I will make a special project for the Christening as I've done to all the children in the family.

I'm afraid I don't recall who the artist of this digi is. I've tried to look in my files, but I have almost 30K digis/colouring pages to go through, so it's an impossible job. I know the name is on the backside of the coloured image, but that's not much of a help. If you know who drew the image, please send me a message, and I'll add it to the text.

Well, Linus' cousin, Holger, who is the youngest child of my eldest niece (Ditte) and her husband (Søren) celebrated his first birthday on Friday last week. Most of my family and some of Sørens family celebrated the birthday at the summerhouse last Saturday. A very nice and sunny but rather cold day.

Of course Holger should have a birthday card as well.

This image is from The Paper Shelter and is called "Baby and his toys". I loved making it for Holger and it was quite suitable too, as he's crawling around very fast at the moment. He's started to stand up supporting himself on tables and chairs etc., so it's a matter of time before he starts walking.

The background here is also blue as on Linus' card, but maybe a bit darker. Then I found some matching chequered paper to put on top of the darker background. However, I still thought something was missing, so I played around a bit and ended up adding another blue square on top of which is the cirkle with the image. Four blue perls and the number 1 did the trick, and I didn't think it needed anything else.

I love CAS cards and I feel this card falls into this category.

Please feel free to leave me a comment, if you like my project, and if you want to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my Instagram.

Be happy crafting!

Birthday card for my niece

Hi there!

It's me again, sorry for all the posts, but sometimes events in my family and my life are very close, and at other times they are far apart. I've gotten used to that and in the meantime I just keep busy with my house and garden chores, and of course my now daily walks and being creative (more about that another time).

However, yesterday I didn't get any exercise, as I have a defect water safety valve that kept dripping and apparently had done so for 24 hours - resulting in a flod on the floor. So I called a plumber early in the morning and he promised to come around to change it. Therefore I was bound to stay at home and when the shop closed, he'd still not been here and it was raining cats and dogs - I was not in the mood for walking anymore.

Instead I sent my youngest niece, Hannah, a congratulation on Facebook and a text message too, hoping that she had a great day. When the whole family was here for my birthday/retirement my sister brought back her birthday card and present. I hope she remembered to hand them over to her. Well, I'll know in due time, I hope.

Here is my card for her 21st birthday:

I love the vibrant colours on the card. The background is actually cut from a page in an art catalogue I bought when I was in Dubai in 2011. There was a gallery at the Walk - I don't remember it's name - but they had some great catalogues, and I bought one or two with nice pictures in, which I thought I could use on my cards later. This is the first page I've used.

I had a die with the four guys playing instruments, and when I put it through the mashine and I took it our, one of the men was separated from the others. Great, I thought. That's going to be the soloist and he also got my notes die, so it seems that music is coming out of his instrument. I hope Hannah liked it.

This is it for now. More to come soon.

Please feel free to leave me a comment, if you like my project, and if you want to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my Instagram.

Be happy crafting!

Craft fair and a Birthday Card

Hi there!

On Sunday my "colouring" friend through about 20 years, Susanne, and I went to a local craft fair. It's a tradition we do twice a year, and the only times I spend money on all sorts of accessories for my cards - dies, pearls, inks, papers etc. etc. etc..

She usually arrive about an hour before the fair starts, so we can get a cup of coffee and something to eat first. It's Susannes birthday on this coming Sunday so I had made her a birthday card and handed it to her, while we had our morning coffee.

I had a left over piece of paper from Luna's birthday card from January 17th 2016 (if you'd like to go back to see it). This piece of paper was just waiting for the perfect opportuniti to be used, and this was it, I felt. There were some bushes on it, which were perfect for this image. Then I used my "By Lene" garder dies and made two copies, so there could be one on each side of the card. I placed a garland of flags between them to indicate festivity. A happy birthday sentiment and some birds finished the picture.

After our coffee, we drove to Aars - a town about 15 km away from my house to visit the fair and to get inspiration for our cards and other projects. I always find it soo inspiring to go, and we're allowed to take as many photos as we like, so I always do that. Who knows, I might learn other ways to use my materials and I get lots of tips and tricks.

This time was no different from other visits. I got a few great ideas and wll be trying to make them at a later time.

In a few days time I'll show you another birthday card. this time for my youngest niece.

Please feel free to leave me a comment, if you like my project, and if you want to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my Instagram.

Be happy crafting!

Kit and Clowder September 2019 pencil class

Hi There,

Having finished my daily exercise this morning (a 3-4 km long powerwalk), I sat down at my kitchen table ready to colour the final item on my pencil class - the gem.

That was a challenge to me, as there were so many extra lines to add, and I did try to do the centre as in the class, but decided that I liked the flat look better, so I erased these lines and started with the flat look.

I have loved doing this class, and Alyce Keegan of Kit and Clowder is so good at finding images for us and also new techniques. Some times she incorporates surplus wishes from our bonus classes into the Create and Learn monthly classes, an this time was both colouring metal and the gem such techniques.

But what surprised me the most while colouring this, was the wings of the dragonfly.

They were so pale and I could see, that Alyce had only put on one layer. "Hmmm, did she forget the second layer", was my first thought, but I followed the tutorial to the point and when I'd finished drawing all the tiny lines on the wings (even though they are very soft) the wings suddenly seemed much darker.

WOW, what an effect and difference these lines made. Unbelievable.

As usual I put my finished project on a black background which emphasizes the colouring so much.

Please feel free to leave me a comment, if you like my project, and if you want to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my Instagram.

Be happy crafting! 

Birthday card for a family member

Hi there!

Yesterday was my brother-in-laws birthday (he's married to my younger sister), so of course I'd made him a birthday card. He likes to fix things and does a lot around their house himself and if I need something done in my house, he's been kind enough to offer me a hand.

Last time I was at a craft fair, I bought a die set, where you had to assemble a box in which there was room for a couple of beer bottles, bottles, caps and a glass were included in the die set.

Of course I had to add some tools as well and a sentiment for his birthday.

As background I had some paper looking like a brick wall, which I thought was suitable for the purpose, and all was put on blue carton. 

I had much fun putting this card together for him. 

Apart from my class image (where I'm still lacking to do the gem) I'll be back later this week with another birthday card. More about that later.

Please feel free to leave me a comment, if you like my project, and if you want to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my Instagram.

Be happy crafting! 

Learning to draw

Hi there,

Next step in my colouring journey will start in October, when Johanna Basfords new book will be published. I preordered it - was it March or April? - and am expecting to learn so very much from her and the book.

While I thought it would be self study, Johanna am signing people in to her Inky Drawing School (only until September 27th, so don't wail any longer - go sign up, if you'd like to draw the Johanna Basford way). If you're late, you're left out! Starting October 21st for 10 days.

While waiting, there has been a few "while we wait"-videos instructing us (sign-up exploded in a matter of few days) how to draw a few simple flowers - a few leaves - and how to connect them to a flower garland.

So far the only tools I've used is a pencil, an eraser and a thin marker (Artline no. 01 in my case) and a compas (in Danish: en passer) and some smooth paper. Here I've cut up a packet of Neenah Solar White from Crafters Companion from A4 size to A5 size. That's much easier to turn around when drawing. I also remembered that I have a few Letraset paper pads, they would do nicely at a later stage, when I'm more confident.

I bet you're excited to see how I draw, right? So here come my exersize sheets so far:

The first row of 4 flowers were from the first small video tutorial. Looks difficult eh? Well it isn't.
The next two rows I've added a few leaves  and the last one, I was taught to draw a symmetrical heart.

To the flower garlands I used the compas to draw the big circles and then just adding the flowers that I already had learned how to draw. I wanted to experiment a bit too, so I added a bow on the lower flower garland. I'm quite proud of myself getting to this stage having only drawn what you've seen here until now.

I'm expecting a lot from the new book and cannot wait till it pops into my mailbox beginning of October. From 21st October - 1st November, Johanna Basford will have an Inky Drawing School, which I signed up for, and guess what! IT'S TOTALLY FREE. 10 days of tutorials from Johanna Basford herself, who can wish for anything more??

This is a little sidekick to my colouring journey in Kit and Clowder, I want to be an all round artist - or at least as good as I can get :-). Drawing and colouring.

Well, that's it for now. I'll soon be back with a picture of my latest colouring class "Taking Flight".

Please feel free to leave me a comment, if you like my project, and if you want to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my Instagram.

Be happy crafting! 

My first box

Hi there,

Yesterday I went to a craft outlet in a nearby city with one of my crafting friends. We'd been there once before, so I knew that they had some very cheap things such as easy puzzles I can give the kids in my family, when they come to visit me in case they get a bit bored. I bought some which had Disney motives and some with cartoon car motives.
I also got some craft paper and carton for my cards very cheap and some pearls and stuff.

However, the scoop of the day was, that we drove further down Jutland to a craft store, which celebrated their 20th anniversary and thus offered a discount of 20% on all their articles. That was awesome!

A couple of ladies (one of whom I knew and who was a friend of my crafty friend) were demonstrating box templates and how to decorate them. They had some really awesome ideas and I got some great photos of some of their boxes for future reference. I bought a couple of packages with the templates and some nice paper to decorate the boxes with. The bottom and the lid come as a whole. However, I have a plan of making my own template separating the lid from the bottom, as my 30 x 30 cm papers are not big enough to have them as one unit.

After my morning walk today (and where I also got nasty blisters) I tried my hand on assembling and decorating a box. I think I did quite well, even if I'm new at this, it's my very first box ever. Please let me know, what you think:

Here you see to top of the lid. I liked the brown stribed paper very much - the other side has a flower pattern, which is awesome too, but I thought I would do better with the stribed side.

At the bottom of the paper there was a text, which I decided to cut out and only use half of on the chipboard, as it would be possible to use the other half on another occassion - box or card.  I used my distress ink on all sides of the text stribes and also on the stribed carton, which gave it a nice kind of old look.

I put some of my flowers and ivy leaves at the bottom right corner and added a butterfly cut out of glitter paper too.

This photo shows the bottom of the box as well. I chose an all dark brown carton for decoration here to make it clean and simple and added very little distress ink on the corners to make the transition from dark brown to the light template colour less harsh. I don't think that'll show very well in the photo though.

I can say for certain that this will not be my last box. I'm so going to practice decorating on my other templates. It's not exactly the same as decorating a card to me. The box is also bigger than my cards by 1,5cm lenght and width wise. The boxes are perfect for gifts to family and friends.

In two weeks time I and my crafting friend are going to a craft fair in a city about 15 km away from where I live. Lots of different crafts will be represented there. It's a rather new exhibition - only two years old and the fourth fair held in this venue. I cannot wait, I know I'll be so inspired by all I see, and luckily it's allowed to take photos of all the projects there too, so I'll definitly have my phone charged to 100%.

Please feel free to leave me a comment, if you like my project, and if you want to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my Instagram.

Be happy crafting! 

I'm Back!

I'm back!

It's been 2½ years (almost) since I last posted something in here, and now that I got early retirement on Friday August 23rd, it's about time to revive my blog. I hope I can still remember how it works in here, LOL. 

A lot has happened during these 2½ years. When I temporarily shut down the blog, I'd been working for 7 months at the school in Vestrup and my collegue (also secretary) had decided to change workplace. I was still new to all the computer systems and everything that I had to learn and I felt very stressed about it. So I decided to concentrate on work and to be the best secretary I could be, while I was there. I already new - and so did my boss, that I'd leave on August 23 2019 - but to her that was far out in the future. 

I really enjoyed working there as both my boss and my collegues were so kind and helpful and made me feel like one of them right from the start. I have learned so much at the school and from my boss and the teachers that I'll be forever grateful.  I'll still drop in for a cup of coffee from time to time during their coffee break to hear news, what's happening etc., and if there are any arrangements open to the public, I'll be there if I can. 

As a farewell gift, I received a Garmin Vivofit4 watch, which will tell me how many steps I take every day, how far I walk, how long I sleep and how deep or light my sleep is etc. etc.. And my weight as well, which is nothing to write home about. I gained a few kilos at the school, as chocolate and cakes were quite often on the table, so I had wished for such a watch as my farewell gift. Hopefully, it will help me loose the weight I gained and maybe a few kilos more. 

I am still trying to figure out how to arrange my days. When do I colour, make cards, knit, crochet, do crosswords, read book etc.. So far I've only figured out that I need to get out walking as soon as I've had breakfast, so my butt don't get glued to the sofa and I keep postponing it throughout the day. And I feel this works perfectly. Last week - my first week with the watch - I walked a little more than 32 kilometres. Well done, Kirsten!! While I walk I listen to sound books - great way to read, but nothing beats having a real book in the hands, and I have a lot of books reserved for my retirement. 

I also got a gift card for feet care - you know your feet get sore, when you've walked a lot, so it's very welcome indeed. It's in another city about an hours drive away, but my boss lives in that city and has promised me a cup of coffee after the treatment. :-)

Well, my very first project to show you is my Guiding Light Kit and Clowder pencil class from August.  It's a great project, and since I got the class on August 15th, I've seen lighthouses everywhere, even on my postal stamps. 

I coloured the image with my Faber Castel Polychromos pencils - my favourite medium for my colouring classes. I can see there's room for improvement on the waves, but colouring is a process where you don't have to be perfect the first time you colour something - it's all a matter of practice and I have all the time in the world now - also to spend time on colouring my marker classes where I use my Copics as favourite medium. I might even go back and redo my basic classes as skin/hair, clothes, animals etc.. 

I hope you can see the image properly or maybe it's a better image on Instagram. You can follow me there : @kipekr. 

Please feel free to leave me a comment, if you like my project, and if you want to see my cards/projects etc. on a regular basis, please join my blog or my Instagram. 

Be happy crafting!