Kjøpt på Ingebretsens

Um what? Yeah, that's right. I wrote a blog post title in Norwegian. What does it mean? It means "Bought at Ingebretsen's." And how does it sound? A little like "Shuuuppppt poe Inguhbritsun's." So what's this really about? Quite a while ago, my mom's sister, my Aunt Lisa, came to visit us in Minnesota from her home in Missouri. During her visit, I went with Aunt Lisa and Mom to Ingebretsen's, a Scandinavian imports store and deli. I found some interesting little pieces of art there, but before I could get them up on the walls, Christmas came and took over everything. So, now that Hurricane Christmas has finally gone back to where it came from, I thought I'd share this with you.

First, I came upon this turquoise post card. I knew I had to have it just as soon as I saw it! The message at the bottom says, "Uff-Da, it's Lutefisk!" I think its a little funny, since I think lutefisk is really gross. But, really, the selling points were the color and the neo-folk art style. A modern day girl in a Norwegian sweater? Sounds like me.

I had this red frame at home already when I bought the post card. It was a bit of an impulse buy at Michaels early in the fall. I liked the raised, tin texture on the front and I knew it would work in my living room no matter what it held. Once it had the post card inside, I grabbed the hammer and got to work.

I also snagged these note cards.

The top one really drew me in - it features a carved wooden lunch box, called a "tine" (say TEE-nuh). If you had a Kirsten doll, you might recognize this concept: she had one for sure! Anyways, I thought that one was extra special and added the Viking ship on the bottom to make a set.

I considered framing them separately, but later decided I really wanted them to be in one frame together.

This is the frame I found. It was a little bit of a challenge finding one that was just right, because these cards are somewhere between 4x6 and 5x7. I thought this would be pretty easy: I'd make two little backing pieces and then fit each one into each slot in this frame.

And then I pulled the back off and discovered this. EEK! It only appeared to be two frames, it was actually one. I had to revise my plan. I used the liner that had come with the frame to trace onto my backing paper, which is the solid, dark red scrapbook paper you see in the upper right corner. Then, I put masking tape loops on the back of each card and positioned them as best I could. I put the frame back together, and then immediately hated the alignment of each image. Rinse and repeat - a few times.

Here's a shot of the images in the frame. You can sort of see the red border, I know it's not exactly perfect, though I think its good enough since the top and bottom are centered appropriately.

Here's the final product, in its new home. Pretty pleased!