DREAM, but don't sleep...

Yeah, I am back this soon...!!! I know, I know, you didn't even get a chance to read my previous blog-entry, or to miss me for that matter, but I made an LO that I wanted to share with you!

My creative juices are flowing at the moment! Yesterday afternoon I had the sudden urge to splatter paint over a piece of irregulary torn cardboard. I just had to do it, so weird! So I painted 2 colors of green, and got out some accents and stuff in those greens as well. Because no matter how bad I want to freestyle, I have to stick to color-matching schedules...Slowly another color joined in the fun: pink.

I used some transparant wrapping paper with barok-print I had been dying to use, it's like a Hambly, only thinner. Stamped 2 big pink barok-thingies on the sides of my cardboard. Added some ribbons, a stamped and embossed title, a fun journaling block (which I stamped on some white semi-transparant package of something.) Buttons, fun stuff, some dotted ribbon with buttons to hang my project on (because it's slightly too big to fit in a page protector...) and lots of stitching finished the job. And I even added a cupcake holder!!!

The title is a quote I had heard somewhere. Dream, but don't sleep. Dreaming is good, humans need to do it to stay alive. We need to wish for things we would like to accomplish. But doing that mustn't keep us away from the reality. Because the world is going on, life is going on, with, or without you. We shouldn't close our eyes to all the beauty that surrounds us and is worth living right now. Don't dream your life away...

My first real attempt at freestyle. I guess. Let me know what you think. Is it freestyle? You like it? I know some of you wont like it, but I like that I am growing and am experementing as a scrapper. It's good to think outside the box. To let yourself be guided by some unknown force...

Ofcourse here are the pics so you can judge for yourself...May the force be with you, also...;)

Of all the things you wear, your EXPRESSION is the most important...

Hello my scrappy-friends, I am here again! I am still enjoying my holidays.

We went to Brugge (in Belgium) the week before last one, and I had a good time. It was pretty. although it resembled some Dutch cities. Which, according to my hubby (who is very good at remembering random unimportant crap but keeps forgetting about things that matter), was logical since most of the city was built during the time it still belonged to the Netherlands. Aaah, that makes sense. But we had fun, saw the sights, took a boat-trip over the canals, and went to the beach where we got a (reddish) tan, teehee. ;)

We saw 2 movies in Brugge, The Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian and WALL-E. And I have to say, both actors are the cutest!!! Ben Barnes who plays Prince Caspian is a hotty, and the movie was good, better than the first part! And Wall-e is totally adorable, I am in love with him! He's so clumsy and sweet, you HAVE to see this pic! It's good for loads of laughs as well.

Last week we continued to pimp our backyard. We got a brandnew fab lounge-set I am very pleased about! My sweet daddy offered to pay half, so that increased my budget immediately! Thanx, dad! You're the best!!! Got some great lanterns to go with it, and a rectangular sunshade. Finally, after all those years, my yard is coming together! In the meantime my dad has been busy painting the outside of our house, which was very necessairy. And hubby has been busy with the garden at the front of our house (which is empty now, apart from sand...) and fixing cars and motorcycles of people I dont even know. :S

I am beginning to become one of those people who doesn't need to go away from home to relax. I enjoy myself thoroughly amongst my own stuff, being able to do what I want and when I want it. And if I want to go shopping, I go shopping. Not in those crappy Belgium towns. You can't shop decently there. They're not even into scrapping yet! :O

Just as I was beginning to think I wouldn't scrap anything this vacation, the right hormones finally kicked back in...I scrapped an LO with a kinda vague pic of me, but beautiful and arty looking. Got the look I went for, so I am pleased with it. :) Almost. Hehehe.

The quote on the LO ("Off all the things you wear, your expression is the most important") is appropiate for me, since I am someone who doesn't love herself, or accepts her appearance. Eventhough I know it's not your looks, but the radiation of your inner beauty that matters. I don't judge my friends by their appearance either, but by their character. And I shouldn't even care what strangers think about me. They don't know me. And sure, I have gained weight again. But it's not as if being thin made life easier for me. 

I am starting off with some pics of a LO I did in January, about my wishes back then. Nothing has changed, because I still long for all those things. It's called "I wish..."

Enjoy, be inspired, create, and leave comments please!!! Me like comments! =)

Here's the LO I was talking about earlier, it's called "GLOW". I finished this yesterday. Well, technically, this morning, after altering it some more to my satisfaction...:P

PASSIE (Passion...)

Hey there, she's back! Still counting the days until my well-earned summer-vacation. But from now on it's "just" one week to get through, so...That's do-able. We still have to go to a travel-agency though and book our vacation...:S We're thinking of Denmark, Kopenhagen more specific. It's a 7-hour-drive for us. But we will have to wait and see till Tuesday.

This week I finished the mini-album I was making about my hubby. I already had these papers by Marah Johnson lying around, intending to use them for pics of hubby on his motorcycle.

I titled the album "PASSIE". It's a double title, in English Passie means Passion. And that ofcourse has to do with hubbies passion for riding and (re-)building his bikes. But, hubbies name is Pascal, which we shorten to Passie sometimes. So, it's his name and his game. :)

The other day I had scanned an old pic of him sitting on his first motor-bike, he was like 20 years old there. Instead of showing some enthusiasm for my creativeness with his pic (I made frames and antique looks in Photoscape, very cool, or so I thought) he asked me why I was using photographs of him that were 20 years old...(A little exaggerated, he's 35 years old now, so the pics were 15 years old, tops...:P )
Well, there's a simple answer for it, and I gave it to him. He never likes to pose for pictures...All our vacation-pics etc feature him with some weird funny face or a do-I-have-to-be-in-another-picture-because-I-am-so-bored-please-hurry-up-face. I HATE it! (It's one of the reasons I am dying to have kids, hopefully I will finally have a willing photo-object...!)

That being said, I took my chance when he was going away for a motor-drive some Sunday this July. Still in my PJ's, I walked outside and photographed him while he was sitting on his motorcycle and was preparing in his own way. He cooperated reluctantly, which shows in some pictures. The familiar face is there again....Even the eyes look towards the sky as if to ask for lightning to strike me at that exact time so he can get out of this utterly dreadful, totally useless and precious time-consuming posing-session.

But, I got my pictures! Some were even good, hey, I'm good... (Not to brag, but photography is one of my strong points. I am not someone who knows or acknowledges all of her strong points. Ask me for my flaws and I'll give you a list that dazzles you, but strong points...?!) Well, I mean, that sometimes the camera does exactly what I have in my mind. I capture the perfect moment or pose or whatever. And that thrills me, I mean, I can't all be coincidence, some skill has to be involved next to pure luck, right?

So, I made my book, did loads of painting, stamping, glimmer-misting, diamond-glazing, embossing, and searched for all the right details. "Rough & Tough" details. So no flowers and stuff. And I felt kinda restricted, like I was in a box and couldn't step out to use anything else. All the things I would have usually added didn't seem manly enough. Too girly and glitzy. But I made it. Barely though. Because when I was reaching the end, my pages were lying on my desk when... I topped over my mug filled with water (for the paint-brushes)...!!!

Oh man, the water just flowed over almost all my pages and I just saw all my work going down the drain...I didn't cry but I came close...I dabbed it dry as good as I could, and let it dry on the table. Fortunately the damage wasn't too big, the pages were a little wet and soaky but they dried up nicely. Not too many blobs or letting go of glue or destroyed paper. The pics were alright too. One felt a little weird, but it already had an antique look, so I decided a few more funny marks didn't matter. Man...My bad luck hadn't run out totally, because when I put the pages in my newly acquired Bind-it-all, the back-page was in there crooked...So the upper holes are half of the page. Crap...!!!

I had to wait for the black and white checked ribbon, I planned to use that as a closure for the album. It had to be THAT ribbon because that's the motive hubby has on his helmet and bike as well, so, it was perfect. Then I finally finished and proudly showed the fruits of my labor to hubby accompanied by a "Taaaadaaaaa!"

I don't know how YOUR men react to your projects, but mine never comes any farther than:"nice"... Reading some of my journaling had him laughing reluctantly (he wanted to laugh because it WAS funny but he wouldn't give me the credit...). Because, ofcourse, as far as the journaling went, he didn't cooperate either. He gave me stupid childish answers so I had to come up with my own answers. And I did my own description of him, whether he liked it or not. He's the man who likes to be dirty (greasy black) and is surrounded by waaaay to many decibels and the stench of gas...

And guess what, he even had the nerve to ask me if I was gonna do another booklet about him and his other motorcycles as well. WHAT...?! I beg your pardon...?! My jaw practically fell to the floor...Me, do another series of pictures without his cooperation, more descriptions about his bikes without his techical insight and help...Make another album that is being welcomed with a luke-warm "nice" after all my effort...What do you think, Passie...?! Dream on, boy...

Amor at Omar

Hey all you readers out there, it's time for an update again! While everyone around me is already enjoying their holidays, I am still counting the weeks until it is time for my vacation. Yeah, you read that right, weeks, not even days... :( And we may not even be going away, due to circumstances. How about you...?!

My little brother, who is in the army, has left for the Emirates last week.

I already kinda miss him, eventhough we may have the traditional love-hate-relationship a brother and sister are supposed to have. I can only imagine how much he and his girlfriend are missing eachother right now.

I made a trip to the Scrapbookstore in Heesch, the one that publishes the magazine "Creatief met Foto's". I still had 100 Euros worth of coupons for being published, so it was time to cash them in! ;) Ofcourse, the coupons weren't enough. It never is with me. :P I bought the Big Bite and Zutter Bind-it-All and loads of ribbons and waaaay more stuff. The "Rockstar" paperblock by DCWV also went home with me. I had had my eyes on it for quite some time already and it was on sale. How could I resist...?! Teehee...

I finished an acrylic tryptich with pics of hubby and I, taken during our last vacation in Istanbul. I called it "Amor at Omar", because the restaurant in which the pics were taken was called Omar. And the 2 of us provided the Amor-factor. The place was cozy, beautiful, arabic, 1001-night, and had an absolutely breathtaking view of the city!!! It was a fairytale and we were living it!!!

I had never done an all transparent background before, so it was a challenge. It became more freestyle than my usual thing, and that is what I was going for. Although somehow I can't tell the difference between one thing I made and the other. It's all ME. :)

I will leave you with some (not very sharp) pics of my acrylic-freestyle-trip. Comments are always welcome! Questions/links/ideas as well!!!

I wish you a scrap-a-licious evening/week/weekend/vacation. See ya!!!

LOVE is all that matters

Good day to you!

So, it's time for an update again...!!! Nothing much happenin' around here, but after the past few hectic years I am fine with that. I would never sing a song about my life being boring, because thrill and excitement never happens the way you want it to anyway, so...

I did become the owner of a "new" car in the mean time, and I am very happy about that. Coincidentally I read an article about scrapping the relationship with your car in Creating Keepsakes, from some very cute, refreshing and unexpected angles, so I am waiting fot the pics of my cars to be delivered to scrap away!!!

I already thought up the story about my old car, I really had a hard time letting it go. That little car has always been good to me. I think it just broke down once, in 5 years! But it was getting too rusty, and hubby had already patched it up several times. He believed it was going to be hard to get it approved again next time. So, I decided to try and sell it while I still could get some money for it instead of it just costing me money...So far, no good. It has been on this sale-site for almost one week now, but to this day we still have had no calls. =( For now it means I own 2 cars, which is nothing compared to hubby, since he owns 3 cars. Of which he is not intending to sell any...Ah well, they hardly cost anything, so let him play and have his way, I say. ;)

I finished 3 LO's from the Scrap-a-Ganza, the first one was from Teresa Collins' class. I wanted to state something with the text which was: Life isn't about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself. The pics had to black and white so I didn't have that much choice. But I decided to go with a (beautiful!!!) pic of my mom when she was younger, like 15 or 18 (dunno exactly, but I can't ask her anymore...) (she was stunning though...) and pics of her family. Meaning, the life she created for herself, and the person she wanted to be. A wife, a mom of 2 kids, a dog-owner even. Love is all that matters in the end, I guess. The picture all the way up, above my text, is ofcourse the one of my mom, so intens, looking so mature and wise beyond her years. Here are the pics of the LO, starting with the left side of the page, followed by the right side of the page, and a little close-up:

Further more I finished another S-a-G LO, I added some adorable pics of my brother playing with my dad's doggies on that one. (And sometimes I am really proud of my photography skills!!! ) On the pic at the bottom of the page he has a chippie in his mouth, and that particular dog is crazy about food so she etas from his mouth, eventhough she's scared of my brother! I made the title into something funny, Alex is doing it doggie style. Here it is:

Last but not least I finished the LO from Vicky Boutin's S-a-G class. I loved the foiling technique she taught us very much. Did some doodling on it but I hated the result, so instead I foiled all the edges of the papers. (I hate it when you do something and wreck your page!!! Thank God scrapping is about embellishments, there's always something lying around to cover up your screw-ups, teehee...) I went overboard with the foiling and did some doodle-foiling which was hideous as well. So, underneath the 4-layer-flower, there's a mess... ;) (I can't say it enough: Thank God for embellishments!!!)

Since the LO was fun, fresh, sparkly, and love-themed, I added pics of my father-in-law frolicing around with his grandkids. The grandkids he didn't even know until recently, of the daughter he didn't even get to see again until recently. After more than 20 years!!! Seeing him so happy and carefree, thoroughly enjoying the role of being a granddad, makes my heart smile. Especially knowing the story behind all of this...Here it is:

Well, for now, that's all folks!!! I am going to go and enjoy my day-off some more. ;) I am still in my PJ's, I may continue on my scrap-project today. Working on acrylic plates for the first time, that's fun for a change! Hoping I will get rid of my cold soon, as I have a busy weekend ahead. With 2 birthdays and a family-day from hubby's side of the family. Already bought pressies for the birthdays, we have a new store in town where you just buy anything and everything and it all costs nothing! They even have some cute scrapping-supplies!

Hope you have a nice, creative, loving and sunny weekend!!! Till next time!!!

Scrap-a-Ganza

Hey there all you blog-readers, here's another post from me!

Yesterday my friend Monique and I went to the (Dutch) Scrap-a-Ganza, in Noordwijkerhout. We had planned to go by train and bus, since we had these really cheap traintickets and neither of us is fond of driving long distances in unknown territory. :P However, since a few months the bus chauffeurs are on strike, demanding a better salary or who knows what. I get that they have to protest, but it affects US (we're innocent!) instead of the ones who are paying their salary...

So, after careful consideration, I decided to drive to Noordwijkerhout myself. Hubby arranged a GPS for me from his sista, that was one less thing to worry about. (Because I was dreading the drive overthere, I swear...!) One more benefit of this was the lenght of the travel, this saved us one and a half hour!!! Which meant we could stay in bed a little longer, otherwise we would have had to have taken the 6.30 train...Damn...

So, at 8 o' clock yesterdaymorning, my friend arrived. We had a little last-minute-stress because she had printed her invoice and I hadn't. I hadn't read anywhere that you needed to do that, but I thought the whole thing was vague anyway. So I tried to write down some things, but, ofcourse, couldn't remember my password. I gave up and just assumed all would go well once I was there.

Our journey went well thanx to TomTom (The GPS), except for a little bit at the end. TomTom was kinda slow and said I should go into some road a few more km ahead. Turned out I should have taken the road I passed at that point. Fortunately we could turn around after a few kilometres again, and all went well. My friend talked to me lots, I listened most of the time, hehehe, and the trip went by quickly that way.

We arrived at the hotel at about 10.30, so we had some time left before our first workshop which started at 11.30. They should have put up more signs in my opinion, where to get your coupons, lunch, where to do your make and takes, etc. They weren't all that well organised I think. We collected an envelope with our coupons and received the cutest goodie bag. The bag was from Fancy Pants and was the perfect size for scrap-papers. It had sweet colors and was just lovable. The contents varied per bag, but mostly it was old crap... There were dated papers in there and I didn't have any embellishments where as my friend did. But hey, any free gift is welcome! Here's a pic featuring the bag:We shopped a little (or a lot, in my case...) and I bought some things I had wanted and hoped to find there. The shops were in a big round room and eventhough there were just about 11 booths, you could spend your cash very well in there!!! I bought Grungeboard by Tim Holtz (Alpha's and Elements) Thickers, velvety flowers, lace ribbons, stamps, buttons, noteworthy journaling books, etc. Here's a pic of my shopping result at the end of the day (and I haven't even added a paper-storage box, plastic plates and a cutting-tool to the pic!):So, at 11.30-ish we went to our first workshops, my friend and I had different ones. I went to a class by Vicky Boutin, Bling n Thingz. Vicky was a nice teacher and funny as well. She gave away some stuff by picking out the names of the class from a bag. I liked what we did there. We made a 2 page LO, stamped some swirls and stuff on it, and we played with chipboard shapes, tacky glue, foil and glitter. It was a fun technique, messy though. We had to dip our fingers inside the little glue bottle and smear the glue all over our chipboard. And with a special cap on the glue bottle we could highlight some areas of our stamped stuff. The key was to let the glue dry until it was tacky, not wet! Once it had done that we put the foil on top, and took it off again. It had very nice results!!! And the bits where the foil wouldn't stay, we glittered them.

The silly thing is, I have that foil at home, and it's ancient!!! My mom had already bought that years and years ago, including some glue pens to go with it, with a broad point so you could even calligraph with it! Guess what I will be doing from now on as well when I scrap...?! I posted 2 pics of the LO's I did there. Almost finished anyway...The hour went by quickly, most of us weren't even finished, but my friend came to tell me that if we wanted to have lunch we could only do that until 1 o' clock. So we went off to have lunch. My friend enjoyed her workshop very much, the colors, paper and style were perfect for her. We had lunch, which was simple, but okay. Sandwhiches with ham or cheese and some veggies on it, some sort of soup, and all sorts of hot and colds drinks. You could drink anything you liked all day long for free. Here we are in the lunch-room of the hotel:

After our lunch it was already time for our next class, which was at 1.30. This was a class by Teresa Collins, featuring her Bella Girl Paper. I think it was called A moment in time. Teresa was extremely nice and a perfectionist. She told us she had 9 kids!!! She gave birth to "only" 5 of them, but still...I loved the papers, I already had some of them at home. She had some mini-books with her which were great as well. It was a good class and Teresa did a great job.

After this class we had some more time, so we sat down, drank some, ate some, and shopped some more. Well, I did...The bags were getting heavier and heavier...Man...But I enjoyed myself very well. :)

After a while we decided to go to our next class, which was at 4.30. It was a class featuring the new Making Memories Noteworthy paper line, by a woman named Jeanny. The class was swamped!!! There were 9 rows of tables, each of them consisiting of 8 or 9 persons or so. I liked the papers and colors, my friend didn't. She had looked on the internet, but hadn't seen it was this sweet and pink. She's not a girly girl in that sense. I am. It was messy and Jeanny just let us do our thing, or so it seemed. This is one page I managed to put together, half-finished:

We had to make tags in the tagmaker and in the mean time Jeanny did a raffle. She just picked rownumbers, and then another number. And what do you know, she even picked my seat!!!!! I won a summer set of Making Memories, consisting of foam stamps, letter stickers, velvet words, chipboard accents and metal accents, all with a summer theme. Not totally my thing, but I loved being picked and I am sure I can do something with my thingies!!! This is what I won:

With almost every class there was a bonus included, something we didn't use in that class but the company just threw in for free. This is what we ended up with as bonusses:

So, after all these classes we still hadn't done any make and takes. To our discontent the make and takes weren't gonna start until 7 o'clock again. Honestly, I had kinda had it, I was pooped. With the driving, and the watching and learning, dragging our stuff. We sat down and drank some and decided to go anyway, I still had to drive for 2 hours, so.

At 6.30 we loaded up the trunk of my car, and headed home. On the way we stopped at the well-known "Golden Arches" to eat some french fries and chicken nuggets and we continued our way home.

At 9 o'clock we were home again, and my friend was being picked up by her hubby shortly afterwards. I showed my stuff to my hubby, sat on the couch for a while and went to bed veeeeery early, because I was really tired!!! I had a great day and maybe next year, or at the end of this year, we will do the S-a-G for a whole weekend, who knows. We liked it lots anyway, so we will go there again.

Have a nice weekend, see ya!!!