Summer Holiday

Today we booked our summer holiday. We decided to go to France again. This time we will go to the Dordogne. We booked a mobile home at campsite Le Bugue in St. Avit Loisirs. The campsite is set in beautiful countryside. The facilities include a swimming pool complex, so I am sure our girls will have a fun time. Has any of you ever been to the Dordogne?

I was sooooo close

I was so close to winning a great prize. Lately Michelle Hill taught this great class. Too bad that I live in the Netherlands. ;-) BUT....there was a chance to win this class as she had a give away on her blog. You only had to leave a comment. Her Polka Dot Whimsy blog is one of my favorite blogs and I often leave a comment. I was quite excited to find out this morning that I was one of the 5 names that she picked. Unfortunately I am not the winner of this gorgeous class kit, but she will get me and the other 3 something special. :D I am sure she will come up with something nice, because she has an eye for great goodies. BTW, did you see the pictures of the February kit on her PDW blog??? I can hardly wait to get that kit in the mail.

Wooden Mini Album

I can now show you the pictures of the wooden mini album that I created for my first class. I taught this class yesterday evening. I think it went okay for the first time, but I felt still a bit strange. It is hard to tell what people expect from you and want to learn from you. The women in my class were very nice and didn't give me a hard time. :D I hope they all enjoyed it.

Again I used Scenic Route papers. The pictures were taken in January last year, and I think they match really well with these gorgeous papers. It was fun to use wood instead of cardstock or chipboard. I still have some wood left, so I am sure I will make another wooden album one day.












Supplies: Scenic Route 'Sumner', 'Ashville', 'Laurel' and 'Capetown' PPs, Bazzill cardstock, Autumn Leaves clear stamps, Rusty Pickle and Foof-a-La buttons, Prima Flowers, QuicKutz Silhouette, QuicKutz dies, Prima Fabulous Notepads in a Box, Tags, Hambly Screen Prints Journaling Bits Black, Tulip Puffy Paint White and Black, Ribbon, Making Memories Tiny Alphabet Stickers, Chipboard, 7Gypsies tag, Circle punch, black pen, Versacolor Pinecone ink, Versafine Onyx Black ink, SEI brads, Ranger crackle paint 'old paper', Heidi Swapp Ghost Flowers, and vintage book pages.

Happy Mail Day

Woooohoooo!!! I am a happy girl. The mail man rang the doorbell at 4pm, and delivered two boxes from the USA. The biggest box contained the 2 Cuttlebugs and dies that I ordered for my mom and my girls at Custom Crops. The girls wanted to use it immediately and are now busy making all kinds of die cuts. I am sure my mom wants to use it too, but unfortunately she has to wait until tomorrow or Friday. Unless I have some time to bring it this evening. Ordering the Cuttlebug in the USA saved us a lot of money. :-) The machine itself is only 1/3 of the cheapest price here in the Netherlands. Shipping from the USA makes it a bit more expensive, but it is still a lot cheaper.



The other box contained my Polka Dot Whimsy December and January kit as well as the January specialty kit. Wow!! 3 Kits in one box. It seemed like my December kit got lost, but Michelle was so kind to send another December kit along with my January kits. Michelle's kits are awesome and absolutely worth the money. Her kits are always full of yummy goodies. Unfortunately there were many negative and nasty posts on her PDW blog this past two weeks. I really don't understand why people need to vent their negative thoughts on a blog and be disrespectful to someone. You can be unhappy with the way someone runs her business, but does that give you the right to criticize that person in such a bad and nasty way? The scrap world can be cruel sometimes.

Sick

It seems like Mr. Flu arrived at our place. :-( Fleur is having a real bad cold, and Sanne complained this morning that she was having stomach ache, and feeling cold. She did go to school this morning, but when I picked her up at noon she wasn't feeling well. After lunch she watched TV and fell asleep on the couch. Hope she feels better tomorrow.

A Tribute To The Bee Gees

Tonight Eric and I went to our local theatre to see the hottest dance show in town A Tribute To The Bee Gees. Gosh....what a great and energetic start of the week. We don't have any of their CDs, but we do like their music a lot. They wrote some great songs. Not only for themselves, but also for others (Barbra Streisand, Céline Dion, Dionne Warwick, etc.). Songs like Stayin' alive, More than a woman, How deep is your love, etc. And what about If I can't have you (one of my favorite disco songs by Yvonne Elliman), Chain Reaction by Diana Ross and the oh so wrong song Island in the stream by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. It was such a pleasure to listen and dance to these songs. It was a wonderful evening and I enjoyed every minute.

Address Book

This address book was in my stash for more than a year or so. The package - 3 pieces of chipboard and the binding mechanism - was part of one of the Dolls & Decorations kits. You had to assemble and pimp it yourself. The project was on my to do-list for quite a long time and this afternoon I finally made a start. I used the Laurel line from my favorite brand Scenic Route. I sooooo love this line. I can use these papers over and over again. The colors and designs never bore me. Now the address book is finished I can finally keep the addresses of my scrap friends in one place. I think it looks great on my scrap desk.



Supplies: Scenic Route Laurel PPs, October Afternoon rub-ons (owl), My Mind's Eye and Rusty Pickle buttons, American Crafts Thickers, Autumn Leaves French Twist Journaling chipboard, Bookworks Mini ABC and Numbers, tag, Millennium pen black, and Posca pen black.

Canvas #2

I am really in the scrapping mood these days. Full of inspiration and ideas. Last evening I scrapped another 8x8" canvas. Never thought I would enjoy working on a canvas this much. I so love to work with the pictures taken by Florence. This time I chose a picture of the four of us. Love this one! It is hard to take good quality pictures of my projects as it is so dark and grey outside. Even in the morning or early afternoon. I hope spring will arrive soon.



Supplies: My Mind's Eye Adore (Just Like Us, Cupid's Toile) & Kiss and Tell PPs, Making Memories {note}worthy (Ava Loopy Stripe - brown dots) PP, Bazzill Kraft cardstock, Prima Hydrangea Flowers, Autumn Leaves Clear Stamps (Flourishes and Big Swirls), Making Memories Brads Metal, Foof-a-La Bag-o-Buttons, Versafine Onyx Black, Versacolor Pinecone, QuicKutz Silhouette, vintage book pages, canvas board 8x8".

For the Dutch girls....the 8x8" canvas boards are available at Action for only 1,39 euro (2pcs).

Enjoy your weekend!

Happy Birthday, David

Today David - Lisette's husband - celebrates his birthday. David, we wish you a very Happy Birthday and a nice day!

I made him this card. Could you tell that I am a Scenic Route fan??? :D I just love using Scenic Route papers. It is my favorite brand. The stars are cut out of a plastic milk can. A cheap way to create your own sheer embellishments.



Supplies: Bazzill Kraft cardstock, Scenic Route 'Cape Town' PP and Worn Blue Grid Background cardstock, MSE! Alphabet Clear Stamps, Versafine Onyx Black, Ranger paint dabber, EllisonDesign 'Stars' die and black pen.

My First Workshop

Do you remember that I showed you this sneak peek? It was a sneak peek of my first workshop project. I was supposed to teach my first workshop(different project) in October last year, but unfortunately that workshop was cancelled. Now I will teach my first workshop at Dolls & Decorations on Friday January 25th. I am very excited! The workshop is fully booked.....well, more than fully booked.....11 people booked a seat. WOW!! Can't believe they all want to attend my workshop. I created a wooden mini album. I enjoyed working on this mini album, and hope that the participants feel the same about it. More pictures of this mini album will be shown after January 25th.

LOVE

Yesterday I bought some gorgeous papers by My Mind's Eye and Making Memories at Dolls & Decorations. When I first saw the My Mind's Eye papers on the internet I knew immediately that I wanted to scrap this lovely picture of Eric and me taken by Florence Bavinck. I scrapped a canvas of 8x8". It is my first canvas.....EVER.....and I am really pleased with the result. The scalloped swirl and word 'LOVE' are cut with the QuicKutz Silhouette. I really like that machine. The picture is not that good. It is already dark and I had to use my daylight lamp to take the picture.



Supplies: My Mind's Eye Adore (Just Like Us, Cupid's Toile) & Kiss and Tell PP, Making Memories {note}worthy (Ava Loopy Stripe) PP, Bazzill Kraft cardstock, Prima Hydrangea Flowers, Ranger Embossing Powder, Autumn Leaves Clear Stamps (Flourishes and Elegant Flourishes), Making Memories Brads Metal, Foof-a-La Bag-o-Buttons, Sizzix Primitive Hearts die, Versafine Onyx Black, Versacolor Pinecone, QuicKutz Silhouette, vintage book pages, canvas board 8x8".

Crop date

Last Monday Mandy and my SIL Lisette went over to Nancy's house for a crop. I already knew Mandy, but it was the first time I met Nancy. It was great to meet her in real life. She's such a sweetie. You can probably imagine that we talked a lot, and scrapped very little. LOL! Thanks girls for the great time. I really enjoyed myself. We should do this again.


I didn't have any resolutions for 2008, but this picture confirms what I knew already.....I have to seriously lose weight.

Family Reunion

Yesterday afternoon Lisette, David, Rebecca, Ruben and Renee, and my mother-in-law came over to our place. It was so nice to see each other again. We already saw each other last Wednesday, but this time we had more time to spend together. While the kids were playing together Lisette and I prepared dinner. We had roasted chicken with potatoes, haricots verts and a salad, and Lisette made a delicious trifle for dessert. So yummy! Fortunately she left the recipe, so I can make one myself. :D The kids and David also played some games on the Wii, and thanks to David I now know how to perfectly play Javelin Throw and threw a world (and olympic) record today. Thanks, David (and sorry that I broke your record with 1 metre)! We haven't made any family pictures yet, so we will do a photo shoot on Wednesday or Friday this week.

Yesterday and today Eric took some pictures of me. He has to take some portrait pictures for his photography assignment. This is one of the pictures I like best. I still think it is a bit weird to post a picture of me on my own blog. I don't really like to be photographed and mostly I am not satisfied with the result, but I do like this one. Eric will probably show you more pictures on his blog.....IF he updates his blog.

The new Dolls Good Newz Box will be available on January 12th. Here is a sneak peek of the project that I created with a part of the content. I can't show you the complete project, but will do so shortly after January 12th.



Enjoy the rest of your Sunday! Thanks for stopping by.

You {really} Shine

Frequent visitors of my blog may have noticed that I hardly show any 12x12" layouts. Of course I love to show you my creations, but there is simply not much to show when it comes to 12x12" layouts as I hardly scrap them. It is not that I don't know how to create a 12x12" layout, but I always prefered to create mini albums and cards. That was until yesterday.... I visited the Pencil Lines blog to find out about their new challenge. I had visited the blog before, but so far I had never done any of their challenges. When I saw this week's challenge (#65) and the DT's work I wanted to start on a 12x12" layout immediately. That's the good thing about a challenge blog, isn't it? It is great for inspiration. I knew I wanted to use pictures taken by Florence. She did a great photo shoot, but I haven't used any of the pictures yet. I really enjoyed working on this page, and I would love to make more pages.


Supplies: Scenic Route Laurel and Background PP, American Crafts Thickers, Doodlebug Paperfrills, Tulip Puffy Paint, Chipboard Flower, Ranger Paint Dabber Raspberry, Making Memories Metal Rim and Tiny Alphabet Stickers, Rusty Pickle buttons, Uniball Signo pen, and machine stitching.

Best Wishes, and 1st Sneak Peek of 2008

Wishing you a wonderful, healthy and creative 2008!

I hope you had a wonderful New Year's Eve. Ours was pretty relaxed. December is such a busy month for us with the girls' birthdays, birthday parties and all other festive activities that we felt the need to stay home with just the 4 of us. We had gourmet for dinner - it's sort of fondu with meat and vegetables - and all enjoyed it a lot. We also played some Wii games. We so love the Wii game computer. It is so much fun! I became the olympic champion with a perfect 10 on trampoline (woohoo!), and set an olympic record at javelin throw. I am not always the best. I really have to improve my bowling skills, because I am always beaten by the girls and Eric. When the girls were in bed we watched TV. We got the girls out of bed around 11.50pm, so they could watch the fireworks at midnight with us. We all went to bed at 1am. Not very exciting, but as I said it was pretty relaxed.

This evening Eric's sister Lisette and her family will arrive in the Netherlands. They first spent a week and a half with their family in the UK, and now they will stay here for 11 days. It has been a year and a half ago since we last saw them, so needless to say we look forward to seeing them again. Lisette and I have planned to meet up with Nancy this week to crop and.....chat!!

I started on a fun little project and would love to share a little sneak peek. :-) I bought some yummy papers last week that I am using for ......well, you'll find out soon!