Happy Birthday Nicole!

I made the background of this card using a technique I learned on the Mixed Media workshop last Saturday.
All you need is: a craft sheet, Ranger Distress Inks and water.
This is a really fun technique and it will give you different results every time you do it!
If you use a lot of water you may have to iron your paper to flatten it again. For this background I used 2 different colours of the distress inks.

"Tick Tock" was stamped with the Brushed Alpabet from Autumn Leaves which just arrived at MLS, along with some other great Autumn Leaves products.

After I stamped the text, I coloured the letters with Ranger Perfect Pearls. A must have :)
The chipboard frame was painted with a paintdabber and then I stamped on the clock before finishing it with 2 layers of UTEE.

Bokkie.....

This is the very first page I did about Bokkie, my first Persian love :)
Used only new scrapsupplies on this page; I actually started making this layout and later looked for a picture to combine with the LO.

I've never worked in that order before, but it was kind of fun... just making the design..not worrying about pictures fitting on the page or not.

I punched squares from my new Autumn Leaves paper, which I picked up at Danielle's place yesterday. Glued to them to the brown Bazzil and cut out the 3 squares on the bottom.
I then glued the whole mosaique to the black background and got my Perfect Pearls goodies to add some colour to the black squares. I also added Perfect Pearls to the stamped curls on the brown bar.
The lettering is dymo and Quickutz Vixen.

MIXED MEDIA workshop

Yesterday I went to a Mixed Media Workshop; my 2nd workshop ever! The first one I attended was the Elsie workshop last year; and I still haven't finished this project (doubt I ever will).
I had no idea what to expect; the only thing I knew was that we would use acrylic paints and collagesheets.
Turned out we had to make a canvas with the topic "Home Sweet Home" and here is the result; I LOVE the rubberstamp I used on the side of the canvas...and those (postal) stamps on top are my favorite part of the canvas :)







The workshop was hosted by Mieke Smetsers; check out her blog for a fun technique using eggshells and Ranger alcoholink

KRAFT

You might have noticed that all the lo's I have done so far for the Journalers Junction Challenge are made on Kraft Cardstock from Bazzill.
I consider this one of the best "discoveries" since I started scrapping.
As far as I know, the only place to buy it in Holland is HERE, haven't seen it elsewhere yet. It is so versatile, you can use it with all colours, and I think every colour combines great with Kraft.
Kraft is really starting to get hot in the scrapscene; Making Memories now has a whole line of kraft patterned papers (look HERE) and also Hambly has printed some patterns on kraft (check these out HERE).

So what are you waiting for?.. go over to the shop and order some kraft paper, whether it be Bazzill, Hambly or Making Memories.... I am sure you will get hooked on Kraft too :)!

Enjoy your weekend everyone...I know I will; I'm going to a Mixed Media workshop tomorrow...Can't wait!

Journalers Junction # 3

This weeks challenge on the journalers blog is to journal in the form of instructions. So I thought of some instructions that will make me feel better/happier. There a lot of easy things I can change in my life like going to bed on time..... everyday. I am sure that if I stop feeling exhausted... I will be a much more happy girl :). The instructions are quite simple...now I just have to follow them :S.

Dutch Dare # 6

Dare #6 already... wow!
When we started these dares I would never have thought that I would enjoy them this much as I do now! Some are more difficult than others.. and this is one that was difficult for me because I have a hard time scrapping a "concept"... instead of a more practical dare like Dare #5.

The subject of this weeks dare is "Say Cheese", and all I could come up with was the following:
1) scrap about cheese..... a typical Dutch product
2) scrap a picture with people smiling from ear to ear

I chose the 2nd option.... and gave it a little "Daphne" twist......
The picture was taken at the Zaanse Schans , a typical Dutch place with mills, wooden shoes etcetera. If you want to have a laugh and see me in a big wooden shoe...click HERE.
The journaling is about the reflex that follows when someone behind a camera says "Cheese".
Read the following quote on Classical Conditioning that I found on Wikipedia.

Classical conditioning (also Pavlovian conditioning,
respondent conditioning or alpha-conditioning) is a type of associative learning. Ivan
Pavlov described the learning of conditioned behavior as being formed by
pairing stimuli to condition an animal into
giving a certain response. The simplest form of classical conditioning is
reminiscent of what Aristotle would have called
the law of contiguity, which states that: "When two things commonly occur
together, the appearance of one will bring the other to mind." Classical
conditioning originally focused on reflexive behavior or involuntary behavior.
Any reflex can be conditioned to respond to a formerly neutral stimulus. A view
of classical conditioning restricted to reflexes has been abandoned in recent
years, and voluntary responses to conditioned stimuli have made important
contributions to the field[1]

The combination of the picture and the journaling... well..I thought it is quite funny and it speaks for itself :)
Anyway... Enjoy the dare!

Sneak Peek Dutch Dare # 6

Daffies Deck

Inspired by Nathalie, who always knows where to look for fun challenges, I decided to join the Deck of Me art journal journey over at the blog of Emily Falconbridge. The idea is to make a card each week with a prompt she gives us every Monday.
So check out her blog today to see what the prompt for week 3 is.
These are the first 2 cards I made:




I used my "Hambly" stamp from Purple Onion Designs on the back of the cards... and if you are a stamplover.... go over to their website NOW and order some stampies!
These are really the best stamps ever; I love their designs.. and the rubber is sooo good..the stamped images are really clean and crisp!No messy, inky mess on your page... just the stamped image as you want it to be!
I also used them on the LO's I posted yesterday for the journalers junction challenge

Journalers Junction #1 & #2

In the beginning of January I came upon a journaling Challenge Blog: Journalers Junction.
They wanted to start the new year with a challenge that lasts 12 weeks.
I decided to jump in because I am not really a journaler..always save that for last, wanting to do it with handwriting, but then always making mistakes...aahrhghgh.

If you check out their blog you can already see what the 12 challenges will be.
Each week they will post the challenge so that you can post your layout or project there.

This is my try for the 2nd challenge: journaling on strips.

Happy Birthday TO ME

New Books!!

You might have noticed that I have posted new books in my sidebar.
Claudine Hellmuth had to make room for 2 wonderful books which I just received yesterday.
For Dutch readers: I ordered them at www.bol.com and they arrived within a week.

If you click on the books you can find more information about the content.
I did not have a lot of time yet to study them carefully. But I can already tell you tell you that I will enjoy them a lot.
Both of them contain a lot of detailed step by step instructions. I really love this in creativity books, because I am not really the workshop type kind of girl, and I love to learn from books and try things at home.

From Visual Chronicles I have only read the first chapter, which is about creating your "personal palette". This means that you make your own (tag)book with pictures of your family, yourself etcetera and put some corresponding colors next to the pictures. This way if you are making a layout or an art journal page you will instantly know which colors to use for this person.
You are also advised to do the same for feelings... and their corresponding colors; but all according to you. For instance, if the corresponding color for Love is green for you.. that's ok: you are making a PERSONAL PALETTE!
So I might give this a try... It is something what you can do in between doing other things.

I have not yet read in the Altered Books Workshop, but it looks very very promising :.

Dutch Dare # 5 is online

For this weeks Dare we had to make a LO based on the cover of a Dutch non-scrapbooking magazine. Check out the Dutch Dare blog to see what we all made.

Hope you'll join us with the challenges. If you don't live in Holland and still want to play just choose a magazine from your country.. as long as it is not a scrapbooking magazine everything is allowed.

Sneak Peek Dutch Dare # 5

Just one more night and you can see my complete LO on the Dutch Dare blog.
This weeks Dare will be brought to you by Francine and it will be great again. I am soooo loving these dares

ABC Tag

A while ago I was tagged by Charlotte, Marianne & Mandy.
It took me while to come up with the answers but here it is;

A - Available or single: Married
B - Best Friend: Me
C - Cake or Pie:Cake
D - Drink of choice: Champagne
E - Essential Item you use everyday: Mascara
F - Favorite color: Red
G - Gummy Bears or worms: Gummy Bears
H - Hometown: Amsterdam
I - Indulgence: buying REALLY expensive shoes/bags/underwear/make-up
J - January or February: January
K - Kids & Names: Nutella & Tinus; my cats
L - Life is Incomplete Without: Michiel, books, music, cats
M - Marriage Date: May 9, 2005
N - Number of Siblings: 2 older sisters; Muriel & Juliette
O - Oranges or Apples: oranges
P - Phobias or Fears: dying in a car accident ALONE
Q - Fav Quote: “Everything will be OK” (Juliette)
R - Reason to Smile: Seeing / Reading / Doing / Eating / Smelling something that makes me feel all warm and tingly inside
S - Season: Spring
T - Tag 3 or 4 people: Malou & Nicole
U - Unknown Fact about Me: The prints on the toilet paper must be facing me, instead of facing the wall.
V- Vegetable You Don't Like: Green Peas
W - Worst Habit: I am ALWAYS right :)
X - Xrays: Not as xciting as stingrays
Y - Your Fave Food: Sushi
Z - Zodiac Sign: Capricorn

One Little Word

In response to Ali Edwards challenge on her blog, where she tells us about her tradition to choose 1 word every year in January " to reflect on, to mediate on... 1 word that sums up what you want for yourself..." in the new year, I decided to play along and choose a word for myself which will be with me all year long.

weekly challenge

"This week your challenge is to
create something, anything, that celebrates your chosen word for 2007. Maybe a layout. Maybe a blog posting or a journal entry or a simple post-it note that
you put somewhere you can see it each day. Make sure to journal about why you
chose your word and what it means for you - the more you let yourself explore the more benefit you will receive in the end."

The word I have chosen for myself this year is PATIENCE

In the last couple of years I have grown to be more and more impatient. I want instant succes, instant happines, instant answers etcetera.
I am now facing the consequences of my attitude; I am constantly fighting with familymembers, I am not happy with my job, the fact that I am still not pregnant after having unsafe sex ( :)!)for nearly 19 months is putting me down more and more each day and I know that especially with this part of my life I might have to face some big challenges this coming year. My patience will be put to the test big time this year!

For Ali's Challenge I made the following LO:
























The journaling is a quote from the "I Ching; The Book of Changes"

"When clouds form in the skies we know that rain will follow but we must not wait for it. Nothing will be achieved by attempting to interfere with the future before the time is ripe. Patience is needed"

Supplies for this LO:
Hambly Screenprints Patterned Paper "Bohemian" - Available HERE
Bazzil cardstock (I love their Kraft cardstock - also available @ MLS

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHARLOTTE

Book Tag

Last night... I was already in bed... reading... but I felt the urge to do some websurfing. So I got the laptop, got back to bed and checked my email. Francine had tagged me... hoping it was not the same ABC tag that Charlotte en Marianne send me and that I still have not posted yet...(sorry!) I openened her blog and saw the following:

1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123, go down to the fourth sentence.
3. Post the text of the following 3 sentences on your blog.
4. Name of the author and book.
5. Tag three people of your own.


Since I was in bed this was a happy coincidence, because as you can see there are a ton of books next to or in my bed :). I am usually reading 2 or 3 books at the same time; some fiction, some non-fiction (see the bottom). Do you see the black fluffy thing sticking out on the right side? It is the tail of "Het grote boek van de Poezenkrant". This book is a must have for every cat lover! In the front you see a Milan Kundera classic "The unbearable lightness of being", which I am reading for the 2nd time now after 16 years! Somehow the book isn't as interesting to me as the first time. Maybe it was a mistake to start reading it again, it takes away a lot of the magic. I had such beautiful memories of this book; so everyone who has not yet read it you must do so. It really is a literature classic.
I also read biographies; Maria Callas, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Hitler. But I prefer to read these on the couch instead of in bed. Close to the window my latest purchased books: the latest Arnon Grunberg, "Tirza". At the moment he is my favorite Dutch writer. Love his cynical sense of (jewish?) humour :).
And I bought "On Beauty" from Zadie Smith. Also next to my bed "The Big Book of Sudoku"......Love sudoku!

But the book that was close to me when i read Francine's tag was the following book, also recently purchased: "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" by Marisha Pessl. Check out the "trailer" for this book and see what it is all about.I have only recently started reading but I must finish 2 other books first....I am sooooo hard on myself :)














I do not only have books next to my pillow... when you lift the pillows you see this. And Danielle... the Ali Edwards book I borrowed from you? It has been there too!"















But now, on to the tag:
The book closest to me was "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" - Marisha Pessl.
The next 3 sentences after the fourth sentence on page 123 say:

"A tidal wave of nausea was starting to flood my stomach and there was nothing I could do to stop it. It was like the black seawater overtaking a crimson Titanic stateroom, as recounted in one of Dad's favorite autobiographies of all time, the gripping eyewitness account Black in My Mind, Yellow in My Legs (1943) by Herbert J. D. Lascowitz, who finally, in his ninety-seventh year, came clean about his Machiavellian behavior aboard the legendary ocean liner, admitting he strangled an unidentified woman, stripped her body, donned her clothes in order to pretend he was a woman with child, thereby securing a choice spot for himself on one of two remaining lifeboats. I tried to roll over and stand, but the carpet and the couch swerved upward and then, as shocking as lightning striking inches from my shoes, I was sick: cartoonishly sick all over the table and the carpet and the paisley couch by the fireplace and Jade's black leather Dior sandals, even on the coffee-table book, Thank God for the Telephoto Lens: Backyard Photos of the Stars (Miller 2002). "

I love this book and can't wait till I reach page 123 :)
Hope this was what you had in mind Francine, when you tagged me?
Now...everyone...run to a bookstore to buy this book. It is available in Dutch too, but I always prefer to read the original version.

I will tag Mirjam, Nathalie & Charlotte

HAPPY NEW YEAR