Friday, May 23, 2014

Day 23: Happy Days!

Today's topic was 'Playground', I twisted it a little to talk about some of the happiest times in my life.

Growing up my parents spent most of their free time (except for winter) at a hippy-esk marina. It was an island in the middle of a small lake not far from Amsterdam. It was heaven for us kids. We would spend all day building huts, climbing trees, rowinig through little water ways or out on the water swimming and learning how to wind surf. It was really amazing growing up like that. For me, that lake and island are my playground.




I've used a whole bunch of different digi stuff here. If there's anything you want to know just ask.

Day 22: Sign of the times

Today's prompt was Sign-O-the times. Made me immediately think about Prince of course. Whom was definitely one of my favourite artists when I was a teenager. I ended up doing a layout about my 'agenda's'  though.

The defining possession of my teenage/secondary school years has to be the 'Agenda' or date book. Leaf through any of them and you will be able to pin down whom I liked, disliked and what I was into. And of course who I was in a class with, who my teachers were and my grades. It was great to dig these out again today.



The layout came together pretty quickly with a Misty Cato template and papers and embellishments by Eric Zane (See Jane Play). I can't trace down where the title is from.

Do you still have your secondary school diaries?

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

LOAD Day 21: Feeling happy and artsy today, well it is my birthday:-)

Today is my birthday and I have a had a lovely day so far: lots of flowers, presents, well wishes and lots of crafting too. I have been itching to make somehting a little bit more artsty for a few days now. I have been dabling with some card backgrounds but really wanted to make something a bit bigger. For the last few days various pieces of colourful cardstock, tissue paper en stamps have been accumulating on my desk. Today I put them all together into this:


When all the paint and glue has dried off I'm going to frame it and put it somewhere I can look at it often. Hope you have a great day too.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

LOAD20: Going to Church

Getting my layout done early today. I usually listen to Lain's dulcit tones first thing in the morning. SOmetime I'm still in bed. Nice way to wake up. Today's prompt was about your religious activities when you were younger. Well I had some pictures about being in the children's choir in church when I grew up. And one of an outing we had with our Confirmation Study Group. There is quite a bit I want to say about this (all good, don't worry;-) but I will do it somewhere else. It doesn't fit on the page. Too happy about that huge faux-stained glass window:-) 



I used my Silhouette to cut this beautiful design by Petty Young Designs. I first used it as a stencil to colour in with Distress Ink. Then turned it over to use as a border. Love it!
Paula's design: <a href="http://www.silhouetteonlinestore.com/?page=view-shape&id=32005" rel="nofollow">www.silhouetteonlinestore.com/?page=view-shape&id=32005</a>

More time travel: LOAD 16-19

This has to be the year I look back and move forward. I took a great course earlier this year called Before your story' by Jennifer Wilson of Simple Scrapper. She has a great approach to making one book about the time before you became a mom. Which is often when people get into scrapping and then it is all about your kid(s). I have still to get properly going on the course but I thought I would use this LOAD to make a bunch of layouts that suit that album.

I already have a lovely album I got at HEMA and bought a paper pack to match: Elegance by Kaiserkraft so I try to use a similar colour palette on these pages but found that it lacked a bit of punch so I added a pinky red to the palette to give it some POP.

Day 16's prompt was about the 'TIME OUT' or disiplining. I was uncomfortable writing just about disciplining kids. It seemed to be only one side of a story. The story about why we have to set boundaries, why we say no and why we need to put kids in time-out to give them a chance to think. It's one tool if you will to use in the grand project of raising our children. It's not the whole story. So I decided to write a letter to my almost 5 yo son (to read when he is a bit older I suppose) to tell him why we sometimes need to tell him no or put him in time-out. What we aim for as we are raising him. And also that it isn't easy, that we might not have had the best examples ourselves, And neither did our parents. But that we are trying to take our responsibility to raise him as a happy, healthy, responsible and self-reliant young man. And that means we need to tell him no sometimes;-) Let's hope he appriciates it!

 

Day 17: The influence of television while you were younger. I did a digi page this time so that I could easily use a whole bunch of pictures I got from Google. Goodness me people. It still took me hours to get this layout done. Even though the main design (all the clustered stars) is a template by Cindy Schneider. Just so tired when I got home from work. But I got it done and this is really is a rather important moment to document. Because for me English (or rather American) spoken tv programs in my early teens have really helped me learn English. I think I am susceptible for languages anyway but it does need some inspiration and stimulation. And for me it was cartoons like Inspector Gadget, Tranformers, Care Bears and Jem!



Day 18: The prompt was about the dentist. Since I had already covered the braces issue on Day 14 I decided to finish a layout I had done some work for a while ago. The background of this layout is a piece of one of my favorite shirts I ever owned. I got it at least 5 years ago but last year little holes started appearing in it. I love it so I would wear it anyway, but April of this year the holes had really become too big so it had to go. I decided to cut a hole-free bit out and iron-ed it onto some cardstock with Bondaweb with the idea of making a layout with it and today I finally got around to doing it. I had to search the backup drive for some pictures of me wearing and then had the Silhouette cut the black mat with faux stich marks. Finished up with some white journalling around the edges.


Day 19: What did you want to be when you grew up. Very excited about this prompt. And as it turned out, very enlightening too. When I started pulling pictures of the web of careers I had dreamed of when I was young I couldn't help notice they all wear a lovely uniform/suit! I made this while listening to Lain on Creative Life and used one of the sketches in her handout. Came together in no time!



Thursday, May 15, 2014

LOAD DAY 15: Who's that girl

Today's prompt was FashionVictim and Growing up in the eighties MADONNA was most girl's idol. Mine as well. So when I was 11 and got the chance to take part in a talent show I had to be Madonna. My mom made the outfit (I think she re-worked a tiger costume I had worn in a circus performance in kindergarten onze...) and I did the accessorizing. Don't you just love those pink socks in the yellow shoes?!


I think I was singing 'Bordeline', look at that intense tortured expression on my face:-)))

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

LOAD 14: Braces

Today's prompt was 'Sick Day' and I was going to scrap about a stay in the hospital while I was little. But while looking for some memorabilia ( I knew there wouldn't be a picture of it but I do have the admissions letter) I came across some receipts for all the orthodontic work that had been done on my teeth. And I knew there were a few pictures of me anxiously keeping my mouth closed when pictures were taken because of those aweful braces!




At least four yearsI have had to wear braces, 4 permanent molers were removed tocreate room in mu very small jaw and also one milk tooth got pulled at the same time to make sure the permanent one would be there with the braces. All in the space of 2 weeks. I had a mouth with 4 gaping holes in it when I ws about 10 years old. Now all this was peanuts compared to the years before this when I needed to where this 'cap' and mouth piece to get my top and bottom jaw aligned, they were 11 cm's apart. I felt so embarassed and ugly with a cap over the back of my head and a gigantic piece of plastic in my mouth so I could hardly speak. And every two weeks or so my horribly strict orthodontist would tighten it up a bit. Which meant a lot of pain as my teeth and jaw adjusted. Luckily after the worst was over I only had to wear it at night and not at school anyore.
Now I am very happy I had it done, my teeth look great and I smile all the time. But then I felt pretty sorry for myself.

I made the title and cute 'smile with braces' with my Silhouette. I decided to make some room on my desk to put my Silhouette. It was kind of hidden so I didn't use it much. Which is a shame because it's a great machine!

Have you scrapped any health stories?

LOAD 4, 8-13 Catching up on the blogging

We have had a lovely holiday in England and I feel truly relaxed. So now that we have been back, unpacked and Thomas is in school again I have some time to upload the missing layouts....YES, I did keep making a layout each day last week. And I am still going strong: 14 out of 14 so far;-) But Mobile Internet abroad turned out to be a bit of a pain so I limited myself to uploading my layout to the LOAD gallery and not blogging.  But here's what you've missed out on;-)

Day 4, this got stuck in cyberspace somewhere. I had made blog post on my mobile and tried uploading while on the ferry but we had left the port before it went and it was then (insert french accent here) 'untouchable'. I have not been able to re-publish it or even delete it from my phone...very annoying!  Anyway, I made the page, it's another one in the USA album. Used some real washi tape to match the faux washi on the SN@P journalling card. As this is a traditional paper photo album I keep the layouts simple with as few layers as possible or the whole thing will just become too thick:-)



LOAD Day 8: Finally onto the next day in our USA album! This day we went to Ashland, VA to check out the trains. American trains are much bigger, longer and way shinier than their Dutch counterparts. Thomas loved it but was somewhat disappoint he couldn't get onto it. Luckily there was the model train shop to cheer him up again.


LOAD Day 9: Still in Ashland, we also went to a curious supermarket called Cross Brothers. Where they have not really tidied or thrown anything away for the last 100 years it seems: old tills, bills, 70's freezers and scrap books in between the long life milk....


LOAD Day 10: We rounded our trip to Ashland off with a bit of play. My friend's mom, Millie has secured Thomas everlasting love for going down the slides with him.


LOAD Day 11: As we were now back from England I could follow the prompts again. Today's was 'Puppy Love. I used a picture of Thomas laying with a lovely dog that somebody walks near our home, I think it's a Cocker Spaniel and I like it. Now this is a BIG THING, I have always been afraid of dogs and even now that I have become more comfortable around them I could never have imagined liking a dog and thinking 'I could have a dog like that...' I don't see it happening any time soon but for that thought to even pop into my head...milestone! And for Thomas to be so comfortable around dogs is a relief to me, I have really tried NOT to pass on my fear of dogs and I seem to have succeeded..GO ME!


LOAD DAY 12: Seeds for the future. I love this layout. I have combined black and white pictures of me when I was a baby, scurrying around at my grandfather's nursery and colour pictures of Thomas at our allotment and bacony. I am (unsuccesfully) trying to instill in him the same love for plants that my mom and grandfather before me had....but all he wants to do is explore and make a big muddy mess:-)


LOAD Day 13: Today's prompt was Best of the Best. I didn't feel it and couldn't think of anything. So I did another page in the USA album. I started this at 11 PM and had a hard time putting it together, it had been a long day with me teaching a stamp carving class in the evening. So not too great but another page done!




Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Loads of pages: 5, 6 and 7

Well, crafting on the go is one thing but uploading pictures to Flickr and Blogger when you're abroad is quite another when you have your not-so-unlimited unlimited mobile Internet plan with T-mobile....I ran out of my limit on day 3 of my one week package!
Luckily there is my pretty tech savvy husband who has set his mobile up so I can use his wi-fi. Love is a beautiful thing:-)
So here are day 5, 6 and 7 of LOAD. Three more pages in the USA album. I'm still only at the 4th day of our trip! But it was such a great trip and so many good memories that I can't get myself to leave out any pictures. And being away while doing my layout a day challenge it makes.iy easy to do a page a day with the added bonus on making great progress on the album.
I am not checking what the real daily prompts are so I don't get side tracked. And it's working: I am finishing my pages and still have plenty of time to enjoy my holiday with my son and husband.
Could you use a bit of focus in your life? What could you cut out or ignore to be more efficient with your time? What might you achieve in a week? Let me know, I'd love to hear.

Saturday, May 3, 2014

LOAD on the ROAD-Day 3

Today we are travelling. Driving from Amsterdam, The Netherlands to Bristol in England. I found it an extra challenge to still do a layout today. So I did some preparations yesterday: Printed off photos, cut some patterned paper and picked out some matching embellishments and alphas.

It was my turn to drive on the first leg: Amsterdam-Dunkerque (France). We then boarded the ferry and that's where I did today's layout! Really love how it turned out. I esspecially like the white lettering around the edges. I always find that by having only a limited amount of stash to choose from I am much quicker but no less creative.

So now we are driving on the M20 and I am going to post this from my mobile. Fingers crossed it works!

Friday, May 2, 2014

LOAD 2 - quicky calendar layout

Today's prompt was 'If these walls could talk'. The idea being you'd talk about your room from your childhood or student dorm. I think I'll keep those stories under wraps for a while longer;-)

I went off-prompt to do a quick calendar layout for my parents. For the last three years I have given them and my mother in law an empty calendar for Christmas and then send them a new layout about their grandson each month. I am running a little bit behind but that's okay.

The layout is about my son's end-of-theme parade. The whole school had learned about Brasil for six weeks and it was finished off with a carnaval parade around the neighbourhood including drummers and Brasilian dancers. It was really great but Thomas was very overwhelmed by all the noise and people. Luckily a teacher noticed and made sure he was walking with some kids he knew. That's when he gave me this radiant smile!

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Another LOAD has started and I am taking part...here's Day 1



Today my third Layout a Day Challenge starts and I am very excited about it. The theme is Past Perfect and it's all about your past. Thursday's main theme is 'Pop Culture'and today's prompt is 'In the news' so I went with these pictures of when I was in the news...back in the last century;-) I am using them to tell a bit about my first jobs and eventually this layout will go into my 'Before your story' album for my son.