Wishing ...

... all of you a very merry belated christmas!!!

this will be another post with just random thoughts coming to my mind - things that happened after the last post until now in no order whatsoever!!!

I got hooked too!!!! Currently reading "Eclipse" and I'm lucky that my sister got me "Breaking Dawn" for christmas so I can just move on reading without having to wait one single second!!
I'm not sure though if I start reading other vampire stories mentioned on some other blogs. Maybe it will be enough vampire stories for quiet a while for me!!

Finished a mini album using childhood pictures and am really happy with that - have no pictures yet - sorry!! Maybe in the next post.

Bought some bags at IKEA that I'm trying to turn into a scraptote for me. I don't like most of the totes you can buy or I don't want to spend that much money on them. But because I have limited space and have to get my supplies in our bedroom and carry them to the livingroom to be able to scrap I think it will ben ice to have the basics all in one bag and just grab that and off you go!! But I still have to figure out how to do this - transfer 2 IKEA bags into 1 scrap-tote. Will show you - promise!!!

Quick update

Alright, we are still alive - I guess more than ever before!!

Just some facts to fill you in on what has happened around here - in no particular order:

- biggest change: JONAS has arrived on November 6th - weighing 4340g and 54 cm long. After I had to wait almost a week longer that my due date was he finally made his entry into this world a real quick one: we were only in the delivery room for about 40 minutes until he was there!!!

- made some journal covers for me and my sister for the new 2009 calenders.

- Felix went to his first St.Martin with his first lantern - and I had to stay behind because of the baby. Almost made me cry not to be able to share this with him - especially because he was so excited to go out in the dark with his light. He totally is obsessed with the street lights these days: can't wait for them to light up in the afternoon/evening. We have to check very often until they are lit!!!

- Felix is sleeping all by himself which means I'm able to leave the room with him still awake and he will fall asleep all by himself. Makes it really easy now that the baby is there too!!!

- Made some little lamps where you can put a little votiv candle inside. THink these make nice little gifts for xmas. And they seemed to be something I could craft with the kids being around. Scrapping doesn't seem to happen for me these days!!!



- Felix turned 2 on nov 25th . After being sick last year he really anjoyed this birthday. Lots of cake and candles and presents of course too!!!

Toot - toot

Last Saturday my current issue of the SAZ arrived and since I hadn't heard from them about the three LO's I submitted I didn't expect to see anything in there. So I just sat on the table and flipped real quick through the pages and then there was Felix' face looking at me!!! First time ever that I submitted anything and right away there were 2 LO's of mine in the mag!!! What a nice bday surprise!!!

I'm not quite sure if I can post them here already - have to check that first!!!

I'm still here!!!!!

even if I don't post!!!!

But there was some computer free time involved here!! We renovated the kids room and had to move out everything and Felix ended up sleeping in our bedroom (of course most of the time in the "big bed") and therefor my usual computer time - which is while he is sleeping - was cancelled because the PC is also in our bedroom!!! As well as my scrap stuff!!

But I didn't feel like creating much anyways - the baby is just kicking with everything it has and I feel like resting on the couch most of the day!!!

Besides that Stefan was really busy too - which meant no real break for me with Felix and both our granddads (99 and 86 years) had or still have health problems.

Just hope that after this weekend when my mom comes out to help me clean the house and on Sunday I celebrate my 32nd bday everything will go a little smoother and we will just wait for the baby to come and see how I will be able to be creative again!!! With fall and winter coming along, ..... which for me is a better time to make things anyways.

Can't believe that there never seems to be time to write my own blog!! Just checking all the other ones!!

But we are busy getting everything ready for the baby and just living our life. With me getting bigger and bigger ( week 31 now) it seems harder and harder to just do the "normal" stuff like cleaning , washing, ... I find myself being impatient with Felix these days a lot.

I went to a fleamarket with my mom earlier this month and sold some stuff and I sorted out my books. The scrap ones I posted on a forum and the other ones were donated to a friend and/or some other places. Still need to get rid of some things to get the house more decluttered.
Next thing on my list is my patterned paper. Had do move my scrap stuff because of baby no.2 again and will use this to purge my stuff some more.

summer heat

It is so hit and humid here and I'm not that kind of person - especially not while being pregnant!!!

Jsut a short note that we made it to our vacation and back home again safe. Will show some pictures later.

Did some scrap-shopping, too and was able to do some LO's.

Have to grab something cold to drink for now - too hot for a longer post!!!

Double "W" post

One "W" is for WELLNESS:

This week was dedicated to wellness. Personal wellness just for me! I had a giftcard to get a pedicure and put some money on top of it and got a facial instead. OMG - this felt so good!! Just lying there and getting your face massaged and all that yummy smelling stuff they put on you! And today I went to the hairdresser and got my hair done. It was getting too long and during this pregnancy it seems to tend to be more like a spaghetti kind of hair!! What I want to say is, that whatever I tried the last couple of weeks it just hangs down 5 minutes later. And this just made me feel bad - plus I had some days with back pain (Ischias - don't know the english word) - so I really needed this pampering I got this week!!!

The second "W" is for "workshop". Maybe this word is too big and I should call it "crop"?? Anyways, there will be 4 women (out of which I know 2) coming to my house tomorrow night and they want to learn how to stamp. So it is kind of a WS - but I don't have a real concept of what I will do with them. I printed out some basic informations about stamps and stamp pads and cleaning, ... and then I will just "go with the flow" and let them play. Maybe this might lead to more or less regular crop?? Maybe I can interest them in scrapbooking too?? I would be really happy to have some people closer than the virtual ones to scrap and chat with. So I will do my best tomorrow!!!

bookbinding

This is something I tried last year and am really interested in. After I saw a link on Karla's blog about doing the coptic bindung and seeing the same one again on Danyeela's blog today I have to post it here too. (Maybe just to have an easy access to it!!)
So here are the videos on the coptic stitch binding: Number one, number two and last but not least number three!!! Definitely have to try this!!!

On the scrappy side of life there happened some major damage to my credit card. Ooops! Now I'm sitting here waiting for the goodies to arrive and sorting my stuff. Have a friend who seems to be interested in starting to scrapbook so I thought she might be happy about some of the stuff that I seem not to use anymore!! Going through your stash makes me see so many things I have totally forgotten about!! Sad, but true! Hope that she will put them to a good use again.

New Header!!!!

Wow, I don't know for how long I wnated to do this: Change the header - or better make something that is worth the name "header". But somehow it never worked out, there was some strange frame around it, ...
So today I just grabbed the camera and did some shots of my scraptable and went for it!!! Maybe I will change it a little bit but for now I'm okay with it!!

Did a little minibook with my Bind-it-all some days ago. I had some pictures from a commercial that was shown in the tv and in magazines that I really liked. I downloaded them from the internet and decided to put them in a minialbum. Didn't do anything to the pages itself, just put the pics in. Just something real quick to have the pics together, get more practice with the B-i-a and a little colour on the cover!!!

Sick little boy

Yes, Felix has some fever and he's on antibiotics and fever reducer since thursday night. Poor little guy is all fuzzy and whiny when the fever breaks through and then once the meds work he seems to be quiet okay, playing along. Hopefully it will be gone soon, cause with my growing tummy it's not really funny carrying him around as often as he requires right now.

So agai just a short post with no pics, maybe I get something done tonight!!!

I just love

Thursday mornings!! (and monday mornings too) These mornings Stefan doesn't have to be at work until around 10 - unless there is some kind of harvesting or something else going on. That means we can sleep in a little.
Today he went to get Felix when Felix woke up and all 3 of us had a nice little "talk" and cuddled and Felix gave lots of kisses, ... All this was followed by a nice breakfast. Just a great way to start off the day!!!
Simply enjoying these family times because real often Stefan gets to be home late and Felix is already in bed most of the time.

New Girlfriend

The fleamarket yesterday just was so huge!! There had been about 5000 visitors according to the newspaper today!!
I got a little sunburn but lots of little goodies found their way to our home too!!!

Especially one new friend sitting on my scrapdesk right now who I discovered saturday and just couldn't resist buying!!! She now keeps me company and maybe keeps my mojo flowing!!

fleamarket weekend

This weekend is totally my style:

today I went to one fleamarket and tomorrow is the next one. There aren't too many around here and on top of that these are not the antique stuff kind of markets. There are only kids (and their parents) selling only kids stuff like toys and/or clothes.
I just love buying childrens books and found some today we don't already own, plus a small lawnmower with noise for Felix and some sand toys.

Let's see what tomorrow brings!!!

woohoo

You won't believe it!! I finally - after I don't know how many weeks - finished a LO. I just loved these pictures and had them resized and put together as a mosaic with the flick'r tool. They were sitting here and I just wanted to make a LO but on the other hand I didn't want to mess it up. The "patterned paper" was actually sitting not far away from the pics waiting to be used or better say re-used as well: it is part of a Starbucks paperbag!! I just love their bags and tissues!
So today seemed to be the day to put everything together:
some thickers, some cardboard, a date stamp (office supply) and a stamp from DANI (details) which has some hidden journaling.

Neverending story and surprise finds

The last 2 days I worked on the project that seems to be a real neverending story for me. Work in progress for I guess the rest of my life. You know I'm a collector of all kinds of stuff and only through moving out at my parents' and the fact that Felix was born and needed some space too I started to sort things out more often. I read a lot about living simple and things like that on different blogs and/or books/articles. And I really feel good when I do sort things out and get rid of some stuff, give it to friends or family or just through it away. The only thing is that it seems so timeconsuming because I get distracted so easily flipping through the old magazines or things like that. But this time I tried to make some extra space in the bedroom and I succeded!! One bag of old clothes to donate and a few items for my mom and ....some extra space!!!
Felix was all over the place of course and this is what happened today when he found my goggles!!!





Today we also went grocery shopping in the afternoon and when I hit the newspaperstands I thought: well lets take a look - MAYBE they might have that new german scrap mag. But I wasn't really optimistic about that. BUT - they did have it!!! So that's where I'm going now: reading a bit more and putting the album for Felix together. No, not a scrap album, just a ablum with all the pictures and there are some lines for the date and some little notes. I didn't want to stress about making this a "real" scrapbook album - because I know I might not finish it and with the next baby on it's way who would deserve one as well, nono better not even start making one. I stick with the single LO - don't even seem to get these done lately LOL

bad blogger ...

but I have - once again - the intention of getting better at this!!!

Maybe one short post every other day is better than not posting at all???

So for now I will just go ahead and tell the "secret" I mentioned sometime before: there will be one more thinggiving me lots of input srcapwise, but on the other hand sure will keep me away from being creative at the same time:
we are going to have another baby at the end of october!! I'm in my 17th week now and so far everything is pretty much okay.
We are really happy and excited about this new addition to our little family.

so off to some emails and then some stamping!!

a day on my own

that was what happened Saturday! I dropped Felix off at my parents at 7:30 in the morning and went to a nearby town for a fleamarket. That fleamarket is 2 times a year and there are only kids or their parents selling mostly childrens stuff such as toys, clothes and books. I love to go there and find treasures. This time I wasn't as succesful as the times before but still I got some nice pants and shirts, a truck to play outside and some nice children's books.

Afterwards I took off to Koblenz. There was a sweet little art show going on in the "Sporthalle Oberwerth" and since I had no chance to go to the "Creativa" I "had" to go there. There were only like 30 booths and some really weren't my kind of stuff so I was a little bitdissappointed, but O got some plain cards and envelopes and I sewed a nice rose from the Tilda books on a 1600€ sewing machine!! ( That sure was a difference to my 150€ Tchibo machine!!!)

Did some shopping in Koblenz too and on my way home I stopped at my sisters in Cochem. I really enjoyed just being by myself for one day - and I think that Felix loved staying at my parents as well!!

Here we go again

...I don't know how exactly it has happenend that there is no new post for such a long time. But for me this semms to happen ones in a while!!

There had been some things going on around here that kept me from updating this blog. I trie dto keep up reading all those blogs in my bloglines feeder (which are by the way not just a few - but 95 feeds!!!) but there seems to be no time for own posts or scrap time at all!! I just wanted to be on the couch in front of the TV or reading a book!!

But now to the things that happened in the last weeks:

We remodeled our kitchen. Or better to say the half of it that hadn't been done yet. I had the same thought Christiane had: we needed a green wall too!! And I'm totaly in love with all the drawers that close silently and by itself (the last few inches) . And Felix just loves his new cardboard house in which our new fridge was delivered!!!


As always it took some time to get everything in place - there are still some things in the kitchen that need new homes!! Or the tools need to be put away. That's so typical for us to not finish a project the whole way but to leavesome bits for days and weeks, .....

Felix got a digger from DUPLO for Easter and was totally happy with it - and for sure he still is. Spotted it right away too!!!

He and his cousins had some major fun "working" and feeding the cows. Felix now has his full outdoor equipment so no matter what the weather is like he is ready to go!!!



Alright I guess these were most of the things that happened. There is one more but I can't tell for another week or so - sorry!!

Gotta get the pictures in here and off we go!!

Just one more short of Felix learning to eat his joghurt by himself - you sure can tell how much fun he is having!!!!

some LO's ...

just finished the Karneval one and there are 2 more I made during the last week.






Sorry about not posting that often!!!

Artistic Edge

is a online class by Adrienne Looman I'm taking and it just started today. It's about giving your pictures an "artistic edge" with the help of Photoshop Elements (in my case).
I own PSE 3.0 and basically all I do is to store my pics with the help of this program, turn them into black and white ones or once in awhile use a brush. I hope to get to know this program and its possibilities a bit more through this class. Sometimes you see these cool photos with striking colours and I always wanted to know how that works. But I don't like to read through manuals and I don't like to sit here and play around with the program without having a clue (don't have the time to do so either!!!).
Well I just picked some pictures out of the blue and tried what Adrienne explained in the first lesson. Here are the results ( first of each set is the before photo and the second the photo after I did some "magic"):

memories of summer

don't know how but somehow my goals for 2008 - at least scrapwise - seems to work out!! Here is another LO I just finished. DH is not home this evening so this involved some walking around, getting new supplies, bringing the used ones away, cleaning the dishes while paint is drying, having some phone calls, .... but that was just fine, cause I was on my own and nobody got disturbed while watching tv.
I'm bad at these things: sometimes I have a movie on, the computer is running, I'm trying to do too many things at a time!!
But anyways: here is my summer 2007 LO and I'm hoping for a great summer this year ( which means for me not too hot but still great to be outside, a little bit of wind touching the skin, ...)
supplies: PP Danyeela , overlay Hambly , flowers Prima , stamps, cardstock, pen, ribbon

the GOOD stuff

is my latest LO. It talks about all the feelings that I experienced since being a mother - well I guess not about all of them - just the good ones. But I wanted to document them so I will never forget this first years with Felix.



PP Danyeela / stamp KOTM / rest unknown

my first birthday

I don't remember that day or the pictures we took but this particular one used on this LO is really my favourite pic of that time. I really love almost every single one of these old pics and even got a whole lot of the old negatives scanned so I can print them whenever I want. (they don't do that format of negatives in the drugstores here anymore!! but from a CD it works!)

I just love how my twin cousins and me are on this pic together with my grandparents. It is not a perfect picture but I just love it so much!!!



Close Up: Did make some chipboard accents painted with acrylic paint and isedstickers on them. Covered then the whole thing with GlossyAccents by Ranger




PP Danyeela / flowers Bazzill / letters Thickers / scrap, paint and pens

First LO of 2008

A couple of nights ago I tried something new scrapwise: I started to pull out pics that I want to scrap and put them into folders together with a piece of paper where I put some notes either about the journaling or the LO or the kind of paper I want to use.
Just something I want to try and see if that helps me to get more LO's done. So far it seems to work. Because of these folders I kept thinking about some of the LO's-to-be and just went for one of them tonight! Voila, here's my christmas LO 2006!!!

I used some patterned paper I had sitting around for I guess about 2 years plus a pretty new stamp for the journaling lines and some glitter ( also sitting here for quite a long time!! Never had a real use for it but here it seemed to be just perfect!!).

Want to try to use some of the "old" stuff this year too. Sometimes I have a hard time using things because they are just so pretty and I'm afraid of using them ( if that makes sense?!?).