I'm a photographer!

I'm a photographer, I don't pretend to be a good one but I love to take pictures. Long before I started scrapbooking I made pictures and because I take so many (almost 4500 in the last 9 months, wich I know because I have a digital rebel since march) some of them turn out really nice. I love my pictures, cherish them. Loosing them would be a tradgedie to me.
And not only the pictures I make now, but also the pictures that were taken a long, long time ago. Pictures of my ancestors, my grandparents, my parents as they were little children. I love watching them, wondering what they were doing, thinking, how their life was back then... were they happy, what kind of dreams did they have, were they creative, did they love pictures too, what did they do on an average sunday morning, what kind of job did they have?
Most of these questions and many more will never be answered because my ancestors didn't scrapbook nor did they write. To try and answer these kind of questions not only for my children but for my grand- and great grandchildren too, I scrapbook.
Some time ago I made this LO about photographs.
The poem I found at 2Peas sais it all

Photographs are smiles that last forever

Snowmen that can never melt away

Birthday celebrations caught in amber

Rescued from the vaults of yesterday

Faces that were once more dear than diamonds

Boys who kept you up until the dawn

Houses filled with bicycles and babies

Ghosts who left their shadows on the lawn

Photographs are holes in time's grey curtain

Through them we can peek into the past

Call upon our parents and our children

Pop a cork with members of the cast

There they are the days of jazz and joy-rides

Snaps of magic moments lit by laughs

If you every find my house on fire

Leave the silver-

Save the Photographs

I'm a fortunate girl

Yesterday I celebrated my birthday, I turned 38.
I had a very nice day. My DH, the kids and my parents in law came at my bed in the morning, singing, with a cup of tea and a lot of presents.
Later on more family and friends came over to visit, the kids (10 of them) were playing up stairs and the adults were sitting together, talking, eating, drinking... Nothing special, just an avarage, nice birthday in our family.

This morning I was chatting with Anita (who came by yesterday too) and she said to me that I had NO idea how lucky I am for having such a nice family.... She talked about noticing the kids all feeling at home, rushing up and down the stairs... everyone keeping each others kids in cheack... someone grabbing the vacuumcleaner and cleaning up chips on my stairs and not even asking... everyone doing what they feel comfortable with...
She talked about my sisters little boy who made me a lovely drawing and she said my mom is adorable...

And she is soooo right. People said it before and of course I know that I'm lucky to have a great family. But that's so normal to me that I sometimes forget how special that is, that I forget to treasure it enough...

Thinking of it now, I realize how fortunate I am!!!
So thank you Anita for reminding me!

So much about my birthday, what else have I been doing the last week...

I tried to do some "Sinterklaas"-shopping but it was sooo busy in all the shops that it wasn't any fun. I gave up after I bought some things I really needed and will have another try this week. Not that I imagine it to be better then last week...

I had 2 crops on wednesday, 1 in the morning and 1 in the evening. Both times I had a nice, enthousiastic group of people coming over. They were all more advanced scrapbookers who can do with very little help, wich gave me the change to do some scrapping of my own.
So I worked on the LO's I have to do for my Scrap-Club DT using the december kit featuring the beautiful Senic Route Winter paper.

The first one became a real winter LO. I had to dig out an old picture of my DS that was taken 7 years ago.


Since we're lucky if we have 1 or 2 days of snow at all in this country I don't have that much snow pictures.






The second one is about the arrival of Sinterklaas.
My DD full of expectation waiting for Santa to arrive.








On thursday and friday I did scrapbook demonstrations for a craftshop at a big hobbyconfention in a city about 70 minutes driving from here. It was open until 10.00 p.m. so you could say I was a little tired when I got home, but I love doing these things. I meet so many people who don't have a clue what scrapbooking is. It's nice to make them enthousiastic for this greatest hobby of all!

Something else I did this week is submitting! I submitted to the PK face time call and to the ST minibook call. I also gave CK a new try for the fresh faces ànd I entered the Junkitz International Contest. And then the waiting and the stress starts... Even though I know the deadline is not earlier then the end of november or even somewhere in december I can't wait untill then and check my e-mail 3 times a day. Silly right? I know there won't be any e-mails before the deadline but it doesn't hurt to look... Ah well, time is flying these busy days so before I know it I will know *LOL*

And talking about time flying, november has only 2 more days to go...
and then the month of celebrations starts!
I wish everyone a great and wonderfull last month of the year!!!

Looking through the eyes of other people

This weekend I've been working on my entry for the Junkitz International Contest. I have to admit I'm a slow scrapper, it usualy takes a few hours to get a LO done. But now it was even worse... with everything I did I thought: "will they like this, will they think this is creative, will they consider this out-of-the-box-thinking..."
It was getting me nowhere!
When I messed up my title and didn't have enough of the same paper left I was about to throw everything out of the window.
And then I said to myself: "Are you crazy, or what? Of course it would be great to winn a contest like this, but this is MY page, is has to go into MY album, so I'M the one who has to like it! If sombody else likes it too, well, that's nice, but not the most important."
And guess what, once I stopped trying to look through other peoples eyes I finished my LO in no time... and I love it!
Wouldn't it just be great if they love it too :)?
(I'm sending it in today!)

Isn't she lovely, isn't she beautiful?

I can't recall what exactly I was doing at that specific time, but suddenly I noticed that Marlijn was VERY quiet. As I opened the door to the hall way to see what she was doing she came down the stairs with a BIG smile, saying: "Mommy, I made beautiful eyes!"

I was thrilled, actually.

Aren't we scrapbookers always hoping our kids do things like that so we can make pictures?
I am!

So, when she was standing in front of me, shining, I said: "darling you look lovely, here's my lipstick, you can make beautiful lips too!" and then I grabbed my camera...

A little sunshine on a rainy day...

Oh, how I hate rainy days, especially when it's cold and windy too! These last few days were terrible. Yesterday, when I went to pick up Marlijn from the babysitters we were surprised by a hail storm.

Within a few seconds we were cold and wet and our hands and faces were hurting. I wanted to shelter but Marlijn started crying: "I want to go home, mommy", so I took her in my arms and ran home as fast as I could. Days like this make me wanna stay in my pyjamas for the whole day!
It's a good thing I still have so many lovely summer pictures and lots of bright and happy paper waiting to be scrapped. These pictures remind me of the lovely, warm and sunny summer vacation we had.


They make me go back in time a little and re-live the joy of being in beautiful France with my family!

For me, scrapping them is like a little sunshine on a rainy day...

Almost 38

In only 2 weeks it's my birthday and I turn 38. When I was making this LO I realized how time flies. My husband and I met as we were both 18, so we're together for more then half our lifes now. A lot of people say: "Oh, if I could only be 18 again..." Not me! I had a great time when I was 18, no doubt. But I would never ever want to leave the life I live right now! I have a great husband, 3 wonderful kids, great family and friends, a nice home and I very much enjoy scrapbooking, something I only discovered 2 years ago. So, to say it short: @ almost 38 I'm happy!

My dream....

Coming true a little...

I think the dream of every dutch submitting scrapbooker is to get published in an American magazine. I've been submitting for a while now with the result of 2 published LO's in the US so far. The first one is this LO called "A long way..." wich was published in the Memory Makers Idea Gallery 6 that came out this last october.

A long way....

The second one will be in the Cantata Books Sensational Seasonal Pages '05. Of course I was excited, it made me very happy. I danced around the room, screaming out loud when I got the calls and my DD Anne still makes fun of me. But to be honest... my biggest dream is to be published in Creating Keepsakes. For me, that is the best scrapbook magazine ever!

Yesterday I got my issue of the december CK but I didn't have time to read it, I had a workshop to give. In the evening I got a text message from Anita saying: "Your name is in CK, did you know?" I answerd: "Are you joking? Why?"

But she wasn't joking. When I got home I looked and there, on page 170, it was!

In Rachel Thomae's Readers Gallery it said:

I loved these pages too!

"Have I mentioned yet how much I love seeing your pages? I'd like to give a special shout-out to these 10 readers who also had pages that caught my eye this month!"

And there, in a line of ten names was mine.....

Wow!

O.k., it's not a publication, not a LO... but someone at CK noticed me. Maybe she will keep her eyes open for my LO's, maybe she has one in mind already for an upcoming issue, maybe....

One thing's for sure: My dream came true a little and I will keep on submitting to CK very much! And who knows, maybe one day...

Fun, fun, fun!

This is Anita, me and Corinne last weekend at
the scrap cruise. We had so much fun,
can you tell?

Three whole days of scrapping, laughing and
very little sleep!
We made tons of pictures of ourselves,
on most of them we were acting crazy!
When I have time I will upload some more and
tell a little more about the scrap cruise too!