"Everything in life is scrapable!"

2008-05-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

My blog has a new home!

I would like to welcome you on:

http://birgitkoopsen.typepad.com/

or just click HERE!

Back home!

2008-05-26T11:49:00.000-07:00

Just a short post to say hi!
I returned back home this morning at eleven. I wanted to be home at lunch time to see my kids, so I was nice on time! It was so good to hug the kids and my hubby again and to listen to their stories about the weekend! One of the nicest things of going away for a couple of days is coming home again!! :)
I had a wonderful weekend, had a lot of fun and it was so nice to meet all those new people and some people I met in previous years I was over there again.
I laughed a lot and talked a lot, thaught 3 workshops, did a day demonstrating and slept only a little (strange bed, a railway going almost through the room :)) so I was a little tired today... I fell asleep on the sofa this afternoon, Erik had to wake me up because it was time for me to pick up Marlijn from school. Looking forward to sleeping in my own perfect bed tonight :)

Birgit

2008-05-22T09:26:00.000-07:00

Another week has gone by and what have I been up too?

Well, first of all I had a quiet weekend.

Erik had a weekend away with the boys of his indoor soccer team. They left on friday after lunch for a few days filled with sailing, biking, tennis, eating, drinking and loads of fun!

We women decided we wanted some fun of our own and came together in the local pub for a drink and a chat on saturday evneing, which was nice!

On saturday morning I went to our old house for the very last time, to clean up. Last monday it was finally signed over to the new owners. Pffff... it was about time! It had been for sale for over 2 years and we had 2 houses for almost 2 years, so it was quite a relief when we walked out of the notaries office on monday morning.

Sunday afternoon we nail polished some long fingers, hehe! For the not dutch readers... we have cookies here that we call `long fingers` they are some kind of biscuits covered with sugar and very popular with little children.

We dipped them in chocolate glaze and then in chocolate sprinkles. Of course you can make them much more funky with colored glaze and sprinkles but since my kids are kind of allergic to colorants this makes a great alternative and they taste yummy too :)

Today I had an e-mail from Martine telling me that the Dutch magazine Scrap! has gone abroad.

It is now also available in German and in the stores of today.

My pimped bag with the pictures on it is in there.

Something else I've been doing is building a new home for my blog. It will be moving to typepad real soon!

It will look totaly different than this one and although it's not half way finished yet I already love how it's turning out! Fresh, clean, summery... I'll give you one hint..... orange :)

This last couple of days I've also been busy preparing, organising and packing for the coming weekend that I will be teaching and demonstrating in Belgium.

Really looking forward to that!

OK, I'm off to pack my suitcase.

I will be leaving tomorrow around 11 a.m. for a 5 hour drive. Want to be in Kortrijk on time to make sure everything for the first workshop tomorrow evening is ready...

I will tell you all about it next week :)

Have a great weekend!!

Birgit

Back to normal life...

2008-05-15T00:48:00.000-07:00

...for as long as it takes… Tuesday the kids went back to school after 2 weeks and 1 day vacation.
It were two lovely weeks filled with a lot of holidays (Queens day, May 4th, Liberation day (may 5th), Ascension day, my SIL’s birthday, Whitsun and Mothers day). We had our traditional Family May vacation week with my in laws. We started going away with the whole family once a year in 1987.
My parents in law, their 5 children, the boyfriend of their daughter (who is now my BIL) and their sons girlfriend (Me :)). One week in one house with 9 people was fun already, sometimes friends of the children came along and we always had a good time. By now we are 20 (9 grandchildren) and that number might even get a little bigger in the next couple of years :)
This year we went to Kalenberg in the Weerribben. A beautiful little village in the middle of a gorgeous environment. With a lot of water, canals, little lakes… just wonderful. The weather was amazing and because it’s so early in the year there were no mosquitoes at all. We brought 3 little boats and spend a lot of our time on the water. It was just great! I took over a thousand pictures and I just can’t make a selection of which ones to show so I’ll keep it to just this one of the 9 grandchildren together:

On Sunday (mothers day) the kids brought me breakfast in bed, Marlijn sang me a sweet little song which we video taped. I would love to share it but I haven’t found out how to get it up on the blog yet :(
In the afternoon we went to the camping place where my parents are and surprised my mom who didn’t know that we were coming. We brought dinner and had a lovely afternoon!

On Monday I did a demonstration at Kars with the new Prima products Kars is stocking in the next couple of months. Mmmmm, yummy, yummy!!! Clear books, clear paintables, overlays, felt ribbon, felt matties, crystals (oh, just LOVE those cute little angel wings!!!), embossed cardstock and mini albums, gorgeous paper, flowers and much, much more!!!

Now vacation is over… but…. Only 6 more weeks ‘till summer vacation, yay!!!

Anyway… I started scrapping again yesterday.... and now blogging…. And I logged in to my bloglines this morning to find out that you girls made 931 new entries that I missed…. Ohmygosh… 931! Where do I start????
I don’t even dare login to SIS-tv…. I’m afraid the list of new LO’s won’t fit on my computer, hehe!!
So I guess I’ll just have to start with the first and see where it ends, huh?

I’ll leave you with this LO I made of Marlijn. Most times she doesn’t care that I constantly take her picture, a lot of times she even poses for me. But every once in a while it’s just enough for her and no matter what I say to her she refuses to smile JThis one was published in the November issue of Scrapbook Inspirations.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope to see you soon on YOUR blog, hehe!!
Birgit

2008-04-27T01:45:00.001-07:00

Today some sneak peeks of the workshops I'll be teaching in Kortrijk and Destelbergen, Belgium on may 23-25:

The first one is of the evening class on friday and saturday, the other 2 are from the day workshop on saturday. I will be doing demonstrations on sunday:

A LO with some cool techniques based on a sketch

A Memory board to hang on the wall including a mini-album with lots of foto's.

On may 12th I will be demonstrating at Kars. There will be a preview with the new products Kars will be stocking and I'll be demonstrating the new Prima! Yay! :)

Such gorgeous stuff! Here's a little sneak peek:

And this is the awesome RAK you can win with the journaling challenge on The Buzz Blog!

Enjoy your sunday!

Birgit

Regarding Buzz Bookings!!!

2008-04-25T11:13:00.000-07:00

Het schijnt dat we een klein probleempje hebben met ons online boekingssysteem. Heb je je aangemeld voor één van onze aankomende workshops, wil je ons dan alsjeblieft een e-mail sturen om de aanmelding te bevestigen en hierbij ook doorgeven met hoeveel personen je van plan bent te komen?! info@thecreativebuzz.net

Onze excuses voor het ongemak maar we willen jullie graag verzekeren van een plaats bij de workshop van je keuze!

We are having some small problems with our online booking system. If you have booked a place on one of our upcoming workshops, could you please send us an email at info@thecreativebuzz.net confirming the workshop you booked and number of people.Sorry for any inconvenience this causes but we would like to assure you that you will get a place on any workshops you have booked.

Let op: Je kunt je nog tot 30 april aanmelden voor de workshop van 17 mei a.s.
Note: you can only sign up for the may 17th workshop until April 30.

Spring in Holland!

2008-04-23T10:11:00.000-07:00

Today was such a lovely day, I just had to go out and make some pictures! Seems like spring is finally here! :) and I love it!!!

Both Petra and Aline gave me the Arte Y Pico award which made me feel very honored and happy!! Thanks so much girls, you totally made my day (even though it's a little while agao already, blogging obviously isn't on my priority list right now... but will be again... some day... soon :D)

I have to pass this on to five other bloggers that, I think, deserve this award for their creativity, design or what else and no matter what their language is.

- Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to her/his blog to be visited by everyone.
- Each award winner has to show the image of the award and put the name and blog link of the person that has given you the award.
- Award winner and the person that has given the award have to show the link of Arte Y Pico blog for everyone to know the origin of this award.

- Last but not least show these rules.

I had a very hard time choosing only 5 but I'm passing it on to these 5 girls who always inspire me in one or another way:

Fauve, Frédérique, Mandy, Sanderijn, and Susan!

That's it for now! Try to be a better girl regarding blogging :).... but I can't promiss...

So if I haven't left any messages on your blog lately, it's nothing personal! Really!!!

Birgit

2008-04-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

There's a new challenge up on The Buzz Blog. Get inspired and have the chance of winning a great prize package! Click here!

2008-04-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

Boek nu! / Book now!

2 workshops in 1 day! The hottest scrapbooking products at the moment are chipboard and transparencies. Join us in creating a mini book and a collection of embellishments that incorperate both these elements.

2 workshops op 1 dag!De populairste scrapbookmaterialen op het moment zijn chipboard en transparanten. Tijdens deze workshop maken we een minialbum en een collectie embellishments waarin deze beide worden verenigd.

Price / Prijs : 67.50 euros

Location / Plaats : Winsum

Lunch & Drinks included / Inclusief Lunch & Drankjes

e-mail: info@thecreativebuzz.net

2008-04-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

It's tuesday again already.. more then a week has gone by without blogging, pffff...
We spend the weeked in Wijchen to celebrate my MIL's birthday and had a lovely time.

On friday I went over to Heesch to discuss some projects for CmF's August issue. Gosh... August, that's the middle of summer! Right now it's only 4*C and raining here :(
Soooo looking forward to summer!!

Lennart got sick this weekend and is still not going to school. Coughing, a fever and a sore throat.. poor guy, hope he feels better soon!

Nothing to show right now :(
...But please check out The Buzz Blog!
We have big plans for this blog...and that includes free (yes free!!!) mini workshops!
The first one is up! And we'll be starting a new challenge this week with a chance of winning a great prize package, so don't miss it! :)

Enjoy your day!
Birgit

It makes me happy to create

2008-04-07T02:31:00.000-07:00

LOVED the "messy" scrapping I did on saturday so I had another play with paint yesterday!
Tried that cool technique Nat showed on her blog a couple of days ago. She is such an inspiration with all her cool, fun techniques!!! If you don't know her (hmmm, don't think that's possible, everybody knows Nat!) but if you don't, you really should check her out! :)
So I mixed a few colors of acrylic paint on a piece of transparant film, put a piece of cardstock on top of it and rubbed it. Tried it a few times and when I was done I had some pieces of cardstock wit a fun print but I also had this piece of plastic with the left paint. And that one I liked most of all! Si I decided to cut it out and just staple it on my cardstock to use as a background.
And again no patterned paper, just some Hambly.

Text around the circle sais: Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes and having fun - Mary Lou Cook.

Text on the picture (yes, a little bit of Hybrid scrapping too, LOL) sais: There is only 3 colors, 10 digits and 7 notes; it's what we do with them that's important - Jim Rohn

It's monday... a week full of possibilities to create lies ahead! Have a great one!!

Birgit

Out of my comfort zone...

2008-04-05T12:38:00.000-07:00

I stepped totally out of my comfort zone today… twice! And girls, did I have fun!!
This morning I felt like just playing around a little with some paint and bubble wrap (yep, the big pink circles are made with mega bubble wrap), stamps, painting tape and rubons.
I challenged myself to make a LO without using ANY patterned paper, which I can’t remember to have ever done before. That was one!
My pictures are always my starting point. A LO is build around the pictures and starts with choosing the right paper with the picture(s) I want to scrap.
Today I started a LO without having any idea of which picture I was going to use. That was two!
I thought I’d just start playing and see where the process brings me… maybe the whole painting and taping thing wasn’t going to work out at all anyway.
But while I was at it I loved what was happening on my paper more and more and when I was almost ready with my background I knew exactly which picture had to go with it.
This is one of many, many pictures my DD Anne and her girlfriends take whenever they have the chance. They use a little camera or just their cell phone and post them on hyves and messenger.
The rather bad quality of the pictures, the angle and the way the girls photoshop them in black and white often give them an artsy feel which I totally love!
I thought this picture was made for this background or vice versa!
Anne loves this LO (and that’s quite rare, especially since she’s in there :) and so do I! Hehe… feel a little bit like an artist… and feel a lot like trying more of this tomorrow!

A little bit of (dutch) journaling is on a tag underneath the picture and sais so much as:
How delightful it is to be a teenager!
To not worry about time or about who might be waiting for you…
To just go to the H&M on a busy Saturday afternoon and hold a dressing room for an hour to take pictures of yourself and each other…
Anne and Rosanne, January 2008

Enjoy your Sunday!
Birgit
P.s. the idea of using the tape “folded” like this was inspired by a LO Heidi made.

2008-04-03T01:44:00.000-07:00

Just want to share some LO's today...

The first one is about my son Lennart (right) and his 2 best friends.

It was about time I made a LO about him again. Except for the 7 I did over Easter weekend (which I can't show yet...) I haven't done any boys pages in ages!

I don't know what it is but girls pages seem so much easier. I guess I miss the flowers when doing boys pages or maybe I just don't see the fun boy embellishements while shopping because I'm to focussed on the ribbon, flowers and pink girly colors...

Anyway, I had fun creating this page and I'm really pleased with the result! Promissed myself to do more male LO's!

The second LO I made a couple of months ago, just before I turned 40. Journaling sais "I'm almost 40 and live has never been better!" and I still feel that way!! :) It was my first attempt on Prima paintables (love them!) and published in CmF.

Photo taken by Anita Mundt

That's it for now!

Have a great day!!

Birgit

2008-03-30T08:39:00.000-07:00

I bought Marlijn a new t-shirt yesterday and she loves it so no question what she wanted to wear today :) Normally, when she's wearing something new, she's quite happy to have her picture taken so I had to take advantage of that! She agreed on a little photoshoot and I took about 80 pictures in 10 minutes. Here are some of my favs... you see that last one? She's hard to resist when she says "please, mommy...." with a face like that :)

The new issue of Creatief met Foto's will be out any day now so I thought I could share some of my LO's that were in the february issue:

Isn't it funny how history repeats it self, especially in clothing... When I was 16-17 I wore skinny jeans and my mom told me that she did too when she was my age. No my DD is wearing only skinny jeans, nothing else will do! and 20 years ago I had a scarf just like the one Anne is wearing in the picture. Feels like going back in time!

For my 13 year old daugther brands are quite important. So she "needs" to wear Björn Borg underwear and it needs to show... :)

Don't forget to check The Buzz blog tomorrow since the first prompt for the 7 in 7 photo challenge will be up, together with our takes on it! Please show us what you come up with! Have fun!

Birgit

2008-03-25T02:32:00.000-07:00

I hope you all had a great Easter weekend! I had a very nice and quiet one. We stayed home the whole weekend which is quite exceptional for us and I loved it. We hoped for snow but no luck again this time. It was wet and cold! Yesterday was the best day and we went out for a drive to see little lambs but we didn't find any.

Guess it looked nicer than it was. It was just to cold and the farmers kept them all inside.

I had a VERY creative weekend. Don't know what happend to me. I took my scrap supplies down and sat at the kitchen table. On saturday, between doing the laundry, preparing lunch, refurnishing Anne's room, having dinner, watching tv adn having my family around, I finished 4! (four!) LO's!!!! I have never ever before finished 4 LO's in one day! Normally I'm quite happy if I finish 1 and 2 is already very rare.... but 4!
I don't know... I had the inspiration, a great assignement and the most gorgeous supplies to work with... and it just all came together. The rest of the weekend I finished 3 more LO's so 7 in total in 3 days!!
I have to say, I'm quite pleased :)
So, to give you an idea of this awesome fun article I'll show you some sneaks:

Curious to see more? Sorry! You'll have to be patient and make sure you don't miss CMF's june issue :)

And last but not least... check out The Buzz blog to see who the winner of the Easter challege is and find inspiration in a new fun challenge!!!

Have a great week!!
Birgit

2008-03-20T07:51:00.000-07:00

I promissed pictures of the bag I made for Scrap! so here they are:

The bag was a birthday present I got from my friend Anita. She had it printed at HEMA and I pimped it with felt, flowers and buttons. Fun huh?!

And here are some more sneak peeks from the article I'm doing for the june issue of CmF. Don't they look yummy? Mmmmm, such fun materials to work with! I know you're all very curious who makes those cute little owls.... I'm not gonna tell you... yet :) Be patient!

A little while ago I received the "You make my day"-award from Mariska and I passed it on to Willis (Anita). Now I found out I had to pass it on 4 times to different bloggers. And I want to do it right so I need give it to 3 more people. It was not easy making a choice. As you can see on the right side of this blog there are a lot of bloggers that make my day every now and then.
But I made my choice:
I'm giving it to Sasha, because her crazy, sweet and enthousiastic comments on everything I post on SIStv always make my day!
I'm also giving it to Christiane. I love her bright, fun and funky LO's and besides that she just a sweetie! :)
Finally I'm giving it to Alice. She's rather new to scrapbooking and coming almost every week to crop with me! I love her enthousiasm to learn everything about scrapbooking and how she tries to find her own style. She started a blog not so long ago so check her out and make her day by leaving a comment! :)
This one is for you girls!!:

And I give it to anybody who leaves a comment here on my blog every now and then!
You all make my day! Thanks :)

Birgit

2008-03-18T05:38:00.000-07:00

So, it's tuesday again already! And what have we been doing the last couple of days? I don't know... I've been busy, but if I look back it seems like I've not been doing that much.
Well that's not true. I've been working on a totally fun project for the june issue of CmF all saturday and part of yesterday. It's finished now and I'm soooo happy with how it turned out! Totally cute!

Here's just a little sneak peek:

Saturday Marlijn went to a crafting afternoon in church where she and about 80 other children decorated Palm Sunday Crosses. She had a lot of fun and brought home a wonderful cross.

On Sunday we went to Wijchen to celebrate my nephews first birthday. Unbelievable that he is 1 already!

Yesterday afternoon Marlijn and I spend almost 3 hours in hospital. Marlijn has a navel rupture since she was born and now the time has come to operate, close the hole in her abdominal wall and give her a "normal" navel.
So, we had a consult with the surgeon, the anesthesiologist and a nurse who showed Marlijn with pictures how the day will look when she comes in for day treatment. It's only a minor procedure and we can take her home after 2-3 hours, but still...
Anyway I think we actually talked to people about 15 minutes in total. The rest of the time we spend waiting! Ahrggg, hospitals!!
And now we have to wait 'till we get a call when we have to come!

Oh, before I forget... Have you seen the awesome goodie box you can win if you participate in the Buzz Blog Easter Challenge? If not and if you want to know what's in there and how to make a chance of winning it, click here, or on the Buzz Blog button on the right side!

BTW: Did you see the new Scrap! ? I've got a fun pimped handbag in there, will show pictures later!

Birgit

For Nancy... you asked what programm I use for making the mosaïcs! It's www.bighugelabs.com/flickr/, go to Moasaïc Maker. Have fun! It's free!

Check us out!

2008-03-12T13:25:00.000-07:00

The Buzz has a new blog!!!! it will be jammed pack full of inspiration, challenges and information! Check it out by clicking on the logo below...

And there is even a chance to win a RAK for the first post!!! A new workshop agenda is also up, so if you feel like a little creativity, check it out and sign up!! The photography workshop is our first one and there are a few places left. If you have bought a new digital slr camera and have no idea how to take it out of automatic mode...this is the course for you!!!!

A nice and quiet weekend

2008-03-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning Erik, Marlijn and me went to see Lennart play soccer.

Viboa D2 (Lennart's team) against GVAV D5. Lennart scored a great goal, but although Viboa was ahead the first half of the game it ended 3-3. Well at least they didn't loose :)

After the game I did some groceries and the laundry and after lunch I took Marlijn to the drugstore to get her some nailpolish. She really wanted me to polish her nails since she saw Anne doing her's last week. I didn't really like to use Anne's red color for Marlijn though, so we went out and bought some nice pink and as you can see Marlijn is very happy with the result :)

In the afternoon we read some books and played some games.

Anne went shopping with a girlfriend in Groningen and came home with a new summer jacket. I'm giving her a clothing allowance since last month and she's quite excited about it. I'm very curious to see how she's gonna handle it!

In the evening she went away again for a sleep over party at a friends house.

When I was reading all my fav blogs last night I came along Mariska's and found out she gave me the "You make my day award". Which, of course, made my day :) Thanks so much Mariska, that's so sweet of you!

So, now I'm passing it on to Anita, well actually to Willis, Anita's adorable dog who made me laugh out loud today when I saw his picture (which was of course taken by his lady boss :)).

This morning Erik and Lennart left for the HISWA in Amsterdam. It's a big boat show where you can see everyhting that's new regarding boats. They took one of Lennarts friends along. Erik just mailed me this picture with his cell phone and I'm sure they're having a wonderful day! I don't expect them home until 8.

Anne wasn't going to get home until noon today so Marlijn and I went up to my scraproom to be a little creative.

Marlijn decorated some eggs for Easter, colored some pictures and played a few educative games on the computer while I was making some cards. She loves to "work" with me in my scraproom and I really enjoy having her around too! She's very creative and loves using my scrap supplies, my markers and paint.

When Anne came home she wasn't really feeling very well. She was very tired and feeling sick. She said she didn't eat anything of the candy, chips and cake at the party because she was feeling sick already last night. She went to bed shortly after she got home. I hope she's not getting ill!

Marlijn and I spend the afternoon doing nothing... playing, reading, watching t.v.

While I was making the mosaïcs on my laptop Marlijn read me a story (yep, she's learned herself to read in the last 2 month, it's amazing! In stead of me reading Jip & Janneke to her in the evening when she goes to bed it's the other way around and she is reading it to me!)

Now dinner is in the oven (pizza, we're taking it easy :)) and Marlijn is watching Dora.

Outside it's cold and rainy but in here it's cozy and warm.

I love lazy sunday afternoons like this and I feel like we don't have them enough....

So I will remember this one... probably even scrap it :)

Hope you had a wonderful weekend too!!

Birgit

2008-03-07T02:50:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Marlijn brought a girlfriend home from school to play. Their favorite thing to do lately is to dress up like princesses. Marlijn has several princess dresses, she's always loved to dress up. She's a real girly girl for that matter :) and once she has her dress on it stays on for the rest of the day so I've been out doing the groceries with a princess by my side more than once :)
There are always people telling her how beautiful she looks and than her whole face starts to shine and her eyes sparkle and I love that!!
It's pretty clear that she loves the attention, I bet she's going to be an actrice when she grows up!

Marlijn and her girlfriend Lieke.

Finished another LO yesterday.
I found some baby pictures of Marlijn from 4,5 years ago. She was only 9 month then. Since I wasn't scrapbooking yet back then I'd never used them. So I wanted to make a baby page but I wanted it to be funky. No pale and soft pink for my girl, she's got way to much attitude for that LOL!
So this is what I came up with and I'm quit pleased with the result:

The weekend of May 23-25 I will be teaching workshops at Tiny's Hobby in Kortrijk, Belgium.
Two evening workshops on friday and saturday and a day workshop on saterday. Also I will be demonstrating in the store on sunday.
The next couple of days I will be working on the workshop examples and I will show some sneak peeks as soon as I'm ready. For more information, prices and details you can visit/contact Tiny's Hobby here.

Hey, it's weekend!
Have a great one!!
Birgit

2008-03-05T10:53:00.000-08:00

So... I lost my mojo... at least I think that's what happened last week!
I didn't scrap AT ALL for a whole week. Didn't feel like scrapping, didn't have any inspiration, sat down one evening for half an hour looking at the papers and went downstairs to watch television.
Stupid huh? Now I finally had one week without any deadlines, to do whatever I want, and I do nothing!
Anyway, yesterday evening I suddenly felt the need to scrap and so I did :)
Finished a whole LO! and another one this morning! YAY! It's back :)

So here they are:
Daddy can I have your aj-pod? :

Journaling sais: It's no fun being sick and after a few days on the couch there's no fun in watching tv anymore. Luckely daddy just has a new i-pod with a lot of songs and picutres on it. And before you know it another hour has gone by... I wrote i-pod the way Marlijn pronounces it :) The "flowers" where totally inspired by the marvelous Jen Jockish, just gotta love her gorgeous work!

The old beech tree:

My sister lives on a farm where she has a very big garden with a giant beech tree in it! Can you imagine how fun it is to climb that tree? In the picutre my DS and youngest DD with their cousins Tim and Daan.

And now I'm off to do a little more scrapping, haha!
TFL!

Birgit

2008-02-27T05:10:00.000-08:00

I know... I've been a bad, bad blogger! More than a week since my last post! So it's about time to update a little. Lat weekend I've been demonstrating at the KKD at Kars in Ochten. I had a wonderful time! I was asked to demonstrate with Prima products... well, haha, of course I said YES! I just love their products!

It were 2 days of fun, laughter and a lot of talking. I was sitting between my friends Bonnette on my right and Corinne on my left and in front of Tim Holtz. Not that I saw a lot of him though... There was a constant crowd of women around his table and the fist glimps I got from him was around 3 p.m. on sunday, hehe! But hey, who can you blame. The man makes great stuff so I can imagine everybody wants to have a look at his demo.

Met a lot of people I know, people I only knew from their blogs so far like Nili (so fun to meet her!) and new people!! I had a nice dinner with Corinne and Tanya on sunday evneing and a meeting with Kirsten from CmF on monday evening. So it was a busy but good weekend!!

Here's one of the projects I made for the demonstration. The frame was painted white when I bought it. I covered it with Prima paper, then stamped around the edges and added the flowers. Everything is Prima except for the text-plate (Deja-Views) and the diamonds (Make Me).

Used real screws to attache the little plate.

I returned home yesterday and I was hardly in or the postman came with a box from the US! It was my price for winning OLW! Gina from Sweet Spuds send me an awesome kit with paper, chipboard, letters and lots of fun little goodies! Can't wait to start creating with that!

Oh, and I have a fun little story I want to share :)

The sunday before last my parents in law visited us and they took the 3 children from my sister in law along since they were babysitting them. The next day Marlijn (who is 5! years old) spend lunch at my mom's house because Erik and I had to go to the funeral. She told my mom about her other grandparents and cousins visit the day before. They had the following little conversation:

Marlijn: Grandma Marry and grandpa Reijer came to visit us yesterday and they brought Jorik and Nienke with them because aunt Hellen and uncle Koen went away for the weekend...

My mom: Oh, how fun! and Stijn? did they bring Stijn along too?

Marlijn (quit annoyed): Well, yes... of course they brought Stijn!! The boy is only 4 years old! You can't leave a child like that home alone, can you!!??

Haha, she's a little smarty-pants and she crackes me up!!

I have to scrap that! Not sure yet how I'm going to do that, but I will!

That's it for now!

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Thanks for stopping by!

Birgit

2008-02-18T05:01:00.000-08:00

This morning we had a funeral. The sister of a very dear friend past away last week. She was only 43 years old and has two girls the same age our oldest children are.
It was such a sad but beautiful service. And once again I realize how blessed I am en how grateful I should be. For being healthy and no of my dear once having a life threatening diseas.
I know things can change by the blink of an eye so we have to treasure, cherish and enjoy every moment that everything is good.... and I wil!

2008-02-11T21:58:00.000-08:00

I WON!!! I can't believe it! I actually won the One Little Word Challenge!! I saw so many amazing, gorgeous entries but they picked mine Wow, I feel really honored!! :)

Hehee, isn't it amazing what you can find on Marktplaats (dutch version of E-bay)? A couple of weeks ago Erik came along this advertisement of someone who had booked a weekend at Centerparcs (vacation parc) but couldn't go due to circumstances. She offered the house for a really nice price and we decided to take it even though we didn't plan to go on a break so shortly after x-mas vacation. So last weekend we went. We had a house with 6 beds so we let Anne take a friend. On saturday my parents came over for the day and they brought along one of Lennart's friends, which was a big surprise for him! So even though it was only a weekend we had a great time and a lot of fun! It made up a little for me being sick the whole x-mas vacation. (BTW, you don't see me in the pictures but I was really there... behind the camera... of course!)

And here are a few projects I made for Scap-Art-Zine:

A LO for an article about Prima for which I had the honor of interviewing the awesome Sharon Laakkonen and 2 wine bottle tins for an article about gift wrapping:

And some sneak peeks:

Thanks for popping by!

Have a nice day!

Birgit

2008-02-03T10:59:00.000-08:00

Sunday evening, 8 p.m., weekend is almost over. I't was a nice one! It started friday evening when we went out for dinner. Every year in october there is a run in Groningen called the 4 miles of Groningen. Erik has a team running for his company and the team invited us for dinner to thank us for organising this every year! We had a lovely, fun evening with delicious food.

Saturday morning we left to Wijchen to my parents in law. In the afternoon I drove down to CmF in Heesch to bring over some stuff for the next issue. I made some fun projects I'm very satisfied with myself :)

Of course I spend some time in the shop and bought some gorgeous ribbon, paper and a MM Noteworthy album. Then I went back to Wijchen to meet my family for some shopping and a few drinks in a nice bistro. We decided to have dinner at the best Chinese restaurant of the Netherlands (Asia in Wijchen) and had a wonderful meal. Guess we will still smell like living garlic tomorrow, but who cares :)

Today, after a late breakfast we went to my SIL and BIL to celebrate my SIL's birthday.

We were home around 5 p.m. Erik made dinner (Shoarma, mmmm) and now the boys are watching tv, soccer, of course..., Marlijn is in bed, Anne is studying in her room for a biology test tomorrow, so a good time for me to update my blog :)

Marlijn loves to play with her little cousin Tijn!

And here are the Christmas/winter project I made for CMF 29:

TFL!

Have a great week!

Birgit :)

2008-01-31T11:20:00.000-08:00

OK, promissed you a step by step of my LO in progress, so here it is:

This is where I started:

Then I created a journaling spot by painting a cake "thingy" (sorry, no idea what they are called) brown and stamped a journaling cirkel on it:

I decided that the background was to "dull" and changed it for corded cardboard:

Added some buttons to the flowers:

Wrote my journaling on the journaling spot using a white pen and thought it would be nice to ad a little strip of paper on the left site of the picture and use a stamp on the upper left corner.

Was a little nervous about that because I was afraid the stamp would work out differently on the paper and the picutere. But then I thought, well... the worst thing that can happen is that I will have to print out my picture again, so I just tried and liked the result:

Added thread to the flowers and buttons and adhered them on the LO using glue dots (they are the best for adhering flowers and buttons!!!):

Decided which letters to use for my title and painted them white:

Finally I distressed the edges of the cardboard:

And this is the final result:

BTW The title "een nieuw petje" means "a new hat"

Don't you just love these Prima supplies??? I do!!

Yesterday evenig at my crop I made this LO for OLW. Actually it was not done when the crop was but I was not tired at all and my head was still full of scrapbooking so I kept scrapping untill the LO was finished, which was at 0.45 a.m. ....and then I still couldn't sleep. But hey, my LO was done! :)

The word this week is Create: To cause to exist; bring into being; To give rise to; produce; To invest with an office or title; To produce through artistic or imaginative effort.

The title of my LO is: "Your smile creates love in my heart"

Wish I had the time to play along every time! Love these challenges!

Thanks again for stopping by, hope you enjoyed the step by step!

It's almost weekend, have a nice one!!

Birgit

2008-01-29T04:23:00.000-08:00

I got my issue of Creatief met Foto's February today, which means that I can show some of the things I made for the December issue.

Thought I'd start with some LO's I made for an article about my DD's Idol Maud.

Used the KI Memories Pop Culture line here.

And a little sneaky of one of this months articles. Don't miss it! :)

Right now I'm working on this LO below. Looking at it a moment ago I thought it might be fun showing you my process of creating a LO. So I will make more pictures of this LO in progress and show them later this week. Could be it turnes out totally different than you or I expect right now, haha, but that's part of the fun, right?!

So, if you're curious to see the result make sure to check in later!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Birgit

2008-01-25T13:25:00.000-08:00

Visually Inspired was the title of one of Ali Edwards blog entries a little while ago. "A happy little collection of images that are inspiring me right now." she said. I thought that was fun and decided to make an inspiring collage like that for myself. Thought I'd share it with you, who knows maybe you get inspired by it too!

In a comment on my last post Veerle asked what paper I used in the last sneak peek. Actually it is not paper but a Prima journaling square. They are called super-fabulous journaling squares and are sold in a little box of a 100 squares in 10 different gorgeous designs. Also available is the super-fabulous journaling notebook. Same designs but a little bigger and on cardstock in stead of paper. Fun, fun, fun!!

Joke asked if the Knallende Karsdagen are open for public but unfortunately they are only for retailers . So Joke, unless you know a nice store owner who's willing to take you, I'm afraid you can't come...

Yesterday I had an advertisement e-mail from Scrapbook Trends Magazine introducing the Embellish 2008 book (in which are 3 of my LO's) and a picture of the cover of the februari issue with my Valentine LO on the cover :) :) :) I think it looks great! Can't wait to get my copies and see them in real!!

Thanks for letting me toot! ;)

BTW I was tagged by Dusti to tell 7 random things about myself.... it's not easy coming up with 7 things about me that are interesting enough to share so I thought I'd ask you what you want to know about me :) Just leave a comment and I'l try to answer one of these days :)

Wish you all a wonderful week!!
Birgit

2008-01-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

The pain in my chest has gone, I've got a new camera and gorgeous supplies to work with for some assignments so things are good again!!!
Wednesday my new 400D arrived and I'm very pleased with it. Have been playing around a little and found some nice options my 300D didn't have.
Wish I could have gone out a little to make some pictures but the weather has been really bad. Hopefully it will be better this weekend!!

I will be demonstrating at the Knallende Kars Dagen end of february and the manufacturer they've asked me to work with is Prima. How cool is that?? I sooo love the Prima products and you won't believe all the gorgeous supplies Kars have send me! I feel like a child in a candy store and can't hardly choose which products to start with. I have all the patterend paper, loads of flowers in all sizes and colors, paintables, notebooks, ribbon and more... I already made 3 LO's and an altered object and my head is still full of inspiration. Can't show anything yet but I can share some sneak peeks (thanks to my new camera :)

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
I know what I'll be doing ;)
Birgit

2008-01-22T04:41:00.000-08:00

Still no camera, still no pictures back. Looks like my harddisk is gone forever.

I'm considering buying the Canon 400D in stead of sending my 300D out for reparation...Reparement will cost about 150 euro's. My camera is 3 years old and I made almost 20.000 pictures so a new, little more advanced camera might be a better option.... What would you do?

(****edited***** Yay!! just ordered my new 400D and it's arriving tomorrow :))

Arrgghh, and as if this is not enough for a bad start of the year I had to go to the doctor last week because of really heavy pain in my right chest, which made even my arm, back and shoulder hurt with every breath I took. It was really painful and a bit scary too! Found out I'm having Tiezes Syndrome. I had never heard of it. This is what I found about it on the internet:

Your ribs attach to a large bone in the center of your chest in the front. To help you breathe in, your muscles raise your rib cage and to help you breathe out, they relax and let your ribs drop. Therefore, your ribs form a movable joint where they attach to your chest bone. It is common for people to get arthritis (or in my case an infection) in these joints which hurts particularly when they breathe. Tietze's syndrome usually goes away in a few weeks or months with no treatment. However, you can block the pain with arthritis medication or take a xylocaine injection into the painful joints.

So I got painkillers and hope it will only take a few weeks in stead of months!!

The last couple of days I've been working on an assignment for Creatief met foto's.

Alice was so kind to let me use her camera so I could make some sneak peeks!

That's it for now, thanks for stopping by!

Have a nice week!

Birgit

2008-01-16T12:46:00.000-08:00

Aaarrgggg!!! The year is not starting really well for me. First my camera broke down, now my external hard disk crashed.... with all my photographs from before 2007 on it. The computer store called yesterday that they don't think they can get things back..... pfffff, can you imagine how I feel??? Please keep your fingers crossed that they find a way after all!!

So... not much to show right now except this LO I made for the latest issue of Scrap!
It was for an article about candy inspiration and I made the picture of the gum balls to use as my inspiration. The Picture of Marlijn with her Knuffel was taken by Anita Mundt.

TFL!
Birgit

2008-01-11T00:57:00.000-08:00

'The Buzz' is now taking bookings for our fabulous scrapbooking weekend in March, details can be found here in English and here in Dutch.
After several requests we have also decided to run a one day 'Get to Know Your Digital SLR Camera' workshop in April. The numbers on this course will be limited to ensure a small group where everyone will get the personal attention needed. So, if you really want to come you need to book fast! Click for details here in English and here in Dutch.

2008-01-07T11:26:00.000-08:00

I hope you all had a good go into the new year! Mine was not the way I planned or hoped it would be! I was sick, spend 5 of the 7 vacation days in bed (yep, also new years eve)! The last two days I refused to spend in bed, wanted to see at least SOMETHING of Zeeland, but looking back it would have been wiser if I just stayed under the blankets because I had a fever until last wednesday! Pffff, I can't remember when I last felt so misserable. But it's going better now, looking forward to start scrapping again!! Haven't done anything in the last 2 weeks!

Unfortunatly my camera really died, have to send it away for reparement. My BIL gave me his camera to take on vacation so the one afternoon I actually got to go to the beach I could at least take some pictures. This one is my favourite of Anne wearing her new cap which I think really suites her!

I've been playing around with it a little and would love to hear which one you like best!

The first one is the original.

Anne took this picture of Erik and me. We are on the Beach, listening to "Hier aan de kust" van Blof on Erik's I-pod.

Can you tell it was cold? :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Birgit

2007-12-29T12:12:00.000-08:00

I'm on vacation.... and I'm in bed sick! :(

When I woke up yesterday morning I felt horrible, My head felt like it was going to explode, my jaws hurt including all my teeth and my throath felt like sandpaper. Yet we had to pack the car and drive to Zeeland for our holliday.... during the ride it got worse and worse and I was glad when I could get into my bed when we arrived. I was in bed all day today and really hope to feel a little better tomorrow!

Anyway, this is what we've been up to in the last couple of days:

- we celebrated Christmas Eve at my sisters house with my family, she made a delicious italian buffet and there where presents for everybody under the Christmas tree. Unfortunatly my camera died and Marlijn was sick (yep, just like last year) but thanks to some medication she also had a wonderful Christmas Eve after all.

- on Christmas morning I finally could open the gifts my Secret Santa send me and I loved all of it. Gorgeous 12x12 velt with white dots (Creative Café), buttons, brads, pins and a lot of felt and chipboard shapes. Thanks so much Charlotte!!

- Christmas day we spend at my BIL and SIL, Marlijn was still not feeling well, we had a nice quiet day with Erik's family.

-On Boxing day Erik and I went to Amsterdam while the kids stayed with their grandparents in Wijchen.

We had a great time together, had lunch at the Three Sisters (Rembrandtplein) walked through Amsterdam, sat in the lounge of the hotel with a drink and a magazine, (wanted to see a movie in the Tuschinsky theater but all movies were sold out :( ), had a wonderful Christmas diner in De Port van Cleve, went shopping in the Kalverstraat and the Bijenkorf, (so fun to discover Marlijns face between the magazines at the Bijenkorf!) had lunch at De Beiaard (Het Spui) and returned to Wijchen on Thursday evening. Fun, fun, fun!!!

Because my camera broke down (I'm afraid it's really bad and can't be repared.. :( ) I had to use hubbies little camera in Amsterdam but at least we have some pictures so here a collage:

I'll leave you with some pictures of the handmade item I made for my Secret Santa Sister, so Andrea if you read this... now you finally know who your Secret Santa is :)

Thanks for stopping by!
Have a great weekend! Hope to update about our vacation soon (borrowed my BILS camera, luckely he could do without it for a week, unlike me!!) so I hope to make some nice pictures in beautiful Zeeland as soon as I feel better!!
Birgit

Give away time!

2007-12-21T09:12:00.000-08:00

I had such a fun journey along all your blogs seeing all your gorgeous ornaments and reading the fun and touching stories behind them!!

To choose a winner I used a Randomizer (http://www.random.org/ (list randomizer). Typed in the names of everybody who particpated and let the computer choose a name....

...and the winner is Brigitta!!!

Congratulations Brigitta!! The mini snow flake album kit is coming your way!!

Thanks all of you for sharing!

I'll leave you with some pictures of my own Christmas ornaments.

The story?

Well, I decided to have just a tree this year. Since we're leaving home on Christmas Eve and won't be back untill januari 4 I thought it was not worth all the trouble decorating the whole house. But.... I saw these gorgeous plates with random ornaments on Ingrids blog and got totally inspired to get out a little more decorations (and buy some new :)). Quick, easy but with a great effect. Got really into the Christmas mood! So thanks Ingrid for sharing!

My sister gave me a huge lantern for my birthday and in stead of putting just one candle in I filled it with different ornaments and candles and it looks soooo nice especially when it's dark and everything is shining in the candle light behind the glass doors!

Wishing you all lovely weekend and a very merry, warm and joyful Christmas, hopefully together with all your loved ones!!!

Birgit

2007-12-17T12:32:00.000-08:00

For those of you who missed it, here's the information about The Buzz' upcoming workshop weekend on March, 7-8-9, 2008 in Wehe-den Hoorn (Groningen).

The teachers:

Christiane Müller

My name is Christiane. I live with my husband Jörg and our two boys ( Hauke /13 and Mattes/10) in Northern Germany near the Danish border!! At the moment I'm a SAHM.I spend half of my life doing all sorts of crafts. In 2003 I started scrapbooking as a CM-Consultant, but was not satisfied with this. After some research I found several links on the Internet that opened me up for other scrapbooking styles. A year later I learned even more about scrapbooking during my vacation in the USA and I was hooked. For three years now it has been my passion and my *way of life”.

Anita Mundt

My name is Anita Mundt and I live in a small village in Friesland with my Dutch husband. I am English in nationality but moved to the Netherlands in 2000. In England I attended Art school and then university to get a degree in design.
I worked for a short time as a designer before switching career and have spent the last 14 years as a primary school teacher.
I discovered scrapbooking 8 years ago whilst traveling in America. It brought together a love of photography and my creative side. Scrapbooking has helped me adjust to several life changes and is now a part of my everyday life.

Birgit Koopsen

My name is Birgit Koopsen, I live in Winsum, up Groningen, in the Netherlands.I’m a SAHM and freelance scraper and happily together with Erik for more then 20 years now. We have 3 beautiful children, Anne (girl,1994), Lennart (boy, 1995) and Marlijn (girl, 2002).
My first love was photography and when my sister in law (who lived in the US for a year) told me about scrapbooking it only took one week to get me totally addicted.I started in October 2003 and don’t think I will ever stop. First of all scrapbooking is a creative outlet for me and besides that it’s a great way of preserving my children’s history.
Scrapbooking has become a way of life for me. There’s not a day that I don’t scrap or do something related to that.

Workshops:

What Lies Beneath by Birgit Koopsen

What you see is not always what you get! It’s time to be honest with yourself when creating this special mini book.

Windows of Wishes by Anita Mundt

Don’t you ever wish you could see into the future and know what it holds? Attend this workshop and ‘create’ your own future in a mini album.

Jump Start Your Journaling by Anita Mundt

We all struggle at times to get started with our journaling. In this workshop we explore one method to help you develop your journaling from a new angle.

Chip ‘n’ Chunky by Birgit Koopsen

Create ‘one of a kind’ embellishments to make each of your projects unique.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall… by Christiane Müller

Look at your scrap supplies in another way and the way you look at yourself will never be the same again!

In Grandma's Footprints by Christiane Müller

When our grandma's sat evening after evening with their crochet needles they probably didn't see it as a fun hobby, but we're sure you will after this workshop. Give "old fashion" a modern twist and pimp up your LO’s in a funky way!!

Price: 199,-

Price includes :

2 x nights accommodation (Friday & Saturday nights)

2 x breakfast

2 x lunch

1 x 3 course dinner (Saturday evening)

Drinks during the daytime

6 inspiring workshops

All materials to complete the 6 workshops

cropping space

... and loads and loads of fun!!!

Location :Groepshotel De Ster

Mernaweg 42A

9964 AT Wehe den Hoorn

De Marne - Groningen

For more information you can go to http://www.thecreativebuzz.net/ or e-mail info@thecreativebuzz.net, also for signing up!

Don't mis it! Full is full!!!

OK, and now something to show again. Just for me, just for fun! Made this LO using one of the lovely pictures Anita made of me, maybe you recognise it from my blog banner :).

Journaling says:

The gorgeous pictures Anita took of me in her studio made me feel really pretty!

Supplies:

Patterend papers, felt flower, paper flower, ribbon: Making Memories (Note Worthy)

Foam letters: American Craft Thickers

Crystal flowers: Zeeman

Bling cardstock: Doodlebug

Transparency: Hambly

Black marker: Edding

Other: pin, tag, flower button

Doodle template (to make the branches): Creamotion

You can still leave a link on my last post and have a change to winn an kit to make the mini snowflake album! Seen some gorgeous ornaments already, but would love to see more :)

Thanks again for stopping by!

Birgit

2007-12-13T12:31:00.000-08:00

Yes! Finally something to show again!

I just had to scrap these pictures of Marlijn decorating the tree straight away, so that's what I did yesterday :)

The ornament in the upper right corner actually comes from my tree!

Credits:

Red note book paper on the left, sticker word strips, tab: Creative Imaginations

Transparency: Hambly Studios

Bracket stickers, patterned paper: Making Memories

Rubon letters: Mustard Moon

Crystals: Make Me

Crystal star: Zeeman

Cardstock: Bazix

And now it's RAK-time!!!

Do you remember my little snow flake book, the one I thaught at my last workshop?

Did you like it?

I have one kit to make this little ornament book left and I feel like giving it away!

It's almost Christmas, right?!

But you have to do a little something for it.

I want to see your favorite Christmas ornament and learn why it is this specific one.

So you have to make a picture, post it on your blog and write a few words about it. Then you leave a message with a link to your blog on this post. If you don't have a blog you still leave a message and e-mail me the picture and the story.

**Editted: You can do this until wednesday december 19, at midnight**

I will ask my family to help me pick a winner!

Thanks for looking and your comments!

Birgit

2007-12-11T12:27:00.000-08:00

Oh my goodness... it's been almost 2 weeks since the last time I blogged!
And what have I been doing all that time???

Well, on december 5th we celebrated Sinterklaas ofcourse. I started really early that day. I helped get Sinterklaas and his helpers ready for school and therefore had to be at the teachers house at 7 a.m. Then I went to school where Erik, Lennart and Marlijn were already waiting for Sinterklaas to arrive. I stayed at school with Marlijn to celebrate until 10 a.m.. Then school was out for her and we went home. During dinner Sinterklaas' big sac arrived and the 5 of us had a wonderful and fun evening. I think the best gift was the one Erik got from Lennart... a X-mas tie *LOL* it has Santa and reindeers on it and if you squees it it plays a x-mas song. Anne was ROFL, she was actually crying and just couldn't stop, hehehe. Can't wait until x-mas day when I will make Erik wear it! He ows that to his son who did such a great job finding his dad such a thoughtful gift!!

birthday of 3 of his cousins too. They all have their birthdayMarlijn is showing Sinterklaas how good she can climb and what a good helper she could be!

Friday, december 7, was Lennarts birthday. He turned 12! Ouch, somehow that makes me feel older then being 40!

We had a nice day with part of the family and some friends.

The other part of the family we met on sunday at an indoor playground/restaurant to celebrate not only Lennarts birthday but also the birthdays of 3 of his cousins who are all celebrating their birthdays within one week so it's easier to meet up somewhere and have a fun day together.

Four cousins celebrating a special day!

Yesterday after school we went to my mom who was also celebrating her birthday! Yep I know.... al lot of birthdays.... and we have another one next week, then X-mas and after that we will need a good, quiet and relaxing vacation... it's a good thing we'll have that :)!

I've finished some LO's for CMF and for Scrapfun and I've also been working on a really fun project! Love how it turned out. Unfortunatly I can't show or tell anything about it, not even which magazine it's for. The only thing I can tell is that I used the gorgeous Noteworthy line from Making Memories and a needle :)

A long time ago someone asked me to show some picture of my house, I think it was not to long after we moved, so a really long time ago. This last few days I had the possibility to use a camera with a wide angle lens so I finally made some pictures of my living room. As you can see, my favorite scrapbooking color is also the favorite color in my house :)

My home made notice board, I bought a big mirror with a nice silver painte frame at Xenos, took out the mirror (used that in another way), painted a piece of softboard and put that in the frame. Easy but with a great result!

My Secret Santa present arrived and the packages are lying here, staring at me and I'm not allowed to open them before X-mas morning. I'm not sure I can wait that long! I have to admit I did some shaking and squeezing but I haven't got a clue what's in there.

Yesterday we got our X-mas tree and this morning I took it inside. While Marlijn was in school this afternoon I put in the lights so when she came home she could start decorating right away. We listened to a X-mas CD and had a lot of fun! Marlijn takes her job sooo serious and really enjoyes this!

I know the pictures are not completly sharp but I didn´t want to use the flash light. I love the warm feel of the orange light!

Well, that's about what I did the last 2 weeks! Hope you had fun too :)
I'm cropping tomorrow, looking forward to do some scrapbooking just for fun!

BTW, talking about scrapbooking... The Buzz's website is updated! You can now see who will be teaching and what the workshops are. Click on the Buzz button on the right, go to Get Buzzin', choose your language and click on "meet the teachers" and "workshop info" to read all about it!

Thanks for stopping by!
Birgit

2007-11-30T10:57:00.000-08:00

Today Marlijn had a "Pieten" birthdayparty. Pieten are Sinterklaas' helpers. (Sinterklaas is the Dutch version of Santa Claus). She's been looking forward to it all week and yesterday before she went to bed she asked me if I had her clothes ready for today since she could go dressed up to the party. She had a wonderful afternoon! Here are some pictures of my own adorable private little helper:

Yesterday I received the newest CMF in which are 2 articles of mine. I was quite nervous about the result but I have to say they both look great! Here are a few sneak peeks, if you want to see more you'll have to get yourself an issue of CMF :)

And a little sneak peek of a mini album I made for CreaMotion:

OK, enough is enough...

It's weekend! Have a great one!!

Birgit

2007-11-28T03:07:00.001-08:00

First of all I want to thank all of you for the nice birthday wishes I received either by card, comment on my blog, e-mail, e-card, krabbel on hyves or even by phone. They really made me feel special yesterday!!
-------------------------------------------------
Today is an exciting day for me and my friend Anita because today we are officialy launching our company together!

We plan to bring all kinds of creative workshops to the North of the Netherlands and the people just over the German border.
Our first event is in spring 2008 and will be scrapbooking!
The website is still very much under construction, but click the logo below to go to our website...and please, spread the word with all your friends!!

Have a wonderful day!

Birgit

I'm 40!

2007-11-27T00:31:00.000-08:00

Today is my 40th birthday but it will be quite a normal day since we already celebrated Erik's and my 40th last saturday. We had such a wonderful party surrounded by family and friends! We got terribly spoiled, we had nice conversations, laughs and lots of fun and the food was fantastic, just everything was really good!

This picture was taken by Anita, can you tell we're enjoying ourselfs? (and don't I have a handsome 40 years young husband?!) :)

Anyway, today my parents and sister will come over for a cup of coffee and cake and this morning my kids sang for me and gave me some really sweet, self picked presents, which are always the best!

But the fun is not over yet! My hubby is taking me to Amsterdam on second X-mas day for 2 days and we'll be spending the night in the Kransapolsky Hotel on the Dam. How freaking cool is that?! I promiss I will take pictures'! I wonder if the taps are made of gold there, hehe :) So looking forward to it!

Hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday!

Birgit

Winter Wonderland

2007-11-22T09:46:00.000-08:00

I thaught a workshop yesterday evening called Winter Wonderland.We made a little snow flake shaped minibook.

We used paint, embossing powder, alcohol ink, alu foil and BG Figgy Pudding.

It was a fun group of 10 women and we had a great night!

This afternoon a huge party tent was build up in our back yard. Saturday evening we're having a party. Erik turned 4o in august, I will be turning 40 coming tuesday, so a good reason to celebrate we thought!!

There will be about 65 people coming and 14 of them will be spending the night! Now I hear you thinking... where the :"*&^are you gonna put all of them... Hmmmm, not sure yet, but somehow we'll manage! I'm sure we'll have a great time! :)

But some preparation is needed since we invited everybody for a buffet/BBQ and with some deadlines approching very fast it's kind of busy around here.

I probably won't be blogging over the weekend due to all of this so I hope you all enjoy yours, I'm sure I will enjoy mine!!

See ya all on monday!!

Birgit

I'm back home!

2007-11-19T07:32:00.000-08:00

Very, very tired but also feeling very satisfied!! I had such a wonderful weekend, so much fun, so little sleep. On saturday evening Kirsty and Anita organised a crop-and-frock evening which means we all had to dress up like we were going to a gala dinner and eat and crop like that. All the girls looked fabulous (sorry, no pictures yet...) with high heals and gala dresses and loads of make-up :) We had a lovely Indian dinner prepared by Kirsty and Anita and then we had some kind of karaoke with an ABBA cd. Gosh how I hate to sing in public!! But I found out that I'm quite good at miming and we had sooooo much fun!! Anita made some horrible, embarrassing video's which she threatend to put on you-tube....

Well, I guess, if she still wants to have some friends to go away with for a weekend next year.... she'd better not do that!! LOL!

The rest of the time we just scrapped, and talked, and scrapped and we did a photoshoot on sunday afternoon at the Hunebedden in Drouwenerzand.

It was great and I'm already looking forward to next year!

Even though we scrapped a lot I can only show you this LO right now. It's not such a good picture of it because of the reflection on the transparency, but I just couldn't get it out. The contrast of the pink circle on the black paper looks much better IRL!

I bought the gorgeous velvet/lace ribbon when we visited Amsterdam in october 2006 and I had it waiting all time for the right LO. The lovely crochet heart was made by Anita (I added the flower, the pin and the tag) and so was this great picture of Anne.

Journaling sais:

Growing up is not always easy.

Being a teenager sometimes makes you feel

like the whole world is upside down

and you're the only normal person out there!

That's it for now, thanks for stopping by, have a nice evening!!

Birgit

2007-11-16T00:04:00.001-08:00

Just a quick hello to wish you all a wonderful weekend!!!
I'm getting ready right now for our anual alliance weekend!!
One house in the woods, 6 women, loads of food and every scrapbooking supply you can think of :)
Leaving this afternoon, be back home monday morning!!
How does that sound???...................................Yep, that's what I thought :) :)
See ya!!
Birgit

2007-11-11T23:27:00.000-08:00

Although there was a nasty cold wind yesterday afternoon and I was still not feeling very well we went out for a little walk to get some fresh air. Marlijn took her "twins", how cute is that?! She's a real doll mommy, which makes me a granny, LOL! The other day she talked to my mom and called her "overoma" (great granny). My mom didn't understand why she said that untill she realized that Marlijn had her doll with her... She takes her role very serious, hehehe!

Yesterday evening I did Nancy's X-mas card workshop. I changed a few little things because I didn't have all the right supplies and this is what came out! So much fun, it only takes 10 minutes to make a card, so if you haven´t got time to actually scrap you still can create something!
Yeah... I know.... my opinion on cards is changing :) Thanks again Nancy, for the inspiration!

Oh, BTW... did you see this? Interesting huh?!

Have a lovely day!
Birgit

a little toot...

2007-11-09T04:40:00.001-08:00

Scrapbook Trends magazine requested 2 more of my LO's. They are for an upcoming book! Yay! I'm so excited. This makes 5 of them in total, guess they like my work :)

I found something I made for the summer issue of SAZ and forgot to show, so I will now... My altered candy tin:

The word Candy was on there, everything else was added. I used rubons and a black pen. The green strip under the swirl is gaffer tape. Chipboard elements by MM.

I feel a bad, bad cold coming up, my head and throat are hurting and my nose is running constantly and now I even start sneezing. I went to the farmacy this afternoon to get me some strong medication so I hope I won't get really sick. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Anyway.... It's weekend! Enjoy!

Birgit

2007-11-06T01:43:00.000-08:00

Found some time to do some scrapping just for fun last night and decided to make a LO for OLW. This weeks word is delight and here's my take at it:
"Pure delight"

The picture was taken the first evening we were in Italy this summer and it was the very first time Marlijn was in the sea. Well... that she was conscious of it, and she loved it :)

The gesture sais it all... pure delight!

Thanks for peeking!

Have a great day!

Birgit

Operation shoe box

2007-11-05T04:26:00.000-08:00

Every year the school of our children participates in a project called operation shoe box (operatie schoenendoos/schoenmaatjes). This project is an initiative from Edukans. Children in the Netherlands decorate a shoebox and fill it with school supplies, toiletries and toys for children in poor countries. Every year ten thousands of children participate. We've done it ever since our oldest went to school. We always make one boy box and one girl box. This week the boxes have to be delivered at school and then they will be send as presents to children far away. This year the boxes will go to kids in a.o. Pakistan, Malawi and Kenya.

So, over the weekend we've been decorating, well actually Marlijn has been decorating :)

And when that part is done the boxes need to be filled. The hardest part for the children always was that they have to put one of their own toys in the box. The easiest way, of course, is that I just buy everything. But I want them to feel like THEY really did something for another child. Also I want them to be aware of the fact that they are very rich in a lot of ways and that there are milions of children that have nothing at all!

So at lunchtime today the boxes were ready except for the "one-of-your-own-toys-has-to-go-in-there-part". I took Marlijn to her room and talked to her about all the stuffed animals she has, to many to play with, and that somewhere there was a little girl that would get Marlijns box and that she would be very happy to find one of Marlijns "knuffels" in there. I showed her 4 of her stuffed animals and asked her which one should make another girl happy and she choose this one. Just that easy, no tears, no "but I love that one so much myself!" She just said: "this one is so nice and soft, I'm sure she'll love it!" I guess you'll understand she made her mommy feel very proud of her today!

If you're insterested in reading more about the other great initiatives of Edukans you can visit their website at www.edukans.nl! There's a link to an international page on the right side of the homepage that gives information in english.

Have a nice day!
Birgit

2007-11-04T11:49:00.000-08:00

Such a lazy sunday it was today. I stayed all morning in my PJ's and so did Marlijn. It was 1 p.m. before I was in the shower and she in the tub! She didn't want to get out untill the water was really cold, at about 1.45 LOL. When I finally took her out her skin looked like she was a little old woman!

Had to share this picture. I think she looks so cute with a towel around her hair "just like mommy" :)

My little princess is totaly into iron-beads lately. For those of you who don't know what those are... they are little plastic beads you put on a shape with little pins and when it's ready you put baking paper on top and iron it. The beads will melt together and you can take it from the shape.

And what do you think a princess likes to make most? Right, another princess :)

And not only Marlijn loves to play with them, Anne, Lennart and their friend like them too, lol!

BTW, I had a fun day demonstrating at Marja's Hobby in Bedum yesterday. She has a website now too, which went online yesterday! Check it out here www.scrap-web.nl.

Have a nice week!!

Birgit

2007-10-31T07:59:00.000-07:00

I´m not a cardmaker.... and I don't send much cards either. When it comes to birthdays, anniversaries and so on I'm a bad bad girl!
I always forget them and if I do send a card it's always to late! So if you ever expected a card from me and didn't get one... don't take it personally!!! :)
So, no... I'm not a cardmaker... or should I say I never was?!

Our awesome talented cardmaking scrapper Nancy seems to inspire the complete scrapbooking world with her cards, including me :) So I took out my scraps and spend a fun night making cards! Here's the result:

Thanks for taking a peek and thanks so much for your comments, I really appreciate them!

Have a great day!
Birgit

2007-10-31T03:30:00.000-07:00

We had a lovely birthday weekend! Marlijn got spoiled terrible and she loved it :) Yesterday she had a little party for her school friends and had a great time! Unfortunatly my camera was acting a little weird (found out later that the button was somewhere between manual and autofocus) so i didn't get much good pictures :(

But here's one of the decorated cup cakes the kids made yesterday:

These LO's were in Scrapfun last month. The first one is a picture of Marlijn and her cousin Tim, having a blast in Duinrell when my parents were married 40 years last june. The second one is my little niece Guusje, only 18 months old, climbing our garden fence like she's a little monkey, lol! Such a little rebel :)

My "Believe"LO made it to the slide show on OLW! I feel honored to see myself between all those awesome LO's!!! The new word up this week is `Delight`! I´m sure gonna join in again, this is so much fun!

We have 22 participants for the Secret Santa Swap so far! So a lot of X-mas excitement is guaranteed!! But there's still room for a few more. You can sign up until tomorrow by clicking the Secret Santa blinkie on the right! Don't miss out on the fun and join the party! :)

Have a nice day!
Birgit

Celebration!

2007-10-26T00:48:00.000-07:00

She was only 2850 grams (don’t know how much it is in ounces, but it’s small!) and she still isn’t very big for her age. She’s clever the more though, hehe, she’s what we call a “ wijsneus” (smarty-pants) and I love it!

… and yesterday's story continues:
After Marlijn was born the midwife checked her and she was perfectly healthy. She got dressed and I had a shower and the midwife had to fill out some forms. We called my mom at our house and were surprised to hear that Anne was up (it was 2.30 a.m.). There was a thunderstorm going on and she’d woken up in the middle of the night to find us gone and grandma on the couch in the living room. Grandma told her that we were in hospital and she’d probably have a baby brother or sister the next morning. Well imagine that… no chance that she would sleep again knowing that! So when I called I could tell her that she had a baby sister. I think she was the happiest little girl on earth at that moment!! I told her to go back to bed and try to get a few more hours sleep.
Then we called the rest of the family, I got dressed, we cuddled Marlijn in, nice and warm and drove home. We were home at 5.30 a.m.!
My mom and Anne were waiting for us when we arrived and Anne just couldn’t believe that the baby was sooo small, and sooo adorable, she didn’t know what to say, just sat there with this big smile, happy!!!
I went upstairs to go to bed with Marlijn after Anne and my mom had held her. Erik went to Lennarts room to wake him up. “Someone new has arrived” he said to Lennart and Lennart said “Really???” with big eyes an a big smile. He jumped out of bed and came to my rom to meet his little sister. He was so thrilled he jumped through the room for 15 minutes clapping his hands and singing “I’m so happy, I’m so happy”. Lennart was almost 7 and Anne was 8 years old. They were so aware of everything and enjoyed it all so much!! Wonderful moments to always remember!
It makes me happy that Anne and Lennart still adore their little sister.( Even though she can be really annoying and irritating sometimes :))

We had a lot of visitors that day and the days after.
Today there will be a lot visitors again! It will be a happy and joyful day just as it was 5 years ago and I’m truly thankful for that!
Happy birthday to our sweet little girl Marlijn!

Rise and shine... it's party time!

She's been asking for this doll for month, the dark baby born with the magic eyes.
The look in her eyes this morning when she opend her present... priceless!

Have a wonderful, happy day too!
Birgit

Today, 5 years ago...

2007-10-25T01:29:00.000-07:00

At this moment, 5 years ago, I was sitting around with a big big belly. According to our own calculating our baby was due to be born the next day but since the older 2 kids came way to late and not exactly spontaneous I didn´t count on it all!
At noon, we were just having lunch with the kids, I felt a soft `plop` and a little later I lost some blood and fluid. We called the midwife and she said that we could come over for a check up.
After lunch, we brought Anne back to school and lennart to grandma and then went to the hospital, I told the midwife I thought my water broke and she examined me. She said it wasn´t the water since my belly felt like all the water was still there. Maybe this was the beginning, maybe it would take another week.
So I got off the table to get dressed again and there it was… pang… and all the water came out at once!
Hehe, so much for another week! But still I hadn´t any contractions or whatever, so the midwife told me to take it easy and if nothing happened over night we had to call her in the morning. We went home, had dinner, brought the kids to bed and watched some tv. It was a Friday evening and we watched Baantjer, like every Friday. At 9 p.m. I said to Erik: “ I don’t know, I feel some cramps, maybe something is happening. They started to come faster but they were not that bad so after Baantjer was finished we decided to go to bed early and try to get some sleep before it really would start. Erik slept the minute his head hit his pillow but 15 minutes later I had to wake him up. This was it! This was for real! I knew, after all... I’d done it 2 times before! So we called my mom to come over to babysit, then we called the midwife that we were coming and at 11 p.m. we were in the car towards the hospital, with contractions every 2/3 minutes.
We arrived at 11.30 p.m., checked in and got a room all for ourselves. They tried to make it look like you where in your own house. We had a room with a bed, a couple of comfi chairs, tv, stereo, newspapers, books, bathroom and shower. We were left alone to have some privacy. The midwife went to her own space in the hallway and if we needed anything we could just ask. Great!!
Erik read a newspaper while I was puffing my contractions away, phuh, phuh, phuh, phuhhhh... I decided to take a shower, because with the other two taking a shower really speeded things up. And so it did now. At about 1.30a.m. I told Erik to get the midwife because it wouldn’t take long anymore. She came and talked me through the last part. And just when I thought that I really couldn't do this...

... there she was… at 2.12a.m. October 26, 2002, right on time and all by herself… our perfect little baby girl Marlijn!

(this is the only digi picture of her from that time, I was still shooting analoge those days. Hmmm sounds like an awful long time ago...)

Tomorrow she’s turning 5 and I’m still as happy and thankful for her as I was the first minute I held her. And I love her even more!

Birgit

2007-10-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

She loves to read. Guess she takes after her mom for this matter (her dad doesn't read anything but the newspaper). I love to read to, there is hardly a night that I go to sleep without reading a page or two. There's always a book on my night table... and because I love to read I love books, not only for me but childrens books too.
When I come across a nice childrens book I can't resist to buy it. So whether it's Sinterklaas, x-mas, birthdays.... the kids get books! Not only books of course, but at least one! :)
I'm so happy they love to read too! I (or her daddy) read Marlijn a bedtime story every night. I did it with the older kids too when they where younger, and Marlijn reads to her "knuffel" and doll! With her favorite books she knows all the words. Sometimes we joke with her and change a word and she always notices. And when you hear her reading to her doll you'd believe she is actually reading the words. Amazing! With other books she just looks at the pictures and makes up her own stories. So much imagination, I love it!!
Most of her books where in a few boxes next to her bed but there were so many that it was a mess constantly and we never could find the book we where looking for. So this week we bought her a little book case and she is sooo thrilled with it! it's so easy to make her happy, hope that never changes!

Thanks for popping by!
Have a great evening!
Birgit

Hellooooooo ladies! Where are you???

2007-10-23T07:50:00.000-07:00

At least 15 of you said you´d like to join in the Secret Santa Swap, but so far only a few girls actually signed up. You really need to officially sign up at the Secret Santa thread to join in, otherwise I can´t pair you up. So please click on the SSS blinkie on the right, read the rules, fill out the form and leave your name otherwise you´ll miss out on the fun!!! If you´re not a member yet at uncesored scrap forum it will only take a few minutes to register.
Come on... let´s have a party! :)
Have a nice evening!
Birgit

One little word....

2007-10-22T03:51:00.001-07:00

I have to admit… after all the deadlines I had last week I kind of lost my mojo..
I wanted to do some scrapping just for me for a couple of days but just hadn’t any inspiration.
Yesterday morning I was browsing the internet and there it was! While visiting the OLW blog I suddenly felt like scrapping the OLW word for this week... “believe”. With the beautiful pictures of my DD and the word “believe” in mind I knew what I was gonna do!
Since it was Sunday and I didn’t want to sit alone in my scrap room while my family was downstairs I just brought everything I thought I needed down and sat on the living room floor. It was such a relaxed, nice Sunday afternoon and this is the result:

Journaling is on the tag behind the picture and says:
Why don’t you believe me?
Normally you’re such a self-confident girl.
You´re not afraid to give your opinion or to speak up for yourself.
You know exactly what you want and how to get it. You stand for what you say and,
if you have to, you fight for your rights.
But when it comes to your looks you´re so insecure! You look in the mirror a dozen
times an hour and this is what I hear:
“Sigh… my hair looks awful!”
“Blehhh, my nose is way to big!”
“Gosh, look at my eye brows… they’re horrible!”
And I tell you time and time again that you’re gorgeous!
But you’re convinced that I’m prejudiced because I’m your mom…
I guess it’s just natural to feel that way when you’re 13 years old.
But sweet daughter of mine…
you really can believe me when I tell you that you’re beautiful!
xox Mom

BTW… you can sign up now for the Secret Santa Swap! Don’t mis the fun! Click here for details and joining in!

Thanks for stopping by!
Birgit

LET´S DO IT!

2007-10-21T10:47:00.000-07:00

OK, let’s do it!!! I will host a Secret Santa Swap! Anybody can join in as long as you're willing to play by the rules!! Even if you never left a message before or just discovered this blog, don't be shy! If you think this would be fun and you want to join in... do it!

Click here to read the complete rules and to sign up! (you might need to register at uncensored scrap before you can sign up but that will only take a few minutes!) I'm sure we'll have fun!

Let me share some of Marlijn's art with you... I really think she's gonna be an artist when she grows up. There's nothing she like to do more then mess around with pens, pencils, paint, glue, siccors and paper. Ahhh well, if not an artist then at least a scrapbooker!
The first drawing found it's way to the front of Marlijn´s birthday invitation. She´s turning 5 next friday... Gosh... time flies!

Have a good start of a great week to come!
Birgit

a new banner...

2007-10-20T13:43:00.000-07:00

My first attempt on making a digi banner! The first banner I had was actually scrapped and photographed. The second one was made by Anke. I loved that one but I thought it was time for something new. I know it’s far from perfect. I’ve seen the most gorgeous banners on blogs I visited but I have to admit that I’m kind of proud of what I managed to create. What do you think???

2007-10-19T07:33:00.000-07:00

Looks like blogger is able to upload images again so first thing I want to share are my favorite pictures of my DD Anne's photoshoot at Anita's.

I think she's gorgeous (but that's because I'm her mom, she says!) She thinks her nose is to big, her hair looks terrible, her eye brows have the wrong shape... Can you believe that? Ah well, guess that's normal for a 13 year old girl, right?

Something else I like to share are 2 more LO's that where in the september issue of SAZ:

The first one was for an article about XL-pictures. I printed the picture on a piece of 11x8,5" cardstock and used it as my picture and background at the same time. Journaling is written in a "white" spot on the picture and says:

Why do I always have to listen to you, why am I allergic to colorants, why do we always take Lennart’s road, why does Anne have a rabbit and I don’t, why don’t we go to Duinrell twice, why does Anne’s room have a balcony and mine not, why is Lennart driving his bike so fast, why do ambulances excist, why don’t we get a baby, why can I go to school only once on the green day, why isn’t it Anne’s bedtime yet? Why?

The second one was for an article on non-traditional shaped LO's.

The heart was cut from a black piece of cardstock and then I cut vertical stripes with a centimeter in between and wove ribbon and pieces of fabric from the left to the right.

And I have a toot!! Scrapbook Trends Magazine requested 3 of my LO's and one of them is being considered as a cover LO! Yay! How cool is that?!

Anyone interested in a Secret Santa Swap??? Join the fun! See my last post!

Thanks for stopping by!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Birgit

2007-10-17T08:02:00.000-07:00

Thank you all for leaving so many links of your favorite websites/blogs! I visited them all and found yummy cupcakes, gorgeous felt animals, loads of beautiful LO’s and cards and touching stories! But the website where I spend the most time and went back too a few times already is http://www.theblogisfound.com/ This photographers couple makes the most awesome, amazing and gorgeous pictures. Very inspiring! Make me wanna to try and take pictures in a different way, I just couldn’t stop looking and wishing I could make such stunning pictures, wow, I want to be them when I grow up LOL! Just check it out, I’m sure you’ll agree with me!
So, thanks for sharing this link with us Sandra! Please e-mail me your address and I will send you a nice RAK!
And here are all the other links! Enjoy! :)

www.52projects.com
http://jann-will.typepad.com/photos/iefenwil/
http://beate.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/
http://iralamija.blogspot.com/
http://sweetmissdaisy.typepad.com/sassy_sweet_notes
www.cakvd2.blogspot.com
http://debbiedesigns.typepad.com/
http://lovelife.typepad.com/my_weblog/
www.craftster.org
www.craftbits.com
http://alifeunrehearsed.blogspot.com/
www.mom2my6pack.blogspot.com
http://caardvarks.blogspot.com/
http://printpattern.blogspot.com
http://www.splitcoastbloggers.com/
http://vickichrisman.blogspot.com/
http://www.art-e-zine.co.uk/
http://www.stampersmall.com/techniques/
http://stampinwhenican.blogspot.com/
http://dawninskip.typepad.com
http://danieladobson.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloesem.blogs.com/
http://www.fiskateers.com/blog
http://mariekeb.blogspot.com/
http://www.muhrenssida.com/
http://www.inspirationblog.nl/en/2007/07/index.html http://lilybeanpaperie.typepad.com/lilybeans_paperie/
http://stukjebijbeetje.blogspot.com/
http://herspace-myspace.blogspot.com/index.html
http://www.chikagraphy.com/
www.cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com

I was thinking… it would be fun organizing a Secret Santa Swap! I would love to host it but before I put time and energy into something like that I want to know if there are people interested in joining in at all!
For those of you who never did something like that and haven’t a clue what I’m talking about a little explanation:
A Secret Santa Swap is done with a group of people who sign up to join in. You will get the name and address of one of the people in the group and have to make her a present for X-mas. Most likely a box of scrap goodies for a certain amount of money, maybe some chocolates or sweets and a handmade item. You’re not to tell who’s Secret Santa you are and you won’t know who yours is until the day you are allowed to unpack your present.
If you join in I will send you a form to fill out which I can send to the person who will be your SS and you will get somebody else’s list. I will get us a place where we can talk anonymous about the swap, like if you have a question for your receiver or a general question or just something to share. It’s fun and exciting!
All I want to know right now if there would be enough of you interested to start something like this so if you are please leave a message here and if I go ahead with it I will give further instructions and details later.
Hope a lot of you want to play along!

Wanted to share some LO's and pictures but blogger doesn't let me upload any images... will try again tomorrow.

Have a nice evening!
Birgit

Photo shoots and LO's

2007-10-07T12:21:00.000-07:00

Last week I went over to my friend Anita's house to have a photoshoot. I brought all kinds of clothes and was not sure what to expect. At first I felt a little uncomfortable smiling when I was asked to, but after a while it went better and I really enjoyed it! We had fun! Did some out door and some studio shots and some really nice photo's came out. I think Anita really has a feel for catching the real personality of people. I'm very, very happy with the results.

Here are my favourite ones!

This week Anita came over to my house to do a shoot with my little girl Marlijn and some other kids. And I learned how hard it is to make good pictures of little kids that are not always as cooperative as we would want and very busy and moving around all the time :) Still Anita managed to make some very nice pictures! Here are a few of them:

Today I took my oldest daughter Anne over to Anita for her birthday party... right... a photoshoot. Together with her 4 best friends, loads of clothes, drinks and food. First we went outside for some group shots. The wheather was so nice today and we went to the playground. The girls did complain though when they had to ly down in the wet grass... lol! But they did what they were asked!

Then we went inside for some studio shots of all of the girls seperate. They had a lot of fun, were a little insecure and are very curious now to see the results.... and I can understand. I'm very curious too! But I know the pictures will be great!!

So far for photo shoots.

It's been a while since I was able to show some of my work. Some of you will have noticed a new magazine has come out, called scrapfun!

I heard it was available at craft shops and supermarkets. It was also at my local supermarket but I didn't see it there because it was sold out the second day!! Hope that's a good sign! :) I was one of the contributers with several LO's in there. Here are two of them. If you want to see more you'll have to try to get you hands on an issue of scrapfun!

BTW, you can still leave a message with a link to your favourite website/blog regarding inspiration and win a RAK (see my last post). You gave me some really nice ones already! Thanks so far!

That's it for today, have a nice week!

Birgit

September winner and let's play a game!

2007-10-04T05:06:00.000-07:00

I guess some of you have been waiting for a few days for this post to see the result of the september challenge. I'm sorry for the delay beut here it is.

Only 6 participants this time but they came up with some fun ideas!!

Still there can be only one winner and this time the RAK goes to Joke Bach Kolling.

Both she and Anniek used the "aardappel-stamper" on their LO's but I love how Joke used it to make a journaling tag that's behind the photo, Joke also used some letter shaped pastry moulds to make the word summer. So congratulations Joke, the RAK is coming your way!

Joke:

Anniek Bebingh:

Miranda Sloots:

Diana Louwerens:

Esther Nuiver:

Boukje van der Weit:

Thanks ladies for joining in!!

OK, let's play a game!

I'm always looking for great, inspiring, creative websites and blogs but there are so many you can't possibly see them all.

I don't really have the time to browse the internet and find new interesting once but I'm sure among all of us there's a treasure of wonderful website URL's. You must all have your own favourites!

So, I would like you to leave a message with the one URL of the website/blog you love most, so I can check them out.

If I find your suggestion the most inspiring of all you will winn a nice package of goodies!

And I'm not talking about just scrapbook related sites. Any kind of website/blog that inspires me to get creative I want to see!

You'll have untill next week wednesday to leave your message on this post, then I'll need a couple of days to check them all out and put them in a list to share with you and choose a winner.

Could there be any easier way to get your hands on some nice goodies?

I don't think so!!

Have a nice day!!

Birgit

2007-09-23T07:26:00.000-07:00

I know... I've been a bad, bad blogger lately.
But with 4 days out of 7 demonstrating, 1 crop, 1 night away from home, a deadline to make and a family to take care of it's hard to keep up! So forgive me for not leaving messages on you blogs and for not updating mine!

I've been demonstrating at the a hobbystore called De Duif in Leeuwarden friday and yesterday and there I've been working with the Cricut Expression.
Ohhhh, I coul'dn't help myself... I loved it, especially the fact that it cuts through chipboard and it is so easy to work with! So... I bought it! :)
I guess you'll know what I've been doing this morning?!

OK, I've got 3 new workshops coming up in the next 2 month. You can click on the workshop of your interest to read more about it (in dutch).
1. Scrappin' in the kitchen, october 13, 2007
2. Surprise, surprise, november 10, 2007
3. Winter Wonderland, november 21, 2007

If you have any questions, please e-mail me at scrappen@birgitkoopsen.nl

Finally I want to remind you that you have one more week to send in your LO for the september challenge. The nicest, most creative and original LO will win a nice RAK!
For more details click here!

Thanks for stopping by!
Birgit

GetInspired!-kit

2007-09-10T10:46:00.001-07:00

Promissed you this already for saturday... sorry, didn't make it!
But here they are, my projects using the GetInspired!-kit.
Want to know exactly what's in there? Check out this awesome kit here!

You can click on the images to have a closer look!

For those of you that do not visit very regularly... there's a new challenge up!
Click here to join in and maybe you win a great RAK!

TFL! Have a nice evening!
Birgit

Showtime!

2007-09-07T06:33:00.000-07:00

Finally, something to show again!

Today I got my copy of Scrap-Art-Zine. I made the LO for the cover ànd the cover photo, so I was very curious to see what it would look like. I have to say, I'm really happy how it turned out. This is the first glossy issue of SAZ and it looks just wonderful. The magazine is filled with amazing LO's, lovely minibooks and great articles so make sure you get your hands on it!! :)

The next LO I made for my guest DT-spot at Prima's blog in july. I was on vacation when it was up and forgot to show it here afterwards. Pictures were taken during our family week in may. After bath-time and before going to bed grandma reads a story and the kids just love it. They hardly breath, afraid they will miss a word of the exciting story! Love these pictures!

The next one is for One Little Word. Word #9 is up now. "Pure".

This is only the second time I play along but I wish I had time to do them all! Real fun and very inspiring!!

OK, my take on the word pure...

Journaling is in dutch and sais:

Robijn Pure and soft is my favourite laundry softener (?)

For me no flower, pinewood or ocean perfume!

My laundry should smell like it dried outside

even if it was in the dryer!

I simply want... fresh, clean, pure!

Tried to keep my LO fresh, clean and pure too!

And the last one is for my vacation album.

If... If I could turn back time, this is where I would be!

Riomaggiore, Italy july 2007.

Sigh.... if only we could!

I probably will show the projects for De Creatie tomorrow, so if you're curious about this awesome kit, don't forget to stop by :)

Thanks for your comments, I really appreciate them!!

Have a nice start of your weekend!

Birgit

We have a winner!

2007-09-06T00:29:00.000-07:00

First of all I want to thank you for taking the time and the effort to vote! So nice to see so many people commenting!

Well, the outcome is very clear! With far most votes the winner of this challenge is Anniek Bebingh with her LO "I love this chick".

And I can understand why! The colors are eyecatching, the subject is funny, the whole LO is just great! So Anniek congratulations!! Please e-mail me your addy so I can send you the RAK!

I hope a lot of you will join in the new challenge for september! For details see my last post. Can't wait to see what creative ideas you come up with!! :)

Something totaly different;

A little while ago Erik saw an aerial photograph of our neighbourhood in the lobby of an apartment building in our street. He thought it would be nice to have a copy of that picture in his office so he asked a resident if she new who made the picture. She came up with a website url. When I checked this website I was very pleasantly surprised!! I expected more aerial pictures, maybe some landscapes... but what I found was art! Wow, this man makes just gorgeous pictures, I totaly love them! So I thought I'd share this with you. His name is Roelof Bos and his website addy is http://www.roelofbos.com. Have a look, you'll be impressed!

And this is the photograph of our neighbourhood. The house in the circle is ours. It's funny, because untill I saw this picture I didn't realize that we are living on a little island!

Something else I want to share is this drawing my DD Marlijn made for me yesterday.

The big person is me (can you tell by the curls, haha), the little one is she, LOL!

If I only had hands like those I'm sure I'd got a lot more done in a day than I do now.

Makes you wonder tho how my little girl sees me... :)

Finally I leave you with another sneak peek from the GetInspired! kit. I really, really love this kit! You'd better make sure you don't miss it! It's released coming saturday at De Creatie!

Thanks again for stopping by!

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Birgit

Your help is needed! (2x)

2007-09-03T05:19:00.000-07:00

I guess vacation came in the way for some of you and probably some of the cool challenges on blogs like One Little Word, Pencil Lines etc. too (which I can understand because they are sooo inspirational!) but I got only 9 entries for the july/august challenge. To bad, really, because the RAK for the winner will include some really nice Hambly, Prima and MM goodies :)

Anyway... 9 entries does not mean an easy choice, not at all. I've been through these LO's several times and I like this on one LO and that on another... I can't choose! So I need your help! Please let me know who deserves to get the RAK. Leave a message with the number of the LO you like best on this post before wednesday evening (sept. 5.) 12.00p.m. (european time) and the designer who gets the most votes will be the winner! I did not mention the names of the designers with their LO's to make this voting as fair as possible!

The challenge was to scraplift this LO:

and here are the entries:

2.
3.
4.
5.

8.
9.

Good luck to all of you!

I also promissed you a new challenge... I want you to take something from your kitchen and use it to stamp with! Look around you and use your imagination. Whether you want to stamp with paint or ink, you want to make a LO, a card, a project, use the "stamp" for a background or an accent... do whatever you like as long as you do it with an item from your kitchen!

You can enter until september 30th. 12.00 p.m. (european time)! Send your project to scrappen@birgitkoopsen.nl and please ad your name to the LO title!

Good luck and have fun!!

Who else needs your help? Well, the girls from Art Noevoo, a belgium scrap blog are organising a day of scrapping against cancer on november 11th in Ekeren, Belgium. Read all about it here or click on the button "Scrappen tegen kanker" on the right!

Thanks so much for stopping by and helping out!!

Birgit

2007-09-01T11:51:00.000-07:00

Like most of us , I guess, I love to read books about scrapbooking. There are a lot of books I like but the Autumn Leaves books are certainly among my favorites, wich was confirmed again today! Today the 2 latest books I ordered arrived. "Designing with Details" and "Perfectly Clear". The first one is about how the little things make all the difference in your pages. The second one is about techniques for using clear stamps. WOW! Those girls from Autumn Leaves are soooo talented!! I just keep going through those books over and over again, drooling over all those gorgeous LO's and projects! Believe me, you just can't do without these books! Tons and tons of inspiration!

At the moment I'm working on some little canvasses, something I didn't much so far but it is so much fun! Unfortunatly I won't be able to show them for a long time...

What I can show is a few sneak peeks from the GetInspired-kit:

I hope I can present you the winner of the july-august challenge in the next few days. There will be a new challenge too than so please check back later!

Have a nice sunday!

Birgit

I'm back!

2007-08-31T00:48:00.000-07:00

OK, so I went to the hospital again on wednesday morning. My blood was tested again and they said that there were less infection cells in my blood then the day before. I didn't have an appendicitis! What I did have they didn't really know, maybe an infection of the large intestine (dikke darm), maybe something else. I was send home with a laxative and then the waiting began. After 1,5 day it finally started working and although it's not really comfortable inside my belly right now I feel much better!! Thank goodness! I have to get back to work! There are some deadlines approaching very quickly....
One of them is the new GetInspired!-kit from de Creatie. It was delivered yesterday and let me tell you this: it is gorgeous!!! Can't wait to start playing with it! Somewhere around the 9th of september the kit will be released so keep your eyes open!!
Have a nice day!
Birgit
BTW, thanks so much for all you sweet messages, they really cheered me up!!!

Spend 4 hours in hospital today...

2007-08-28T12:40:00.000-07:00

The pain started sunday afternoon, nothing terrible, just a nagging pain in my belly. At night it got worse, I hardly slept and I didn't feel well all day yesterday. I managed myself through the day taking painkillers and doing as little as possible. Last night the pain got so bad that I couldn't sleep at all and we called a doctor at about 3.30 am but he told me to take another painkiller and visit my family doctor today, which I did. She thought it might be an appendicitis and send me to hospital. There I had to go through the same examinations 4 times with 4 different doctors, they took blood samples and tested my urine. It took almost 4 hours and then the conclusion was:
You might have an appendicitis but...
You're not sick enoug...
The pain is not bad enough...
You don't have a fever...
You don't vomit...
So we want you to go home, take painkillers if neccesary and come back tomorrow morning when we will do all the examinations again...
I hope I will have some sleep and some kind of little miracle will happen over night and I will wake up without any pain... so please keep your fingers crossed for me!!
I'll keep you updated!
Birgit

2007-08-24T10:22:00.000-07:00

I spend an hour at the dentist this morning and believe me that was no fun! One of my back tooth partly broke of just before I left on vacation. The denstist had to remove the old filling and restore the whole tooth. Afterwards I spoke like I was drunk. He was ready at lunchtime but I couldn't eat for 2 hours. And if that wasn't bad enough I bit my lip because I couldn't feel it and my family made fun of the way I was talking :(

Ahhh well.... my grandma used to say "wie mooi wil zijn moet pijn lijden" wich means as much as who wants to be pretty has to suffer.

Anyway, during lunch (while my family was eating except me) the postman came and brought a nice surprise. I got a wonderful "Thank you" package from Prima for being their guest designer in july. I didn't even know I was going to get something untill I had this e-mail from Sharon Laakkonen when I got home from vacation asking for my adress. Such gorgeous goodies, I just love them and they certainly made me smile, even tho my mouth wasn't really co-operating :)

I finished another vacation LO, a simple one as I don't want to spent to much time on my vacation album. It's about Lucca, a beautiful old Italian village in Tuscany. Lucca is everything you expect from an Italian village. The little streets with the yellow houses, the fancy shopping street Via Fillungo, the old town-wall with the towngates, the shops with homemade ice cream (wich costs alsmost nothing). It's just how we think Italy is. We visited the centre first, did some shopping and sightseeing and took pictures and then we rented bikes and had a ride on the town-wall wich is 30 meters wide and 12 meters high and had a marvelous sight on the town. The town-wall is completly intact and it takes less than an hour to go around. We had a wonderful day there! Much, much more fun than Pisa although the tower is a must see!

When I got home this morning from bringing Marlijn to school I saw that all the spiderwebs in our garden were white because of the dew. They looked beautiful so I took out my camera and made some pictures. This is my favorite:

I almost forgot but here's a little reminder for the july/august challenge wich ends on august 31th. There's a nice RAK to win! Check out the challenge and play along! Click here for more information!

So far I visited half of my bloglines list, gosh you've been so busy blogging while I was away :)

Will take care of the rest this weekend!

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Birgit

I'm back!

2007-08-22T05:14:00.000-07:00

Well, actually... I was back home 1,5 week ago. But I had such a hard time getting back to everyday routine.... I really didn't want to leave Italy, we had such a wonderful vacation and even though we were away for almost 4 weeks I didn't feel like going home at all. Life in Italy is so relaxed!

Anyway, I wanted to hold on to that feeling a little longer and decided not to do anything that was not really neccesary untill the kids had to go to school again, wich was last monday. Unfortunatly the minute you walk through your door there are things that HAVE to be done, MUST be done, and NEED to be done, if only for the piles of laundry we brought home...

I didn't get on my computer untill the end of the week because I knew updating my blog and answering e-mail would mean "back to work" straight away.

I didn't even feel like scrapping although I had my vacation pictures printed in my mailbox already on wednesday.

I tried a little scrapping in the weekend but I just couldn't get started, just sat there staring at my pics and paper.

I finally got a LO done last night, ironical enough about our last vacation day. When we got to the beach that afternoon for the last time, walking through the water, soaking up that wonderful view I felt really sad we had to say goodbey. Looking at these pictures I think my son felt the same way.

Ah well.... I guess before we know it we'll be used to being in a hurry and busy, busy, busy again, even though we try to be a little more relaxed.

And meanwhile we'll make plans for next year already :)

In the next couple of days I'll try to catch up with all your blogs, wich wlll take some time regarding to my bloglines, but it will be fun to read what you've been doing in the last couple of weeks!

Hope you all had a great vacation too!!

Birgit

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERIK!!!

2007-08-10T02:17:00.000-07:00

Today my DH is celebrating his 40th birthday!! Happy birthday my love, hope we have a wonderful day together!

Also we're celebrating that he and I are together for 21 years exactly today. We kissed for the first time a few minutes after midnight on his 19th birtday! Hope we will have to celebrate many, many more wonderful years together!!

Have a wonderful day too, and a lovely weekend! (we'll be spending most of the weekend in the car driving back home :(...)

Birgit

Greetings from Tuscany

2007-08-05T02:12:00.000-07:00

Just a few more photo's, we're still having a great time. Just a little less then a week left, hmmmm... time is flying when you're having fun!

...and thanks for all your sweet comments on my Prima Guest DT-spot!! :)
Birgit

2007-07-31T04:15:00.000-07:00

Bon giorno!

Just a quick hello from Cecina Mare, Italy. We’re having a great time in this beautiful country. The weather is perfect, around 28*C and sunshine everyday! After a few nights in Switzerland, one night in Milano and 4 nights in Cinque Terre we arrived in Tuscany last Friday. We’ll stay here until august 11th and plan on doing some sightseeing trips to Pisa, Lucca a.s.o. and spent a lot of time on the beach, at the swimming pool and in the lovely villages.
The first collage are pictures from our time in Switzerland, the second one is Italy. Picasa crops the pictures a little strange sometimes but it’s just to get an impression, I just couldn’t chose only two or three pictures…

And even from Italy I have some scrap news! I feel proud and excited to announce that I was asked to be Prima’s guest designer! How cool is that?! Go check out their wonderful blog and get inspired by all the fabulous creations you find there!!! Thanks Sharon for asking me!! It was a pleasure!

OK, I hope you’re all enjoying yourself as much as we do!

Ciao!!
Birgit

Nijmeegse 4-daagse

2007-07-18T12:20:00.000-07:00

Today we went to see the walkers of the International Four Days Marches of Nijmegen on the "day of Wijchen".
On Tuesday 17 July 37.505 walkers have started the first walking day of the 91st Four Days Marches. Four days of walking 50km per day!
Here a little impression of a very impressive and exciting day!

Tomorrow morning very early we'll be leaving from Wijchen towards Italy. No idea when I will be able to update again. Maybe I'll have to wait until I'm back home. If possible I will update with some vacation pictures every now and then, if not I'll see you all again in about 4 weeks!
Take care and have a nice time!
Birgit

2007-07-12T06:33:00.000-07:00

I did what I promissed myself yesterday, got out some nice goodies and made a summery LO. This one is for the One Little Word Challenge "Simplicity". If you don't know this blog yet, go check it out! Soooo much inspiration there!!

Journaling reads:

"It's the simple every day pleasures that make life worth living! The smell of a single lavender flower in my garden means more to me than the most expensive perfume ever will!!!"

Had a nice surprise in the mail today. Ingrid's RAK arrived and it's just wonderful! I love flowers, chipboard and buttons so this RAK is perfect! Thanks so much Ingrid. You gave me a little sunshine on a rainy day! :)

Last thing I want to share today is this little paperbag album, they are so much fun to do! I taught it as a workshop a few times and this one was in the summer edition of Scrap Art Zine. The story is about my DD Marlijn and our friends son Pim. We spend a vacation weekend together and those 2 were dragging around the doll the whole time, no matter where we went... They craked us up acting like they were a married couple with a kid :) They took very good care about their baby by the way!!!

It's awful quiet in blogging land don't you think? When I go to my bloglines feeds these days there are only a few udates a day. For the first time in ages I can keep up *LOL*. A lot of you must be away on vacation... it certainly isn't the weather in the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany that keeps you from blogging.... :(

Anyway, thanks for popping by and have a nice evening!

Birgit

2007-07-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

Today I've finished the last projects for some magazines I had to get done before I leave to Italy. And with a few days left before we go I might even have a change to do some scrapping just for me :) feels like ages ago that I scrapped without any restriction so I might lock myself up in my room for an evening or 2 and do just what I like!!

Finally something to show today:

Made these LO's for the latest issue of SAZ. They where for an article written by the verry talented Sylvia about daily inspiration. You can find out what my inspiration was in the magazine:

Meanwhile it's still raining, raining, raining... not really good for my mood!

So I'd better go upstairs now, get out my most bright, colorful, happy, summery scrapgoodies and forget about everything outside of my scraproom :)

Have a nice evening too!

Birgit

PS: just a little reminder... there's a new challenge for july/august. Click here for more information!

Which colors suite you best??

2007-07-10T07:17:00.000-07:00

With vacation and hot summer days coming up it's quite important to know what color bikini and toe nail polish we should wear don't you think?! There's a fun and easy way to find out which colors suite you best. Just to make sure you don't wear anything totaly wrong! Just do the test like I did! I have to wonder though... a yellow bikini...??? But my ideal man is deffinatly my hubby... very confident :)!!

You Should Wear a Yellow Bikini

Like the sun, you radiate warmth and brighten up everyone's day.

And while a yellow bikini is a bit strange, you have the perky personality to wear one!

What Color Bikini Should You Wear?

Your Toes Should Be Pink

You love to dress girly and work your feminine charms, with a bit of an edge.
Your ideal guy: Is confident enough to get any girl he wants

Stay away from: Jerks who only see you as eye candy

What Color Should Your Toenails Be?

I'm curious what your colors are! oh.... and don't cheat :)

Have fun!

I won a RAK on Ingrid's blog (which you should check out because there's so much to see!)! How fun is that? I never win anything, not i n competitions, not in loteries. And now Ingrids husband has pulled my name! So thank you Ingrids husband :)!!! Can't wait to see what I've won!

Birgit