My blog has a new home!

I would like to welcome you on:

http://birgitkoopsen.typepad.com/

or just click HERE!

Back home!

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

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...

...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

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!!!

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!

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