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

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!!
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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!

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

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!

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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