Busy, busy ...

... with taking care of my parents and painting my bedroom.

My parents are both sick at the moment. My dad has bronchitis and my mom the flew. So I had to do their groceries and picking up medicines at the pharmacy. They are doing much better now.

They decided not so long ago that it was time to go to a service apartment because of their age (80) and their starting health problems. The house they are living in (where I was born) is too big and they have to take the stairs to get to their bedrooms (they sleep apart because otherwise they keep eachother awake). They also have a huge garden and my dad isn't able anymore to keep it nice.

So about 1,5 week ago they reacted on an add from the home rental company for an apartment near the home for the elderly. These apartments are exclusively for older people. There's an alert botton in the apartment in case they need instant help. Last Tuesday they got a call that the apartment could be theirs if they liked it. When my mother felt a little bit better I went over with her to see if she liked it. She didn't and to tell you the truth so did I. It was a bit too dark for me and for her. When we were home again she told me that if she had to live there she would be dead in no time! We then talked about installing a chair-lift and renting help for the house and garden so that they can stay and live in their own house.

On Monday my walking friend/neighbour Suzanne called me to offer her help. I told her some time ago that I have several rooms in my house that need to be painted (walls and woodwork) but because of the fibro and a hurting shoulder (I had a frozen shoulder in 2004) I just can't paint the walls or ceilings anymore. Unexpectedly her husband decided to take a week of absence from his work and so he could take care of their 2 girls and she had time to help me.

I'm so happy now with my new bedroom. I haven't slept in it yet, because of the smell of the paint (waterbased but yet very stinky). I sleep on the cushions of our couch in the living room. They are very comfortable to sleep on because they are as thick as a mattrass.

I haven't done much scrapbooking. Only during a crop at Birgit's on Wednesday.

I did buy some very nice books at Bol.com about srapbooking and collage and book artists. The titles and authors of these books are: Scraptastic by Ashley Calder and Al.pha.bet.i.ca by Lynne Perrella. For the Dutch readers: you have to go to the English booksection at bol.com first and then to search. They have a lot of nice English books about scrapbooking and bookart!!

I also decided last week that I want to have a gardenhouse. I talked about it with my parents and they want to help me financially to make this dream come true. After having a home program for my son since he was 9 (so that means for 5 years now) with all kind of different people working for me with my son in our house, I feel I need to have more privacy in my house. Our study is also my scraproom and when my son comes home from school he has to be in the study/scraproom and so I don't have a place to do my scrapbooking.

We will make the gardenhouse very comfortable and warm. The walls, roof and floor will be isolated and there will be electricity in the gardenhouse so that we can put an electric heater in it during the cold months.

I already ordered a gardenhouse. It's 3,80 x 3,80 meters. I now have to ask some strong men to help me clear my garden. Sometimes I really hate to have fibro because it makes me so dependent on others. In the past I would have done everything myself and I considered myself as a very independent woman. I suppose I still am an independent woman but just not on everything anymore.

Two new layouts.

Today I finished two new layouts. I really had fun making them.

I used a transparancy from ColorsConspiracy that I bought at the Scrap-a-licious weekend. They have such nice transparancies!! The patterned paper is from KI memories and the rubons from Hambly. I used a large photo of our lovely cat Misty. She really is the nicest cat ever! She used to live across the street but that lady wasn't at home a lot and so she came over to us. We found out that she actually had a home about 6 months later, until then we thought somebody had put her out on the street during Fall vacation. Then one day I happened to hear the lady calling OUR cat Lotje and I saw that OUR cat went inside her house. So I went over there and that's when I found out that this lady just had taken over Lotje alias Misty from her friend maybe 2 weeks before she came to live with us. Because she had to work a lot (she had day and night shifts) and Lotje made a mess of her house she left her outside. Although Lotje/Misty likes to be outside a lot, she also likes to be inside a warm and comfortable home. That's what she found at our home and so the lady decided to give her to us.

The second layout is made with patterned papers from Scenic Route. The thickers are from American Crafts, the rub-on letters and the leather photo corners are from Making Memories.

I love how this layout turned out. I was just fooling around a bit.

The many faces off

Finished another Scrap-a-licious project (workshop Corinne) with colored paperbags and transparancies from ColorsConspiracy (love them!) and Hambly.

The cover is made with chipboard and thick wallpaper which we had to color with alcohol ink.

Finished 2 other workshop layouts!

I have just finished 2 other layouts which I started at the Scrap-a-licious weekend. They were both workshops from Celine. I'm not that fond about the Malbosc layout. I think I should have used another photo but I show it to you anyway.

I love the paper from the other layout: This is me. It's from American Crafts.

Okay, now I'm going to finish another project (Corinne's) with transparancies from ColorsConspiracy and colored paper bags. It's already starting to look great! Very colorful.

Childhood album

Yesterday I finished the Childhood album which was one of Celine's workshops at the Scrap-a-licious weekend. I had a lot of fun making it. Of course I used the techniques Celine taught us and also added some of my own. Because I don't have the cute cloud stamps I draw some my self on white paper and cut them out. Then I made a stamp with foam for the blue clouds you can see on page 2. All of the small blue dots are made with that bubbly protection plastic.

I also finished the wooden album which was one of Corinne's workshops. I can't show it to you yet because it has to be published first (Corinne's that is!). Mine looks very cute too though!

Finally ....

... we have a connection with the internet again!! It lasted exactly 7 weeks! Somebody called me today from Orange and about 10 minutes later the problem was solved. I could have done it myself if I knew anything about computers. Really it was so easy to solve and I don't understand why somebody at the helpdesk couldn't have helped me. The problem was that the LAN connection was set on off (how did that happen??) and I just had to click on it to turn it on again.

I finished a few of the Scrap-a-licious projects that I will be sharing with you after I have taken some pictures off them. Have patience because I have to wait for some better light. It's raining cats and dogs over here!
Happy Easter!!

Happy Birthday to Celine Navarro!!!

I hope you have a nice day with lots of nice presents. Have fun!!

I made you this layout with paper and stuff from the scrap-a-licious workshops and some stuff from my own stash. As you can see I continue to use some of the techniques you teached us all. Thanks for the inspiring workshops!

Scrap-a-licious weekend

Although we still don' t have an internet connection :( !!!! I can share some pictures with you from the scrap-a-licious weekend in Utrecht on the 8th and 9th March.

I went there with Heidi, my best scrapfriend. Actually I already went to Utrecht on Friday the 7th with my son. As you know his dad lives in Utrecht and I arranged that Zander could stay with him for the weekend.

The workshops were awesome!! Both Celine and Corinne prepared some lovely and exciting projects for us. I used some techniques I normally don' t use because I' m afraid to blow the layout. So, I have learned to let go of this fear!

After the first 3 workshops we had a great diner. Everything tasted delicious!

On Saturday evening we had a crop with a lottery. I won 2 prizes!!

After the crop we went to the hostel Strowis. Heidi and I arranged for a room for 2. The beds were comfortable and I had a fearly good night sleep. Breakfast was simple but yummie.

Then we went back to De Poort van Kleef for 3 other workshops. After the first one I started to feel very tired and I wasn' t as inspired as I would have wished for. But it wasn' t due to the workshops but because of my body protesting, esp. my lower back. I can still feel it!

Of course we did a fotoshoot with Corinne and Celine as you can see on top of this post.

Thank you girls for this great weekend. Also Danielle who was there with all of her scrapbook stuff to buy.

Sorry.....

.... but we still have no connection with the internet. Today I wrote a letter of complaint to the Orange company. I made several phonecalls to Orange but it' s a callcenter and they tell me the same story every week so it was going no where. I hope my letter will help!

I have made several layouts over the past few weeks. Sad I can' t show them to you because I' m not on my computer.
I' m also getting more and more excited about the Scrap-a-licious weekend I will go to in a couple of days! But first my son' s birthday this Wednesday! He turns 14!!

Well, I hope I will be able to show you my scrapbook stuff very soon!

Off the internet!!

I' m not a bad blogger it' s just that the internet isn' t working for over more than a week now. I am changing from KPN ADSL to Orange ADSL and it seems that this is very hard to do and causing a lot of problems for a lot of people who also want to change the ADSL connection. I'm sending you this message from a neighbour.
I hope that everything is working next week!