Did some crochet!

Yesterday I started to do some crochet again. I have done it a lot when I was in my twenties! I bought a book about Crochet with all kind of patterns for making cozy blankets. There was also a pattern with a nice flower and because that's very usable on a layout I made a few of these flowers. I took a photo of the 4 flowers that I have made thus far, cut them out and made a daily something with them.

Today was a better day than yesterday, concerning me and my son, but I still feel tired.

The weather also isn't in my favour. It felt cold inside and outside the house and I saw it was just 18 degrees Celsius inside. I put on an extra vest but it still felt uncomfortable for my muscles, so I put on the heater (?). It's ridiculous! I mean it's still Summer for crying out loud!

A rough day with my son!

Today I had a rough day with my son! He's hard to handle now that he's gone back to school. I suppose he just has to accustom to the new teachers and classmates, new kids in the schoolcab, new subjects, like German and he also has to get used to the early hour to get out of bed.

When his homeschool teacher picked him up from school he was in a very bad mood and he kept his cap on for a long period of time, hiding himself and not wanting to speak to either his teacher or me. Well, he spoke a few words but that was more scolding.

When his teacher left he went upstairs and took a shower. After he did that his mood was better but every time I wanted to have a conversation with him about why he's so angry he started to scold again (it's all my fault ofcourse!), so when I tried a few times I realized I wasn't getting threw to him and left him alone. Did some crochet for a new layout!

When I went to the city this morning I bought a book about crochet and with the new cotton I also bought this morning I made a flower. It has been several years that I did crochet so it took me a while before I got used to the instructions in the book.

After that I made my daily something with a photo of Zander when he was sitting on the sofa with his cap on, watching Pokemon.

It's 9 p.m. and I feel exhausted! I feel I go to bed very soon.

Daily something.

Simple daily something today! I feel tired. Spend a couple of hours with my dad in the hospital this morning. He had to do some tests because of his heart condition.

She gets closer and closer ...

... Kuifje that is! This afternoon I found some chicken poop on the threshold between the shed and the kitchen! One day soon I find her sitting on my bench watching telly! LOL

She's walking in and out of the house now. Still a little bit careful and somewhat shy but she's not as afraid as in the beginning. She's a funny chicken!

I do have to paint that blue threshold!

First digital collage

This evening I made a collage with several photos I took today. A while ago I bought this book about being creative with photos that is explaining step by step how to make digital projects. The book contains a cd with College Creator, Panorama Maker, Funhouse and Greeting Card Creator from ArcSoft. It's very easy to work with. So, this is my first digital daily something.

My chicken is now coming in the house. She already did that yesterday, but I wasn't able to take a photo of her then. Maybe she will have some company soon. It's not sure yet, but I can have some chicken from a lady who passed away last friday. Very sad story!

The pizza was made by my son and Horst (one of his teachers). I only had to put it in the oven!

Isn't that just great!

Zander back to school and my Daily Something

This afternoon my son had to go to school for the first time, it was just to meet his mentor and his new classmates. He also got his timetable.

Tomorrow he already has a day off because the city of Groningen was liberated on August 17 1672 (according to the Julian calendar). The Bishop of Munster, who proclaimed that parts of the province of Groningen belonged to his diocese, was defeated and the city of Groningen was rescued. Since the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1700 the festivities are taken place on the 28th of August. This year the Queen will also visit the festivities.

When he was at school this afternoon I went to the supermarket on my bike, since I don't have a car! Because of the daily something project I start to look different at all the things that I'm doing and find so very normal. So, my daily something is about my shopping bike. To be able to bring as much items from the supermarket to my home, I have a large basket in front and large bags (on both sides) at the back. Sometimes I even have to put an extra plastic bag on one side of the handle-bars. I do think sometimes that for foreigners we Dutch women must look like pack-mules on our bikes. Can you imagine that I also had Zander on the back of my bike when he was little? I'm glad he has his own bike now.

New layout

Today I made a new layout. It's a scraplift from Birgit Koopsen and I'm going to send it in for her scraplift challenge. You can see her layout on the left side of the second photo which is my daily something for today.

Birgit made a 12x12 layout and I changed it into an A4 (8,5x11?). The challenge was to only use cardstock and no patterned paper.

I used the Cricut for the paper hearts, the large red letters and the green frame. I also used felt for the hearts. Just click on the photo to take a closer look!

All the little dots you see are actually holes I made with an eyelet setter and behind the holes are different colors of cardstock. Took me a lot of time!

I also used the eyelet setter to make holes for the zigzags with ribbon.

Supplies: cardstock (Bazzill, Action), ribbon (market, Action), felt (Pipoos = Dutch store), white rub-on letters (Making Memories), thickers {} (American Crafts), clip (Rob&Bob), letterstamps (Provokraft), black DVD pen (Pilot), white souffle pen.

Journaling in Dutch says: despite the fact that she's only laying wind-eggs!

Kuifje (my chicken's name) means something like: forelock.

In top 5 contributors DS!

I have just found out that I'm in the top 5 of contributors to the Daily Something Flickr group. It's nice to be in 5th position. I just had to take a photo of this moment. I'm sure I will loose this position very quickly, because there are a lot of woman in this group who are as dedicated as me, to make a daily something every day.

The only disadvantage of this project is that I'm not making any large layouts anymore! So yesterday I made myself a promise to make a large layout today!

Chicken stories

I made two daily something layouts today about my chicken.

I think they are funny!

The first one from yesterday is about cleaning up the chicken poop from the terrace. I have to do that several times every day! Because she comes up to the house more often (well she practically stays on the terrace the whole day) there's a lot of chicken poop. It's one of the two inconveniences of having chicken. The second one is that they destroy your garden!

The second layout is about how funny it was to see my chicken sitting on the bench of our picnic table this morning, when I opened the curtains. It looked as if she was waiting for her breakfast. I was a bit surprised too, because normally I close the henhouse every evening, but I guess I forgot to do that yesterday.

Yesterday's daily something

Finished my daily something of yesterday.

I had two long and emotional phonecalls yesterday with another mother of a son with autism. She has her son home from school for the moment because there isn't a school available. Well actually there is a school available but because of some stupid regulations he couldn't be placed in this school. The only thing I could do was listen to her and let her throw out all of her frustrations about the situation.

I understand very well what she's going through because I have had the same kind of problems with my son with autism a couple of years ago. The only difference is that I wanted to homeschool my son. This is not allowed in the Netherlands! You feel very powerless as a parent if all kind of people that do not know your son in person, think that they know what is the best!

She, her son and her family were in my thoughts all day. I felt powerless in not being able to help her but than I remembered a visualization technique from The Secret that a friend told me about and I send this information to her in an e-mail.

And you know what .... this morning she phoned me again, telling me that she has had wonderful news this morning. It is almost certain that her son can go to the school of her choice. She told me that when she read my e-mail last night, she started to visualize her son being on this school right away. She calmed down and felt much better after she did that. And this morning she got this great news .... isn't that cool!

More daily something layouts

Just finished my last two daily something layouts.

The one with the chicken is very simple! It's a photo with journaling written on the photo with a DVD pen. I used the Cricut to cut out the oval and put some white paper behind the photo and stamped the date in the oval.

The other one is also a photo made with Easy-photo from Canon (it goes with the printer). I used the white space for the titel and date. Journaling is on the back side.

A little bit late ....

... but here are my daily something layouts of Sunday and Monday! Journaling is on the backside.

I felt a little bit patriotic when I was making the one of Sunday! I used the colors of the Dutch flag and the orange I used to embroider typical Dutch windmill is the color for the royal family: the house of Orange. The Dutch also use this color to dress in when they go to important sport events.

On Monday I did my very best to clean up my attic. I threw away a lot. It was really necessary to do this. I threw away a lot of clothes and old school books. I brought the clothes to a depot of the Salvation Army and the books went to a second hand store.

The other day I told you about my first camera that I won with a contest when I was 13 years old. Well I found the camera while I was cleaning up my attic and took some photos of it. I also cleaned it up a bit and now it is standing in my bedroom. Because it is old (almost 40 years) you have to use a film that isn't available anymore (at least I think so) so I can't take photos with it.

Harry Potter movie.

This afternoon Zander, his friend Manuel and I went to the latest Harry Potter movie in Groningen. We went to a very large cinema at Euroborg (a new soccer stadium) with also a cinema, casino and a large foodstore: Jumbo. There were only 5 people to watch the movie: we and a mother with a boy of the age of my son. I have never been to a cinema with that small amount of people. I think it was great and very relaxing.

I took a photo of the room where all the projectors for the movies are. It was fun to see behind the scene.

The film was great but not as exciting as we had expected.

After the cinema we went to McDonalds. Because it was very busy and noisy inside we took our food back to the car and ate it on the parkingplace. My son doesn't like crowded places. I think it's because of his autism. He always gets excited and is hard to handle when there is a lot of noise around him. That's why I was also so glad that there were so few people in the cinema.

And to tell you the truth ... I also don't like crowded and noisy places and have the tendency to avoid them.

Anyways it was a fun afternoon!

Only a few days to go and they have to return to school! They both said that they weren't looking forward to going back to school!

Daily something from Saturday

Last Saturday I went to the Scrapbookstore. I bought the September edition of CK, some papers and those XL ghost clocks from Heidi Swapp.

Saw some nice ideas in CK that I want to try. I also visited the website of CK and saw this video about an easy way to paint brads in a matching color for your layout. Why didn't I think about that?!

Another thing I did on Saturday was to clear out my shed, finally! I managed to throw away a lot of rubbish. I took my dad's car to bring it to the dumping site (ground?). There are only a few boxes left that I have to sort out but it already looks great and very organized.

I should have taken some photos from my shed before and after, but I was to ashamed about the before that I didn't. That's also why I made a daily something about my tour to the Scrapbookstore!

Typical Dutch.

Went to visit an aunt this afternoon with my parents. I saw her at my big birthday party in April and when my parents told me that they would visit her today in her new appartment I asked if it was okay I'd come along too. It was fun talking about stuff that is going on in the family.

When we went back home I took some photos of a windmill out of the window of the driving car. It was actually raining (for a change) so that's why the trees in the distance look grey.

And this evening I had to pick up Zander from the farm where he stayed over the weekend. On the way over there I saw this sky over a meadow with cows. I also took this photo when the car was driving. And no I'm not a reckless driver ... my dad was driving the car!

Misty

Another rainy day. I stayed in home most of the day. Misty, our cat, also stayed in the house.

So I made a daily something about her. She likes to sleep on my bed. I used photos I took of her when I had just bought my new camera. Doesn't she look cute?

Rainy day

We had yet another rainy day over here in the Netherlands. There was some sun too, but the weather was really unpredictable. I spend most of the day inside! I did have an appointment with my dentist because one of my back-teeth broke off the other day and I had to go to the library. After that I looked at the DA (Dutch shop) where they also sell magazines if there was a new scrapbookmagazine, and there was!

I went back home, just in time because it was raining again, and I read Scrapbook. There are some lovely layouts in it from Revlie. I also liked the layouts from Petra Coolen. There were a lot more really nice layouts and projects, like the beachhouse and the birthday hat. If you go to http://www.scrapbookmagazine.nl/ you will find the description of the beachhouse. It's in Dutch so if your English you have to use a translation program.

This evening I made another daily something with a photo of a reflection of me in a pool of water. I think this daily something project from Ali Edwards is really cool! For me it's better than to write in a diary every day, although I did that for years when I was younger. I think I must have about 10 to 12 diary's somewhere in a closet. But this is more fun!!

The photo I took was really boring to look at, so it was a challenge to make something creative with it. I think I succeeded very well. I just used the lines in the photo to work with.

You can click on the photo for a better look!

Daily Something: Las Chicas

Just finished my Daily Something of yesterday! I tried to take a photo of me and my chicken Kuifje. It was really difficult to take a picture of her without her moving her head. I finally managed to take this cute photo of the two of us: las chicas! Journaling is on the backside.

This afternoon I gave a workshop scrapbooking to Janke and her daughter Jiska. They made a cover for a notebook. It was their first time ever so I had to explain a lot and had to give them a helping hand here and there. I forgot to take photos of them and their notebooks because I was too busy.

Chicken Kuifje

I just want to share some photos of my chicken with the name Kuifje. After her 'sister' died almost 2 weeks ago she's all alone! Every morning I open the door of the henhouse so that she can walk in the garden. I also did that quite often when all the chicken were alive but now I do it every day. She follows me to the house and stays there most of the time. When the sun is shining and I sit outside, she also comes to sit with me. I think she must feel lonely now with all the other chicken gone.

Doesn't she look cute?! We called her Kuifje (in French it's Tintin) because she had the largest comb that dripped (?) a bit to one side.

Haven't made a daily something today. I wasn't feeling that great today. Maybe tomorrow?!

Daily something 3

Forgot to post my daily something yesterday.

Neighbours were out for the whole day so I had to take their dog out for a walk.

It's a photo with just letters stamped on white paper and the date written with a DVD pen. Note: In the Netherlands we first put the day and then the month.

Have to go now!

Birthday card for my mother

Today I made this birthday card for my mother's 80th birthday tomorrow!

We'll be celebrating it with a buffet at a restaurant in Exloo. Just my parents, my brother, his wife and 2 kids and Zander and me.

Daily something 2

Made a very simple daily something today. Wasn't in the mood. Feeling a bit tired because I went to sleep a bit late last night.

I did go to the nearest scrapbookstore this afternoon and bought some nice pp from K&Company. And this morning I scanned a lot of old photos that belong to my parents. Well actually it weren't that many because both my parents and their parents weren't interested in taking photos. Such a shame!! I just have a few photos from my early youth.

I on the other hand started to take photos when I was 13 after I had won a camera with a contest. Still have it somewhere in a box at the attic, but it's not working anymore.

Daily something!

Started with a new project today called daily something. Read about it in Ali Edwards' newsletter and I think it's a cool idea to tell about the daily stuff and be creative in the same time. I chose to make my daily somethings very small, the size of a photo (4x6) and put them in a map for photos.

Ali has made a special Flickr group where you can upload your daily something layouts. Go here!

Garden treasures

Just finished this layout: Garden treasures. It's for this weeks challenge from HMITM

The ribbons are perhaps a bit out of tune, but you had to use them and I couldn't find some more suitable ones in my stash. Well, it looks nice on the photo I think.

Made the transparant letters myself, using thickers from American Crafts.

This weeks challenge is to use: 7 pp, 9 buttons, 8 fasteners (brads, staples etc.), 4 photos, 5 ribbons and using only 1 color. I know, we can debate about the last one when you look at my layout, but I think it will do. The color is somewhere between yellow and orange ;) ... so I kinda used them both. LOL

Supplies: pp (Ali Edwards (3), BG (2), SR (2), buttons (market), brads (OTC), ribbons (market, Action), black sticker letters (market), acrylic letters (selfmade), font: Felix Titling.

Favorite trail.

So these are the photos I took yesterday when I was walking with Resta. It really is my favorite trail to walk nearby my house. I'm so lucky to live right beside this trail. When I leave my house and turn to the right it is all green that I see. In the beginning there are some houses on both sides, most of them hidden by trees, but after 600 meters or so there are only trees and secluded meadows with almost no animals. This time there were only some sheep. Other times I have only seen some pony's (small horses).

It takes about 20 to 30 minutes to walk this trail when you're not shooting photos.

I hope you enjoyed this "photowalk" with me!