Queens day.

Today we celebrated Queens day in the Netherlands. I had hung the Dutch flag with the orange pennant early in the morning. After breakfast I went to the center of the village to visit the Vrijmarkt for the children. There weren't as many children as last year or the years before. I suppose a lot of families have left the village for the May break. I only bought a wooden box with wooden puzzles inside. I want to alter the box and puzzles.

This afternoon I moved some of the plants in my front and back yard. I hope they will survive the move! I had to move them because of the arrival of the garden house in my back yard very soon.

New layout of Misty!

Finished a layout of Misty last night!

I was inspired by a layout I saw in Scraptastic from Asley Calder as you can see above.

I discovered I like working with paint and gesso. I didn't use any patterned paper. Just cardstock, paper from a box, aquarel paper and paper from an old book.

Because I didn't have the wire Ashley used I used scrapbook wire.

The day after!

Yesterday I got one year older: 51 already!!
I didn't have a big party like last year. Just my parents and some friends and neighbours came over to celebrate my birthday. I got a lot of flowers this year! I love flowers!! I got two big pots with flowers for outside. I took some pictures of them today.

I also took a lot of pictures of Misty. She really likes to sleep in the new chicken house during the day.

Because we are getting this new garden house in our back yard very soon I had to make a new chicken house for the only chicken left. The old chicken house was also way to big for just one chicken and so I made her a new comfortable one from an old rabbit house. She can walk in and out freely but she only uses it to sleep in when it's getting dark. So during the day Misty uses it to take her naps.

Zander isn't doing very well at the moment. He came back home from school last Tuesday feeling sick. He told me he had a soar throat and a head ache. The next day he started to cough and he still does. We went to see the family doctor on Friday just to be sure that it wasn't a bronchitis, but after she listened to his lungs she told me that there was nothing wrong with them and that it just seemed to be a virus. He told me this morning that he is really tired of coughing all the time and that he wished that it was over. I hope he feels better really soon!

This past week I was to busy with all kinds of things to find some time for scrapbooking. I hope to be able to make some new stuff next week!

Had fun this weekend ....

.... with making a birthday card for our cousin/niece Steffanie and a layout with a picture of Zander and Misty.

The layout is made on a transparency sheet. I painted the backside with gesso and sponged it with a tissue while it was still wet. You can't see it on the pictures but it looks great in real. I also used some ducktape for the stars. The letters LOVE are made on black cardstock with transparant embossing ink and white embossing powder.

My dad's 80th birthday!!

Today is my dad's 80th birthday!! They decided not to give a big birthday party or familydiner because they both still feel tired.

I made my dad this birthdaycard. The picture of my dad and Zander is from last year.

The latest news.

First of all I want to tell you something about the layout and mini book I've made over the last couple of days.
The layout is about one Summer I worked in France (Cote d'Azur) as an au-pair. I went there 2 (or was it 3?!) Summers in a row working for the same nice family who normally lived near Paris. This house was their Summerhouse! There was grandpere Rene, his son Bob (Robert) and his wife Simone and ofcourse their 2 daughters Valerie and Laurence. The second Summer I worked for them Bob's brother Philip came over with his wife Reina and their son David. The two brothers hadn't seen eachother since they were very small boys. Their parents seperated when they were very young and the (American) mother returned to the USA with her youngest son and Bob stayed with his dad in France. So it was a very special moment when they arrived from the airport at the summerhouse in Theoule. We were at the pool when they arrived and David (tired from the flight) was yelling that he wanted to swim. Because his wings were somewhere in a suitcase the parents told him that he couldn't but he was yelling louder and louder and so they told him he could only go into the water if he stayed on the stairs. I was sitting on the wall watching everybody. The family was so busy talking to eachother that they forgot about David. I didn't, and when I saw him going under, because he had left the stairs, I jumped into the water with my clothes on and lifted him up. Because he wasn't aware yet of the dangerous position he was in, he was yelling to me: "I don't want to leave the water, I don't want to leave the water!" and he was kicking me with his feet.

His parents were so grateful that I had watched over their son and kept him from drowning, that when they went home they gave me money to buy a new watch (my watch was broken when I jumped into the water because it wasn't waterproof). Because it was quite a lot of money I could buy a very nice Seiko! I still ware the same watch and it is very dear to me!

I also made a mini book for my friend Suzanne. She helped me painting my bedroom 2 weeks ago. She did all the heavy painting like the walls and ceiling. I'm not able to do that anymore because of the fibro.

I gave it to her yesterday evening when she came over for our weekly walk. She loved it and she's going to look for pictures to complete the mini and then I can really finish the mini with journaling and so on.

Zander has found himself another friend. This is so funny, at least to me it is.

Last Friday the doorbell rang and because I thought it was his friend Manuel I asked Zander to open the door. Zander came back into the room talking to somebody. I was expecting to see Manuel but instead it was a boy I never had seen before. His name is Floris. I asked them how they knew eachother. Zander said: I don't know. He asked me if he could play with me and when I asked him who he was because I didn't knew who he was, he said his name was Floris and I have known a boy with the name Floris when I was 5, so I told him it was okay! Floris then told me that he and Zander had been in a fight when they were 5 and 4. Manuel told him about Zander and so when he had nothing to do last Friday he thought, maybe Zander wants to hang out with me (that means: hang out behind the computer!! ;) ). They got along very well and the next day he also came over. In the evening Manuel came too, but that was too much for Zander. So when Floris came back on Sunday I told him that in the future he wants to come over to us and Manuel is already here, he can't come in. I told Manuel the same when he came over last night. They were both cool about it!

I'm so glad that Zander told me that he can't cope with 2 friends around him. This is really new to me!! It means he is becoming more aware of what is good for him and what isn't!

Finally a new layout

I finally found some time and energy to finish the layout I started last Wednesday at Birgit's crop. It's a scraplift from a layout I saw in the book Scraptastic from Asley Calder.

Ashley used muslin to work on and she didn't use patterned papers like I did.

I love this photo of me taken by the schoolphotographer (eventhough I don't seem to have a neck). It's one of the nicest photos of me from my childhood!

My parents almost never took pictures of me and my brother. Such a shame!! My brother however has more photos than me. He's the first born you see! And a lot of the photos I have from my childhood are a bit blurry (?) so there's not much to choose from for scrapbook pages about my youth.

My dad is doing much better now. Today the doctor allowed him to go outside again. My mother on the other hand still doesn't feel so great. I suppose because she is older it takes more time to recover from the flew.

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.