A layout and some news!

This layout I created for the October old/new challenge at Scrapbook Express.

The old items I used are the old French postcard dated 1904, the lace and the card with the dwarf and the boots. The new items are the Graphic 45 papers, the Prima flower, the MM journaling card & bird and the buttons. (And in case you're wondering who's the girl in the photo....that's me in 1967!)

Also at Scrapbook Express I won the World Card Making Day-contest with the best card and won $ 20,- to spend in their online shop!

In September I created a layout for a challenge at Twisted Sketches and won!! I'll be their Guest Designer in December!!

And then some non-scrapbook related news: as of the beginning of October I'm a working mum again!! I found a job, very near by, where I can work during schoolhours and be at home as soon as the kids come home!!! And I love it!!! So, if I'm not behind my laptop as often as before that's the reason why!

Thanks for leaving a comment! Have a great evening and talk soon! xx Monique

Challenge 59, Journaling Junkie

Today I decided to participate in one of Journaling Junkie's wonderful challenges. The challenge this week is to create a layout in honor of Father's Day: journal about a special male relationship, be it your own father, your husband, your grandfather, an uncle, or a teacher. Whoever he is, let him know why he's special.

I had just the photo for this challenge!! A photo of Patrick with Timothy's soccer team. Pat is so happy to be their coach and I often wonder who is more enthusiast: Timothy who plays in the team or Patrick coaching the team....?

Title = een vader is.... / a father is....
Journaling reads: Een vader is iemand die jaar na jaar je voetbalteam coacht!
In English: A father is someone who coaches your soccer team, year after year.

TFL and hope you'll like it!

And another challenge!

This morning there were 2 challenges that caught my eye and they were both perfect for the layout I had in mind!

These are the challenges:

At Scrapbook Nederland I loved challenge #10: create a layout using only white as a colour. Using clear stamps with black ink was allowed but only a little bit.

At OLW (one little word) the challenge is to use the word "good".

So I decided to combine these two challenges into one layout:


I used lots of different materials and techniques for this layout: 2 different pieces of cardstock, paper bag, a piece of a cardboard box, hamly's, Prima swirl and flowers, crackle paint, felt, ribbon, the back of some cut outs, clear stamps and some machine stitching. The photo was taken on Pismo Beach near San Luis Obispo in California last May and YES, it definitely was A GOOD LIFE!!! (especially as we didn't know then what was going to happen in the next few weeks.....looking back, the time spent then and there was even more precious)

TFL!

Creative Scrappers weekly challenge

Today I finished my lo for the Creative Scrappers' weekly challenge.
Here's my layout, used the Orbit Collection from Crate Paper (paper and glitter die cuts), Hambly sheet, clip from MM and stamp from See d's:


And this is the sketch it's based upon, made by LG:



You have until the 6th of June if you want to play along!
Thanks for leaving a comment!!

Got Mojo?, challenge #32

I've often looked at all the great challenges at the challenge blog "Got Mojo?" and admired all the wonderful layouts the girls made. But I never participated....until now!!!

Challenge #32 is this:

Did you ever wish you had a friend who listened to every word you said, who liked all the same things you liked? Played every game you wanted to play. Maybe when you were a kid you made up a friend exactly like that. We at mojo want to hear about this imaginary friend. If you didn't have one as a kid, make one up. What did/would it look like? What was/is it's name. These are things we want to see on your page. The second part is use the animal crackers box as inspiration.

And this is the lo I made. It's about my childhood "friends": my favorite doll - Elke - and my teddy bear - beer - I got when I was born. By the way, the clothes they're wearing were knitted by my grandmother.

Furthermore the layout had to be inspired by a animal crackers box . As the print on this box had very bright colors and lots of animals on it I decided to use my favorite Sassafras papers; lots of bright colors and animals there!! And of course I couldn't resist to add an owl....!
TFL!!

Dare to use color.......I won!!

Wat een verrassing!! Ik heb dare #15 van Daretousecolor gewonnen!! Dit keer moest je een layout maken met alleen de kleuren groen en geel. En omdat ik zelden geel gebruik dacht ik "daar doe ik aan mee!". Aangezien geel juist Mats zijn lievelingskleur is heb ik natuurlijk foto's van Mats gebruikt. Dit is uiteindelijk het resultaat geworden:

Eigenlijk vond ik 'm achteraf weer een beetje te druk geworden, maar ik kan het gewoon niet laten.... als ik er niet heel bewust op let (zoals bij de vorige lo) dan "plak" ik mijn layouts gewoon helemaal vol!

Yes! I won the dare from "daretousecolor"!! The challenge was to make a layout, using only the colors green and yellow. I decided to play along because yellow is my least favorite color in layouts....LOL!

Deze maand zijn kleuren voor de dare blauw en rood. Dus mocht je zin hebben.... (Steef, dat zijn echt kleuren voor jou!!) doe ook mee!!

The colors for this month's dare are blue and red. Why not play along???

Challenge bij SBN

En nu weer eens een layout gemaakt voor de challenge bij Scrapbook Nederland. Je moest Thickers op je layout verwerken, 4 verschillende soorten dessinpapier gebruiken en tenminste 4 knoopjes gebruiken. Nou dat was niet zo heel moeilijk.....

De foto is van een vriendin van Manon, die heel graag haar foto gescrapt wilde hebben om op te hangen. Ze heeft 'm zelf nog niet gezien, dus ik hoop maar dat ze 'm leuk vindt!!

Timothy's A tot Z

Een van de challenges bij Stampin' Scrap is een A tot Z album scrappen. Ik ben er eentje voor Timothy aan het maken. Elke maand noemt Tanya de letters die gescrapt moeten worden, dus niet per sé in alfabetische volgorde. Tot nu toe heb ik 5 letters gescrapt. Hier zijn mijn layouts:

In January I started Timothy's A to Z album (it's one of the challenges on Stampin' Scrap, you can still join if you want to!). This morning I scrapped the letters G and S, but as I haven't shown you the other letters yet, here they come:

A= Amerika

D = DS

G = Gat in de luchtI = Ik S = Schaatsen

Ik heb gekozen voor een 8x8 album en de pagina's zijn gescrapt in de stijl van Moniek Jannink. Ik vind haar albums altijd ontzettend leuk, maar vaak iets te "rustig" voor mijn doen. Echter, voor dit albumpje vind ik het perfect.

Oh, en ik heb nog wat gescrapt, maar dat mag ik (nog) niet op mijn blog laten zien: een layout voor de challenge van Daretousecolor. Als je wilt zien wat ik gemaakt heb, klik dan door naar hun blog en kijk aan de linkerkant bij dare #15 groen/geel. De layout waar Mats in een doos zit is van mij!

Last week I made another layout, but I'm not (yet) allowed to show it. It's a lo for the challenge blog of Daretousecolor. If you want to see what I made, click on the link and look it up under dare #15 green/yellow. The layout with the photos of Mats sitting in a box is mine!

Queen's Challenge #2

Deze layout heb ik gisterenochtend even in elkaar gezet voor Tanya's "Queen's Challenge, nr. 2". Mocht je zin hebben in een challenge, je kan nog t/m zondagochtend meedoen!!! Het enige wat je moet doen is een layout maken met alleen de kleuren roze, zwart en wit, wat bling erop en het woord "roze" in je titel gebruiken (3x raden wat Tanya's favoriete kleur is.....).

I made this layout for Tanya's "Queen's Challenge #2". You had to use solely the colours pink, black and white, furthermore some bling and the word "pink" in the title (guess what Tanya's favorite colour is...). As Manon loves pink, choosing a photo wasn't too difficult!
If you want to participate too, you have until Sunday to upload your entry!

Good times and (very) bad times...

I know, I know, it's all part of life: the good and the bad times, but I really really HATE the present bad times. My mother is terribly ill. I don't want to go into any details here, but at least you know why I'm probably not so much behind my computer chatting away..... I do find that I can (partly) relax while scrapping, so I'll keep on doing just that.

As for good times, there are lots of those too of course and I really try to notice and enjoy them. (The kids are very good at present and I hope that will last forever!)
An example of what made me smile the other day was Helen's reaction to my "Queen's challenge" post. Here's what she said: "You are my scrappy inspiration right now...Incredibly pretty layout". Thank you Helen, that means a lot to me!!!

And Jessica's remark at my last post was also so very nice: "Once again, it's an awesome layout! I love the layering and the detail. You are truly becoming more and more of an inspiration! Are you the Monique from the Netherlands that provided Prima photos for their blog? It made me instantly think of you." Thank you Jessica for thinking I'm good enough for Prima!! No, it wasn't me, but your question made my day!

And what I haven't shown you yet (well, I did show it on the Stampin' Scrap forum) is this mini album Mieke made for me:
Jessica had organized a "mini album swap". You had to create a mini album of at least 5 or 6 pages and be finished by the end of February. Jessica sent us details of the person you had to send your album to. I can't show you the mini album I made because I haven't heard if my "partner" already received it, but I can show you the album I got!! Don't you just love it? Thanks Mieke, for this wonderful album!!

This is it for now. I just want to finish with wishing Elske a lot of strengh and good luck, because she too has a lot of bad times to cope with...

Thank you all for the kind things you said, for the super nice cards you've sent me and for everything else I'm forgetting to mention right now.

En mam, als je dit leest: IK HOU VAN JE!!

New layout!

Op het forum van Stampin' Scrap stond een nieuwe challenge van Yvette: je moest een layout maken met vrolijke kleuren, een "layer" van tenminste 5 lagen, een "critter" (blijkbaar een beestje) en een boom. Nou ben ik gek op challenges en ook op "layers", dus deed ik graag mee. Dit is het geworden:

This is the layout I created for Yvette's "layers, layers, layers" challenge on the Stampin' Scrap forum. You had to create a layout using: layers (at least 5), summery colours, a tree and a critter. I had these photos printed and wanted to scrap them for ages! I'm so glad that I finally did just that!

Used the new American Crafts pp "Craft Fair".

Furthermore, I received another award from Vicki!

In getting this award there are some rules: I have to say one nice thing about the man in my life. Well that is not too difficult: Patrick is the most patient and caring man in the world and just "gets" me (he kind of understands all my do's and don'ts) and besides this he's the perfect father to our children, I couldn't wish for a better man! Thanks Pat!

And now I have to list six ways I measure my success in my life. This, I find much more difficult, because how do you measure success?? and when you asked me this question 10 years ago, the answer would have been totally different, but I'll give it a shot: being happy, being healthy, having a fab husband and raising happy children, having wonderful friends, being able to have a job (or at the moment, being able not to have work) and last but not least being able to be busy with my hobbies (scrapping, reading, walking, dancing).

I have to pass this award on and I choose: Mieke!!

Thanks for reading my post and please feel free to comment on it!

The Queen's Challenge

This morning I created this layout for the "Queen's Challenge" over at Stampin' Scrap. I missed the deadline so I won't be eligible for the rak, but I couldn't resist playing along anyway. The challenge was: use a photo with yourself in it, pink, bling and a crown. Thanks Vicki (the queen herself) for this fun challenge! Loved it!


left to right: Anita, Mieke, Stefanie and I (or do I say "me"??).

A new sketch

Op Stampin' Scrap staat een nieuwe schets challenge voor febuari. Natuurlijk kon ik het niet laten er gelijk mee aan de slag te gaan!

On Stampin' Scrap you'll find a sketch challenge for February! Of course I couldn't resist and started straight away!

Here's my interpretation:

And this is the sketch:

TFL!

And have a very scrappy weekend!!

xoxo Monique

Scrap the Boys

Tja, en wat doe je als je opeens 5 "vrije" ochtenden erbij hebt? Dan ga je surfen op het net en vind je nog meer leuke challenge blogs.... tenminste dat is wat ik doe! Zo vond ik deze "Scrap the Boys" site en omdat de januari challenge me wel aansprak heb ik maar gelijk mee gedaan. De challenge was een layout maken waarbij je je laat inspireren door de nieuwe blog "banner".

And because of all the spare time I have (with Mats going to school too) I found another amazing blog with challenges..... This time an "boys only" blog, it's called "Scrap the Boys". So I did! The January challenge was to create a page inspired by the new blog banner....

And yet another challenge....

Ik word een echte "blog hopper"; ik vind het heerlijk om blogs van andere mede-scrappers te lezen en ben gek op allerlei challenges. Zo ben ik via via op het sketch blog "Black Magic" terecht gekomen. Hier hebben ze 2x per maand een challenge waarbij de hoofdkleur altijd zwart is. Leek me ook wel weer eens leuk....dus toen gisteren Conny kwam scrappen heb ik een layout gemaakt voor de challenge van Black Magic: behalve zwart moest je ook nog de kleuren roze, wit en turkoise gebruiken en daarnaast nog wat rub-ons. Dit is het geworden:

I'm turning into a real "blog hopper"; I love to read blogs of other scrappers and admire their work and I love to participate in all kinds of challenges! This way I found the "Black Magic" sketch blog. Here you have the chance to create and submit layouts with black as the predominant color. Each fortnight the Creative Team will provide a new sketch. You will be required to have your layouts showcase predominantly black and then use a combination of our monthly palette of colours. The first challenge for this year was: besides black, use pink, turkoise and white and some rub-ons. So, Tuesday evening, when Conny came over to scrap I decided to give it a go and this is what I made of it! Hope you'll like it.

TFL!

2008 in review

Toen ik van de week het blog van Journaling Junkie bezocht en hun laatste challenge "a review of 2008" zag, wist ik gelijk "hieraan wil ik meedoen!". Ik ben al zo lang van plan om een dergelijke layout te maken, maar om de een of andere reden kon ik nooit de inspiratie ervoor vinden. Maar nu is het er dan eindelijk toch van gekomen en ik ben hartstikke blij met het resultaat!

Journaling:
1e kaartje:
1. Jan: Mats werd 3 en dit zijn de Elmo traktaties voor de peuterspeelzaal; 2. Feb: Mats krijgt een “groot” bed 3. Mrt: Manon zorgt voor de paassfeer in huis; 4. Apr: Timothy’s team bij 4x4 voetbal via school; 5. Mei: Vakantie in Schotland en Timothy’s 9e verjaardag; 6. Juni: Dansvoor-stelling “Kleur” van Manons dansschool Coby Ouwersloot in schouwburg Rijswijk, Oranje voetbalt; 7. Juli: bbq bij Thijs op de boerderij ter afsluiting voetbalseizoen F7 Timothy;

2e kaartje:
8. Aug.: Op vakantie in Frankrijk, we gaan 1 week naar de Ardèche: Bourg-Argental en 1 week naar Cardet met Paul en Michèle met de kids; 9. Sept.: De kinderen in tuin van het Prinsenhof in Delft; 10. Okt.: Pompoenmaskers maken voor Halloween; 11. Nov.: Manon wordt 12! Kaarsjes uitblazen blijft leuk! 12. Dec. Kerstavond met cadeautjes onder de kerstboom en Mats wordt 4! Kaarsjes uitblazen van zijn gele Diego marsepeintaart!

When I visited the blog "Journaling Junkie" and read their latest challenge I just knew I had to participate. The challenge was to create a layout either about your celebration of New Year's, or your resolutions or a review of 2008 and as you can see I chose the latter. So many times I wanted to create such a layout, but it just never happened.....and now it has!

Journaling reads:
(1st card)
1. Jan.: Mats turned 3 (in Dec.) and these are his Elmo treats for kindergarten; 2. Feb.: Mats gets a “big” bed! 3.: March: Manon takes care of the easter decorations; 4. April: Timothy’s school soccer team for the 4x4 games; 5. May: Our holiday in Scotland and Timothy’s 9th birthday; 6. June: Manon with her streetdance class during the performance “Colour” in the theatre in Rijswijk; EK: Oranje (Dutch soccer team) plays and everybody has the orange fever; 7. July: end-of-season barbecue with Timothy’s soccer team.

(2nd card)
8. Aug.: Holiday in France: 1st week in a chalet in the Ardèche in Bourg-Argental and the 2nd week at camping Beau Rivage in Cardet with Paul and Michèle and kids; 9. September: The kids in the garden of “het Prinsenhof” in the centre of Delft; 10. Oct.: carving pumpkin masks for Halloween; 11. Nov.: Manon turns 12! Blowing out the candles is still fun! 12. Dec.: Xmas eve with presents under the Christmas tree. Mats turns 4!! Blowing out the candles from his yellow Diego marzipan cake!

And this morning my prize from Little shop of Sketches arrived, all the way from New Zealand!! Thanks Tanya, I love it (used part of it straight away on the layout above)!!