{ lovebirds }

My heart was bursting with LOVE last night, not just because of a dare to create something about a love, not just because I was scrapbooking one of my favorite photo’s of the hubs and I; but because I was doing what makes my heart sing and my mind zen….  Playing, creating and most importantly memorykeeping, journaling, documenting our story, in this case my love for the hubs.

The Dutch Dares Design Team all documented their loves, with amazing pictures, journaling and techniques. Everyone is welcome to join in, play along, but our Facebook group is dutch oriented so you might need the translation button depending on where you are from.

 

 

{ scrapbooking sparks joy }

For me anyway! Once upon time ago, I owned an online scrapbookstore, had a design team and started the Dutch Dares I closed down the store after 5 years but we had fun with the dares until 2 years ago. We all needed a break, for different reasons, and then I did a thing this month …

Out of the blue I polled who missed it, the DT missed it and many participants did too. Many big fat YES’es so we announced a restart, started a FB group to replace our old blog, fb page and are having so much fun re-introducing ourselves with some old layouts.

I found these while looking for my 3 fave layouts…

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{ scrapbooking hiatus }

Dutch Dare 112 ~ Lotsa White I have had a huge blogger and scrapbooking hiatus but I’m scrapping again and determined to blog more and give you the peeks into my life whether you want it or not …

The dare for this month is white, and I decided to make a layout about my Personal Malden Filofax.

I used a faux filofax for years and when I purchased a smart phone decided to neglect my organiser and use the phone, it has a calendar, it can give you reminders, it made sense. But after 2 years (and my second samsung) I felt like i was always playing catch up, one step behind in my planning and important events things had to change.

On Pinterest and Instagram I noticed that there was a new trend arising, decorating your filofax with stickers, washi and lovely colored pens.

Now scrapbookers are people who like to decorate so the spark was lit again. I dug up my faux filofax, bought inserts and started playing and planning again! Lord knows I have plenty of things to decorate with {but to be honest you can never have enough washi, stickie notes or stickers}. We have plenty of fun stores in the Netherlands {HEMA, Flying Tiger, Action, Sostrene Grene, Zeeman, Wibra} but they do not have as much cute things the Walmart 1$ stationary section or cheap deals like Michaels so I try to swap on several FB pages or via Instagram. There are also lot’s of fun stores online and on Etsy.

Besides all the hoarding, swapping and rak’ing there’s also the desire to own the prettiest filofax there is. I have a few in my collection right now, I don’t use them all, some are an investment (no longer available) like the medium Mint Kikki.k planner and the personal rose Finchley. I am currently using the personal purple malden you see in the layout as an organiser and a pocket purple pennybridge as a wallet.

Pennybridge

kikki k. (bottom) and rose finchley
< photo courtesy of cafe et papier blog>

I enjoyed it so much I started joining groups on Facebook and started a Dutch FB Group and a European FB Group with likeminded filofax lovers.

To give you an idea of how I decorate my pages:

Hope I gave you some inspiration, leave me a comment, I’d love to read it !

{ chocolate cupcakes with vanilla cream cheese frosting }

Cupcakes make a creative afternoon with friends heavenly … Chocolate with vanilla cream cheese topping !

 

Forever in my heart

A sketch for the Dutch Dares goes online today and I scrapped a very special photo of my grandmother and me on my wedding day. Today she would have turned 92 but unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be. But she is forever in my <3, the only grandmother I had and i think about her and miss her every day.

I really like how it turned out, haven’t had that in a while. I put the eulogy that I held at her funeral in the envelope, words I never want to forget……

 

Scrapbooking can heal

I’m making a mini album about my childhood, just scrapping some feelings, memories and sometimes that’s just as healing as therapy. This is my second page and I think it’s funny that I even dared to put this feeling to paper, but it makes me laugh and it’s real !

This page was for the sketch dare over at our dutch dares, for some inspiration come check out the great pages the team made !

This is another page I made a while back but forgot to share, hope you like it, photo’s are from a photo shoot from last year (Corinne Delis).

Recharging scrapchica style

Since I’ve been scrapbooking I’ve met lot’s of fun, warm & creative women but with a few I’ve kept in touch more than others. We’d see each other at scrapworkshops, chat online or get together for an evening every now and to scrap. Yet with so many busy lives we rarely all could make it to a date at the same time.

So last year I decided we should try and solve that so we tried to find a date (www.datumprikker.nl works wonders for that btw), I found a great house near the beach and the waiting game began.

Until this weekend that is 🙂

We laughed, cried, almost peed in our pants, chatted, created, posed (lot’s and lots of great photo’s came from this), primped, ate too much, exchanged gifts, cooked, baked, did whatever we wanted, lost sleep and still recharged our batteries.

(photo’s by Delis Photography, collage by Marsha)

A weekend that brought each and everyone what they needed whether it was some time to finish things, start things up, experiment a little or just work on a project without being disturbed … And that’s what it’s all about, 8 different women connecting and being themselves and everyone being ok with that.

Thanks girls for an amazing weekend, let’s do it again next year !

I used to scrap

And I’m doing it again, finally making more time for my hobby’s.

Trying to bake something yummy every weekend so I can finally try out some recipes, trying to get back into scrapping and join in the dutch dares team more and making my own birthday cards to send out to friends (hopefully more on time these last few weeks ….) and trying to work out more. Gives me more balance thus happier me 🙂

Scrapbooking

Yes I still do ! Inbetween alle the purging & decluttering I’m starting to get the itch to scrap again so I haven’t missed a project for the blog.

Above the current dutch dare (not totally happy about this one, liking some elements and others not so much, any tips are appreciated !)Check out what the other girls did here …

Below the dutch dare before that, the dare was “sport” totally happy with this one !

scrapped a sketch

I loved working on this new sketch that Kirs made, finally some inspiration for the baseball pics of Michael. Loved how it turned out, in one evening no less and I’m a happy camper (oh and so was Michael when he saw what I was working on).

Check out the what the other dt members made here and get inspired & join in !