And we have a Winner!!

The eSMarts Treasure Hunt has come to an end and we have a winner!! Yay!!! :-))

Susin Schiff from Canada will receive the whole package and from what I hear, it's all going to a good home! I don't know if she has received it yet, but I'm eagerly waiting to hear what she thinks of the gorgeous prizes she won! Read more about it here.

While you're there visiting the eSMarts blog, please also take a look at our monthly contest and cast your vote! Only two entries this month, none of which are mine, but some day I hope to find the energy and inspiration to participate in this too! :-))

It's only a short blog post this time. I'm knee deep in the digital photo album I'm making as a christmas gift, and that means I need to get it finished soon, or it won't be printed and back here on time! My niece is coming over tomorrow night to check on what I have so far. With matching poem going throughout the album telling the story... It's actually a pretty fun project to do, and I'm learning by leaps and bounds how to use Photoshop (and some other programs), even though it's an older version I have. Gotta go work on that some more now! :-))

Hugs,
Wezz

Heartfelt Blog Award and a sneak peek

This is the Heartfelt Blog Award, and it was given to me by Mary Ann from Starlight Blog. Thanks so much!! It means a lot to me, coz this is a very special award given to blogs that give you a nice warm homey feel, full of heart. I'm so happy that my blog feels like a homey place on the web. That was the intent all along and I'm glad it all worked out that way. :-))

Many many thanks to Mary Ann for this wonderful award! It is truly an honor!

Mary Ann is a writer and loves to read, but has many interests beyond that. Check her post of Oct 31st and take a look at those pictures! For some reason I can't link directly to this post, but please scroll down, it's worth it. She's also a beader, and a member of the infamous eSmarts Team. (grin)

Now as for the people I'm going to pass this on to... Their blogs are all chock full of heart. You feel like they're old friends even if they write about something of little interest to you. You can feel their passion and the heart they pour into their blogs. Sometimes, they'll give you a peek into their real life, but even their online life is interesting. Give yourself a little gift today and go spend some time with them.

Here are the rules:

1. Display the logo.
2. Nominate up to 9 blogs that make you feel comfy or warm inside.

3. Link to your nominees.
4. Let them know they have been nominated by commenting.
5. Link to the person from whom you received the award.

OK...Here are the 9 new nominees:

1. Catherine from StampFrancisco, a rubber stamp company, is one of my dearest friends that I've come to know in the past 8 years or so. Generally, we see each other 2 weekends a year when I help her out at shows here in Europe. Her blog shows her love for animals, and for France. She takes wonderful pictures too and doesn't hesitate to share them with all of us!
2. Vanessa from Scrapness is an accomplished scrapbooker, and especially since she turned to digital scrapbooking. I hope to learn lots from her! Her blog gives you a peek into her life with pictures of her family. She loves to create, so anything that will grab her fancy will be tried. Like crochet. Did you see her pear?? I'm also gonna take a closer look at her dare list... Maybe that will be my next blog post... :-))
3. Godelieve from StampingMathilda doesn't need much introduction in the rubber stamping world. She's belgian, and she's famous. She shows a lot of her artistic work, but always with a witty sense of humor. She also has a section of blog help on her site, she knows what she's doing!
4. Mandy called her blog "The Diaries of a craftaholic and demented housewife". Now I ask you, that name alone calls for investigation, no?? She's funny, and I love what she makes and the stories she shares with us.
5. Anna Lee from Ga'hoolTree Designs is passionate about making jewelry (check it out!) but also shares her travel stories and how she feels about our world today. Always interesting to read.
6. Lois from A Beaded Affair also doesn't hesitate to share her feelings about today's world on her blog now and then. She does great wire work, it's just amazing what she does with copper. Both Lois and Anna Lee are a few of the driving forces behind the eSmarts Team which I also belong to. I'm thankful to be a part of that, and that I know these ladies through the internet. I love technology, even though I sometimes fight with it. LOL
7. Jennifer from Life Is Not A Cereal shares a lot about her life, sometimes with blog posts that make you ponder and think about things you never thought about before. She makes you stop and think about your next step. I love her digiscrap stuff too of course, whether it's her layouts or her freebies that she put up for grabs.
8. I love people who have more than one hobby, just like me. And that are not afraid to admit it, and share a lot with the outside world about their life. So I really want to give this award to Joan from the Stamping-Cooking-Knitting-My Life blog too. When I read her blog, she makes me feel like I'm right there with her. That in itself is an art.
9. Elly from My Everyday Things takes you on a tour through her life, her house and her creations. Just by looking at the blog, this is a place that feels like home. The pictures are wonderful to look at and give plenty of inspiration.

Thank you all for making the world wide web a place that feels like an online home! Don't know what I would do without you all.

Have you read this far?? Or just skipped til you reached the part about a sneak peek???? huh??? Tsk tsk, you should visit all the above mentioned blogs. Really, they're worth it.
But without further ado, here it is. The teaser for today. (grin)


Soooo, you were thinking I wasn't beading anymore???? No way!! I love it too much! And as you can see I have been working on something in winter colors. Snow white. Come back soon to see more teasers!! Bwahahahaaa!! ;-))

Hugs,
Wezz

Dance!

Yesterday we had a surprise dance party for my sister in law who turns 50 in a couple of days. Her daughter Karen, Jan's niece, who we visited in Galesburg on our trip through the USA (you can read about that here and here), organised it all. Including a surprise act, in appropriate costumes no less, that was based on a dance from a musical. It was an absolutely fantastic dance act, the costumes were gorgeous and very fitting, and everything was kept secret until sister in law walked through the doors! One of Jan's nephews filmed the whole thing but we promised not to put it on YouTube or anything. Too bad, I think it would get a lot of hits!! LOL ;-))
As usual with family get togethers, I was in charge of taking the pictures. I will also be in charge of the digital scrapbook that will tell the story. Hmm, don't have too much time for this, the album is a Christmas present! :-))
And eeeek!! I've never ever done a whole digital album before! This will be a serious and fast learning curve I'm sure.
Two months of devious planning and rehearsing went into this party but it was sooo worth it! Yep, I did do some dancing in the end too, even with my bad and hurt back, but I had sooo much fun, nobody can take that away from me now!
Gotta go now, but don't forget to check back soon! There's a huge surprise coming on this blog very soon!! ;-))

Hugs,
Wezz

An Award!

A blog award that is! That is the first time ever that someone thinks my blog is good enough to get an award! Wow! Thank you so much, Jill from JewelryElegance, for nominating my blog!
I am soooo proud now, walking around like a peacock! You can bet I'll celebrate!! :-))

The rules for passing this award on are:
1. The winner may put this award on their blog
2. Put a link to the person who sent this award to you
3. Nominate 5 blogs
4. Put links to their blogs
5. Leave a message for your nominees

So, I have put the award on my blog, I have added a link to the blog of the person who nominated me, now I have to nominate 5 blogs. How in the world can I only pick 5 blogs???? There are so many good blogs out there, and from people that I really admire too. Only 5??? Who came up with these rules??? Dang!

I’m very honored to give The Kreativ Award to:

- Kim from Kim De Smet Designs. She is a belgian digital scrapbook kit designer that I admire greatly, and she has some great Photoshop tutorials on her blog, including one to enhance your pictures' lighting! Go and take a look, it's great advice!
- Lois from A Beaded Affair. She is a great wire worker, just look at her designs with cabochons!
- Diane from My Gemstone Box. The jewelry she makes is amazing, and the work she does behind the scenes for our eSmartsteam is incredible. Thank you so much, Diane! It's much appreciated!
- Lin Frye from a View From The Oak. We go waaayyyyy back as cyberfriends, we started out with similar interests, and while I now went in the jewelry direction, I love what she does in regards to sketching and painting! To our friendship, Lin!
- As a rubber stamper, I have to pick at least one stampers' blog. But which one?? I'll go with Kristy Cristopherson. She used to own a stamp company and knows I bought a few (ahum) stamps from her over the years. ;-))
But she's also an accomplished stamper herself as she shows on her blog!

Pheww, this was sooooo incredibly difficult! Please, if you're not on this list, do not think for one minute I overlooked you! You've ALL been on my mind and on the list at one point or another!

Now I can go and let these people know they've won an award! That's the really fun part!! :-))
Thank you so much again for nominating my blog, Jill!

Merry Christmas Eve to all of you!

Hugs,
Wezz

Hop on the train! Choo-Choo!!

It's December, we're close to the end of the year, and that means a lot of freebies in the world of digital scrapbooking! If I say a lot, I do mean a LOT!! They're having several "blog trains" riding around to do this, and what you do is hop from one blog to another to pick up all the freebies. How fun! Just make sure you have enough free disk space on your hard drive. LOL
For those that don't do digital scrapbooking, you can always print out some of the elements and use them in your regular paper scrapbooks too! Chances are no one else will have used the elements like you have! Talk about unique! :-))

Before I give you the links to some of these wonderful sources though, I'd like to share some of my own digital scrapbook pages. Remember however, I'm really a beginner at this, so some will be better then others. And I've used some what they call "quick pages", that works great for me at this level. Please forgive me this once, but I don't know the sources of most of these anymore. If I find them again or you can tell me, I'll edit to add credit of course. Thanks for understanding.
Here goes nothing!


This was about the bouquet of flowers I gave to my mom for Mother's Day. The flowers were closed when we gave it, and mom sent me pictures of the flowers opening up. Thought I'd surprise her with a scrapbook page with a picture she took! My very first digital page, and I use a quick page for this. (that much I remember)


This one is the first digiscrap page that I made from a papers and elements kit. It's from belgian designer Kim De Smet. She does wonderful work and has some great tutorials on her blog too! This picture was taken in Valbonne, in the south of France. When I saw these chairs I knew this would make a great picture. :-))


These pictures were taken in Biot, a little village in the south of France. I tried working with the different layers in Photoshop here, playing around and starting all over a huge number of times was more like it.... But, this is the result, and while I'm not completely happy with it, I need to see this from time to time to remind me of the progress I can make in digital scrapbooking. I think I used materials from Kim De Smet again for this page.


On a cold but sunny fall day we took a walk in a park near us. The autumn light was just beautiful. I remember I made this page with items that I got from Weeds & Wildflowers and from O'Scraps. Maybe more, but that I don't know anymore. This page is probably one of the more involved ones I made. And I'm pretty proud of this one, I love how it turned out!

I have more digital scrapbook pages to share, but this will do for now. I don't want you to get an "overload" warning when reading my blog!! hahaha! :-))

Okay, enough of that, now on to the part you've been waiting for! Here are some "blog train" links to follow with Christmas themed kits.
The "Christmas Around The World" blog train has over 100 designers participating this year! That's a bunch of blogs to visit, and I always stumble across some really nice surprises when I check them out!
Then there is the "Christmas Convoy", a blog train with more than 40 stops along the way.
And the "Holly Jolly Express" blog train has over 80 designers participating!
Some designers are participating in all 3 of them, as you'll discover when visiting the blogs. There's lots of great digital goodies to download on all of these, so have fun!

Talking about fun, I just came across this on another blog and went to check it out. Which of Santa's reindeer am I?? Well.....

You Are Dancer

Carefree and fun, you always find reasons to do a happy dance. Why You're Naughty: That dark stint you had as Santa's private dancer. Why You're Nice: You're friendly. Very friendly.

Which of Santa's Reindeer Are You?

Now you do the quiz. Which of Santa's reindeer are you??? Be sure to let me know in the comments! ;-))

Hugs,
Wezz

Patience, patience...

They say it's a virtue. But I don't know... I love the anticipation of something to happen long time before it actually does as well! How 'bout you?
In exactly two weeks I'll be leaving again for Germany to attend one of the largest rubber stamp conventions on the european mainland. StempelMekka. And I'm going for the whole weekend again! I can't wait to meet my stamping buddies from surrounding countries again! And from Belgium of course, this hobby is finally starting to get off the ground here and attracts new people all the time! heheh.... Plus all the US vendors that come to this convention! Last year I demo'd for StampFrancisco, and hopefully I'll get to do that again this year. Otherwise, I'll be helping out at their booth, so you make sure you come and say hi there if you are going to the Mekka! ;-))
But two weeks??? That means I really should start to get cracking on stamping a bunch of ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) for swapping with the other attendees. Ooh, time, where is more time?? I need you!! Badly.... LOL
Traditionally we go with a bunch of stamping buddies to a nearby chinese restaurant on Saturday evening, and last year we were with a group of 14 people I believe! No, "quiet" is not exactly something we have in our dictionary at times like that. Hey, we only get to see each other once a year too! Of course everyone wanted to have their picture taken with everyone else, and then there's all the group photos too. One with every camera... Hilarious!!
Here's a digital scrapbook page I did with a digital ALSB page from the A Study In Red digikit by ClubScrap.


It's great to look forward to this event again, and this year I think we'll be close to 20 people attending the Saturday evening dinner!! Waahoooooo!!! :-))

Hugs,
Wezz