't is the season...

...for Shopping!!! Yep, that's right, people! Time to get the best deals and start your Christmas shopping!
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I wish my US friends (and anyone else who celebrates this) a happy day and hope you can spend it with your loved ones.
But Thanksgiving, man, it really has become a surreal shopping experience over the past few years. First, all we heard about that over here in Belgium, was the -to us at least- strange "Black Friday" term and we got news flashes on TV about it. It totally amazed us. With the internet, everyone wanted to be part of it, so along came CyberMonday. But that's not enough, oh no! Now we have Black Wednesday too! You can get the best deals on the internet if you shop on Wednesday already, have Thanksgiving dinner with your family, then hit the brick & mortar stores on Black Friday to get the good deals there too! It's a win-win situation of course. :-))
Read all about the newest shopping experience in the full article on this page!

I am joining in this amazing blog roll too, and have put a few items in my store at half price. Whààààt??? Half price??? Why on earth did I do that?? Well, to give you a chance to shop at a reduction. Hmm, okay. Soo, what's in it for me? Happy customers will spread the word!!!! See?? Win-win situation. :-))
Check for the notion "Black Friday SALE" in my etsy store for the items at half price, and lots of other items have free worldwide shipping!! Yay!! I know a good deal when I see it. Do you??






All these above earrings are now in my etsy store at Half Price from Black Wednesday til CyberMonday! That's from November 25 (today!) and will end on Monday November 30 at midnight.

***Edit November 26: The following items are now taking part in the Black Friday Sale at my store too! :-))

There is also the video preview of what you can win in the Treasure Hunt! Okay, first time ever I embed a slide show into my blog so I hope everything will go well. Here goes nothing!!

Full pictures of all the handmade gifties in the basket can be seen here on this blog! Aren't they just gorgeous??

Enjoy the holidays and whatever you do, stay safe! Let me know the good deals you find too! heheh... ;-))

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