Oh man, Monday morning and I feel pushed and rushed for no reason –
I do this to myself you know!
I’m three “BOM-daily prompts” behind and I know I can’t catch up…
if I try, my work would go down the hill.

I have to except that I’m a slow scrapper and it’s just thát what makes
my work the way it is. Worthwhile!
I must allow myself to play and create other things than “BOM” if I want to.
Nobody’s forcing me to work on that every day…
I can do it later.
Or not.
Or whatever.

It’s a hard lesson to learn: let it loose.
Relax, create for fun only!

Michelle struggles with it too sometimes, I just went to her blog
’cause I remember she wrote about it.
Here’s what she wrote: 

“I learned (or should I say re-learned) a valuable lesson this week:
Always create to satisfy your own heart. Trying to create something
for someone else’s approval just plain doesn’t work, and it’s a sure way
to come up with a bad case of artist’s block….
Artist’s block is something that happens to me every so often and
each time it takes me awhile to come back to the same conclusion
I noted above. I’m trying too hard. Once I realize that and let go
I’m free again. It’s getting to the point of realization that is sometimes
the hard part. Each time I get a little better at it though, so that’s progress, right?”

Thanks for reminding me Michelle!!!

I don’t know what today will bring,
but I did two BOM pages earlier that I hadn’t show you yet,
so here’s some creativeness…

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I AM BLOGGING FOR 6 MONTHS TODAY!!!

And look where it brought me… I “met” a lot of lovely scrapbookers from all over the world, it brought me tons of inspiration, I got nice feedback and sweet words from all of you, it got me in a Design Team and I have some true followers who read my blog and inspire me to keep on going –
I wanna thank you all!!!
So ladies, keep on visiting me and 6 months from now I will offer you all some nice goodies; the one-year-online-date will not go by unnoticed, I promise!

Because I had a party going on here since Friday (see former post) and a lot to organize and re-organize, I forgot to show you some lay outs – tell you things etc. etc. This post is to catch up with all that so beware… this will be a chaotic post with lots of random stuff and some lovely pics!!!

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Helen and Lou received my gift this week. Of course I took photo’s of what I made before shipping it and because Helen published some pics on her blog today, I can show it to you too! I made her this little book.

(More pics of this are here in my gallery.)
A few weeks ago, I published a tutorial on how to make such a book.
You’ll find that overhere.

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As you may (or may not) know, I’m my own boss. I run a small company together with my love (see our website) It’s just the two of us, and since
we have our office right at home I can schedule my week anyway I like.
Since crisis struck, there’s not always enough work for the both of us
(anyone need a new bloglook/website? Mail me!) so most of the time my beloved manages the office on his own and I keep myself busy around the house. Housekeeping, laundry, shopping, cooking… and it leaves me a lot of time to create!
When Scrapping out Loud came with their last challenge I didn’t know what to make of it… 

“For this week we challenge you to Scrap a page about your favorite day of the week and tell us why it is your favorite day, or what makes it your favorite day.”

Because I can do whatever I like on any day of the week, I don’t have much of a favorite day. I DO have some returning rituals though, so I brainstormed about that a bit and look what I came up with!

(Warning!!! Lots of pictures ahead!)

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In 1977 I started writing with boys and girls from other countries.
I was in my teens and it was very “hip” in those days to have a penpal from abroad. (It was also good for my English, it improved rapidly!) I had lots of penpals but while most of them disappeared over the years, Kumi stayed.
She lived in the USA, but studied in Europe for a year and visited me during her holiday. We became true friends over the years! The last time I saw her was 12 years ago and it was only for half an hour. She had to change planes in Amsterdam on her way from Germany to the USA. I took that day off from work and drove all the way up to Amsterdam (a 2 hour drive) to meet her.
On the airport I begged the customs office to let me behind the bars and
she begged on the other side with the officials. They wouldn’t let her out
nor me in… but I think they liked us girls because finally they agreed that this was a special occasion and they “let her out”. We had just enough time to kiss and hug and drink a cup of coffee…. and off she went. 🙁

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