Hey All,

I'm quite busy building a gallery for my journal right now. I hope everything goes alright. That would be nice. It would mean I can start filling my gallery tomorrow. Wouldn't that be nice? In the meantime I want to show two scrapbook layouts I have made a few weeks ago. I am currently working on our Italy Album. We have been to Italy for two weeks in 2003 and it's about time I finish this album. I have just little less then 400 photos to do. You think I'm ready by the end of this year? After one and a half year of scrapping? I have only managed to make about twenty layouts and a few minialbums. You don't really think I can do it, do you? Well, that would make two of us, but I'm certainly gonna try it :)

Anyway, enough babbling, here's the first layout I have completed. I have made a photo of the Tower of Pisa (if you're in Pisa, it's an obligation, you know, to make a photo of this tower) and I have had the photo enlarged. I wanted to include some history about the tower too. That what's you can see on the fron of the flap. The yellow Cardstock is from More then Memories. The Blue letters are made with a Coluzzle Template and are made from blue cArt-Us Cardstock. These are both wonderfull cardstock brands to work with. Maybe the letters are a bit too cluttered, looking back at it now. On the other hand they display the tower well enough this way :)

If you turn the flap, you see this. I wanted to include this photo due to the fact that you can truly see on how off the tower is. I was in the garden of one of the musea and this was the picture I could make. I just love it. And of course I couldn't resist adding some journaling here. Due to the fact I have a lot of journaling on the few pages before this one, the journaling is not that extended here, but I still could give something extra. I think that's important too :)

The "Campo Santo" you can see on the left, is really a cemetary. Maybe you wouldn't expect it at first, but it really is. Inside of the building you'll find a lot of graves, in the ground with the tombestones on them, or in the walls of which the two photo's on the bottom of the page are a good example. The chains reminded me of an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer where Angel is chained to the wall (I believe it's Beauty and the Beasts). I remember I was thinking "Has Joss Whedon been here?" when I first saw these chains. It's just incredible.
The cardstock is from More then Memories again. The ribbon is from Club Scrap.

Here you can see I have included two pieces of journaling. The upper one is a tag and the lower one is a scrap of paper I used for this purpose. There was a lot more to see then just these few graves, but I'll show that on other pages. Right now I still have almost 400 photos left to scrap. Seen the fact I'm not stuck with the "Tower of Pisa" scrappers block anymore I think I'll be able to do more pages in the coming weeks. You'll see my progress here!

Babbled by Ilse at 9:30 PM
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Hey all,

Why is it necessary to work again? There are these days I'm really not in the mood to work and this is one of these days. I'd rather just be at home, make some pages of my Italy Scrapalbum, make a walk in the park and just enjoy the weather. Doesn't that sound way better then sitting inside a building, working on your computer or reading some things because...... Yeah, why was that? If I'm well informed it has something to do with paying the bills, getting food on the table and a house. Or so it is rumored. But I'm not sure. Sometimes I have the idea it's also to keep people from the streets. Enjoying free time too much..... Is that a bad thing? To me it sounds wonderful! Don't we all wish we'd have more time for ourselves? I wish our work week could exist of two days and the weekend of five days. Now, that would be great! I'd really love that! Instead of "working from nine till five".

There could be a solution. We could win the jackpot in the state lottery. Now that would be a wonderful opportunity to quit my job and start doing what I want every day! Going on a holiday, scrapbook everyday, buy whatever I want.... And much more. That would be great. Don't you think? But it's not easy. What is the chance to actually win the jackpot? Well, with the lottery I'm playing with it's way better then with all the other lotteries in the Netherlands, but still..... Usually I only get back what I paid for the lottery ticket. And sometimes not even that. So, how long shall I wait for the jackpot? Or shall I just give it up? I don't know, it's an interesting question, but I think I'm not ready yet to answer it. I think I'll just keep on playing for now.......

To make up for the time I haven't been able to scrap (and to have something to do besides my job :) ) I have decided to give myself a challenge:
The Page-a-Week Challenge.
This means that I'm gonna make at least one page/layout per week. Maybe, by the end of the year I will finally have finished our Italy album. You think I'm gonna make it, or not? I wonder................

Babbled by Ilse at 7:45 AM
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Hey all,

James told me we'll have time to build me some closets/cupboards in January for my scraproom. So, I'll finally have some space to get everything locked away without cluttering my entire room (as to the point where I almost can't walk anymore................. Let alone scrap......). I have been looking for photos of scraprooms to get inspirations and ideas. I found a lot of them on the internet! A few days ago I decided I will store all my cardstock and papers vertically to save some space. That will give me more for other things :)
I have seen some wonderful ways to store ribbons and fibers too! I like the idea of glass jars. It gives a bit of color in the room and at the same time all the ribbon and fibers will be stored efficiently. On the other hand, a box where I can put the rol of ribbons in, is also a handy way to store it all..... So, that's somethingI haven't decided on yet. I'll come to that later on :)

One of the important things is to have enough space to work on my scrapbooks. In the end, that's all what it's about, isn't it? I don't want to sit on the kitchen table to work on my scrappages. That means I have to clean upeverything every night. With my own scraproom, that won't be necessary. Another good thing is that when I have friends over for scrapping, James won't be bothered downstairs. He can do just anything he wants to do, without our chattering on the background, nor the noise we make while scrapping. I think, in the end, he'll be really glad once it's all finished!

I'm going to make different sketches of the room. Maybe we will use one sketche or maybe we will end up in using a combination of sketches. It doesn't really matter, as long as I can work the way I want to. Which means I want to be able to find everything very quickly and I want to have everything for the grab. Right..... Can I wish for the Moon and the stars too and will I get those?................................. Sure, in your dreams.

Going back to sanity, I just want a room where I can scrap, where everything is neat and tidy (well, at least for as far as I can manage to do that *grin*) and where I can easily store things without everything being cluttered. That's not that much to ask, now is it? We'll just see.

Babbled by Ilse at 8:36 PM in Category: scrapstudio
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Hey all,

Well, Autumn has really started here in the Netherlands. Although the sun was shining yesterday, the temperature wouldn't get abo 16 degrees Celcius. And guess what? This morning the temperature was around freezing point. The car didn't have frozen windows, but it was cold. I have decided to wer my wintercoat for the first time this season. I didn't expect I would do that until sometime in October. And I still have some gardening left to do. I have to weed and make sure we protect our plants enough.

Of course that's not all. I'm thinking about making something for the birds too. I wanted to do this last year already, but I think I'll start with early this year, so that it will be finished when the birds really need extra food. It's always nice to see the birds in the garden, looking for food (and also actually finding enough of it, apparently.... they keep coming back!).

Maybe it's time to clean the pond too, but we'll see about that. We don't want to disturb our frog(s), now do we? :)

Anyway, there's enough left for us to do, so I think that's something will do in the coming weekend, provided it doesn't rain.

Babbled by Ilse at 7:53 AM
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I'm quite proud of this photo. I have taken this photo in the morning after we've had a lot of rain in the park. The sun was finally coming through and I was able to make this. I'm going to use this in one of my scrapbooks for sure! I just love the way you can see the beams and the warmth of the sun, enlighting the threes and everything else! It's wonderful. It may sound strange, but I hope I can make more photos like this one!
I decided to use this photo for my entrance to my blog too, because it reflects the path and the unknown on the path so well. You can't see what's behind the corner. All you can do is speculate, but it seems really promising. That one reason is already enough to love this photo! And if you look carefully, you can see the water of the pond on the right. The water wasn't supposed to be this high. It's all due to the amount of rain that fell. I have heard we've had 55 millilitres of water coming down that night. That's a hell of a lot. Something you wouldn't expect in the summer. But, then again, with all the rain that has fallen in Germany and Switserland, I guess we could have expected it a little bit.......

Babbled by Ilse at 8:36 PM
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Hey all,

Well, believe it or not, but I manage to get my Movable Type Blog working in just one weekend! I'm so glad I could do it! It's a very easy program to work with, once you get the hang of it :) Htere's one thing I need to fix left, but I'm sure I'll have it fixed in a few days. I'll be talking about a lot of stuff here, so check back often!

Have Fun!

Regards,
Ilse

Babbled by Ilse at 5:13 PM
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This is just a little test to see how it works out :)

Babbled by Ilse at 4:44 PM
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This is just a little test to see how it works Let's see if I can do with this what I'd like to do..........

Babbled by Ilse at 1:57 PM
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