Friends Are Flowers

good morning! it's still pretty early here this morning, but not *that* early as i had to wait for it to get light enough through the grey skies to take a pic of this card, which i finished last night. i used this week's lovely sketch at 2 Sketches 4 You. enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Dancing in the Rain 2 ... and 3

i made some more "grunge" flowers and used them on this card for the current Caardvarks challenge, which is to use Kraft paper... i just love using this stuff. i thought the distressed edges of the blue paper kinda looked like denim ... which gave me an idea from the cell phone case i made the other day. so i made another card using denim flowers ... which i thought called for a fun, funky look using orange paper with sparkles and curled wire stems for the flowers.

Dancing in the Rain

... and i don't just mean the usual weather here... i love this sentiment, and i'm sure i'll be using it again. i'm going to send this one to my mom, and i used this week's sketch from Card Patterns.
thanks for stopping by, and enjoy your day!

Cell Phone Case

... i had to trim the bottom of my jeans and made a cell phone case with the leftovers! i didn't want anything fancy, i just didn't want the phone to get scratched in my purse.

Friends Award

my lovely blogging friend, Oliva, presented me with this "Friends Award!" how sweet is that!? i'm very happy and honoured, thanks Oliva!! (be sure to check out her blog full of beautiful things, if you haven't already!)this blogging stuff is pretty great, isn't it? living in a new country can get lonely sometimes, and this blog helps me feel a bit more"connected." i very much enjoy and appreciate all the nice comments left here.

i'm passing this on to a couple of my lovely "blogging friends": Lauren, Christine, Amy and Oliva (it's okay to send it back to the person i got it from ... right? :) )

Veggie Chili Recipe

i wanted to share one of my fave recipes with you - my vegetarian chili recipe! it's super easy and a hearty meal on cold evenings. the recipe is enough for 3 big bowls (enough for the 2 of us) but can easily be doubled. ingredient amounts are approx (you really can't go wrong with it). i hope you try it and enjoy it! 2 tablespoons olive oil
2 or 3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/3 onion, chopped
2 celery sticks, chopped
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 can kidney beans, rinsed
2 carrots, chopped
1/4 cup vinegar
1/2 package chili seasoning
1/2 cup golden raisins
shredded cheese, dollop of sour cream (optional)

in large pot, cook garlic, onion and celery in oil until tender. add tomatoes, fill the can with water and add to pot. add beans, carrots, vinegar, seasoning and raisins. simmer at low heat, covered for at least 2 hours. add some cheese and/or sour cream if desired.

Hello Friend

... there's a lady that plays piano in the apartment upstairs... so nice to hear her practicing while i'm making a card. this one's for the CardPatterns challenge this week.enjoy your weekend!

Sent With Love Tag

i bought some goodies which i'm going to send to my mom... so it was the perfect reason to make a "sent with love" tag to include with it. it's also for this week's Tag You're It challenge.
thanks for visiting, and enjoy your day!

Thanks Stickers Card

soooo...you how you see something you really like... and you buy it ... thinking it was a good deal at the time. but ... when you bring it home, you realize that you'll probably never have a use for it... so you put it away at the bottom of the pile.

then a great sketch comes along... one that makes you think a bit "differently"... and suddenly you remember this stuff you had bought... and it makes you so happy that you actually *can* use it after all!

well... that's what happened with these stickers. thanks 2 Sketches 4 You!!

With Love Heart Challenge

i made a card for the current Caardvarks challenge, which was to create a card with "hearts"... a challenge i *had* to do, even though i got it in at the last moment :)

Polka Dot Card and Goodies in the Mail

i can now show you the card i made for vlbf Peter for heart day... this is the first one that i actually waited until the occasion to show him... i'm usually too excited and can't wait to show him what i've made :)

we went for an evening walk a couple of weeks ago and came across a grocery store that i hadn't been in yet and was actually open (there are no shopping malls here, and most stores and services aren't open late) so we went in. we couldn't find anything that we wanted or needed, but i did spot a pile of cardboard boxes destined for the garbage ....i had been wanting to make a card with cardboard and there was a perfect piece just for this purpose! trying not to attract any attention, i tore off a piece... we joked on the way home that we "went shopping" and only got a piece of cardboard.

the sentiment reads: "all we are is everything that's right" which is from a song from One Republic.

i also made the card for the Caardvarks "polka dots" challenge, which is now closed. we got a package from my mom last week and i thought i'd share some of the goodies we got. first, check out this lovely box:beautiful for sure, but look what was inside!! crochet pot scrubbers!! now i gotta tell ya, the boy likes his spuds ...(and his kaas broodjes (cheese sandwiches), but that's another story). so i make potatoes almost everyday for dinner... and i don't wanna think about how many hours i've spent scrubbing the pan... but now i have these babies! heavenly!...(it's the small things.. right?) i wonder if i could find netting here and make them for gifts...

Peter also got these: and there were a few other things in the package, including flavoured coffee (i haven't seen flavoured coffee anywhere in Europe yet).

enjoy your day!

Thank You Card & ♥ Day

here's the card i made for this week's lovely sketch by the lovely Laura at 2 Sketches 4 You. i'm not too sure about it... i was going for a "simple / elegant" card... but i don't know if i like the paper combo so much.what are your plans for the weekend? vlbf Peter is taking us away, but he hasn't told me where. he just tells me that we have to leave early tomorrow morning :)

whatever you do this weekend, i hope you get spoiled... by a SO, kids, a friend, or yourself :) here's my gift to you for ♥day.... tulips from Holland!

have a good one and thanks for stopping by!

Bloom Where You're Planted

... love that saying! i made the flowers for this one by cutting circles from a flyer and using scissors to distress the edges. this tag is for this week's challenge over at Tag You're It, using the lovely sketch provided.

Green and Yellow For You

it's a beautiful sunny day today, after a nasty storm yesterday... i am *so* ready for spring! i found another fab challenge site the other day, CardPatterns. this week you have the opportunity to win a guest DT spot, and check out the DT creations, they're gorgeous! this is what i came up with using the sketch:
when i put it together, i realized that it's a truly "international card"... the wire is from Canada, the rub-ons from Belgium, the beads from Hungary, and everything else from the Netherlands!

Photo Tag

i was tagged by the lovely Oliva to choose the 6th photo in the 6th folder of my pictures folder. i'm actually going to show you 2 pics - the "real" one (which is pretty silly - you have been warned :) ... and the one i wish was my 6th pic in the 6th folder :)

vlbf Peter and i had a long-distance relationship for almost 2 years before i moved here and we spent a whole lot of time on skype. it wasn't always easy to come up with things to talk about...

this pic is taken from my bedroom window in Vancouver. for about a month i watched my retired neighbour set up his camper as shown in the pic. when he went away for the summer, i assumed that he was doing the "psychic circuit." his wife was still working, and i was very impressed that he was able and motivated to do something like that.

after mentioning this to Peter a few times, he was interested and i finally took a picture to show him ....now... for the pic i'd rather show you.... the beach in Greece taken last August. we stayed on Kos Island, rented bikes and had Greek salad every day. this was fun, and if you are reading this, i encourage you to do the same!!

Weekend in Belgium

in an effort to try to reduce the cabin fever that has set in here big time, we spent the past weekend in Belgium. we stopped in Liège:and walked the 400 or so steps of Montagne de Bueren. this is actually a "street":after the long way up, in which we had to take a couple of rest stops (people actually live on this street... they must be in awesome shape!), we were rewarded with a beautiful view:the next day we visited Antwerp:and on the way back to NL, we stopped in Den Haag (The Hague):weekend before that, we went to Germany for dinner. as soon as you cross the border, it just "feels" like Europe... the look, the atmosphere, the food (ie: bakeries on every corner selling yummy cream-filled things). we had pizza for dinner (the thin crust kind the size of your plate), with a light snow falling outside. good service, good food, good prices... worth driving 2 hours for.

Make a Wish

hello! this is my card for this week's sketch from 2 Sketches 4 You. it's a good one, as usual (the sketch, i mean!!), and one that i think could be used over and over again. thanks for that, 2s4u!

i did a bit of machine stitching, made the wire heart, and punched the little hearts with a punch i found yesterday at a housewares store. :)

thanks for stopping by, and enjoy your weekend!

Believe Purple Tag

this is the first tag i've made so far. i found the Tag You're It site from the very talented Mrs. J's blog. the challenge this week was to make a purple tag, and i love purple so... here's what i came up with.

i made the swirls from wire, added bling and rub-ons, and gray and purple ribbon. i was pleasantly surprised to find out that the purple ribbon is a lighter shade on the other side (i didn't realize this when i bought it).