I’ve stopped keeping track

Hey friends!
How are things going in your corner of the world?
Over here it’s a grey day (great song btw), but at least it’s not raining (important thing for dog owners).

Anyhow, I’d like to share two cards for a challenge and there’s a blog award!

First off, I decided to take part in Dawn’s Color Challenge, here’s attempt #1:

Love the non-traditional colour scheme!! The idea is a total CASE from Heather Pulvirenti’s adorable snowflake card.
Everything is PTI (CS: Aqua Mist, Spring Moss, Raspberry Fizz; Ribbon: Aqua Mist Grosgrain) except for the lavender/light pink bling (Basic Grey), the punched snowflakes (LSS) and the rub-on (SU).

And another try, this time as a birthday card for my Kiwi friend Amber (her bday is only in december, but I think she doesn’t read my blawg )

The deets are pretty much the same as in the first card, the letters are SU’s Jumbo Outline alphabet, the sentiment is from the SU set “Absolutely Fabulous” and the leaves (PTI Out on a Limb) were stamped with Versamark. Sorry for the bad pics, as I said it’s really dreary outside, hence the bad lighting. (BTW this is another shameless CASE from KWerner)

Next up, I got a blog award!! Yay!
Thanks to lovely Naomi *wave*

The rules are : I need to pass this award on to five people, comment on their blog to let them know I left this award, and then I need to answer a list of questions in ONE word. (anybody who knows me, will know how incredibly difficult this is for me… )

1. Where is your cell phone? Desk
2. Your hair? Brunette
3. Your mother? BEST
4. Your father? dunno
5. Your favorite food? Spaghetti
6. Your dream last night? nothing
7. Your favorite drink? Alexander
8. Your dream/goal? NZ
9. What room are you in? no-brainer ^^
10. Your hobby? crafting
11. Your fear? failure
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? north
13. Where were you last night? home
14. Something that you aren’t? perfect
15. Muffins? lemon
16. Wish list item? patience
17. Where did you grow up? Germany
18. Last thing you did? photograph
19. What are you wearing? jeans
20. Your TV? non-existent
21. Your Pets? Buck
22. Friends? awesome
23. Your life? rollercoaster
24. Your mood? lazy
25. Missing someone? yes
26. Vehicle? bike
27. Something you’re not wearing? earrings
28. Your favorite store? Impressionen.de
29. Your favorite color? green
30. When was the last time you laughed? yesterday
31. Last time you cried? yesterday
32. Your best friend? Julian
33. One place that I go to over and over? bathroom ^^
34. Facebook? yes
35. Favorite place to eat? Dossema Weinhof

Whew I’m passing this award on to some of my favorite bloggers as well:

* Silke (who sent me the outline alphabet stamps – dankeeee)
* Kerstin (fab German SU demo I met some weeks ago)
* Ute (a German scrapper whose creations are marvellous)
* Berdien (super inspiring dutch blog)
* Kalyn (a new addition to my reader )

Now go have a look, you won’t regret it!
Okay, gotta go back to the 44 pages of presentation that tomorrow’s (insane?!) speaker sent us ^^
Have a great Sunday!! (and leave a comment )

She’s thinkin’: How did I get here?

Just a quick update to let you know I’m still alive. Next Monday I’ll have an exam and I’ll do a consecutive interpretation* in our weekly conference, so I’ll be buried under paper, glossaries, to-do-lists and more paper…

The title is brought to you by Lily Allen. Cool lyrics and a matching video.

Anyway, here’s a card I made. If you have any questions, let me know!

Inspiration from Nina B. (Croatia)

*= Interpreting (Dolmetschen) is not to be mistaken with translating (Übersetzen), since the latter refers to a written transfer whereas interpreting is oral (consecutive = rendered after the speaker has finished, often with the help of special notation / simultaneous = rendered at the same time with the means of a sound-proof booth and headsets). [by no means is this a complete description]

Why can’t we always meet under a cloud of mystery

Hello everyone
How’s your weekend going?
I’m busy working on my to-do-list which contains lots of cleaning and university-related stuff.

As the title and my last post suggested, we went to see Maxïmo Park in Frankfurt on Wednesday. They truly are my favourite band and even though the concert lasted for about an hour only, we had so much fun. (And the warm-up band were the Blood Red Shoes, really cool as well!) I made it to the fourth row and therefore was able to see Paul close-up performing. He’s such an entertainer and really professional (there were sound problems plus he said he had lost his voice this morning). Loved everything about it. So here’s a card I made (total and utter CASE of Kristina Werner’s recent autumn card) in order to thank them for this great concert. [I had trouble finding their postal address, so I don't know where to send it yet.]

Cardstock: SU!, PTI; Patterned Paper: BG Lemonade; Stickers: Cosmo Cricket; Other: Leaf Punch, Fiskars Scallop Sentiment Punch, 3D glue dots, Signo White Gel Pen.

Autumn is in full swing over here, lookit
Enjoy & have a nice Sunday!

P.S. That little innocent-looking creature “cleaned out” the fridge just one day after the cupboard incident. Oh boy.

Jimmy was a local boy…

…but he’s seen much more than the change in the weather… *jumpityjump*

Ah well, the Rifles concert yesterday evening was way cool

Today I’m officially pooped out since we had our first Monday conference on the causes and effects of the economic/financial crisis. Complicated stuff, heavy on special vocab and this time each booth (two people) had to cope with the whole thing (1 1/2 hrs). The speaker was very fluent and it was quite interesting, but his sentences were kinda endless and very dense. Phew, at least I survived.

Anyhow, I hope I don’t get sick since on Wednesday Maximo Park will come to Frankfurt – today I took some time to listen to their relatively new album (Quicken the Heart) as a whole and I can’t express properly how happy their music makes me. They truly are my favourite band and I’m super grateful to get the opportunity to see them. Wheee!

To finish, meet some cards I made using Basic Greys Offbeat Collection Pack, some buttons and bobbin lace. Sentiments are Rubons respectively a stamp from SU. In the background there’s some Heather Bailey fabric. Some candy was harmed in the making of these pictures

Hope you like ‘em
I’m gonna lie around in my bed now and beg for not getting sick, puh-leez!!!!
See you around!

Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?

Just popping by to say hi and to share a card.
On Thursday we saw “(500) Days of Summer” – very cool film. If you think about seeing it, take a look at this fun video (which is not included in the film, they did that just for fun).

Love love LOVE her outfit. And the song you hear is from Zooeys band “She & Him” – yep, not only is she stunning, a great actress, has a neat sense of style AND can dance – she also knows how to sing like a nightingale. Talk about fair…
Anyhow, it was a very enjoyable movie!

Yesterday the notorious Rollercoaster Party took place and since I didn’t catch an awful lot of sleep, I’m going to slouch on the couch for most of the day. Ready for my latest Xmas card?

Bling from Basic Grey, sentiment by Stampendous, tree by PTI, ribbon from BoBunny, patterned paper from stash, Cardstock is retired SU (Cranberry Crisp), inks are PTI Landscape and L’amour Red

Bye everyone!

Il n’y en a pas cent

… but today there are two posts!

Just because I promised to show you the baby album I made for my cousin and there’s a set of two cards to participate in another challenge. I tend to be a promise-keeper, see?!

First up the challenge: A Passion For Papertrey – Inspired by autumn. The Papertrey item is some of their Vintage Cream Topnotch Twill Ribbon. So pretty that I’ve just ordered another roll!

My cards were not only inspired by autumn, but also shamelessly CASEd from this card by Maren Benedict (third picture). When I saw this I was reminded of my poor unused “Haunted” Rubons sitting in my drawer. So I just had to play along!

Soooo, now you’re going to lay eyes on aforementioned album. It’s relatively small (6×6″) and I made it with a template from Amy Celona.

Click on the small pictures to zoom.

There’s too much product involved to list it all, but if you have a question, I’ll be happy to answer it!

Some details about the album:

- In the first small photo you can see two wax sheets with handmade embellishments. I made them so that my cousin can also embellish her photos after she’s put them into the album.

- The large areas covered with patterned paper are for photos and I included quite some journaling lines for notes and thoughts.

- The words on page 3 say “It’s a girl”.

- On the center page I’ve included a see-through pocket for something like a lock of hair or the hospital bracelet of the baby. Above it is a line for the calculated date of birth .

- In the label on the right flap of the center page it says “My name is” and below there’s space for details about the actual date of birth, time of birth, length, weight, hair and eyes.

- And on page six there’s another sheer pocket.

Whew what a lengthy post. Tell me how you like it, I’d really appreciate it!!
BTW the babys name is Mathilda and she’s super cute and super tiny
It’s late, ta ta for now!

P.S. The title’s from the lyrics of “La Lettre” by singer extraordinaire Renan Luce.

Take my hand and close your pretty eyes

Just for the record: this is my 60th post
I’ve got lots to show you, so why don’t we get started…

I’ve received a lovely RAK from the ever-generous Vanessa, isn’t it gorgeous? And we don’t even know each other! Seriously, this is also a reason why I love crafting and blogland so much, because it connects people in such a beautiful way.
Anyway, thank you Vanessa!!

Next up I made a little card for the current Moxie Fab Challenge called “Not your Regular Ruffles”. Hope you like it

Yep, I’ve started making holiday cards – Thorstens comment: “You’re worse than Rewe*…” ^^ I hope that by starting now I’ll be finished when Christmas rolls around the corner

On Thursday some friends and I went to Stuttgart for the opening concert of the new Mando Diao tour. I don’t have the photos yet, but I can tell you that it was SPECTACULAR. The crowd was dancing and jumping and screaming and singing along, the band was fantastic – they played full throttle for over two hours, two encores and a great finale including a shower of glitter. (Everybody was kinda sweaty, so the stuff stuck to us immediately ^^) Natch, on Friday my voice was basically gone and I was super tired BUT it was totally worth it!
Yay for Mando

That’s it for now, catch you later!
*= a German supermarket

Colleagues! Non-flushing is terrorism!

This title was the subject of one of the spam-mails I got some weeks ago – I thought it was hilarious, so there you have it

Anyhow, I’m still visiting my mom (and I’m still sick), she had a great birthday and I managed to get the 24 layouts finished just in time. Stay tuned for pictures from the album, I’ll post them (one layout at a time) soon!

Here’s a list of random thoughts.

#1 – Some really enjoyable movies I watched recently: “Up” from Pixar (super hilarious, esp. if you’re a dog owner), “Benny & Joon” (from 1993 with a very young yet brilliant Johnny Depp) and “Me & Marley” (boy did I cry… is there anything sadder than a dying dog?!!).

#2 – My Google reader currently lists 431 unread articles. Apparently not being online for four days means loads of great stuff to read/see. {insert happy sigh}

#3 – I’m too sick to visit my cousin and her new baby. Dang. But I made her a video message (imagine a camera, lots of smiling and too much head wagging).

#4 – The semester starts in about a week and I have this kind of ambiguous feeling of looking forward to new challenges vs. being scared to death because of the expectations (of teachers, family, but probably of mostly myself).

#5 – I just bought my first-ever paper flowers (Generally not a big fan of Primas and such) – Sprites N° 3. We’ll see how we get along

#6 – My printer refuses printing. The very moment the new semester starts I will have to print stuff (speeches etc.). This means buying a new one. Grrrrr-eat… What is it about all those expensive electronic devices dying?

#7 – In my next post there will be pictures of the baby album I made, so for now just a card (above: with siblings). Enjoy!

ETA: The idea for these cards came from those beauties by Dawn McVey.

World Card Making Day

Tomorrow is World Card Making Day as all of you crafters know, but tomorrow is also known as the The Day of German Unity. So we have the day off

Since I am currently visiting my mom I can’t craft this very day, but I thought I might as well show you one or two cards I made. Enjoy!

PTI Kraft CS, Cosmo Cricket Haunted Collection (DSP, Stickers, Rubon), White Gel Pen, Black Gel Pen, Coluzzle, PTI Dark Chocolate Ink, Button from stash, SU Twine, Crystal Effects, Edge Distresser, Paper Piercer

BTW this is what the postman brought some days ago:

My new wallet!! Also handmade and from Etsy (picture and cute wallet made by jpatpurses). It’s actually really large (4×6″) but I looove the “Polly goes to Paris” fabric, so I had to get it Whaddya think?

ETA: The overall card idea was based on this great one by Debbie Olson.</em>

And the good news are…

a baby was born! A baby was born!
Last night my cousin delivered her baby! Yeah!!! I didn’t think I’d be as excited, but I am
So this is the card I made some months ago for exactly this moment:

This is a CASE from cards by Danni Reid that I can’t seem to find for the life of me…
I also made an album, which I have to show you later (I didn’t snap any pictures so far).

There’s also another reason why today is a good day (despite the fact that I’m sick…):

IT’S BUCK-DAY! YAY!

Yep, two years ago we got him from an Animal Shelter Organisation near Frankfurt. He is still the sweetest little stinker, very calm and loving. Sorry for getting all sappy on you, but he truly is the bestest dog I could’ve wished for. Love you, baby!

— Out.