I think I should explain...

I've been getting some remarks about the Kreatorville Kraft kits, which makes me think I need to explain something ... this is not my kit, it's Keandra's. I guess I talk about it as if it's my kit, but that's just because I have been on the team since the very beginning. I'm proud of this kit as if it's my own, but it's not LOL.

For those of you who don't know Keandra, you are missing out on one sweet lady, here's the link to her blog. She's the owner of the Kreatorville Kraft Kit Club, and she's all American, so to answer one of your questions, yes of course this kit is open to US residents!!! In fact, this kit is available to be shipped internationally.

I've also been made aware the info about where to buy the kit is hard to find on the Kreatorville Krafts blog, so while waiting for that to change, I'll give you the necessary info:

You can contact Keandra, telling her which kit you would like to buy (which month) and specifying which title and embellie you would like (you get to choose one of each) at this address:

keandra@kreatorvillekraft.com

Price:

$37.50 for a one time kit

$32.50 for a six month subscription

I guess the confusion started as well when I started speaking in dutch ... this was only to tell the Belgian and Dutch people that they could order the kits as well if they so wanted... it seemed to me this would be easier to explain in dutch.

If you have any more questions, you can either contact Keandra at above mentioned address or me at peggy.schenkels@telenet.be.

Talk to you later ladies, I've received a last minute invitation for me and my kids for a lovely christmas dinner (my husband's working the night shift tonight) over at my best friend's house, so I have to get ready!!!!
xxx Peggy

Kreatorville Krafts December Kit Reveal!!!

I can't believe it has almost been a month since I've blogged, and what's worse, it has been almost just as long since I've visited your blogs!!! I miss reading your stories and seeing your beautiful work, and I hope life will get less busy soon so I can get back to spending some Me-Time!!! I haven't forgotten about you all, and I'll pay you a visit as soon as I can find the time!

I do have some exciting news: The Kreatorville Kraft December Kit is available ladies, and it's a beauty!!!!! Don't miss this one my friends, this is the yumminess you'll receive on ordering the kit:


And of course you'll also get your choice out of these awesome handmade titles:


and if that isn't enough, you'll also have a chance to choose between one of these awesome embellies. If you're looking to add that wow-factor to your pages, Keandra's embellies will definitely do the trick!!!


You can find more details about the kit and some gorgeous DT examples on the Kreatorville Kraft blog, just click here! You don't wanna miss this kit my friends!!! And I almost forgot, Keandra has got a little treat for you ... ANYONE WHO SUBSCRIBES TO THE KIT BETWEEN NOW AND NEW YEAR'S EVE (DEC 31ST), WILL BE IN THE RUNNING TO RECEIVE THAT KIT FREE!!!

I'll be back later to show you one of my latest projects, but for now I'll leave you wishing you all a

Very Merry Christmas

The next part of the text here is meant for my dutch speaking friends who might be interested in purchasing the Kreatorville Krafts kits ... don't worry my english speaking friends, no secrets, it's just easier for me to write it in dutch!!

Hallo dames, als je net bent als ik, heb je al eens een paar keer geïnformeerd naar de prijzen van Amerikaanse en/of Australische kits en weten jullie ook dat de prijs om deze naar hier te verschepen bijna even hoog is als de prijs van de kit zelf. Keandra en ik zijn aan het uitzoeken of we de kits op een goedkopere manier aan jullie kunnen aanbieden. Eén van die manieren zou zijn om er een paar tegelijkertijd naar mij te zenden, en ik zend ze dan afzonderlijk door naar jullie. Hiervoor moeten we echter op zijn minst 5 geïnteresseerden vinden binnen België of Nederland. Mocht één van jullie geïnteresseerd zijn in de aankoop van de kits, kan je me mailen op volgend adres: peggy.schenkels@telenet.be.

Zalig kerstfeest dames!

xxx Peggy

Kreatorville Kraft November Kit projects

Hi ladies,

First of all I would like to thank everyone who took the time to leave me a comment on my previous post. I did me the world of good knowing that you all care and wish me well. I'm happy to report I'm feeling back to my old self again, so much so that it amazes me how quickly a person can recover from surgery these days ... Of course, it does have its downsides ... I have to start doing the work around the house (which hubby took care of till now...) and the ironing (which my mom took care of) again, not exactly jumping up and down about that!!! It does however also mean I can get back to my scrapping, and boy did I miss that!!! I've discovered I'm seriously addicted, now why that should come as a surprise, I have no idea, but it did. It's hard not being able to do something you love ...

Okay, so I would like to show you some more LO's I finished with the Kreatorville Kraft November Kit. This one you've already seen:


Here are two more I haven't shared with you yet:


This gorgeous guy is my husband. This pic was taken quite a few years ago (in Crete), but though obviously he has aged he still looks pretty much the same now ... lucky me right LOL?!!! It took me some time to find the right title for this LO, because every time I looked at this pic, all i could think was "yummy" LOL, which I didn't think was the greatest title ever. But upon hearing the song "my man is a sweet man, ...", I knew I had found my title/journaling! Apart from the embroidery floss and inks, I only used kit products for this LO.


This LO is about my youngest daughter Christina doing so well with her reading. She's ahead of her age as far as her reading skills are concerned, which of course makes me proud but releaved as well. My friend's kids have a reading disability, and the amount of work spent on that problem is enormous, so I'm thankful that for my kids it all goes so easily...

The journaling reads:
"Christina is in the first grade now (10/18/2008), and with learning how to read a whole new world is opening up for her. Just a few months into the first grade, she has already obtained her AVI level 5 ... we're so proud!"

Again, apart from the spray paints and embroidery floss, all products used in this LO are from the November Kit. I tell you, this kit seems to give and give and give ... I still have plenty of material left to make additional LO's, so there's still more to come!

I already told you Christina made the Kreatorville Krafts design team as well, and here's her very first LO (8x8) with the November Kit:


The title on this LO was made by Keandra (and reads "A walk with Vita", which is our dog), and is an example of what can be bought in her etsy shop, go and check it out!
I know, it looks like something I could have made, but I swear I had absolutely nothing to say about this LO (though I tried LOL, believe me, I tried ...). She had seen me working with the spray paint and of course wanted to try this herself. She had seen me cutting out the little dear and mushrooms, so she copied that as well ... I don't mind though, it's fun to see how she takes some of my ideas and makes them her own. The thing that's most remarkable to me though is that I didn't do one thing to help, not one! She even did the stitching all on her own, even putting the thread in the eye of the needle ... This girl amazes me. She's my youngest, but you wouldn't think so when watching her...

Of course being their mom I think all of my kids have unique qualities LOL. Take Chloë for example, she turned nine on the twentieth this month, the same day I had my surgery. Because of the surgery, we had to cancel all of her birthday plans, like the traditional "birthday breakfast in bed", the choosing what to eat for dinner and the family birthday party, which had been scheduled for the day after the surgery... She didn't mind though, she didn't want to have her party without me there. She even waited with opening her presents. Normally she got to open them on the morning of her birthday, but she took them with her to the hospital, so I would be present when she opened them ... how wonderful is that for a nine-year-old! This year she didn't want a "kids-party", she wanted to go climbing with her dad, just the two of them. I'll leave you with a pic of her goofing around. Good thing I wasn't there, my heart would have stopped LOL.


Till next time,
Love xxx Peggy

I'm back!!!!

Well, I haven't been gone for that long, and most of you probably haven't missed me yet, but to me it feels like forever. Let me tell you what happened. I had been feeling pretty bad the last few weeks, thinking I was battling a cold that didn't want to break out in full. On Thursday evening, I started feeling crappy again, and in ten minutes time, my belly was hurting so bad tears were running down my face, I just couldn't help it. I told hubby I wanted to lay down a bit, but before making it to the couch, I collapsed! I started rolling over the ground, crawling on the couch, rolling over again, trying to find a position that wouldn't hurt so much, any position I could find ... but there wasn't any to give me some relieve! I moaned, I cried, I screamed, I scared the crap out of my husband and kids. To tell you the truth, I was pretty scared myself. My belly, my stomach, my back, my throat, everything hurt, but the scariest part was that I could hardly breathe. By that time, my hubby had already called the doctor and asked him to come over, but it soon became obvious I wouldn't be able to wait that long. So he tried to get me to move to get me to the emergency, but he couldn't persuade me to move ... at all! He told the kids to go and get my best friend/neighbour, and both of them tried to get me to stand up, but I just kept rolling over the ground, not responding when talked to. I guess by that time hubby was getting quite desperate, because he called 911. The ambulance came quite quickly, I think they were at our place in a matter of minutes, but they weren't allowed to give me anything for the pain, what's that about!!!!???!!! They had to call for back-up, and it took them about 15 minutes to get to me I suppose, all this time leaving me crawling, rolling, gasping for air! But when they finally arrived ... aah, heaven!!! Thank goodness for drugs LOL. The pain stopped immediately, I tell you, they gave me one hell of a wonderdrug! Anyway, to cut a very long story short, I was diagnosed with gallbladder stones. These stones cause paines I wouldn't wish on anyone, not even my worst enemy ... well, maybe ... no, really, not anyone LOL. I gave birth to three kids, without the help of any drugs, and that felt like a breeze compared to this pain! Anyway, they were removed the very next day, and I was able to come home from hospital as early as yesterday! Amazing really when you think of it, isn't it?

I still tire easily, and I have trouble sitting up, that's still pretty painful, but Kurt, my husband, is being a real sweetie and he's doing absolutely everything around the house. He's doing the dishes as we speak. This event has really shown me what wonderful friends and family and what an awesome husband I have, I feel so blessed right now, I can't even put it into words. I've received help from everyone, everyone went out of their way to make it easy for me, my hubby and my kids, and I'm feeling beyond grateful. And I have to say this: Kean, Jenneke, thank you so much for inquiring after me and for worrying about me, you touched my heart (again) and I love you both!

Well, that's all for today, I'm feeling tired again from sitting in the same position, but I'll try and visit some of your blogs later tonight. Glenda, I did receive your comments, I just didn't see them before today) I'll be back tomorrow (or the day after, depends on how I feel ...) to show you some LO's I made with the fabulous Kreatorville Krafts November Kit. If you haven't seen the kit yet, click here. You'll want to have this kit, I promise!

Talk to you later ladies,
Love xxx Peggy

Kreatorville Kraft November Kit sneak peek

My introduction over at Kreatorville Krafts is up!!! Click here to go and check it out... Keandra had some wonderful things to say about me ... I'm still blushing ... I love you too sweetie!!! She asked us to introduce ourselves not by means of an interview, like most sites do, but ... being creative as she is, she asked us to do this on a LO. She had given all the Kreators a sketch to work with ... now let me tell you, if I've learned anything from this experience, it's that I'm not a sketchy kind of girl!!!! I struggled so hard with this, and the LO shown below is actually my third version! Yep, I chucked two LO's (perfectly good papers aaargh) in the bin. But ... I'm really quite pleased with this one.



Normally I have a clear vision in my head of what I want the end result to look like. It doesn't always end up like that, but the vision is usually there LOL. However, with this LO, there was no vision ... I just played around, adding stuff, not really knowing what I was going for. I was all ready to add my own journaling when I asked my family to help me out and say some things that would describe me. My girls said the sweetest things (they're still at that age where they adore me...), but my hubby and son started fooling around, saying all those things I'm not, like skinny, great cook, etc... or highlighting my weaknesses (scrapping addict, internet addict, ...) I was a bit annoyed at first to tell you the truth, but my sense of humour won and pretty soon we were all joking around. This gave me the idea to not take the journaling as serious as I had originally planned. To read the journaling, please click on the image ... you might learn a thing or two you didn't know about me yet, and it might even put a smile on your face...

Now I've been talking a lot about the Kreatorville Krafts November Kit, so it's high time to give you a little sneak peek ... This is one of the LO's I made with the kit.



The only things I used on this LO that weren't in the kit are my embroidery floss, paints and inks. All of the papers, embellies and alphas came with the kit. I'm telling you, this kit is awesome, perfect for girls' LO's, boys' LO's, artistic LO's, clean LO's ... everyone will be able to make something out of this kit! Mark your calendars ladies, the kit will be revealed on the 21st of this month. Don't wait until then to visit the site though, Kean has some RAK's she wants to give away ... Here's the link again.

I made this LO for my best friend. She's been going through some difficult times lately, and when I saw the "One day you will" (by Lady Antebellum) on my friend Lisa's blog, I instantly knew I wanted to use them to make a LO for my friend. You should be able to read the lyrics by clicking on the image.

So, this is turning out to be a huge post again, but I did also want to tell you about a wonderful internet friend of mine, Marit (I'm sure most of you are familiar with her awesome work) who has started a new venture. She will be teaching on line workshops in the future, and because of her blogiversary you have a chance to win some RAKs, but also a spot in her very first workshop!!! Go and leave her some love and you might just be the lucky winner!

I've also received a blog award, you know the one where you have to answer some questions using just one word, but if you've made it this far I'm not gonna try your patience any longer, I'll leave that one for next time!

Love xxx Peggy

KREATORVILLE KRAFTS...

... has gone live!!!!! My sweet friend Keandra, aka the boss lady, tells you all about her awesome new kit club and etsy shop here ... go check it out and give her some love!!! Starting up a new business is a big deal, and she can use all the support we have to give.

I do have a more selfish reason to direct you to the Kreatorville Krafts site ... I already told you I would be creating for her, but I haven't mentioned yet that my youngest daughter Christina will be creating for her as well !!! She's one of the kid kreators (oh yes, we have kid kreators ... how unique is that!!!!), and Keandra (bless her!) just dedicated an entire post to her and her first LO for Kreatorville Krafts. If you want to see the entire LO ... click here! Haha, just trying to make you curious enough to go and visit the Kreatorville Krafts blog. Still, Christina (who's tucked in and sleeping like a baby already) would never forgive me if I didn't put at least some pics on my own blog, so I will give you some sneak peeks just to make my girl happy and to hopefully get you curious enough to click here (well, if you haven't found the link by now ... I give up!!!)


Keandra told me to let her be, to let her do her own thing (yeah, she knows me quite good by now) ... so I did, but I couldn't resist giving her some advice every now and then. She listened, I can say that much ... she listened as I gave her some options, and then she did her own thing LOL. She didn't like the circles on the sketch, so she wanted to make flowers ... so I showed her a few ways to make the flowers. I asked her if she wanted them clean or distressed, inked or not. So she asked me to show her the difference. I made one flower of each, she chose to distress and ink, tossed my example in the bin and started on her own flowers ... without asking me once to show it to her again. I asked her if she didn't think the flowers were too close together (because, well, I thought they were...), she said no, and that was the end of it LOL. Same thing with the journaling ... she was a bit unsure about writing english directly on the paper, so I suggested she'd use strips. She wanted red, not the colour I would have chosen, but again red it was supposed to be LOL. I told her she would get more contrast by inking the strips, and again she asked me to show her the difference. I was pushing her a bit to use black, but again ... red was what she had in mind, and red it was gonna be. She did like the inked strips better, so without thinking about the extra work, she started inking. Oh, and see that part of her name ... she stitched the entire thing! She even puts the floss into the eye of the needle herself! I'm so proud of her ... she's so wonderful to scrap with ... she listenes when I explain different techniques to her, but she has her own mind as well, and wants things done her way. She has a vision in her mind and she stays true to it ... I can direct her in a certain direction, but only if she lets me ... how wonderful strong minded is that for a seven year old. Oh, I should mention ... Christina takes after my side of the family LOL. I should also mention (for the sake of keeping the peace in my family and not let jealousy take over ...) that Chloë as well is working really hard on her LO (though she's not on the team) ... she's actually stitching the entire sketch LOL. That girl shouldn't be scrapping, she should be embroidering LOL. Her birthday's coming up, and I'm planning on buying her her own little embroidery piece ... she'll love that!

Keep checking the Kreatorville Krafts blog ladies, there's much more awesomeness on the way (and Christina would be stoked if she were to get some comments .... begging here ladies, put a smile on my baby's face ... please?) LOL.

Love to you and yours
xxx Peggy

I am me - FP Challenge Prompt 12

This month's challenge over at Forward Progress is about letting go and free ourselves from the expectations of others.

This was a difficult challenge for me. It kept lingering in my mind, and the more I thought about it, the more I knew I'm not there yet ... I'm not free from the expectations of others. My life is filled with expectations ... I expect a lot from my family, my friends, myself, and I know they have certain expectations from me. I really don't know how to go through life without expectations, so why would I expect others to expect nothing from me? The only sense I could make out of this, the only thing I've learned through the years, is to not let it bother me all that much if I don't live up to someone's expectations. With me, what you see is what you get. Expect all from me that you want, but if I can't live up to your expectations, that's your problem, not mine...

So here's my take on the challenge. It's a 9x9 page, the first page for my BOM album.

I had problems putting this into words for a LO, but when I found this "Ralph Waldo Emerson" quote, it knew instantly it said all I wanted to say:

"All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I looked someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I and only I could answer. It took me a while and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself."

This album will be all about me (as the name says duh LOL), about my random thoughts and feelings. I'm thinking most of them will be inspired by song lyrics or quotes, as I've never been any good in just putting my thoughts on paper. I've tried started a journal several times, but I've failed miserably each time. I need to be inspired first LOL.

Obviously this is a very plain LO, but I love it, the pic just doesn't do it justice. In future, I'm hoping this album will have the look of an art journal, but for this particular assignment, I wanted the LO to reflect me ... plain and simple, no frills, true to my "what you see is what you get" theme.

I'm hoping some of you will find the time to play along with us this month, you still have two more weeks to submit your entry. Even if you haven't "progressed" in a certain area, you might, like me, find that that's okay too. Life is about evolving, we can't expect to have everything sorted out right now, right? If ever...

Love xxx Peggy