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

Forward Progress Prompt 11

Hi my sweet blogging friends!

First of all I'd like to thank everyone who sent a little mojo my way, I'm glad to say it helped! I've made 4 LO's in one week ... I think that must be a personal record LOL. I've been totally neglecting all other responsibilities, I've just been scrapping every day ... how wonderful to be able to create again.

As it happens I can only share one LO with you today, you'll have to wait just a little bit longer for the other 3. I made those for a very special occasion, something I'm really excited about and I can't wait to tell you all about it. Later, I promise ...

I made this LO for the current challenge over at Forward Progress. Not many people have entered this challenge yet, and I was so hoping some of you would decide to play along this month! We have a beautiful prize for the winner, and even without the prize, the challenges over at FP are really worthwile. Each and every challenge I've done for FP has made me think about my life, my decisions, my relationship with others ... and made me understand a few things about myself in the process as well.

This time around the prompt is this:

I have always felt that me, as a person and as intense as i am, left an immediate and definitive mark on where I have been and whom I have met. but do I? am I profound? am I in my lines? or do I blur them? This month's prompt is about touching people's lives ... it's not who you touch but how ...

Here's my take on the challenge:

This really was a difficult one for me! I'm a bit (understatement of the year!!!) insecure, and to say that I touch people's lives ... Well, do I really, I wonder? The only persons I could really think of, of course, were my children. But then again, they touched my life as well, they changed me completely, they changed the way I feel about things, how I think, how I love, they changed the way I look upon life itself. I didn't really know how to put this into words, so I used the lyrics to a Martina McBride song, "In my daughter's eyes".

I used to think a lot about my place here in this world. When I was younger, I really wanted to matter, to make a difference in the world. I never did of course, which made me wonder about the meaning of it all. All of this changed when I had my children. I didn't have to look for a purpose, for "the meaning of life" anymore, I had all the purpose I needed and still need. The only thing that matters to me now is creating a warm, loving and safe home for my children, giving them a good start in life, teaching them to be good and strong. I guess I still want to matter, but now in my own little world, I don't feel the need to matter in the whole world anymore. I guess to me the meaning of life is just being happy, and trying my best to make sure that the ones I love are happy as well.

Lyrics:

In my daughter's eyes I am a hero
I am strong and wise and I know no fear
But the truth is plain to see
She was sent to rescue me
I see who I wanna be
In my daughter's eyes

In my daughter's eyes everyone is equal
Darkness turns to light and the
World is at peace
This miracle God gave to me gives me
Strength when I am weak
I find reason to believe
In my daughter's eyes

And when she wraps her hand
Around my finger
Oh it puts a smile in my heart
Everything becomes a little clearer
I realize what life is all about

It's hangin' on when your heart
Has had enough
It's giving more when you feel like giving up
I've seen the light
It's in my daugter's eyes

In my daughter's eyes I can see the future
A reflection of who I am and what will be
Though she'll grow and someday leave
Maybe raise a family
When I'm gone I hope you see how happy
She made me
For I'll be there
In my daughter's eyes

This song says exactly what I want to say, how I feel. I'm sure I touch their lives in a profound way, but really it is a two way thing!

As soon as I saw this picture, I knew I would use it with these lyrics... The LO came to be surprisingly easy. Normally I can't decide on anything when starting a LO, it takes me forever to decide on the slightest detail. However, this LO just seemed to make itself, though I ran across some problems along the way ...

I knew I wanted to use glimmer mist for this LO, to create just the right feel to it. Since I only have one colour of glimmer mist, the choice was easy LOL! I also knew immediately that I wanted to use my "new" stamps (I've had them for several months now LOL). Those of you who follow my blog regularly, know my fear of stamping directly on a page. I'm so proud of myself for finally doing it LOL! I even used my sparkly embossing powder ... talk about taking a risk huh LOL!!! The stamped images were pretty even without the embossing, but with the embossing, wow, they came to life!

And then the problems began ... my sewing machine didn't want to cooperate at all on this one. The stitches were uneven, it got stuck several times, started stitching without a thread leaving just holes in the page ... ah well, it doesn't show all that much, still I didn't get the effect I was after. I had planned on only stitching, but because of this bad look, I added some ink on the edges of the page ... big mistake!!!! It was horrible!! At this point, I had already glued down my alphas, wrote down the journaling, so I just didn't want to start all over again. So I decided to paint over it, using some mesh as a mask. It still didn't give the look I was after when starting this LO, but as it turns out I still love it! I think my daughter will love this one one day ...

Be sure to check out the Forward Challenge site, you won't be disappointed. You still have about a week to enter the current challenge!
Love xxx Peggy

If I could turn back time

Forward Progress Challenge

It feels sooooo good to be back and finally have some me-time again. After being MIA for almost a month, I've finally been able to sit down again and just scrap ... I wouldn't have thought I would miss it that much. I've had some wonderful times with my family, just being together, enjoying each other's company and relaxing, but I've come to enjoy my own special time as well. I'll be visiting all of your blogs as soon as possible, how I've missed reading my favorite blogs in the morning, slowly sipping my first cup of coffee....

First things first now, the new challenge over at Forward Progress is all about forgiveness. How can we move forward in life if we have not forgiven (someone, something, ourselves, ...) for something in the past?

Here's my take on the challenge:


Journaling:

"I would give a lot to see you just one more time. I would tell you how much I love you, and how much I miss you.

You never asked for much, but I was too occupied with myself to even give you the little you asked.
You've always been there for me, and I'm so sorry I wasn't always there for you."

This LO is about me and my grandmother. She passed away 7 years ago. During the last years of her life, I was too preoccupied with my own life, my own new little family, to give her the attention she needed and more than that deserved. She died very sudden when my youngest daughter was just 3 weeks old. I had just had 3 children over a period of 2,5 years, and I used this as an excuse not to visit all that much. I didn't call her up all that often either, because she was getting deaf, and a lot of our telephone conversations ended up with her hanging up in tears, frustrated because she couldn't understand what I was saying. So I didn't call her that often, telling myself this would only upset her ...

I now wish I had made more of an effort to go and visit her once in a while. My grandfather had passed away just the year before, and it had left her without a purpose in life. First she brought up my mom, when I was born she took care of me when my parents had to go to work, and at the end, she took care of my grandfather, who had had a stroke a few years before he passed away, and he wasn't able to walk nor talk anymore. I should have realised how alone and useless she felt at the end, but I didn't. I was to caught up in my own life to even notice I think.

Why is it we don't see things clearly until it's too late? Why is it we don't know just what we have until it is gone? I wish I had done things differently, but I didn't, and I've been living with this guilt ever since she died.

Although I had thought this LO would turn out a very "dark" one, I changed my mind while looking for pics of her and me. I remembered how much fun she was, and how much she loved me. I wanted to ask for forgiveness, but I think in her eyes I don't need to be forgiven. I think she was hurt by my lack of attention, but I don't think she was angry about it, I think she understood and accepted it as part of life. That's the sort of person she was, and that's how I wanted her to look on my LO, fun and loving, just like she was.

I do hope you will find the time to play with us. You still have time until the 14th to submit your work. Our Forward Progress blog has a new look, a new DT and starting this month, we have sponsors. This month's sponsor is Scrapadilly Products. I would love to see some of my friends come join us!

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Glad to be back!

Around the middle of August we took a short vacation here in Belgium in Centerparcs, a bungalow park ... the kids participated in lots of activities and of course the main thing we did was visit the waterpark. Here are some of my favorite pics.

My hubby ... oh yes, he's bad LOL

Just some random pics of my beautiful girls

Me and my hubby (acting silly again)

Playing games with the whole family ...
ah, such cosy times!

Chloë getting ready to climb the "high ropes"

The "high ropes". I still can't believe she did this ... twice!

"Catch me if you can!"

My son's favorite place to hang out.

Still finding joy in the little things.
I love the look on their faces here...

Our boy turned 10 on August 24th, that's right, we now officially have a teenager in our house! I can't believe it, where has my baby boy gone, it seems like only yesterday when I first brought that tiny bundle of joy home *sigh*.

Here he is, enjoying his "breakfast in bed", a tradition we started a few years back, and one they insist on having every year since then. I know, I know, not the healthiest breakfast ever, but it's not like he eats like this every day...

Yannis is very interested in everything that has to do with the world wars, so as a surprise his dad took him to visit the trenches and musea. He loved it!




The first day of school. I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth, while my kids were finishing their breakfast. All of a sudden they shouted: "take your time momma, we'll do the dishes!!". Ah, they can be such little angels sometimes... oh and yes, that is my ironing board you can see on the left ... Typical me, a whole summer vacation to get things in order, and still I have to iron their favorite clothes in the morning right before school starts ... will I ever learn??????


And then it was time to leave for their first day of school. They were so excited, they didn't even want to take the time to pose for our annual pic :-( Ah well, this will do ...


And of course as school starts, mom's got to do some homework as well ... take a look at mine:


For the girls I bought some paper to cover their schoolbooks, but for Yannis I thought it would be a great idea to use the sport's section of the paper, and of course I plastified it as well ... it turned out pretty cool, don't you think?

Feewwww, that was a long post! I'll try to update my blog more regularly in the future.
I'll drop by your blogs and leave you some love as soon as possible!

xxx Peggy

Life has been good to me - Forward Progress Challenge

I'm warning you up front ... if you don't have a lot of time, save this post for later. If you feel you're up for it, grab a cup of coffee before you start reading ... I guess you all know how much I like to hear myself speak, well, I have outdone myself this time...

Let me start by saying that I decided to quit my position as a DT over at Songbird Scraps. I had been on their team for 6 months, but was having a hard time coming up with good LO's, the lyrics just didn't speak to me anymore. I want my scrapping to be more than just displaying pretty pictures, I want to tell a story, my story, my family's story ... There are so many challenge sites to be found on the net who provide subjects perfect for my goal ... unfortunately, for me, Songbirds Scraps wasn't one of them. However, don't let this keep you from entering their challenges, that's the good thing about the diversity of the challenge sites, there's always one perfect for you, and in your case, that perfect one just might be Songbird Scraps! And with the right lyrics and the right pictures, who knows, I might play along myself some time!

Anyway, I'm telling you this for a reason. I was asked to join the DT (for a 3 month term) of the perfect challenge site, a site I have been following for so long now: Forward Progress. I'm sooooo excited ... yeah me!!! I did think twice before accepting, because their challenges aren't always easy ... some require some real soul searching. Like I said, I had been following this site for the longest time, but had never entered one of their challenges for this very reason. So I asked myself: "Would I be able to open up, to share my inner thoughts and most private feelings for the world to see?". The answer was yes. In fact, I think that's the easy part. The hardest part for me is getting them on paper, because it means I have to be honest with myself. I consider myself to be an honest person, I try not to lie, ever. Not even to spare someone's feelings. If for example I don't like your new haircut, I won't say I like it. I won't say I don't like it either ... see, it's not that I don't care about your feelings LOL. Of course my best friends all know this about me, so this doesn't really work ... if I don't comment on their new haircut, they know I don't like it LOL, so much for not hurting their feelings huh?!!! LOL. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that I try to be honest in relation to other people, but I have been known to lie to myself ... quite often actually. And don't we all at one point or another? So the real question was: "Would I be able to stay true to myself?" The best answer I could come up with this time was: "I'll try my best". And that's what I intend to do. I'll try to make LO's that share a little bit about me, one step at a time, the good and the bad.

The new challenge doesn't go up until the 15th, so you still have time to start creating for this month's challenge. The prompt is easy enough, or at least, it can be as easy as you want it to, and it can be interpreted in so many ways:

Taking Stock...Assessing my personal well being. How can we expect to have forward progress if we are not looking after our state of well being. peace within ourselves.. I have goals...dreams...aspirations...but how do I expect to reach those if i don't have "stock" in myself. This means evaluating your present position. Are you happy? Probably. Could you say you are even if aren't? Are we honest with our present self? If you could put a monetary number on how much one share of stock in yourself would cost, what would it be? Are you worth it?

I do hope my little introduction here has inspired some of you to participate in our challenges., I would love to see all of my friends join us! Ellen, the owner of the site, is dedicated to make this site into a huge success, and so am I and my fellow DT members ... I don't think further introductions are necessary when I say that the fabulous Lisa and the gorgeous Jocelyn are on the team as well ... And let's not forget Sasha ... now there's a girl with a story to tell! I still can't believe what awesome company I'm finding myself in!

Enough chit chat, here's my very first LO as a member of Forward Progress:


Journaling left page:

When I think about where I am at this point in my life, I can only come to the conclusion that I have everything I have ever wanted ... my family. Although in my childhood dreams I definitely was a mom, but never a SAHM, I now can't imagine nor ever wish for another life. Maybe this fact, the fact that I'm a SAHM, is the reason that I still have so many plans for our house, our home, the place where I am at most of my time. Nothing in my house is 100% the way I want it to be. Still, I wouldn't want to live anywhere else, I love my home and my life in it. But then, sometimes from one minute to the other, I get frustrated because the bathroom isn't big enough, or the electricity is playing up again... How can a person go from intense happiness to utter dissatisfaction in just a moment's time? But then I turn on the TV and watch a documentary about homeless people, or poor people in Africa or other poor countries, and I am reminded once again, for a minute anyway, how good life has been to me. Still, I don't think it's so unusual for a person to want more, I think we all do from time to time, it's in our nature. What would we be without our dreams, without goals in our lives?

Journaling right page:

Yes, 3 different kind of bricks. The exterior of our home definitely leaves room for improvement. However, this ugly exterior houses a safe haven for our family. It's our own cozy little place, where we are building our own happy memories.

Our bathroom ("the little white room") definitely could do with a make-over... but ... it provides us with everything we need: water, just by turning the tap ... what a luxury!

Yes, there are way to many weeds in our garden, and we so need to replace our fences. But, when our kids are playing here, and the garden is filled with laughter, this garden feels like paradise!


I know, I know, a lot of journaling on these pages, but for me it was very therapeutic to write it down. I can feel very dissatisfied at times, and sometimes I need a little reminder of what's really important in life, and just how blessed I am ... something I forget sometimes!


How to:

I started out by using glimmer mist on the left page (sooooo love glimmer mist, I'll be buying lots more of that I tell you!!!) and acrylic paints on the right page.


And what do you know, I used my sewing machine again for the frame!! I'm telling you, those girls over at The Next Step really get under my skin with their wonderful techniques!

The images on the left are images I found on the net, the images on the right are actual pictures of my home.

I drew a bare tree on a piece of cereals' packaging and inked them with my distress inks.

The title is chipboard which I inked and embossed (loooooove the look of embossing - so glad I finally bought me a heat gun and some embossing powders ... it's a whole new world LOL!!)

I wanted the tree on the right to be very bright, I wanted to create a big contrast with the bare tree on the left. However, I didn't have any green acrylic paint, so to create the leaves, I used the oil pastels I have bought recently (another thing Lucy from The Next Step inspired me to buy!). I was so pleasantly surprised, it's very easy to use and the colours are gorgeous in real life, I'll so be using these again on my pages! And to give it some extra "oemph" I added some really bright flowers.


A very simple LO to make, but I love the result. For once it came out exactly as I had planned in my head ... a first I think! Keandra commented on one of my last LO's that she was shocked because that LO was so different for me ... well my friend, I guess you'll be even more shocked now! I think this looks nothing like I've ever done before and Keandra, I'll tell you a little secret ... you'll be even more shocked when you see my next one (can't share it just yet, but I will soon... ). I have no idea why my LO's keep changing so much. Do I get bored with one look, or does the look simply change because I tend to try new techniques a lot? I don't know, but I do know I like the fact that a lot of my pages look different and I hope this won't change any time soon.

And if my post isn't long enough already, I still want to share the following. Christina loves to draw, and she's always giving them to me as presents... Look at what she drew for me the other day, I so love this:

It reads: For mama ... The best scrapper ever ... 1st place
The little guy says: And the winner is Peggy and he's standing on the "sjuri block" (that's how she wrote it LOL, isn't that cute?)
In her eyes I'm the best, isn't that sweet? And did you notice how skinny she drew me LOL ... that girl sure loves her mama haha. I'll treasure this image of her of me, I know this perfect image won't last for long anymore...

Well, I hope I haven't bored you too much, and I do apologize for assuming that you all have the time to read such a lenghty post. For those of you that have made it all the way down, know that I'm extremely grateful to have such dedicated friends who put up with my talkative nature LOL. Oh, and thanks to all of you who took the time to leave Chloë a comment on her LO, please know that all of you made a little girl very happy!

Oh, and remember, try to play along with Forward Progress!!
Love xxx Peggy