Christmas Markets

very lovely bf Peter is packing the suitcase (he's *much* better at it than i am, believe me) so i have snuck away to show you the pics he made of the Christmas markets here and in Germany.

i needed a winter coat and boots, and after much searching here in NL, we decided to go to Cologne where i was *very* happy to find both. there is much more selection there, as i had heard from other expats.

we stayed overnight at Hotel Ilona, about a 40 min drive from Cologne (which i highly recommend). it was *spotless* and i was delighted to find tea waiting for us, which i had with a orange/cream cake i had bought that afternoon at a bakery while we watched a delightfully cheesy German Christmas special.

the next day we hit 3 of the 7 (i think) markets in Cologne - the one at the Cathedral (Dom), the Old Market, and the Angel market. we liked the Old Town one best. it had more character and charm than the others. and we had potato noodles with saurkraut and sour cream and spiced apple cider there.










last weekend we went to the market in Maastricht:







happy holidays to you and yours!

Aw.... Who Am I Kidding....

... at least i know myself well enough to know that i would continue to prep for Christmas until the last. possible. moment. however, now i have a card to give my aunt who is going to be cooking Christmas dinner for 16 (which is actually eaten at noon as that is the big meal of the day in Hungary), and i did get to participate in this week's 2 Sketches 4 You challenge, so it's all good :)

in other news...

i found a nifty site the other day where you can submit crafty tips and ideas to share: Tip Junkie, so i submitted my Scrappy Christmas Tree tip. i didn't realize that it was going to be entered into their Christmas Tree Contest which was pretty great in itself, and now i found out that i have made it into the finals!! how cool is that!? .... even better, you can vote for me here... but if you don't, no worries, i'll understand... :)

Happy Holidays!

i sent out my holiday email today, and i send it out to you as well!

Christmas Cards Done! (for now)

well, i am officially done my Christmas cards for this year! i say that because i could always make a few more... do you do that too? but then i'm afraid it would never end.... ;)

i have two cards today. the first i made for vlbf Peter's Dutch grandparents, whom we had a lovely visit with the other evening.the second one i made for this week's beautiful-as-usual sketch at 2 Sketches 4 You. i'm going to send this one to Peter's Hungarian grandmother. we will be going to Budapest for the holidays (woohoo!!) but this time we are flying and probably won't make it to see her this trip as we'd have to take a 3 hour train and then catch a bus (which runs only twice a day or something like that) to get to the village where she lives (which btw has a population of 200 or so. cool, huh?).can you tell the difference between the two photos!? .... time's up, i'll tell you :) we bought a new camera! a "real" (Canon EOS 450D) camera! we wanted one for a long time and we finally bought it as our Christmas present for each other! Peter has been having lots of fun with it (i'll post the pics he took when we went to the Christmas markets in Germany last weekend soon).

hope you're having a good day and thanks for looking!

Have You Been Good?

i hope so!! :) i found a wonderful new challenge site the other day - This Thursday, and here's the card i made for their Naughty or Nice challenge. they have an awesome prize from Cosmo Cricket this week, check it out! i used Creative Imaginations paper, found the wire swirl i made among my jewelery making stash and had fun with lots of bling!

thanks for looking and be good!! :)

Merry Christmoose!

i found these cute little moose thingies in the Christmas section of the"dollar store" here and i added the ribbons. i have no idea what moose have to do with Christmas, but it sure makes for a good ol' Canadian Christmas card, dontcha think? i based it on this week's sketch over at 2 Sketches 4 You.

Holiday Bits

i made a card for the current Caardvarks challenge, which was to use only non-patterned paper. it was a good one in that it made me think a bit differently and be a bit more creative to come up with something that would be visually interesting. i used both sides of Bazzil cardstock and cut out all the bits and scallops. a bit difficult putting the small pieces together, but i got it done eventually! thanks for stopping by and i hope you're having a good day!

Good Friends

this is my card for this week's sketch at 2 Sketches 4 You. i was going to make another Christmas card, but i found this quote a few days ago and wanted to use it (it's so true, isn't it?). i used the "Surprise" line from Scenic Route.it's Sinterklaas Day today in NL. he visited last weekend (don't worry, i won't subject you to looking at my shoe again) and brought me some tea, including Marzipan Rum tea, and yes, it does taste as good as it sounds! :) and no, it wasn't so bad considering it had spent some time in my shoe, as one fellow blogger who shall remain unnamed ;) pointed out. :)

i ♥ marzipan, and lucky for me, so do many Europeans. :) i recently discovered "speculaas reepjes" (cake with a marzipan layer in the middle) and "marsepein aardappeltjes" ("marzipan potatoes" - little balls of marzipan coated in cocoa) and plan to consume as much as i can while they are still in the stores for the season :)

Some (More) Great News!

wow! i just found out that i made The Fab 5 for last week's sketch challenge at 2 Sketches 4 You with my Spirit of Christmas card. i checked just before i put my laptop away for the move, and there were only 4 listed at that time. when we got the internet connected and i was able to turn on my laptop and check again a few days later, i was so happy and delighted to see my name on the list!

what a huge honour, considering the humongous amount of talent over there, and that they got like almost 100 entries for this challenge! they always do though, because the sketches they come up with are awesome! thanks to everyone at 2 Sketches 4 You, and to everyone who left comments here!

Moving Right Along

while some of you are digging into the holiday turkey, vlbf Peter and me are on the move! yup, moving again... i've done it so many times in my life, you'd think i'd be a pro... but i'd really rather be doing pretty much anything else :) it snowed here last weekend, so i thought i'd share a couple of pics of the view from our (soon to be not our) apartment:
and i had a visitor again last Saturday night! he left me kruidnoten (traditional, little, crunchy gingerbread cookies) and schuimpjes (like flavoured meringue) in my (still not cleaned) shoe. i got a lot of eating to do. :)

How Corny!

the current challenge at Caardvarks is to use this picture to make a card:i had a lot of fun planning and then finally putting this one together. i used the colours from the pic, and "growth", a "tall" card, and raffia all have to do with corn, right? i used Bo Bunny papers, felt Thickers, Basic Grey buttons, and hearts cut from felt.

Spirit of Christmas

another beautiful sketch this week from 2 Sketches 4 You. i used Bo Bunny paper for this one, cut out the scallops, the heart is frosted paper with snowflakes, and i made the swirl with wire from my jewelry making stash. the stitching gave me some trouble as i am trying to figure out the correct tension for my sewing machine. i was reading about how to do this on the net, and one site said to make sure your bobbin is full of thread, so you don't run out midway. like duh. well, i was sewing along and my thread was jamming and then not working... i checked... guess what the problem was... like duh. :) but i still haven't figured out the correct tension! anyway, thanks for looking and have a great day!

Haarlem at Night

the weather here still amazes me! it can change literally every 15 minutes, and you can easily get all 4 seasons in an hour. this morning we had snow, thunder, rain and beautiful sunshine before 11 am.

we went for dinner at Popo, a Mexican restaurant in Haarlem last week. we enjoyed a good meal and, even better, great service! the waiter heard us speaking and asked if we were English. vlbf Peter said "no, i'm Dutch" but the waiter continued to speak to us in English. i thought that was so nice and considerate! and a nice change for me to understand what was going on and not have to wait for vlbf to translate! i think Haarlam is a beautiful city, with lots of character, winding cobblestone streets, and interesting little shops.

Three Cards Today

i found this awesome Fancy Pants paper last weekend, and this week's sketch from 2 Sketches 4 You was the perfect opportunity to use it! i added some scallops and a bit of ribbon too.the second one was for the bonus sketch. i found these trees just last night at a place that is the closest thing to a dollar store that i have found here in NL so far.
for this one, i wasn't sure about using the "cute" paper with the "elegant" flowers... but the recipient of this card (my mom) will really like both, so i went ahead and used them together. thanks for stopping by, and have a good day!