Sunday 31 December 2006

Black Day

You know, I promise myself (kind of) to not talk about politics on my blog, although unfortunately I have a keen interest on the subject. But today I can not walk away from what happened yesterday and still is happening in my country, Spain. Yesterday, December 30th, a ETA bomb went off in one of the parkings of Madrid's International Airport. Two people are still under all the debris, suspected dead. The only people on earth that I hate are terrorists, whatever there cause is or whatever position in society have.

Saturday 30 December 2006

Mal de muchos, consuelo de tontos

I love Spanish (and English) old sayings because they are so on the money. And this one, on the title, means more or less : afflictions of many are fool's consolation. It comes to say that finding consolation in that other people are suffering or going through similar process of pain/disappointment/... is just plain stupid. But you what I don't care. I really find that the recent post in Ukscrappers that many people have been not so happy with their pressies.
It's not that I am happy that I am not the only one, it is just that it brings relief to know that all this present season is a little bit much with all the expectations of gifts.
I am quite happy now. It seems more likely that I will get the camera, although it is still uncertain.
Omar's work on the house is amazing, he is such a clever man, I am very, very lucky!

Tuesday 26 December 2006

Not so bad on Boxing Day

So it turns out that some of my friends actually read my blog. I didn't think so. Honestly. My dear husband got really upset that I wrote about the whole event on the blog. I am sorry Sweet. Really sorry.
Life looks a little bit brighter at 27 (years old).

Monday 25 December 2006

Christmas is soooo depressing

I am not sure how true is that in Christmas more people dissapear (voluntarily) and that the number of people depressed soars. I am not sure why, but although I love what Christmas is, it always turns out to be a dramatic disappointment for me. Maybe its due to the fact that is also my birthday on Christmas Day.
Take for instance this year. Our plans for the festive season included a trip to Egypt to be with Omar parents (last year my family came). Of course something important health related made that plan impossible. Not to worry. Maybe we could go to Canada and have a nice white Christmas, but, oh no! prices are crazy. All right we will stay at home alone (all friends are away or with family) and fix the house, because it certainly needs it.

Then comes the big decision about my present. Since its both Christmas and Birthday it tends to be a big present rather than two medium sized. So I make an small list. The two first presents are my dream and I know they are very expensive, specially the first one (a studio cabin in the garden so I can teach and design there). The second present is something I have wanted for over two years now. All right it is expensive, but I think that i will use it quite a lot and it is a D80 (before it was just a D70). The other three things on the list were: an voucher for my favorite scrapbooking shop, a voucher for House of Fraser and a Pamper day at my favorite beauty salon (to which I haven't been for almost a year).

My lovely husband doesn't like any of my listings. Friday, 22nd of December: we go to London to do some errands, then we go to Oxford street and we go to Currys where amazignly he buys me exactly what I wanted plus a personal photo printer. Wow! I can not believe my luck!
Next morning, Saturday 23rd of December, my husband realizes that he has spent too much money and starts to feel really bad about it. So I say that it's all right and that we must return the items. They are really expensive. Sunday, December 24rd: we go to our local Currys and return everything. I insisted on doing that, it is a lot of money. Then, my sweet husband spents two or three hours in my studio making me card, and that means a lot to me. Also he does me a voucher for something, what will it be?

This morning I wake up with the sweetest person in the world beside me and also with the cutest cat in the world beside us. Husband goes and gets me the card, it is gourgous, really nice and it says: The best thing about Chritsmas ... (inside) is you . He apologizes about the whole D80 event and he gives me a voucher for a "Deluxe haircut, makeup and photoshoot" just for me. It is so sweet, but inside me it's raining heavily. That is something I definetly don't want, and actually I feel quite uncomfortabily with the idea. I only trust a few people with my hair, and the whole makeup thingh is something more for a teenagers rather than someone who is already closer to thirty than twenty. To have a few phtos of me looking like someone else it is not something I would like to scrap or frame. A photoshoot with both of us by Kirsty Wiseman would have been perfect, I would have gotten to meet her and have some photos of both of us together.
Am I a selfish, ungrateful cow? I honestly think that I am, for that reason alone I feel depressed, seriously depressed and all I want to do is sit on my pijamas and cry on my sofa.

Wednesday 29 November 2006

Why I like scrapbooking

Many people don't get why some of us scrapbook. While there be many reasons why some fellow scrappers spend their time doing layouts and everything related, for me at the end there is just one reason: to express myself using the best way I can, and that is using paper and glue and everything in between. I am not good with words, as you may know by now, but paper is a medium that allows me to say things (dance too, but lasts only a few minutes). By doing a layout, selecting a picture, some coloured papers and a design I am expressing what I feel, who I love and what it matters.
And this layout is a proof of that, of how proud I am of Omar, my husband. Posted by Picasa

Mini Albums

This is one of my all time favorites magazine projects. It was for Quick and Crafty. I used SEI papers, love the retro colours and feel of them. Also they are doublesided and heavyweight (for being patterned paper), so it's perfect for a tag book.
I like to keep my mini scrapbooks in boxes so they are protected. I make them to measure using an M&F board so it matches perfectly with its contents.
I used a Zip'e Slim Tag die to cut lots of tags out of different patterned papers. I decided to print all my journalling on acetate and then cut it and stick down to the plain card. It worked!

The pages inside alternate between patterned tags, journaling ones and the photos (in this order). I finished them off with some ribbon, paper blossoms and stickers from SEI. Posted by Picasa

Monday 27 November 2006

A recent Picture

I realized just now that there isn't a photo of me in the blog. Not that I am too proud of my face or anything like that, it is just that I am a visual person, I like to see the faces of the people I am talking to or reading about. So here it goes.
(It was taken by my hubby in Prague in September.) Posted by Picasa

Sunday 26 November 2006

The photos

Here there are, as I said before, the photos of my Around the World album.
I bought the album in Papier+, a lovely shop in Paris.

On the front there is a rubon from 7Gypsies and a piece of plain Basic Grey. On the spine I stuck a woven label that reads Bon Vogaye which is made by Me and My Big Ideas.

On the inside is plain pages, no protectors, in a off white textured paper as a base.

I have to say that the great influence behind this album is Ali Edwards.
This two pages are from a weekend break in Lisbon last year. One of the easiest ways to scrap for me is using the colour blocking technique, which is provably in every page through out the album.
All the stamps are from Autumn Leaves, the new clear sets, both the journalling spots and the swirls.
The fisrt pages I made were the ones for Istanbul, which was the more recent trip (ironies of us scrappers). I wanted the feel of a journal so I printed some lines with the computer. Then I cut different plain Basic Grey papers to fit inside and attached them. Then, it's the tricky but fun part of embellishing and stamping. Posted by Picasa

Some projects

There are some days that are very productive and some others that aren't. Well my life is filled with the latter ones. I try hard, although it may be not hard enough,
to be more industrious and I seem to fail daily. But, and this is a happy but, the recent days have been a good change. I have finish tidying my studio, which for those of you who haven't been in is tiny, and I feel great about it. I know where the stuff is, the non essential is hard to reach and the where-is-it and need-it-all-the-time stuff is easily reached.
Also, I have almost finished an small (not mini though) album in which i just put photos of our trips. You see, Omar and I travel quite a lot and because of that I end up with thousands of photos, most of which are quite nice. To scrap them all in albums would take me a lifetime, so I have opted for an easier way of displaying them. If I can I will post later on some of the photos of this project.
In other news, next weekend I am going to Spain for over a week. I am excited but also nervous all my family will be there and they are fantastic but intense!

Thursday 16 November 2006

Almost a month, yet again

I really want to write more. I have no excuse but work, us crafters are so busy before Christmas, I mean really all those cards and projects to make.
But I found this site and it is so cool, it needs to be check out. Specially the face recognition!

Tuesday 24 October 2006

Busy yet calm

It is funny. I like to go for a few days to Mallorca, just enough to see my friends and family and eat and buy good food. But that's about it. Anything longer it's too much.
Life back in the UK is good, busy with work and with our little (or not so little) cat Wasabi. Right now I am preparing a dress for the Craft Show that is going to be on the NEC Hobbycrafts in November. I have loads of ideas, but they don't seem to work that well. fingers crossed.

Friday 13 October 2006

About a month and some days later

The power of friendship is powerful, no doubt. It just lifts you up, and, altough it may not be the cure it's certanly a good medicine. My tiredness of crafting is almost totally gone. I am excited again about the creative process. Maybe the reason is because I spent a lovely evening with Saffa
or maybe it's because right now I am in Spain, mallorca, visiting my parents. Who knows?
Since the last post I have been in three different countries and one of them was a new one for me. Omar and I visit Prague and it is beautiful. Perfect size, small and pretty with loads to do. It's just a pity that there are so many tourist. Wait, I was a tourist there too.
The following week I joined Omar in Paris. I didn't do much, just my regular paper shopping trip to rue Louis-Philippe. But I did have one of the best spanish style hot chocolates at Ladoure (my spelling is bad) and at Angelina. Both of them great, although maybe the former was a tiny little bit better. Ah, and this time I check the ForumLes Halles shopping centre. Nothing new or really exciting, just the H&M and Mango's that you can find anywhere else.
And now I am in Mallorca. Really beautiful, a little bit too builded up.

Monday 11 September 2006

Too much {uninspired-tiredness}

By chance I have read this blog. And, boy, todays entry it's just how I feel right now. But I don't think I will sell my stuff, it is still too precious for me and provably it will always be.
Most of these days I am tired of the crafting backtabbing. I don't know how, but I keep feeling that there is so much of it, and it's just not going away. Mostly I think it comes from the huge egos that few crafters seem to have, but also the envy on how they look at your success. And of course, all this affects my love and need for crafts. I don't enjoy as much as I used to seeting and creating new things, I need to make an effort to do this things. And because for me it's not a hobby but a job, I can't afford to be in this uninspired-tiredness situation.
But, who knows, maybe tomorrow I'll wake up in a crafty mood!

Sunday 27 August 2006

100 happy things

I recently read an article where Ali Edwards (scrapbook artist) had a layout which listed a 100 things that make her happy. I tried, my list still is open (40 things to go), but just making it it make me happy.

Tuesday 8 August 2006

Cooking and other matters

Until a few months ago, I neither hated or loved cooking. I was indecisive, sometimes I would enjoy cooking, and in others "take away" seemed the only option. But after spending two weeks watching cooking tv channel with my mother in-law, I am a cooking-loving sort of person. I am still in the very foundations of learning how to cook and I am already a bit of a rebel (I wont follow a set recipe), but there is hope for that day when my mama will be proud of my very own cooking.

Sunday 6 August 2006

It's good to have old friends

I am not a good writer and definetly not a regular one, somtething that it's quite obvious. Yet I like the fact I have a blog. I know almost no one will ever read it and that security makes me a little bit more free to express myself. I express myself in other ways like with dance or specially crafts, butI like to have the blog just in case, just for those occassions in which nothing else will be the adecuate vehicle to my crazyness.
Two days ago I decided to write an email to one of my best friends of the past. Well, actually, I still consider him as one of my best friends although I hadn't been in contact for a few months. I realized on his answer and on reading his blogg (cisne.blogspot.com, in spanish) that he is more or less the same person. I used to be more like him, although I had never the ability to write like he does, there was always a sharing of literature, art and conversations that I truly miss. I try as hard as a I can to not think too much about what "I left behind" when I came to the UK, because when I do so I feel some sadness.
I remember my five years at University (the norm in Spain) as some of the happiest of my life. Maybe the word happiest is not really the one I should use here, it was more like the most confindent years. You see, I am very insecure, it takes a long time for me to feel confident in a particular situation or place. My high school years were very good too, but at University for the first time I had two very close friends (Ana and Josep) that had lots of interests and similar points of view. All right, I have other friends from High school that I love very dearly, specially Tomeu and Catalina, but with Ana and Josep it was more like an adult friendship. I miss them. I miss having coffee in the faculty "bar", talking about film, literature and all this other beautiful things. Although, now that I come to think of it, maybe we weren't as close as I think we were, or maybe we were and distance in time and space has kind of confused my memory.
So, after hearing from my friend, I decided to do some googleing. Oh, I have enjoyed doing that! It's nice to see that some good writers are still good writers! (That is for both of you Jose Maria and Josep, not that ever you will read this.)

Monday 8 May 2006

It's been a long time

I know it has been, but then life happens all the time sometimes even every day! I am going to try and be a little bit more constant.
This week I am having a scrapping session at home as well as a class on Friday (Creative Pastimes, Limpsfield) and another two on Saturday (The Craft Co. Worspledon).
Love the weather, the temperature the nice clean air that we are having now, here.
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