My hubby has been pestering me about it for a while already, why wouldn’t I make a Twitter account?
I actually never quite got the whole ’see what I’m doing now’ thing, I was on Facebook and whenever I felt like sharing my thoughts, I updated my status there, enough for me already! But I kept getting the question: "Why don’t you tweet?" or "Are you still not on Twitter?" and more out of curiosity I allowed hubby to show me what it’s all about. He asked for a couple of names of fellow designers, did a search for them and BAM, they were all there. With more updates about their newest products, blog posts, photo posts than they had on their Facebook account. Before I knew it, he had made an account for me and let me ‘follow’ a couple of my favorite designers. And so it happened: I’m officially "tweeting"! I actually already have a hand full of followers, wowzers! It’ll be a challenge for me to say what I have to say in maximum 140 characters as I tend to over explain myself all the time, but hey, it’ll teach me to get straight to the point more often!

If anyone wants to follow me on Twitter, here’s my brand new account! I will use it mainly for updates about my store stuff AND always in English, which is something I’m having a hard time with on Facebook.

The majority of my Facebook friends do not understand Dutch, but still I tend to update way more in Dutch than in English. I think it would look awkward and blasé for my family and nearest friends if I updated only in English, and besides my updates there are more about my every day life, which relate far more to them than to my fellow scrappers… I am really thinking about splitting up: one account for my international friends and one for my home buddies… But wouldn’t that be complicated for anyone who wants to invite me as their friend? Aaargh. The joys of social networking!

So back to tweeting. I looked a bit silly after I clicked about 70 people’s names to follow in Twitter and then posting my first status, realizing nobody would read it since I had NO FOLLOWERS myself. Bwaahaha, how is that for a boost to my popularity feeling! I asked hubby: how does one get followers? And he replied to me I needed to let people know I was tweeting, and that probably the ones I clicked to follow would follow me back. Well, about 10 of them actually did, woohoow!

The next step was - you may have already noticed that fancy blue bird in the top right corner of this page - linking my blog to my Twitter account. I DID THAT ALL BY MYSELF BY THE WAY. I’m not mentioning how long it took me to do that though.
After I was knee deep into my blog appearance thing, I decided I wasn’t really happy anymore with how my blog looked. I made a couple of small changes in the sidebar (mainly moved things around, but hey, it’s a start!) and I added to my giant to-do list: ‘Make New Header For Blog". Yay. already looking forward to that, although it might take me a couple of months to get there!

Another something I investigated further while messing with my site, was the whole "Feed THING". I never understood that either! I mean, I know it is meant for people to subscribe to my blog, but when I googled about it I read things like I should have separate feeds and feeds for the comments and for single posts and so on, it made my head spin since I didn’t follow any blogs myself (YET) and I still don’t get why they use the word ‘FEED’ for it. And that was the reason - when I was looking at the incoming links in my blog stats- I clicked the one coming from a place named ‘Feedly‘. Boy. A whole new world opened to me. I learned that I can actually follow all my favorite blogs and sites AND get updates of their new posts on one single page! It took me more than a day to customize it and add all my favorite blogs, putting them in different categories, marking my favorite ones but now that it’s up to date: I LOVE IT!!! How come I didn’t discover this any sooner?!
I finally understood the joys and importance of ‘feeding’ or ‘feeds’!

And it was only after that I found out that people are actually subscribed to my own humble little blog as well! WOW and THANKS guys! You must probably think now I’m either plain stupid or from another planet, ROFL.
Anyway, to make it a little easier for others to start following me, I’ve added a ’subscribe’ button in the sidebar as well. It’s a flashy one since in unfolds when you hover over it so you can choose by which means you want to follow me. I thought this might be interesting for some of my clients since I regularly post exclusive coupons here on my blog whenever I release new products!

Can you imagine how savvy I feel now? heehee. Feed you next time!! Bye!
 

Happy Monday everyone!

Lots of new goodies in the store today, so I’ll start right away!

For starters I have a couple of new CU products. Three NEW layered paper templates: Vol, 11, 12 and 13 are here!

LPT: Volume 11: Diamonds

LPT Volume 11: Diagonals

LPT Volume 13: Flowers III

Remember, these templates are ONLY for scrappers and digital scrapbook designers for the making of patterned papers or elements to use in their scrapbook pages/ kits. Any other use will require an extra license, so please contact me for further info.

And ofcourse I have a small discount coupon for my loyal blog readers! Use the code pAtterncrAze for a 20% discount on any of these sets! Valid until 2/15/2010.

Next up is my new kit (PU) Little Mouse, inspired by my baby boy It started with me drawing a couple of cute little mice to use on his pages and it turned out in a big kit!

And there’s also a matching brag book I made:

Look at some of the amazing pages my CT and the Oscraps CT did with it!

Here’s another discount coupon: use the code MouseandCo for a 20% discount! Valid until 2/15/2010.

And last but not least I have a freebie for you! It’s a quickpage with my new kit. This is the page I did with it:

You can download this quickpage HERE.

That’s it! Have a great week and a lot of scrapping fun and feel free to leave me a link to any page you did with my stuff, I LOVE seeing them!

It’s February, the Love month!  And boy, I’m feeling so much love it scares me! Seriously. The subjects of all this love are my children. My baby boy is bringing so much joy into my life, I sometimes feel dizzy by the way he melts my heart. He is becoming such a sweet, happy baby, always smiling, always in a good mood and he has the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen And my ‘big’ girl has become so much more caring and attentive since her brother is with us. He is only 4 months old and they can actually already play together! I feel so blessed with them and for the moment there’s nothing I enjoy more than being a mom!

And to celebrate that love, I have something new in the store! I made a set of ‘fabric’ looking hearts that will match a wide variety of pages. Just in time for Valentine!

Exclusively for my blog readers I have set up a coupon for a $1 discount on these little pretties So you only pay $1.75 instead of $2.75! Use the code LoveAlways during checkout. Offer is good until the last day of the month!

And there’s more from me coming soon! It feels like I worked on this kit for ages. I was only able to do some work in the evenings when the kiddies were in bed and only until the first night feeding of my little one (no, he still doesn’t sleep through the night..) but it’s finished and I’m so proud of it! Here is a little sneak peek for you!

This kit will be in the store next week. Make sure to come visit my blog again for a little freebie and another exclusive discount coupon!

I’m wishing everyone a wonderful week and A LOT OF LOVE!!

I want to wish everyone a year full of happiness, warmth, luck and good health and that your deepest wish may come true!

I have enjoyed spending the holidays with my family, it was extremely busy running from one dinner to another but it was fun, and it was great to see how my daughter really starts to enjoy these holidays as well (ofcourse, mainly for all the presents!). It was my little boy’s first Christmas and he too did great, although now he needs to recover from it and catch up on some sleep. His schedule was a bit upset and now we’re working on getting him back on track. He really needs his schedule!

I haven’t made any resolutions in particular, but I’m looking forward to finish some of the projects I’m working on, now the rest has returned to our house! I’ve been working on a new kit for too long already and I need to keep up with my boy’s baby album, which is hard since new pictures are taken every day! I also started a children’s fantasy book for my daughter in which she will be the main character. I’m very excited about that one, I just LOVE the couple of pages I did already and I think she will be so excited with it! I bought some gorgeous stuff for it by Lorie Davison and Irene Alexeeva, boy are those ladies talented!! You should definitely check out their stores!

And computer time is so limited with a little baby in the house… I wish I didn’t need sleep so much, I would be working on my projects all night! Today  I was looking at some of the 365-projects some of my scrapper friends have started this year. I just LOVE the idea of taking a picture every day to document life and bundling them all together in one album. Last year I felt sorry I was too late to start one myself, and although I could still start one this year (I have photos for every day of the new year already!) I just had to realize it would be too much to handle for me. I can’t take on yet another project now, I’m already overwhelmed by everything I have on my plate at the moment! Too bad, but maybe next year. I will just try to take more pictures and scrap more, just not necessary every day. I took a great photo today I like to share with you.

I love this photo of my babies!
And here’s another pretty one my boyfriend took:

Isn’t he the cutest baby you’ve ever seen?

I also have some of my work to show you. First, here’s this year’s Christmas card I made. I had a hard time finding a composition in which both a baby and a 5yr old looked good. This is how it turned out:

It was a folded card with the wishes on the inside. I got lots of compliments about it, although I still wasn’t 100% satisfied with the result! And for those who ask: NO, I did NOT really put my 3 months old in a basket, this is photoshopped! Which brings me to the next photo (the one I cut him out from):

Yes, I AM 100% happy about this shot but you don’t want to know how many shots it costed me to get this one

And to finish this post, here are the pages I did for Seppe’s album so far. The last one is about the visits in the hospital, so as you can see I’m already terribly behind!

I’m back today as promised and I want to show you my latest kit: Sinterklaas!

It’s been a long time since my last kit and I forgot how fun it is to be making one, especially this one was a blast!

SINTERKLAAS by Kim De Smet

While the rest of the world is slowly getting ready for Christmas, the people in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and some other countries are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Sinterklaas on the 5th and 6th of December. This holy man and his helpers arrive on a steam boat from Spain to bring candy and presents to the children. They walk the roofs at night and crawl into the chimneys to bring the gifts. The children have all placed their shoes next to the fireplace with a little treat for the horse of Sinterklaas, and in the morning they find their shoe filled with sweets and cookies.
With this kit everybody who celebrates this tradition will now be able to scrap those precious memories!

Kit includes:

11 papers: 4 patterned, 4 solids, 1 nightscene, 1 musicpaper in two versions
1 cookie alpha (capital letters)
1 tied bag of Zwarte Piet
1 open bag with presents
1 ball
1 bear
1 open book
1 12 inch border
candy (with and without shadow)
2 patterned circles
3 chocolate coins
2 frames
1 rolled up letter
1 curled paper (with and without shadow)
2 black pete’s (or Zwarte Pieten or Pères Fouettard, or Knecht Ruprechts)
1 saint
3 different presents
2 curled/folded ribbons (with and without shadow)
2 shoes with carrot and letter
1 staf
2 stitched swirls
2 swirls
1 train
2 verlanglijstjes with and without shadow
wordcards in Dutch, French and German !

S4H/S4O friendly

Here are some inspirational pages by my wonderful team:

And here’s one I made myself, my Sinterklaas photos of last year were still waiting to be scrapped on my HD!

And yes, some of my team members used MY Sinterklaas photos because they don’t celebrate it. I think it’s so super sweet of them to use it anyway! Thanks girls!

The Sinterklaas cookie alpha is also available seperately:

And like I said yesterday, I’m celebrating Black Friday along with my American friends, which means: SALE TIME!!

If you want to make a good deal, visit my shop tomorrow!! Even the Sinterklaas kit and alpha will be on sale! And because you’re a reader of my blog and you made it this far in this post, I’ve got a little extra something for you:

Use the coupon code pakjesavond* for an additional 10% off everything in my store! (yes, that includes the limited edition Christmas patterns!)

(*only 1 per customer)

The sale will only last one day, so don’t miss out!

And if you buy my Sinterklaas kit and scrap with it I would REALLY LOVE to see your pages!!

Have a great day!!

This time I have a very good reason for being absent some time!

On September 28th, our little boy Seppe was born!!
This is him a couple of hours after he was born:

As you can see he has LOTS of hair He was a big boy too: weighed 3kg960 and measured 52,5 cm.

Saturday he will be 2 months old already, boy does time fly! This is him at 7 weeks:

He is such a precious sweetheart!!

It took me a while, but I have some new arrivals on store front as well.

I have two new sets of patterned paper templates. They’re meant for CU, but I’ve noticed a lot of people buy them for personal use as well, and that’s fine ofcourse. They can be used over and over again, match the colors of your photos and still look different every time!

The first set contains 3 geometric patterns.

I’m personally not too fond of big geometric patterns so I kept them rather small. I hope you like them!

The second set is a special limited Christmas edition!

Only 15 customers will get to buy these and then they’re gone for good! They cost a little more, but in exchange you get unique patterns that won’t show up in every other Christmas kit in town!

That’s it for today, but tomorrow there will be a new kit as well!
Here in Belgium and the Netherlands we are all eagerly awaiting the arrival of SINTERKLAAS. I’m sure many scrappers have tons of Sinterklaas photos like me, but there are hardly any Sinterklaas related scrapkits out there, so I decided to just make my own! Here’s a sneak peak:

Make sure to go take a closer look tomorrow in my store!

Or come by here again, I will be showing off the kit and some pages made with it and there will be an extra something - surprise!

After making several sets of intricate, unique patterned paper templates, I thought it was time for some simple ones. Who doesn’t use dotted or striped papers in their kits, and how many times are you making them from scratch time after time? With these sets you will be able to make different ones in different colors each time, what a time-saver!

CU LAYERED PAPER TEMPLATES VOL 8: SIMPLE STRIPES

CU LAYERED PAPER TEMPLATES VOL 9: SIMPLE DOTS

I am still on a patterned paper kick and can’t stop making them!

Here are some new layered templates I made for digital scrapbook designers to use in their kits:

And then I made something to make my life, and hopefully the life of other designers too, a little easier. I have been looking for something like this to buy but couldn’t find it, so I decided to just make my own set. It’s a huge set of basic, simple frame shapes (80 pieces!) so next time I need a certain frame for a kit, I won’t have to make it from scratch every time again!

That’s it! I seriously need to get rid of this design rush I’m in! Yesterday I had early contractions and I really started to panic because not everything is ready yet for the baby to come! I had to make my suitcase for the hospital in a rush, but luckily the contractions stopped after a good hour. I should get away from the computer and finish the birth sugars I’m working on, go to the printing office to have my birth card proof printed and do some final shopping and clothes washing. Only three more weeks until I’m due, I’m getting so excited!!

Have a nice day!

Hi all!!

I have been so completely MIA the past months, I almost feel embarrassed to post here again!

My dear CT members have already announced my pregnancy here in the previous post and they did a huge tribute to me, it was such a pleasant surprise to see that they are still thinking of me, even though they didn’t hear for me in ages! Thanks again girls!!

I have been completely overwhelmed and busy with this new miracle growing in my belly and it seemed to have sucked away all the creativity in me. I didn’t scrap or design for months. I bet all my creative mojo went to the baby, so it will probably be a very creative child! LOL
Anyway, I’m in the last month now and all of a sudden it came back! I can’t think of anything else than CREATE, CREATE, CREATE!

And that’s what I did! I slowly started scrapping again first. It did require the use of some templates to get me going again, but I’m happy they brought me back to the essence of scrapping: recording some precious memories, with photos and journaling that tell a story! Here are some of my recent pages:

And then the designing mojo slowely started to come back. I had a lot of fun creating these two Art Collage paper packs:

And I also finished some commercial use products! I have always had a weakness for patterns, I absolutely LOVE patterned papers and fabrics, I have bought many things JUST because of the pattern they had! I had a total blast creating the layered templates! They are meant for digital scrapbook designers to use in the creation of their papers. Since they’re layered, they are completely customizable. I LOVE them and I can’t stop creating them! (some new ones are in the making!!)

Take a look:

All the images are linked if you want to take a look at them in the shop!

And are you ready for the REALLY GOOD NEWS ????

I’m having a SALE!!

That’s right! Up to 75% discounts in my store! I have LOTS and LOTS of products for as low as $1, and even my newly released stuff is on sale. Don’t miss it, because it will take a while until my next sale!

Visit my store HERE.

Kim has lots of things on her mind and is pre-occupied with some important changes in her life! I don’t know if she spilled the beans yet! but heck… she’s expecting a baby brother of sister for her daughter Roxanne!!! CONGRATS!!!!  Woohoo!!!

And because it seems the creative juice and energy is all going to this growing little one, she has none left to design. So we were thinking to cheer her up with our CT team and make some pages with her kits. And of course, the theme is EXPECTING. We would be delighted if you would join this little challenge! Reward : A big smile on Kim’s face!!!

Be inspired : Expecting could be expecting a baby – for obvious reasons   – but you could do something about expecting something else – like good news, like a family member that works abroad that comes to visit, or expecting a pet that’s joining your household. Or perhaps expecting that it will be summer soon , … well I’m counting on your imagination!

And just look at all those wonderful pages the CT team did (click name for credits):

 Lay out from anubis 1 / fiona

 From Jen

from natasha - atelier Ullizee

Lay out from Scrapness / Vanessa

from Lilja

Lay out from Mel

 And from the whole Ct team we wish her ALL THE BEST with her pregnancy!!!!!