jeudi 31 mai 2007

Long time no post

Yes, I've spent a WHOLE WEEK with a migraine. Basically trying to survive the day's work and then coming home and going to bed hoping to stop the nausea ! You get the idea !
Except for that I've also spent some time finding a cat on the street (well, actually, it kinda ran into me - why does that always happen ?) and getting my colleague to adopt it by all kinds of blackmail...Thought that 10 cats was already enough for me !

The good thing is, I've found the most wonderful sheet of paper today ! No, it's not BG, not Hambly, not vintage wallpaper, not Bamp Pop...you name it....It's.....my contract ! I'm now officially a civil servant. Ok, that might not seem so exciting, but I LOVE my job at the museum, and I've spent about 6 years doing part-time jobs, cumulating 4 jobs at a time....So this is a big time for me !

samedi 19 mai 2007

Island dare n°2


The girls on webscrappin have started a series of dares. Dare n°2 is "10 things I want to do before I die", and I thought I'd give it a try !
It's a very busy one, back to my natural self! LOL !

vendredi 18 mai 2007

Music game

Seen this little game on different blogs, and I've been wanting to try it for a while.
Basicaly, you have to play all the music you have on your comp randomly, and use the songs titles as an answer to each question, in the order in which the song was played. Not sure I'm being very clear - and it's only 10PM here !

Opening credits?
Jungle Boogie - Kool and the Gang
Waking up?
Andy Warhol - D. Bowie cover by Stone Temple Pilots
First Day of School?
Keep Fishin - Weezer
Falling in love?
Sitting on the dock o' the bay - Otis Redding
First song?
Ziggy Stardust - D. Bowie cover by Bauhaus
Breaking up?
Sugar watter - Cibo Matto
Prom?
Law of the Land - Temptations
Life?
Dirt - Stooges cover by Depeche Mode (wow, even for me that's not too optimistic)
Mental breakdown?
The Heart's filthy lesson - David Bowie (swear I didn't do it on purpose ! )
Driving?
Tenacious D - My Biznitch is the Shiznit
Flashback?
Surfin' Safari - Beach Boys
Getting back together?
Stay - D. Bowie (didn't do THAT on purpose either)
Wedding?
My friends - RHCP
Birth of a child?
Padam Padam - Edith Piaf
Final battle?
No reason to cry out your eyes - Hawksley Workman
Death scene?
Small town Boy - the Communards (I guess the "go away, run away" part fits quite well)
Funeral song?
Life during wartime - Talking Heads
End credits?
I was afraid - John Frusciante ( I think this is a very poetic note)

Nymphosis is in the air



It's definitly spring and I don't know if love is in the air, but nymphosis sure is !
For those of you who might not be gardening addicts, nymphosis is NOT a rare case of neurotic sexual trouble. It is the stage that insects go through between the larva and the adult form. Picture little ladybugs staying out at night long after they've been allowed to, stuffing themselves up with louses, and answering "don't care, I hate you all" to any question.
Well, except of course, as far as insects are concerned, nymphosis consists mainly of remaining rolled up in a ball and waiting for their exoskeleton to skip forms. I wonder how many parents would dream for their human larvae do to the same ! LOL !
So, right now, there are ladybugs larvae all around my garden entering the nymphosis stage. Shame, because the little critters eat a lot more louses while they're larvae. Once in adulthood, they seem to read too many "cosmo" and go on a diet...

jeudi 17 mai 2007

TV shows addicts unite !

I have so always been into TV shows. Find it hard to understand some people's contempt towards TV; after all, TV is only what you make it, and with this magic object that is the remote, even the laziest can easily find a decent program !
I've just seen the last episode of my current favorite show, Life on Mars, last night.
Arghh, don't you just hate those TV shows that make you love them even more when you see the last episode ? It's so unfair on us poor viewers ! :-)
Of course, I might be a little biased because of my love for David Bowie ! I have to say that this show makes one of the best uses of his music I've seen (or is that "heard" ?) on TV shows.
Now I have to wait eagerly for the DVDs to come out (in July ! )...

Word up challenge

Sometimes it's a bit funny. I've had this song "Word up" in my head for a few days, and then I just found Amber and friends' new challenge blog here
I was desperatly searching for a pic to scrap in my stash, and I just found a pic of the water in the "emerald grotto" in Malta. I'm really in need for vacations these days, so I guess this pic is perfect to illustrate how the word "go" sounds in my head right now !
Trying something a bit unusual for me, as I'm rather a layerer ! LOL !

Hambly big graph and journaling bit, SOML bird stamp (on photo paper, which is why it isn't very "clean", and embossed with sparkles), dymo, fabric from stash + BG rub on ;-)

mardi 15 mai 2007

Cooperative craft work :-D

Oh, just in case any of you were wondering what the knitted thingie at the top of my pink lo is, the only reasonable answer seems to be : it's a bet !
And it is one : one of my best friends is a knitter. But not the kind of modern crafty knitter that are so popular right now. No, she's a compulsive knitter : she buys unexpensive wool grab bags (usually with awful fibers in it) and just knits for lengths and lengths in front of TV or whatsoever...
So she dared me to actually try and DO somethng with it. Well, this one is the easiest one. The bits I'm left with are brown with blue streaks of beige and grey...

I'm off for some serious thinking (of what to do with those knitted bits)

New layouts and other quite fascinating news

Hi girlies,

Well, against all bets, me and my collegue survived last week. There was only a few shattered glass frames to replace just a few minutes before the opening and that kind of minor catastrophes...

I managed to finish some pages I had started some time ago.
One about some of the things I like as I've just turned 30

And one from the trip to Malta :

This one is quite impressively empty for my usual ! LOL !
This is the one thing that really struck me about Malta : this mix of British and Mediterranean traditions !

I've received a lot of gorgeous parcels these days (yeah, been living the sbing life this month ! ) :
Stamps from Purple Onion and Sideshow Stamps. I would really like to give a thumb up for Sideshow here : the stamps arrived so fast and are really groovy !
Then I've received the kits from SOML and the "boom boxes" from Zingboom, and I must say both scrapbooking goddesses Sara and Kristen rock ! There are a few girls starting kit clubs these days and too much cannot be said about them ! They're so out of the business logic thingie ! They're generous and genuinely passionate about scrapbooking and they really want to share their passion and talent ! Way to go girls ! and thank you for the fun !
I've also received a kit from Martha's etsy shop "Ohgrrrr", and it's fab too. Lots of little bits and things carefully and lovingly put together !

Finally, I owe some of you girls a few parcels ! Couldn't send them in the last days caus' the PO was always closed when I finished work and no one could send them for me, but it should be done in the next days ! So hang on and be assured that I don't forget you !

mercredi 9 mai 2007

Hang on till the week end

Hi everyone !

Just a post in case you were wondering why I wasn't posting like crazy these days...I'm gonna be quite till the week-end, because we're working on a new exhibition at the Museum, and it's the 1st time we're doing something this big (it's a small museum). So this week is gonna be all press conferences, openings...and I have a leaflet to translate in English (arghhh).

The exhibition is about this guy's work and we're very excited about it because we like to emphasize the fact that there was a German Resistance too. Plus, his photomontages are real works of art and they were inspiring for generations to come...

Well, of course it's not a jolly happy exhibition. In fact we had quite a hard time finding some graphics for invitations, leaflets..that wouldn't be too shocking. But then the subject isn't really a merry one...

So I hope to post a little bit more about scrapbooking, gardening, and such happy subjects this week-end.
In the meanwhile, take care you all !

lundi 7 mai 2007

Older layouts





Well, when I say older, that means 2 months ago. No way I'm ever gonna post these los from 2 years ago, when I had just started and I had no material...Or maybe in 15 years from now, when I can shake the shame away with a laughter...
I have other los that I have to scan tomorrow...

On a very different note, yesterday France voted for a new President. About half of the country is happy with the result...I'm in the other half. Don't like what I feel the next five years will be, not a bit.

samedi 5 mai 2007

Ola everybody

Last night was a rather pleasant family gathering. For my father's birthday, we decided to go to the spanish restaurant. Accordingly, we could have gone to eat suchis, but it so happens that my dad hates sushis and he is spanish (from a small town named Dona Mencia in the Cordoba province - Ah, the memory of all these childhood vacations being bored as a dead rat and watched by hundreds of inquisitory eyes ! )
So there we went with my dad, my mom, my brother and his girlfriend who is deutcho-scottish (as none of us speaks dutch [well, I can pronounce "astublieft" rather quaintly but that is it], it is a lot easier to communicate in dear ol'english with a series of weird accents...). At the end of the night, none of us was capable of talking french anymore...

BTW, my SIL is quite a photographer (as far as I can judge from my amateur point of view), so if you appreciate that art, go take a look on her website and on her flickr

nighty night you all !

A few other layouts (done less or more recently)




































Well, I've mostly spent NSD NOT scrapbooking, as every year, and it is getting on my nerves a bit, so I thought I'd at least upload some layouts on the blog.


I'm expecting some gorgeous stuffs in the next days (which almost makes me froget how broke I am because of that ! LOL ! ). Some new Hambly, the SOML kit obviously, 2 zingboom kits, and some Poppy Ink...Yummy....Plus some purple inion stamps I could not resist.

I'll take some pics of some gorgeous sideshow stamps I've received yesterday, that I can't wait to use (well, OK, as a matter of fact, I've already waited all day ! )

vendredi 4 mai 2007

Sequel to the staples adventures



Well, the trip to the vet went fine in the end. China will probably never trust me again when I do my mellow voice LOL and is now a bit fussy, but she bled less than me by a good 85-90%...
The scar is perfect and so is her little mouth (we did the teeth as well while she was asleep to remove the tumor). Just hoping there won't be any other nasty things popping up...

And now for sth completely different, I thought I would include a few lo's I did these days (just in case you are not incedibly fascinated about my trips to the vet - but no, that just can not be ! )

Not so good day

And as a fair sample of my life, day one of my bog : I have to take china to the vet to take off her staples. Never taken staples off a cat's belly before, but sth tells me I won't like that.
The poor little critter had to go under 2 operations in a year and a half, and now it was for a tumor... Vet said it was cancerous but superficial, so he decided to take it off. Needless to say I'm not too enthusiastic about that. China seems to be allright though, but she will undoubtedly be more moody tonight...

Caus' there must be a first...

Dear imaginary friends, this is a blog about nnnnuthing - as they would say in Seinfeld.
Pretty much what is happening in my life.
So get ready for unseen depths of nnnuthingness, gardening, scrapbooking, and lots of cats....

If you've landed on this page, you know the awful truth : China is actually a very discreet 14 year old siamese cat, whose identity I shamelessly steal when on the web.
As for me, I am just Helene, a 30 year old (gasp) girl living in the north of France. I work in a WWII and Resistance Museum, spend my time planning to buy a house, gardening and scrapbooking. (and caring for about 10 cats - I've stopped counting at some point).

My outlook on my future is that I will end up eaten by my cats on a night when I'll have drunk one too many single malts ! :-D