Birthday Week: 1.Re-learning my French.

My daughter, Sarita, was 14 last friday.
Amazing, don't really know where time went,but wherever it went, it turned my baby into a fine young lady.
I can complain much about her being untidy, or throwing her shoes, bag, coat and general accessories like a trail in her walking into the house, but she really makes me proud in what matters.
It was the half term holiday, so we have celebrations every day, starting by her best friend Lauren's visit from last weekend.
She was our next door neighbor, but had to move away outside London after her mum died in 2007,so this was an amazing surprise to Sarita.
As a birthday present I gave her an Ice Skating course for the 5 days of the holiday. She used to do classes at the Sobell Centre, but we had to stop as they change payment method, and it was impossible for me to get the money of the whole term together up front, and I didn't like the woman who owns the group much.
Sarita had mentioned to me that she would like to go back to study* before her skates did not fit her anymore* , so I found out about this other place.
She was happy and I was too as I did not have to drive her this time, so the week started pretty eventful.
I tried to keep as shutter happy as I could all week.
As I'm spending a lot of time in bed, in an effort to save health an energy for the things that matter: think cooking and keeping our lives moderately organized, this is not always an easy task, but I've got some good shots,which will speak loudly than I can about the fun we had.

In the mean time, I was confronted with the need to re learn my French via Yahoo's Babel Fish (as my French teacher from my secondary school maybe a bit difficult to contact!)....why?
Ok, let me explain:
If I had to choose one store, and one store only to carry on scrapping the rest of my life, I wouldn't doubt a minute, my answer would be Digital Crea France.
Not only do they create in my most loved styles, but also they make it possible for people like me (read skint-peniless-broke) to be able to shop often with very regular sales of full kits for 1 Euro, and their permanent collection of products categorized Retiring Soon, all kits are 1.50 Euros. They also have the best freebies,constantly.

But lately I have been experiencing problems in the downloads, and I know I am not alone on this as a few other women I know had the same, which told me it wasn't my Mac.
I wont explain the whole thing, suffice to say that in some kits, as many as 5 or 6 elements did not come through.
As I said, long story, but I at certain point started making note of the exact name of the files which did not come through and mail Digital Crea's Service to Client.
I got very promptly an email from Amelie, DC's creator, with a gift of 1 Euro to spend in the store. Nice of her, but at the time I wanted was the files which did not come through. Still, I didn't say anything else, after all, the store is amazing, right?

But after another couple of times and an experience in which wonderful Karen from SnickerdoodleDEsignsByKaren ended up sending me two files from her St Paddy's kit which had the same problem, by email, I thought I could ask Digital Crea to do the same...

What followed was also a long story, one in which I had to refresh my French but, re-reading what I had written...ermmm, I cringed, decided then to ask another of my favorite people in the scrap world for help.
Rosemarie Pixel, as she is known in CyberSpace, is in French Canada, none better than her to use the correct language and reflect the intention my message had.
(Thanks so much Rosemarie! you are the best!)
My message then went out in beautiful, proper French.
But I was then faced with a reply email...and what would you know..there is an online translator for which one doesn't even need to download software (the Google Translator is free, but needs the download), Gotta love these Yahoo guys...

Anyway, to make the story short: some of my favorite designers just went up a notch in my charts, plus they have gained a loyal client for life.
All of them were great, sent me the missing elements and one of them even had pity on me and answered me in English! LOL
So, here is my account of monday, first day of Sarita's birthday week, scrapped with the latest kits I bought from these marvelous girls, Moi, Chriscraps & Dilo.
They all have kits in the retiring soon for 1.50 Euros per full kit, Digital Crea just had a 1 Euro sale this week gone, but if you keep an eye you ll get marvelous freebies(they have a wonderful one at the moment!) every 3 days average, plus the sales are very frequent.


Chriscrap - kit So Funky


Chriscrap- kit Respire


again, Chriscrap, I used stuff from Croque Ta Vie and Crazy Day


here the designer is MOI, the kit GoGoGo this is a kit I never get tired of using!


again, designer MOI, kit GoGoGo


another amazing kit by MOI: My Black & White Paradise


in this one for the background & papers I used a kit I got free through Digifree almost 2 years ago from Peppermint Creative, a store I don't like buying because they are expensive even at Scrapblog.com, but the marvelous WordArt is by Karen


for this LO I used Dilo's Love Me, which I couldn't wait to buy, love her, love and love her a bit more!


again, same kit, Dilo's Love Me

Well, hope all this info is helpful, I ll be coming back with more photos (LOs', of course!) from last week.
Have a great week!