Pixels and Paperie

Practice

2012-01-28T11:55:00.000+02:00

I stumbled across this quote recently and thought it to be so true.

If you want to achieve anything; be it in art, in sport, at work, the only way to improve is to practice. Then practice some more.

I find that if I haven’t painted for a couple of weeks, once I pick up a brush again, it takes a little while to get comfortable with it again. Do you ever find that?

So I made myself a little reminder….

If you like it, feel free to click on it for a larger version. then right click and save.

Frame(edited) and bird are from The Graphics Fairy.

Have a great weekend!!

Update : Imagine the Impossibilities

2012-01-27T09:15:00.000+02:00

If anyone is wondering what’s happened to my “Imagine the Possibilities” challenge for January - well ….

My studio hasn’t got much further than moving a few things around and loads of planning. (I could have guessed that much!!) Shannon always says all I ever do is move the mess around.

My gallery wall – I bought a letter “H” for it yesterday which I am going to treat to some sort of paint or mixed media and I’ll add it to the wall. I also plan on putting my new ink portrait of Shannon on the wall and my next ink painting will be the same size, but of Reece this time, so I’ll have two new ‘family’ portraits for the gallery (Or as I fondly call it “The Hall of Horrors”).

Exercise - What did you say? Okay well, um… I actually started last week full of good intentions – I walked with my ipod & the sweet sounds of Adele in my ears. I enjoyed it. I actually did. Amazingly! Then I had art class, rushing with kids, then followed by 3 days of a migraine. Monday I started feeling fluey (is that a word?). Friday. Still done nothing more as I have razor blades in my throat, a head cold on the way, which is very slow, but it’s obviously been on it’s way all week – bet it’ll properly arrive this weekend –ugh! I know- excuses! But I can't really do anything when I’m feeling yuck. So hopefully next week will improve. I have to!

So I guess in order to achieve my challenge, I have loads of work to do by Tuesday!! Eek – where did January go?

But you know, it’s okay. After listening to a few of Jeanne Oliver’s inspiring chats, I realise it is quite okay if you don’t manage everything and if everything isn’t perfect. It’s okay.

I have been practising my photography too by the way- here’s a couple of photos I took recently that I love! They are all straight out the camera and taken in our garden- no editing!!

The dandelions & windmill were taken on our pavement.

What I’ve been up to…

2012-01-26T10:06:00.001+02:00

Not blogging- that’s for sure!! Yip, I have neglected my poor blog of late. BUT, I have been doing so many other things that I guess that kind of makes up for it.

So here’s what I’ve done…

I been scrapping (don’t fall off your chair!). Okay, not paper scrapping, but digi: I kicked my butt into gear by doing a couple of challenges over at The Digichick :

Template Challenge:

Colour challenge:

One Little Word challenge:

For this challenge you have to choose a word to use for the whole year. A word that you can apply everyday and occasionally incorporate in your scrapbooking.

All 3 of these layouts were done with one kit- the January collab from The Digichick called “The Daily Details”. A really versatile kit!

My art classes (Tues & Wed mornings) also started up again and I completed a charcoal drawing of a Baobab that I started over December.

Then I started with a new medium : Indian Ink. Can you say AWESOME? I love it. Never played around with ink before, but it’s going well. I started off with a portrait of my daughter. It takes some getting used to as, although it is a little like watercolour, it has a stronger pigment. So the colour is strong and once dry, it’s permanent, you can’t soften lines with a bit of water like you can with watercolours. (Unless it’s cause I’m painting on fine canvas – correct me if I’m wrong – I’m new at this). It’s fun and I can see myself playing around with ink for a little while still…

On top of all this, I have also started an amazing mixed-media class online. What fun! I have always wanted to play around with more mixed media and this has really taught me to be more adventurous. The class is called Creatively Made by Jeanne Oliver. She’s lovely.

The course is over 4 weeks and each week includes a few motivational videos to get you creating as well as art projects that she leads you through with loads of inspiration and tips. She gives alternatives to the media she uses too which is great as often I can’t get everything here in SA. In fact you would be able to create artworks without buying anything as you can actually use what you have lying around. But of course, I have a {teeny} addiction to art supplies- so yesterday I popped off to Jimnettes for my fix. If it wasn’t that I had to run off to fetch kids at school I would have spent over an hour there, but alas, I had to restrict myself to 40 minutes.

I digress.

There’s also a private facebook group where you can upload your artwork to share with others taking the class. This is really great as it’s fun to see the different styles.

I was desperate to start so I grabbed a journal I use for making notes for my art classes. The front cover even had linseed oil spilt on it and had a tear. Now it looks like this :

I first applied gesso to prime the cover, then layered vintage papers on and then got going with some paint, watercolour pencils and charcoal. Fun! And I didn’t buy a thing beforehand! I chose this image as I love Artemisia Gentileschi. I copied this painting 2 years ago for a Baroque assignment we did for art classes where we had to paint in the style of the old masters. Obviously the fact that she is painting is also appropriate for a journal for art class notes. I loved the loose casual style of the mixed media – not precise and perfect.

So guess what I’m doing today? Oh I am so going to do another piece this morning… This time on canvas.

Chat soon,

Imagine the Impossibilities Challenge

2012-01-10T08:50:00.001+02:00

I recently stumbled across a blog called the space between .

Karah & a few blogging friends are running a fabulous challenge for January which I think I am going to challenge myself to do. Here’s the story…

Doug Larson once said “Some of the greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible”.

source

Uhhhh, are you talkin’ to me? Like directly at me, with a harsh glare and aggressive pointy finger?

That’s ok, I’m not in denial. I know I’m not the brightest bulb in this chandelier of life. But I sure do try hard.

So, when I got an email from Karianne at Thistlewood Farm and Kelly from Eclectically Vintage (yes, the same Kelly who featured my personalized map dresser - Thanks again Kelly!) telling me about their great idea I was all in! Picture me sliding my whole stack o’ chips to black.

I didn’t even know about this Doug Larson ~~guy~~ quote until Karianne mentioned it, but man, is it true or what? When she came across it she got to thinking, what was her impossible? What did she truly believe she couldn’t do? Then, what did some of her blog friends feel was impossible? THEN, what if we all decided we were wrong?

source

“Imagine the Impossibilities”.

As soon as I read the idea I got to thinkin’, what, if I were smart enough to know better, would be impossible?

A gallery wall with only one screw hole in the wall? WHAT?!? That’s totally impossible. Isn’t it?

Well, we’re about to find out.

How many screws do you think went into these walls?

source

See, Karianne and Kelly came up with this awesome idea to challenge ourselves to a little Imagine the Impossible project. They invited a few of their best blogger buddies and we invite all of YOU to take the challenge. The Imagine the Impossibilities Challenge.

What would you try if you had no boundries? What ideas do you have floating around that you (or others) think are just nuts? What do you really just want to try even though a big part of you thinks it’s just not going to work? (Uhhh, can you say gallery wall with one screw hole in the wall?)

It could be anything people! Skydiving, mountain climbing, creative writing, closet organizing, gourmet cooking (or homemade bread making as Karianne will be trying). Is it lamp painting, table decorating, long distance running, kayaking? Your impossible is just that, YOURS! There’s no too big or small, right or wrong. What limitations have you set for yourself that you might, just maybe, be able to talk yourself out of?

Oh, just Imagine the Impossibilities!

In addition to myself, here is the cast of characters. Just click on their blog name to jump over to their site and check out some of the awesome stuff they have done already and learn more about their impossibles.

Kari – Thistlewood Farm. Cooking is not her thing, but homemade bread is her challenge.
Kelly – Eclectically Vintage. For all of you with basements that become black holes filled who knows what, she is going to be purging and organizing 16 years stuff. We might need to send her husband down if she doesn’t resurface before the end of the month.
Linda – It All Started With Paint. Painting a vaulted ceiling definitely sounds impossible to me. Yikes!
Stacey – A Sort of Fairy Tale. For someone who has hovered at the pillow case stage of sewing she will be attempting to sew a purse. I didn’t even know people do that.
Andrea – The Cottage Market. She is going to be organizing her craft room. I wonder if she could use any tips from here. Oh, wait, she said craft room, not craft bookcase. My bad.

Our self imposed deadline is January 31st and we will all be posting weekly updates between now and then so check back often to follow the “I Might Be Screwed (Just Once), A Gallery Wall Experiement”.

All of our efforts, AND YOURS, will culminate in 6 separate link parties on January 31st, one on each of our blogs. I personally, cannot wait to check out all of the links and pick a few fav’s to feature!

Here’s how to join!

Comment here with your personal impossible
Grab our cool button (Thanks Andrea!) and get your best bloggy buddies involved.
Check back in on our progress, my update posts will be on Mondays (Jan 16, 23, 30) and I’d love comments about your progress along the way.
Join our Link Party on January 31st. We will all post the outcome of our impossible and I can’t wait to see yours!

Let’s do this! Tackle the demons. Dream the big dreams. Move mountains.

What is your Impossible?

So let’s join in!

I will also post my progress every Monday : 16; 23 and 30 January) & will be linking up on 31st January. This will be fun, challenging & I’m gonna kick my butt into gear!

I plan on tackling not only one, but 3 challenges!

Will I manage to do all three? Well I certainly am going to give it my best!!

I’m going to start today!! – Are you?

Vxx

A New Year, new projects, new ideas

2012-01-03T16:08:00.001+02:00

Are you also enthusiastic for the New Year? Every New Year, I get a warm ‘n fuzzy feeling inside, I feel rejuvenated and ready to take on NEW things.

This year I want to reNEW, change and create!

Here are the plans:

Move into our long-anticipated bush-lodge holiday home - After extensive renovations which have taken about 8 months so far. We’re hoping to be all settled in with (new!) furniture and all by the end of February. (Will soon show you some “before & after” pics.)
Re-do all the upstairs bedrooms at home from top to toe – including the floors. Yippee- can’t wait for this!
Tidy up & revamp my studio (again!) – an ongoing project! –‘nough said!
Exercise till it makes a difference – & then keep it up!!
Start sewing my own clothes again! I really need to do this - I used to really enjoy it!
Paint a whole lot more!

So, that being said, here’s to 2012!

I’d also like to share a painting with you that I completed in November 2011. I loved this gorgeous vintage postcard from The Graphics Fairy so much that I printed a copy and kept it for ages before I got around to painting it.

I love how it turned out. I had modge-podged scrapbook ‘script’ printed paper onto a canvas and decided to do a slightly mixed-media painting by painting the angels on top. I kept the edges of the painting quite expressive and undetailed and even scratched into the paint here and there.

The faces of the angels were just to beautiful not to do in more detail, so they got given a more realistic approach but again, I changed it here & there as copying the original ‘to the last brushstroke’ is not my thing.

Hope you all have a peaceful, happy & creative 2012!

Vxx

Linking to :

Gifts Galore

2011-12-06T01:00:00.000+02:00

Everyone loves getting gifts. I love giving them too, especially if I can decorate them beautifully. I feel it adds a little of yourself to the gift, adding a personal touch. An added benefit is that you never run out of wrapping paper!

I always make my own cards and now I also make my own gift wrap. It’s especially easy if you have an A3 printer as you can print out slightly bigger paper. If not, just print two sheets of A4 and join them. Get creative in hiding the tape – it’s really not difficult. I do it all the time with A3 paper too.

Here’s a photo of gifts I gave a friend yesterday for her birthday:

Not just for cake-toppers… I attached a cut-out of the bird to a wooden skewer and threaded it through the ribbon on the gift for just an added bit of whimsy.

The very simple card (my friend loves ‘plain & simple’)…

The images I used are all from my all-time-favourite-vintage-image-site : The Graphics Fairy. Karen has the most amazing images you can use for absolutely anything!

Here are the images I used: click images for link to original images

I grabbed my faithful Photoshop and edited the images till I was satisfied with them. In this case I changed the images to black & white, removed the background to the botanical & also tweaked a few other settings.

The gift paper print is printed on ordinary A3 white printing paper. The card and bird cut-out were printed onto white cardstock.

Here’s a free printable A3 sheet of the wrapping paper – my gift to you!

Love,

North Pole Snow

2011-12-05T06:22:00.000+02:00

Another day ticked off our advent calendar… (Actually in our case it’s another chocolate for Shannon from her little “Advent house” and another tiny Lego goodie to build for Reece from his Star Wars Lego Advent calendar) :0)

I promised the recipe for the North Pole Snow (sherbet) I made to go along with the Reindeer lollipops yesterday.

North Pole Snow (sherbet Christmas treats)

1 cup of icing sugar
around 1/4 teaspoon citric acid * (or to taste – a little at a time. I added the citric acid to taste when I made mine as I made a lot for the market)

Mix together well.

*Citric acid is available at supermarkets/ baking supply shops.

*Here’s the printable label I made:

click on label for downloadable A4 printable sheet

Print out the label sheet onto A4 cardstock, cut out the labels.
Glue each label onto the front of a small zip-lock bag with a glue gun.
Fill the bag with the North Pole Snow and delight tiny people with a bag of snow and a reindeer lollipop. The kids love dipping the lollipops in the sherbet!

I also made a few Christmas trees with this design from the Silhouette Online store. They are really cute and easy to make – especially once my Silhouette had cut them out for me.

Each tree had a bag of the North Pole Snow inside and instead of gluing the label to the bag, I attached it as a tag to the top of the tree at the closure.

PS: I can’t guarantee your entire kitchen won’t be covered in fine sticky ‘snow’ – especially if there are little people involved in making these!

TIP : To assist in getting the snow into the bags, I used a small funnel – much easier (and less messy) than using a spoon.

My little entrepreneur selling at the Christmas market at school :

*I cannot recall where I got the little snowman image from. I coloured it myself, but the design is not my own. If it is yours , please do let me know so that I can provide credit to you. Or, if you would rather I do not use it here in my free label printable, please advise.

December!

2011-12-04T18:09:00.001+02:00

I know, I haven’t blogged for ages, but November passed by in a flash!

This past month consisted of hot sunny days mixed together with a whole lot of school exams, a splash of school Christmas market day, and a good dollop of everyday life. Finished off beautifully with the thought that Reece’s school is now finally closed for the year and Shannon doesn’t have to go, except to get her report card next week.

In between the monotony of helping the kids studying for their exams, I also got to be a little creative! After the exams, Reece had a market day at school where they have to sell goodies – preferably with a Christmas theme.

Reece was (naturally) more interested in how much money he would make. I was all for the ‘making’ but not in his definition of ‘making’ - I saw it rather as an opportunity to be creative!

So here’s what I made:

Reindeer Lollipops

These turned out so well that I want to share how I made them:

Shopping list:

lollipops (Fizz Pops) for the reindeers.
brown paper
raffia, string or ribbon
wiggly eyes
mini red pompoms
darker brown cardstock for antlers

How to:

Cut squares of brown paper – big enough to cover a lollipop. (I’d say around 10-12cm square/ 4 inches square). I couldn’t find brown paper, so I had some brown paper packets lying around and used those.
Cover each lollipop in brown paper and tie at the base of the sucker with raffia.
Glue on the nose and eyes – I like to glue these all close together as it gives the reindeer a cute expression.
Cut out and glue on the antlers**

Done!

Note: You can always draw on eyes and a nose with pens or paint if you don’t have wiggly eyes or pompoms. My pompoms were part of a package in a rainbow of colours- I just picked out all the red ones.

** I used a Silhouette die cut for the antlers from this cute Reindeer treat box from Pebbles in my Pocket , but you could easily draw similar ones out onto cardstock and cut them out by hand. They are about 1 1/2 inches high. You glue them on slightly to the back of the lollipop ‘head’ – almost like a headband.

I selected just the antlers and copied as many as I could onto an A4 sheet and cut them with my Silhouette.

How to separate the antlers from the treat box design:

Select the whole design, then click on “Object”, then select “ungroup”, then delete each of the other pieces of the design except the antlers. Move the image to the top left corner, then duplicate the antlers in rows.

PS: I’m certainly no expert at the Silhouette software, I just plod along on my own, occasionally using the ‘Help’ function and eventually figure it all out.

I’ll be back tomorrow with the recipe for making “North Pole Snow” which the kids could dunk their reindeer lollipops in. There’s also a free printable label…..

Ready for a weekend?

2011-10-07T10:59:00.001+02:00

I certainly am!

Today I am sharing some photos I took this week of a part of our garden we affectionately call “The Secret Garden”. When we bought the ground, and were planning the building of the house, there was this natural grouping of wild Black Protea trees growing which we immediately earmarked for a perfect little secluded garden.

Over the past 6 years of living here, the garden has transformed a little season by season. This year, my husband has been planting Bromeliads and air plants in old twisted tree branches/ trunks which he has collected from all over.

I love the pretty entrance with the metal pergola and gate smothered in a crimson creeping rose and flanked by a purple potato bush which has made its home in a dead Protea tree. It looks so welcoming and through the gate you can just see the little 4-seater concrete table and benches.

This is where we like to have a sundowner over the weekend. In fact, my husband often ends up gardening here, pruning his Bonsai’s or planting a new log full of colourful Bromeliads while I chat away sipping wine. My parents inevitably join us and the kids pop in from time to time or run around on the lawn. The dogs are always around- especially if we’re also snacking on biltong!

Talking of wine, I have been wanting to make a little sign with this saying for ages. I just love it! So I thought I’d share it with you today in celebration of the weekend approaching.

To download, simply click on the sign - printable A4 size.

The pointing hand and background are both from The Graphics Fairy.

TGIF!!

If the shoe fits…

2011-10-05T10:21:00.001+02:00

Here’s my first design for the new digistamp drawing challenge at CDAC.

The theme for October is “Sparkle, Twinkle or Shine”. Although there are already so many digi drawings of shoes out there, I decided that after all, a girl can never have too many shoes now, can she?

I ended up playing around with the shoe idea and made these two ‘shoe quotes’ – if you like them, click on the image to view larger, then right click to save.

Have a fabulous day!

Sunflowers ‘n sunshine

2011-10-01T06:33:00.001+02:00

Just thought I’d share a card I made for the CDAC Progressive Challenge #3. I used this pretty image from Just Inklined…

This is how my card turned out.. {amongst my husband’s Bonsai trees :0)}

I used background images from The Graphics Fairy; coloured the image in Photoshop then added my fav’ distressing action “Rub-on” from Atomic Cupcake.

The gingham is my own paper design which I used in a bracket shape I created in PS. I used cardstock I had lying around as the card, layered everything up with some hessian (burlap) under the bracket shape and added some string. I created the tag in PS, added an eyelet and tied it to the string and adhered it to the card with foam squares.

I’m off now to watch my son’s athletics again. Got to be at school at 07h45 (on a Saturday?!! – oh I am a good mother!! LOL!) and should take till lunchtime. Then it’s off to take the kids to see the Smurfs movie. (Who would have thought my kids would get excited about seeing a movie about these little gnomes I used to collect as a child?!!)

Have a great Saturday!

“You could make that” Giveaway

2011-09-26T17:22:00.001+02:00

Nan has this gorgeous blog called “You could make that” where she shares tutorials, loads of eye candy and her lovely paintings….

She and I enjoy many of the same things even though, as she says, “we live around 9000 miles apart”, in different countries and on different continents. She’s over in Wisconsin in the USA, and I’m here in Gauteng in South Africa. It would take me an 18 hour flight to New York, and another 4 hour flight to Chicago (correct me if I’m wrong here) and then a 3 hour drive to get to her part of the world! Blogging sure connects people!

A quick heads up to pop on over to this site: (click on the button)

Isn’t his pillow adorable? - I love the soft natural colours of your bedroom, Nan!

Nan made two of these lovely pillows and so she has one of these as a giveaway…so do pop by! She’s celebrating having almost 300 followers!

To qualify for entry into the giveaway – you need to

Become a follower
Leave a comment, stating you’re a follower.
Mention the giveaway on your blog and add her button to your blog.

Printable Bookmarks

2011-09-26T14:49:00.001+02:00

Links have been repaired! Sorry for the mix-up!!

Today I have some printable bookmarks to share with you.

They are so easy to make. It’s a case of print, cut, a dab of glue, an optional embellishment and voilà, ready to use.

There are four bookmarks to choose from -

1. Alice in Wonderland

2. Book Quote

3. Vintage Bird

4. & 3D Vintage Bird background & here is the bird. (same as Vintage bird, but the bird is printed separately from the background).

Here’s how to make them...

Cut out
Fold back the two sides (A & B) so they fold back onto each other.
Trim these sides a little if necessary so you don’t see the back sticking out from the front.
Dab glue onto side B. Glue the two backs together by flapping side A over side B.
For 3D : Add the vintage bird using foam squares to pop it.
Add an embellishment – optional.
Your book page slips into the little pocket opening of the bookmark.

All graphics courtesy of the Graphics Fairy.

Linking up here:

Have a great week!

Digi friends

2011-09-24T10:37:00.001+02:00

Happy Saturday! A little cooler here today, but it’s weekend nonetheless! Yay!

Here is my latest digistamp design. My last one for the “two legs, four legs or both” digi drawing challenge over at CDAC.

Thanks for popping in.

Enjoy your weekend!

World Rhino Day

2011-09-22T09:27:00.001+02:00

Today is a day very close to my heart. We regularly go to the bush to enjoy seeing our beautiful natural African wildlife we are fortunate to have here in South Africa.

Not once have we been and not seen a rhino – often more than one. These beautiful pre-historic animals are protected in a reserve with very a aggressive anti-poaching system in place. They are, however, still targeted every day.

Almost everyday in South Africa, a rhino is murdered for its horn and the carcass left to the scavengers. Sometimes these poor animals are not even dead, they are left to suffer. That is the reality of rhino poaching. All for the greed of men, all to make money.

Today is International Rhino Day. Let’s save our rhino’s for our children and their children. Make sure we still have the “Big 5” in years to come, not just the “Big 4”. It won’t be the same will it?

Here are two anti-rhino poaching labels I made today using a label from the Graphics Fairy which I altered. Grab one or both, and display them on your blog to make more people aware of this terrible crime.

For more information on how to help make others aware, CLICK HERE

Have a great day!

Mini cards with apples

2011-09-19T11:03:00.001+02:00

Hi everyone, another week and another set of cards…

I received my new set of digistamps for the 3rd Progressive Challenge over at CDAC, so I’m making cards again like crazy! In fact, I have quite a little stash of cards piling up.

I find this is so handy to have. It’s so quick to grab a card when I need one in a hurry.

Here’s the original digi image from Glitterbabes:

I coloured the image in Photoshop, then added a couple of filters, distressed the image with an action from Atomic Cupcake (rubon), then I added a background from The Graphics Fairy and finished it off with a deep red border.

I bound the cards together with a strip of gingham fabric just for some extra prettiness. I love the Autumn country feel of the finished cards.

Hope you have a great week!

Linking up to

Tuesday Tutorial : treat cones

2011-09-13T12:44:00.001+02:00

Today is laundry day in our house. So while the washing machine is busy with its cycle, I was browsing around the internet and found this cute tutorial for making a sweet treat gift.

I got thinking how pretty it would be as a hostess gift, or perhaps a teacher’s gift filled with chocolates or soaps. It would also be ideal to put birthday money or a gift card in.

So, after adding another load of washing, I used some images from The Graphics Fairy and created two gift cones. {Nothing like being creative to make the task of doing the laundry so much more pleasant!)

The hydrangea paper cone:

The Toile paper cone:

The finished cone is around 9 inches (23cm) from top to bottom.

Toile Cone Gift Bag – DOWNLOAD

Hydrangea Cone Treat Bag – DOWNLOAD

Note: I found double-sided tape worked really well to secure the cones so you don’t see any cellotape on the outside.

Love,

I’m linking to:

Cubs & Mice

2011-09-12T11:35:00.001+02:00

Hello!

Well firstly, let me tell you about our weekend. We went away with friends for my son’s friend’s birthday. The game farm we stayed at allows you to play with the lion cubs as they are hand-reared. There were three 6 week old cubs. So cute! The one cub was named “Kylie” as Kylie Minogue adopted her when she visited South Africa. There was a photo of her on the front page of the Sunday paper with Kylie the lion cub.

These cubs were such a highlight for the kids!

Here’s the birthday boy feeding the one cub and getting a little nip on the finger too!

Taking a break…

If I can’t have a bottle, I’ll just settle for a finger…

Just look at those claws!!

Now I also have to tell you that my son won the Junior Victor Ludorum trophy for athletics at his new school on Friday at their Inter-house athletics meeting! I was amazed how determined he was. He broke the high jump and long jump record and also won the 100m, 1200m and came second in the 70m hurdles race. So we’ve discovered a little athlete in the family!

Today I’m also sharing my second drawing for the CDAC Drawing Challenge for September… a trio of mischievous mice.

I also drew another version with the same little mice, only this time with a cupcake….

And today, I have a freebie… You can grab last month’s (and my first) digistamp – just click on the image below, right click to download.

If you make anything with the image, please share it with me, I’d love to see what you do!

Have a great day!

Losing stuff & … a painting

2011-09-07T08:59:00.001+02:00

Happy Wednesday everyone!

I’m happy as I (once again) found something I lost! LOL I don’t know what has come over me! Sometimes I think I am losing my mind! Or perhaps I am “artsy and odd” as my husband fondly refers to me!

I spent the entire day yesterday searching my studio for the power cord for my Silhouette machine. Not a good thing to lose! When I tidied my studio I distinctly recall putting it away as I tidied and even said to myself “remember where you put this!”. Have you ever done this? Have you ever put something away in a safe place so that you won’t lose it only to forget where you put it?

Well I eventually found my power cord – last night. In the first drawer of my desk- yes right next to me – where I had already looked 3 times! {sigh}. So today I’ll be cutting out the African Party goodies for the birthday party this weekend. {Yesterday I thought I’d be cutting with scissors!}

Thought I’d share my latest completed painting. It’s a nice size this one, I guess about 60 cm x 45 cm (30x20 inches)- and one of my favourites. It’s drying still, and as soon as it’s dry, It’s off to the framers and onto my wall. I have to say it’s a copy of a painting by a fantastic American artist called Piero. I love his work!

It reminds me of my son who has been through a rough time this year. He moved to a new school in the middle of his second term as he was so unhappy at the school he started at in January. Fortunately since moving, he is so happy and enthusiastic about school. There’s a school for every child and thankfully my once sad little boy has a huge smile on his face again.

Pen tablet & a puppy

2011-09-05T10:11:00.001+02:00

Hi everyone! Hope all is well with you. Here’s what I’ve been up to this past week while my blog has been quiet…

Would you believe that I managed to ‘lose’ my Wacom pen tablet? I hadn’t used it for quite a while. Well I spent about 3 days searching, unpacking cupboards, and ~~silently~~ cursing! Eventually I found it in a cupboard in my bedroom! I guess it was on one of those days when I did a quick tidy up after I had been doodling on it in my room and it ended up being tucked away in a strange place!

I have always struggled to get the results I had hoped for from the minute I bought it about 2 years ago. I simply accepted that I needed more (and more) practice.

I decided there must be another reason… So I used my faithful ol’ Google… Would you believe my problem was sorted out with a quick software upgrade? So now I can draw without looking like I have the shakes and the pen pressure works perfectly!

Long story short, Here’s my latest digi drawing for the September contest over at CDAC – hand drawn on my pen tablet…

I have also been designing some cute party goodies for a friend of mine’s son’s birthday. The party theme is African Safari as we’re going to a game farm nearby for a sleep over. The birthday boy requested this as he wants to play with the little lion cubs.

So the kids get to cuddle with the cubs – they’re gonna love it! (And I will too!) I’m hoping to take some awesome photos of the kids and the cubs as well as the party decor. Will post some pics next week!

Have a great week!

Please vote for me

2011-08-29T08:13:00.001+02:00

Hi everyone! Ready for a new week? I have a HUGE favour to ask of you…

Remember this digital stamp drawing I did?

Well, the voting has started over at CDAC, so I’d really be ever so grateful if you would take the time to click HERE and vote for me!

Thank you in advance!

Dance like Nobody’s Watching

2011-08-27T13:21:00.001+02:00

Don’t you love this quote?

"You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth."

- William W. Purkey

There are poems, quotes & lyrics that gained inspiration from these words, including this beautiful song “I hope you dance” by Lee Ann Womack. (I’m hoping my daughter will sing this for me one day!)…….

one of my fav’s

When I saw this little dancer digi stamp, I knew immediately that I wanted to use some of these words on the card.

So here’s the latest card I made for the Progressive challenge over at CDAC…

Want these words in some word art?

Grab it in 3 different styles:

(click on image, right click to save)

Have a great weekend. (Says she with-smile-on-her-face dressed in a short-sleeved SUMMER tee!)

My Studio

2011-08-25T06:00:00.000+02:00

Thought I’d share some photos from around my studio.

I love these pretty rose & bead door knob tassles hanging from one of my cupboards.

These candy-jars hold my flower embellishments – each jar holds a different colour.

Love my ‘create’ sign. Bought a few years ago when we visited the USA. This comes from a Home Depot store in Connecticut.

(I so wish we had Home Depot here!)

Two Sunday’s ago, I sewed some oil-cloth covers for my sewing machine, overlocker and my printer. I still have to make one for my embroidery machine and Silhouette. (* Note to self- go buy the extra fabric you need to finish these!!)

A vintage Coca Cola box filled with my oil painting materials & a pretty bucket full of pencils. (No matter how many pencils I have, I always lose them and end up with none!)

My studio seems to always be a work-in-progress. I’ll show some more pics once the rest of the space has been tidied up more.

Do you have photos or a blogpost of your studio? Do share a link here!

Digital Stamp Drawing Challenge

2011-08-24T16:28:00.001+02:00

I’m really surprising myself – two posts in one day!

I decided to have a go at drawing digi stamps over at CDAC. There’s a regular digi stamp drawing challenge, this one’s theme is “Things that Hang”.

I decided to keep my first one very simple. Not quite sure what I’m doing yet LOL~!

So here it is :

Card Craft

2011-08-24T10:34:00.001+02:00

Today I’m sharing with you another card I made for CDAC for the progressive challenge.

I used this cute little chef with a birthday cake by Jenlee.

I coloured it in Photoshop CS3, added the ‘happy birthday’ text background and a border. I then used the Atomic Cupcake rub-on action over the entire card to create a bit of a distressed look.

I printed it out, then used my sewing machine to stitch around the edge of the card in white thread. To end off, I used my favourite Vintage Photo distress ink around the edges of the card.

Have a great day!

Vintage-style gift tag & wrapping

2011-08-23T07:00:00.000+02:00

I hope you’re not getting tired of me now! LOL! Two blog posts in two days! I’m on a roll here…

Have you ever visited this site? ----

Crafters Digital Art Centre

It’s jam-packed with digital stamps ready for colouring & decorating & using up your cardstock to make gorgeous cards and other projects. There are tons of project ideas!

There’s a fun Progressive Digi Freebie Challenge running over there at the moment. You sign up and you get 6 free digi stamps. You have to use at least one of them in a project, post a link back and then you qualify to receive the next batch of 6 free digi stamps.

Here’s what I made with the teapot stamp created by Sandi Samples.

I coloured the teapot digitally using Photoshop CS3, I placed it (digitally) on top of this cute Cafe paper from The Graphics Fairy, then fiddled some more with the colours & opacity on the teapot. I printed it out, distressed the edges with Vintage Photo distress Ink from Ranger industries. I added a circle punch at the placement for the hole I then punched a hole through for the ribbon. Voilà, quick ‘n easy gift tag.

So go and join in HERE!

(sorry- my picture is a little distorted due to the angle I took the photo)

I’ll be sharing some more of my cards over the next few days… once I’ve photographed them.

Thought I’d share a pretty gift wrap/ packaging idea with you too.

I decorated this box to put my sister-in-law’s birthday gift in. (I think I might have even had more fun decorating this than she had receiving it!)

I bought a few of these pre-cut boxes in a plain ‘kraft’ colour as I knew I could embellish away to suit the age, gender or personality of the person the gift was for.

I then visited my all-time-favourite vintage image blog & used some of her gorgeous images. I printed out the images onto white cardstock, cut them out, then aged the edges with a little Vintage photo Distress Ink from Ranger Ind.

I jumped into my (huge) stash of ribbons & embellished away… Some were glued straight down flat onto the box, others I raised with foam squares to add some dimension.

Happy Crafting!

I’m off to my oil painting class today, so I’m in “art paradise” this morning!

Note: The image of the two doves is from another fabulous vintage image site : Percy & Bloom

Printable mini gift cards

2011-08-22T09:22:00.001+02:00

YES, this blog has been boring lately!

YES, I have been MIA! (Reasons beyond my control!)

YES, I am back!

YES, I am back with a FREE printable gift for you!

Spring is definitely in the air! As I type here, my studio door is open and it’s 8.45 in the morning – and yippee – no cold air!

Our Poplar trees started sprouting new leaves about a week ago and I’m loving the fresh clean green – can’t wait for the whole landscape to transform into that new fresh green hue so typical of spring.

This weekend, Reece decided it was time he learnt to ride the ride-on lawnmower. He had such fun driving around the garden on it. Guess this is his new toy! Note how he has welcomed spring too – he insists on wearing shorts and tee’s (even though the temperature is not quite there yet!).

Last week I got stuck into my studio – I cleaned, re-packed. (Actually I had to re-pack as not one, but all the shelves in my cupboard fell down and I was forced to pick everything up!). I ended up re-packing ALL my cupboards and moving furniture around… I now have a studio where I can see the floor again and only a couple of things left to find a new shelf home for. As my studio is now tidier, I can (miraculously- LOL!) find things and I am now able to craft away, so here’s something for you…

a free printable

Hope you enjoy these! I have designed a set of 6 mini gift cards. They are only around 7cm square (3 inches). There are 3 different card designs (2 of each). You can either attach them to gifts or …. give them as a gift made up as I have in this photo.

Print out onto white A4 cardstock.
Simply add the paper strip label and little butterfly embellishment (included on printable sheet) to finish them off and you have a pretty little gift for someone, or simply as an extra little something in a gift bag.
I used Ranger Distress Ink (Vintage photo) around the edges of the label.
You could add a little silk flower or some ribbon too.
Instead of the strip, pop these into a tiny brown paper bag and glue the strip around the bag and embellish with the label and butterfly.

I’d love to see if you make these up yourself, especially if you embellish them in a different way- so do send me a photo if you do! (Either leave a a link here or send me an email).

You can click here to download a printable PDF.

Linking up here:

Enjoy!

Wowed by Kylie

2011-07-10T14:14:00.001+02:00

Hi everyone, sorry I’ve been absent for a while. Been hectic, and the kids have had school holidays and it’s been co------ld! Brrrrrr!

This weekend we treated ourselves to some entertainment – Kylie-style. Yes we went with some friends to see Kylie Minogue’s World Tour “Aphrodite Live” at Sun City.

Aren’t these costumes amazing?… (and there were many more!)

The opening costume – she started the show preforming “Aphrodite”. I loved the Grecian goddess theme….

My favourite outfit – an elegant top hat with a bustier and huge puffy ball-gown full-length skirt made from black feathers – gorgeously over the top and glamorous!…..

shared from here (but they are exactly what we saw – dumb me – I forgot my camera at home!!!!)

The show was amazing : entertaining and a stunning spectacle! Muscled dancers hanging from above the stage, amazing props, superb sound and Kylie looked sensational in loads of outrageously glamorous costumes designed by none other than Dolce & Gabbana. If you’re in South Africa, take the time to squeeze in a show – I think there still are a few tickets- she has her last show tonight at Sun City, then two in Cape Town, ending on Thursday. This also ends her world tour of 76 performances in 30 countries.

She’s a tiny dynamo who lights up the stage and so worth seeing! Go Kylie!

So we had a cold weekend, warmed up nicely by the superb Palace of the Lost City at Sun City and an awesome show! (Oh – and too much fabulous food!!)

An added bonus - We actually saw Kylie in the lobby of the hotel when were checking in! She was walking out to be transported to the Sun City Superbowl for the show just as we arrived! Funny thing- she walked through the lobby as if she was simply ‘nobody’, casually dressed and unassuming. So much so, that we only realised it was her just after she walked through the doors and a hoard of security men followed quietly.

Now back to reality… tomorrow, my son starts school again after mid-term and my daughter is away for 4 days with my parents as she still has holidays until July 25th. So back to early-rising and bracing the cold weather to get to school on time…

Chat soon,

Free Printable Quote

2011-06-10T20:14:00.001+02:00

Hi there! Happy weekend! Hopefully we’re looking toward some slightly warmer weather! It has been freezing here! And we had – weirdly enough - 13mm of rain day before yesterday. It’s not supposed to precipitate here on the highveld in winter! Fortunately in 10 days time it’s mid-winter – yay the count-down to summer begins! Only around 1 1/2 months left and the weather will start warming and the days will get longer little by little.

Thinking of summer makes me think of flowers and pretty things, so I got creative…

I have a pretty free printable quote for you today. Simply click on the image to download it, then print onto paper, pop it in a frame and hang it on a wall or add it to a table-scape. I think I’m going to make one for my daughter’s bedroom.

Enjoy!

This pretty floral frame is from The Graphics Fairy - I edited it slightly in Photoshop.

Winter is here!

2011-05-26T09:24:00.001+02:00

Today is cold! Our first wintery day for 2011. It doesn’t snow here, but the wind is howling and icy cold. When I left with the kids this morning at 6h30, there were no clouds about, just gusting wind and once the sun was fully up, loads of wintery sunshine. Now, the clouds from the cold front have gloomily moved in making it seem even colder!

This will probably last two or three days, then it’ll warm up again until the next cold front embraces us. Fortunately our winters are short-lived.

I’ve been wanting to share this cute little baby’s beanie with you for a while and I think this is appropriate for our first really chilly day!I found the pattern online * here. My ‘babies’ are a little too big for this beanie, so I gave it to my daughter’s vocal teacher for her 7 month old baby girl. It fits her perfectly.

* There’s also a video tutorial (how convenient is that?!)

This is so easy to crochet and (I am happy to say..) really quick. I used a 4mm hook with double-knit yarn in a lovely ecru colour.

If you need a larger beanie, I would imagine you simply add a couple more rows in the top rows so the hat will be larger then in general.

– Disclaimer : I am merely guessing- I cannot claim to be a professional when it comes to crochet! So please offer your expert advice on how to make a larger one!

(You will notice that the first rows are ordinary double crochet with increases as you go along).

You can see in the following photo how it is simply crocheted round and round – you start with a circle and just keep going.

Finished it off with a little crochet flower embellishment – a grey flower, topped with a smaller pink one with a rusty orange centre and a lime green leaf.

I love how the shell pattern creates a pretty scallop edge along the bottom of the hat. So girly. Looking forward to making some more!

Hope you have a great day! To those having cold weather like me- stay warm! To those enjoying a lovely warm summery day – soak up the sunshine! I’m off to make a warm mug of coffee now!

A fabulous giveaway…

2011-05-20T07:21:00.001+02:00

Hi there, thought I’d share an awesome giveaway you can win over at

Bonnie has a creative blog flowing over with crafty ideas all prettily portrayed with picture-perfect photography.

{How is that for alliteration! }

I have been following Bonnie’s blog for years – I think it must be around 4 years now. I “met” her when we both were digital scrapbooking designers at the same digi shop. Amazing how I feel I “know” her simply through her blog!

Here is what you can win over at her blog – not one, but two giveaways!

Giveaway #1

Giveaway #2

So pop on over and follow her easy instructions on how to enter! I must add that this is so worth doing! I won the giveaway last time and it was such a joy to open her gorgeous package of goodies she sent me!

Click on her blog header image at the top of this post to be directed straight to her blog! The giveaway ends 31 May 2011.

For Mom

2011-05-07T13:02:00.001+02:00

My mom is not a sewer or crafter or even a teeny bit artsy at all. So when it comes to anything like that, she runs to me with her requests. She often asks for some thread and a needle to hem a pair of pants or sew on a button. She knows I have an endless supply of such stuff. Well I decided to make things easier and I’m going to give her her own convenient sewing jar for Mother’s Day. I have seen so many tutorials for these, but I especially love this one with it’s pin-cushion lid from Creative Ramblings:

So I bought a jar, and I found some cute sewing supplies at our local Hypermarket – in little tins! I bought a tape measure in a cute little round tin, a tin of buttons, and a tin filled with pearl-head pins. I added a book of needles, 4 different coloured spools of thread and a small pair of needlework scissors.

I found this cute sewing label at The Graphics Fairy :

I edited it in Photoshop into a label for my jar complete with a little quote:

I am going to hang this matching card off the gift too:

And just for fun I made three other ‘vintagey’ tags which you can use for any occasion:

You are most welcome to download these free printables.

Simply click on each one for a larger image, then right click and save.

(The butterfly & bird are also from The Graphics Fairy)

Have a wonderful Mother’s Day tomorrow!

The Royal Wedding

2011-04-27T08:54:00.001+02:00

I simply cannot resist anything “Royal”.

Way back in 1981 I remember sitting glued to the TV watching Charles and Diana’s wedding. I was “Diana” crazy at the time – I collected magazines and books that depicted her. I even made a {sticky} icing-clad “wedding cake” for the occasion. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo, just a fond, albeit vague, memory of loads of icing piped on it. I was 12 years old.

My dad’s parents were British and we still have family in the UK so I guess I was raised to love anything British and I must say, I love the historical buildings, the parks and the beautiful green English landscape as well as all the historical tradition and glamour that goes with the Royal family.

Needless to say, I am looking forward to watching the wedding this Friday. We’re going to have an English morning tea and invite a few friends- simply for the fun of watching together.

I’ve designed some decor goodies which I plan to use to decorate the room with and I would like to share them with you.

{click on image to download printable A4-size PDF}

{vintage British flag and crown made from images from The Graphics Fairy}

So get decorating, bake some English scones and make some tea. {and maybe enjoy a glass of bubbly too!}

Any excuse to decorate a pretty table, serve yummy food and simply enjoy oneself! If you’re going to watch, download these printables, print, cut out and decorate. Have some Royal fun!

Linking to :

A new toy

2011-04-10T11:17:00.001+02:00

Oh my , I haven’t been in blog-land forever! No wait, let me re-phrase that! I haven’t been in my little blog for ages! {I’ve been too busy popping in at everyone else’s! }

Once I start blog hopping, I end up ‘travelling’ all over the world devouring every ounce of craftiness I can. I’m sure I’m not the only one that this happens to! I like to think it’s at least a little constructive – at least I’m learning new crafts and gaining inspiration at the same time!

Then my internet connection {and landline at home} bombed out and it took 3 weeks for Telkom to fix it. Thankfully it’s all up and running now again.

One place I’ve visited over and over again lately is the Silhouette website.

I am so excited as I have finally taken the plunge and bought myself a Silhouette die-cut machine! {sigh} I have been oohing and aahing over one for about 2 years now.

We sold my car last month {no- not to buy a silhouette ha ha!} - This month I have no car payment to make- so guess what I did? Yip I spent that money on something far more useful than a car! {giggle}!

Seriously, it was just my luck I had my hubby’s car to drive while I waited {impatiently} for my new car to arrive! Plus no car payment for one month, and I’m off shopping for a crafty gadget! So here is my new little plaything…

What I love is that I can use my own designs using my computer and I can cut out absolutely any font I choose too! Ooh the possibilities are endless!

I’ve discovered how to design my own designs – either ones I can print and cut like this :

Or more simple designs like this which I can cut out of coloured or patterned paper or cardstock like this:

So I’ll be playing with paper a lot again now! {And i got my new car too –yay!}

I’m not sure how big these images will download here on my blog, but if you like them and want to use them, go ahead and grab them! Enjoy!

PS : If you have a Silhouette and would like the printable files- just leave a comment for me and I’ll upload them for you!

Friendship & Feathers

2011-02-17T08:00:00.000+02:00

I love dressing up gifts decadently. Isn’t it more interesting and intriguing to receive a gift that is deliciously decorated -where that little bit of extra care has been taken to add something special?

I usually add some ribbon- this has to be a lovely fabric ribbon or twine - and usually more than one kind too.

Don’t you love these ribbons from Ebony & Ivory?

Then, depending on what I’ve wrapped the gift in, be it a pretty gift bag {with loads of colourful co-ordinating tissue paper!}, a beautiful box or simple gift wrap, I might add a handmade flower, or other embellishment. I always add a pretty tag to finish it off.

I have a huge stash of ribbons and embellishments in my scrapbooking supplies – seriously a HUGE stash! So I can whip up a pretty gift wrap in seconds. I sometimes find that it’s the tag that gets done in a hurry as I don’t have any ready-made ones on hand.

I discovered Kard Krazy recently and decided to jump in and take up the challenge to make a tag each Tuesday. This way I can make up a variety of tags and keep them in a little box and simply grab one when there is some gift wrapping to do.

This week’s tag’s theme is friendship, here’s my little digital tag I made :

If you click on it, you can download a ‘png’ digital image which you can use for digital scrapbooking. Click on the following tag to download:

Free Printable :

Simply print it onto cardstock, cut it out, punch a small hole in the top and add it to a gift.

Graphics on the tag are from The Graphics Fairy. Font used : Travelling Typewriter.

Enjoy your Thursday!

The Perfect Lady…

2011-02-16T08:02:00.001+02:00

This morning I was browsing the web and stumbled upon this site. : http://free-retro-graphics.com/ I love those cute retro images of typical 50’s style homely housewives. So fun!

Way back when, ladies seemed to need instructions … take a look:

{aka – how to be the ‘perfect princess?}

{Gotta love the ‘dead fish’ description of this photograph!}

{Don’t you just love the lady on the bottom right? – No wonder she needed instructions!!? LOL- }

Of course, nowadays these instructions would end with the disclaimer “Cigarettes are dangerous to your health!”

Hope you all had a giggle! Have a great day!

Love,

Happy Valentine’s Day- stories to giggle at…

2011-02-14T14:48:00.001+02:00

Shocking, I know! Yes I’ve been away from my blog for a while. Various reasons, but lately, no internet.

Here’s my little faulty internet story…… There were no ‘ADSL’ or ‘internet’ lights lit up on my modem. I reported it to our faithful “Telkom”, who sent someone out a few days after reporting the fault – yesterday in fact – yes on a Sunday afternoon!

Well the repairman was here for all of 5 minutes – when he pronounced it ‘working’. Huh? “What was wrong”, I asked. “Umm, the cable wasn’t plugged in at the wall properly”.

Again - “Huh?”. Yip, somehow the cable was not pushed fully into the socket in the wall! Next time I’ll check that first LOL!!

Well today is Valentine’s Day – hope you’re all having a love-ly day!

This morning my 9 year old son said to his dad:

“Dad this is the best Valentine’s Day ever!” “Why?,” he asked.

“Because I get to where ‘civvies’ to school and there are no girls at school!”

(Just to clarify, my son moved to a boys-only school this year and ‘civvies’ means they can dress in regular clothes- no uniform)

Manic Monday & Printable Subway Art

2011-01-17T10:50:00.001+02:00

Hi there, been MIA for a bit again, but it’s been crazy trying to get the kids settled into their new schools. I’ve had to label everything – from erasers to their school socks!

Shannon also dumped a pile of books on the table this weekend for covering, so that took a while. Then Reece needed new cricket shoes… and so it goes on….

Today it’s raining AGAIN and a forecast for heavy rain later on in the day. Our lawn is squishy, our ducks are having a ball, rivers are flooding and the traffic is horrendous.. a Manic Monday! Oh and to top it off, my car was leaking coolant on Friday, so I took it in this morning to have it sorted out, and when I got to the garage, the car was steaming! Eek – hope no major damage! {sigh} Time for a new car….

I didn’t have to take the kids to school today as the “lift club” with a friend of mine ‘officially’ got off the ground today. She took all four kids to school, then will collect the girls at 14h30, I’ll pick up the boys at 16h30. Saves a lot of petrol and driving around. Bonus- I have time to sit down and blog a bit.

I’ve noticed a lot of subway art around ‘blogland’ over the last few months – Christmas ones, Thanksgiving ones, Birthday ones, and Valentine’s ones. I love that you can actually use the same frame and simply replace the seasonal subway art as needed.

So I decided to jump right in. I know there are loads of these, but I wanted to try it for myself and thought I’d share it anyway. I created a Valentine’s Day one of my own. I am hosting our book club later this month, so I’m going to run with a Valentine’s theme just for fun and I want to display my subway art in my dining room where we’ll have our breakfast.

Grab all of them or one of them – I’ve done it in 3 different looks.

Simply click on an image to download. Print it out onto A4 paper or cardstock, pop into an A4 frame and voilà!

Vintage : Distressed & aged :

Brown paper :

If you have any problems with downloads, just send me a message so I can help you.

Have a great week!

Happy 2011!

2010-12-30T09:55:00.001+02:00

I wish you the very best for 2011! May all your dreams come true!

What are your plans for 2011?

I plan to really get creative in 2011! I want to be more active on my blog, making it more interesting with lots of free stuff and ideas.

I want to sew again! I plan on painting my out for our exhibition this year – we have an awesome theme for this year {more about that another time}.

I want to get my kids motivated for school {well, at least try!}; I want to redecorate our bedroom; the kids’ playrooms; Shannon’s bedroom & the formal lounge. I also would love to renovate and refurnish our holiday home in the bushveld. I’m going to plan our next holiday…

CLICK HERE for some printable Happy New Year clocks – 1 large one and 6 small ones. Use them for cupcake toppers, to embellish banners, as a Happy New Year wreath or anything you else your creative mind can come up with. – Enjoy!

{If you have any trouble with the download, please let me know so that I can repair the problem – Thank you}

Have a fabulous New Year!

Season’s Greetings

2010-12-29T13:41:00.001+02:00

Just a quick “Hi” from me! ‘Tis the season for craziness and lots of fun and family time, so I’ve not been around at my blog much of late. I thought I’d share a quick collage of Christmas 2010 in our house.

Hope you have all had a fabulous holiday season! We certainly have - and after all the tinsel, wrapping paper, food and fun, I can honestly say I’m ready for the New Year. Today I went and bought some plastic containers to pack away some old toys (which we want to keep), and I plan on sorting through my kids rooms… yip it’s my New Year “Spring Clean” time! So I’m off to do some sorting and storing…

Chat soon,

Cookie Mix Gift Jar and free printable labels

2010-12-05T09:07:00.001+02:00

Hi there!

I have had internet problems of late- I ran out of bandwidth just before month-end and decided that buying another gig would be wasted as it would not be used by the end of the month – so hence no postings for a while from me!

I also have been running around buying new school clothes for next year as my kids are both changing schools. On top of that it’s been the end of the school year, so it’s been a run-around as well as shopping up a storm for shorts, t-shirts and swimming costumes as we’re off on a seaside holiday (more about that later).

Anyway…. I saw this gorgeous idea over at Skip to my Lou a while back and decided I simply had to make it.

Cookie Mix Gift Jar

Here’s my version of it. I used my own recipe which a friend of mine gave me around two years ago. These biscuits are yummy- very much like shortbread. The big “plus” is that they are so easy to make!

The jar all decorated and filled with the dry ingredients for the cookies:

A close-up of the instructions hanging from the jar:

I crocheted flower for decoration:

The top of the jar…

You will need :

Dry Ingredients (see the recipe below)
2 Ribbons for tying around the jar (I used 2 different ones- one for around the ‘tummy’ of the jar, the other for around the lid.
A length of jute or string to tie the instructions label onto the jar.
hole punch
Glue gun (for gluing on the flower embellishment).
Modge Podge – for gluing on the labels.
Sponge brush applicator for the modge podge.

The Recipe:

Place the following ingredients in a 1 litre jar:

(In South Africa- you can buy a 1 litre Consol jar at pick n Pay)

2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup corn flour
165ml icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Close the lid.

Now print out these printable labels onto an A4 sheet of lightweight cardstock (for 2 jars).

(click on image to enlarge)

* You can also access the printable sheet via my Google Docs account HERE

Cut out the labels. I used a 2 1/2 inch round punch (Fiskars) for the round labels.
Use the sponge brush applicator to apply a thin layer of modge podge to the “Santa’s Cooki Mix” circle label and apply to the lid of the jar.
Measure ribbon for around the ‘tummy’ of the jar. I applied a little modge podge to the ends and adhered it to the jar to keep the ribbon in place before applying the front label. (The ends are hidden under the bracket label).
Apply modge podge to the bracket label “A jar full of Christmas” and adhere to the front of the jar over the ribbon.
Tie another length of ribbon around the jar lid.
Punch a hole in the top of the instructions label and tie it to the jar with jute or string.
Add a crochet flower, silk flower or any other embellishment you like using a hot glue gun.

I have halved the original recipe to be able to fit all the ingredients into the 1 litre jar. Here is the original recipe which is for a larger batch of cookies if you want to make some for yourself:

4 cups cake flour
1 cup corn flour
1 ^1/3 cup icing sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Mix all dry ingredients together.
Add 500g butter and 2 teaspoons vanilla essence
combine well.
Roll into a sausage shape, cover with cling film. Refrigerate for 15min-1/2 hour.
Remove from fridge and slice into 5mm slices. (If too thin, they break easily).
Bake at 180°c for 15 minutes

These make great hostess gifts, teacher gifts – or simply a little Christmas gift for friends and neighbours.

I will be away on holiday for the next week. We’re flying to the Seychelles tonight (at 23h55!!) for a week of summer sun, crystal clear turquoise sea and beautiful white beaches. It’s a 5 hour flight so tomorrow morning we arrive in Seychelles at 6am (local time- they are an hour ahead of South Africa). We’ve got our snorkelling gear and sunblock all packed and ready to go, so you won’t be hearing from me for a while.

Linking to :

Chat soon,

Today’s Tutorial : Crazy colourful crochet circles

2010-11-24T20:28:00.001+02:00

Here’s a sneak peek of a project I’m busy with at the moment. In fact every moment when I sit still, I keep my hands busy with this.

I am crocheting loads of these colourful circles which will ultimately be sewn onto a long cushion for my daughter’s bed.

Now by “long”, I mean long- think the width of a Queen-size bed and then the height of a standard pillow.

I got the idea when we saw one in a shop recently, but it was simply too expensive - especially since I could make it! I’ll be making the cushion up in a lovely natural fabric- almost the colour of burlap (hessian) – perhaps a little lighter. I think it will look gorgeous with all those colours.

I’m almost done with all the crochet circles, and just as soon as I’ve finished straightening out my ~~pigsty~~ studio and ~~found~~ got out my sewing machine, then I’ll whip up the cushion. My daughter is hoping it’s before she changes her mind again on her decor scheme! - Remember the “orange” decor ?– well that’s evolving (thankfully) into a more pleasing natural look finished off with these crocheted circles. Note- there is still splashes of orange in the circles –LOL!

After many a trial and error, I have finally figured out how to make these circles – (You’ll see some of mine aren’t ‘perfect’ – those are my trial and error ones which were kept anyway!! LOL). believe me, after you’ve made this many, you eventually figure it out!

If you would like to make these – here’s a tutorial how to crochet them :

(My first tutorial on crochet – so please forgive me if it’s not very clear- please ask questions if you need to!

If you click on any of the highlighted words, you’ll be redirected to a tutorial on how to do that particular stitch.

NOTE: In South Africa and the UK, we use the term Double Crochet instead of Single Crochet (US term). For the purpose of this tutorial, I’m going to refer to DC as SC – it’s easier as the tutorial I have found for you on the stitches refer to DC as SC. {hope that makes sense!}

I used a 4mm hook with Double knit yarn. (I think it was double knit- I’m no expert!-it’s just plain old ordinary wool – the thicker your yarn, the bigger your project will turn out.)

Crochet 6 chains.
Join into the first chain with a slipstitch to form a circle. Chain 1.
Crochet using SC into the ring as many times as you can. (Probably around 6-8). Join the circle with a slip stitch.
Chain 1.
Crochet into each chain twice using single crochet (This is how you increase stitches).
Join the circle again with a slipstitch into the first SC.
Add a new colour in. Chain 1.
Continue the next round with SC, but SC twice into every second chain. (First Row)This will ensure that your circle lies flat and does not curl up.
The next round, only increase into every 3rd stitch.
The round after that, increase into every 4th stitch –and so forth.
keep going until the circle is the size you would like. I have varied the sizes of my circles slightly and for further variation, here and there I’ve thrown in a row of DC (Treble – UK and RSA).

Remember : Join circle at the end of each round with a slipstitch and start each new round by chaining 1.

** NOTE : If there are too few or too many increases in a round, your circle will not lie flat. If it curls in, you have too few increases, if it buckles and gets wavy, you have too many increases.

There’s a really simple way to make an adjustable magic circle to start with – the circle is so much easier to control, especially in other projects when you need to add lots of stitches into a tiny centre circle. Watch the following video to see how:

Here is a video I just found (after writing this entire tutorial –LOL) which explains really well how to make a “magic circle” and how to do the slipstitch at the end of each round to join the circle. It also explains exactly how and where to increase each round. Easy Peasy! Go take a look – you will be able to learn exactly how to do this without having to read instructions!

What I love best about these circles is just when I start getting bored with my circle, it’s time to end it off and start a new one. LOL- Not much patience here ! Have fun!

Atc’s, Flowers, Birthdays–crafting bliss!

2010-11-21T21:39:00.001+02:00

Hi there!

I have been making things, crocheting things, printing things, and am planning on sewing things too! I haven’t blogged for ages as I’ve been keeping myself busy with all kinds of crafty creations.

First off, I started making some ATC’s – I joined an online class with Bonnie van Esch to find out more about making them. She had some really cute vintagey printables included in the class too – some of which you can see in my “ATC’s in progress” photos below…

Once I have a few completed, I’ll post some pics on Flickr and will let you know (for anyone wishing to do some swapping).

Then I also joined Bonnie’s awesome new self-paced class called “A Pocket full of Posies” . We’ve made 5 flowers so far – each one different to the other. Bonnie’s videos are super easy to follow and I eagerly await each new post to see what the next flower will be.

NOTE: You can join at any time as the class is totally self-paced. So pop on over and join us! It’s $15. I think there are around 12 classes.

Here’s one of my felt roses I made from her class which I popped on top of a facecloth cupcake: So cute!

Take a look here for instructions for folding the facecloth

I haven’t taken photos of the other flowers yet, but will do so soon.

The rain has also started (at last). Even though we’ve not had huge storms with loads of water yet, but it’s started and we’ve had a good couple of showers. This was our first Summer rain and I caught my son standing simply watching the big drops splashing on the paving outside.

Then, he simply couldn’t stand it any longer and when I looked again he was standing outside getting drenched! LOL!

Then I have some photos to share of my brother’s 40th birthday party. I made some cute cupcake wrappers and flags and food toppers.

They farm with chickens, so my sister-in-law decided to run with a chicken theme for fun. She had bought some paper napkins, so I scanned one and used that as inspiration as well as using the actual image for the cupcake wrappers. Don’t you just love those cute chickens on the cupcakes?

Birthday Party

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Then it was my dad’s 75th birthday. So I decided to host an elegant dinner party for 10 of his friends last Saturday. It was a surprise party and we managed to keep the secret so well that he didn’t even recognise his friends when he walked in the room! (He was told they were some of my husband’s colleagues from work).

Here are a few photos of the decorations. I made some cupcake labels and flags as well as treat bag toppers. The treat bags were just for fun as my dad absolutely loves liquorice – especially Liquorice Allsorts. I got the idea for the “eat me” treat bags from somewhere on the net. I can’t remember exactly where, so thank you to whoever gave me the idea!

Dinner Party

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I then made around 10 wine-glass lampshades for the table, continuing with the black and white vintage images. (Most of which came from Karen over at The Graphics Fairy) – click on her button on the right hand column here on my blog.

Although not very masculine, I guess, I added some vintage teacups on the table with roses floating in them nonetheless. The one below is actually very special as it comes from the tea set (which I still have) which my dad “gave” his mom when he was born 75 years ago in November 1935. When I was younger I thought the design was awful – now I love it! I love the unusual art-deco style and especially the black details. It’s very sentimental to me, so I never ever use it for fear of breaking something.

I often use tea cups as vases on my dinner table settings as they add colour and just the right amount of quirkiness.

Yesterday was Shannon’s year-end singing concert with the studio. She looked so lovely all dressed up that I simply had to take a photo. The dress for the evening for the performers was semi-formal, so she had to borrow a dress from her cousins. (I was not going to buy an evening dress for her that she would wear once for a couple of hours). The only problem I have is she looks so grown up when she dresses up like this! I think I prefer her usual shorts and tees! LOL!

Well that’s my lo…nnng story for this Sunday evening. Hope you have a lovely week full of loads of craftiness!

Wise words

2010-11-09T15:37:00.001+02:00

Today I received an email with this poem. I think it is so true, so I simply had to share it here on my blog.

It really makes one realise that there are simple things in life which we should never take for granted. Simple things that could make life a little easier perhaps…

Remember, if a dog was the teacher you would learn things like:
When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.
Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure Ecstasy.
Take naps.
Stretch before rising...
Run, romp, and play daily.
Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass.
On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.
When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.
Be loyal.
Never pretend to be something you're not.
If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by, and nuzzle them gently.

A little Christmas Spirit

2010-11-08T15:38:00.001+02:00

I have been seeing lovely floating snowflakes drifting down in blogland of late. Don’t you think it’s cute? It’s a great way to add a little Christmas spirit to your blog.

Now we have HOT Summer here over Christmas, but I still love snowflake ornaments on my tree and love the idea of a white Christmas. So to get me as close to a white Christmas as I’m gonna get this year- I visited this site:

http://bloggerstop.net/2008/12/add-falling-snow-flakes-flowers-leaves.html

And followed the very simple instructions for adding the widget to my blog. LOVE these little hints of Christmas floating all over my blog. Don’t you/

Online craft class…

2010-11-04T10:51:00.001+02:00

Hi there crafting friends. I just thought I had to tell you about an online self-paced class that is starting on 12 November 2010.

My blogging friend, Bonnie, is running a really fun class :

“A Pocket full of Posies”

She will be teaching the art of making various types of flowers from fabric, felt, crochet etc. I love the variety!

To find out more, click on the image below to be directed to her blog…

Please join me, I’m signing up!

Wineglass lampshades (& free printables!)

2010-11-03T13:13:00.001+02:00

Hi everyone,

I know I’ve been MIA for a while, but been busy busy! I’ve completed quite a few crafts, been oil painting like crazy and even got stuck into tidying up my (very messy) studio.

I recently discovered gorgeous wineglass lampshades in a local magazine. They are super easy to make and so cute when made up. They really add something so cute to a dinner table!

Cute huh? You like them? Well I have a little gift for you…

Three Printable wineglass lampshades!

Click on each of the images below to be redirected to a downloadable PDF document.

Instructions :

Print out onto light-weight cardstock
Cut out
Glue the sides together to make the lampshade shape – make adjustments as you need to fit your wineglass.
Now grab that glue gun and some trim (from a haberdashery store) and add a trim on the top and the bottom. Alternatively you can cut the edges with deckle (shaped) scissors just to zhoosh it up a bit. Personally, I find the trim just makes them look that little bit more professional.
Now place a tea light candle into the wineglass and pop your shade on top!

Remember- you can add flowers (silk ones, crochet ones etc), beads, felt shapes, well just let your imagination run wild!!

Now off you go – make some of your own!

Before I go – the graphics are courtesy of Karen of The Graphics Fairy. Thanks Karen!

Oh, and do leave a comment! I would LOVE to hear from you and in return visit your blog!

Cupcake Facecloth & some decor inspiration…

2010-10-18T09:40:00.001+02:00

Hi everyone, I have been in such a crafty mood of late! My family thinks I’ve lost it totally as each day I present them with one or other craft – be it a new crocheted square for a blanket I’m making or a bag full of wool for a tea cosy or these cute cupcakes.

On my recommendation my mom visited a new store in a mall near our home called “Succulent décor and café”. She came back gushing about it.

Now this store is what I would call fabulous! Two of my friends told me that when they saw it they thought it’s just my kind of shop. I would say it has a unique flea market style. They love to take old furniture and revamp it by painting it and/or re-upholstering it with some funky fabric in amazing colours.

They have the most amazing funky light fitting hanging at the entrance – it’s an enormous drum shade covered in pink fabric – it must be almost 1.5 metres in diameter! Then hanging from underneath it is, well, – stuff. All kinds of things – even a little kids tricycle, a teddy bear, large cups, a painted egg... quite strange, but so cute!

Have a look at their Facebook photos here – I find it totally inspiring, I just wanna go and do some serious crafting! (Though this is not unusual for me LOL!).

Anyway, I digress…. My mom saw some gorgeous cupcakes made from facecloths there and commented on what a cute little gift it would be if you added a soap with it. I had seen them too. So I decided I wanted to know how to fold the facecloth.

Out came my old friend “Google”…

And it lead me to this blog – Paola’s My {Creative} Place. (a fellow South African no less!). Paola has some great tutorials on all kinds of things – just check out the labels on the left column. Fun to browse around.

I watched her video on how to make these cute cupcake facecloths and they are really so easy and quick to do. Try it!

I made up a couple for two of my daughter’s friends having birthdays this weekend. I love giving teen girls a gift bag filled with girlie goodies for their birthdays. Lip gloss, a soap, some kind of jewellery, perhaps some hair clips, basically whatever I find. So these cupcakes are perfect!

My daughter chose the facecloth colours as she knew what her friends would like.

I rolled up the facecloths and popped them into a cute cupcake wrapper I had bought. And as my ‘cherry on top’, I found some red foil-covered chocolate balls – perfect – now they even get a chocolate to nibble on while they bath LOL!

I packaged them in clear cellophane tied with an organza ribbon and popped one into each gift bag along with a handmade soap, a charm bracelet and some lip gloss.

Thanks Paola for a great tutorial – so much easier than trying to figure this one out on my own!

Have a great week!

Veronica xx

I am linking up here:

Halloween @ our house

2010-10-12T08:20:00.001+02:00

A Last year we decided to have a fun Halloween evening for the kids. Although we don’t really do the Halloween-thing here in South Africa as much as it is done in the US, my kids have grown up with it {having cousins living in the US}.

We couldn’t go from house to house collecting sweet treats as unless it is organised in one of the estates, no one does it. In our previous home, we used to have trick or treating each year as the estate we lived in organised a fun evening for the kids and they could safely go from house to house collecting goodies.

In our new home, our estate is simply too big and the houses are too far apart for any trick or treating to take place.

So I invited some friends & family over and asked each family to set up an area in our garden {in the dark!} & equip it with some scary stuff & loads of candy so the kids could go do trick or treating. They had so much fun dressing up {and I had ~~equally as much~~ more fun designing invitations, the menu and decorating the table}.

Here’s the email invitation:

{digital elements from Weeds & Wildflowers design}

Here’s the menu…{just to clarify – we had hamburgers for dinner!}

{Can you see why I had more fun than the kids?} g

At the time I was so busy with the decorating, preparing the food and sorting out costumes for the kids that I didn’t take many photos of my decor. {And not good ones either!}.

My overly-dramatic and orange-obsessed pre-teen wacky-witch daughter (middle) with her cousin {who was dressed as a victim of some or other monster attack} and my daughter’s friend the other “wacky witch”:

{Gotta luv that face!!} d

My son and his best friends- taking the “vampire” thing a little far!:

The table – I unfortunately took this pic after the kids had destroyed it a bit, but you can get an idea. The balloon topiaries were made by tying 5 balloons together with ribbon and placing them on top of a dowel stick pushed into a pot filled with sand. The pot was wrapped with purple cellophane and to finish it off, I hung curly ribbons down from the balloons. “Easy peasy” and great for recycling for the next party – simply add new balloons & ribbon and in need, change the colour of the cellophane.

These little jack-o-lanterns were a cute idea for candles – but unfortunately not too well thought through! {Note to self here!} Flame + plastic = melted jack-o-lantern!! So I ended up with one candle becoming an orange blob which has now left a permanent stain on my sandstone counter top! {You live & learn!}

Eyeballs {plastic toys} floating in some punch…

The trick-or-treaters…

And now for a freebie…

I also made popcorn boxes decorated again with Weeds & Wildflowers’ cute digi Halloween elements.

I have a download for you of this popcorn box – so go ahead and grab it. Click on the picture to enlarge, right click and save.

Print out 2 copies onto A4 cardstock and cut them out.
Glue the two pieces together by gluing a side flap under one of the straight sides (matching the edges to get the box straight).
Glue the bottom flaps overlapping each other and glue the other side flap to the inside of the box. Easy!(

If you have any problems, send me an email or leave a question in the comments here – as I’m not sure if the picture will be the correct size. {If you have problems, I’ll load it on 4-shared this afternoon}.

{If you like the cute dingbats I’ve used in this post – they are a free font called “KR Boo Lane” – not sure, but I probably downloaded it from www.dafont.com – I LOVE their free fonts!}

Have a great Tuesday!

{Yippee- I’m off to art class now…} G

Customised Wine label artwork

2010-10-05T15:14:00.001+02:00

I have been bad with blogging of late. I can give many reasons, but few excuses LOL! Basically I’ve just been plain busy!

I recently received a subscription email from the CSI Project.

(One of many crafty places I subscribe to). Their latest challenge is to create something inspired by Ballard Designs. Now we don’t have Ballard Designs in South Africa, but if we did, I’d be there in a heartbeat!

I loved the cute wine cellar plaque here:

I just thought it was so sweet and love that it’s personalised. So I decided to create something similar for the challenge.

Here’s mine:

{sorry – not the greatest pics, but I didn’t want to use a flash and the lighting in the room was not too good}

And how I created it :

I had saved this cute vintage wine label from The Graphics Fairy ages ago and now got to use it! I edited it a little by taking out the original vineyard’s name.

I added “Hurly Vineyards” in uppercase Times New Roman Font to replace the winemaker’s name.

I then added a ‘rub-on’ action from Atomic Cupcake to the whole lot to age it even more.

I added part of an aged book background (please forgive me I can’t remember where I got it from).

I printed the artwork out on cardstock using the ‘borderless' printing option onto a sheet of cream-coloured A4 paper and voila (vwah-la!)!

I popped it into a dark wooden frame and it is now in it’s new home in our wine cellar/ movie room. Love it!

And I think this will make such a cute gift! ….mmmmm

(** Note to self : Christmas is just around the corner!)

Marshmallow Frosting

2010-09-16T18:22:00.001+02:00

I’ve been following The Creative Chick Parade over at The Girl Creative and am so enjoying all the various crafts being shared.

How it works is, you merely link up a craft you’ve created and posted about on your blog. It can be an old post or a new one, it doesn’t matter. You just have to link up to the theme for the day.

Well, today’s theme is recipes and I recently stumbled across a really yummy frosting for cakes. It works especially well on cupcakes. If you pipe it on, it stands up beautifully – much like soft serve ice-cream! And the taste… well it tastes just like gooey soft marshmallow fluff! {In South Africa we get Cadbury’s “Sweetie Pies” chocolates with this marshmallow goo inside – and this frosting tastes just like it!}.

4 large egg whites

1 Cup ordinary sugar (white or brown)

1 pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla essence

Place all ingredients except the vanilla essence into a bowl which you can place over a pot of simmering water.

{You could use a double boiler here instead}

Whisk the egg white mixture constantly over simmering water until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is hot to the touch. {It takes around 5 minutes}.

Pour the mixture into a bigger bowl and beat with an electric mixer for 3 minutes. {Add the vanilla while beating}. After 3 minutes, the mixture will be lovely and fluffy.

{I used my Kenwood food mixer}

I love using disposable piping bags – {or you could even use a plastic bag} without a nozzle, I simply piped straight out the end of the piping bag directly onto the cupcakes.

Don’t you love how they look – and so yummy!!!

Hope you try this recipe. It sounds like a bit of work, but really it takes very little time and effort and they are so easy to pipe as the icing is very soft and much easier to squirt out than buttercream.

Furniture make-over

2010-09-15T20:44:00.002+02:00

I love old things. {I guess if you are familiar with my blog you should know that by now huh?}. I wanted my studio to be really ‘shabby chic’ and vintage-looking, with lovely French and English style inspiration.
My studio is still a work in progress (it probably always will be LOL!), full of pretty things that are simply “me”, with splashes of my favourite colours, roses, vintagey objets d’art and loads of storage space {self-confessed hoarder here!!}. I needed a cupboard for my scrapbooking papers, but I didn’t want another dark wood cupboard like the one I already had; It would simply make the room too dark. I needed colour.
So here’s what I did…
I didn’t want to spend a fortune so I bought this pine “armoire” (mine was raw unfinished wood, not stained like this example).

I found this one with doors lined with wire mesh. Perfect! I then painted the entire cupboard in a pretty French-inspired “duck egg blue’.

Then I grabbed my trusty oil paints (Raw Umber) and mixed a little drop with some raw linseed oil. I rubbed it all over the painted cupboard, taking care to get into all the grooves to get an aged patina. As I applied the linseed oil mixture, I also rubbed some off with a cloth to ‘knock back’ and age the blue paint colour.
Once the painting was complete, I replaced the ordinary round wooden door knobs with a pair of old looking rings. (I removed them from the cabinet prior to painting).
I also wanted the contents of the cupboard to be protected from dust. So I measured the inside of the doors and grabbed some pink and white toile fabric I had in my stash and measured it to fit the inside of the doors to cover the mesh. I stitched a hem all around and stitched velcro tape at the top and bottom.
I then staple-gunned the matching velcro strip at the top and bottom of the mesh inside the cupboard, then attached the fabric inside.
Very important! You want to remember to attach the velcro to the RIGHT side of the fabric! {Not like me- not thinking! Too much of a hurry! – LOL - I had to undo my stitching and re-attach the velcro to the RIGHT side}. This is because you want to see the RIGHT side of the fabric through the mesh on the outside of the door.
I then hung two pretty flower and bead door tassels off the door handle rings to finish it off. I love how it turned out! {I never made the door tassels, but they actually would be so easy to make}.

I balanced little wooden words which I bought around 3 years ago in the USA (I think from Hobby Lobby) {knew I’d use them somewhere!} on the little ledge along the cabinet. The other two are “Love” and “Believe”. I stacked some vintage wooden Coca Cola crates on top to bring in a bit of the darker wood again.
Will post some more studio pics soon…

Veronica

Sew cute blouse to make!

2010-09-04T09:01:00.004+02:00

Spring is here! We haven’t quite packed away the winter woolies yet as there is always a chance of one of those pesky cold fronts moving up-country from the Cape. Heck, we’ve even had one in November! But oh boy it is good to be smelling jasmine & lavender and seeing a haze of bright Spring green everywhere outside and of course, being able to wear lighter and brighter summery clothes.
Today I discovered this really cute blouse pattern and just had to share as it is super-easy! Once you’ve purchased the pattern, it’s a case of downloading it and then reading the easy-to-follow instructions.
There is no actual pattern to print or cut out, you simply follow the measuring instructions and cut directly on the fabric and voilà! The blouse is called the “Amelia shirt” and is by Frogs Legs and Ponytails (love the name!)
Another great thing about this pattern is that you cam make it to fit any size. Make it for yourself, your daughter, or even a doll!
I love that tie at the neckline. It has arguably a little Anthropologie feel to it. (I love Anthropologie and we don’t even have shops here in this country {sob!!} I fell in love with it on our London trip in June and I am smitten! –Please if any Anthropologie marketers read this- please send a couple of stores out here to South Africa! LOL!)
So getting back to the Amelia blouse… If you also want this fab pattern, click on the picture and it’ll take you straight to the website…

Speaking of the website, there are so many gorgeous projects to tackle over at “You can Make This” that it’s worth staying a while and browsing. There’s even a “free’ section with loads of quick things to make.
I’m off to find some cute fabric to make this blouse and I’ll share a pic as soon as it’s done.
Have a great weekend, and also pop over to The Girl Creative to add your bloglink on New Friend Friday so you can join in the Party Blog- so much fun and a great way to bring people to your artsy crafty blog.

Spring Clean

2010-08-28T14:21:00.001+02:00

In view of the fact that Spring is just around the corner here in the Southern hemisphere, I decided that I need to do some Spring cleaning. A little clichéd maybe, but heck I really need to do some Spring cleaning around the house!

Over the next week or so I will also be re-designing my blog and giving it a fresh new look to go with our wonderfully warmer Spring weather. My {really*messy} studio will be getting a Spring-clean too & I’ll be posting some pics of it soon.

Today I started by designing a blog button for Pixels & Paperie which has been long overdue. So now you can grab my button over in the column on the right and post it on your blog. {I say this with those big kitty-cat eyes from Shrek –LOL!}. Seriously, I’d love it if you’d display my blog button in your sidebar. And if you would like me to do the same, leave me a little reminder in the comments here and I’ll reciprocate gladly.

So here’s the new button! And from this you can maybe get {just a little} hint as to what the new design on my blog might look like…

Hope you have a great weekend. I’m off to do some Spring cleaning…….

Free printable gift cards

2010-08-26T08:34:00.001+02:00

Well I don’t know how you feel, but I am just so happy it’s almost weekend again. I’ve not had too good a week. I haven’t been able to go to my art classes as my daughter has been ill with flu. All you creative junkies out there will know what it’s like to be art-deprived!

So instead of brushes, canvas and squishy oil paint, I opted for digital art this week and decided I liked the results too much not to share.

So here’s what kept me sane yesterday….

Hope you enjoy them!

(click on the image for a larger view, then right click to save the image)

{With special thanks to the Graphics Fairy & Karen Whimsy for their delightful vintage images}

Creativity unleashed…

2010-08-23T17:00:00.001+02:00

Lately I have been thoroughly enjoying all things creative. I have taught myself to crochet flowers (courtesy of a few websites), I’ve made organza flowers, made a few digital cards, I even did some gardening yesterday and today I made this…

I found this fun collage challenge HERE and decided to take part as I have been in the mood for some digital designing. The animal challenge was particularly fun as I had taken this photo of an elephant a few weeks ago up at the farm. I love how this photo came out SOTC (straight out the camera)…

I extracted the background and added it on top of 2 vintage paper images from The Graphics Fairy. I changed the blending mode to “Overlay” and added a little motif , also blended that with ‘overlay’ and added an “E” from a typography sample also from The Graphics FairyIt’s rather simplistic, but I like that – I think the ellie really stands out. When I print it, I’ll ink the edges by hand to give it even more of a vintage feel.

Talking about ATC’s & vintage, I received the gorgeous blog giveaway from Bonnie which I won over at her blog HERE. A couple of weeks ago she had a ‘blogaversary’ and chose a random comment and I won a whole bunch of goodies. They were all so beautifully wrapped and packaged and so pretty that I almost don’t want to use them. i think they’ll hang around in my little basket on my desk for quite a while before I get the courage up to use them.

Here’s a a photo:Thank you Bonnie!! (again!)

This weekend, I also made these cute flowers which I embellished onto two small bags and added a label made from another image from The Graphics Fairy. My nieces were visiting with their mom over the weekend while my brother went to the rugby (SA vs New Zealand). The girls loved their bags. I also crocheted cute flowers and finished them off with some flowers and buttons from my (very unused) scrapbooking stash and glued them onto plain alice bands.

So easy and such fun. Especially fun to see two happy little girls when they saw their surprises.

Pop around again soon as I’ll be sharing some pics of my gardening. My husband was so amazed that I actually got my hands dirty and planted something! Normally all I do is give instructions – LOL! So this was a momentous occasion!

Leave a comment – I’d love to hear from you!

Plumbago free digi kit & pretty flowers…

2010-08-20T20:42:00.001+02:00

Hi there! Well I know I have been AWOL for a while, and I really want to update my blog more often, but somehow I just don’t get here when I want to.

Well at least I have a freebie for today…

The rest of the Plumbago kit- yes you can complete the kit now!

Remember that you can use these papers and elements to print out for cards and other craft projects as well. They are not restricted to scrapbooking alone.

All are saved at 300dpi.

Note: For personal use/ scrap for hire use only. Not for commercial use.

Here are the final links to download the rest of this digital kit:

For the elements – click HERE

For the alpha, click HERE

Hope you enjoy them and do leave some love- I’d love to hear from you!

I’ve been having fun making some pretty organza flowers. I recently stumbled across a blog tutorial by Calamity Kim on how to make these. They are super easy and such fun to make. Each one ends up quite unique and i love combining unusual colours to create these shabby chic blooms…

I started off by wanting to make some to adorn a cushion for my daughter’s bedroom. She loves anything orange and wants an orange bedroom. I drew the line at painting the walls orange, as next week she may just want some other colour! (She’s 13 – need I say more?).

So I opted for orange soft-furnishings that will later be easy to change to turn the room into another kaleidoscope of colour.

We have used a charcoal grey, white bed linen, a silvery-grey throw and some orange scatters. I then added these fun organza and satin flowers to a shop-bought charcoal grey round scatter and this is the result:

I’ll take some pics as soon as the room is complete and share them here too.

It’s weekend now and tomorrow my brother & his family are visiting. My niece’s are so cute and so enjoy visiting here with my kids. I’ve made them each a little bag adorned with their own pretty handmade roses and in the bag, a headband with a matching organza flower.

I’m hoping to get some cute photos of them with their flowers in their hair.

I might even convince my kids to pose for the camera…mmmm wishful thinking (but, stranger things have happened! LOL!)

Hope you have a creative weekend….

More free stuff…

2010-07-26T10:34:00.001+02:00

Monday again today, and as usual it’s washing, tidying, all that kind of thing. Mondays for me are always busy somehow. But I guess, the start of a new week is like that for most people.

I have another download from my Plumbago digital scrapbooking kit for you today. So pop over HERE and download this file full of pretty elements for you to use.

Use them for Scrapbooking, cards, well just about any crafts. Just remember they are for personal use only though.

I still have a heap of Digital papers to share with you soon as well as some quick pages where all you have to do is add your photos and some journaling to create your own scrapbook pages.

I just have to tell you that I won the give-away from Bonnie which I posted about HERE. I am thrilled and absolutely cannot wait to see what arrives in the mail!

I’ve also been really good lately at keeping up with my Life365 photos. I am enjoying my photography and wish I had more time.

The Life 365 project certainly gets me inspired as there are so many talented photographers over there. You can join up anytime – you don’t have to go from January to January, in fact you can start anytime, and simply keep going. I have also skipped a good number of days, but hey, no pressure, I decided to just do what I can and keep up as much as life allows me to.

Go take a peek at my gallery and if you like the site, why don’t you sign up. And do let me know if you do, so I can ‘follow’ your photo uploads.

As I mentioned on Friday, Reece had an International evening at school on Friday evening and he had to dress in a Chinese outfit. He looked so cute. But boy did I have a hard time getting a photo of him!

He kept saying “Mom, this is the last one!”. I can never only take one photo (just in case that particular one is a flop), so of course I always always have to push the limits! He was so irritated with me – can you tell by the look on the face? LOL! Love it anyway! (Oh and the crinkled clothes – I wasn’t allowed to iron them! – I got a “stop fussing” look!).

Please leave a comment – I’d so love to hear from you!

A give-away….

2010-07-23T08:08:00.001+02:00

Here’s a fabulous give-away from Bonnie (Bouncing Bonbon). She has some awesome goodies. Pop over to her blog HERE to see what she has to offer.

I love all her digital stuff as well as her handmade goodies. So vintage & girly and pretty.

The offer ends today – so you must hurry up!!

It’s my son’s “International evening” at school tonight. He is so excited, (even though he won’t actually admit that). He talks constantly about it, keeps telling me where I need to sit to get the best view of his ‘performance’ and what he is wearing. Hopefully he’ll let me snap up some photos!

His grade are representing China, so he is wearing a Chinese outfit (haven’t seen it yet), but he says it is gold. He is playing music (symbols) with a few other boys, while others form the Chinese dragon & the girls are dancing.

It’s quite a fun evening. There are also food stalls with food from the countries represented by the 6 grades. So we get to buy dinner there too. Yay – no cooking for me tonight!

Hopefully I’ll have some photos to post here tomorrow!

Free Digital Scrapbooking goodies….

2010-07-22T09:58:00.001+02:00

Hi there,

I have some free digital scrapbooking goodies for you to download. I have decided to give away one of my old kits which I so enjoyed designing and still love.

Plumbago.

The first giveaway is available HERE for you to download. I will be giving away the rest of the kit too, so do pop in and grab the rest of the files. It’s a mega kit with loads of pastel papers, oodles of pretty elements including a vintage fairy which I hand-coloured, and a hand-drawn mushroom border.

Hope you enjoy it!

Never will I tire of London… & cruising is just my thing!

2010-07-15T10:04:00.001+02:00

Well we are home now for just over a week already and I still am coming back down to earth! Our holiday was so much more fun than we even expected. We left on 21 June for London. We arrived to the most perfect weather - hot and sunny for the full 5 days we were there. 20 Years ago when we were there last, it was so cold we had to go buy warmer clothes. So this weather was fabulous!

The hotel arranged a shuttle service to collect us at Heathrow and we were in the hotel within an hour. We had chosen The Athenaeum Hotel on Piccadilly Street as they have apartments as well as the usual hotel rooms. The apartments are fabulous for families as they have a small (miniscule actually), but fully equipped kitchenette with Nespresso machine, washing machine/tumble drier (soap included), fridge/freezer, stocked with cold drinks, and snacks in a basket which all gets replenished daily.

We waited for our room for around an hour as we had got there really early, but we enjoyed coffee and hot chocolate with pastries in the Garden Room. This room is also where you can have afternoon tea (English-style). Really beautifully decorated in an eclectic style where old meets new and shades of cream , orange and brown predominate. Albeit rather expensive on our South African budget, we still really enjoyed our welcome coffee.

Our apartment was simply gorgeous. Decorated in a traditional English style with pressed ceilings, solid doors and pretty furnishings. The views were of the quaint street (Down Street) below, where the entrance to our apartment building was.

The kids had a sofa bed in the lounge, and we had a separate bedroom with ensuite. There was also a niche off the lounge with a breakfast table and chairs. The kids were spoilt with milk & cookies every night. The cookies were in the shape of the little bird which is the Athenaeum’s logo. So this was our home from home for 5 nights. So perfect!

Our first day, once we had checked in, we were exhausted, so we unpacked, had a shower and relaxed a bit in the apartment while the kids played Wii games which were provided in the apartment. The Wii & DVD’s turned out to be a real blessing as the kids could occupy themselves while we read or planned our next day.

Our first afternoon we spent at Harrods, which was a quick minute walk from our hotel. The kids loved Harrods, and we ended up going back twice more! Shannon & walked there one afternoon to buy her “Edward” doll (from Twilight) & then we went back on our last day just for fun as we enjoyed it so.

The next morning we headed for the Hop-on-hop-off bus and did a round trip of London. It took almost three hours. Reece got a bit bored in the end, only perking up when he saw a landmark he recognised. Before we left, I had shown them some pictures in the travel guide I had bought, so they had fun finding the famous sights they recognised.

After the bus trip, we got off at Piccadilly Circus and headed for Hamley’s. Reece was in awe! Although Shannon, at 13, is no longer keen on toys, she still enjoyed seeing the variety and she insisted on a Hamley’s bear as she already had adopted the one in our room at the Athenaeum. Reece bought a remote-controlled helicopter which is so cute. It is virtually unbreakable too- which is a bonus, since the last one he had didn’t last two flights! Leon was they main instigator in buying the helicopter – he was back to his childhood in the boy’s toy department & I honestly think he had more fun than the kids!

After Hamley’s we found an English pub and enjoyed yummy fish ‘n chips in good ole British tradition for a late lunch. The English soccer team was playing that afternoon in the World Cup, so there was a great atmosphere in the streets too. We even heard someone blowing a Vuvuzela outside!

We flopped into bed that night fairly late as the sun only set at 10.30pm so going to bed when it was still daylight didn’t feel quite right.

On Thursday, we caught the underground to Waterloo Station and from there caught a train to Windsor (Windsor & Eton-riverside) to finally board a shuttle bus for Legoland which is situated just outside the quaint village of Windsor.

Can you tell that Reece enjoyed his day at Legoland? He had such fun. We found it to be geared more toward smaller children, but Reece enjoyed it nonetheless as Lego is his all-time favourite pass time. The “Big Store” at the entrance to Legoland, was our final stop and of course, he had to buy a couple of things. We had to keep the shopping to a minimum as we still had so much more to see and do and we were worried about our suitcase weight going home. I wouldn’t dash back to Legoland again. I feel we could have rather enjoyed the day in London, or even Windsor itself, but for Reece’s sake, it was worth going.

Our last two days in London were spent walking the streets, the parks, going to Buckingham Palace (which was a short walk through Green Park away from the hotel), and eating and eating and eating! We were spoilt for choice when it came to restaurants and pubs and we really enjoyed the quaint area two blocks from our hotel called “Sheperd’s Market” which was named after Edward Sheperd who built it in the mid 18th century. During the 17th century, the annual May fair was held on this site and hence the name of the area, Mayfair. We ate at a little Italian restaurant the one night and then again at “L’Autre” which serves Polish and Mexican food.

If you have 9 square metres of space, you can set up a restaurant here! Even the narrow sidewalk can accommodate a teeny table for two. The Kings arms pub looked like this every night. I guess it’s a local hangout after work – and everyone simply stands outside, drink in hand having a chat.

I don’t think anyone believes me when I say we spent 5 days in London and did not put a foot inside a museum, church, palace or art gallery! And yet we had a ball! We simply took in the sights, sounds and smells of the city. The kids shopped, stood with their mouths open in awe & devoured ice-cream, Leon became the English gentleman by shopping in the fabulous men’s outfitters on Jermyn street in Piccadilly and I loved the architecture, the culture and simply absorbed it all!

These photos are the outside of the hotel with the “Garden” growing on it, called the Living Wall. It has living plants growing all the way up the outside corner. Every time we walked past, there was someone taking a photo of it!

Green Park:

My favourite shop : Fortnum & Mason:

The Stafford hotel where we had dinner in the fabulous American bar…

From Green Park’s Queen’s Walk, (next to the Ritz hotel) we crept through this little tunnel to a small side street with an entrance to The Stafford Hotel. All part of the fun! Thanks to my SIL, Denise, for the recommendation. The ceiling of the pub is decorated with flags, caps, ties and all sorts of things (read bra’s – LOL!) which have been left there over the years by the patrons. The bar has a multitude of pictures & memorabilia on the walls, many signed, by famous actors, musicians etc. Apparently this was also a favourite party place for the late Diana, Princess of Wales. So much history here!

Sir Winston Churchill once said :

“When you are tired of London, You are tired of Life”

We can’t wait to go back!

As for cruising… that’s another blog post….coming soon!

Busy as a Bee

2010-06-05T08:31:00.001+02:00

Yip that’s been me of late. We’ve almost come to the end of our HUGE painting job of our house. It has now been 4 weeks and they still have 3 rooms left inside to paint as well as my parent’s cottage. While they’ve been here I have felt like we’re camping in our own house and frankly living in a huge mess and it seems like forever. In fact, though, the painters have been more than professional and done an amazing job. So I am thankful for that. They have been here so long that they feel almost part of the family LOL!

Scaffolding outside my bathroom window:

Looking down onto the lounge {aka store room}which has been piled high with cushions, ornaments and paintings from other parts of the house:

The entrance hall, draped with cover sheets and scaffolding.

{You can see the lighter paint colour on the back wall vs the previous darker colour from before. I’m loving the brighter colour!} :

Looking towards the entrance hall from the upstairs landing. The pillar still has the previous colour on it.

Shannon also started with exams this week, so I have to fetch her straight after her exam ends, which is normally between 10h30 and 11h00, so that disrupts my morning of washing curtains, clothes, and trying to move back into the completed rooms. We normally get back and after a bit of a break {read : playing SIMS}, I sit down with her {in the kitchen as her study is full of stuff from the guest bedroom} and try to help her study. I actually think I’d get an A if I had to go write her exams as I know the work better than she does!

I also have finally got Shannon in at Crawford College for next year. After much deliberating, we finally decided it would be worth the travelling and have enrolled her. After a tour of the school, an entrance exam and an interview, a deposit has now been paid and I must simply submit her forms on Monday – but she is in! At least she will now have the opportunity to take music as a subject and she could even do drama or French (amongst others), so she has a wider subject choice for High school- so pleased that’s finally done and dusted. Now I just have to sort Reece’s schooling out….decisions, decisions!!

I’m still busy getting everything done for our trip to Europe – two weeks to go !! Yay!! We still are getting our documents together for the visas – we need double of everything as we need a British and Spanish visa for each of us. {Where are the days we didn’t require visas for the UK!!?}. Today I must submit the UK visas online and also book Legoland tickets. We have promised Reece {aka Lego-boy} that we’ll spend a whole day in Legoland Windsor and I believe getting tickets online really saves time in queues.

Speaking of Reece- on top of all this, he has had flu this week and has been in bed for four days! It simply never ends.

So yesterday I decided it was time for a new digital layout and release some stored creativity. Here it is :

I enjoyed playing around with these photos and love the colours here. I think blue is now my official favourite colour!

So there’s my life in a nutshell at the moment. I love being busy, it keeps my head on straight, makes me feel complete and makes me happy. Though I have to admit I can’t wait to get the house back to some semblance of normality …

Autumn, Franschhoek & Red roses…

2010-05-05T08:35:00.001+02:00

Wow, what a weekend. We flew down to Franschhoek on Friday morning to attend Jay & Phillip’s wedding. As usual things were rather rushed, but we made the flight easily and arrived in Franschhoek at around 3pm. The first thing that struck me was how Autumn had cloaked the countryside in it’s colourful splendour. The old oak trees lining the roads looked magnificent in red, orange and gold. And the vines were touched with the same glorious warm colours. This was our first visit in the Autumn, and although there was a cool wind, the sun still had retained some of it’s Summer warmth. It really is beautiful to visit here in the Autumn.

We stayed with Rika & Neal in a cute little apartment in the Ivy Apartments. Beautifully decorated in a clean, contemporary style. Friday evening we had dinner at Col’cacchio’s which was conveniently just across the street. I was unfortunately being hassled by a filling which had come out and my rough tooth was scraping against my tongue. So I didn’t enjoy my food too much the entire weekend. Not pleasant I can tell you!!

Saturday morning we walked a bit around the shops and then got ready for the wedding. Jay was a little more than customarily late. (and hour and a 1/4!) But we enjoyed teeny milkshakes in shot glasses and a small jazz band outside the chapel and took in the beautiful gardens of the Franschhoek Inn.

The Chapel was all white, with clear perspex slatted chairs with black cushions. The Aisle was draped with wide white paper printed with words from sms’s and emails the couple had sent each other with scattered red rose petals printed in between. This was so striking and so unusual! The front of the chapel was twinkling with countless candles. So pretty.

Against all this, Jay walked in in a stunning red ball-gown wedding dress.

The reception was held in Le Verger, the hotel’s restaurant. A really beautiful setting. Having only 35 guests, we all sat at a long banquet-style table draped with a silvery grey cloth, thousands of red roses and teaming with tiny tealights. Then from the ceiling, hung red wineglasses, which caught the candlelight beautifully. We were provided with small scissors with which to cut the wineglasses down should we want to drink water. Such a cute idea!!

The food was delicious (despite the ache in my mouth!!) and we thoroughly enjoyed our evening with our friends. Oh, I almost forgot to mention the cake! Really stunning! It was around 5 layers, tiered from large to small. Topped with a black icing bow. Each layer looked like it was about to topple over and each one was decorated in a different pattern in red, white and black. To me the entire wedding had a contemporary baroque feel to it. Just my thing!

We left for the airport at 09h30 Sunday morning, having not been able to see much more of Franschhoek or take any good photos. Instead, I had to settle for taking some quick shots out the car window. I also couldn’t take photos at the wedding as we were asked not to take cameras. I couldn’t resist taking a few shots with my phone just so I could show Shannon how pretty everything was. I’m hoping Rika sends me a few or posts some on Facebook.

Now back to our usual weekly routine. Tomorrow is Shannon’s audition for the SA Talents Competition, so she has some practising to do this afternoon. This afternoon I’ve managed to grab an appointment at the dentist thankfully due to a cancellation they had. So I am relieved!!

Under Construction

2010-04-27T09:58:00.001+02:00

I am finally 'getting it'! Blog designing is not rocket science once you learn to play around a bit. I enjoy making use of Blogger's basics and getting it to do what I want! One of which is the Navbar I've finally figured out how to do. So go ahead and start clicking to be redirected to specific areas on my blog. Watch this space as I'll be upgrading it it soon now that I've figured out how to get it there!

I'm still busy with the Blog Design course "Bling up your Blog" at the Little Light Studio. What fun! I love this creative site. Kayla Aimee and Wilna are really talented and artsy and explain everything so well - so go one and click on their button which you'll find in the left side-bar of my blog.

Do pop in again to see how my blog changes as it is still Under Construction!

This weekend we went away to Buffalo Thorn Lodge in the Pilanesberg near Sun City. This was our second visit and we really enjoyed it. The accommodation was superb and the kids had fun with their cousins. The highlight was finding a pride of 5 lionesses having their lunch! They had caught a Wildebees, we estimate around 2 hours before we saw them, and were devouring the last of it. They weren’t too keen on the vehicle and the one dragged the carcass further into the long grass where they could eat in peace. Fortunately we could still see them when they stood up.

One thing we decided after our visit is that we are so spoiled at Olifants being able to drive around when we choose and also the landscape there is so beautiful , nothing can compare in our humble opinion.

The weather lately has been cold and wet to say the least! We have had such a lot of rain, so unusual for late April. At Buffalo Thorn, getting there was quite a feat! Take a look at the car!

We literally drove sideways in parts! The mud got into the rims of the wheels and the car shuddered all the way home each time we exceeded 90km/hr! So now we’ll have to have the tyres removed and cleaned out. At least we got some real mud on the “Rangey” which normally only sees city driving with the odd pothole here and there!

Today is a public holiday and Leon’s sister, Denise is visiting from the USA so his mom and Denise are coming to us for lunch. The weather is still cold and wet – real comfort food weather! So I think we’ll have a roast chicken with potatoes & veg (which Leon has offered to cook! Yay!!) and I’ll follow it up with good old-fashioned South African Malva Pudding…

Hives!

2010-04-21T22:27:00.000+02:00

Poor Reece has been ill in bed since Monday. He started with a sore throat on Sunday, then got slightly worse by Monday, so I kept him at home. He then developed a cough and runny nose. This morning, his 3rd day at home, he had earache and then wammo - hives! He looked really weird! At first I thought - fleas!! So off came all the bedlinen and into the wash and new clean ones put on all the beds. But then the 'flea bites' got bigger, seemed to appear closer together and for weir welts. He was so itchy. His skin had red patches with raised welts and his face and neck were very red. Even his eyes swelled up and were red. Then he started shivering, only to tell me that he wasn't cold, he was scared! Poor liitl guy was really worried about himself!
I got hold of our friend, Piet, a Paediatrician, and he told me it's a reaction to sinus or the virus he has. So he gave me a prescription for 4 different meds he has to take. By this afternoon he was looking so much better and the hives were only visible on his legs a bit by this evening. Thank goodness that's over! Even I've been 'itching' all day from just looking at him!

A little sparkle of light....

2010-04-21T19:57:00.000+02:00

Hi there again. You may have noticed a few changes going on at my blog of late. I'm taking a course at the Little Light Studio on blog design. I have already learnt so many shortcuts! I used to design my blog with such difficulty and, I have now discovered, the very l--o---n---g-- way round! This site is fabulous! Wilna (ex pat South African) & Kayla Aimee have started this website for giving various classes relating to Blog design, scrapbooking, digital scrapbooking etc. There are quite a few free lessons too which is an added bonus! So do pop in over there & take a peek at this awesome website!

It’s been a while…

2010-04-14T12:33:00.001+02:00

Hi there! It seems time has simply slipped by and I have not blogged in 3 months! I really have to get my act together!

Well April is upon us and so is Autumn. Today there seems to be a crisp nip in the air. If you're in the sun it's a glorious day though. Bright blue skies and sunshine are abundant!

We've spent 2 weekends at Olifants since our trip in December/ January. Both were fabulous! In Feb we spent the weekend there with my son's best friend & his family. We had a mid-term break from school, so we had a good long weekend to enjoy in the bush.

Grey Roller

Fondly called “Ronald” by the kids. They were horrified by the lack of dental hygiene!

The boys looking for pretty rocks on the road.

Reece & Ethan

Two lionesses keeping hungry eyes on a giraffe. {The giraffe lived to see another day}.

Croc on the banks of the Olifants river

Ellie on the banks of the river.

Lazy lionesses in a dry riverbed

Reflections on the water at Hide dam

Our second visit this year was with Leon’s brother, Graham & his family. We tried out different routes this time, hoping to find some lions. We heard them, others saw them, but we missed out [this time!}. The weather wasn’t perfect, it rained a bit and there was a bit of wind. So I think this played a part in not much game being about.

We drove down towards Rhino plains this time and enjoyed the Candelabra trees- so unusual! The farm was also full of spider webs inhabited by these Golden Orb spiders. Which are apparently {and thankfully} not harmful to humans. We drove through a good few webs and had these not-too-friendly looking creatures land upon us in the cruiser! Eek! Rozanne & Graham were horrified to see me grab one by the legs and throw it out the car. Afterwards I thought it may not have been such a wise decision! LOL!

such

Candelabra trees

Golden Orb Spider

We also managed to spot 4 cheetahs , though they were around 20m in from the road and hidden behind some shrubbery. Had it not been that another car had been there and they showed them to us, we probably would have driven straight past. We could see them when they moved and at one stage the one stood up. Well we got to see their spots and I got one okay-ish photo.

This is a HUGE Kudu bull we came across, but being so shy he kept to safer ground behind the bush, so I only managed to snap this one shot which wasn’t too bad.

The Kudu lilies down at Moolman’s airstrip were beautiful and seem to favour this area as there were quite a few large bushes.

Well that’s about all from the bushveld for now.

Here’s a layout I recently did of Reece & Ethan hanging off the roll-bars in the landcruiser. I love their happy faces here. I did this for the Sprague Challenge over at Jessica Sprague

I’ve subscribed to JS for ages now and always enjoy reading her (almost daily) newsletters. I’ve also been trying to do one of the photography courses there by Candice Stringham, but each time, either we’re away on holiday at the time it’s offered, or like last time, with the time difference, by the time I got to apply, the class was full! So I am determined to be there for the next one!

I was so excited recently when I got the wonderful news that she was looking for new Creative team members. So I simply had to try…. I would love to be a part of the Spraground Team!

Here are the other the layouts I entered:

This one is a new one I did specifically for the CT Search. Love the camera angle. {I just happened to be sitting behind them}. Reece loves driving the cruiser at Olifants, and it’s perfect as it is so safe and quiet for him to drive on the roads.

Here are the other 2 layouts:

This was from our trip last year in April to Cape Town.

This one is of Reece in June last year. He looked so cute with his shirt pulled out and his tie half down, that I had to snap a photo when he got back from school. He always gets back from school looking like he’s been playing a rugby match all morning! Often full of dirt on his white shirt and his shirt out, shoes often off and remnants of his lunch somewhere on his face.

So that’s where I’m at at the moment. My daily photos haven’t been kept up, but I’ve decided to take what I can and try to keep up as much as possible. Some weeks are better than others, but that’s my Life365.

April is birthday month in our house, so I’ll post some pics on my next post. This one is already getting to be far too long and I need to go fetch the kids shortly. Chat soon…

LIFE 365 2010

2010-01-09T16:21:00.001+02:00

I have decided to try doing Project 365 again this year. Last year, I lasted until we went away on holiday in April. This year- well, let's see, I plan on seeing it thru to 31-12-2010!

To keep track of my daily photos, I joined this fabulous site: www.365project.org
Here you can load your daily photos and at the same time gain inspiration from the thousands of uploads. There are also weekly themed competitions which really help for photographic insiration. Then there are tutorials highlighting interesting techniques you can try with your camera. I love it!
To view my daily photos, simply click below :

LIFE365_2010-week1_web by veronica · 365 Project

2009-12-29T06:34:00.002+02:00

Bushveld New Year…

Wow, it’s almost time to say goodbye to 2009! I can’t believe the time has gone by so quickly. We’re off to Olifants again tomorrow until Saturday. We’re going to see in the New Year in the bushveld. What a perfect place! Here are a few pics from our last visit :

Tree in flower outside our front door

Tawny eagle

bushveld nursery

Just managed to catch a half-open mouth on film

wildflowers

rare cold day

a rear {rare}sight

This was some dirt being thrown up at us as we passed a hole on the side of the road:

turned out to be:

Mommy & daddy warthog protecting their 7 little ones.

Mom forgot the spoons for the jelly!

Shannon the hairdresser’s handy-work. Reece loved it!! Just call me ‘spike’.

TTFN!