Joy!

I enjoyed putting together my layout for this week so much!

It is a celebration of different paper and techniques with a lot of work involved and I am so happy with the result 🙂

The wall with the door on the right page is an idea that I scrap-lifted from a Christmas card by Shelley Hickox.  The blue buttons echo the colour of the bird in the bird-cage.

Pinterest is such an inspiration and the idea for the Christmas tree is an example that I found on one of Alisha’s Pinterest boards.

The rest added itself onto the page and I had trouble tearing myself away and declaring the layout finished!  I love the look of the gold foil on the bird cages, ‘house’ and Christmas trees.

As you can see, there is a lot of work involved in this layout so put on your big-girl scrap-panties and come scrap on Saturday!

How do I measure the things I love

Problem is…I have a wandering mind and being a Gemini the measure I use today for something I love is not the same one I will use tomorrow 🙂

I love life and only realised last week the influence that my love of life has on my grandchildren.  On the weekend of 19 October the weather bureau issued a warning for severe thunderstorms and many of us suffered serious losses because of the extreme hailstorm that buffeted Gauteng. We were in the mountains with Kobus and Alisha where we also had a terrible thunderstorm with hail and a flood that scared me silly!

We were like children when the rain stopped and couldn’t wait to see what the stream we have to cross on our way home looked like.   Alisha and I ventured into the calmer water at the edge of the stream because Kobus wanted to take a picture.  The water was freezing because of the hail and I couldn’t stand still.  My feet were burning because of the cold and I made a fuss (Kobus said I was doing a rain dance).  The picture was taken with a cell phone so the quality is not that good but just look at that face!

Because we pick our drinking water up directly from the stream the water in the holding dam was muddied and we had to let it run clean.  I tried to open the flush valve by leaning over the edge of the deck but couldn’t reach it.  I gritted my teeth and stretched a bit more… and cracked the rib that was pressed against the sharp edge of the deck!  OUCH!!! 😦

Needless to say, I was very sore when we got home and didn’t move about much.  The kids couldn’t understand why I was so subdued and when they saw the video of me dancing in the water, Frans said ‘Now that is the ouma Marie I know!’  I was still loving life – but in slow motion 🙂

Our layout this week is about the things we love.  I love being creative – be it scrapbooking, handcraft, crochet, knitting- whatever I have an urge for at any given time.  Family is another of my great loves but one layout cannot picture everything I love.  Mmmm, maybe that calls for a new project?

I used ‘Hands’ from 7G’s Off the Wall collection on a Nightmist (Bazzill Basics) background.  Because I had two printed pages I could play to my heart’s content and apart from the two faux folders I made a large envelope and tore it in half after folding it to create pockets for tags.  Two small closed envelopes feature on the right page.

A card with a few nik-naks are held together with 7G elastic and a measuring tape trim.

I used Tiny Text from Cosmo Cricket on the tags, envelopes and on the background.  And…wait for it…film negatives for good measure 🙂 🙂

That is what I will keep you busy with on Saturday.  Cannot wait to show you some of the projects we are working on for the Platinum Market when we scrap on Saturday.  Patience…

It all begins and ends with family

On Saturday we had a huge get-together for my brother’s and his wife’s sixtieth birthdays this year.  All his brothers and sisters and all her brothers and sisters were there with some of their children – I would guess about 100 people!

Here is our bunch:

My sister and her husband (in the insert) unfortunately had to leave early and missed out on the family picture.  We caught up on all the news and had a family meal together on Sunday before everybody returned home.

The eight of us who went on the Namaqualand tour regaled the others with all our beautiful memories and what do you know – the next tour is being planned now.  I don’t know where or when yet, all I know is that I want to get on the road and make some more memories with my family 🙂

I used some pictures that we took at the West Coast National Park at Langebaan on our recent trip for my layout this week.

The paper is from DCWV and I hope you will love the flocked paper as much as I do.  The two pockets in the bottom corners of the layout were taped onto the background with 7G paper tape and provided space for tags that I used for journaling.

The chipboard wings were painted red and matted on dotted cardstock.  The word ‘beautiful’ came from a 7G card and were also matted on the dotted cardstock.

I used cotton twine to fasten a metal charm to one of the pictures as well as for a photo corner on the main picture on the left page.

It all begins and ends with family and I look forward to getting together with my scrapping family on Saturday 13 October!

 

Special memory

The sun was setting in a haze of yellow while lazy waves rolled onto broken shells with a rhythmical shhhh…

We were sitting on the wooden stairway leading to the beach at Leentjiesklip (Langebaan) eating fish and chips with our fingers.  An icy south-western wind tried to drive us into the cars like the rest of our entourage but we refused to budge.  What a memory!

Needless to say, back at our tent with the wind still blowing strong I had to make myself two hot water bottles and got under the covers to warm myself up.  Frans and I looked at the pictures on the camera’s screen with the voices of the others talking and laughing in the neighbouring tent.  That’s how I fell asleep on 3 September 2012 – totally content surrounded with loved ones and knowing that I had beautiful pictures to enhance a special memory!

BoBunny’s Weekend Market Combo sticker and alphabet sheet matched the colours of my pictures exactly and it inspired me to create this layout:

Can you imagine a more beautiful end to a special day?

The paper with the blue and white chevron stripes is from My Mind’s Eye and the reverse side of the paper looks like journal paper.  I love how it fits in with may layout 🙂

I used the alphabet to create words that compliment the pictures.

Blue Distress Ranger Ink and a script stamp transformed the letters into grungy words and tied it in with the blue background.  Manilla tags dyed with walnut ink were treated to numbers with the script stamped on them as well as stickers and parts of stickers.

I am looking forward to scrapping with you on 29 September 2012 and would love to show you more of the beautiful pictures we took during our tour of Namaqualand and the West Coast!

 

Off to the wild wild west coast

I was overwhelmed with the beauty of Goegap Nature Reserve in Springbok where the spring flowers were blooming abundantly at the time.

We had only a week to explore this beautiful part of our country and I think that our stay in the Honnehokke in Hondeklipbay was the highlight of it all.  Never in my life will I forget this vista as we crested a hill on the Groenspoeg 4×4 route.

Now, only four years later, we are even more privileged to tour the Northern Cape and this time the Western Cape as well with three of my siblings and their spouses.  I cannot wait and am busily making lists and gathering recipes for long nights around a campfire.  Yes!  We are going to camp this time and we have anxiously been watching the long-term weather forecasts to find out what we can expect.  Several cold fronts have rolled in during the past weeks and several more are forecasted but that doesn’t scare us.

Our tent is now equipped with a lining that can be clipped on and off as needed and I really hope that it will make a difference to the temperature inside the tent (not only because I like to sleep snugly, but also to prove to my husband that it WILL make a difference 😉 )

I’m signing off now to pack and prepare but I will hopefully share beautiful pictures of our family camping trip with you when we return.

Watch this space…

Steampunk

I have been thinking about doing a scrapbook layout with a steam punk theme since I bought 7G’s lovely steam punk rub-ons (it’s been a while now).

Several weeks ago the layout started out with black and white paper but that didn’t make me happy, so I put it away and took it out again a few days later.  Adding red paper, I tried my hand at it again but that also didn’t please me and I had to pack up once more 😦  Sigh…

When I took it out last week I resolved not to put it away until it was completed.  This time I added Mail Room from Bo Bunny’s Et Cetera range with red and mustard in it and ta-da!  The heavens opened and the angels sang 🙂

The steam punk graphics are printed on old library cards to add extra detail and lends itself to a strong, masculine layout.  The red paper on the top border is from FabScraps and the black and white print is 7G’s Old Newspaper Print.

The three embellishments were created by cutting them out of the Bo Bunny paper and covering it with dimensional glaze.  The steam punk rub-ons cover white space on the left page and I used it on the border, above the border and even on the paper tape on the right page.

The pictures of Kobus on his quad bike matched my layout perfectly and I love how the blue sky in some of the pictures provides a nice contrast to the mustard and red.

Keep warm this week and come scrap and bond on Saturday 18 August!

Snow bowl

All warm and fuzzy inside I looked out at snowflakes feathering down on my garden.

That’s what I did yesterday – I tried hard to concentrate on my work but couldn’t help myself.  Every time the snow started again I just had to get up and stare in amazement.  Pictures cannot do it justice but I have to share one with you and I bet every South African who experienced the snow yesterday will get warm and fuzzy inside while looking at it!]

It felt as if I was inside a snow bowl with magic all around me 🙂  After a little while the plants started looking like this:

Snow on blue salvias

When the kids came home from school they had a ball dancing in the falling snowflakes:

Secretly, everybody who played in the snow yesterday had let their inner child free to enjoy the snow with abandon!  The children even dragged great-grandma out to pose with them:

It was very special for her to be able to enjoy the spectacle with her great-grandchildren. Hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did and looking forward to scrap with you on 18 August 2012!

How lucky can a man be?

Riani recently took the beautiful pictures that I used on my layout for Saturday.  With four gorgeous ladies sharing his life I believe this man is in seventh heaven 😉

The stickers and letters are from Bo Bunny’s Country Garden range and I used an assortment of flowers with it.  A few blue pearls here and there on the layout complete the embellishments.

I used two of the smaller tags pinned together with a safety-pin inside a sticker frame to complete a block of four squares.

I cannot wait for spring (even though we still have to get through August and the wind and dust…) and am excited to report that my jasmine started flowering – almost a month earlier than in 2011!

Looking forward to scrapping with you on Saturday 🙂

 

Enough is enough!

I want to share this piece of wisdom from Studio Self with you today.  You do not have to bully yourself about the things you do not get done.  You do not have to beat yourself up because you do not always manage to keep the peace and keep everybody happy.  You do not have to worry because you do not live up to other’s expectations.  You are enough – and enough is enough! Amen

I have struggled with the winter blues over the past weeks and then a clever daughter of mine sent me an e-mail with ‘enough is enough’ and it lifted my spirits immediately.  Hope it also helps you with whatever situation you are in now and give you the boost you need to believe in yourself again 🙂

Putting together my layout for Saturday’s class made me happy because I love Kraft paper as a background.  Most printed paper you can think of will work on Kraft paper because of its muted colour.  the double page layout for this week is about family and I combined 7G and Fancy Pants paper on the Kraft background.

The tags started out as ordinary post office tags but when I got my hands on my Ranger distress stains the colour changed dramatically.  I used a few colours to get the effect I wanted and when they were dry I stamped onto the tags with Crafty Individuals stamps.

A variety of metal embellishments – that I coloured with alcohol ink to get the right colour – add interest to the tags.  If you look closely you can see that the crown has the same aqua colour of the embroidery thread that I used to make cross-stitches in various places on the layout.  Embroidery thread always adds warmth and a homely feel to a layout (I promise I don’t use it to irritate you Lorraine 😉 )   I love the rich colours of the trims that complement the papers beautifully.

So come and play with me on Saturday and together we will drive the winter blues away!

Winter solstice

I realise that:

We haven’t seen the last of the cold weather

We are in the deep, dark throes of winter

Longing for spring is wishful thinking

The fruit trees need the cold weather to flower and bear fruit again

We haven’t seen the end of the flu season…

But winter solstice has come and gone and I am overjoyed by the thought that we are looking at the last few weeks of winter 😉

Keeping my thoughts positive helps to distract me from the winter blues and that is why I chose the ‘T is for Top Ten’ 97% complete sticker form 7G as the theme for my layout this week.

I selected the Winterland collection from Fancy Pants to use with the 7G stickers and scrapped to my heart’s content.

Tags from different papers fill two envelopes on the right page and more tags peep from under the matt of the main picture on the left page.

The only other embellishments I used on the page are ribbon from Fancy Pants and two paper clips on the main picture.

After I had finished my layout the sun was shining right into my heart again and I realised that I have an awful lot in my life to be grateful for.

I am grateful for:

A roof over my head

A warm bed to sleep in

A family to share cozy winter evenings in front of the fireplace with

Warm food to banish the winter cold from my body and soul

Enough warm clothes to wear each day

Good friends to share my hobby with

All the blessings I receive without even asking…

So, let us not allow the winter blues to drag us down – let’s rather concentrate on the good things and gather in high spirits on Saturday to scrap together 🙂