Just Magnolia - take 2 and 3

I know why we have had this terrible cold spell. I am posting for the fourth day in a row! That must be some kind of a record.
A big pot of soup is simmering on the stove, homemade bread is cooling down and the 'vetkoek' is made, waiting for the family to come home. (I have no idea how to describe vetkoek - somebody help please!) The whole family has been busy this wonderful public holiday. Ankie is coaching Netball, DH is building kitchen cabinets with his friend and apart from making soup, I have been crafting up a storm. I can't show you yet, because the people I am making it for, read my blog, so it will have to wait.
I have been playing with my Magnolia stampclub a lot lately and will enter the next two card in the Just Magnolia challenge.http://justmagnolia.blogspot.com/2010/04/week-52-anything-goes.html


Dp is Basic Grey, Cardstock is Bazzil. The sentiment was cut with a Nestie and all ribbons and flowers are from my stash. The big rose was white and spritzed with Glimmer Mist.

I coloured Tilda and the frog prince with my Copics. The golden ball was covered in Stickles and when that dried, I added a layer of Diamond Glaze. Looks like a real golden ball!

The next card I started for the previous weeks Just Magnolia sketch challenge, but then I got sick and the rest is history! The Dp is a piece from my scrap box all cardstock is Bazzil and the flowers and ribbon is from my stash.

I added some stickles to Tilda's dress and headband and thats it, a very simple card, but I love it. I am starting to think that simple is my style!

Well. for us here in South Africa its back to school tomorrow, so my crafting time will be a lot less. Enjoy the rest of your week everybody. See you soon.

Good bye & good luck.

Feeling so much better today for the first time! Thought I would just quickly show you the card I made for a friend. Like so many other South African moms, she has to say good bye to her son and DIL on the 8th of May when they will be Immigrating to Australia. Some more brilliant minds lost to our beautiful country. It makes me very sad.
She wanted a card where the whole family could write farewell messages. She even provided me with the poem on the inside. The stamp set was found in one of our local shops, but unfortunately there was no name on it, so I don't know who made it.

The Dp is Kaiserkraft (I am in love with that company! LOL) and Making Memories. Cardstock is Bazzil. The ribbon is a tiny piece of pure silk ribbon that I had left from my ribbon embroidery days. The button is a wooden one found in my local habby store. The suitcases on the inside were coloured with my Copics.

Here is the inside. Hope you can actually read the poem. I made the tags a little bigger than usual, figure the family would want to write a message and not just sign their names. All ribbon is from my stash. Would have loved to just use the spotted one, but I didn't have enough, so plan B it was.

I got a phone call on Friday to say my sewing machine was fixed, so a very happy lady is going to fetch her machine right now. Can't wait! Isn't is amazing, I hardly ever use my machine now that all my kids are grown up, but since its has been in for repairs, I 'needed' it for all sorts of things. Took them long enough - A whole three weeks - true to form in Africa.

I love Mo's images!

A friend of mine asked me to make an Anniversary card for her parents 60th Wedding Anniversary later next month. I just knew that this image would be perfect. Papers are all left over pieces from my scrap box. Cardstock is Bazzil and ribbon from my stash. I inked all the edges and broke out my new Martha Stewart punch for the strip at the bottom. I was planning to add a metal 60 at the bottom, but with being sick in bed with the d#$@ pneumonia, I could not find my metal embellies. Sure they are in hiding somewhere. If all else fails, I will just have to resort to plan B.

Loved working with the sketch on the Dream team blog with a call for a guest designer for May. Imagine being able to work with such a talented group of people!! Hope I am not too late to enter, I don't know what the time difference is between South Africa and the other side of the world.

Just Magnolia - anything goes.

I recieved my Magnolia club order last week and could not wait to get going, but then I was floorede by pneumonia. I have never felt so sick in my life! I think having Asthma on top of having pneumonia, was just not what the dr ordered. It took me so long to do anything. I am amazed at how much I actually achieved while I was sick, because I can't even remember doing half of it. The weather has been miserable here, no sunshine for more than a week. Its raining and very cold.
Anyway, here is my first card done with my new stamps. I am entering it for the Just Magnolia challenge (http://justmagnolia.blogspot.com/2010/04/week-52-anything-goes.html).
The Dp is from Teresa Collins and Cardstock is Bazzil. The ribbon is from my stash and the flower is Prima that I put some stickles on. I used some liqued pearls around the Nestie oval.

Isn't she beautiful? I loved colouring her.

A close up of the flower. Hoping you can see the stickles on the flower. Underneath is the inside. I just couldn't resist the little Fairy Tilda. Sorry about the bad photo's, I have been waiting for good light, but it is just not happening.

Just finished cooking lunch for the whole family. Might post some more cards that I made while I was sick a little later.

Have a lovely Sunday everybody.

Black hair for Copic Creations and some good news.

I have never entered the challenges at the Copic Creations blog (http://www.copiccreations.wordpress.com/), but I go there often to look at the awesome DT and other entrants wonderful colouring skills. This is the first time I have ever tried colouring black hair, but I am quite pleased with how it turned out.

A friend asked me to make a card for her 12 yo nephew and I found this awesome digi at Mo's digital pencil (http://www.digitalpenciltoo.blogspot.com/) She was very pleased with the card and I am definately going to use this one again and again. He was coloured with my Copics. The Dp is a little piece that one of my scrapping buddies left behind after our last crop. The cardstock is Bazzil and the brads are 7Gypsies. Very simple card, but I like it.

I am also entering this one in the Spoonful of Sugar challenge, they are having a birthday challengethis week. Check them out here: http://www.aspoonfullofsugarchallenge.blogspot.com

Now on to the good news. (I hope its going to turn out to be good news in the long run!) I have 4 children, as you know, two of which are married. The eldest one to a much older man and they have a little girl. She just found out that she is pregnant again and he is NOT happy. I think it is wonderful, because I don't think that it is good for a child to grow up alone. My second daughter has two wonderful children, a boy(8) and a girl(4). She has lost two babies at 5 and 6 months and has had 6 miscarriages. In spite of this they went for treatment and found out that she might be expecting twins. I am happy to get more grandchildren, but worried sick about my girls. Please pray that William will come around and that everything will go well with Karin's pregnancy. And... start knitting girls, I don't know if I have enough energy to knit for 3 babies that are due the same day!
Have a great week.

Some more Sassy Cheryl.

Sorry , I have been missing in action for a while. I have been battling with my breathing this past week. So my energy levels have been way down and even though I have been creating, I just did not have the energy to take photo's or upload them. I am starting to feel a lot better and the bonus is that I now have lots of cards that I can show you this week.

Both these cards were made with images from Sassy Cheryl: http://www.sassycheryl.com/ I really enjoy working with her images. This first one reminds me of my friend Glenys, she is always happy and dances from one place to the next. It even looks a little like her! The Dp is really old (I mean really old, I must have had it for about 5 years,) so I really can't remember who its by. The cardstock is Bazzil and the image was coloured with my Copics. Ribbon is from my stash. The beautiful big flower is from Prima and the others are cheap paper roses that I spritzed with glimmer mist to go with the Prima flower. The leaves are white Prima flowers that I coloured with my Copics and cut.



This is the inside of the card. The girls at school asked me to make thank you cards for the teachers that helped them with the Matric Farewell, so there are enough tags for all the girls to sign.

The next image is also from Sassy Cheryl. Isn't it just adorable? The Dp is by Doodlebug, the cardstock by Bazzil, ribbon from my stash. The image was coloured with Copics and I put some dimentional glaze on the bubble. I used some Flowersoft for the grass just to add some texture. The flower is Prima again and the ribbon is from my stash. I used one of my punches to make the edges of the paper under the ribbon. Very simple, but I think it worked out quite nicely.

I can't believe the first week of school has come and gone already. We had Matric Farewell on Friday nighty and it was spectacular like usual. The theme this year was Alice in Wonderland and the girls really outdid themselves. The hall looked stunning, the food was fantastic and the music was lovely. Well done to all involved.

Have a great Sunday everybody.

Had a fantastic few days.

What a fantastic time I had in Durban. We left at 4 in the morning on Friday and arrived at the stadium just in time to see the second half of Anke's water polo game. Isn't the new soccer stadium that was built specially for the World Cup amazing? Here she is - my amazing child, playing the game she absolutely adores. I don't get it, I must admit. I love watching her play and I find the game very exciting to watch, but I think you have to be insane to want to be a goalie. Who wants to sit there and watch people throw a ball at you at incredible speed, have the ball hit you in the face, on your arms (leaving scary bruises), and anywhere else that happens to be exposed and then go back for more? Then she insists that it is FUN!?? She says, 'Ag ma, stop fretting, if I feel pain, I know I've stopped the ball.'

She had a fantastic tournament and was named goalkeeper

of the tournament, which makes her officially the number one goalie in the country! So happy for her and very proud.

I am back at school and back creating cards. Will post pictures as soon as I have time to take some. Have a great day.

Prairy Fairy and why you should NEVER do any housework!

Third time lucky, so the saying goes. What is it with mr Blogger today? It took three tries before he would load my pictures. Male menopause?
I belong to the Prairy Fairy group on PCP and saw that they were having a DT call. Took a look, fell in love with the freebie Roberta is giving and decided to try my luck.
Isn't she just too cute? I found the Scenic Route paper at my LSS and it fascinated me for two reasons: nr 1, it is perfect to use with a fairy peeking out and nr 2, the paper is double sided with the black and white at the back. I just love unusual combinations, don't you? The cardstock is Bazzil and the image was coloured with Copics. I used a Spica pen to add just a hint of sparkle to her dress. (a fairy HAS to sparkle!) and some Stickles on her wings. She was popped onto the card using foam squares. The ribbon is from my stash and the flower is a Prima flower that I attacked with my Copics.
Here is a close up of the littke fairy. Hope you can see the sparkle.

WARNING: The following picture might be disturbing to sensitive viewers.

Ok, now on to the housework bit. NEVER, EVER try it at home - it is extremely dangerous! I have been frantically cleaning house during the holidays and we finally found a bunk bed at a salvage broker that didn't cost an arm(OK, that one is not true) or a leg. The grandchildren will no longer have to sleep on the floor when they come to visit.

I decided it would be a good idea to move said bed around the room to find the perfect spot for it. When I woke up yesterday, this is what my arm looked like:

Not a very good picture, but I had to hold the camera with my left hand and take the picture too! Scary thing is, I can not remember hurting my arm. Alzheimers? or just plain stupidity, I don't know. What I do know for sure though is that I am never moving anything ever again, its just too dangerous.

I am going to be MIA for a few days. I am leaving for Durban early tomorrow morning to watch Ankie play in the Currie Cup water polo tournament. Will be back late Monday evening. Have fun creating while I am gone.

I actually scrapped! (Audrey DO NOT look)

Warning: Lots of photo's - sorry, I got a bit carried away with the camera:)
So much for posting every day while I am on holiday, but life kind of got in the way. We had a very busy Easter week end. Having family over for two days and then Ankie had to go to a camp on Saturday and discovered while she was packing for camp that she had run out of her Epilepsy medication! On Easter Friday!! Finally found an emergency chemist, but they would only give her enough till the next day because we didn't have a prescription. That meant that I had to go to our normal chemist on Saturday, get some pills and drive through to the camp site to take it to her! (What we wouldn't do for our children). Thank goodness the camp was only in Krugersdorp and not the other side of the world!
Enough rambling. I am so excited, I finally scrapped again!! Our local scrapbook store: The Scrapping Studio, launched a very exciting competition. I conned my regular group of scrapping friends to all take part and we got together last week to finish our pages.
This competition is different in that you buy a pack (R50) from them with paper and embellishments in and then you have to create a double page from what is in the pack. The rules are simple, you have to use everything in the pack, but you can add as much or as little as you like. It is incredible how different all our pages turned out.
This is mine. The patterned paper and the orange and brown Cardstock came with the pack. I added cream Bazzil cardstock and inked the edges. The pack contained: 1 piece of patterned paper - I think it is by Kaisercraft, two pieces of Cardstock (brown and orange) and the following embellishments: some white flowers, two minute little paperclips,two hatpins,10 loopy brads, a piece of string, a tag and a vellum quote.

This is a close up of the left page and below is a close up of the right hand page.

Below is a close up of the title. It is in Afrikaans and means: "Happiness is..." I cut the first letter with my Cuttlebug and tied some left over pieces of ribbon around it. The cardstock backing was stamped and distressed and then matted on some more of the brown Cardstock. Tied the piece of string around it and added a handmade flower. The rest of the title was handwritten with one of my Copics, using the broad nib.

I Love using white flowers! In fact, that is the only ones I buy these days, because there is just so much you can do with them. I decided to colour them green (using my beloved Copics of course) and cut them up to use as leaves. I created my own flowers from cardstock circles that was crumpled, stamped and distressed to within an inch of their lives and then added a button in the middle.

I teared the right hand page in half and added some patterned paper behind it. Put the only coloured pictures there. I really did not like the look of those loopy brads on my page, but according to the rules, I HAD to use them, so I used them under the torn edges of the paper and tied some more string accross the two torn edges. I used them, you just can't see them. (sneeky, I know, but what was I supposed to do?) Added some more handmade flowers, the tag and the vellum quote are held in place with those little paperclips. If you can avoid using them, please do. They made me say words I am not very proud of! They are so tiny, I battled to open them and they shot accross my scraproom on more than one occasion, landing somewhere on the carpet. Picture this: five women, laughing hysterically, crawling around the carpet on all fours, looking for the tiniest paperclip you have ever seen!
Great fun, but very irritating when it is your paperclip everybody is looking for.

OK thats about it. I love how it turned out. Isn't it amazing how some paper, that is not at all the colours you would normally use, some embellishments you don't normally use and a challenge can get your Mojo going again. All the LO's will be on display at Audrey's shop in Boksbutg from the 14th of April, so if you are in the area, go around there, have a look and vote for you favourite!

Have a great day!

You can find Audrey's store blog here: www.srappingstudio.blogspot.com