The last of the new WOJ Spring kit/

Good morning everybody. Yes, you read right, its still morning and I am posting. No, I am not bunking, school I finally gave in and went to see the dr. yesterday. Turns out I have Bronchitis, on top of my lungs being weak it has really hit me hard. Thank you for all your concerns and good wishes on my previous post. I have some serious antibiotics and a whole lot of other meds, dr. says I will be up and running by Monday. Boring being at home all alone, so thats why I came to chat.
The next card was made with some more of that wonerful dp from the local firm Paper Explosion. The quality is really nice, I think I found a new favourite brand.
She was coloured with my Copics the punch is a new one and the ribbon is from my stash. I did follow the sketch from Friday Sketchers, bur seeing that it is Friday today, I think I am late.

This one uses my favourite, OK ONE of my favourite colour combinations. The dp is from Melissa Francis. The lace is from my mom's sewing basket, so it must be quite old. The ribbon is from my stash.

Thats all of them except the bacground stamps which are just as delightful, I just ran out of EZ mount, but found some at the Hobby Ex yesterday, so watch this space. First I have to play with my new Sugar Nellie Adorables.

Have a fantastic day.

Sketch Saturday and LOTV

I have been incredibly busy these last few weeks. It is silly season at school, meaning that everything is happening at once. Between marking tests, attending school functions and reading my girls' blogs there has been virtually no time for crafting. I was going mad and becoming grumpy, so this morning I decided to set the marking aside and make some cards. I am feeling a lot less grumpy, but a lot more stressed about those tests waiting for me, oh well, some you win, some you lose.
The first card is one I made for a friend who asked me to make a card for a 21st Birthday. It is for a young man who loves playing guitar and loves cats too! Not easy, I used two digi stamps. The rocker boy is from Squigglefly and the cat was a freebie some time ago, I can't remember where I got it.

I used the fab sketch from Sketch Saturday ( http://sketchsaturday.blogspot.com/ ) All cardstock is Bazzil and the Dp is from Kaisercraft. The wooden buttons I found at my local Habby shop. The image was coloured with Copics and the guitar and his shoes were given the Dimentional Glaze treatment.

The next card is for the LOTV challenge. They are asking for your favourite colours ( http://liliofthevalleythursdaychallenge.blogspot.com/ ) If you had to ask me what my favourite colour is, I would answer - colour! I love any colour, even black, so this was a real challenge. I went through my photo's of cards over the years and discovered that this combination popped up very often. Cardstock is Bazzil, Dp is Melissa Francis. The flowers are Prima and some I found in my Habby shop and coloured with Glimmer Mist. The lace is from my mom's sewing box and the ribbon from my stash. The half pearls I bought from Paola and the image was coloured with my Copics and her wings glitterified with Stickles.

If I do not go and mark those tests right now, I will never finish before tomorrow and then there will be a whole lot of disappointed girls, so better I go mark now.

Have a great week everybody, see you soon.

OOOPS - Not LOTV Challenge - New beginnings and a few Christmas cards.

The challenge over at LOTV ( http://liliofthevalleythursdaychallenge.blogspot.com/ ) Is "New beginnings", You can interpret that any way you please - new baby, new year, or simply new stash as I have done. I used my new LOTV stamp (Edited to add: My good friend Paola pointed out that this is NOT a LOTV stamp, but from Kanban. Hanging my head in shame, that will teach me to look at the stamp again before I blog. Thanks Paola ) and my new Martha Stewart punch.
The dp is Melissa Francis, the cardstock is Bazzil and the flowers are from my stash, the image was coloured with my beloved Copics and given the Stickle treatment.

Here is a close up of the image, hoping you van see the glittery wings, wand and tiara.

Next is a couple of Christmas Cards that I never got around to showing you. All are very Clean and Simple. No time for elaborate cards this year. All images are digi images from Just Inklined and Bec's place, coloured with my Copics. Cardstock is Bazzil and everything else from my stash.

Don't you just love that pointsettia?

Thats it from me for today, I have to finish my potato bake for tonight's 'braai' (barbeque) at friends. Have a lovely day, see you soon.

A Thank You, A Christmas card and A reminder to be grateful.

Still very busy, but I did manage to get some cards in (actually, I needed to make some cards to take my mind off things LOL) The first card is a thank you for the very wonderful lady that works in the school office - I owe her more than just a card! The wonderful image was a freebie at Just Inklined (its no longer a freebie, but you can purchase it here (http://www.justinklined.com/ )It was coloured with my Copics, I coloured three images and cut out sections to give it some dimention. Other than that there is just some Bazzil, a left over piece of Melissa Francis paper and a lot of love.
The next card is a new digi that I found (true to form, I forgot to write down or save the link, so if you recognise it, please let me know) Coloured with my Copics again, cut out with my new Nellie Snellen die that I bought at the craft fair and glitterified with some stickles. The paper is a left over piece from my scrap box and the ribbon is from my stash. Cardstock is Bazzil.

Here's a close up so that you can see my bad colouring (I was in a really bad place when I coloured this one!:)) and the Glitter around the feet.

Now to the reminder to be grateful. (personal ramblings, so stop reading now if you find it boring). I have just had the most horrible weekend. It all started on Friday.

You know by now that it is exam time at school. My grade 11's wrote both their Afrikaans papers on Wednesday. They actually moved the papers to start the exam earlier than first intended. I saw the original time table and was asked if I would mind if it was changed- so I thought that that would be the only change. How wrong can you be to assume things. I intended to finish typing the grade 10 papers this weekend and hand it to my HOD for proofreading today, so that I could fix it and hand it in for copying in time for the 22nd. Something (I am sure God sent an Angel), tapped me on the shoulder at about 11h00 on Friday and told me to double check the time table. No time table on the notice board in the staffroom, so I walked all the way to a gr. 10 homeroom class to check and..... you guessed it, they are writing TODAY!!! I wanted to vomit. I got such a shock, I could not even think straight for a few moments. Anyway, to spare you the long story = I rushed home after school, typed the paper, e-mailed it to my HOD, she fixed it, e-mailed it back, I fixed it and printed it. On Saturday morning the lady from the office came in to copy my paper (see why I need a thank you?) and collated it. Crises averted. Thank you God for that nudge to check.

But wait.... There's more..... On Saturday was my other daughter's Baby Shower. I used my DH's bakkie, because I needed to take tables, chairs and everything else to the venue. He used my car to go to DD no 1's Nursey School to be Father Christmas at their annual Christmas party. At about 11h30, I got a call from DH: "I am so sorry" he said, "I just had an accident in your car" I thought he was joking, but no, its no joke. The car had to be towed away! He's OK, the car is not! My baby, she has less than 20 000km on the clock and this happens! I wanted to be angry, but then I realised - if he was in his old little bakkie, he would have been dead, because my car has so many safety features that his doesn't, if he was in the bakkie, he wouldn't have been wearing his seatbelt, the only 'injury' he has is a bruise from the seatbelt. Thank you God for making sure he was in the right car.
Have a great week everybody, see you soon.

Mini Hanna & the real Hannah - Who's cuter?

I recieved my Pixie Cottage stamps in the mail last week and just had to colour them immediately. They are so cute. She is called Hannah, just like my granddaughter and I think she is almost as cute as my Hannah!
The first card uses cardstock that was left over from the Convention, I think it is by American Crafts. The dp is Melissa Francis. The ribbon, flowers and butterfly are all from my stash. She was coloured with my Copics.
The next card is very unlike my style. Halloween is really not a very big thing in South Africa, but this little Hannah in her witch costume just cried out to be used. The dp is from my scrapbox. The ribbon is velvet with purple bling - really gorgeous IRL, the flowers are Prima and some very dark purple roses I found at the Chinese store. The butterfly is from my stash.

And now for the REAL Hannah! I could not believe it when I realised it was Monday morning. This weekend just went by in a blur. I had my two granddaughters for a sleepover and we had so much fun, I didn't even notice how the weekend flew past. We spent the whole day on Sunday making clothes for the fairies in my garden.
Step 1: You beed to find exactly the right leaf or flower for your creation. This takes a lot of concentration.

Here she is - My Hannah - told you she is cute!

Step 2: You now have to make sure that the flower or leaf that you chose will fit the fairies. This requires very precise cutting.

This is Tertia-Lee, cutting a flower that became a dress for some lucky fairy.

It takes a lot of concentration to cut a single leaf into a fairy coat.

Step 3: When you are done, you have to leave the clothes in the fairy house in ouma's garden. (If you don't believe there are fairies in my garden, ask any one of my four children. There is a magical place where the fairies live - they have all seen them when they were little!)

Have a great week everybody. Hopefully the week will be a little slower than the weekend.

Exceptionaly Beautiful!

Here it is .... the project that kept me busy for such a long time. The birthday invitations for my 4yo granddaughter's birthday. In her words they are 'exceptionaly beautiful'! Nothing like a 4yo's praise to make all the work worthwhile.
The idea started brewing in my head while I was in hospital. When i got home it was the first thing I started working on and like I said, I love the end result.
The first photo is one I took of all of them lined up on my diningroom table, all 23 of them.

I had strict instructions that they had to be pink and purple.. I made exploding boxes with a ballerina in the middle. The image is a freebie that I got ages ago from Marjie's Malarkies (http://marjiesmalarkies.blogspot.com/ ) I printed her with a mirror image, coloured her with my Copic markers, cut her out and stuck her to a piece of acetate, making her stand up straight.

I used a lot of flowers at her base, just to make sure she doesn't fall over. The four sides were cut with Nesties and contains the actual invitation. They were chalked (Haven't used my chalks in years, but I like the softness it gave) and even more flowers were addded.

The lids were covered in ribbon and flowers again and a handwritten sentiment with a charm and a blingy butterfly was added,

Here is a close up of the dancing girl. This truly is the stuff little girls' dreams are made of.

The cardstock is Bazzil, dp is Melissa Francis and Bo Bunny and the flowers all come from the local Chinese dealer. The acetate is the covers they use when they copy projects at Post Net - the normal transparency was too thin for the job.

I am entering this one for the Stamptacular Sunday challenge which calls for twq are better than one. ( http://stamptacularsundaychallenge.blogspot.com/2010/08/challenge-73-twos-better-than-one.html )

Hope you like my little boxes as much as I do.

Tomorrow I will tell you about the lovely play date I had with my blogging friend Paola this morning and show you a card I made while she was here.