I'm back

Okay, enough of this missing in action stuff! Sorry I have been so quiet lately. I hope all my followers are well. This weekend I plan to post cards again. Too late for the Christmas stuff but I may just do them all in one post so that they are blogged as I will have forgotten by next Christmas.

I am back at work and have been trying to cook and stock up the freezer in my spare time, as there is not enough time to prepare those home-cooked meals every evening with my children's hectic extra-mural schedules. Sasha, our youngest is now in High School so the days fly by. She is loving it and has adapted so quickly to the big volumes of homework and projects, she continues with her ballet and now plays indoor hockey in summer. Nic is in Grade 9 and he needs constant encouragement to do some school work. He is sports mad and started playing for the Reddam House College Indoor Hockey First team last year, which is something to be very proud of! My Dad's health has had it's ups and downs lately with him landing up in a wheelchair about a month ago. But he is on his feet again and seems to be getting stronger. My 97 year old Grandfather is not well and I would appreciate you adding him to your prayers.

Oh well, that is enough chit chat from me and bringing you up to speed on the family happenings. I hope to chat again tomorrow. The photo was taken by Neil on Nic's birthday in December - the kids and I with my parents. Thanks Rene for leaving a message on my blog, it was a good way to get me blogging again. I love reading your comments and look forward to interacting with everyone soon.

Picnic at Kirstenbosch

During October Sasha, myself and my Mom had a picnic at Kirstenbosch Botanic gardens. It was a beautiful spring day and the indigenous flowers were all in bloom, we had a lovely picnic lunch and a rest on the manicured lawns.

I hope you have a fabulous day!

Family stuff

The morning of the 8th of October was beautiful. Neil and I had a very rare "date", just the two of us with no children. I had very kindly been given tickets to a Cass Abrahams demonstration followed by lunch at the Waterfront Hotel School. We dropped the children at Granny and Granddad in Hout Bay and had a glorious early morning drive along our stunning coastline to the Waterfront. Cass demonstrated very yummy vegetarian dishes - Lentil Bobotie, Three Dahl Curry with Roast Butternut and Puris, Creamy Mushroom Risotto and Pineapple and Orange Rice pudding.

The hotel school prepared the meal for us to enjoy after the demonstration. Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of the other courses and only remembered when pudding was served. What a lovely day it was.

Enjoy your week!

Family photos

We held Sasha's 13th birthday party in September, 2 months after her actual birthday but we battled to find a Friday when all the family were at home in the evening and there were no other parties/events. She organised 15 friends to come around and we did a photo shoot. They had a ball, changing clothes, swapping outfits and were very inventive with props. I copied the photo's onto CD's for everyone so they have nice keepsake. Here are some of my favourite family photo's.

Have a good week!

Blogger woes

What a frustrating few days not being able to blog and pick up my daily fix of free digital stamps. Blogger apparently had huge technical problems and had to remove the last few days of posts. My latest post disappeared but they say they are busy restoring them.

Sasha has been in a big dance production this week, so we have been very busy as I was doing quick changes at every performance. I am so looking forward to watching it tonight.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend and get some time to craft. Thank you for popping by and for the kind comments that you leave!

Happy New Year

Hello 2011! Happy New Year to all my blog friends, I hope 2011 is a fabulous year for you.  May the best of 2010 be the worst of 2011.  I am going to take a break from blogging for a while so that I can get the children ready for their new school year, spend the last 2 weeks of the summer school holidays with them, spring clean cupboards and do some maintenance tasks around the house.  I also hope to do some stamping so that I will have some cards to share with you.

I took these photos on New Year's Eve.  Nic went on a boat to Dassen Island with a friend and caught 4 crayfish.  We then spent the evening in Camps Bay with friends, just look at this beautiful view from the verandah.  It was a perfectly still evening at home and when we arrived at Camps Bay Beach it was really blowing a gale. Cape Town weather is always a surprise.  Nevertheless we had a lovely evening and the weather has been wonderful since then with some really welcome rain on New Year's day.

I know that 2011 is going to be a great one for all of us!!  Happy crafting!

Stuff

Just had to share some personal photo's with you today.  Our school year comes to an end tomorrow and my son Nic finishes Grade 7 and Preparatory school.  They celebrated the end of Primary school with a dinner/dance held at the beautiful Kirstenbosch National Botanic gardens. Here are a selection of photos from a memorable evening. 

Soccer World Cup 2010

I never watched a soccer match until South Africa hosted the World Cup this year. Living in our beautiful country one could not avoid getting totally sucked into the excitement and "gees". The spirit in our country whilst the world cup has been on is wonderful. The tournament comes to a close on Sunday and I hope that the vibe of positivity remains with us for a long time to come. I have chatted to many tourists in the last month and they are all blown away by our country and fabulous people.

Our family joined 153 000 people and did the Fan walk on Saturday. I took lots of photos to share with you.

Stuff

Our children's school hold a Grade 7 Valentine's dance every year. We helped prepare the hall this afternoon and I stuck hundreds of hearts all over the walls. Here Nic, the party boy is all ready to go and coincidentally his sister, Sasha, co-ordinated beautifully with him today.

Stuff

Just an update on our new addition to our family. Candy is now 3 months old and is such a delight and a real character. I have nicknamed her "Flopsy" as she is as soft as a bunny rabbit and is so floppy and cuddly. She has grown so much since we got her, at 6 weeks she weighed 900g and now weighs 2 kilos, the same as our Yorkie, Tessa. Tessa's favourite toy is a cricket ball hanging from a tree in our garden, this was originally Nic's but he cannot hit it unless he puts the dogs indoors. Candy also loves it and spends hours lying under it watching it swing in the wind or hanging onto it. I have tied a number of knots above the ball so they can hold onto it in various places.

Holiday in KZN

Here are a few of my favourite pictures of our recent holiday to Kwazulu Natal. To see more pics you will have to look on my Facebook photos. We spent a week there staying at Banana Beach and did lots of touristy things.

We spent a day at Ushaka Marine World where we saw the stingrays, sharks, seals and dolphins being fed. The dolphin show was fabulous! Nic and Sasha had a ball in the water park doing all the water slides and tube activities.

Oribi Gorge Game reserve was fabulous and we saw so many wild animals - giraffe, wildebeest, warthog, about 6 different types of buck and zebra. The gorge itself is breathtaking and we spotted a fish eagle nest complete with eggs after crossing the suspension bridge.

My birthday was spent at the Wild Coast Sun. As usual the weather on my birthday was rainy, so the decision to spend time indoors was easy. The kids had a ball in the games arcade. It started clearing in the afternoon and we made our way back to Banana Beach stopping at some of the stunning blue flag beaches along the way.

Nic's favourite daily activity was taking a pedal boat down the rivers. Every beach has a river ending on it and he pedalled at a different beach everyday.

It was great to miss our foul Cape Town weather that week and we thoroughly enjoyed the warm Natal weather, braaing on the warm evenings and swimming in the lovely warm sea.

Cruise Dance show

Gosh, life has seriously interferred with my stamping and blogging over the last couple of weeks.

My darling daughter had a big 10th Anniversary Dance show and I was involved working backstage for 3 of the 4 performances. With over 300 children in the show, it was a huge task to co-ordinate, but in the end "Cruise" was fabulous and so professional! These are photos' of her all made up and ready for her 2 dances - "All Aboard Passengers" and "In the Onboard Gym" and the finale.

Mother's Day

I hope all the special Mother's I know had a wonderful day yesterday! I had a fabulous day that started with my hubby making a full breakfast of bacon, eggs, tomato etc for the family. We then went for a lovely long walk on the beach because it was such a beautiful winter day. After having apricot sorbet we made our way home and chilled at home until it was time to go to our local Thai restaurant with my parents for dinner.

Quick cuttlebug birthday card

Today I am loading a five minute card that I made for a 12 year old girl. I find that kids do not appreciate handmade cards, so I always try and do quick ones. I cuttlebugged the lilac paper with the Happy Birthday folder and cut out and embossed the butterfly using the butterfly Cuttlebug die. Using a corner rounder punch the background sheet and adhere it to a white folded card. Embellish the card with ribbon and mount the butterfly as shown in the photo. I used 2 ribbon flowers and diamante to decorate the butterfly. When making quick birthday cards I sometimes use paper flowers instead of the butterfly.

I have loaded some more of my favourite blogs and websites and will keep adding to the list, so check back often.

I am looking forward to the weekend even though I won't get much stamping done. What a beautiful part of the world that we live in!! We have had baboons along the road to school three or four times this week, they are such comical creatures! I must remember to stop and take photo's next time I see them. I am also very blessed to have such fabulous friends and family!!!

Stuff

I have been inspired to get my blog up and running, I thoroughly enjoy reading other people’s blogs and thought that it is about time that I also put some of my ideas on the net.

I aim to share my work with you through my blog. We have a stamping group in Cape Town and meet once a month to swap cards and get inspiration from each other. RSA is a South African rubberstamping yahoo group where I am active hosting and participating in swaps. I have made amazing friends through stamping and was thrilled when scrapping became big in SA as we were able to use a lot of the scrapping products in our cardmaking.

At the moment I am passionate about ATC’s (Artist’s Trading Cards) and Moo cards and I occasionaly participate in a chunky book swap.

I have often had my work published in our local magazine Craftwise and am a member of their on-line group www.in2crafts.co.za.

Stuff

Another fabulous long weekend and it looks like winter is coming fast - it is a cool, wet day - a perfect day for stamping and a great curry for supper.

My plan for today is pack up my bird ATC swap for posting off and design 4 more ATC's. One is for our club night on Monday. We are doing the letters of the alphabet and this one is letter B. I have not yet decided what to do but butterflies, birds and babies come to mind. I only need to make 6 ATC's, so that will be a quick one. The other 3 ATC' designs are for a swap that I joined and I need to make 18 in each set, co-incidentally the swap is also letters of the alphabet and B, C & D are the ones and I cannot make the same B for this swap. So I had better be a quick creator today as I also need to get into the garden to rake up loads of autumn leaves and spend time with Neil and the kids.

Hopefully I will post pictures of my new creations very soon. Have a fabulous Worker's Day holiday!!