Monday, November 29, 2010

Welcome baby boy!

Warning: Lots of photo's today!
I was asked by a grade two class to make a card for their teacher who is having a baby boy. The image is from a local shop, so, like always, there is no manufacturer anywhere on the stamp. It was coloured with my Copics and the wings were glitterified with Stickles. The flowers, feathers and bling are from the local Chinese shop. The ribbon is from my stash. Cardstock is Bazzil and dp is Pebbles inc. Apologies for the bad photo, the colour is much nicer in real life!
Here is a close up of the image. The colour on this one is better. The image was cut out with a Nestie and the background was embossed with a Swiss dot Cuttlebug embossing folder.
The inside has tags for all the girls to write personal messages to their teache.

And here he is... my brand new little grandson and his sister. She is so proud to be a big sister.

She could not stop looking at him and was thrilled when he gripped her finger and wouldn't let go.
Here is the proud new mom with both her little darlings. Note the England babygrow - not my idea, but his father insisted. We made very sure that he has a Springbok outfit to wear (I actually think every member of the family went out and bought one, LOL)
Here is oupa, introducing Liam to his big sister. Such a precious photo.

There is just something so very special about a baby's feet. Look how small they are when his sister holds them.

Mom and baby are both doing very well. We thank God for the safe delivery of our precious little boy.
Have a great week everybody, I'll be back soon, but for now I am going to be very busy playing with my new baby!

Sunday, November 28, 2010

FALLing for you - Stamptacular Sunday

The new challenge over at Stamptacular Sunday(http://stamptacularsundaychallenge.blogspot.com/2010/11/challenge-87-falling-for-you.html ) is: 'FALLing for you'. You are supposed to use only Fall colours. I thought this birthday'card' that I made for my granddaughter's teacher, fits in perfectly.

She is in the Butterfly class, so the instructions were simple - my teacher likes yellow (lello) and orange and it MUST have a butterfly. Each child in the class was given a tag (I forgot to take photo's) and one of the mothers went in to school on a day when the teacher had to attend a meeting and had every child put her fingerprint on a tag. The fingerprints were turned into little girls by my daughter and the moms wrote a message on the back of the tag.

I made a box for all the tags and put an easel card on top. The stamp is a freebie digi stamp that I have had for ages. It was coloured with my copics. All the cardstock is Bazzil and all the flowers are from the local Chinese market. The sentiment was hand written.

My granddaughter spent the night last night because her parents attended a wedding. This morning I got a phone call from my SIL to tell me that my daughter had been admitted to hospital with a severe bladder infection. The possability is there that my grandson will be born early tomorrow morning. So I get to spend some more quality time with Tertia-Lee. Please say a little prayer that all goes well for mom and baby.

Have a fantastic week everybody. Hope to see you soon with some baby pics.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Kenny K DT Call.

Who does not love Kenny K? I don't know a single person that would answer yes to that question. Every time I make a card with a Kenny image, everybody just adores it. It is so hard to find stamps that are appropriate for teenagers and men and when you do, you have to wait ages for them to arrive in the mail (living in South Africa often means it takes for EVER to get here or it gets 'lost' in the mail) so the instant gratification that you get from digi stamps really appeal to me.
It took me a while to decide that I would actually apply for the DT. It would be such an honour to work with such awesome people, it almost seems impossible.
Here they are, my two favourite cards (actually I can't really choose), but the first one is definately a favourite.

See, you can't do this with rubber stamps - I flipped the image and stuck it over the back of the image on the fromt -no ugly back here!
This was for a friend's birthday. She loves jogging and listening to music, so this image was perfect.
The next two cards are ones I just finished today. I LOVE these sassy Christmas gals. My son always complains when I make traditional Christmas cards. This year there won't be an "Ag no, ma, we live in Africa, why do you always make winter cards?' from him. LOL Still deciding which one to give to him and which one to give to DH.
The image was coloured with my Copics. I added some Flowersoft to the fut and some Dimentional Glaze to her boots and belt. The cardstock is Bazzil and the DP is from my scrapbox. The ribbon and bell is from the local Habby store.
This card was made with all the same products, just a different piece of dp from my scrapbox. Both images were cut with nesties.
Well, here's hoping for the best - holding both thumbs and saying a little prayer.
Have a great week everybody. I had a very fruitful weekend, so there will be something to show you almost every day for the next week.





Friday, November 19, 2010

13th Birthday invitations.

Where have I been? What have I been doing? you ask, Well, I am drowning in marking exam papers. 5 hours worth from every girl I teach! I have been sorting out insurance for my car - R41 000 worth of damage! (Thank goodness for insurance!)

AND.... I have been making Birthday Party invitations for a very special 13 year old girl. She is the daughter of a friend and comes to me regularly to scrap. Her mom is taking a couple of her friends to Gold Reef City (for those of you outside South Africa, its an old mining town that has been restored and is now an amusement park.) They are going to have photo's taken there that look like they are about a hundred years old. Complete with the right costumes. So we thought we would make her invitations to suit those photo's. Everybody expected it to have roller coasters on, but when have you known me to do the expected? LOL
Mom found a photo of her when she was 4 years old, playing dress up with her little sister. we scanned it and enlarged it and then changed it to sepia. How cute is she? All papers are Bazzil. The photo and mat was cut out with a Nellie Snellen die. The flowers and pins are from my stash. Ribbon and lace from my stash as well.

Made three different colours and I can't decide which one is the nicest.

Here is the whole lot together. Quite a job, but the smile on that little girl's face made it all worthwhile.
Have a great weekend everybody - next time I see you I might have a brand new granddaughter - my daughter's waters just broke.

Monday, November 15, 2010

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.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Can you help? PLEASE!!!!!

No, I am not dead. I am just drowning in work. It is end of the school year here in South Africa which means that I have exams to set (done 2 out of 4) and then I have to mark all those papers before we close at the end of the month! In the mean time two of my daughters are expecting in the next month and we are having the second stork party on Saturday.
So, no time for crafting at all! I decided that I might as well show you all some of the cards I have made that never made it to my blog. Propably because the photo's are so bad. The image is from Sugar Nellie. It was cut with a Nestie and coloured with my Copic markers. The dp is from a local company, Upikit, and the cardstock is Bazzil.
Here is a close up of the image. Hoping you can see the Flowersoft on the teddy (It looks really nice in real life!) and of course I had to glitterify something - look closely at her boots and her belt.
I have been asked to make a birthday card for a 5 year old little boy, trick is - granny wants me to use super heroes and make the card inter active. Any ideas? I am stumped.
Then I have to make hats for a friend to put on gifts that she wants to give to the members of her chapter of the Red Hat Society. Anybody know of a link where I can find a template.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Mojo Monday.

A very good Monday to all. I have had a wonderful, but very tiring weekend. It was our annual family reunion and my brother, sister and I were responsible for the arrangements this year. Very stressful, but worth it in the end. We decided to get together for only a day this year, because most of us are a bit strapped for cash in this economic climate. In spite of the fact that there were two weddings on the same day, we still had about 75 people at the reunion and everybody that was there had a fantastic time. My son in law (born and bred in Manchester) attended his first one as part of our family and walked away with the trophy for the best "potjie"! Not every day an Englishman wins such a very traditional Afrikaans cooking competition. He has not let that trophy out of his sight.
On Sunday the whole staff went to a show in honour of our school's secretary that is retiring after 35 years at our school. She is an amazing woman who knows all 850 girls in the school by name! We all love her and I don't know if we will ever be able to find anybody to replace her. All of those things meant that there was no crafting this weekend, so I just had to do something this afternoon when I got home.
This card is based on the sketch over at Mojo Monday (http://mojomonday.blogspot.com/ ) Such a fun sketch to work with. The image is a freebie from TLC ( http://createwithtlc-createwithtlc.blogspot.com/ ) I printed it directly onyo the dp by Making Memories and then coloured it with my Copic markers. The other dp is from Bo Bunny and the cardstock is from Bazzil. The ribbon and lace is from my stash. I cut the mat out with a Nestie. The sentiment was stamped with Versa ink and embossed in gold.
Here is a close up of the image. Hoping you can see the glitter on her wings and on the dp.
Have a great week everybody. See you very soon.