Amanda's Craft Space

Butterfly with bow

2012-01-27T11:56:00.000+02:00

Jip, I have been busy crafting these last couple of days! Looks like my mojo is back from an extended holiday :-)) I just hope it stays.

This is a card that I made for our RSA stamp group monthly challenge. One of our ladies will give us a theme every month and you are free to make as many cards with that theme and post them on the groups Yahoo page. On the other hand, if you don't want to make a card - you are not forced to. I think it is a brilliant idea. It certainly got me making something other than a card with a shoe on it!

The stamp used is from a local company - Great Impressions in George. It was colored with Distress Inks & then I added a couple of layers of UTEE. It is a technique that I haven't used much, but I thought it gave it a very nice look. Papers, pearls & ribbon are from my stash.

Well, I hope everybody will have a great weekend. Thanks for visiting!!

A card for a man

2012-01-26T10:19:00.002+02:00

A warm welcome to all my visitors - from a VERY hot South-Africa. We've been having very hot weather - fans are working overtime :-)

This is the male card I had to make for our Women's Agric. Union. It is a stamp from a local stamp company - Country Crafts. The striped paper is also from a local company - Scrapsheets and is called Scarlet Stripe.

I don't have any shoe stamps for a man (remember our theme is Fleur de Shoe) - but I am sure this would do. This was a nice quick card to make - CAS!

Thanks for your visit to my blog! Hope you are having a wonderful productive day.

More shoe cards

2012-01-24T11:14:00.001+02:00

A warm welcome to everybody reading this post! Just a quick one to show some more of the shoe theme cards I have made. These were done in the Prick-and-Stitch or Card Embroidery method. I love doing this technique - not always enough time to do this though.

Thanks so much for your visit! Hope you enjoyed what you are seeing.

Have a fantastic day - full of beautiful things and with lots of time to craft.

Shoe cards

2012-01-16T11:37:00.000+02:00

A warm hello to all my blog friends. Even though the year has walked on a bit - I do hope that one and all of you will have a wonderful 2012 full of wonderful things.

No real valid excuses for not blogging - I have just been very busy with a hundred-and-one things the last two months. Things not craft related. And my mojo were on looooong leave too. But it is back and in the last couple of days I managed to make 9 cards. Whooppiii! Won't show them all at once though.

I am still busy with the things for our Women's Agricultural Union Conference for the 1st of March, and these cards is for that too. I have to make 10 cards - 9 for ladies & 1 for a man. Will probably make more to give them a choice, and because my mojo is back. What they don't take, will go into my stash.

The stamps used is from Hero Arts - High Heels. Coloring was done with either Twinkling H2O's or Tombows. Pearls & other embellies were bought all over the country.

That's all from me for today. I am off to do a card for a man. Not an easy task, but I am sure somehow I will come up with something acceptable :-)

Thanks so much for visiting!! Have a great day!

Postcard Swap

2011-11-09T10:08:00.000+02:00

Most of you have probably thought I have left the face of the earth as I have not been blogging for quite some time. Well, LIFE has been happening around my ends of the woods. Wow, I only realize now that it has been nearly 3 months since I have last written something! Since I last wrote on my blog, my dear Mother lost her battle with cancer (4/9/2011); it has been a rather sad time for us all. We are however thankful for the 75 years that she lived a full life and for having had her as a Mother. (You can read a bit about her here.) Everyone who has lost a parent will know that it is not easy; thankfully, the every day Lord is there to to make the hurt more bearable.

We have also had our annual Stamp Camp from the 14th to the 16th of October. What a wonderful weekend!! I will at some or other stage post pics of the cards we made there. I have learnt sooooo much. Every class were on a technique that was either altogether or relatively new to me. Have heard about some of the techniques, maybe tried my hand once at some of them, so it was wonderful to be taught all these techniques by our talented tutors. All-in-all - I wish we could have had a stamp camp every quarter!

Our local craft shop also asked me to show a couple of ladies who have bought Cuttlebugs how to use their machines. I was nervous as can be - never taught a class in my life! Some had their machines for up to 6 months and have never taken it out the box! I think after the class they will be making more use of these little treasures they own. I for one will definitely be using mine more often too. Self inspiration :-)

I am also still busy with my share of the preparations for our WI Conference next year and hope to finish with most of it this week. Some of our invitations have been handed out at our last meeting with the other areas, most of the others are boxed and ready to be posted. We also took a short break - much needed - and after the rest, feel ready to take on the world. VBG!

Recently one of the ladies on our stamping group proposed a Post Card swap. The theme this time was Asia. Some time ago I received a lovely Asian stamp from Jo at JoZart and were able to take part in the swap. I colored it with Twinkling H2O's and Steadtler Luna Aquarell Silky Pastels. The background was done with Distress Ink (Shabby Shutters).
The stamp on the front of the postcard is a Hero Arts stamp.

It was fun doing this swap & I plan on taking part in the rest of the range Rosemarie might propose.

That's it for today. Thanks so much for visiting. I hope to be able to be a bit more active again as far as blogging goes.

Have a wonderful & blessed day!

Flourishes Scavenger Hop Challenge!

2011-08-12T18:22:00.000+02:00

Ooh wee!! Flourishes has a Scavenger Hop Challenge on the go with awesome prizes!! Go have a look for yourself here. You have to hop to a couple of blogs to collect the 'recipe' for a card, post about it on your own blog and then enter your card.

Okay, this is the first requisite - to have this notice in your post. Done!

The 'recipe' includes - white, bling, decorative paper, floral, green, square, pink & ribbon. I think I have got them all on my card. Done! Oh, and if you use a Flourishes stamp, your name is entered twice! How great is that! Jippee - I have two chances!

I suppose now you want to see my card? Well, here it is! I love my Sweet Pea stamps from Flourishes!

The pink & the green board are both Bazzill. The image is colored with my trusty old Tombows. Gross grain ribbon from my stash and the bling buckle I got from Just-Imagine (a local business) many moons ago. Oh, and some more bling - a little bit of Stickles on the flowers - just because. Please do click on the pic of the card so that you can see everything in detail :-)

And that is it!

Thanks so much to the Flourishes team - I really do love all my Flourishes stamps and wouldn't mind to have many, many more.

Good luck to all the participants!

Zipper Flowers

2011-08-08T10:36:00.000+02:00

A warm hi on this cool Monday morning! Here in the part of South-Africa where we live it feels like summer is on its way. It would be wonderful as this winter was extra cold for us. Having moved from a much warmer area to the cold Freestate, we suffered a bit. But, we are happy where we are and by next year I am sure winter won't worry us one bit any more.

I am still busy with the goodies for our WI conference next year. This week I will be making zipper flowers which are going to be used as rosettes. Different colors and sizes for first, second & third places. I thoroughly enjoy making these and have made quite a couple of them already. My daughter-in-law also made some which she will be wearing as a broach. This was my first two experiments. I found the idea on Sandy from Keepsake Crafts blog here. It is super easy to make! Thanks so much for your easy instructions Sandy!

The pink one was a white zipper that I sprayed with various colors of inks. I prefer the metal zipper flower, even though it is a bit heavier than the plastic zipper one. I will be adding broach pins to all these flowers/rosettes so that the recipients can wear them, if they would like to.

Well, I am off to start measuring and cutting - I have around 50 of these to make. Hope you like what you see and will also give it a try.

I won some candy!

2011-07-05T13:50:00.000+02:00

What a wonderful and warm surprise when Canica from Shoestring Scrapbooking notified me that I won candy worth R200 from her store!! Wonderful shopping spree without my own money! Thanks so much Canica!!

Paper Shoes

2011-06-08T16:44:00.000+02:00

A very warm hi from a very cold South-Africa to all my blog friends! It is winter here, but we are having lots of rain in our summer rainfall area - had 30mm for today and the weather does not seem to be clearing. Other areas has had much more and some of my friends are stuck on their farms because of all the rain they had. The wind is blowing like it normally does around our area in August! That, with the rain - not nice weather!

Told you in a previous post about the paper shoes that a group of us has to make as invitations. Well, here it is! We are making 40 of these. Everything is cut, all the bling is stuck on, the heel part is stuck to the sole - it is now basically just the front part of another 38 that has to be put on. That is the hardest part! The flowers has all got their bit of Stickles on and the little bows I will do in front of the TV tonight and whenever. To attach the flower and the bow is quick. Papers used are from Prima Marketing - Annalee Collection "Ashton" and good old Bazzill. The flowers are from Creative Talents - a South-African craft shop.

After the shoes it is still the table number cards - 20 of them, some thank you cards and then some rosettes which will be used for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place entries at the function. Oh, there's also the certificates that still need to be done as well as the dolled-up envelopes for them. Our theme for the function is Fleur de Shoe. I will show you these as we go along. Luckily we still have time till October for it.

I found the tutorial for the shoe here on the blog of Terri Lynn Heinz of Artful Affirmations. Do take the time to go and look at hers. They are gorgeous!

That's it from me for today. Thank you so much for taking the time again to visit me! It is much appreciated.

Candy at Shoestringscrapbooking

2011-06-01T10:20:00.000+02:00

Have a look at this! Canica is offering a R200 shopping voucher to be spent at Shoestringscrapbooking! Winner to be announced on 1 July 2011.

Have a great day and good luck with entering!

An LOTV card

2011-05-28T11:24:00.000+02:00

Good Morning to all my blog friends

It is bitterly cold here in the good old Freestate! Our weather is something else. Coming from a much warmer Kwa-Zulu Natal, myself and hubby is going to have a battle to get used to this Freestate weather this winter. Yesterday morning we woke up to frost that looked like snow on the lawn! But the day turned out to be quite nice and I managed to get some work done in my craft room.

I bought some LOTV stamps some time ago, one of them specifically for the Come to Tea swap we had, and then some of them just because they were so cute. This week in between all the other things that I was busy with, I did this card.

It was colored with my trusty old Tombow markers. A bit of stickles and red flatback pearls were also added. The swirls is cut pieces from a Marianne die which I bought from Country Crafts, one of our SA craft shops. The embossed background was done with one of the Cuttlebug embossing folders. I rather enjoyed doing this card as I have not done any cards for quite some time.

One of the reasons for not being able to make cards is because I am busy with a project where myself & 2 friends from our WI group have to make 40 paper shoes. These will be used as the invitation for a congress we are having here in Heilbron next year. The shoes only need to be done by October, but there are more things that need to be done for this function and as the saying goes: what's done is done! I will show some pics of us working on this at a later stage.

I do hope that you will have a fantastic weekend full of wonderful things.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Reason for absence

2011-05-06T11:23:00.000+02:00

A warm hello to all my friends! It has been some time that I've been able to post anything - but this is the reason, and I think a very good one too :-)
This is my son and his bride! They were married on the 30th of April. Been together for six years or so and decided there was no reason to drag it out any longer, but to do the right thing and get married. Everything was arranged in approximately 30 days - and what a great day it was! Here's some more pics from the day.

The couple wanted to take some cowboy pics too and this was the hat that the bridegroom wore. Cute pic, I think!

These are pics of hubby & myself and my daughter & son.

This is the bridal couple with my Mother. She will be 76 years young next week!

This pic is of the four generations. And to top it - all 4 firstborns are girls!

My sister, myself, Mom and my brother.

This was the table setting. Their color-scheme was red, black & white. The mothers had to wear something red and so did the three sisters from both sides. The fathers as well as their best man, MC & chauffeur all had to wear red ties. Very dramatic but striking.

May they have a long, blessed and happy life together!

Thanks for visiting!

Come to Tea ATC Swap

2011-03-11T09:58:00.000+02:00

A very happy Friday to all my blog visitors! I do hope that you are all keeping well and getting lots of crafting done. I am happy to say that since my craft room has been moved into the house, I spend a lot more time in here than I have for the past three months. And it is wonderful - does me the world of good.

This little ATC was done for a swap which one of the ladies (Rosemarie Gibson) on our stamping group hosted. The stamp used is an LOTV stamp. It was colored with my Tombows. I saw a card on Bev's blog - All the things I love - and thought that this was the perfect picture for the swap. I ordered the stamp (plus some others of cause :-)) from LOTV and I could not believe it when my stamps arrived just five days after I ordered it! Thanks again LOTV - your service was great!

That's it from me for now. I am busy with the last 3 letters in our alphabet ATC swap and I need to finish them over the weekend.

Hope you will all have a great weekend.

Happy crafting and thanks for visiting!

My streak of luck - I think?!

2011-02-17T12:20:00.000+02:00

Hello to all my blog friends!! It has been a very long time since I wrote anything, but life has been going past me with the speed of lightning. Since living on the farm and having to manage a feedlot, I have had very little time for crafting, but I am hoping that it will change soon. We are planning on moving my craft room into one of the spare bedrooms; at the moment it is in an outside room and I don't want to sit out there all by myself at night. Also no security gate fitted to the room. Luckily hubby made freestanding cupboards. Once all my stuff is moved into the house, I will be able to sit and craft till the wee hours of the morning again. I have been busy with some ATC's for swaps though, but will only be able to show them once swapped out.

Since moving here I have joined our local Garden Club as well as the WI ladies group. Originally I thought I would only go as a guest, but both groups have such great members, that I decided to join both of the groups. Seeing that Monday was Valentine's Day, the theme for the WI group meeting was of cause - Valentine! As it was our groups turn for the eats, I was asked to bake 30 cupcakes and I was given a picture of what they should look like. I had to put white and red frosting together in a bag and pipe that onto the cupcakes. What a jolly mess! Firstly, the red food coloring would not make the frosting go RED, even after adding almost the whole bottle of gel coloring. I phoned the group leader and she said to just make it pink and white as a lot of her eats were also pink. What a relief! This is what it turned out to be:

This was done around 10pm after having wasted a couple of batches of frosting and having to make a new batches! Not to say anything about having baked 3 batches of the cupcakes itself! If I did not put too much batter in the little cups, the cake did not rise correctly. Hubby was happy - he loves sweet stuff. Eventually I was happy with everything, but I told them I would never bake something sweet for a meeting again. Give me savory things to bake - that I am more than willing to do.

For this same meeting, there was also a competition to make anything to do with hearts. No prizes though, only a percentage given to your entry and at the end of the year the one who achieved the highest percentage for all her entries at meetings, gets a small prize. There are different categories - I entered my goodies in the Hobby category. Every year around Christmas I make a round wreath from a specific kind of sweetie. For this competition my hubby bent the wires for me into a heart shape and I added the sweeties to that. I packed it into a cellophane bag and added some angel hair. I had no ribbon that exactly matched the color of the sweets and in our little town you will not find ribbon! Well, to my surprise, I scored the highest points in the Hobby category - 84%! The judges thought that it could work well as a centerpiece and it would be a good Valentines gift as you could also eat it. They also felt that it was well presented and of a strong and sturdy construction. This is what it looks like:

The sweets are imported from Brazil and as so many things here in good old South-Africa - it is no longer brought in! There goes all my extra pocket money over Christmas time!

For our Garden Club meeting, which also had a Valentine theme, each member had to bake 6 cupcakes and a winner would also be chosen. Not specifically for the best decorated cupcake. The rule were just that you had to stick with the Valentine theme. Again I had very little time to do this and in the end decided that less is more. I baked some chocolate cupcakes in red cups - remember I had how many flops before - this time I knew just how much batter to put into the little cups! I decided to pipe just plain white frosting onto them and add a little red sugar heart and to present them in a holder with hearts on it. The hearts and the holders I bought from a shop specializing in all things to do with cakes in a nearby town. The judge brought out six different cupcakes - some VERY beautifully decorated ones, I must say. She commented on each of them and then said that she chose mine as the winning cupcakes because I stuck with the Valentine theme the best and that 'less is more'! My motto too! I could not believe it!! Keep in mind that I am a brand new member to the community as well as to these two groups and that in a matter of one week I get the best marks for my heart 'wreath' and I win the cupcake 'competition'! I think it is just a streak of luck that has crossed my path in this last week - VBG! This is what my winning cupcakes looked like:

If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you will see that the little heart on top has 'I love you' written on it.

Thank you for listening to my ramblings! I so hope that my next post will be craft related :-) Though, no craft time this weekend again - we have a rally just outside of town on Saturday and the WI ladies is responsible for the food. From tomorrow it is work, work and more work again.

Hoping that you will all have a lovely weekend and that you will be able to get lots of crafting done.

Thanks for visiting!

Alphabet ATC's - T, U, V & W

2010-11-24T17:18:00.000+02:00

A very warm HI to all my friends! Hope you have all been keeping very well and were able to do lots and lots of crafting!

Here's some more of the ATC's that I did for our ongoing alphabet swap on our rubber stamp group. These were done in record time and in between packing - had to do them before I could pack up my craft room on the other side three months ago, because I did not know how long it would be before I would have a craft room at the new house. Just as well, as it would have been too late if I started with them once my goodies were unpacked.

'T' for Tortoise. The hat and flower is 3D. The edge was dipped in tea leaves, which is of cause also "T".

'U' for Umbrella. It was stamped on a crinkly kind of paper to try and give it a lace effect.

'V' for Vase with Flowers. I've put mirror tape between the black and the red board and also a piece of transparent film. I did not want the little cupped sequins to come off when the ATC is handled and this was my best solution. Almost like a little shaker card - just without anything inside to shake :-)

'W' for Wheelbarrow. The yellow checkered body of the wheelbarrow was paper pieced. First time I done this technique.

If I remember correctly, all of the stamps used for these ATC's were from local stamp companies.

I am having a royal battle with blogger this afternoon!! It just won't do what I want it to do! But that aside, we now only have X, Y and Z left and I want to get started on that soon. They only need to be finish by next year February, but what's done is done!

Thank you so much for visiting again. I know I don't have the 'grand' style of a lot of stampers, but I am quite happy with my plain and simple ATC's. Nothing too fancy and also nothing too bulky, these fit snuggly into the ATC sleeves. Hope you like what you see!

I do hope that you will enjoy what is left of the week and that it will be full of great craft things.

Another peek into my craft room

2010-11-09T09:47:00.000+02:00

Good Morning to all my blogland friends!! Today I am writing here with a happy heart because as I sit here looking out the window, there is puddles and little streams of water all over and the rain is coming down ever so softly. It is so welcome as it was really very dry. In a weeks time everything is going to be green. We had 20mm during the night and by the looks of it we are going to have lots more during the day. Not a ray of sunshine in sight, only heavy dark clouds rumbling every now and then. In the distance I can hear the guinea fowl also being happy that it rained - what a wonderful sound! Isn't it just wonderful how the Lord looks after us and gives us what we need in HIS time, not ours!

Thought I would just give you another sneak peek into my new craft room. No doors on the cupboards yet as DH is just too busy with other things. I am not complaining at all - at least I was able to unpack most of my goodies and I was able to make my set of cards for our stamping groups Christmas card exchange. This is the one corner of the cupboard where all my embellishments, cuttlebug goodies etc. are kept. Once the unit that has to go above my work area has been put up, a lot of these will move into that. It will then just be an arms length away.

This is my workspace. Neat and tidy at the moment - haha! It is probably the last time that it will look like this. The pegboard is still to be fixed to the wall. I love having all of these goodies right in front of me. The wall unit will go up just above this across the length of the wall. The two trolleys under the counter have mostly my wood mounted stamps in and off cause some other have-to-have-close-at-hand goodies.

Once burglar bars and a security gate has been installed, my computer will go in this open space. (Susan, see that box behind the cello-tape? That is my swap ready to be posted to you). The CD racks contain mostly my embroidery machine pattern CD's and also some stamps in CD cases and my Nesties. Still have to make a plan with them at a later stage, as they are standing where my printer must go.

Well friends, that is all from me for today. Unfortunately no crafting for me today - I am off to do some 'farming'. Those of you who live on a farm will know that even when it rains, there are things that needs to be done on a farm. Today it is tending to a batch of sheep that was offloaded for the feedlot yesterday. Vaccinations, tagging, etc.

Hope you will all have a wonderful week filled with everything your heart may desire.

Thanks so much again for visiting!

Craft Room

2010-10-17T16:26:00.000+02:00

Whoopiiii!! I have fast internet connection again!! At least now I will be able to visit all the blogs I have missed so much. It is a feast to roam around in blogland now again. To all my friends who so regularly visit my blog and to those who have become new followers - it is much appreciated. I hope to drop by all your blogs soon.

I was also able to start unpacking my craft goodies into my craft room this week. It is not finished yet - the cupboards still needs to be 'dressed', but at least there is shelves that I can put my goodies down on and I have space that I can work on. The finishing won't be done before another week or two as hubby will be busy with other more important things for a while. Another unit that must go above the work space on the one wall still needs to be built as well. But, that is for much, much later. The pics are just to give you a peek of what is going on in my little craft space. Yes it is little, it is only 3 x 3 meters. But, here I can pull the door close at night and carry on in the morning and not have to worry about packing up everything before I go out or off to bed.

This is a lovely corner unit, nice and deep and with enough space on top for my folder thingies where I actually store my paper, board, etc. in. These cupboards are loose units. They were specifically built like that to be taken with if ever we need to move again. This will be the third craft room that my husband has revamped for me. Two of them I had to leave behind - this one I am taking with! The cupboards will be 'dressed' with white melamine doors and white edging will be put on the shelves.

This is part of my workspace. My trolleys with all my goodies that I need close at hand normally sits under it. I will be working on the area under the window where there is plenty of natural light and the rest of it will probably house my computer and other gadgets.

This is another corner in the room. All my sewing goodies must go in these drawers and my machines will be lined up on top here.

I hope that the next time I am posting, it will be about a card or something crafty that I created. It has now been two months since I have done any crafting.

Thank you so much for taking the time to visit my blog! Hope you will have a wonderful week filled with lots and lots of crafting.

Blog candy winnings thanks and some other news.

2010-09-20T14:48:00.000+02:00

It has been some time since I've posted anything but thanks to VERY bad internet connection (53.6Kbps - yes that bad), I hardly bother to come to see what is going on in blogland. This post will probably take me the best part of an hour to load. I would so love to see what everybody is doing and I know I am missing loads of great work on other peoples blogs.

Also, after moving house exactly three weeks ago, not only our house was turned upside down, but also our lives. Only the lounge is 100% sorted out, every other room still has a box or three standing around. There is just not enough cupboard space for all our stuff, and I have thrown out and given away lots already. And with everything going on, I just don't have the energy to tackle a room and finish it. At the moment I have my darling granddaughter visiting for a couple of days (2 years and 5 months of age). I am sure anybody who had/have a child or grandchild of that age, knows that one don't get much done if you have a little live wire around. Not that I mind, she can stay for keeps too. Later on this week I will be taking her back and then be away to look after my Mom who had a very big operation. Hubby will be staying home to do some work on my craft room and to sort out his work area.

In the meantime, this is what my craft room looks like after three weeks: EVERYTHING STILL IN BOXES!! What you are seeing on these photo's is not even half of it! This is just to give you a glimpse and a giggle. Why oh why do we crafters have to be such hoarders?! Or is it just me? Hopefully by the middle of next month it will be sorted out :-))

Since moving, I have received two lots of blog candy that I won. Thank you so much to Rosemarie for the lovely alphabet set of stamps and also to Holley for the lovely Art Warehouse 'Mother' stamp set. Thank you very much to both of you girls. It is much appreciated and I am sure I will be able to put it to good use (once I have a craft room again).

I hope to be able to blog a bit more regularly once I have a better internet connection. Unfortunately my current contract only expires around the middle of October and I will just have to be patient till then. So, until next time, thanks for stopping by. Hope you will all have a week filled with lots of hours to craft.

Happy crafting!

Alphabet ATC's - Q, R & S

2010-08-14T15:13:00.000+02:00

Just a quick post in between the packing. Received my alphabet swap back and thought I would just post some pics of my little creations quickly.

Q for Quilt.

R for Rose.

S for Sweet Pea.

Hope you like what you see and thanks so much for visiting!

The packing has started!

2010-08-09T13:53:00.000+02:00

A warm hi to all my blog land friends. Just a quick post to let you know that we are back home - this time to pack up all our belongings for the big move. Yes, we have started packing already and the first boxes is sitting pretty all sealed and numbered! As from today it is only a short 3 weeks that we have to pack and make all the necessary arrangements for the move. It sure is going to be a lot of work to pack up everything that was gathered in the 4 years we were living in this house, but we will manage. I am sure you all know that the more space you have, the more things you gather! I also started doing rubber stamping during this past 4 year period and who doesn't know how your craft goodies seem to grow and grow when you start a new craft! I am leaving my craft room till last, as I have the next batch of ABC ATC's to make for our rubber stamp group swap. We will be moving on the 30th of August and we are looking forward to starting a 'new life' in a new place.

Happy crafting!!

Candy winnings and some great news!

2010-07-26T18:10:00.000+02:00

I have been doing the happy dance again! I won some candy on Crafty Dragons Blog! Even though I did not win the main candy, I got all the extra bits that was added during the run of the candy. And am I one happy lady! It arrived safely in my post box today all the way from the UK - in only 10 days!! I received a beautiful pyramid note card, some lovely lady stamps, some much needed black and white eyelets, a wire word with split pin fasteners, some flower sequins in the most beautiful colors, a lovely leaflet of peel off stickers and a stack of stamped images. There's some lovely Tilda's in between them too. Sorry there's no photo of it - our camera was left behind at our 'other home'. I will definitely be taking the images with me to sit and color when I have a couple of spare minutes.

Thanks so much again Dragonlady! It is much appreciated.

Okay, now for the great news! As many of my blog friends will know, our smallholding has been on the market for just over two years now. I started giving up hope of it ever been sold. But, the Lord works in great ways and He knows when to let things happen and when not to. In His time, not in ours! For just over a month now we have had somebody whose been seriously interested in buying the place. Things at first did not go the way any of us wanted and then just all of a sudden, things started happening and going right. The sale is finally on track and we will be moving at the end of August! It is a move to a much smaller town (Heilbron in the Freestate) than where we are now, but we will be much closer to our children and grandchildren and also to the rest of my family. So, in two weeks time, a packing frenzy will rear its ugly head in this house. At least we will be closer to Johannesburg and the surrounding bigger towns like Sasolburg and Vereeniging where there is many more craft shops available. There is a smallish craft shop and the town people are all extremely friendly. I will miss my friends I have made over the years here in Vryheid, but new friends have already been made in Heilbron. And we are going to make the best of the situation and enjoy our stay there.

So, today has been a day full of good things for us and we are extremely thankful for it.

Thanks for popping in and that I am able to share our good news with you all. For the next week to 10 days I am back to hardly any internet again, but I will survive :-)

Have a great week!!

Quick Post

2010-07-25T14:36:00.000+02:00

A warm hi to all my blog land friends!

This is just a very quick post to let you know that I will probably not be around for a while longer. Where we have been for the last month and will probably still be for another two weeks, we have very poor internet connection and it is an absolute waste of time for me to try and load anything. I am still crafting though :-). I can also not visit all the blogs I so would love to on a regular basis, but I am trying to keep up with what is going on even if it is just through my Dashboard.

I hope to be able to post actively again in a couple of weeks time.

In the meantime, I hope that you are all thoroughly enjoying your crafting!

Thanks for stopping by!

Parchment Fan

2010-06-27T16:56:00.000+02:00

A warm hello from a cold Kwa-Zulu Natal! It is freezing here today and even more cold is apparently on the way for our area. Even though it was freezing here in my craft room, I forced myself to sit down and finish my set of ABC ATC's for our rubberstamp group swap. It was for the letters Q, R & S. I had a royal battle with the Q ones, but, now they are done and can be in the post tomorrow or so. Sorry, cannot show them yet! They will probably only appear here around the middle of August.

In the meantime, here is a small fan I made some time ago. The blades are only around 10 to 12cm long. But, as you can see, the final product is gorgeous, even though I have to say so myself :-) There's a whole 18 blades! Being so small, they were nice and easy to handle.

Thank you so much for your visit. Hope you like what you see!

Hope you will all have a wonderful week with plenty time to do what you enjoy most.

Wall decorations

2010-06-16T17:23:00.000+02:00

It has been freezing cold here in Sunny South-Africa but luckily we have a lovely sun room where I can sit and knit. My craft room is far too cold to work in at this stage. I have knitted so many pairs of mittens, my hands are aching. But I am not complaining, they are selling very well.

Just a quick post to show you some wall decorations I did some time ago. Don't remember where the patterns are from, but I do remember that I enjoyed doing them.

Hope you will all enjoy what is left of this week! Tonight Bafana Bafana is playing again - we'll be holding all thumbs for them.

I've been a Lucky Duck!

2010-06-13T13:18:00.000+02:00

Look what I won over on the Simon Says Stamp Blog a while ago! I could not believe it when I saw my name and comment there. Now I am doing the happy dance all over again as my CD arrived safely in my post box.

Thanks so much again to the Simon Says Stamp group and to Tim Holtz.

Have a great week everybody!

Still around :-)

2010-06-11T10:03:00.000+02:00

Good Morning to all my friends! Hope you are all keeping well.

This is just a quick post to let you know that I am still alive :-) Life is just happening too fast around me at the moment and there are just too many things that requires my attention. I am still not getting around to doing stamping or parchment and really wish a day had many, many more hours.

This is practically the only crafting I am getting done at present - and only while I am watching some soapies at night. At our machine embroidery class last week one of the ladies shared the pattern with us. I knitted a pair for a friend and from there I have been knitting them to sell at the farm stall. My dear hubby made me the hand and since it is displayed like that, I cannot keep up and wish I had two pairs of hands! These are super easy to knit.

I hope that everybody will have a lovely weekend. We are definitely starting to feel that it is actually winter, but still have some nice days.

Today is the beginning of a soccer mad month for us here in South-Africa. Who-ever you are cheering for, may the best team win.

Thanks again for stopping by!

MEGA candy at True's

2010-05-26T17:19:00.000+02:00

Pop over to True's Gift's From the Heart to enter for her MEGA Multi Company Blog candy!! You might just be sorry if you don't! There are loads of goodies.

Alphabet ATC's - N, O & P

2010-05-23T11:15:00.000+02:00

Firstly I need to thank everybody who has left messages of condolences on the passing of my Mother-in-Law on the previous post. It is still a very sad time for us, but we are definitely receiving all the strenght we need to deal with it.

We have now received our Alphabet ATC's on the letters N, O & P back. Must say the ladies who took part have really done some amazing work on these. With this round we were not allowed to use any embellishments. It is quite hard not to use embellishments when you are so used to using them. Makes the old mind think again. I think it was a good change.

'N' is for Numbers. The background was done on a piece of kraft board which I painted with acrylic paint mixed with scumble. While it was still wet I stamped into it with some clear number and the letter 'n' stamps which I randomly attached to an acrylic block. Have no idea who the stamps are from. The '2' in the top corner is prick-n-stitch and the word Numbers was done on purple tape.

'O' for Octopus. For the background I put the blue cardstock through the Cuttlebug using the Tiny Bubbles folder and then just dabbed a silver ink pad over it. The octupus was stamped in orange. The stamp is from a local stamp company - Great Impressions in George.

'P' for Paisley, Parchment, Puzzle & Pink. Again the background was done with the Perfectly Paisley embossing folder in the Cuttleburg. The paisley stamp was stamped onto parchment paper with a little embossing done here and there. The stamp is from a Chiswick set.

Thanks so much again for your visit to my blog!! All your kind comments are much appreciated. I am off to start on some wedding card samples for a friend - she only needs 30, but she's has left it very late - she's getting married on the 19th of June!!

Hope all of you will have a wonderful week filled with all of the craft time you may wish for.

Sad News

2010-05-16T17:14:00.000+02:00

I am back from a wonderful visit to my Mother and my beautiful grandchildren. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though it was a long trip there and back. Did no crafting but did manage to get some craft supplies which is just not available in our little town. My Sister arranged a kiddies party for my Mom (at 75!!!) complete with a fairy birthday cake, cream soda cold drinks, pop corn balls and lots of other kiddies eats. My Mom and her friends thought it was rather original. She was very happy with the card I made her and it is on display in her lounge.

Unfortunately we received the very sad news early Friday morning that my Mother-in-Law passed away during the night. She was 76 years old. She had emphysema and were in hospital for the last week. I will not be around for the next week as we are having a whole lot of family coming to stay with us before and after the funeral on Thursday.

I will be back as soon as possible.

Hope you will all have a week full of wonderful therapeutic crafting.

Card for my Mother

2010-05-10T14:24:00.000+02:00

Just a quick post today. My Mother is turning a young 75 on Thursday and I made her this card. She loves parchment creations and have had some I made for her, framed. I did not put anything to do with the '75' on the outside as it serves as a Mother's Day card as well. With her it normally works like that as her birthday and Mothers Day is so close together. Don't remember where this pattern is from, as I found it in my file of printed patterns that I still want to do. All the flowers with flat back pearl centers are 3D.

Hope you like what you see! May you have a wonderfully productive week! I am off to make a card for my grandson's first birthday, which is on Friday.

Thanks so much again for visiting.

A new craft and venture for me

2010-05-06T20:22:00.000+02:00

A very warm hallo to all my blog friends. Hope you are all doing very well. To those who are moving into spring - enjoy all the beauty of spring. To those who are starting to feel the cold of fall/winter- keep warm! Here in South-Africa we are starting to feel the chill in the early morning air, as well as at night. Not that I mind winter.

I have been introduced to yet another new craft and again by my friend Susan. A couple of Saturdays ago she sent me a photo on my cellphone of something she made at a class she attended. It was absolutely stunning and she immediately had my attention. She also has some pictures of it on her blog. It is called Tokreen. You can have a look at their website here. Unfortunately the website is in Afrikaans, but I am sure you will enjoy looking at and be amazed at all the beautiful things one can make with this product. They did a trade fair in a town not too far from us and I jumped at the opportunity to collect some stock from them. I am now also a distributor for Tokreen for the area I live in. But anybody from other areas in South-Africa, I am quite willing to post to you.

Below are two of my first projects - I still have a long way to go before I am going to be 100% happy with it, but I am enjoying myself. It can become very messy when you are painting the flowers, not that I really have a problem getting messy while I am enjoying myself.

This was an old tin that I found in my husbands' garage. Hessian, rope, silk flowers and some glass beads were used to decorate it.

This was a little bucket that I got with a gift many, many years ago. Here I have used a piece of an old sheet that was on its way out, some rope, silk flowers and some buttons for the flower centers.

The English side of the Tokreen book says "From trash to treasure with Tokreen" and that is exactly what it is. Everything and anything goes. You can absolutely give your imagination free reign.

That's it from me for today. I hope that you will all have a wonderful weekend.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Parchment Daisy Circle

2010-04-21T09:27:00.000+02:00

Can you believe it - a second post this week!! Well, as I said, my stamping mojo is still on holiday and doing other crafts are definitely benefitting from it. And I so love doing parchment craft that I don't really mind but I do have some return cards that I have to make. Will have to do something to get back into stamping!

This was a pattern I found at ASM Designs and as normal, I thoroughly enjoyed working on it. The parchment is stitched to the cardstock with invisible thread all around the edge. To me, that is the only way that you can attach parchment and not see the product you have used to do it with. Unless of cause you put your glue or double sided tape under a heavily embossed area.

Thats all for today. I am off for some coffee with a friend.

Thanks so much again for visiting and for leaving such lovely comments.

Enjoy what is left of the week!

Stamping and Prick-and-Stitch Combination.

2010-04-20T14:06:00.001+02:00

A very warm hallo there to all you talented crafters! Hope your week is going smoothly so far and that you are getting lots of crafting done. My rubberstamp mojo has gone on an extended holiday - again!! - so I am trying to keep myself busy with all sorts of other crafts.

Just wanted to show you a card I quickly put together this morning. I had the image stamped and colored for some time, but did not get around to making a card with it yet. I got this prick and stitch pattern freebie from Marianne design a while ago and after I finished working it last night, I thought of my already colored image and put the card together this morning. I am rather happy with the result. The stamp is from Flourishes.

Well, that is all for today. Thank you so much for visiting again and please know that I love and appreciate all your kind comments.

Enjoy the rest of your week!

Something different.

2010-04-17T16:36:00.000+02:00

A very dear friend of mine, Susan, were kind enough to go and buy me terracotta moulds to do some papermoulding with. I have never done it, but saw some that she and somebody she also taught did, and wanted to give it a try. We live around 500+ kilometers apart and how was she going to teach me? Well, she was kind enough to sent me written instructions and she answered all my questions (and there were plenty!) via e-mail and sometimes Skype. I think she was probably sorry after a couple of days that she did agree to get me the moulds. But, I am very thankful to her - and I am quite happy with the results. Don't know what Susan will say about them when she sees it in real; hopefully she will be happy. Thanks again Susan!

We, that's my husband and I, made quite a couple of these 'impressions'. I put some of them on canvasses and also made cards with others. There is just so much one can do with them.

This is the card I made with the Leopard on a Branch image.

And this is the card made with the Storming Elephant image.

If you double-click on the pic, you will see all the amazing details that the manufacturers of the moulds have put into them.

Well, that's it from me for this week. Hope you like what you see here.

Thank you so much for visiting again!

Alphabet ATC Swap - K, L & M.

2010-04-11T16:26:00.000+02:00

A warm hi and hallo to all my dear visitors! The weekend is nearly something of the past and I am happy that the new week is around the corner. I will have enough time on my hands to do lots of cards and other crafts. Today I have been trying to re-organise and re-arrange my craft room. Somehow everything just got disorganised and too messy to my liking. Hopefully when I am done tonight, I will be able to get creative in a more organised environment again when I walk in here tomorrow morning.

These are the last of the ATC's that I can show for some time from our rubber stamping groups alphabet ATC swap. My next 3 sets are all done and waiting to be posted to the hostess. I can hardly believe that the first set for the swap was done a whole year ago!

K for Kitty. This is a stamp from Micia.

L for Ladybird and Love. Both these stamps are from Inkadinkado.

M for Marriage. This stamp is from Whiff of Joy.

I hope you will all have a wonderful week and get to do lots of what you really enjoy.

Thanks again for visiting and thank you so much for leaving such lovely comments!

Alphabet ATC Swap - H, I & J.

2010-04-04T14:02:00.000+02:00

A very good day to all! Hope you are all having a wonderful, peacefull weekend.

Here's H, I & J of our rubber stamping group ATC swap.

H for Heels, Hat & Handbag.

I for Insects.

J for Jester.

That's it for today!

Thanks again for visiting!

Alphabet ATC Swap - E, F & G.

2010-04-03T11:33:00.000+02:00

A very good day to all and hoping that everyone is having a blessed Easter!

These are the E, F & G ATC's I did for our group swap

E for Eight.

F for Foot.

G for Gifts, Green & Gold.

Thanks for visiting!

Alphabet ATC swap - A, B, C & D

2010-04-01T08:00:00.000+02:00

It's been some time since I did a craft post! Life just happened far too fast around me - it feels as if I am on a roller coaster ride that does not seem to want to end!

For the next couple of days I am going to post mostly pics of an alphabet ATC swap that our rubber stamping group is doing. At the moment we are working on N, O & P.

This is A, B, C & D with a close-up of the little ants on A for Ants. They were made out of beads and wire by a friend who runs a project here in KZN where ladies are making these little beaded animals.

Oh, I nearly forgot - this ATC of mine was published in a local craft magazine - Craftwise. First time ever something of mine were published!

B for Butterfly. A layer of Angelina fibres were used under the parchment butterfly.

C for Cupcake.

D for Daisies.

Thanks for visiting!

I won some blog candy!

2010-03-31T08:11:00.001+02:00

Yip, I have been so lucky to win another blog candy!! This time from a very kind and wonderful lady in the UK - Jo Pritchard from JoZart. It was on the 16th of March that she notified me that I won the 3rd place candy. Can you believe it - the parcel arrived safe and sound right here in SA yesterday and that in less than 14 days! Nothing broken, not opened - even the little eggies inside the parcel were all intact. I received some gorgeous goodies, amongst which a lovely Geisha stamp (Shinzu & Shakiko) which is one of Jo's own designs for stampattack. This is all the goodies that was in the bag. There is none of the goodies that was in the bag, that I do have.

Thanks so much again Jo! I sure am going to enjoy playing with it.

Hope everybody will have a great weekend!

Card for Cariena

2010-03-09T21:31:00.000+02:00

A very good day to all of you! Hope you are all doing well.

I did this card for a friend, Cariena Basson, who said she's never had a parchment craft card in her hands. I've done it some time ago already, but did not want to spoil it for her blogging it before she received it. She received it today.

This is also from The Language of Flowers by Tatsue Shibata. The card has two layers. The front part is held in place by two of the flowers which is cut loose from the back part partially and the front is then pushed in under these flowers. I thoroughly enjoyed doing this card.

In the meantime I have been working on my N, O & P ATC's for our group swap. See, I am not doing only parchment :-)

Well, we're almost halfway to the weekend. Enjoy what is left of this week and have lots of fun crafting.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Parchment cards

2010-02-27T21:47:00.000+02:00

A very warm hello to all! Hope you are enjoying your weekend and that the 9 to 5 workers are getting lots of crafting done this weekend.

A project that I saw on a fellow RSA Stamper, Amanda Harrod's website, inspired me to make some boxes this week, into which I want to put 5 to 8 cards with envelopes, which can be given as gifts. I have found that people always appreciate a gift like that very much. So, I have been busy making some rather plain and quick cards too practically all week to put into these boxes. I got the pattern for the box from the Scor-Pal website and managed to make them quite easily, even though I don't have a Scor-Pal.
Inbetween making the cards and the boxes, I have been busy making some more parchment cards.

The first one is from the Pergamano World Magazine Nr. 39. Lots of cutting here but a very nice and easy pattern to do. There is another version of the pattern as well as a gift tag. I hope to do both at some or other stage. This specific magazine has some lovely wedding card patterns in it too.

The next is a pattern from a CD by Wendy Walters - Parchment Craft Pattern CD Vol 1, in the Flowers section. Both these cards are actually shown as a colored version, but as I am not so great on the coloring, I prefer to do it in plain whitework.

Well, that's all from me for this week. I hope you like what you see.

All the comments left on the previous posts is much appreciated. It really warms my heart.

Hope you will have a great first week of March. I know I have a rather busy week ahead of me.

Thanks for visiting again!

Daisies

2010-02-20T18:16:00.000+02:00

A very good afternoon to all! Hope you are all doing very well and enjoying your weekend.

I am still making parchment craft cards and this one comes from a book called The lanuage of Flowers by Tatsue Shibata. She is an extremely talented lady and in this first book she wrote, she has 20 exquisite patterns. This one is called Daisies. Though it has taken me forever to do it, I loved it. I hope you can see from the scan that the four daisies with pearl centers are 3D. Unfortunately I don't have a camera at the moment and could not photograph it. These daisies were also given a light brush of Pergamano Pinta Perla White paint, just for that added effect.

Hope you like what you see and that you will be back to visit again. To those who left comments on my previous posts, thank you sooo much. It is much appreciated.

Enjoy what is left of your weekend and happy crafting!

Thanks for visiting!

Parchment & Stamping Combination

2010-02-17T22:20:00.000+02:00

I can hardly believe that it is my second posting for this week already! Well, I actually planned on finishing this piece yesterday already, but life just would not allow me to.

This is another one of Amanda's patterns (Amanda-Craft in Parchment) It is called Grid ATC. Yes, it is the size of an ATC. But I did not want to use it as an ATC and therefor made it into a card. In the pattern you are suppose to thread colored vellum through the slots where I have ribbon and Amanda has a flower painted in the middle. I suppose that is part of what cardmaking / parchment craft is about - each person interprets a pattern in his/her own way. And this is my interpretation of her pattern. I have no idea who the design paper is by. The little bunch of flowers stamp is from an Upikit set and it was embossed with Seafoam White and colored with my trusty old Tombows.

Hope you like what you see. I thoroughly enjoyed doing this ATC. I love doing gridwork even though it is very tiring on the eyes.

Enjoy what is left of the week!

Thanks for visiting again.

Butterfly & flowers circle card

2010-02-15T15:05:00.000+02:00

A very happy Monday to all.

I had some time to make a parchment card again. I still think it is the most therapeutic kind of craft around. I just love doing it. I found the pattern and instructions on Ching-Hsiang Yeh (Amanda) from Taiwans' blog. She has lots of interesting free patterns with detailed instructions. Thank you Amanda, I loved doing this one. I love how the circle part is fitted under the flaps that is partly separated from the base of the card. I've just added some bling and also made the butterfly 3D.

Hope everybody will have a very productive week. I know I plan to make as many parchment cards as possible.

Thanks for visiting again and happy crafting!!

Another Award Received.

2010-02-13T17:04:00.000+02:00

Good day to all my friends!

Way back in December last year I received this award from Debbie Harris, a fellow RSA Stamper. Thank you so much Debbie - it means a lot to me!

This is the list of questions that comes with it:

Your cell phone? Nokia
Your hair? Brown with grey starting to come through very strong now!
Your mother? Very talented, hip and modern lady.
Your father? Fantastic memories.
Your favourite food ? Should there be one only? Meat?
Your dream last night? Nothing I can remember.
Your favorite drink? Four Cousins Natural Sweet Rosé.
Your dream/goal? For everything that is a mess in my life at the moment to be sorted out soon.
What room are you in? My craft room.
Your hobby? Stamping, parchment craft, crochet, cooking & baking.
Your fear? Something bad happening to one of my children and grandchildren & my car being stolen.
Where do you want to be in 6 years? Living closer to my grandchildren.
Where were you last night? Home.
Something that you aren't? Unhappy.
Muffins? Wimpy’s Lemon & Poppy Seed.
Wish list item? Nesties – lots of them.
Where did you grow up? Thaba'Nchu, Brandfort & Bloemfontein. (All Free State towns).
Last thing you did? Drank a glass of milk.
What are you wearing? Capri pants & a blouse.
Your TV? Only watch 7de Laan.
Your Pets? 2 Staffordshire Terriers (Kojack & Jessica) & a Jack Russell (Zena).
Friends? A couple of really precious life long ones.
Your life? Not in a good spot at the moment.
Your mood? Slightly stressed.
Missing someone? My friend Mary who moved away!
Vehicle? VW Polo.
Something you're not wearing? Make-up.
Your favorite store? Craft stores.
Your favorite color? Purples.
When was the last time you laughed? This morning.
Last time you cried? Around 11:00 this morning.
Your best friend? Leon.
One place that you go to over and over? My craft room.
Facebook? Yes, but not a regular user.
Favorite place to eat? RJ’s & Ocean Basket.

Now passing something like this on is rather difficult because I would love to give it to lots of wonderful people out there, but here are my chosen five, Check out their blogs.

Moz Roberts @ ... all things Moz
Susan Nel @ Sunel's Crafts
Ursula Uphof @ My Crafting Corner
Jo @ JoZart
Tertia Jacobs @ Crafting Gran

Enjoy, my friends, now it's your turn to tell us a bit more about yourselves.

Hope you have a very creative weekend!

I've been busy!

2010-02-09T17:49:00.000+02:00

A very good day to all!

At last I have had some time to get around to some cardmaking again. It's been some time and it was actually wonderful to sit down and make some cards the last two days.

These are the first cards I made using my Sweet November Stamps from C.C. Designs which I got as Blog Candy way back last year. This little fairy is called Buttercup Reedweb. The paper is from a pad I got as part of my prize at stamp camp. She was colored with Twinklings and there's some Stickles on her wings and dress.

This little one is called Fidget Goblinspider. Also colored with Twinklings and I have used some Stickles on her dress and wings as well.

I made some more of them but will take photo's of the cards rather than scan them as I am not happy with the color of the scan.

This card was just made because I had some white and red cardstock sitting on my desk and it begged me to use it. I made two of them. Very plain and very quick.

The flower stamp used here is from a local stamp company Great Impressions and the wording is from another local company Country Crafts. Of this I also made two, the other one slightly different & with different wording. Again I am not too happy with the scanned colors - the ribbon is not as bright as it appear here.

Another quicky.

Well, that's it from me for today. I hope I will have some time tomorrow to make some more cards. I really need some cards for my stash.

Have a wonderful week and thanks for visiting!

Candy over at Rosette's Crafting World

2010-02-01T22:13:00.001+02:00

Have a look what Rosette has on offer here! Yummy! She ships worldwide. It ends on 16/02/2010.

First post for 2010!

2010-01-20T22:15:00.000+02:00

A very happy hallo to all!

I hope that everybody has had a wonderful 2010 so far. I know we are three weeks into it already and I have not posted anything here. It is not as if I have not been busy, everything but! Since all my visitors left, I have been working on 3 sets of ATC's for a swap that I signed up for - sorry cannot post any pics of them yet. It is an ABC swap and our next three letters is K, L & M. 18 of each. I am nearly done with the last ones even though they only need to be with the hostess towards the end of February. Once they are out of the way, I will be able to get around to some cardmaking again. I need to start making some Valentine cards!

In the meantime I have been busy baking lots and lots of rusks. I got the recipe from a very dear friend and since I got it, I've had to bake almost non-stop. I had to bake for my son who was home over Xmas and a couple of batches for the house (of cause!) and some that I sell at a farm stall not far from our house - and it has been selling very well. Don't they just look yummy?!

I bought myself a set of pans with a cutter - that way all your rusks are the same size. Overseas visitors, do you get pans like these in your country? These are locally made and I could not find anything similar in other countries. Do leave a comment and let me know - it would be very interesting. As you can see, I have a huge stove and both these pans goes into the oven at once. Approximately 20 minutes later and out comes 140 perfect rusks!

To be honest, I have a fresh batch in the kitchen waiting to be dried out tomorrow morning.

Well, that's it from me from a lovely cool and wet KZN. I am off to carry on working on my ATC's.

Have yourself a wonderful weekend and I hope you get lots of crafting done.

Warm hugs!

Amanda

Last post for 2009

2009-12-30T15:14:00.000+02:00

A very good day to all!

This will more than likely be my last post for this year. Before I go any further, I would like to wish all my visitors a very happy and wonderful 2010. May your best memories of 2009 be your worst in 2010. May all your dreams come true and may you only experience health, love, wealth and lots of happiness.

At our Stamping and cardmaking retreat in October, Blanche Varrie from Great Impressions taught us how to decorate these canvasses. She had them all prepared for us, we just had to do the stamping and putting them together. I just loved it. It has been quite a while since camp and as I was busy making other things, I never got around to making some more and I also did not have all the necessary supplies. At the beginning of the month I was in the city and were able to get all the things I wanted/needed to make these canvases. I've did not have the faintest idea how to prepare the canvases or the little wooden squares but took the plunge and did it as I thought it should be done.

I also did not have the stamps that Blanche used on the ones we did at camp, but hey, I suppose that is what makes each of us individuals - use whatever you have! You can see what the camp ones looked like on Susan Nel's blog. I also made this dusty pink one. There are lots that I will do differently on the next ones I plan to make, but for now, I am happy with these. Don't you just love the metal flowers! I found them at a bead shop in Bloemfontein for next to nothing.

That's it for today and this year. Hope to be more active in blogging next year, though I think that might be wishfull thinking!

Thanks so much for visiting!!

Some Quick Christmas Cards

2009-12-03T14:38:00.000+02:00

And a warm welcome back to all! It's been some time since I was last on here - been rather busy with this and that.

Today I just have some quick Christmas cards that I made. I had to make 30 'more affordable' cards, and these are what I came up within the short time I had to do them. The stamp used here is also from a local company - Great Impression.

These were made using some goodies that I bought last year and the only stamping done here is the greetings. All stamps from Great Impressions.

This stamp is from a local lady, Niki Zipp from Paperchain. I love her stamps - they are so nice and deeply edged. Only embossing done here and a couple of pearls on the side.

And that's it for today.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Have a great weekend!

SD Challenge 19: Polka Dots

2009-11-28T13:31:00.000+02:00

A very happy Saturday to all! We are having wonderful sunny weather and it is actaully a good day to be working in the garden. But who wants to work in the garden when you can craft :-)

There is a new challenge over at Sunflowers and Dragonflies - this time the theme is Polka Dots! Pop on over and have a look at what the DT has come up with - there are some real beauties. This weeks prize is two cute stamps - White Rabbit and Cheshire Cat.

In a previous post I mentioned that I had to make some more Xmas cards for my daughter. And without knowing about this challenge, I used some polka dot paper! I had this paper for quite some time and when she picked the base card paper, I so hoped that this red and creamy colored paper would match it. Well, it did perfectly. She picked the stamps and colors. The nativity scene stamp is from Great Impressions and the word stamp is from Country Crafts (formerly Best Rubber Stamps) - both are local stamp companies. The card size is 15 x 15cm and the instructions were for it to be flat, no 3D, and with only a little bling. She contacted me last night to say that she received the cards and that she is very happy with it.

So, that's another entry to a challenge. Keep your fingers crossed for me - I just love the Sunflowers and Dragonflies stamps and would love to own these two beauties. Maybe I should start working on another entry :-)

Thanks so much for visiting!

Have a wonderful and creative weekend.

Another Award!

2009-11-27T15:56:00.000+02:00

I have been so lucky to have been given another award by a new blogland friend, Deborah. Baie dankie, dit word baie waardeer! Thank you so much! It is much appreciated.

For this award you have to do the following:
1. Place the award and a post about it on your blog.
2. Thank the person who gave you the award.
3. Tell us 7 things about yourself that we don't know.
4. Pick 7 more people that you feel deserve this award.
5. Place a link to their blogs in your post.
6. Tell these people that you have given them this award.

Right, here goes 7 more things about myself that you did not know:
1. I hate it when people just forward an e-mail to me without deleting all the detail of the people they got it from.
2. Poor service delivery.
3. People using the name of the Lord when they should not, puts me off big time.
4. I wish I lived closer to my Mother.
5. It would be wonderful to live closer to more of the RSA group girls.
6. I don't like sewing - specially alterations.
7. If I made an appointment with you for a specific time, I will not be late and I expect the same from you.

I would like to pass this award on to the following bloggers:
1. Desiréé at Desiréé's playground
2. Sharon at Sharon's Kardz Korner
3. Hetty at Hetty's Scrap-Layouts en Scrapkaarten
4. Suzanne Cimini at Crafting with Sue
5. RosesMarijke at Marijke's Cards
6. Vix Kennedy at Vixykins
7. Shamela at Shamela's Stamp n Scrap Corner

Thanks again Deborah!

Hope everybody will have a wonderful weekend.

CupCAKE Heaven - Another Challenge Card

2009-11-26T10:54:00.000+02:00

A very good day to all!

This is my second entry for the Sunflowers and Dragonflies challenge. Yes, you are allowed to do more than one entry - they just need to be in separate posts.

'Recipe' for this: Impression Obsession Cupcake stamps were used, this time the single cupcake imiges. Colored with Tombows, some Stickles on the icing and Glossy Accents on the cherries. The 'signposts' were done with glitter on double sided tape and the name stickers is from an old Making Memories scrapbook kit.

The 'roof' was made using tissue paper I got from our local Mr Price Home store. Stuck that onto ordinary white cardstock with wide double sided tape. I could not find scrapbook paper that I was happy with and when I saw this, it drew me like a magnet. I love the vibrant colors on it. As you can see from this picture, the 'roof' is at a slight angle - done with mirror tape.

Come on RSA girls, you still have till tomorrow to enter for this challenge!

That's it from me for today. Hope you like what you see and more so, that Beth and the DT will like it too. I have all my fingers crossed.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Have a wonderful crafty weekend.

My first challenge card!

2009-11-25T11:23:00.000+02:00

Today I am posting a card that I have made for my first ever challenge! It is from the Sunflowers and Dragonflies blog - and it is the SD Challenge 18: Let them eat cake. You can find the post here. The prize is their fantastic cupcake set. Eversince I saw these stamps, I have been wanting them. If I don't win them, I will definitely buy myself all of the cupcake stamps early next year.

The stamp used is the Cupcake set by Impression Obsession. The cupcakes was colored with Tombows and the stand with Twinkling H2O's Sage. The floral paper strip on the side is from the Heidi Grace range - Flocked Cardstock, Heidi's Cute Cakes, Stripe Dècor. Other papers used is Bazzill Board and some locally purchased buff board. Oh, and there's some Glossy Accents on the cherries and strawberry.

Do visit their website - they have some great tutorials. Also pop over to their shop - some great stamps available there and they ship internationally.

Thanks for the challenge Beth!

Thanks so much for visiting!

Have a great day.

Xmas cards

2009-11-19T15:23:00.000+02:00

Good afternoon to you all!

Today is just a quick post with some pics of the Xmas cards I have to make for my daughter. Well, I finished the first 30 (with two extra for myself) last night. This is what it looked like while everything was cut and when I started with the stamping on the base cards.

This is all the cards done and all spread out on my workspace. All 32 of them!

And this is the actual card. I was rather surprised - it did not take that long. These are for their business associates. The word stamp is from Country Crafts (previously Best Rubber Stamps) in Johannesburg and the image is from Great Impressions in George.

Now it is off to make the other 4 that has to be a bit more special and bigger but the same image and word have to be used.

Thanks so much again for visiting!

Keep warm and have a great evening.

Grandchildren

2009-11-17T15:02:00.000+02:00

A very good afternoon to you all.

We've had good old winter back with us since Sunday. It has been freezing cold, had to pull out the warm clothes again. I don't mind it though.

As you see, I have changed the look of my blog. Been wanting something pretty for some time and found this great website Cute Bloglayouts where Ingrid is designing lovely layouts. It ws really hard to choose just one design. Hope you like my new look.

Today is just some pictures of my two gorgeous grandchildren. This is the eldest one - Sydney. Once she got onto this swing, we had a battle to get her off it again. I'm sure you can see the enjoyment in that little face.

And this is the precious big boy - Alexander. He always has a smile on his face. In the four days they visited, I have never heard him cry.

That's it for today. I have an order from my daughter for 34 Christmas cards that I need to get out by next week Tuesday. Luckily the stamps and colors were chosen - it is now just for me to deside on the layout of the card. Thirty need to be the same and four need to be 'special'. I better get started on it!

Thanks so much for visiting!

Have a great week!

An Award? How honored I feel!

2009-11-13T22:27:00.000+02:00

Wow, I received my very first award! From Sharon Keanly. Thanks so much Sharon. I love popping in on your blog. There is always something intersting that you are sharing.

The criteria is to mention 10 honest things about yourself and then pass it on to 4 or 5 friends. I would like to pass this on to the following very deserving RSA Stampers:
Susan Nel
Jowilna
Cariena
Debbie
Amanda HRH

Thanks girls - you have all made such a difference in my life since I joined RSA just over two years ago. I don't think I would have known what I do now about crafts, and specially about Rubber Stamping!

Okay, I suppose now it is moving on to the honest things about myself. Here goes:

It was the most wonderful day in my life when I met my husband 27 years ago - it was the day that changed the course of the rest of my life.
I love my two grandchildren to death and will take them to live with me any day. My family is very important to me.
I am quite happy to be on my own sitting 'working' (playing) in my craft room all day, even though I would walk around some days complaining because I don't have any fellow crafters/stampers really close by.
Don't ask me to do Scrapbooking or Beading - that bug made a u-turn in a flash when it was given my address. Sorry guys, I love your goodies and what you do, but it's just not for me.
Retiring early was something I should have done many years ago.
It would be a fantastic day when our estate agent brings us the news that our smallholding is finally sold and we can move closer to our children.
I never thought that being involved with the RSA group would be so much fun and that I would meet so many wonderful people.
Not in my wildest dreams did I think I would take the plunge and also move to Blogland. It's been a fun ride.
It always amazes me to see how different people would use the same stamp or all the different ideas they would come up with for a given theme.
The thing that I am most petrified of is to come out of a shop and my car is gone! I have nightmares about it. And in the end - it is a replaceable thing!

Right then, that is it from me for tonight. My grandchilren is still visiting till Sunday (since Wednesday) and I am like a cat with nine tails. I don't even mind not getting to any crafting. I will post some pics of them after they've left.

Thanks again Sharon! Come on now, how about joining us at RSA?! Maybe in the new year?

Thanks so much for visiting.

Have a great weekend!

Sew Special

2009-11-10T11:31:00.000+02:00

Good morning to all from a cool, misty and wet Vryheid. We've had some lovely rain and I'm sure all the farmers around here are very happy with the rain. Some are planting maize and some of the foresters are felling Wattle trees. The rain apparently makes it easier to strip the bark. Isn't it wonderful how nature works!

Just two quick and plain cards that I've made with the stamps from my Clear Art Stamps set - Sew Special. I just love playing with it. A tiny bit of Stickles were used on this one, though you cannot realy see it.

Both have been colored with Tombows - again! On this one I used the double sided glitter technique again.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Hope you will have a wonderful day.

Daisies and a poodle

2009-11-05T08:22:00.000+02:00

A very good morning to all. We had some lovely rain last night and this morning the sun is shining brightly (and very hot already) and everything looks so clean and fresh. Looks like we are going to have a lovely day.

After working on this parchment craft card on and off for about three day, I eventually managed to finish it yesterday afternoon. The daisies are 3D. Not one of the cards I enjoyed doing the most, yet still very satisfying now that it is done.

This Poodle card was done with an extra image that I stamped and colored when I was making the cards for my friend. It is a Micia image and was colored with Tombows. The border was done with a Fiskars punch and I used the glitter technique that Jowilna taught us at camp on the checkered paper. I think the glitter is far too rough/big but it was the only transparent glitter I could find in our little town. I finished it off with some Zoomz for the flower center and on the border.

Okay, that's it for today. I have to get started on my Christmas cards and today seems like the perfect day for it.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Have a wonderful day full of beautiful creations.

I won some Blog Candy!!

2009-11-03T13:47:00.000+02:00

I won some blog candy!! Were just going through my candybar on my blog and hopped over to All That Scraps where Christine had a Sweet November Stamps Fairy Sweets Giveaway which closed yesterday. And there was my name! I am absolutely over the moon with joy! Now I will have some 'cute' fairy stamps too! Please hop over to All That Scraps and you can see examples of these adorable fairies.

Thanks again to Christine and Amy who is the designer.

Have a wonderful day! I am having one!

Ballerinas and Poodles

2009-11-02T23:28:00.000+02:00

Good evening to all!

Well, I had a rather busy afternoon. A friend contacted me at around 15H00 to request two cards for tomorrow morning! They have to be delivered by 09H00! And specific instructions - one has to have something ballerina on it for her granddaughter and the color has to be pink. The other one is for her daughter who is going through a rough patch - no flowers or coffee or people - it must be some kind of animal! Bang! There I lost all my ideas and to top it I don't have any ballerina stamps for the granddaughter's card! What now? Oh well, thank heavens for the internet and freebie clipart! This is what I came up with for the granddaughter. And can you believe it, I made two! Her name is Abigail - reason for the little 'A' charm on this one. Colored with Tombows with lots of Stickels on the skirt.

The next one I actually just did because I had the image printed and still did not know what I was going to do for the animal card. Again lots of Stickels on the skirt. I suppose this one will go into my stash as I am sure she will prefer the top one.

How wrong could I have been! She preferred this one!

Now the ballerina card is done and the animal one is waiting. Stamped a couple of images and did not like it. They were things like a frog and a mouse and that would just not do the trick for me. Then I remembered about a new Micia stamp I have which I have never used. This was a rather quick one. I hope the poodle with its head held high and the hearts on this one will convey the message.

Will soon enough find out whether my friend like them or not!

Thanks a lot for visiting!

Hope you will all have a very productive week!

Parchment Craft Cards

2009-10-31T17:52:00.000+02:00

A very good afternoon to all!

Here is two parchment craft cards that I made in the last two days. I just love making these even though they take much longer to make than rubber stamped cards.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Hope you will enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Crafty Secret Stamps

2009-10-28T17:13:00.000+02:00

Finally! I've had some time to play with my new Crafty Secret 'Sew Special' stamps today! They were part of my prize at stamp camp and I just love them. I make cards for the ladies in my Mom's quilt group and I think they will like these. Tomorrow will be to try some of the stamps using vellum.

Cold weather is forecasted for our region for tomorrow so I guess I will be sitting in my little craft room playing all day.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Have a great day.

Cricut cartridge or stamp candy over at Holly's Blog

2009-10-25T17:40:00.000+02:00

Go check out this great candy that Holly is offering over at her blog! If you don't have a Cricut, she's offering a stack of stamps (25 in total) instead. The draw will take place once she's posted her 222nd project. She's on 171 now.

Click on the title of this post and you will be taken directly to the post on Holly's Blog.

Stamping on vellum

2009-10-24T10:49:00.000+02:00

A week ago this time we were busy with classes at camp and it was so nice. Can't we have camp more often? It does not matter, we don't have to have goodie bags and prezzies at meals - just classes will do fine :-)

I have finished the cards I still needed to do from Jowilna's class and I am rather satisfied with them. I am just having a royal battle to photograph or scan them. Will have a go at it again next week.

This card I finished on Thursday already. Used my trusted ole stamp from Flourishes again. Stamped it on vellum with Versamark Watermark and embossed with Sea Foam White powder. Did some embossing and did the border on one of the PCA grids. It was colored on the back with Tombows. The ribbon is one of those that has the little string attached that you pull to make a bow. The rhinestone is actually a light pink.

That's it for this weekend.

Hope everybody will have a wonderful weekend.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Last of stamp camp cards

2009-10-22T11:24:00.000+02:00

Good morning to all!

This is the last of my stamp camp cards. Again, the stamp used in this sweet pea card is from Flourishes. This is the other part of the stamp set. As you can see here I have used my favourite Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder as well. Again it was colored with Tombows and some Stickles were also added.

This last card is again the Poinsettia stamp from Inkadinkado. This time I have used only the flower part. The background paper was printed on vellum and the flower was colored with Twinkling H2O's.

Okay, that's it for today. I'm busy finishing off my cards from Jowilna's class and am enjoying using the glitter technique she taught us. Sometimes I just wish that there were more hours in a day to sit and play.

Thanks so much for visiting! To those friends leaving such kind comments - it is much appreciated!

Have a great day.

Some more stamp camp cards

2009-10-21T13:09:00.000+02:00

A very good day to all! Hope you all had a very productive day yesterday.

Here are some more cards that I made for stamp camp. The rose card stamp is from a local company, Great Impressions. The orchid stamp is from Stampendous, the flowers on the acetate card as well as the daisies on the daisy card is from another local company, Country Crafts.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Have a great day.

More stamp camp cards

2009-10-20T08:49:00.000+02:00

Good day to all!

I am now well rested and everything is back in it's place after the weekend away.

This is another one of the cards I made for the camp. The stamp is from one of our local stamp manufacturers - Great Impressions. Again it was colored with Tombows and I added a little bit of Pergamano Pinta-Perla over it for just that slight shimmer. Unfortunately it is not seen on this picture.

I thoroughly enjoyed doing this Poinsettia card. The stamp is from Inkadinkado. It has five layers. This card will definitely be re-created a couple of times soon.

And the last card for today is this one. The stamp is from Micia and the sentiment from Flourishes. Here I've used the 'negative' from a Nestability cut-out to frame the flowers. The flower in the middle is also 3D.

Enough for today. Now I am off to start playing with all the goodies we received at camp and practice some of the techniques we were taught this weekend.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Hope everybody will have a wonderfully productive day.

Stamp Camp

2009-10-19T12:10:00.000+02:00

A very good day to all!

We are back from a very successfull and enjoyable stamp camp! Exhausted, but with lots of enthusiasm and new knowledge. Thanks to all the ladies who did a marvelous job with organising it and also to all the teachers who shared their knowledge with us. It was wonderful to see some of our RSA group members and 'old' friends, but also to meet so many new people who have now become friends.

As mentioned in a previous post, we had to make some cards for the camp with a floral theme, with which we also stood the chance to win some prizes. Much to my surprise one of my cards won first prize!! This is the card. Sorry about the quality of the picture, I never scanned it before I left and had to take a photo of it there at camp after the announcement. I made this card Wednesday last week, only because I had some time to kill before camp and when it was done I liked it so much that I decided to take one of my others out and enter this one. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that it would be a winner though. The stamp is from Flourishes and was colored with Tombows. The little buckle was bought at Just Imagine. Some Crystal Stickles were also added.

I will post some more of the cards that I made for camp over the next few days, also some of the things we made in the classes. Now it is back to unpacking, looking at all the goodies we received and planning how and where they can be used.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Have a great day!

Wedding card

2009-10-14T07:10:00.000+02:00

Good morning friends! It is a lovely cool morning here but according to the weather forecast we are going to have a very hot day today.

A friend asked me for a card for her stepson's wedding which is towards the end of the month, but she wanted it today. As this is a card that I have made many of, specially for weddings, I decided to go with 'old trusty' again. I love doing this card as it looks never looks the same, depending on what colors and ribbons you use. This time they don't know what the wedding colors will be and I decided to go with just a hint of color and gold. The inlay is pearly white board. I really hope she is going to be happy with it.

Well, that's it from me for today. I am off to get ready to meet her for coffee a little later.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Have a great day!

Card for a friend

2009-10-10T15:05:00.000+02:00

I have not written a post for quite some time! Been busy making parchment craft cards and enjoying it thoroughly. I originally started doing cards in parchment craft and later got interested in rubber stamping whilst on holiday in the Eastern Cape. Blanche from Great Impressions (one of our local stamp manufacturers) kindly gave me a basic class in rubber stamping, and I've been hooked since! Since I joined the RSA Rubber Stamp group I have not had much time for parchment cards with taking part in all the swaps. I am now done with all my swaps for the year, thus having time to do some parchment craft again.

Our Card Making Retreat weekend starts next week Friday. I cannot wait for it. This is where I get to learn new techniques and enjoy the company of our fellow stampers.

Todays card is one I made for a friend who owns a small craft shop in town. The stamp is from Flourishes. I love this Sweet Pea stamp set! You will see lots more of it in future.

Thanks for visiting and I hope that you will have a wonderfully creative weekend.

Vintage Rolls Royce Tour

2009-09-30T14:17:00.000+02:00

This morning around 23 Vintage Rolls Royce cars from the 2nd Wholly Ghost Tour South-Africa passed by Vryheid. Our local Vintage Car Club met them on their way and we were able to chat to some of the participants and look at their cars. The cars are absolutely WOW! They are all such grand ol' ladies! All the members of the tour group were very friendly. Here I am with one of the ladies, Mary, from Australia. There were also cars from the UK, USA, Portugal, Canada, Monaco, Switzerland and New Zeeland. They shipped their cars from their country to Durban from where they started their tour through SA on Monday. The organisers are taking them through some of the most beautiful parts of our country. They will end their tour in Cape Town in around two weeks time from where their cars are shipped back again.

Wishing them all a good time in SA!

Rubber stamping

2009-09-28T14:14:00.000+02:00

It looks like winter is back here in KZN. It is cold and overcast outside and the wind is blowing. Proper craft weather.

We had visitors for the weekend and I had no time to craft. But it was lovely to have the visitors. However, I could not sleep last night and I did some stamping then. I love my coffee stamps. This one is from Impression Obsession. The wording is from a different company. Sorry, I don't remember who from.

You can have a look at another one of my rubber stamped cards on my friend Susan Nel's blog through the link on my sidebar - Sunel's Crafts.

Hope everybody will have a wonderfully productive week.

Thanks for visiting!

Parchment Cards

2009-09-22T15:33:00.000+02:00

Parchment craft is another one of my passions. Here is a card that I have made. A lot of my parchment cards are made for a friend of my Mother who prefer to give hand made cards to her friends. She has requested some cards again so for the next couple of days that is what I will be busy with.

Thanks for visiting!

I took the plunge!

2009-09-20T13:23:00.000+02:00

After I did a blog hop and could not enter for the candy at the end because I did not have a blog, I decided to take the plunge and start my own blog. Well, here goes! I still have a lot to learn about blogging and you will see how my blog changes as I learn.

I will probably not be a busy blogger, but I will do postings now and then.

The last couple of weeks I have been busy making cards for a Card Making Retreat I will be attending during October. Therefor no pics to post. All cards made by attendants will be donated to the New Hope School for Cerebral Palsy. I will post some of the cards after the Retreat.

That's all for today. Off to learn some more about blogging.

Amanda