An LOTV card

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

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

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?!

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

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

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

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.

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

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!

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!!