CPS Card challenge

Hi there Bloglanders

I hope you are having a great Saturday. I have made a card for this week's CPS card challenge. Want to see?

I just love the Butterfly stamp and couldn't wait to use.  For the rest, I used scraps as usual.  The book page that I used has a story of its own.  I've been looking for a book that I can cut up for some time - I do have an old dictionary but I don't actually cut it up - I use it for the words.  Every time I buy an old book, I bring it home and when I have to tear it apart, I can't do it.  This got me thinking that I should get a book that is outdated.  I got hold of an old computer text book. (the days when computers were huge)  Problem solved, I now have a book that I can cut up without feeling guilty.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and check back here as I'll be sharing some fun hybrid projects next week.

And I Quote.

Good morning Bloglanders

In a few hours time it will be weekend. Jippee! More time to spend on things I love.  In South Africa we had our first winter rain - I just love winter. Hearty meals, hot chocolate, warm socks, jerseys,  boots and time to spend indoors on creative stuff. Maybe I'll finally get something in my Etsy shop! Watch this space.

I love thinking up new projects but found that I'm not good at keeping them up. It's not that I give up - no, no, no - I do keep up until the bitter end but it gets to be a chore and I stop enjoying long before I finish. That's why I dream of doing a year in review project but I'm too scared to start. Even my December Daily is in a plastic container all sorted but I can't decide what to do with it - too much pressure from myself.

How did I find this out? By doing a project that stretched over a month.  I just love quotes (anything, from anyone, it just have to speak to me). I decided to do a quote a day and adapt it to fit my life.  This is what the finished book looked like:

I love looking at it as this means that I can keep up for 31 days.  But this is what I will remember for the rest of my life about the project:

You see - I don't have to keep up!  The priority is to ENJOY what I do.

Have a great weekend!

Dress form tag

  Hi there Bloglanders

I try to use everything I buy and as I had a dress from stamp that has never been used, I took it out and it was sitting on my craft desk and waiting for my inspiration. First I decided upon a color scheme and would you believe it - The Play Date Cafe!  I wish I knew where they got hold of all their weird color combo's. This is the one I used:

Not my normal cup of tea but I try to think outside my box for smaller projects.  I also got an idea from my virtual notice board - Pinterest but I can't find the picture to show you! This was what I came up with.

I do a lot of sewing and therefore have stacks of tulle scraps.  They are all going to be reincarnated into dress form skirts!! Once again, I recycled most of the goodies. Even the white paper is the backing paper from a MFT stamp set I bought. (glued the printed side onto the yellow cardstock)

I think I will be making sets in different color combo's for gifts. I just love them and maybe I'll do some to put up over my sewing desk. Watch this space!

That's it from me. Have a great day and please come back to play.

Princess pressie

Hi there Bloglanders

 Last week my son’s girlfriend, the Princess turned 24 and as usual she celebrated in style.  She had a “cat party” (lucky for us not a cat fight!) and I had to make cat ears for her to wear. Here is a pic of kitty Zahni all dressed up and ready to party. 

Of course we did some pressies for her.  I normally give money to both the "daughter-in-laws" and as it will be girlfriend #2’s birthday at the beginning of April, I did everything X2.  Craft envelopes zussed up with a few of “my toys”.  Easy as that.

For my son it was not that easy as he had to buy a present fit for a princess.  Of course he brought it home to wrap and as I just received my beautiful stamps from Papertry inc I couldn’t resist – “some bunny loves you”, washi tape and my son was on his way.

Now for the story.  The princess bought 2 bunny’s in a pet shop and announced she will sell all future off springs.  First lot was sold ASAP, the second lot not that fast and eventually lot number 3 and 4 didn’t get sold at all.  A few rand (actually a lot of them) and lots and lots of logistics later and all the males we neutered. This happened about 5 years ago when the children were still at school but since then a few things changed and now the princess works full time, lives in a flat and I have 8 bunny’s!  I think “some bunny loves you” is a perfect fit, don’t  you?

Sympathy card

Hi there Bloglanders

Today I'm sharing a card I made for a friend who lost her mother. Even though I didn't know her mother, I wanted to give something to my friend which made her feel as if I really had sympathy with what she was going through.



I used a doily die form MFT and the rest is scraps. Even the craft paper that you see peeking out was recycled from an old envelope. And I love to add a bit of Twine to my cards.  This time round I used  Maraschino from The Twinery.

Have a great Tuesday.  I have a lot of projects lined up to share but have to take the pic's first. (and you know that's my weakest link) Please come back to play and I'll show you what's brewing in my craft room.

J-Bay mini album

Hii there Bloglanders

I hope you had a fabulous weekend.  I love weekends - a bit more time to spend on my own stuff, my home and my family.

Today I'm posting pictures of a mini album I made last year.  It was so easy!  I zussed up 4x6 landscape pictures in a photo editing program and for each photo, did a 4x6 page of journaling.  After printing, I glued them back to back, inserted a binder ring to the top left corner, added some ribbon and it was done.

For my non Afrikaans speaking Bloglanders here is the story: My friend has never flown in an aeroplane. A year ago I bought airline tickets to Port Elizabeth for me, her and my mom. We went on a 3 day trip to Jeffrey's Bay, Port Elizabeth, Humansdorp and visited my sister in Joubertina. We had a great time and Charlene will be telling to story for the rest of her days.

This mini was made X3 - one for Charlene, one for mum and one for me. As everything was done digitally, the printing was the hardest part. There you have it. A great way to remember a wonderful experience.

I have to run. New week, new challenges.  I hope you have a great week and remember to play as U go!

Layout day / CPS-Card

Hi there Bloglanders

Today I'm sharing a layout.  I don't have to tell you how important these are to me. (Layouts, my son and my cat) As always, I have included a long story.  For those of you who don't understand Afrikaans - I will translate after the picture.

We are dog-people but since my son, Pieter could think for himself, he wanted a cat. At that stage we had a Rottweiler and I didn't think it was a good idea but the day before his 5th birthday a little wild kitten was run down by one of the farm's tractors and my husband brought her home for Pieter.  She was injured. very wild and used to spit at all of us. Most of the time she was hanging upside down in our thatch roof! BUT, between Tossel (it is pom pom in English) and Pieter it was love at first sight and she even scared the hell out of  the Rottweiler.

Today, 20 years later she does everything I do. When I sew, she is on the sewing machine, when I work in the office, she is on the computer and even if I prepare food, she wants to be on the stove to see what I'm doing. Whenever Pieter comes home, she will come running to him and he will pick her up and carry her around the whole time.

I have made this card that will be used on a birthday gift. Wouldn't you just love to receive something as special as this?  I know that I would.  You can see all the similar cards from CPS-Card challenge 257 here. Enjoy!

That's it! Once again, I'm going away for the weekend but I'll be back on Sunday to share with you what I did. Have a great weekend and remember, Play as U Go!

Scrap RDV card

Hi there Bloglanders

As I told you, yesterday was a public holiday in South Africa and I decided to do something special at my scrap table while the boys, girlfriends and pets were sitting (more like lying) around and catching up. I didn't miss a thing and made this card for mother's day. Yes, I know it's still a few months away but at least I'm getting ahead of schedule. The inspiration came from Scrap RDV who are hosting a month from Japan. You can read all about it here.

The pink spots at the back is actually a piece of material that I sewed onto the cardstock. In the envelope I have a lot of tags - I intend to write something my mum has done for me over the years on each of them and she can take one out every day. Something like a Mother's Day advent calender.

Here you can see the tags:

I'm rather proud of my letter stickers and will show you how I made them in tomorrow's post. It's like homemade "thickers"!!

That's it for today. I'm off to work. Have a great day. Please come back to play tomorrow.

Easter Decor

Hi there Bloglanders

As promised, I'm sharing the Easter decorations that I'm currently working on with you. Once again, I don't intend to buy anything extra so I'll be using what I have or re-purposing last year's goodies. First up is a set of bunnies I made by punching out the shapes with a QuicKutz die. I put a piece of cardstock in the middle to make it sturdier and some felt on either side. In the middle is a wooden kebab stick. Easy peasy!



At Christmas, Halloween and Easter I always deliver little goodies to the mail boxes of all my neighbors and friends.  Once again, my picture is not that good but on the right you can see the little basket that I'm using for the gifts. I bought one bulk pack of Easter eggs and will use that to fill the little baskets.  It looks like a lot of eggs - I filled it up with shredded paper (from the office) at the bottom and Styrofoam blocks to get the bunny's to stand up.

You know that I adore cats. That is why I ordered a stamp set from Papertrey Inc. This is a picture of the stamped cat:

Lucky for me the set also included a bunny!!! I'm using that with a sentiment "some bunny loves you" to make little cards for the gift baskets.

Here is a close-up of the felt bunny:

In South Africa we have a public holiday today.  To all the South African Bloglanders, I hope you get to do that something extra for yourself.  To the rest of you out there have a wonderful Wednesday and Play as U go!

Wedding bells

Hi there Bloglanders

Remember the recipe book I made for my friend's kitchen tea? If you didn't come to play on that day, you can click here to see. I really loved the way it turned out and will make one for myself as well.

I got hold of some of the fabric from her wedding dress  and the bridesmaids' dresses (her mom is doing all the outfits) and decided to use it to make a guest book for the wedding where every guest can write a little wish for the couple.

This is the finished book:

I actually did a Zutter binded book and inserted it into a fabric covered cover. This is the first page of the book with names and dates to commemorate the occasion.

Inside it looks like this:

The size of the book is A5 as the bride's mom is making a box for her coffee table where she can keep all her wedding mementos.  A5 is small enough to fit into her box but also big enough to accommodate 160 messages from friends and family.

Last page:

I love to add dictionary descriptions!  This one is "TROU" - Afrikaans for wedding / to get married / to be faithful. 

Wrapped and ready to be delivered:

I actually wanted to buy a cook book for a present but looking at the pictures, I'm glad that I decided to go the extra mile and do something special for a very special friend. 

That's it from me. Please come back to play - tomorrow I'm getting to the Easter decor.





A Productive weekend

Hi there Bloglanders

I'm so sorry for not coming back to play last week.  My husband had to go away on business and I decided to leave my old cat and old children to fend for themselves at home and join him.  The problem is that  I'm still snowed under at work and my craft admin is also getting the better of me.  I came up with the perfect solution!

As the West Coast seaside resort where my hubby had to work, doesn't even have a cafe and I knew I would spend at least eight hours a day alone, I packed a stack of work (unopened mail to sort), a stack of scraps to cut into usable items, my Cuttlebug, 8 dies, food and lots of wine.Who would miss out on an opportunity to spend time at a place like this?

First I tackled the work and opened and sorted everything ready to be filed on Monday. Of course I had a stack of paper and envelopes left from the mail and as I don't think Strandfontein knows what recycling is, I cut all the scraps into mini book page sizes and also kept stamps and the see through parts of the envelopes.

Before:


After:

Now for the fun part.  I decided to make mini heart books, tags and "toys" to include as free gifts when I sell my goodies at craft fairs / my Etsy shop. (Coming SOON!) 

Before:                                               After:

Then I played a bit by doing a few pages for a mini book that I've been planning for some time - "Things that I love".  Look at the one with the "I love Sweet Peas". It is a window from one of the business envelopes. I just glued it down and inserted a tag that pulls out.  I love it!  Also, the page that says "I love Stellenbosch" - I used a postage stamp and just underlined the "Stellenbosch" in red.

All this stuff fitted into one box folder except my Cuttlebug which I packed with my clothes. I took me less than 5 hours to do everything - leaving me with enough time to sleep, read, walk, sit on the patio and drink lots of Sauvignon Blanc. Once I have constructed my "I love" mini book, I will post some pics for you to see.

Once again, I'm entering The Play Date Cafe's challenge (I love to play!)  You can see what the colours are if you click here. And here is my card - I think I will turn it into a father's day card!

I've also started on my Easter decor. Please come back to play as I'll be sharing my ideas with you. Have a great week and remember to Play as U go!

Tuesday card

Hi there Bloglanders

Once again, my card for the Play Date Cafe's color challenge.  These are the colors:

I would never use colors like these but everyone should at least try everything once. (tell that to my hubby and children when they decide not to eat something!) So, this is the story.

Every morning, for the past 20+ years I walk around the park in my neighborhood with a friend.  Our children used to go to school together many, many moons ago en this is when all this started. We would walk them to school and then walk back around the park to our homes.  Every morning my friend would pick up a feather. Yesterday I picked one up as well and then I remembered my grandfather saying "Tel op 'n veer, steek hom in jou hoed dan voel jy more weer goed". (this means something like "Pick up a feather, put it in your cap and tomorrow you will feel better"). Back home I wanted to do something with the feather to remind me of my grandfather and as I had the colours of the Play Date Cafe up on my notice board, the black and white fitted in so well with the scheme that I made this card:

I didn't add a sentiment to the card as I want to put my grandfather's little rhyme on there and turn it into a mini book where I can capture stories like these.

Hope you enjoyed our Playdate!  Remember, if things don't go your way today, "Pick up a feather, put it in your cap and tomorrow you will feel better".  See you tomorrow.