Sunday Summery Week ???

Hello Bloglanders

And I finally lost track of the weeks!! I think I skipped some Sunday Summaries as I went to see my mum for three consecutive weeks. If you keep in mind that she lives about 4 hours drive away from me, it's no wonder I lost a few weeks.

I received beautiful flowers.

And I cooked breakfast.

I call them oven omelets. Line a silicone muffin pan with thinly sliced ham. Add everything you like. Top with beaten eggs and seasoning. Bake until brown and puffy. Easy Peasy!!

Pieter and his Princess moved into their very first own home and I had to do the curtains - 45 metres of black velvet. I'm not saying anything else!! Lucky me - my neighbour's cat is keeping me company.

 As we stayed at the beach house while visiting my mum and had wonderful evenings on the "stoep" (=porch) with beautiful scenery, cold West Coast Sauvignon Blanc and a braai. (=barbeque)

The sea, the moon - I just love this picture!!

I'm a HUGE fan of Wilna Fursternberg. Last week she did her first art journaling page - YES, her first ever!! She is a wonderful artist and as I had some time on hand, I decided to join in the fun. Of course mine is nothing compared to her work of art but I had a ball and enjoyed her video immensely. I even showed it to my mum on the iPad - she could not believe what you can see and  hear via technology.

Here is my page:

You can watch Wilna's video here. Of course I'll be adding some journaling but I thought I'd keep that private.

I received these cat post it notes a few weeks ago and as I'm a HUGE cat lover, I made a home-made planner ruler from recycled packaging material and added the kitty cats to my planner. They do make me smile.

On the left is a quote from Amy Tangerine. I've printed them x4 and they are all over my desk, planner and files.  It does help to remind myself that I should do something purposeful every day.

And our Princess had a birthday!! I do love her and the boys to bits.

And now for the winner of the Craft Storage Ideas Blog Hop prize that I offered on Play as U GO.

Here it is:

1. LChippy76March 25, 2015 at 6:49 AM

   OMGosh!!!
   What a F U N, Colorful, & UNIQUE Planner System!!
   THANKS for Sharing!!!

LChippy76 please send me your email address (playasugoblog@gmail.com) and you will receive the free Planner Printable.

That's it from me!! I'm off to get some more crafting done. Have a wonderful week and thanks for looking at my blog today.

Craft Storage Ideas Planner Blog Hop

Hello to all my regular Blogland readers as well as my special guests today – the ones visiting for the Craft Storage Ideas Planner Blog Hop. Thanks for Hopping along. You should have come from Amanda Corbet’sblog.

We are so excited to share some great ideas for keeping your planner both organized and fun along the way. But first, I want to share some FANTASTIC PRIZES we will be sharing with lucky commenters along the route!

·        TWO winners will receive 50$ Gift Certificates from OrganizeMore to pick out your fave organizer!

·        One winner will receive the following 3 stamp sets from V’s Sweet Ideas:

 Fit Planning, Organize It, too!, and Organize It!

·        One winner will receive the Scheduled stamp set from The Ton Stamps!

·        One winner will receive a collection of planner stickers from MareBear Crafts on etsy!

To win, simply comment at each stop along the way. You do not have to comment on every stop to win, but it sure increases your chances! Also, we are sorry, but winners must live in the United States, as international shipping is just too pricey.

And now for my Planner Story. Get some coffee and away we hop!!

I’m not new to Planner Planet – I’ve been keeping a planner while at school, university, raising the boys (in those days we called them diaries!) and even now I can't live without it.

I note “to do’s”, events, menus, interesting facts, things that happened, quotes, inspiration and motivation.. My planners are like mini scrapbook journals and I can report back on things that happened 20+ years ago. Here you can see my Planner stash from the past 5 years.

 I have a very, very old Planner cover and my inserts are the cheapest A6 page-a-day that’s available. My motto is not to spend ANY money on Planner goodies and to keep what I use most on my desk neatly filed away.  I use photos, paper scraps, washi, paint, stamps, die cuts, stencils,  Sticky notes, pens and highlighters for my planner pages. Want a peek inside?

Mostly my pages are representative of what is currently on my craft desk / happening in my life and once the year is over, I file my pages away in a handmade, creative cover and a brand new year goes into the Planner cover.

Enough of my planner as I came here today to show you how I keep my planner goodies on hand.  Let me show you the outside of my planner goodie file: 

It’s a very, very old A5 file that I covered with hand dyed scraps left from this project. On the front I have “GENIET” (= ENJOY in English) – that’s my little word for the year and I like to remind myself not to take life so seriously.

Let’s start with my inside cover pages. The front has pens, highlighters,a ruler and a paint brush. The back has a slot for a notebook and inside the front and back covers, I stash some journaling cards, watercolor paper and additional notes and stickers.

 Now we are getting to my Planner stash:

STICKERS

Just bits and bobs from my stash that I love to have on hand. I made the “page protectors” by stitching book cover plastic onto cardstock and punching holes for the binder rings. I’ll put up a post next week to show you exactly “how” to.

DIE CUTS

Mostly leftovers from my craft desk.

  

PAPERCLIPS

Once again, a handmade “page protector” filled with paperclips from my stash. I love to use them in my planner, on "emergency cards" and in my Planner file.

 STAMPS

I have only one set of planner stamps and an alpha set in my Planner File.  I do love the little wooden alpha set that I bought locally and use them A LOT as I despise my own handwriting! They are kept in a small plastic zipper bag that I recycled from somewhere. The original alpha set came in a little wooden box but I opted for a gift card tin as it's much slimmer and fits into the zipper bag with the planner stamp set.

STICKY NOTES 

I gathered them from all over – the office, my craft stash and even swopped some with family and friends. Only 20 pages of each variant go into the file - the rest stays where they are. If you add more, the file becomes too bulky.

  

WASHI

I love to use Washi and what better way to make “flip-up’s”/ reinforce binder holes / divide pages?? I have an A5 acetate sheet and I just add strips of washi to it. Easy Peasy!!

STENCILS

A mini stencil set in another of the recycled plastic zipper bags.

STATIONARY

Wherever I go, my planner and Planner File goes and so does some stationary. I’ve sewn a spine onto a fabric pencil case and it goes into the file with the rest of my Planner goodies. In here are scissors, glue, a ruler, a hole punch (from a Christmas cracker!) and a small stapler. I have a similar bag for paint goodies.  What better than to paint / draw / write a bit when you have time on hand? Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of it!!

  

That’s it – my Planner File for keeping everything that I need and use together, neat and out of the way while at home / traveling. If you have other systems for storing your planner goodies, let me know in the comments and one of you could win a digital set of planner stickers by AlexScissorhands.

LINK

As this is a Digital File, my freebie is available to everyone. YES, even you down under are welcome to enter!!

You are welcome to play along on Instagram. Just tag your Planner Pics with #plannerplanet and your storage ideas and solutions with #craftstorageideasblog. We would love to see and hear what you do!!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have fun, get Planning and remember to try something new. Next on the Hop is Jessica Frost-Ballas’s blog.

Let the games begin!

Hello Bloglanders

Happy Saint Patrick's Day to you all!! We, down under in Sunny SA don't do many of the holidays but so what - let's join in a bit of the fun.

Last year I "pinterested" this game and bookmarked it for 2015. Here is my version:



I did NOT figure this out by myself!! The idea and even the down loadable clover came from Grandma Ideas. As I already have a travelling games tin, I decided to change the game rules, print my clover on cardstock and make the coloured discs with Silhouette printable magnet sheets. What's great is that that the magnets stick to the tin and nothing falls off.

My game works like this: Every player gets 10 coloured disks. Player 1 rolls 2 dices, add the scores (GREAT way to practice maths!!) and put his disc on the corresponding number on the clover. Then it's player 2's turn. Once a number has a disc on it, it can't get another one. Once all the numbers are covered with discs, the player with the most discs on the clover wins, And YES!!! My game is in Afrikaans.

I even printed little hearts for the original game that is on the lid of the tin:

And all the disks are kept in the lid of the tin:

That's it. I'm off to buy some Creamsoda for Saint Patrick's Day floats!! Watch my photostream on Instagram and see for it first!

Thanks for joining me today. Have a GREEN Wednesday and remember to try something new - TODAY!!

Hello Bloglanders

I just wanted to show the two cards that I'm mailing off this week.  They are bigger than 6x4 and I'll be making custom envelopes for them with my Silhouette. To tell you the truth, I've been making lots of envelopes - not only a pretty card but a bright and preppy envelope is just the thing at HQ Hamman.

More about my envelopes later this week. First my cards:

I've used scraps of paper to stamp, colour, die cut and print and even recycled the grass from my sushi platter.  My inspiration for the cards came from the SimonSaysStamp Wednesday Challenge -

THINGS THAT FLY

I think I've nailed it with 2 birds and 4 butterflies!

That's it! Some scraps recycled, a challenge done and 2 cards to cheer up some one's day.

Thanks for looking at my blog. Have a great day and please come back to play.

Amy Tangerine Handbook Exercise #4

Good day Bloglanders

And a happy week to you all!!!  Once again I started my day with one of Amy Tangerine's handbook exercises.

You have to write the lies "that inhibit you from living your best creative life" on the left, then strike them out and write the "truths you will tell yourself before starting a project" on the right.  I decided not to strike them out but rather use my Amy Tangerine stamp set to stamp "NO" (=NEE in Afrikaans) on the left side and "JA" (=YES in Afrikaans) on the right in bright red ink.

Let me tell you what my NO NO NO NO NO says: VREES VIR MISLUKKING = FEAR OF FAILURE; VREES VIR SUKSES = FEAR OF SUCCESS. This actually comes from my son who always says that I procrastinate not because I'm scared of failure, but of success!!

On the right I wrote JY IS GOED GENOEG, JA, JY IS!!!! = YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH. YES, YOU ARE!!!

I totally love how it turned out and it's already in my Project Life album. When I get stuck on a project, it will come out and I'll read the "truth that I will tell myself before I start a project" and get my mojo back.

That's it. I'm off to do a few cards for upcoming events. Please check back as I will show what I've done right here on Play as U Go. Have a wonderful day and remember to try something new - TODAY!!

Sunday Summery Week 10/2015

Hi there Bloglanders

Another week went by and I had heaps of crafting fun. My mum is very sick so I went to the beach house to be with her for a few days. I hate her being so sick but I had a lovely time at the coast. It was full moon and worth the 800 kilometre drive!

I did another one of the Amy Tangerine handbook exercises  - #2:

You should really try it. One of her ideas is to sit down and doodle, scribble, journal and paint for 10 minutes every day. I have tried it for the past 2 weeks and you wouldn't believe the increase in creativeness! Here is a page from my planner.

I printed some of Wilna Furstenberg's images and had a go at painting and colouring them.

And I went to my friend's birthday brunch. I did the home made muesli from a recipe I inherited from my mother-in-law. I totally loved how it turned out and would sit down and eat it out of the jar with a spoon - the whole lot. The muesli is in the first picture, in the second one you can see the beautiful fruity ice cubes and on the right the ice cream Cassata that we had for dessert.

And not only did I make the muesli - I tried my hand at "no carb bread"!  This version turned out very nice and it actually looks and tastes like bread - still a bit "eggy" for my liking but that's just because I'm not big on eggs.

Get the link from my Pinterest board here.

And when I packed my stuff for the West Coast this was my colour scheme:

I just love it!! Still summery but also a bit of punch and class.

I still have things to show but this post is getting longer than anticipated so I'll just have to fill you in at some other time. Watch this space and all will be revealed! I'm off to have a glass of cold white wine outside. What's not to love about summer down under in Sunny SA?

Thanks for visiting my blog today. Please come back to play and remember to try something new - TODAY!!

Sunday Summary Week 9

Hello Bloglanders

Another week full of creative fun!  I slipcovered a chair!! Actually I did 2 but let's start with the first one:

I used this tutorial and making a pattern was the hardest part. But, if you follow the instructions and pin it inside out, it works very well. It should look like this:

SOURCE

The problem with slipcovers is that once you start washing them, they shrink a bit and it's total hell to get it back on the chair. This time round I made mine with Velcro at the back. Much easier to get the cover on and off. I started out early Saturday morning and by lunchtime the cover was on the chair. 

I'm still working on my Amy Tangerine Handbook and this slipcover idea came from Practice 3. If you are inspired, print it out, pin it where you can see it and get going.  If we have a "stay-at-home-weekend" I'll be doing a project each Saturday. Watch this space and I'll tell you all about it. And my Amy Tangerine inspiration page:

And we extended our family. Since last year we had a wild cat coming into the house at night and eating all sorts of things - mostly sweets!! And now she moved in!! I woke up during the night and there she was, fast asleep in my living room.

Sorry about the quality of the picture but I took it with my iPhone and it was really, really dark. I love cats and as I don't have any of my own, I'm truly blessed that this one chose me.

We went camping over the weekend. My view from "MOTLAPPER":

River Goose Campsite near Bonnievale.

One of the Stellenbosch University buildings burnt down.

It brought back memories from years gone by as I attended the same university and the hostel I lived in actually burnt down during my 1st year. No easy task to be writing exams and tests and having to be in class and studying 24/7 when you don't have anything left. Here is one of my scrapbooks with pics:

At times like these I'm glad that I scrap!

And the cupboards in the master bedroom is finally finished:

I love it!!

That's it from me. Next project is an headboard for my new bedroom. Watch this space and I'll show exactly what I do. Thanks for looking at my blog today. Have a Terrific Tuesday!