My scrapping story

Yesterday I shared a picture of a 6x6 Christmas layout.  That is where my “scrapping” started or rather what I call “album making”.  I’m not a real scrapper.  Real scrappers know how to use mists, chalk and do three dimensional pages. I just try to record some of the important stuff in my family’s life. The rest of the time I play!

Biologically I only have one child.  About 5 years ago I wanted to see what we did every Christmas since we had him. (Luckily I didn’t start with my own because 47 is a lot of Christmases!) Anyway, even though we take a lot of pictures, I have them printed and put them into albums, I had 3 unaccounted years.  I felt like a total failure because not only did I not have pictures, but I couldn’t even remember what we did.  What is very nice about this exercise is that I actually had a great time in making a 6x6 mini album with every year’s Christmas pictures. How we changed, how he changed and most of all – all the fun we had.

My “blind side son”, Wernich came to stay with us about 10 years ago and when I started making albums to document our life, he wanted one as well.  His mom died when he was 10 years old and even though we asked for pictures from family and friends, we couldn’t find even one with him and his mom.  How sad is that.  Anyway, at least we found some of him when he was small as well as a few of his mom. (I can count them on one hand) Today, Wernich is an architect and proudly shows off his album to family and friends and I keep it up to date by offloading pictures he shares on Facebook.

My husband’s mom and dad died a few years ago and when all the family treasures were divided, his childhood photo album vanished.  He was devastated. So, once again I started begging and borrowing pictures and for his 50^th birthday, I gave him a brand new, “old” childhood photo album.

There you have it, my motivation for recording my family’s history.  People often ask me why I bother to buy expensive albums and develop my photos and my answer is always the same “I have heard of a lot of computers and external hard drives getting stolen / crashing but never of someone stealing photo albums”.  Yes, they can be destroyed but they will also be the first things I take when I evacuate!

I have to go away on business for a few days but next time I will tell you how I have adapted my recording system to fit in with my hectic life.

Love and sunshine from South Africa

Hazel

PS. Lucky me won a seat in May’s Big Picture class on Monika Wright’s “I love it all” blog.  Maybe I’ll become a real scrapper after all. Monika has also been so kind to send me instructions as how to do a link. Thanks Monika, you inspire me!

Inspiring

The previous weekend I went away and found these little wire clips in a very small shop called "Willa se winkel" (this is Afrikaans for Willa's shop). As my December Daily is not nearly finished, I immediately bought a set of each to use.  OK, all the journaling has been done and the pictures printed but I can't decide if it should be bound by rings or my Zutter. So, until I decide everything is securely packed in a basket.  I promise I will decide before the following DD.  This was part of my 2012 resolutions - rather enjoy the journey and stop fussing about getting it done at all cost.

These were made by Eco Africa. The paper is hand crafted by communities of Zimbabwe from fiber of indigenous en replenishable plants that grow free and wild around their villages. For the embellishments they use paper, wire or other recycled elements. Through this project mainly underprivileged women and their families are helped.

I used one in a layout I made in 1994 for my son's Christmas album. The rest I saved for my DD.

I'm still struggling with the links but I found the Eco Africa story at
http://gogreenexpo.com/events/speaker_detail.php?evid=7&id=29

Yes, I googled the linking thing and got hold of a website for dummies but since then I lost the link again and this dummy still can't do it.

Well, today it rained so,

Love and rain from sunny South Africa
Hazel

Christmas in January

I can’t believe that we have nearly finished one month of 2012!  So far it has exceeded all my expectations.  As the month is nearing its end, it is time for me to do my first gift project.

Last Christmas I made boxes with gift tags for all my girlfriends. Each tag was different and I included 26 in each pressie. I just love having tags on hand. As I don’t spend a lot of money on presents, I always try to wrap my presents beautifully and to add a personal touch to each and every one. I’m not really into card making but tags are so much smaller and I do try to do projects where I can use up all my scraps. If ever I get the opportunity to write a book, it will definitely be “365 tags a year” by Hazel Hamman. (sounds good to me)

Anyway, one of my friends saw the tag project in the making and therefore I decided to give her a different pressie. In the end she was taking samples of every tag I made and I ended up giving her a whole set!

This year most of my girlfriends requested a refill as they are not very crafty.  So, I have this month’s project covered.  I found that it was getting boring to do 26 tags in one month and therefore decided to do 2 sets every month of the year. OK, this doesn’t really count as a full Christmas project but for me its fine. Once I have the idea and start on it, it counts and I know I will finish as my friends are expecting their requested refills. Also, this means that I will use the scraps as they accumulate. It makes sense to do a layout and then use the scraps left to do tags or cards. Its funny how everyone is telling you something and one day it just makes sense!

Without further ado, my first set of tags for 2012.

I couldn’t wait to try out my new die from Hero Arts so I used all my cream and white off cuts and some brown ink to stamp the bicycles. I just love them. Well worth my effort of buying online and struggling to get it delivered to South Africa. I also did some bicycles in red and blue ink to use on cards while I had all the tools out. I’m not a very good stamper but I love doing it. A friend came over for a visit while I was working on this and loved it so much that we sat down with a cup of coffee and chatted while she stamped and I cut out about 20 for her tag stash. Now I feel a lot better about indulging in buying the stamps and dies!

Next up I used an idea from “Shimelle’s Pretty Paper Party” - use stripes, dots and a print on one layout.

As you can see, I can’t do “links” yet, but I have arranged with my son for a lesson on them ASAP.  First I’ll try to Google it – just maybe I can get it sorted myself or maybe someone can send me a link as how to do them.

That’s all from me for today.

Love and lots of sunshine from South Africa.

Hazel

Girlie pressies



OK, so my houses are not finished yet BUT I'm sorting out my scrap space and as I have a lot of offcuts, I decided to make little mixed media books.  In the pictures you can see the ones I made for my friends' darling daughters.  I included a lot of cut outs for them to use while crafting at the sleepover as well as later at home. My son is all grown up and I don't have girls so I love to borrow someone else's children. (hopefully they like to be borrowed!)

Currently I have a whole stack of citrus coloured paper that's going to become the next batch of stocking fillers.  My aim is to make one present a month. Then, come Christmas or birthdays, I'll have enough stock to use. My husband has his own business and I'm cutting up all the blank pieces for pages.  I used to hate shredding all the confidential stuff but since I've been doing this, the pile is about a third of what it used to be. Saving and recycling!

Actually, I should be sewing as I promised myself  that I'll give my house a makeover but it is very, very hot in Stellenbosch (at least 45 degrees Celsius!) and I just can't get myself to start on the blind for my bedroom. Therefor I decided to start with a smaller project - the mini books. Hopefully it will be cooler tomorrow and I'll get sewing.

In 2012 I'm trying to get at least one thing done for my house every month, one thing for myself and one thing for someone else. Every Sunday I make a list of what I aim to get done the following week. Come next Sunday I write down what I actually did in each of these categories and plan the next week's. So far so good. This is why I started to do this blog - at least I can hold myself accountable while I'm playing.

Love and LOTS of sunshine from South Africa.
H

Seeing is believing!

Can you believe it!! My son got Maukie the virtual cat onto my blog but I did "I love it all" and "WCS" all by myself.  I'm going to find some more sites that I love before I forget how to do it. I also figured out how to move Maukie to the top as I totally adore him. Some other day I will write a post about my 18 year old cat, Tossel. A "tossel" is Afrikaans for a pompom and she used to play with one when she was little. She actually is our very first cat and we still have her. I feel truly blessed.

That done, tomorrow I'm going to start on little fabric houses that I want to sell in my etsy shop (whenever I get that figured out).  I have to start with them as I want to use a picture in my blog header. That's me - I don't start with the easy things. I want to do it all. Hopefully I will have house #1 to show tomorrow. I also have to start working again after our summer holidays so tomorrow will be hectic.

Love and sunshine from South Africa.

Happy New Year

OK, I'm still not sure exactly what to do.  Will ask my son to come over and help. Isn't there a manual for setting up a blog??  Will Google right NOW!!!

I have some wonderful stuff to share and one of my priorities for week 1 was to get the blog or etsy shop up and running.  Tomorrow week 1 will be gone and no such luck for me.  I wanted to insert the most wonderful, moving, black cat from a blog and couldn't even get that to work.  OK, Google first and then a call to my son. Maybe tomorrow.

Love and sunshine (lots of it) from South Africa.
Hazel

Still here

Just to let you know - I'm still here and will be doing this more often from next year on. Until then, I'm working on a lot of projects I will share with you then.
Love and sunshine from South Africa
Hazel