Amazing gifts from a friend

Happy Friday !   I wanted to share my blessings I received from a friend on Tuesday.    A whole crate of craft goodies that I am still  swooning about!   Amongst them were lots of tassels.  I was racking my brains  early morning thinking about what I could make. 

As I opened  my daily reading I suddenly had an idea.   Wow !  Thank you Lord !  So immediately I put one together to try out this bookmark and immediately made another for my friend to say thank you.   I think it looks great!

Feeling so blessed!

This saying has been coming up in my mind all week :

LOVE WHAT YOU DO
AND DO WHAT YOU LOVE.

OR

DO WHAT YOU LOVE
AND LOVE WHAT YOU DO!

HAPPY FRIDAY !  Cannot believe how time flies !  I am trying to get back into blogging.     I have been busy trying out all kinds of new things and also getting old unfinished projects on the go again.   I am sure many of you out there have some of those projects waiting to be finished. 
Often when one makes more than one of the same, then the last one just has a few more stitches or hours to go but a new project comes across your work space.   And it is put down for later ! 

It's time to catch up on all the news !
Today, I decided its really time I added some news to my blog !
A most beautiful little baby girl was born on 19th April 2013.

Alissa and Timothy are blessed with this little baby girl.   I was trying to think of something special to make for her.   As they live overseas and its always difficult to get presents there as they have to be posted, it is not always easy.   I thought of a quilt, but that seems a little big and bulky.  So I came up with this idea :

Some of the lace is from "ouma grootjie" which means "greatgrandmother" and even from Felicity's aunt Kim - the little fussy man was made when she was still at school.   It was the first time that I tried embroidering a name - so here I had to have a few practice runs first.   It's not perfect ... but it was made with a lot of love.
Here is one of my favourite photos of the little Miss Fliss (as I call her) :

Isn't she just too beautiful ?!

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Then when Alex, my daughter Kim's eldest daughter was turning 7 on 21st January, I thought well she has a new bedroom and I know it was going to be painted green, I decided to try another one ....

And so it evolved ....

Then I needed to make a birthday card for her and decided to try and use some of the offcuts from the heart.

Wishing you a very happy birthday my darling Alex ! 

Easter Holidays 2013

It looks like the only time I get to put up a post on this blog is when I am on holiday.  Well, its back to work on Monday for the second school term for me.
I managed to make some more cards from lovely paper that my lovely daughter Kim bought online for me.  Thanks so much Kim !
I really have had quite a lot of fun.
The inspiration is not always that easy to find.... but looking at pins on pinterest does help with some ideas.

Kim, who lives in London, bought this paper for me and then asked me if I have dropbox.  Well, I had never heard of it.  But after having a look at it and signing up, I managed to get my head around it !
If anyone is interested, we bought this paper from http://www.pinkpetticoat.co.uk/boutique.php.  Here is the link.  But I am not sure if you will still get it at the special price that Kim bought it for me.
Its worthwhile having a look at pinkpetticoat - its Liz Armstrong - and she is really amazing.
Thanks Liz !
I think I need some stripes now too !   I have the dots, flowrs and hearts !  Need some stripes please in these colours !

When I was gardening (remember it is Autumn here in Cape Town) and taking a few photos, I took one of our dog (well, actually Kim's dog, Trax).   It was such a funny look on trax's face that I have to include it.

I also managed to get a nice photo of a bumble bee on the flowers.

And I found a chameleon !  A little one ....

and here are a few photos of the garden ... tidying up and weeding !

And last, but not least.... some easter photos !

By the way, the tulips are not real ... it is far to warm in Cape Town to have tulips of this size !

Friday, 4 January 2013

Its already the 4th January !   Back to work for me next week.  I managed to make a few more batches of cards and need to start packing them.  I don't really have much time during the school term to make cards, so during holiday time, I try to catch up with a few new ones.

Here are some pink ones.  

 I really enjoyed making these !

Now for the packing !

Gardening update !

It was a beautiful day today, and we decided to do some gardening.   There were lots of daisy bushes to cut, and a few long branches which had to be trimmed.  I am always careful when cutting as there are many little creatures around.

And look what I found today !   Can you see him ?
Wait... I have another photo !

I was really thrilled to see the chameleon as we have not seen them for ages.   Last year we had a pair of shrikes (or butcher birds as we also call them) that had a nest and two babies.  I am sure that they found all these chameleons as they had two hungry mouths to feed.  But amazingly, today I found one !
Isn't he just beautiful ?

Happy New Year : 2013

Happy New Year to those that are reading my blog.   I am very new to this and am still learning.
Its very windy here in Cape Town today again.
After breakfast with my hubby, Bill, I made another batch of cards.  This time I found some lovely free printables on sweetlysweet.blogspot.com.   Thanks !   I printed out the lovely green polka dot paper and the round circles.

I cut up the paper and punched the circles with this nice punch I found - it was rather expensive, but it makes such a difference to the look of the cards.   The next photo shows you how I assemble the cards with the paper that I have cut.

Now comes the job of glueing it all onto the cards.  And of course my favourite part is putting some embelishments on the cards.  Sometimes I make a whole batch of cards and then lay them out and go through my boxes of embelishments and choose ones to match the cards.  As I mostly give my cards away as gifts, I am always on the lookout for sales and if there are ones that are not too expensive but will make the card look special.

I would like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year.  May this 2013 be all you wish for.  Exciting, full of promise and may all your wishes come true !