Where has the time gone?

Hi there to all my wonderful readers. I know, this spot in ‘Blogland’ has been so so quiet – please forgive me.

This year has simply forged ahead leaving anyone slower than a bullet train standing on the platform! Have you also found that unless you rushed around, you simply could not make it to the train on time?

Now Santa’s about to arrive! On a train? Perhaps not, but I would guess that he too would have to keep up with the times and add a motor or two to his sleigh to speed up Rudolph and company.

We haven’t yet put up our tree. My son, just this minute, came to ask if we can put it up. My train is slowing down towards the station now, so I am more in the mood for some Christmas spirit, so I guess today will be the tree day.

This year I’ve had an amazing opportunity to get back into designing! I have begun designing scrapbook papers for a local company and am thrilled to say that 3 collections have already been printed. A Christmas range, a soft floral themed range and a beach range.

I am so enjoying designing again and working with Lorna, the owner of Scrap Collections is such a pleasure! Do pop by the Scrap Collections blog here and the website here.

What a feeling to actually see my designs in print!

Here are the 3 collections along with some layouts designed with the paper:

CHRISTMAS COLLECTION 2012:

 

Layout by Michelle van Wyk

PURE BLISS COLLECTION 2012:

 

 

Layout by Michelle van Wyk

layout by Nikki Preece

BEACHES COLLECTION 2012:

Layout by Lisa (Memory Shed)

Layout by Michelle van Wyk

To all you crazy cut & glue, ink & punching people out there, do let me know what you think of these papers. I would also welcome any ideas for colour schemes or themes!

Today I have a fun printable to share with you. It’s an A4 size sign. So simply click on it to enlarge, save to your computer and then print it out onto A4 size white cardstock and pop into a frame or hang it up with ribbon.

Enjoy preparing for this fabulous festive time!

Till next time

What I’ve been up to…

Not blogging- that’s for sure!! Yip, I have neglected my poor blog of late. BUT, I have been doing so many other things that I guess that kind of makes up for it.

So here’s what I’ve done…

I been scrapping (don’t fall off your chair!). Okay, not paper scrapping, but digi: I kicked my butt into gear by doing a couple of challenges over at The Digichick :

Template Challenge:

Colour challenge:

One Little Word challenge:

For this challenge you have to choose a word to use for the whole year. A word that you can apply everyday and occasionally incorporate in your scrapbooking.

All 3 of these layouts were done with one kit- the January collab from The Digichick called “The Daily Details”. A really versatile kit!

My art classes (Tues & Wed mornings) also started up again and I completed a charcoal drawing of a Baobab that I started over December.

Then I started with a new medium : Indian Ink. Can you say AWESOME? I love it. Never played around with ink before, but it’s going well. I started off with a portrait of my daughter. It takes some getting used to as, although it is a little like watercolour, it has a stronger pigment. So the colour is strong and once dry, it’s permanent, you can’t soften lines with a bit of water like you can with watercolours.  (Unless it’s cause I’m painting on fine canvas – correct me if I’m wrong – I’m new at this). It’s fun and I can see myself playing around with ink for a little while still…

On top of all this, I have also started an amazing mixed-media class online. What fun! I have always wanted to play around with more mixed media and this has really taught me to be more adventurous. The class is called Creatively Made by Jeanne Oliver. She’s lovely.

The course is over 4 weeks and each week includes a few motivational videos to get you creating as well as art projects that she leads you through with loads of inspiration and tips. She gives alternatives to the media she uses too which is great as often I can’t get everything here in SA. In fact you would be able to create artworks without buying anything as you can actually use what you have lying around. But of course, I have a {teeny} addiction to art supplies- so yesterday I popped off to Jimnettes for my fix. If it wasn’t that I had to run off to fetch kids at school I would have spent over an hour there, but alas, I had to restrict myself to 40 minutes.

I digress.

There’s also a private facebook group where you can upload your artwork to share with others taking the class. This is really great as it’s fun to see the different styles.

I was desperate to start so I grabbed a journal I use for making notes for my art classes. The front cover even had linseed oil spilt on it and had a tear. Now it looks like this :

I first applied gesso to prime the cover, then layered vintage papers on and then got going with some paint, watercolour pencils and charcoal. Fun! And I didn’t buy a thing beforehand! I chose this image as I love Artemisia Gentileschi. I copied this painting 2 years ago for a Baroque assignment we did for art classes where we had to paint in the style of the old masters. Obviously the fact that she is painting is also appropriate for a journal for art class notes. I loved the loose casual style of the mixed media – not precise and perfect.

So guess what I’m doing today? Oh I am so going to do another piece this morning… This time on canvas.

Chat soon,

Friendship & Feathers

I love dressing up gifts decadently. Isn’t it more interesting and intriguing to receive a gift that is deliciously decorated -where that little bit of extra care has been taken to add something special?

I usually add some ribbon- this has to be a lovely fabric ribbon or twine - and usually more than one kind too.

Don’t you love these ribbons from Ebony & Ivory?

Then, depending on what I’ve wrapped the gift in, be it a pretty gift bag {with loads of colourful co-ordinating tissue paper!}, a beautiful box or simple gift wrap, I might add a handmade flower, or other embellishment. I always add a pretty tag to finish it off.

I have a huge stash of ribbons and embellishments in my scrapbooking supplies – seriously a HUGE stash! So I can whip up a pretty gift wrap in seconds. I sometimes find that it’s the tag that gets done in a hurry as I don’t have any ready-made ones on hand.

I discovered Kard Krazy recently and decided to jump in and take up the challenge to make a tag each Tuesday. This way I can make up a variety of tags and keep them in a little box and simply grab one when there is some gift wrapping to do.

This week’s tag’s theme is  friendship, here’s my little digital tag I made :

If you click on it, you can download a ‘png’ digital image which you can use for digital scrapbooking. Click on the following tag to download:

Free Printable :

Simply print it onto cardstock, cut it out, punch a small hole in the top and add it to a gift.

Graphics on the tag are from The Graphics Fairy. Font used : Travelling Typewriter.

Enjoy your Thursday!

More free stuff…

Monday again today, and as usual it’s washing, tidying, all that kind of thing. Mondays for me are always busy somehow. But I guess, the start of a new week is like that for most people.

I have another download from my Plumbago digital scrapbooking kit for you today. So pop over HERE and download this file full of pretty elements for you to use.

Use them for Scrapbooking, cards, well just about any crafts. Just remember they are for personal use only though.

I still have a heap of Digital papers to share with you soon as well as some quick pages where all you have to do is add your photos and some journaling to create your own scrapbook pages.

I just have to tell you that I won the give-away from Bonnie which I posted about HERE. I am thrilled and absolutely cannot wait to see what arrives in the mail!

I’ve also been really good lately at keeping up with my Life365 photos. I am enjoying my photography and wish I had more time.

The Life 365 project certainly gets me inspired as there are so many talented photographers over there. You can join up anytime – you don’t have to go from January to January, in fact you can start anytime, and simply keep going. I have also skipped a good number of days, but hey, no pressure, I decided to just do what  I can and keep up as much as life allows me to.

Go take a peek at my gallery and if you like the site, why don’t you sign up. And do let me know if you do, so I can ‘follow’ your photo uploads.

As I mentioned on Friday, Reece had an International evening at school on Friday evening and he had to dress in a Chinese outfit. He looked so cute. But boy did I have a hard time getting a photo of him!

He kept saying “Mom, this is the last one!”. I can never only take one photo (just in case that particular one is a flop), so of course I always always have to push the limits! He was so irritated with me – can you tell by the look on the face? LOL! Love it anyway! (Oh and the crinkled clothes – I wasn’t allowed to iron them! – I got a “stop fussing” look!).

Please leave a comment – I’d so love to hear from you!

Free Digital Scrapbooking goodies….

Hi there,

I have some free digital scrapbooking goodies for you to download. I have decided to give away one of my old kits which I so enjoyed designing and still love.

Plumbago.

The first giveaway is available HERE for you to download. I will be giving away the rest of the kit too, so do pop in and grab the rest of the files. It’s a mega kit with loads of pastel papers, oodles of pretty elements including a vintage fairy which I hand-coloured, and a hand-drawn mushroom border.

Hope you enjoy it!

Busy as a Bee

Yip that’s been me of late. We’ve almost come to the end of our HUGE painting job of our house. It has now been 4 weeks and they still have 3 rooms left inside to paint as well as my parent’s cottage. While they’ve been here I have felt like we’re camping in our own house and frankly living in a huge mess and it seems like forever. In fact, though, the painters have been more than professional and done an amazing job. So I am thankful for that. They have been here so long that they feel almost part of the family LOL!

Scaffolding outside my bathroom window:

Looking down onto the lounge {aka store room}which has been piled high with cushions, ornaments and paintings from other parts of the house:

 

The entrance hall, draped with cover sheets and scaffolding.

{You can see the lighter paint colour on the back wall vs the previous darker colour from before. I’m loving the brighter colour!} :

 

    Looking towards the entrance hall from the upstairs landing. The pillar still has the previous colour on it.

Shannon also started with exams this week, so I have to fetch her straight after her exam ends, which is normally between 10h30 and 11h00, so that disrupts my morning of washing curtains, clothes, and trying to move back into the completed rooms. We normally get back and after a bit of a break {read : playing SIMS}, I sit down with her {in the kitchen as her study is full of stuff from the guest bedroom} and try to help her study. I actually think I’d get an A if I had to go write her exams as I know the work better than she does!

I also have finally got Shannon in at Crawford College for next year. After much deliberating, we finally decided it would be worth the travelling and have enrolled her. After a tour of the school, an entrance exam and an interview, a deposit has now been paid and I must simply submit her forms on Monday – but she is in! At least she will now have the opportunity to take music as a subject and she could even do drama or French (amongst others), so she has a wider subject choice for High school- so pleased that’s finally done and dusted. Now I just have to sort Reece’s schooling out….decisions, decisions!!

I’m still busy getting everything done for our trip to Europe – two weeks to go !! Yay!! We still are getting our documents together for the visas – we need double of everything as we need a British and Spanish visa for each of us. {Where are the days we didn’t require visas for the UK!!?}. Today I must submit the UK visas online and also book Legoland tickets. We have promised Reece {aka Lego-boy} that we’ll spend a whole day in Legoland Windsor and I believe getting tickets online really saves time in queues.

Speaking of Reece- on top of all this, he has had flu this week and has been in bed for four days! It simply never ends.

So yesterday I decided it was time for a new digital layout and release some stored creativity. Here it is :

I enjoyed playing around with these photos and love the colours here. I think blue is now my official favourite colour!

So there’s my life in a nutshell at the moment. I love being busy, it keeps my head on straight, makes me feel complete and makes me happy. Though I have to admit I can’t wait to get the house back to some semblance of normality …                                            

                                                                                    

pixels; pain & perfection...

I am about to scream! I have tried and tried to add a background here on my blog in exactly the same way as I did previously (and it worked) but for some reason, it doesn't want to work now.

I have made the cutest new background full of vintage images, but it simply will not load here! Oh boy for me there is nothing worse than something that won't do what I want it to do.

I think I am my own worst enemy at times as I will persevere until I get it right. This time however, I am tired of trying! It's time to ask for help I think!

Well at least the weather has improved- something is going right! And I'm feeling better today after having a leg cramp on Thursday night which resulted in me getting sick from the pain. I have now decided that I will simply have to deal with my Fibromyalgia in a new way.

This is the first time in a very long time that it has affected me to this extent and I simply can't function this way. I am going to have to take some magnesium and potassium supplements and watch my diet.

Plus I'm going to have to combat my innate desire for perfection - I have to relent sometimes and realise that sometimes I simply can't do something and need to take a break!

Okay, that's my ranting for today.

Here's a new layout I did yesterday with W&W's Jolly Holiday Christmas Collection. I just love these products!

It has been so cold here this week, one could almost imagine that you've been transported to the Northern Hemisphere! Since Tuesday the temp hasn't gone above around 15 degC! It has been raining and the wind has howled. Simply not the usual hot Summer weather we're used to!

So weird how the weather is so erratic.

With the advent of the cold weather, I have been getting in the mood for Christmas decorating. I love the coziness of Christmas and this weather makes me want to cozy-up the house with Christmas goodies. So I think this weekend we may just start hauling out the tree and ornaments.

Our annual neighbourhood Santa sleigh begins on Monday. We secretly drop off a gift for our kids at the office and then Santa drives around all the streets on a light-festooned sleigh (pulled by a pick up) delivering the gifts. They play Christmas Carols at full volume so you can hear the sleigh from all over the neighbourhood. The kids look forward to it every year and Reece has been asking when Santa's coming for the last month. (Shannon is old enough to know that this is all mom's doing, but boy she still wouldn't miss it for anything!)

I've also been digi scrapping a lot lately since I'm now a CT member for Weeds & Wildflowers. I SO love their products! They are just so unusual and doodly - so cute.

Here are a few of my latest ones...

What's been happening...

On Sunday 25/10/09....

I got accepted onto the Weeds & Wildflowers Site Creative Team ! What a privilege this is! They had a call for a couple of new CT members about a week ago and they sent me a reply last night. So excited as it means I get all their products for free now! Yay!!! Can't wait to get started. I'm hoping this will force me to scrapbook more now.

I have printed out some of my digi layouts and put them in an album. They look really great and it has inspired me to persevere. I also want to do the occasional hybrid or paper layout - so here's hoping I get my act into gear in amongst all my painting too.

Speaking of painting, I am still finishing off the 'girl with the guitar' for Shannon. It's looking lovely, but taking ages to dry- must be too much humidity in the Summer air at the moment. I also learnt all about Beeswax art last week- what fun!
It really is a fabulous medium. Your only limit is your imagination. This art form started with the Egyptians B.C. - also called Encaustic Art.
I had painted 3 small paintings in oil of indigenous birds and wasn't totally crazy about them- I found them a little boring. So I decided to throw caution to the wind and use beeswax! First I added small random blocks of scrapbook paper to the canvas, not covering the birds, but it did overlap here and there onto the birds.
I then covered the entire surface of the painted canvas with beeswax, then scratched the surface of the wax with a sharp piercing tool to create patterns as well as scratch over the outlines of the bird.
I then used Burnt Sienna oil paint and rubbed it over the surface, removing excess with a cloth. It settled beautifully into the scratches, enhancing the bird and the patterns, but giving an aged, almost fantasy-like look.
At art class yesterday, Johan said I should add some oil paint on top to give it depth- by lightening the background and making it more painterly. That has just finished it off perfectly! I want to finish off the remaining 2 bird paintings and perhaps take them to the house in Olifants.

On Monday 26/10/09...

Bad news- my car decided to pack up again yesterday!! I hate that car!! It seems the electric steering wheel lock is faulty so the car simply won't start. I'm waiting for BMW on call to send a tow truck out to fetch it. I feel like telling them to keep the darn thing!! Did I mention I hate the car? Well Leon says as my motorplan is up next year and as we've had nothing but trouble with the #%&***&^%$!!!*$!!! car, I can look at getting something new - so there's some good news after the bad!! This time I don't want a sedan- I want a small 4x4 - I'm tired of the low car. Good news now is I get to drive the Range Rover for a while!!! Yay!

BMW just phoned now while I was typing this to find out if I can get the car out of 'park' - but it's an Automatic so now goodness knows what time they'll get here as they need a technician to come out with the tow truck as the tech needs to first do something about getting the car to move first! What fun!

Oh well that's my 2 cents worth for Monday.

I re-discovered this amazing site again yesterday- I say "re-discovered" as I had loads of their wonderful handwriting fonts on my old desktop PC – and remembered yesterday that I haven’t downloaded them for my new laptop. So I popped in again and I was amazed at all the amazing new fonts plus they have the most awesome tips for personalizing your blog. So I definitely think I’m going to zshoosh up my blog too now. I just need to discover how to find more time in a day!!Check it out here: Kevin and Amanda.

Wednesday 27/10/09.....

Still now word on my car. No surprise as the repair shop at the BMW dealership is absolutely useless. I have never had any joy with them! So I guess I'll have to chase up on that today.

I'm off this morning to help my Dad look for fabric for their dining room chairs and for a little ottoman type storage thingy. Thye've had the dining suite sanded down and painted off-white. I think it'll make ahuge difference in the house as the house is very dark.

Mom & dad are off to Ian & Nikki for this weekend as it is Ian's birthday on Saturday (31 Oct). Lucky them to be able to get away! I am having withdrawals here as we haven't been to Olifants for so long and with school exams and other commitments, I guess it'll be December before we get there again.

Speaking of this weekend, I've finally got around to organising a Halloween party at home. We kind of miss living in Silver Lakes for the annual Trick or Treating! No-one does ot here as the houses are too far apart (& in my opinion the place has far too many uphills!!!).
so I sent out a cute invitation which I created with Gina Marie Huff's All Hallows' Eve digi kit (at Weeds and Wildflowers). What a cute kit- part of their new Sweet and Simple range.

I tried to add an image now of the invitation, but for some reason Blogger doesn't want to connect - so I'll try later.

Gotta get Shannon studying later for her exams as well as learn some of her words for her end-of-year singing concert. She is singing 5 songs. They're doing a "Cinemagic" theme this year so everything is done in the form of medleys in various movie categories. I think that'll be fun.

So that's me for today. Gotta get moving - sure Dad will be calling me shortly!

Vxx

I'm BACK!!! Yip, I have finally got back to the PC!! I've been painting, visiting the bush, got thru a very hectic school term 3 (including Shannon's Intermediate singing exam).

We've since had 3 visits to our house at Olifants and we look forward to the next visit the minute we leave the reserve to return home. Not sure when we'll get to go again as we have a few busy weekends coming up as well as Shannon's year-end exams and the term is also so short.

Our first visit was quite a task! I drove the Range Rover, Leon the bakkie and trailer and each vehicle was loaded to the brim with new linen, towels and goodness knows what else (except the kitchen sink!).

Corné and Kevin joined us with their kids for the first visit- thank goodness they could help us get everything sorted out.

We had the elephants behind the house pull over a tree and we had to get the rangers to move it (and the ellies) before we could go on our gamedrive.

On our next visit, Ian and Nikki drove down form Letsitele- such a quick 1 hour drive for them.

This was our 'ellie encounter' weekend!! We came across a breeding herd of around 50 ellies and theon young male decided we were not welcome and proceeded to mock charge us. We were relieved to eventually get out of that situation, even though we realised it was only a 'mock' charge, it was deifinitely real enough for us!! Shannon is now so scared of the elephants that she is wary of going on game drives at all.

Our third visit was a full 8 days of bushveld bliss! The kids were on school holidays and Leon took some time off work. Neal and Rika and mom visited for 3 days, then Graham, Rozanne and Scott joined us for the rest. Poor dad volunteered to look after the animals at home as we couldn't get anyone to 'babysit' at home. We had such a fabulous time. Saw so many animals. Ellies again made many appearances, yet thankfully, they were calm. We had a close encounter at hide dam with Graham & co. when a huge breeding herd walked down to drink and bath in thecdam while we were having lunch. We had to quickly make a hasty reverse out their way or we would have been surrounded by them.

It was amazing to watch the tiny baby calves bathing and playing in the dam.

Having spent more time there, we have now managed to clear out a lot of things and throw out stuff we didn't want. So the place is slowly becoming more the way I would like it. I'm looking forward to revamping it next year, but in the meantime I am planning the decorating and assembling all my ideas.

I start my art classes again tomorrow after a few weeks break over the holidays while Johan was away in Italy. I'm also looking forward to hear all about the Bi-centennial Art Expo in Venice that he took some students to. I have also got a few commissions from Ian - a contemporary sunset with elephants as well as a monochrome portait each of Calyleigh and Dee-Anne. I still need to complete the girl with the guitar I'm painting for Shannon's room at Olifants and then will start my task for art classes- a study of Baroque painting. I'm really looking forward to that. It's going to be a big challenge, but I know I'll learn a lot.

Today I also sent off my application for a spot on the Creative Team at Weeds and Wildflowers. I really hope I get accepted as I simply LOVE their digital designs!! I'm hoping this will be the way I'm going to get back into my scrapbooking again after being lazy for so long!

Gotta go now and do some stuff around the house and then pick up the kids.

{How cute is this?}

I discovered these gorgeous cute printable confection goodies over at www.theshabbyshoppe.com . Designed by Shabby Princess. These are just too cute for kids parties, Easter table decorations and what about Mother's Day? With Mother's Day coming up this weekend, these are so perfect! Don't you just love those little paper trims for cupcakes?Plus - on sale now for $2.95!! {Image is clickable}.



On the topic of cupcakes, I baked the most yummy ones yesterday! I am off to art class shortly and it's my turn to take along a coffee-break treat. So cupcakes it is! I found a really good recipe in the latest Your Family magazine which is simply delicious!
The cakes are really light and spongey. I topped them off with a cream cheese frosting which I discovered at All Recipes on the net. You can find the recipe here . I halved the recipe and it iced 24 cupcakes easily. I used Lancewood Cream cheese for the recipe. 1 package is enough for 1/2 the icing recipe. {8 ounces is equivalent to 1 cup (250ml)}. I added the juice of 1/2 a lemon and the zest of 1 lemon to the icing. I piped the icing onto each cake and then sprinkled a little extra lemon zest ontop. Just adds a little 'zing' to the frosting.

I plan on making these for mother's Day on Sunday, finishing them off with these cute paper trims!

Here's the recipe for the cupcakes: Yum!!

3 eggs
180ml sugar
125ml boiling water
100ml oil
5ml vanilla essence
250ml cake flour, sifted
10ml baking powder

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (375F)
Place 24 paper cupcake liners in cupcake pan. (Helps them to retain their shape).
Whisk the eggs and sugar together until light and creamy.
Mix together the boiling water, oil and vanilla essence.
Sift flour and baking powder together.
While mixing, add a scoop of the flour mixture , alternating with a splash of the water & oil mixture, continuing until both mixtures are used up.
Fill the cupcake liners 3/4 full. Bake for around 12-14 minutes.
Allow to cool and then ice with the very yummy and 'moreish' cream cheese frosting.

Happy baking!

PS: I have separated my Life365 from this blog - you can find it here. I plan on documenting my everyday life here and posting my layouts of my Project 365. Pixels and Paperie will from now on just be about my creative side.....

Painting; a leaking pipe & the need (not desire) to sort out my Driver's License.....

I have to blog more! I was so good in the beginning, but lately, since the PC went on the blink, I seem to be trying to catch up with so much scrapping that I have neglected my little blog life here.

Today I continued my painting of Edgar Degas' Blue Dancers. I loved this painting last week, this week - well lets just say I am going through a bit of a "love-hate" relationship with it. I am tired of all the blue and flesh colours and really need to get it finished so I can at least move on to a fresh new colour palette - and a different subject matter. Ultimately I think I'll end up loving the painting, but once you have blended 2 blues with black, white and 2 browns- you can expect to tire of these colours!

Here's a peek at the original :

I absolutely love Degas' paintings. I have done one of his 'bathers' before and so enjoyed it.

This one we tried using a more monochromatic colour scheme, but ended up adding more colours than one would traditionally use for monochrome paintings. At the moment it still has much less colours than this one (the original), but I think I will still add the burnt orange touches afterward as I love the warmth it brings to the painting. I will post a pic of mine here once complete.

I saw a lot of Degas' paintings in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris 2 years ago. They are actually quite a bit smaller than I imagined them to be. Also, most either were done entirely in pastel, or a combination of other mediums like gouache, or oil with pastels.

As a result, the paintings are now kept behind glass in an extremely dark room to preserve them by protectiong them from bright light. So my plans to take photos of them went flying out the (non-existent) windows in the museum! No flashes are (understandably) allowed and the room really was extremely dark.

Off the subject of art, but not entirely off painting- this time painting the house! Which is what we're going to have to do very soon as we now have discovered what we think is a leaking pipe on the jacuzzi balcony off our bathroom. The resultant wet walls in the laundry and kitchen are what alerted us to this fact! So tomorrow Leon will call the insurance company - coz hey, we simply cannot keep forking more money out on maintenance for the house! It's now time to call in the cavalry, so to speak.

Tomorrow I also have the unfortunate hassle of having to sort out my driver's license. Yes- not renew- but rather sort out! As it was renewed a year ago and I still don't have a copy of my new license! (Okay, I do leave things until I really just can't anymore!! ) I have been wanting to go eversince we realised that my license was not arriving in the post. Leon & I went together in February last year - stood in the HEAT in a VERY LONG queue!!! FOR FOUR (4!!!) hours!!! Only to have his sent to him, and mine has never arrived!!!

I have prepared myself that I may just have to go through the whole episode again - eyetests and all as I'm sure my application simply landed on someone's desk who threw it into 'file 13' (aka the dustbin!) Okay, I am not going to be pessimistic- let's hope it is filed under H for Hurly instead and I simply can collect it with only a few minutes of time wasted tomorrow! (Yeah, sure - and it might snow tomorrow here too!) Added to all of this, our local driver's license offices are useless and always way too busy, so I'll be driving about 40min out of town to Rayton to collect mine.

So that's my morning. The afternoon will be a case of fetching and carrying kids at different times from school again - I pick Shannon up at 13h30 (no compulsory school sport tomorrow due to a gala), then take her home. Reece must be collected an hour later at 14h30. Then I must take him home. Give them both lunch and get homework going. Shannon needs to be back at school again at 16h00 for a tennis lesson. I'll have to drop her off, and my mom will have to collect her again at 16h30 as Reece has to be at swimming 15 min drive away from the school by 16h30 for his lesson. Have I ever mentioned that I dislike the car intensely?

[Hopefully by the afternoon of loads of driving, I'll at least have some sort of driver's license!]

In between all this, I'm hoping to get Week 8 finished of my Life 365 photo a day challenge. I even missed out on the incentive this week as I simply ran out of time to finish Week 8 in time. I am determined to complete weeks 9 and 10 in time for the next incentive - even though I should already be busy with Week 9 already.

Here's my Week 7 : 12-18 February. (I work Thursday to Wednesday each week as the 1st of January was a Thursday this year).

Gosh, I just noticed that I put 12-19 on here instead of 12-18 February! Luckily I can fix that as I saved the .psd file as well as the .jpeg! (Note to self- don't forget to do this!)

Well that's me all up to date now- except foe the fact that I've skipped a couple of weeks in between LOL! Oh well- one can't do everything!

Just some catching up....

It's been ages since I was here! What's been going on in my life lately... Mmmm



Shannon entered the Dros Kidz Super Star competition through her school. She competed in the first round against 10 other kids from Woodhill on Monday 23 Feb. She was one of the 6 chosen to go through to the next round where they will compete against another school for 1 place in the Gauteng Regionals. So it's off to the Dros in Menlyn again on Monday 9 Feb. {Holding thumbs and praying she gets thru to the regionals- it'll be so fantastic!!} The regionals will be on 16 March at Dros Midrand and then the National Finals are on 1 April at the Silverlakes Dros. Maybe it's a good sign that the finals are actually on my 40th birthday! There is so much talent out there that it's going to be tough, but just the experience of entering a big competition is great for her anyway.



I just wish she studied to pass Grade 6 as well as she sailed through learning her next set of lyrics! Grrrrr - I feel lately as though I need to pass Grade 6 {and Grade 2 for that matter} all over again. I have summarised, asked questions and find myself repeating the HSS or Natural Science to myself as I'm falling asleep! But Shannon- I bet the little diva is dreaming of her next performance as she drifts off!



Reece luckily hasn't got to the stage where he needs help with serious studying. He has weekly spelling words which are tested each Friday. {And that's enough!!} I'm hoping that by the time he needs help in Grade 4 with his tests that Shannon is well into High School & no longer needs help! I'm really tired of studying - but I guess you've gathered that by now!



I hosted Bookclub at home this morning. Can't say I was in the mood, but in the end it was fun seeing everyone and chatting about everything & nothing. At least this month it wasn't just Rozanne, Belinda & I - there were actually 8 of us! I have been reading The Venetian (something or other- I forget the name) by Steve Berry. Quite interesting with loads of historical references to Alexander The Great - pretty much akin to The DaVinci Code - with a fairly complicated storyline that has many twists and turns. I have kept out 2 other books which are a lot lighter & should hold up to the many interruptions by kids, husband etc that I seem to be subjected to every time I pick up a book to read.



Still toying with the idea of my 40th Birthday this year. Do I let it slip by quietly or do I have a nice big bash with great 80's music & pretty decor, great food and my close friends? The second option really sounds more fun than ignoring the event completely....we'll have to decide soon as time is ticking by. {tick....tick....tick....}



Ooh- I recently won a $10 gift certificate from Weeds & Wildflowers for the Blog weekly challenge {every Monday} for last week- I did a Valentine's themed layout for it- take a peek by looking at my Scrapbook slideshow- it's called "Always my Valentine" - I had fun doing this one {especially since I can go shopping now for more digi stuff!}



Oh -$*^%$(&^)&^ - 'scuse the &^%(&^%&, but my mouse won't work!!!! If it's not one thing, it's another.... Salt chlorinator in the pool; internet connection; whole computer bombed; central vacuum system won't suck in any air; irrigation system need the valves repaired; oh, and before all that, the electric gate wouldn't work for a couple of days until we discovered that Leon had switched it off when he switched the pool off when the chlorinator stopped working!

So now that I need to use my arrow keys to navigate here, I think I'm simply going to call it a night and rather go read my book before going to sleep! G'night...



Okay - I'll go now once I figure out how to get down to the 'Publish' button without a mouse!

Yay! Internet is back and running again!! Leon thinks it's wonderful when I can't go online, but I really rely on the net for so many things. Simple things like looking up something for Shannon's homework, or paying for our holiday accommodation; everyday things which are made so much more convenient with the internet. Of course I also use the internet to feed my {addiction} to digital scrapbooking {and blogging!}.

Here's my latest Life 365 layout-

I'm really loving this project (did I mention that before?). Well it's true, I feel as though I have got something accomplished. Each week as I finish my layout, I am thrilled to see I am actually keeping up! (Which is something I rarely do!). How many times I have actually started off with something and never completed it - I have lost count. Well this time, I'm going to keep at it - and so long as there aren't too many interferences along the way, I'll be finishing off my weekly layout on time!

Speaking of interferences, the new Weekly Blog challenge at Weeds & Wildflowers is to scrap something which has interfered with taking your daily photo. Something beyond your control which has thrown you a curve ball and disrupted your life, even if to a small extent. I love this challenge as life is not always perfect, does not always go according to plan, and this only helps one to deal with those everyday hurdles.

My goodness- 20 days of no posts! I really was determined to post more often on my blog this year! At least I've posted more than last year!

What I have kept up with is my Project 365 over at Weeds & Wildflowers. I have got the Life365 Tool Kit from Gina Marie and I participate in all the challenges I can (& those my unsteady internet connection is allowing!!) . I am all caught up to last week. Just need to finish off this week's layout, then I'm on track again! I love the incentives Gina Marie sends out each Monday, so I am determined to finish off each and every layout in time to post by Sunday/Monday.

Oh my word, it is now POURING with rain here again! Thought it was done for the day, the sun even peeked it's head out at lunch time, but now we're all wet and misty out again.

Yesterday Shannon's tennis lessons were rained out, she was not a happy camper! She was so looking forward to her private lesson with Erda which she started last week.

Here's hoping the sun shines over the weekend. We're planning on taking the kids somewhere for the day on Sunday - a nice relaxing family outing. The kids suggested going to Gold Reef City - but we certainly aren't keen on such a hectic place! I'll still do some research to find somewhere good.

Leon's still training intensely for the Two Oceans - he played squash yesterday and then had to go for physio today for his back- perhaps he is overdoing things just a little? He has now decided too that we should join him down in Cape Town for the race in April. So I'm looking for accommodation from the 6th - 14the April. The kids go back to school on the 15th and the race is 11th, so I have to fit in around those dates. Not sure if we'll find anything still as it is the Easter weekend.

Here are a few of my latest layouts :

I love this photo of my cat- he completely takes over our lives! When I'm in my studio, I often find him curled up somewhere, but heck, the copy machine?

"It's not easy being a Princess"

This layout was a "Recipe Challenge" at WW on the blog for this week. Such fun following the ingredients for what had to be used on the layout. I did a paper layout years ago for a class I taught, but decided to use the cute photo again....

Here are my first 3 weeks of Project 365: