More layouts to show you...

I've spent a lot of time the last week scrapping (as you will know if you've read my status over at facebook!)... anyway, here's the results...

The last FIVE paper layouts for 2005... just have two left which I plan to do digitally as I have no photos for them!

And now I've started on 2007.... I'm just doing random ones here and there out of the 120+ that are planned...

I did another on on Sunday afternoon but must still finish the journalling, so will post that once ready.

Just a side not too.... today is VOTING day here in South Africa. I heard that if you vote and then go past Wimpy, you can get a free cup of coffee... is that an incentive or a bribe? Not too sure as I'm not partial to their coffee anyway... hehee. But as to voting... well I rode down to my voting station at 12 noon... and the queue was out the gate and down the road... just drove past and came home again.... will try later today... I really really don't fancy standing in a long queue!

Oh well, off to scrap the time away...

A productive Easter Holidays

I mentioned on Facebook in my status a few times that I've been "scrapping away"... well HERE'S THE RESULTS..... over 20 pages completed in the last few weeks... admittedly some were just needing titles and journalling, but they are now all done, scanned, uploaded and filed.

Our holiday to Cape Town LAST YEAR! The ticket area flaps up to reveal journalling and under the train there is also an accordian book full of photos.
This was the second page from our day out scrapping... the top little book I filled with photos of all the passengers who went on the train and under the strip text on the right page is another flap which shows more photos from the trip... this was the train we went on to Cullinan for my 40th birthday.

And here's what I've been busy with the last week or so.... catching up on my 2005 year outstanding layouts.... am now down to the final 5.

Tell me please, why do we faff so much with layouts.... this was supposed to be a simple layout about my cousin's wedding and ended up taking me over 3 hours to complete... why? Because I decided to make a suspended frame! I love how it turned out in the end:

I did this one in about 10 minutes this morning before leaving for work:

In 2007 I attending a Live Scrap Play day and this was one of the pages we made... eventually got to put photos, title and journalling on it:

A good way to hide those private bits that shouldn't be seen... I made vellum water droplets and stuck them strategically:

This was another easy layout... the paper was prep-printed with my title (how easy is that!) and I just added vellum sticker tags (courtesy of my friend Helen in England from years back.... one of the first pressies she sent me after reaching the UK shores... eventually I got to use them):

And then just when you thought it was all done... I did TWO more layouts this afternoon... but will only post those once I've scanned them... sometime later this week.

Tomorrow morning we start back at school (yippee!!! for kid-free time but YUCK for traffic!).

Christ the Lord is Risen Today

Our garden

When we arrived back on Sunday from Cape Town we discovered that our garden was still flourishing and had provided us with a few new surprises.

This was the first one.... Keith received this Strelizia bush as a birthday present for his 40th and I think in all the time we've had it it's maybe flowered once! So here's the bloom that opened in the last few days:

And this is our other bush that also flowers now and then

The Sunday before we left for Cape Town we received a cactus plant at church... one each, with instructions to "Nuture your gifts".... ie not necessarily green fingers but more that when you tend this plant you remember the gifts that God has given you and put them to use. Well here's our cacti

Now they didn't have the greatest start as they got forgotten in the boot of Keith's car and lived there all in the dark for the week we were in Cape Town. Then they also ended up with a trip to work and back before being put in their rightful place.... on the patio! So let's hope they survive and flourish.

While taking these pics, I also snapped this one of some pretty pink whatsits

And on arriving home this afternoon from work I spied these purple irises popping their pretty heads up

And so now you've had a small glimpse into our garden.... the rest of it... well it's green and it's there but not much to show.

Beading????

Me doing beading??? Never!!! hehehe... okay maybe once... or should that be Thrice??? Yip I decided to try my hand at this too.

I had seen a beautiful pearl bracelet on Helen's Misi store and decided that seeing as I have some pearl beads, maybe (?) I could make one myself. Well at Hobby-X I managed to find some nice cheap memory wire and promptly made myself THREE bracelets with the beads that I had lying around here.... scrap beads that would really never make it on to a layout in a million years!

Thanks also goes to Judi for turning the ends in.... I don't have the right pliers... and even Keith didn't have it in his extensive collection of tools in the workshop! So here for all to see is my handiwork:

The pearl bracelet:

I had some left over pearls and put them together with some pink beads and added in the purple flowers (curtesy of my sister-in-law Denise from years back!)

And then I found lots of brown beads.... from my first ISE Convention... and made this one. I added in some bling butterflies... also from an ISE if I remember correctly... and finished the ends with two tiny yellow flowers (from Denise as per above). And just for added interest I put a dragonfly charm in the middle.

Okay so now I've been there done that. Don't think I'll make any more in a hurry.... unless I get more beads from somewhere!

Congrats....

Well done to Desire over at Doing Life on reach 20 000 hits.... wow... I wish!! hehehe. So to commemorate this momentous occasion, Desire is giving away a bundle of goodies.... go check it out http://www.desiref.blogspot.com/

Cape Town Photos

Here's photos a-plenty from our holiday with a bit of a recap...

The sunset the night before we left (29 March)

We had a good flight down on Monday the 30th, picked up our rental car and drove through to Keith's sister Heather's place in Durbanville where we spent the rest of the week.

Tuesday morning we went through to Canal Walk shopping centre and Aaron and I spent most of the day in the MTN Sciencentre... absolutely fabulous place. We did break for lunch at John Dory's where Aaron spied some chopsticks in the cutlery basket and decided he had to eat his fish fingers with chopsticks.

The afternoon we each went our own way (with me sneaking some photos)... we had fun building a HUGE floor puzzle of the map of Africa.

Once home Aaron got acquainted with his cousin Kaylin... 7 months old. She is absolutely delightful and laughs so easily at Aaron's antics... especially with him running around the garden on her horse!

Wednesday morning we found Cool Runnings and had a ball doing the downhill tobaggan.... for someone who does not like fast/high things.... ie I DO NOT do rollercoasters.... this was FUN!!! As Aaron is under 8 he had to go with an adult.... we bought 3 rides (cheaper) and so he got to go twice with Daddy and once with Mommy.

We then took a drive out to Bloubergstrand and took a walk along the beach. I snapped a photo of Keith & Aaron to update one I had taken years ago when we visited a similar beach when Aaron was 1.

Once home and the kids were bathed, Aaron read Kaylin her new book

Thursday morning we trekked out to Butterfly World.... I really loved this place and got to play with my camera and took LOTS of photos of the different butterflies and moths. Aaron also spied the largest butterfly that is at Butterfly World... the Owl Butterfly (Bottom centre)

For lunch we made our way to Fairview Wine Farm where there is The Goatshed restaurant.... we shared a cheese platter and sampled various cheeses that they produce, including goats milk cheese... yummy

We then attempted to go to Blue Rock near Strand, but were disappointed in that it was closed for two days for a company team build, plus it was blowing something awful... so we just headed back home and Aaron had a swim!

Friday morning we picked up my niece, Veronica, after she had finished school and took her to Canal Walk. We had lunch at Spur... shared food off the kiddies menu.... I think the waitress must have thought we were mad!

After lunch we went down to the kiddies entertainment and Aaron and Veronica learnt a little on how to juggle.... they will definately have to practice some more!

The whole reason we went to Canal Walk was for Aaron to ride the train that they advertised. Well we did just that.... but I think it was a rip off.... R10 for 5 minutes!!! Literally!! But he did have fun!

Now we still had afternoon to fill and not enough time to go up Table Mountain as we had planned, so we headed instead for Ratanga Junction.... took a Fun Pass and got to ride the train (again!) and the canal boat.... in effect we did two trips on each..... a round trip twice around the whole place. By the time we were done riding the park was closing.... good use of an afternoon.

Saturday was our last day of the holiday. Thomas & Heather took us through to Franschhoek for the morning.... a lovely drive to a very quaint village.... we browsed all the shops, had lunch there and made it back home by 3pm in time for us to take some last minute pics before heading for the airport.

Again we had a good flight home. Aaron hogged the window seat so when he saw a beautiful sunset I just passed him my camera to take some pics...

And thus we got back to Jhb. My folks fetched us, we got pizzas for supper, spent the night with them and after church this morning Keith and I headed for home.

Once home I unpacked, did washing and read my book till it was finished. It's been a great day to reminise about our holiday too!