Still under the cover

I know I am feeling very fortunate to be able to be at home for a little bit before I have to go out into the big scary world and find some work. But somehow I am still so overwhelmed and no where. I don't seem to get enough hours in the day to finish unpacking, settling, finding my feet, getting to do some fun stuff in between. I am still boxed in and wondering if I will ever see the last of a box. (all my scrap stuff in a little corner). I now have a couch where I can just plop on and look out at the pesky monkeys or some traffic.


The entire family has been totally taken out by the flu, me included. I am feeling weak and not myself. Sometimes, I forget I am human, like getting to the doctor with the little ones and him telling you, you are very sick do you know you have a temperature of 40 yourself. By any chance, you guessed, I am so frustrated because I can't build Rome in a day.

Today we had a scary visitor. Not so fun when you walk into the kitchen and find your mom and the cat on one side of the kitchen and a monkey on the other side.

We have no idea how he got into the kitchen as we have been keeping the windows closed to prevent this. And here he was, trapped, angry with the dogs barking at him too.

Lucky we managed to get a window open so he could escape. Luke is now telling Joel, "Monkeys are dangerous and carry disease".

I was holding my camera because I was taking some much needed updated pictures of the kids. Must say this was a point and shoot and just get this thing with the scary teeth right out of the house.

Here are some pictures of the boys. Luke is so over the camera and such a boy. All he wanted to do was show me how he could blow the stuff right out of his nose.

Sometimes we are just different because we can be. Got to love this face.

OLW # 53 - YES

My scrap stuff is still in boxes, my PC got connected a day ago (yay, I have photoshop), Im feeling so full of flu just in time for the weekend, a good dose of some creative inspiration good for the soul. Thanks OLW for the challenge. My little ones run around shouting, "Yes we are...in these photo's it happened to be the day for super heroes."

Hopefully soon I will be back to some normality. That my scrap stuff can find a home. For now I am happy to settle with some digi work. I have just taken a serious dose of medicine and going to climb into bed with the older of these super heroes as he is also down and out with this flu.

Credits: An assortment of fonts, some free star brushes I have from somewhere? They have no name attached.

OLW challenge # 52 - Reflect

My scrap stuff is now officially all packed away. Somewhere lost in boxes. The prompt word for this challenge is special for me, because May is my month where I take time to reflect a little bit more than any other month of the year. Two years ago we were watching my baby fight for his life in a coma. I am so glad that God sent him back to us. Just look at him now. He is an amazing 3 year old. Love this boy, I couldn't imagine my life without him. I always say he is so fearless because he did go visit the other side and they sent him back because they knew it would be easier for me to look after him. :o)

So I still have my PC and maybe it is a good time to digi scrap. I used the kit - Shabby Blooms by Beth Nixon.

Ps - I think I am going to get very addicted to these challenges.

OLW Challenge #51 - challenged indeed

I have officially packed all my scrap stuff away into sealed boxes. For the very reason I need to pack and not have distractions. I am easily distracted and have a serious dislike for packing. What happened then? My friend Bee challenges me to do an OLW with her. In the frenzy of moving, although my move date has been moved a week earlier, eek, I agree, because she is my friend. Secretly I agree, because I have left this page out for my last scrap club get together. And I know it will work perfectly - "Wings 2 Dream". So much fun with paper cut outs, paper tearing and rolling, painting and doodling, flowers and raised elements. I love this paper and the colours. Makes me happy.

So here is my first attempt at an OWL challenge and I am happy to say I am now officially a "Wordster" too. Bee this is for you. No more challenges until June, k.


This is my "Oh My Word" page. I did not realize I had to make two pages. So I rushed home, evaluated my non existent scrap stash and just got down to doing a page with white cardstock, some pens, the kids stickers and their paints, lucky me they are not yet packed.

Brainwave idea (pressure does this to me). Artwork has the letters TWO in it. Did you know that? A different way to bring the word two into a page. In our house there will always be some sort of art work or creativity going on. I love watching my children develop a sense of pride when creating their own special pages. Luke is a crocodile and Joel is convinced he is not naughty but a monkey, rather a chip-monkey. Hence the very appropriate stickers for this page.


Now no more distractions I am told. Go and pack otherwise we will leave all your scrap stuff behind too. And that what would I say.... I can't even think about.

Getting some mojo back

Just a teeny little bit, isnt it always like that when you have many other things to do. Stress brings out loads of creativity. Or maybe its procrastination and takes my mind of the enormous tasks ahead. I was under the weather last week and forced to sit still. So managed to fit in these two layouts. Yes we all have dinosaur names according to Luke. I make a pretty lovely diplodocus. I have a love neck. He he.
Thanks Sam E, this was for a challenge, nice to have these photos at hand.

Love and hate mini books thing

Mini books and me. Never seem to get to make any for myself. Always for gifts. But this paper by My Mind's Eye was just to yunmy to not use, and use it all. Thanks Gillian. I will blame you. :) The rub on - eyerday wonderfuls became the theme through out the book. I wanted to record many things about my every day life at the moment. I think the reason I love to hate mini books is because they take a long time and the repetition, oh, I battle to keep it focused. LOL. Dont ya just love the little crocheted flowers made just by me. (Kept the boredom away a bit)

Cape Town, I love that place

Always in my spirit, I will feel like an exited girl that feels alive when ever I go back to Cape Town. Something about the vibrancy, the colour, the life, the air, the people, the beauty and maybe just the magic it brings into my heart. How special it was to share my stepping back there with my special love, thank you Justin. I cannot thank you enough. And to good friends too, I am so blessed to have you in my life and share a little bit of love, warmth and energy with.

A wonderful little journey I took too, learning to accept the past and embrace those memories of a past life and the opportunities and blessings that have come my way. Just a slice of heaven and if I could taste it, I would say absolutely fantastically delicious. Yum.

I think I am too busy

It has been a very very busy and emotional week. My little boy, Joel had major surgery on Thursday. He had a hydracoele and his thumb operated on. I was so nervous as I have major hospital phobias (considering he spent about 3 months in hospital when he was one) He came through with flying colours and was discharged the same day. Who would guess from these photo's that about 5 hours previously he was waking up in hospital. He bounces back so quickly and was helping me make about a hundred plus cupcakes for his brothers school the next day.

I love his t-shirt that says it all....been no where done nothing. Right, so not Joel... he has done more than a lot of other almost 3 year olds. I am so proud of him and so in awe of how brave he was. Way to go Joel.

So creativity this past few weeks took a little bit of a back seat and was on the run. These were invites I made on a late Sunday night. I am so glad I can photo shop. It helps wonders when you need a quick fix.

Luke is a crocodile and Joel is a monkey. So its not suprising when asked what type of cake do you want. "Oh you know, just a crocodile cake" . Ok so this is our attempt. Perfect is for shop cakes, I like to involve my kids in art especially times like this. So this is Lukes and my attempt of a crocodile. Not too shabby, great teeth Luke.


And just in case you didn't believe me when I said we made over a 100 cupcakes to go. I spose I am a strange mom, my mom taught me. We cant eat in front of others and if you give one you give all. And how can one child in the school have a cup cake as the kids classes at little school are all sort of interlinked. So we just made cupcakes for the school.

For those friends that know I cant cook, genuine these are all hand made by me. Sometimes I come out with suprises. My mom and I make a pretty darn good baking team dont you think.

So maybe, maybe, next week I will get to that mini book thats half done on the dining room table. For now, its tea, cupcake and left over crocodile cake awaiting.

Having fun

I think I would be totally bored if I ever stuck to one pattern and way of doing things. So I try things and mix it up. Sometimes artistic impressions are also just because of how you are feeling on any specific day. I do think my moods dictate my passion and creativity.

Lately, there has been lots of work with trees, owls and birds. Its been sitting in the back of my head to try it.
I think of all my styles I do enjoy "Fun and whimsical" the best. It comes easily together for me without too much thinking. On a week night where I has a need to kill some of my PVR recording as its almost back to 100%, I started to cut out little hearts to stay awake. So if you wondered how this page started, it all started with little red hearts and then little things just got added. I must say its turned out happy, fun, bright and I think so me....and will be one of my favourites for awhile.

Answer to busy lives and book clubs



One of my best friends, Gillian, she scraps. But life is so busy and we seldomly get to meet up. So to try and solve that, we said instead of creating a book club we will have scrapclub and meet up once a month. So in theory we get to meet, see, snack, drink, chat and scrap. Wonderful combination dont you think.

I can remember back to the first crop sessions, trapesing across the country with my friend Bee, with a boot full of stuff. We could really add colour to that phrase: Everything but the kitchen sink. How on earth did we do that. And yes, man we had a lot of stuff. And it was like important to have it close by otherwise you could not scrap. It did take about an hour to pack it and an hour to pack it up again. I think we kind of realised what we were doing when one fine day we had a puncture on the way to a crop and it landed up in not such a great part of the woods. We had to unpack the entire chocoblock boot. All we could do was giggle and think of all the wives driving past with their husbands and saying: you think I had stuff, just look at those two and thats just what they have hidden in their boot.


So I have grown up. I go to crops now with literally NOTHING. I take my scrap file and a some cardstock and my carry all-tool thingy a mi-jiggy. No fuss at all. No photos. Just something to keep hands busy and putting something together. Complete with photo at home. Anyways this my book-club page. One finished easy simple page.

I did shabby chic...

Yes I did. Its not something that is a natural process for me, I tend to prefer the cleaner fun lined approach with not so much stuff on a page. But you know me, I get a buzz and then out of the blue challenge myself to something different. If not why not I have a whole lot of stash to work my way through to eternity. Lets just say my printer ran out of ink found and old photo and havent done a girly page in a while. So here is my take on shabby chic, pink and blue, I love you.

There is stamping, inking and sewing on this page. Looks different in real life. Did I tell you I thought I would take out my sewing machine so I could, yes sew on paper (most my friends dont quite get that, let alone the thought that I own a machine and might even sew) but the darn thing was so much trouble, didnt want to work and almost got thrown down the street (but I was reminded that is literring). Do you ever get so mad with things that dont work when they should. So I walked around for the rest of the afternoon, not scrapping but cursing my machine that did not work. I think I solved the problem of throwing the machine down the road and just burnt out the motor instead. Far much a suttler death. Death by heat.

Just for Valentines day.

I found this layout I did sometime I think in August. It says a lot and I still feel very much the same. Its a good day to share it.

Sunday scrapping

Slowly getting back into playing with the art of moving photo's around and playing with paper. It is fun after all that is why we do it. Memories captured. Precious moments recorded. Photos for albums with little stories that will make me smile for a life time.

Happy faces. Thats my boys. Luke's first day of School. Joel does not smile for the camera, Luke thought he would help him along and show him how. Its really rather funny watching the two of them, sometimes they just get on and do these funny things together. Happy Sunday.

Just an {Extra}Ordinary Sunday

I love my family very much. When we get together we always have so much fun, loudness, crazy times and just thrive in the amount of energy we all bring into the equation. So lazy Sunday afternoons on {Extra)ordinary days look just like this in our house. Even the cat and dog love each other long enough to snooze together. Welcome to the crazy madness of my family, Justin.

My Stars

Absolutely no bribery involved in this photo. One of those rare moments where there is peace and love in the house. Where the older brother just hugs his younger brother for no particular reason and smiles back at me.

home is always where the heart is

I finally finished a layout. Wow, its been some time. Hope it makes you smile.