World Card-making Day

Just a Quick reminder about our special event on Saturday...

Elna & I have bought some lovely Jenni Bowlin products a few months ago and decided to "save" it for a special occasion!?  We cannot wait to share the designs with you...


Those of you that cannot be here on Saturday, don't worry - we will publish the cards soon!


Thank you for visiting.

My Woolies Tekkies

I wanted to alter these tekkies the same way as the others, but they are designed differently. 

Definitely not much space to work on, so I only used one colour to

get rid of the white canvas and then I used my 7Gypsies and

Making Memories stamps to stamp onto the tekkies.

Turn within

I have just returned from a two week "Road-trip" here in South Africa.


Leon (my husband), Willem (a friend) and I decided last year that we wanted to travel from Pretoria to the Western Cape and visit all the small towns that we usually shoot past on our way to the coast.  We wanted to take the "road less traveled" and go on mountain passes, eat with the locals, take photos and grow our appreciation for this beautiful land of ours.  


One of the towns we visited, was McGregor.  There is a beautiful spiritual retreat in town, called Temenos. I was fortunate to attend a "Painting Inside Out" workshop (presented by Ellen Norbu) there about seven years ago.  At the time photography was not really "my thing", so I saw our 2010 visit as the ideal opportunity to capture some of Temenos' beauty through my camera lens...

Amongst the flowers in the garden, I found this sign

It led to a building, called "Temore".  On Temenos' website they describe it as
"a small six-sided domed sacred space, surrounded by roses and iridescent stained glass windows of cascading light.  It does not represent any particular religion or path, but rather the inner temple of your own heart.  Outside Temore, a sign beside the curving pathway invites you to ‘Turn Within’ - to enter your own inner garden with all its unfolding beauty and hidden treasure, and attune to the living Love-Presence within".

When I opened the door, this is the image that welcomed me...  The space is no more than 2m x 2m (5' x 5') and has the bluest of blue light inside (almost periwinkle or a deep lavender).


May your week be filled with light, love, laughter and lots of creative inspiration.

Allow yourself

Sometimes it is better to let yourself go of something. Don't carry it with you, it only makes life harder and your burden heavier. Rather write it down and burn it, plant a tree and water it. It all depends on what it is. When our Cumba dog passed on, we planted a tree and somehow it feels like he is still around.

When a friendship with a friend ended, I wrote her a letter and filed it with some photographs. There is still something there that I cannot completely let go of. But we all know we need to let go of something, maybe that is why I made this canvas. Feel free to make your own.

You can even hide a letter at the back! Start gathering your stuff...

What you need:

1 canvas 15x15cm

old paper, music or dictionary

gel medium

white & pink paint, walnut ink

glue squares, post office tags

lace, bird cut out from grunge board

hat pin, old picture, words printed on card stock

cotton thread, twig, swirl stamp, lace stamp

brown stamp pad, paint brush

Decide what your layout will look like, play around with your elements.

Place your paper on the canvas and plan the position of the paper.

Give the grunge board a good layer of gel medium

and put your paper on top, rub away the bubbles with your fingers, 

wait for it until it is dry before you start tearing off the edges and sanding it.

Give the canvas a good coating of gel medium and place your

paper on the canvas, rub over the paper with you

 hand or fingers until all the bubbles are gone.

Remember to cover the sides as well.

Stain the tags with walnut ink and stamp a

lace/music pattern with brown ink onto them.

Stain the canvas with walnut ink, I sprayed and painted the paper.

When it was dry I painted over the canvas with

some diluted pink and white paint. Do the same

to the bird image and stamp a swirl onto it.

Stitch around the tag to give it more detail.

Place the objects and adhere them to the canvas

with glue squares and thread. Chalk the edges to give dimension to

the objects. Place the hat pin as a crown on the bird's head.

It is hard to let go, I know....

Tekkie Class at Carrot's Crafters

A lovely bunch of girls came through from Witbank for this class
and together with us locals we had a very creative morning.
 Just look at the variety!

I hope I've put the right name to the right tekkie!

Christa

Ria

Christell

Anel

Beulah

Elize

Thank you ladies, hope to see you again soon. We will have another tekkie class at Carrots in October, so if you've missed this one, please book soon.
Keep well.

International Card Making Day

You are all invited to our Card Making Class on Saturday the
2nd October 2010, at Benice's studio.

We will make 4 cards using Jenny Bowlin's stunning paper.
Here is one of the cards.
Come and enjoy the morning with us.... and of course, there will be cupcakes and tea!
Please email us to book your class and
 remember to bring your card making tools.
A newsletter will be send out soon with more detail.

Tomorrow things will look beter.

I cant believe it has been more than a week! Time flies and with Benice out of town I must keep things going, but if your studio table looks like this, you wouldn't get much done. On the table is: Remnants of two classes I've done over the weekend, the contents of some containers I had to use, buttons and buttons bracelets, boxes with serviettes and much more. Tomorrow, things will look better, yes! Even the floor. (which you luckily cannot see) 

The Tekkie class I did on Friday night was a hit. All 14 pairs of tekkies came out stunning and all of them were different. Not even the beginners struggled to make beautiful tekkies.

Well done girls! 

 So I bought another pair from Woolies and will alter them as well.

I think a class on a Friday night is also a good idea, what do you think?

Shanya's Gift

I help a 10 year old girl with her homework every afternoon for 2 hours, 4 days a week. I normally go to her house but recently, when I had to take care of my mother in law for a couple of weeks, she came to my house and was very interested in my studio and asked me if she could one day inherit the studio! Of course I had to say yes. She knows about the button bracelets that I've been making (mostly for myself) and so I decided that I would make her one for her birthday which is tomorrow. Colour was the first motivation and then the size of the buttons and I tried to keep it practical.

Happy Birthday Shanya,

remember you are special!

Spring in South Africa

I feel truly blessed to live here in sunny South Africa!!  Our weather rates as the best in the world and although we are supposed to still be "in winter", spring has definitely arrived.

Here are a few pictures that I've taken in my garden of the winter flowers and the first signs of spring...

Primroses can really brighten up an otherwise grey area!?

Spring is here!


Thank you for visiting, and may you have a colourful and creative day...