Jen's house and freebie

I know I have been quiet lately, but it is school holidays and that means entertaining the kids and trying to keep sane! lol! No seriously, I have just been busy, especially this week. Jenni, my sister asked me to get her holiday house here ready as her family and all their millions of friends arrive on Saturday. So I had to make up gift bags, get flowers for the house, let the garden service in and today I went to go and clean. (getting paid for all this!) It took me 4and a half hours to clean-it is quiet a big house- 3 bedrooms, 2 bathroom, lounge, dining room, study and kitchen as well as a flat downstairs which has a bathroom and a small kitchen area. I must say I think I am cut out for the guest house caretaker! (whatever you call it!) I just love decorating(point one)...point two...I clean really well..years of practice being a perfectionist! Point 3...I can use my creative energy to make nice things that show a guest they are really welcome.
So here are the photos(I have Jen's permission to post them online-yay-well they will be on their web site one day when she gets her guest house web site going).
I took these today.








The photo above is where I lived in for a few months when I first moved here in 1994. I went to go and live with Jen (this used to be where Jen lived -8 years ago they moved to Pretoria and now they are using their house as a holiday home and renting it out as a guest house-which I will be helping run as Jen needs someone right here to do it)Anyway I went to college and my dad sent me to live with Jen until he could finish work, pack up, sell and move here himself.

I must say I love Jen's colors and it really has a holiday/guest home feel to it! I could never imagine having white linen in my home!

I have also had a lot of time to do some serious catching up on my paper scrapping and I am so happy to announce that I am almost done with my daughters album! I never thought I would be able to say that! Funny, she is the younger one but I got into paper scrapping when she was about 2 and a half so before then I hadn't done any for my son's album. So I have pages for his, but the thought of catching up the last 6 years is really daunting! Considering too that for his first 3 years are all negatives!! ARGG, nothing worse than sorting through piles of piles of negatives and having reprints! Hate it!! I have his first 3 years in a type of scrapbook-but the kind when people (well at least I thought that was what scrapbooking was about!) used to cut our their photos in shapes and paste them in a large book like a collage! So I think I am going to leave those and just do an album for him from 4 years until now. Much less trouble. Of course there is still my unfinished wedding album to do of which I have only done about 5 pages! SIGH. Story of my life: unfinished!! ha ha.

I will be posting the paper pages over the next few days -or when I get a chance.

In the meantime I have a blog freebie for all of you! This one is say thank you for all your support, all your virtual friendship, kind comments-for all you regulars that pop in , whether on here or email to say hi-thank you! I have been blogging now for a year and a half-can you believe it? Time flies!
This will probably be the last freebie from me for 2007. But of course more to come for 2008! 2008? WHAT? insane!
PLEASE do not share the link or freebie in any way. Obtaining it other than through this blog is illegal. I would LOVE, did I say LURVE comments-come on, give me that warm fuzzy feeling!
No Longer available as a freebie, you can get this here

WE also got given these adorable blinkies at snap and scrap, so please grab one if you like!see sidebar!

collage

I made a mistake yesterday, the bird is sitting on a Protea-not an aloe! It is called Protea Eximia and the bird is a cape Sugar bird.
Anyway!

This anniversary one is for my inlaws anniversary on the 15th Jan. I am going to frame it for them. Next year has to be extra special because for the first time ever this year I completely forgot about their anniversary and I am normally so good with those things-I NEVER forget anyone's anniversary and make sure all my friends/family get cards/ presents. I must of been in right tizz!

I also came up with this kit little gift box, I used a template from a little chocolate box I bought. Will make for a very sweet little gift box!


Have a great weekend!

Come for a walk with me

Are you ready? Got your hiking shoes on? Your water bottle and snacks?
Then let's go! Today we went to the nature reserve again-and I know you are going to love this little journey...So let's set off down this pretty petal-covered path...

Oh what do we have here? A little boy (not my boy's hands! ha ha!) found this adorable little tortise! Isn't it sweet?

Smile, you're walking with me!

Along the way we spot this creepy looking flower, looks like a beady-eyed insect!

And this gorgeous orange flower!

We stop to rest under the shade of this beautiful yellow flowering tree. (wish I knew the names-sorry!)

We spot this beautiful long-tailed bird sipping a aloe!

More rest under the shade of this Keurboom Tree

Look how far we've walked and look at our view? Aren't you glad you came with me on this walk today?

Round Robin!

6 months later and my little round robin book is finally home! Wow, what a journey it went on...
These are the pages I did:



First it went off off to Dawn


who then sent it to Victoria
Victoria did the above right and the below left.


who in turn sent it to Lori

and finally toDedein California, who sent it back to me!


Thank you ladies! I love it!

I also got this lovely little package from Amy.

yours is on it's way to you!

Me a bad blogger? so it would seem!

I know, it's been ages since I last posted! I must admit I was sort of relishing in the laziness of it all! But you know you've been a bad blogger when you start getting email's "Is everything alright? I haven't seen a post in a while? are you sick?" ha ha. Thanks Em!! ha ha.
So I got off my butt today and here I am!
We've had such weird weather lately. Now, it is supposed to be Spring, by this time last year we were crawling around the floor, tongues lolling out, desperately searching for water and saying "Water-I need water". Get the picture? IT was HAWT. Sure, this year, we've had a few hot days, but nothing that makes you want to strip naked running into the sea! (okay people, I have NOT done this!)This weekend for instance has been one long tedious miserable week of rain, cold, socks and endless cups of coffee to try and stay warm! I don't get it!




Now onto some photos I took recently at our local nature reserve:
This is the little museum and tourist information center.

Some birds. I was fortunate to get these nice shots.

This bird had some bread in its mouth. We were throwing the bread into the reeds next to the river and watching them come swopping from afar to get to the bread.

This is quite a funny photo, I got the bird in a half-flying, half-landing motion. He looks so sweet! Just after I took this, these two had a real "Barney" over a piece of bread! ha ha.

We also saw these tortoises-amazing. I think this was the first time I had seen a tortoise in the wild.

Another nice shot of these Cape Weaver birds-again the one with it's back to us has bread in its mouth. Greedy little fellows! ha ha.

This beautiful bridge with all these lovely purple blossoms.

Me posing on the bridge! haha


I must say I am fascinated with birds and with nature as a whole. I guess I have always been like that, but I find as I get older, I appreciate it more and more and just being surrounded by beauty and nature in its purest form, really touches me on a deep level. I think it is because we are supposed to be at one with nature and it is in our instincts to feel like that. I always try and get the kids to really take a closer look to and like to point out small things like lady birds. They also really have a love for it. Going to the nature reserve is one of our favorite things to do.

Okay well I promise to be a good girl and try and blog more regularly again!

Just to reward you for your patience and lucky you if you managed to make it to the end of this post, cos here is a little freebie for you!
While we don't have snow here in South Africa, well we do, but it never reaches the ground! I wanted to do this for those of you who do and to scrap your winter photos. It has nothing to do with Christmas, since I personally don't celebrate it. It was made purely with winter/snow photos in mind. Thanks and enjoy.

DOWNLOAD HERE
PLEASE LEAVE SOME LOVE IF YOU DOWNLOAD AND PLEASE DON'T SHARE THE LINK OR THE FREEBIE IN ANY PART OR FORM.I would love to hear from you if you download. Thanks so much.

It is called Snowy Days and has 3 papers, a snowman and some snowflakes-brrr makes me cold! We don't get snow here, so it is nice to do something like this!!
The last time I was in snow was about 12 years ago! My kids have never been in snow-arw!
Also if you like this, sign up for the Snap and scrap newsletter HERE, cos Jenni and I have put together a freebie for it!

Thank you Em!

My lovely kind friend sent me a beautiful parcel of goodies all the way from England which I got today! Thank you my sweet friend, I love all of it! She knows my style-vintage, shabby-chic!
Just look:

This beautiful vintage tin

stunning teacup and saucer-Em I can't believe it made it here without even a hairline crack! you can bubble wrap girl! ha ha

This stunning card which the words really made me cry! (inside not on the cover-lol!)

My anniversary card for last month-so beautiful!

Just look at the detail-love the bits of paint!

Isn't this beautiful?

And even sweet little smart shirts for my kids!


I am so blessed to have a friend like you! Thank you Em!

Something exciting coming soon!

I have something so great planned for the next 8-10 weeks!
As most of you know, on a Wednesday at the snap and scrap blog, I host the post (hey that rhymes!) and my theme is arts and crafts. Well I have been doing a tutorial or an idea now each Wednesday for the past 2 months-that is a long time to come up with something new each time! So I thought that I would introduce something new...for the next 8-10 weeks, each Wednesday I am going to be hosting an Interview with a very talented person (a different one each week-lol) and they are also going to share their own tutorial -some will include photos. I cannot wait for this...do you want to see some of the names I have signed up already?

Kathryn Louise - 28 November
Kari Ramstrom (known as Artsymama) - 5 December
One of my best friends Emma - 12 December
Dede Warren- 19 December
Nerissa Alford - 26 December

Also Monica Andrade
Amy Pytlik
Anastacia Christou

Stay tuned!!