Happy Sunday!

The weekend has been busy with family and friends and I have't had time to take a walk on my favourite beach, Kommetjie which is a few minutes drive from where we live. I have been walking on this beach since we moved to Cape Town, 16 years now! Everytime it refreshes me and and it is like vitamins to my soul! Today I wanted to share with you pictures of "my" beach and a quote I love! Have a happy Sunday everyone!!

Create!

It is the end of a busy week and very busy term of Homeschooling my two prescious girls! How wonderful and blessed I am that in between all the school work and daily grind of life (housework, shopping, extra murals and the list goes on..) I get to catch snippets of time to ....CREATE!

My project as we head into the weekend and July school holidays is to make new stock of Teeny Tiny gift tags. I have a few new gorgeous colours of cotton thread for the little crochet flowers and hearts. I am trying a new brand of yarn which is a combination of cotton and bamboo. It is also all natural and hand dyed. The hand dyed colours are so beautiful! The name of it is Eco- Fusion and their website is www.nurturingfibres.co.za if you want to check it out. I purchased my stock from a local supplier.

I found loads of cute buttons which I will add to the flowers and hearts and I just need to source some new ribbon as my ribbon stock is low.

I am adding  more birds to the watercolour tags but they will all be South African little birds!

I have to mention the big "green" Cuttlebug in the picture. My husband gave it to me for my birthday last year! It has been the most wonderful gift! All the pretty embossed tags are all made using the Cuttlebug.

My blog is just 2 weeks old and I am loving every minute of sharing my art/craft ideas and designs. I have connected and made new friends overseas and caugh tup with old friends from school! I feel so blessed!

Have a wonderful peaceful weekend! Happy CREATing!

Fly away with me ...

I think I would really love to be a bird. The freedom to fly and explore and see the world from above seems - magical! I am a little obsessed with birds! I have started a few larger watercolour paintings that I want to share with you today. Living in Cape Town we have beautiful sugarbirds and sunbirds that come to drink the nectar from all the indigenous fynbos and stunning proteas that grow wild in the surrounding mountains or come to the proteas and aloes in my garden. I wanted to try and capture their incredible beauty. Their colours are so amazing and I think watercolour is a great medium to try capture their gorgeous colours.

We will be gong to Kirstenbosch Gardens these July school holidays where I will try to take more photos of birds and try and find some time to do another larger painting.

Making memories...

I have been scrapbooking for a couple of years now and have done a few online courses with the amazing scrapbooker Ali Edwards. She has an inspiring blog too and I am busy doing her one year course called - One Little Word. Please take a look at her beautiful blog! http://aliedwards.com/blog

My nephew has just had his first little baby boy and its been so exciting to watch him grow. We don't live in the same town as him so they have been sending me updates of his growth and lots and lots of pictures. I decided to start a mini album for them from new born pictures through the year until he is one year old. A lot of work I know but I am loving capturing all the moments and memories of this cute little guy, Jesse!

Here are a few pictures of the start of the album and how I have planned it out. Photographs are just a wonderful way of capturing those moments we really don't want to forget! In a few months time I will post more pictures of how the album is "growing". I am going to try get lots of scrapping done on this mini album this week!

Daisy bowl

I am really missing working with clay! There is something so therapeutic about sitting and working with a lump of clay. I don't work on a wheel but prefer to hand build. When making a bowl I usually start with a small ball of clay and pinch a small bowl first. I then roll coils and add these onto the small pinched bowl until I have the size and shape bowl I want.

I have been inspired by lace and how beautiful and delicate it is. I drew a very simple daisy shape onto the clay and then cut out the petal shapes through the clay to create the "lace" effect. I wanted it to be simple so I just painted the flower white using underglaze and left the bowl the natural clay colour.

It is a lovely size bowl for salads or as a fruit bowl. I want to make a larger one and also a platter. Clay is such fun! I will post pictures of my other clay work soon.

Pretty crochet tags

I just love pretty things especially when you are wrapping a present and you want to make it look really pretty! I designed and made these little crochet gift tags. I just need to find time to make more! I used a tutorial to make the little flowers and hearts from a crochet blog I absolutely love to read, http://attic24.typepad.com/. Take a look at her blog, the tutorials are really easy to follow and the crochet blankets and her beautiful work is all so inspiring!

I then used my "Cuttlebug" to emboss the designs onto white cardstock. I was even able to find cute little heart buttons to sew in the middle of the crochet hearts and flower buttons for the crochet flowers.

Inspiring poppies!

Today I wanted to post pictures of my clay poppies. Clay is probably my favourite of all the art mediums and my dream has been to have my own ceramic studio where I could just sit and work with clay! Last year we did a Homeschool project on World War 1, Memorial Day. My girls loved the project and I was so inspired by the British artist Paul Cummins who with a large team made hundreds of thousands of poppies out of clay and then installed them in the gardens at the Tower of London.

On November 11, Armistice Day, they "planted" 888,246 of the clay poppies. This is one for each of the British and Colonial soldiers, sailors and airmen who perished in the Great War! They then sold each poppy and raised millions for charity. How incredible! We then decided to make our own and I also found out that my great grandfather and great uncle fought in this war. Even more amazing!

We pay tribute to these brave men! Beautiful red poppies!

Gift for Carol!

I was so excited to connect with a new friend I have made via a blog I read about crosstitching. Carol lives in America and has been blogging for many years and has a beautiful blog with many inspiring designs  she has made and is stitching. I sent her a little gift. It was a little chart from Country Cottage Needleworks called Raccoon Cabin. I decided to make it into a little pillow and I added some extra stitching at the top with lace, heart button and ribbon so she could hang it up if she liked.

I have a few of these cute little charts from Country Cottage Needleworks in the Frosty Forest range and I am busy making one into another little 3 D house. I will post pictures soon.

Please take a look at Carol's beautiful blog and be inspired as I was! www.stitchingdream.blogspot.com

Mr Gorgeous Bush Shrike ...

Years ago when I studied Fine Art I took painting as a major. We painted in oils but a few years ago I decided to try watercolour. I absolutely love working with watercolours as I can use very fine brushes to create the design on the birds wings, almost like lace. I only have time at the moment to do small little watercolours so I am making them into little gift tags. They are perfect for a gift tag as they just add that something special to a present. I am doing a range of South African birds using the Roberts Bird Guide as my reference.

Sewing dreams 1990

My Dad bought me my very own Elna sewing machine when I turned 21! That was 25 years ago and so much has happened since then. My Dad passed away 20 long years ago and I miss his love, laughter and wisdom everyday. But I still have the  wonderful  memories and my sweet little sewing machine. I have just had it serviced and it is still going so well! I have so many little sewing projects lined up and some ideas to use pretty fabric with my crosstitch designs.

Pins and Needles

I have been wanting to find a beautiful tin to put my needles, tape measure and scissors in so they are all in one place. I found this gorgeous tin from my favourite shop in Simonstown, The Meeting Place. I found a freebie crosstitch design of a little bird and I thought it was perfect for the front of the little needle pouch for all my different size embroidery needles. I added my little crochet tiny flowers. These flowers are from a tutorial from one of my favourite crochet blogs, Attic24. I will definitely be making more of these little needle pouches. They are so quick and fun to stitch and make great little gifts.

Little Country Cottage

At last I have finished my first little 3D house! It was a lot of planning in my head but then in reality I had to hand stitch and glue the finished pattern onto the little wooden house. It was a real challenge getting it to fit perfectly! I love the design by Country Cottage Needleworks called Our Love Nest. It was such fun to stitch.

I am busy with another little house, this time a Snow Cottage but instead of wood for the "box" shape of the 3D house  I will try stitch it together and fill it with stuffing similar to a little pillow.
The idea was to create a whole little "village" in cross
titch 3D. As you will see my favourite charts are of houses!

Q - Snap Tote Bag

The wonderful thing about art and craft is finding other friends who have the same love and passion for things that are made by hand. My lovely friend Nikki has started a crosstitch business from home and we have an online community of fellow stitchers. We started a new project this year called - Round Robin. We each chose a theme. My theme was houses and my group stitched beautiful little house designs to complement mine. The end result was so cute that I decided to sew it into a tote bag.

I used gorgeous Biggie Best fabric and made it large enough to put in  my large Q - Snap and there is still room for my box of threads and chart. I also made a small tote bag for my small Q- Snap. On the small tote I cut the fabric in the shape of a tag and stitched a little bird design from the latest cross-stitch magazine and added the word "love".

I love the way they turned out and will

definitely make more of these tote bags!