Christmas Notebook

It's that time of year where the shopping centre's are full of the Christmas Spirit, the trees are up the banners and bannering, the songs are a singing and more often than not we have Boney M singing as part of the backdrop. To get us all in the Christmas spirit I've made a small little tutorial to get us all inclusive in the Christmas spirit. I love lino, I'm one of those people that believe that lino can get you everywhere the uses are just stumognous.

I'm also of the belief that you use what you have, recycling in any way you can. This tutorial is only a guideline of what you can do. You don't necessarily have to follow everything to the T, but you are allowed to go off on your own.

The supplies are easy, you only need a small piece of lino, your lino cutting tool, a template of your Christmas ornaments you want to make, distress inks or any other inks you have on hand, I usually have pre-cut A5 brown cardboards that I use to make small little books. I use all the recycled paper from the kids books that they don't use any more from old school books to use as fillers for these little notebooks of ours. A black pen always come in handy. I have a stapler that extends and that's a very useful item to have.

 Firstly just space your templates out on the lino and cut the lino into the different squares.

 Trace the Christmas template onto your small square and cut out with your scissor or exacto knife. OR You can cut out your ornament  after you have filled in your design. Either or is fine.

 For these purposes I've kept the lines plain and simple. You can make your own designs with small little circles, lines, squares, the options are endless.

 In the interim I took the brown cardboard paper, folded it in half and folded the notebook paper in the middle.

 With the extended stapler, I stapled all the pieces together.

 Taking out my distress inks, I browned the edges of the book to give it a bit of an antique feeling.

 With the red distress ink I inked my lino prints and printed the ornaments onto the front page of the notebook. It's a bit wet, but get's dry quite quickly, when it does it gives it an old vintage feeling look.

With the black pen I use it to give it a bit of a dimensions and just finish off the notebook giving it a homemade finished feeling. 

So there you go, something for you to try for the Christmas season, this can make a nice little gift for that Christmas Stocking.

Matric Farewell

One Matric Farewell coming up. Actually it's now done and dusted. It was my oldest matric farewell / ball on Wednesday evening and it was a blast. He looked so smart in his suit. Everything just had to be turquoise, it is his absolute favorite color. This made me get some turquoise cushions to go with the lounge and put up some nice turquoisie curtains for him to go with "his" theme for the evening. It is just another 10 days then he starts with his record exams. Another two months then he is finished with school and has the world literally in the palm of his hands then. He wants to go into drama / film / charity work next year. We will worry about it in another two months time. Not to stressed about it at the moment, was stressed about what we are going to do two months ago. Now I'm just working through farewells, forty days, exams and just wrapping my head around the here and nows for now. I'm sharing one or two pics of the evening, this says happiness to me.

 

Our First Premiere

We were so excited as a family, this was our first film premiere where the kids got a taste of the other side of film making. They got to see the final product they worked on in one form or another. All three were part of the movies called, Second Day, iBalaclava and the Prodigal. I thought we all looked so stunning in our best. Today I'm sharing a bit of our joy. I'm sharing one of the trailers as well, and in one of the scenes my daughter is sitting on the floor in the trailer. At the end of the month the kids will be acting in another stage production at the Civic Centre with a total of eight shows. I can say it is hard work and a lot of dedication, and this is something they want to do, I'm such a proud theatre mamma.

Stamp Making Tutorial

Today I'm sharing some love again with a stamp tutorial, I'm crazy about stamps, I'll stamp anything and everything if I could. Stamps have so many uses, from stamping your own wrapping paper to making your own cards, tags, boxes ... the list can be endless. Enjoy ....

 List of Materials : Carving Tools, Erasers, a pen or pencil,
sheet of white paper, exacto knife, scizzor, inkpad

 Trace the size of your eraser on paper, that way you will know the
size of your drawing, draw on the paper what you would like
place the drawing on top of your eraser upside down
press with the pencil/pen the drawing on the eraser
in order to transfer your drawing, if your drawing came out
to light just go over it again with your pen or pencil

 With the carving tool carefully start carving your eraser.
I usually start with the outlines and then move towards the inside
I leave the small details for last

 

 

 

Puff Painting Tutorial

I'm making it a Tutorial Day. Two tutorials in one day - that's my surprise. I loved making these, it's easy, fund and very quick at the end you have a small little piece of art for any corner of your home.

July Invite

It's that time of the month again : Creative Time ............ it's going to be great fun, we're going big, we're going huge in the Creative Way. Watch this space.

The Shim Tutorial

Here's the Shim Tutorial for our little birds we made in June. This is a quick snapshot on the how's and what to do's. A great fun make. Enjoy Making Them....... Send me some pics and let's share the luv.

Around my Valley

All things wonderful is happening in and around us in July 2012.

The National Arts Festival will be in Grahamstown from the 28th of June to the 8th of July 2012.

The Wonder Market will be in Umhlanga on the 1st of July 2012.

The Vodacom Durban July will be held on July 8 at the Greyville Racecourse in Durban. 

The Oyster Festival will be hostel in Knysna from the 6th to the 15th of July 2012.

From the 10th to the 14th of July there will be a Clarens Quilt Retreat in the Eastern Free State. There will be quilting, crocheting and knitting classes on offer. For more info e-mail Alae Grabe.

From the 14th to the 15th of July 2012 the Franschhoek Wine Valleys annual Bastille Festival will be held. Tickets/coupons can be got via webtickets.

From the 26th to the 29th of July Port Elizabeth will be hosting a Homemakers Expo at the Moffet on Main Lifestyle Centre.

From the 27th to 29th of July 2012 the George Cheese Festival will be hosted. 

The Queensburgh Orchid Club is holding its annual show at Kloof Town Hall in Kloof in KwaZulu Natal.

Delheim Wine Estate is heating up weekends with their Jazz and Cheese Fondue every Sunday until August 5 2012. Bookings are essential Call 0218884607.

Something else I picked up in my wondering : in July you can enter for the Kludi Design Awards for 2012. You can show off your flair for kitchen and bathroom design and win a trip to Austria to meet with the Kludi Design and Development teams. Entry forms can be gotten here.

 Some planning to do for July 2012. So enjoy. Will keep it updated as we go along.

Creative Evening

We all had so much fun. The pom poms we're up. The candles burning, the food ready, the friends arrived. The conversation started. The laughter had my stomach muscles working overtime. The girls made their little birds. We made so much fun about our little birds, some more than others. Now we can't wait for next month. I'm sharing a few memories of the evening.

Pom Pom Tutorial

My little Pom Pom Tutorial. It's so easy to make and do. The difficulty factor is non existent. I can't wait for hubby to put it up this evening.

The Invite

My invite to my little Creative Evening. I took one small little paper bag, with a white gel pen wrote my invite, closed it up and sent it off with all my blessings.

Creative Evening

I invited my girls, they accepted, now it's getting organized for the evening. Actually it's this Friday and I want everything to run creatively smoothly. It's a challenge. I gave myself a small little budget, extremely small and want to do everything myself. In between running around for kids, work, husbands, friends, rugby, hockey practices, family, birthdays I think I'm getting there. It's a challenge. It's exciting and I'm very much looking forward to the evening. All the supplies and food are sorted. Getting hubby to do some fine tuning tomorrow evening. Made a few tutorials to share during this week. Got my mind sorted about how I want the blog to go and what makes me happy. It's going to be great fun.

In the Pink

I thought I'll get us started this week with some pink inspiration, and my mood board for the day is everything and anything to do with pink bedrooms. Pink is a very refreshing, mood uplifting color. It can be used in so many different ways and color combinations, it can be used with basic black, nice little greens, whites, a little bit of blues, some yellows, can be used as accents, be a main color and just blend in with everything. I think it's one of those colors that can be bent to suit your will and taste and that you can just make work where you need it to work. The possibilities are just endless I think.