The Purple Christmas Hope

I can't believe that it is December already. This year has simply disappeared from me.

In the spirit of Advent and the teachings of Hope, our priest was giving away small purple Alyssum for us to cultivate and place on our Christmas dinner table. If we cultivate the hope within ourselves then anything is possible. We also will keep believing in the good within each other and the good within the rest of the world. This rings so true to my families situation. After a year of full time studying my man is looking for work. As we draw nearer to the end of the year, so to is work becoming more scarce. We have got to keep the faith and believe that early next year a mechanical engineering position will come our way.


The following day, I decided that I needed to transplant this plant into something bigger so as to create the space it needs to grow. Not having any spare pots lying around the house and keeping in mind that it will land up on the Christmas table, I needed to come up with something decorative. Additionally being on a tight budget, I could not spend a cent.

In the end, I found a margarine tub, some spray paint, Christmas embellishments from my scrapping stash, glitter glue, some ribbon and newspaper. I was so pleased at how well my creations came out, that I wanted to share it with the world. Here are the steps to follow:

1. Poke a few holes at the bottom of your tub.
2. Spray your tub and lid (the lid will act as the catchment for the water of your plant) over a newspaper, so as to protect your working space. You need to only spray the sides of your tub. Don't spray inside as it will be a waste and on top of it you do not want your plant absorbing the chemicals from the spray paint.
3. Leave your tub to dry. While it is drying, I covered my embellishments with glitter glue, each embellishment got a different colour and then I left these all to dry.
4. Once they are all dry. Place some double sided tape around your tub (or you can place it on the ribbon). Wrap your ribbon around the tub.
5. Stick your embellishments onto the ribbon.
6. Add your soil and place your plant into the tub.
7. Enjoy your creation and show it off to your family.

Hope you enjoy making this simple yet beautiful creation.

With Love

Ania

Hobby Expo 2013

This past weekend was the last hobby expo of the year. For weeks I was looking forward to going. So much so that I had it diarised in my calendar. The day had finally arrive, I left home early to beat the rush and I spent hours in all the scrapping stalls admiring everything that was on display. With each item came so many ideas of things that I could do. I would have bought it all, if I was super duper wealthy. Even though I was a bit on the complusive side in buying, I do believe that I can be forgive considering the largest item purchased with the Sizzex Big Shot. (Me with a sheepish grin from ear to ear...) I've been dying to get one for like ever, and I finally got the right deal with a whole bunch of freebies. The wait was all worth it in the end.

The place got fairly busy quickly, seeing that everyone left it to the last minute and everyone went on Sunday, the day after the big Rugby game (which SA performed dismally in). I suppose the only saving grace for me was that I went early. I was fortunate enough to have a friend who worked the show and she allowed me to stow my packets while I continued to shop up a storm.

I  cannot wait to get started with all my new and amazing papers and cutting tools and embossing plates. I simply feel giddy inside with excitement....now if only I can find the time.....hmmm maybe tonight....

A gold mine of scrapping goodies.

With Love

Ania

Wedding Congratulation Card

Wow, it has been such a long time since I wrote my last post. Isn't it amazing how time runs away from you so quickly. Before you know it, months have passed by. I can't believe how things have been so crazy busy. I've been busy making soaps, scrapping up a storm and keeping to my day job. I will post the baby scrapping pages soon. By the way, the baby was born! He is the most cutest thing ever. I will post pictures soon.

Right, so let me get straight into what today's post is all about. Friends of ours got married this past weekend. She looked absolutely radiant and he was most dashing.

More often than not, you have the gift but you need a card to go with the gift. I know I use to throw away the invite and the "save the date", as probably most of us do. Instead of buying a card, my man had the idea of using these items into making a congratulation card. it was such an original idea, that I got straight into making the card. Below is the final proof in the pudding.

I used the following items:

• Skeleton leaves
• Paper flowers
• Congratulation stamp to make the flag
• Diamanté
• 1 Brad

The lace, and text are all from the wedding invitation. The photo was from the "Save the date".

Hope you enjoy creating this idea. I look forward to your feedback.

With Love

Ania

Baby Boy Scrapped Album 2

For those who missed out on the first blog of this series, you can go and check it out here.

I created another two pages (inspired by The Piece by Piece) but I can't show them both to you just yet as I did not have the correct embossing colour for the label of the one. (Don't you just hate it when you get stuck and can't finish something...) Hopefully it will be finalized for the next series. But don't despair I have a June page that I did manage to complete.

With this page I used the following paper ranges:

1. Bundle of Joy the boy range by Alisha Gordon, and
2. Here & Now by Lori Whitlock

It's a fairly simple page but quite effective, especially once the photos and journalling will be done. I thought this page would be so appropriate for her, since she loves taking tons of photos. At any event, she is never not with her camera. This way it will also get her to develop some of these pictures and put them in an area that will allow her to appreciate them, rather than having them sit on the computer (God forbid that the computer crashes...).

On the dotted area, she could place a photo there. The empty space by the cameras, she could easily do some journalling.

The tag rotates, so if she wanted to she could place another photo underneath it or just leave it plain. On the tag itself there is some space for journalling, as well.

I stamped this saying by Longfellow: "the boy's will is the wind's will." I absolutely loved this saying.

I can't wait to see some photos on these pages. Makes me almost want a kid of my own, just for the photos. :-) Seriously though, I'm a bit traditional there, so I guess I will wait for that marriage proposal first. I can still dream though...

See you all next time for some coffee and cookies.

With Love
Ania

Baby Boy Scrapped Album 1

This is my first of many scrapping posts. I plan to share the various scrapping projects I have embarked on over the past few years. I plan to keep posting different pictures of the different creative ideas I come across both on-line and in my scrapping classes. Many of them had been modified in order to make them my own. I hope that who ever views this will be as inspired as I was.

In this project I am making a friend of mine an 8x8 inch album. It will contain 20 different pages.  She is expecting a baby boy in the next few weeks and I have only a few days remaining to complete it. So I really did leave this to the last minute.

I think I got off to a good start. I only hope that the momentum is kept throughout the next few days. Here are the first pages.

In this page, she is able to place the name, birthday, time, weight, height of the baby. She can also place two photos. The one will be on a tag that she can journal later on. The little cute baby hand was a stamp.

On this July page, I decided to make it a bit fun, with the hot air balloons in the background and a few buttons to finish off the page. The round edges were all cut by hand.








This is how the tag looks. The stars were stamped on.

Stay tuned for the rest of the pages.

With Love

Ania