I AM BACK!

Yes, I know it really has been a VERY long time since my last update but you know...life got busy! What can I say... So thought what better time while sitting watching the 2010 World Cup soccer (and I can tell you I am NOT a soccer fan at all but I thought best I show my support just in case someone asked "did you see the match between...?")!

So yes, life has been a tad busy with our family "trek" (also know as "move") back from Dubai in March last year, yes, can you believe that! We have been back in Cape Town for over 15 months and it really feels like we haven't left! I started my cardmaking and scrapbooking business up and running again and it has been keeping me really, really busy! So now this blog will be dedicated to all my cardmaking and scrapbooking projects, a little bit about my life and travels (with a few personal updates for the rest of the family) so please feel free to delete yourself from the mailing if you don't want to receive any future blogging blah, blah from me!

So here is a little bit of cardmaking inspiration for you:



This card was made with the Cuttlebug butterfly die cut, scored into 3 sections to create a tier-folded card and finished off with red rhinestones and beads.

So this will be the start of many more bloggings to come to keep you up to date with all kinds of creativity, events, etc.

Have a happy week!

Until later...

For my creative friends...

Okay! I always seem to apologise that it takes me so long to do posts! Why is life so hectic?!

Tomorrow afternoon we are off to experience our first overnight stay in the middle of the desert! We are going on a 4x4 adventure with friends and we are going to camp for the night, so that should be an interesting experience! Will blog the details with what we were up to...

I know it has been a while since I blogged some pictures of the cards I have been making so here are four for you to all get yourselves inspired and your creative juices flowing! I am always envious of all those people who blog each and every day (or second day) with new creative ideas and things that they have been doing creatively! Where do they find the time!!! So here are 3 cards I made recently (the first 2 are just general cards and the last one - pink teddy card was for my niece, Ella-Rose who just recently turned 2):

Bryce is having a sports day so I am off to be the "Mommy support!"

Until later...

International Day!

Comes around once a year at Bryce and Logan's school. It is a day of celebrating your nationality and bringing you closer to people who come from the same background and country as you! It was wonderful to spend the morning with people from different nationalities and experience the unique cultures around the world.

So myself, Bryce and Logan dressed in our "national dress" which was rugby shirts and me in my South African flag t-shirt with my dreadlock hair (just to bring in an element of fun!). We headed off to school. The children started a parade which is just like the Olympics where they were put into groups from their different countries and walked into the hall. It was so great to see the kids participate and be proud of the countries they come from (or their parents!) No surprise that one of the biggest groups of children came from South African and Australia.

Each country ie, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA, India, Sweden, Germany, had a room in the school which was decorated in each countries "heritage". So South Africa/Africa had an "African Theme" displaying African prints, animals, etc. It was really well done but unfortunately I did not get any pics of the room. Some South African mums got together and baked koeksisters, babotie, milk tart, boerewors (also known as "sausage" for those Non-South Africans) and we also had biltong and droewors! Yum! Yum!

Some of the SA moms and me were responsible for the kindies (kindergarten kids aged between 4 - 6) and had a room set up with them. We put together a 152 lion king masks made out of paper plates. Lots of time and effort! I was so grateful when they were done! I created the mask but not sure I will be so enthusiastic next year! Thanks to those Moms who helped though as I would still be doing the faces and cutting out 152 pieces of hair, 152 noses and 306 ears! Here is Logan wearing the mask.



Unfortunately my camera decided to play up so I could not get as many pics as I wanted to but here is what I got:

Myself, Bryce and Logan going to school
South African kids
Logan waving the SA flag he made


Until next time...

Dubai Aquarium

Today we spend a leisurely morning going through the Dubai Aquarium situated at a new shopping mall, which has been abtly named "Dubai Mall"! The aquarium was nice, yes, just nice but the Cape Town aquarium is so much better! The one aspect which makes it great for the Dubains (not sure what we call ourselves here!) is the huge, and I mean huge glass wall of sea life swimming while you can shop.

The family gang (Vaughan, Nicky, Rowan, Fi, Ella-Rose and Madison) all meet at around 10h00, except the Glanvilles - well, we were late! We couldn't find the appropriate parking section and landed up on the otherside of the mall. It took us all of 20 mins to just park and walk otherwise I am sure we would have been on time. Anyway, not important! It took us about an hour to walk through the aquarium to see everything. We then went off to the food court (all that walking! not!) made us hungry so we went for a brunch. We are yet to find a nice place in Dubai (besides the hotels!) that sell a nice English breakfast (bacon - which is normally not on the menu and eggs are hard to come by!). So we ended up eating fast food instead!

Here are some of the pics I took (except obviously the one with all of us! :).

Oooh! What a good looking family! Love this picture of Bryce, the seal was posing so nicely for this pic too!

Until next time...

Happy New Year!

Well, can you believe we are into the 4th day of our new year! If that's true, I would hate to see how fast this year is going to fly by! So my wish for you in 2009 is...

May your New Year be better than your old year.
May your goals be in reach and your dreams soar.

May you receive many joys & blessings in 2009.

I was reading the newspaper this morning (believe me I don't get to do this often) and read that John Travolta's son passed away on Friday morning, he was 16. They think he hit is head on the bath which caused a seizure. Apparently he did have siezures on the odd occassion. I felt so sad and reflected on how so many tragedy's happen everyday and we sometimes need to take a step back and be grateful for life and what it offers, no matter what curve balls are thrown our way!

On to a happier note, we celebrated a very quiet Christmas with my brother, Vaughan and sister-in-law Nicky and lunch with our South African friends, Crystal, Bruce, Celeste, Jolene, Colin and their two friends Matt and Amy. It was a great day. We started off with going to a church service. Then we went to take some pics at the Burj Al Arab (just to prove we were in Dubai!). We came home for a very belated omlette breakfast which Peter made and then we opened presents (the boys were very patient to wait so long as it was around 13h00 before we started present swapping!). Here are some pics taken through the day...

We celebrated our first New Year's Eve with friends of ours with a good 'ole spit braai! Not much celebrations going on though because the Sheikh of Dubai banned any outdoor celebrations (usually there are fireworks on the beach which a lot of the hotels let off as the New Year arrives) in support of the war going on along the Gaza strip. Well, that didn't stop us South Africans (and I am sure many out there too in Dubai) who had small house parties! Not sure that anyone would have seen much fireworks even if there were as there was such thick mist that came in, it was wonderful! Cool!

At least the New Year did not bring in a hangover and we celebrated the day just relaxing at home.

So...2009...what will this year bring us...well, I suppose we will have to wait and see!

All I wanted for Christmas....

was a humungus Christmas tree for our house! Every Christmas time I put up our tree which was about half a metre high and it took me all of an hour to put it up and decorate! Well, my wish came true 3 days ago when we went shopping at one of the big shops here called Carrefour (a supermarket chain from France). They were having a 50 % discount off on all their Christmas decorations and I managed to get the last tree (just waiting for me!) on the shelf which was 2.4 metres. It almost got stolen out of my trolley too!

Not thinking much of how big a 2.4 metre tree was when buying it until I got it home and put it up the next day! The thought when buying that yes, it will be big but boy...that big! It took me about an hour to just put it together - luckily the branches are colour coded. Not like the small trees you buy where you just fold out the branches and start unfolding the smaller branches...no, not that easy!

Anyway, the point is I am still very happy about my Christmas tree, it also took about 3 days to decorate. The decorations were also on a 50 % discount so all in all I was quite chuffed about my bargains!

Thanks Row and Fi for the loan of your small Christmas tree (compared to the humungus one!) while you are holidaying in South Africa with Dad and Mom...lucky buggers!

So, this is what the tree looked like without the decorations (yes, that is a bird in the tree! Our new addition to our family, a parakeet, called Belladean (that story will be blogged still!)


and this is what it looks like decorated (lucky for high ceilings!)


So on this Chrismas Eve I would like to take the opportunity to wish all our family and friends the merriest Christmas and may 2009 bring you lots of happiness and may all your dreams come true....

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Miss you alll!!! XXX

Christmas card ideas!

I am back, and it only took me a week! Whew! Life is way to busy and I think for everyone, this time of year gets to be the worst ever! The silly season is upon us! So here are a few Christmas cards to get you going - merry Christmas and happy New Year to all my friends and family! Just in case I forget to tell you! (ha, ha, ha!) - you never know! So some inspiration for those card follower friends of mine - hope you manage to get your Christmas cards out in time! I cannot believe that it is 15 days to Christmas and I have not done one Christmas shop! I have made all these cards and I hope this year I get to post them!

As you can see, loved the snowman! The background was done with an embossed plate with a cuttlebug.

Until later...