Skully Alpha

I've completed the Skully Alpha - hope you like it! Use little skullies / hearts / flowers from the kit to dot the i's and j's. The set consists of all the capitals and all the small letters plus lots of symbols - ot only those you see on the preview.This time I've zipped it with winzip so more of you will be able to unzip it easily. You can click here or on the preview to take you to the download link. (link expired)

Enjoy and remember to link me with your pretty lo's!

Hugs

Michelle

The weekend is over!

Phew – so much fun in so little time! Not good to be back at work but at least I have good memories to hold onto! Here’s a brief recap:

Friday – Took the kids to their athletics meeting in Orkney. There were 7 schools competing – so much more competition than last week. Once again - Marco made me such a proud mommy! He won his high jump event and came second (only just! I must add) with turbo jav (like mini javelin) and shotput. We’re not sure about the results of his sprints (80m and 100m) because there were 2 heats and no finals – they work on the times and we don’t know what they were yet but he won the first heat.

Here is my little champ in action:

Highjump:

100 metre sprint:

Shotput:Turbo Jav:

His very first spikes: We were exhausted when we came home but we managed to see the highlights of the Olympics opening ceremony – wow, even though I hate what’s going on behind the scenes in that country (w.r.t. human right violations) I have to give credit where credit is due – that was one magnificent show!!! Wish I had more time to watch some of the events on TV.

On Saturday I had a “shopping date” with a friend. We didn’t really do a whole lot of actual shopping – more like drooling over all the pretty things we saw. We browsed around in all the antique shops and art galleries in Parys. I only bought this pretty little Willow Tree figurine Her name is Happiness and I can see why! This is my first one but I will have to add a couple more of them to my collection soon!

I had a bit of an accident – in one of the shops my handbag bumped against a lamp which caused a domino effect on all the things stacked on the table! Luckily only one thing broke but it was a very expensive hand made glass plate and I had to cough up R295 (roughly USD40) for it!

I saw the most beautiful paintings by a local artist – can’t remember her name now – but I’m definitely going to save up to buy one of her paintings. I can’t believe we spent 6 hours in town and we didn’t even cover half of the shops! And I thought Parys was a tiny little country town. Don’t underestimate this little town – it’s filled with treasures!

Saturday evening we took the kids out for dinner and I spent the rest of the evening playing around with my digi toys.

We all went to bed way past midnight on Saturday night so when Leon woke us all early on Sunday to announce that we’re going to the Vaal Dam for a picnic and some fishing nobody was extremely exited about it. It turned out to be such a perfect day though! The weather was just great and we all had a ball! The kids did some fishing and Celine held a fish in her hands for the first time! We arrived home after 8 o’clock last night – all tired and dirty but we couldn’t stop talking about how much fun we had!

Have I mentioned that I LOVE weekends?!

Our Shangri-la

Skulls are very much the “in thing” at the moment. From kids to adult clothing, homeware and yes – even scrapbooking - there are skulls everywhere you look! For us (Leon and I) skulls have a bit of a deeper meaning than just a fashion fad. We found our little piece of heaven on earth – our Shangri-la – at the Skeleton Coast of Namibia.

Leon has been going there on fishing trips for over 20 years now and he is so much in love with that place! His entire being changes when he talks about it. I couldn’t really understand what he was going on about until he took me there for the first time. It’s something you have to experience for yourself – no word (in my limited English vocabulary at least) can describe the beauty of the desert and the ocean there!! We would love to retire there one day.

This is my layout that I made with this set:

I made this friendly skully set with our Shangri-la in mind. Hope you will be able to use it too. The set consists of:
2 x plain cardstock with inked edges (black and white)
2 x patterned paper with a skully design
2 x skully charms (with and without ring)

1 x skully lace paper
1 x torn and distressed cardboard skully
1 x plain skully
1 x brown paper skully
1 x distressed skully strip

1 x journaling block
3 x plastic embellies to cheer up your skully page (crown, heart, flower)

This is what it looks like from up close: If you like it, you can download the set here: (link expired)
Be sure to visit my blog because in a day or two I will a matching alphabet ready for you – similar to the one in my layout but each letter will be separate.

Enjoy!
Michelle

Little Bird Challenge layouts

This was my first challenge that I hosted on my bog and it was so much fun! Got to know a couple of great girls in the process too! Here are the layouts:

This one was done by Melanie - I love the layering that she did here!

This one was done by Stefanie - don't you just love that quote!
This pretty layout was done by Shy - look at the cutie pie under the tree and that beautiful sun!
Sandy made this beautiful calendar page with the set.
This one was made by Kim Watson - aaawwwhhh - look at the love birds - and I'm not even talking about those two little birdies in the tree! ;o) Great job Kim! This is my take on the challenge:
Thanks to all the girls who submitted layouts - check your mailboxes for a link to the bonus freebie any time now! Here's a little peek at what the bonus freebie looks like:The kit consists of:

4 x patterned papers

4 x shaped textured cardstock with chalked edges

4 x epoxy stickers

4 x glass pebbles

4 x lace strips

4 x lace bows

2 x acrylic strips

1 x journaling block

1 x metal frame

Hope you like it and enjoy working with it - if you do - please link me!

Hugs

Michelle

I'm going on a boat trip!!!

My sister invited me to go on a boat trip with herself, her daughter and her friend. We'll be 4 woman travelling together. We all get along very well and they are all so much fun to be with. I can hardly wait! The only problem is that I will have to wait until January 2009.

The trip is booked on the MSC Melody from 16 to 19 January. We will sail from Durban, SA to the Portuguese Islands and back - 3 nights on the boat - 4 days in total! I've never been on a big ocean liner and I'm a bit scared because I suffer from severe motion sickness. I won't allow that little problem to spoil the fun for me though!

Here's a photo of the MSC Melody:
Looks nice hey!

Now I'm off to bed to dream about it :)

Who's game for a challenge?

Right - this time it's not going to be just as easy as download-and-run. This time round you're going to have to play along to be able to get my freebie. I made a fun birdie mini kit with 2 x patterned papers, 1 x paper tree, 2 x cute little black birdies, 1 x acrylic bracket frame and 1 x journaling block. It's free to all those who's up for the challenge to make a lo with this set and send it to me by the end of the weekend. But wait ... there's more! (I'm starting to sound like the home shopping ads!) I'll give a bonus freebie to all those who play along after all the lo's are posted.

Here's what you have to do - send me a message using the contact block in my sidebar. I will send you the link and the password to download the little bird set. You then have the whole weekend to play and create - I need all the LO's e-mailed back to me or you can let me know where you've posted it too. On Tuesday I will post all the LO's on my blog and send the bonus freebie to all those who played along. Sounds like fun, right!

So here's a close up of what this set looks like:

And here is the whole set.

You are welcome to add as many other stuff as you want to.

Paper / Hybrid scrappers are also more than welcome to join in the fun.

Can't wait to get your e-mails so I can start sending the link!

Hugs

Michelle

Hip Hip Hooray!!!!

I'm such a proud mommy at the moment!!! The kids had their interhouse athletics at school today and Marco did not only win three of his events - he broke the school record on all three as well! They awarded a gold medal for each broken record. Needless to say - he thinks that he's the bees knees! I'm so glad for him - this is exactly what his self esteem needed right now. He sort of lives in the shadow of his older brother who "can do everything better". Congratualatulations my little boy!!!!!!! (no matter how old - he'll always be my little boy :)