Thursday, December 27, 2012

Meet Chloe

Chloe
I made Chloe for a Christmas gift. Click on the Moz Bearz Tab above to read more about Chloe.

Meet Jenna


Jenna

I was commissioned to make this delightful bear for a Christmas present. 

Please click on the Moz Bearz tab at the top of the page to read more about Jenna.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Looking for the Mistletoe.....

Meet George!

He is my 'December' baby, who, just like me is a sucker for all things Christmas!

Here he is, perched in the bowl held by Father Christmas, well, one of them......
"Mom, am I going to live with this mad Christmas bunch??"
"Where is the Mistletoe......?"

To read more about George, please click on the Moz Bearz tab at the top of the page.
Thanks for the visit!

Flourishes 'Garden Picks'

When I saw the Flourishes 'Garden Picks' set, I knew I would enjoy it and I was so right.

I stamped the posy and then the Mason jar over the stems, both using Memento Grey Flannel. I then laid down a base of Copic colour and used Prisma Pencils to shade and intensify the colours. I am not good enough with my Copics to get fine definition, but that is only lack of practice and will get more confident when I use them more often.

I then cut out the flowers and jar and shaped them with my embossing tools. I went to my favorite Flip-It Sizzix dies and selected the circle, cut it out and embossed it with my old favorite 'go-to' folder, Swiss Dots. I cut out a circle in very pretty pink and white patterned paper, mounted it onto the flip-it circle and then using Olba silicone to create a lovely moulded shape, mounted the flowers in the jar in the center of the circle. I also cut out the flourish, using the same paper as the background circle, from the Spellbinders Fleur de Lis Motive set and attached it to either side of the circle. The finishing touch was a PTI Mini tag stamped with Best Wishes and tied on with some embroidery thread and a few small pearls from Paola.
I enjoyed this card and know it will be one of my well used 'layouts' in the future.

Thanks for stopping by.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Meet Polly!

I posted a photo of delightful "Polly" late November with a promise to update the details later.
Please click on the Moz Bearz tab at the top of the post to be taken to this post.
I do hope you enjoy reading about Lolly!

Happy Hexagons

 I was inspired by a card I found on Pinterest (my newest addiction!) I then went to the heavy, huge drawer that holds some of my punches and scratched around until I found my little used Creative Memories Hexagon punch. Next stop found me scratching in my 'left-overs' box for some coordinating papers and I punched out two hexagons out of three patterned papers for each card, inked the edges and positioned and glued them down.
I used a sentiment from a Hero Arts set, stamped in Memento Rich Cocoa, adhered a few pearls and simply stated, simply good! Very pleased with these cards!
Thanks for stopping by.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Vintage Photo Frame

My precious 'baby' sister has a birthday today! Gail is 8 years younger than me and the last born in the family, so will always be my 'baby' sister. When she was small, she accompanied me everywhere, just like a 'doll' would. I would dress her up and arrange her pretty curls and we would set off to visit or shop or play with my friends, who all knew she would be coming with me, always! She may be a lot older and not so 'cute' (sorry sis!) but is still my precious 'baby' sister.
We ask each other what we would like for our birthdays as it is so much easier to shop or make, plus you get what you want, which at our age is very important! When I asked her, and knowing I'm now officially a 'pensioner' (she loves telling me that...ha-ha) she knew I would want to make her something rather than buy, so asked for one of my 'prettied up' picture frames. Now that made me very happy and I set off to buy a frame I could convert as I did not have anything on hand. Not much of a selection,  but I came home with this.....


Not at all exciting, but I knew that I was going to give it a work over. So, I slapped some Gesso on, let it dry and then painted it with an acrylic paint. It covered the bling beautifully and I am going to 'play' with Gesso on my next frame conversion. Very interesting product!
Whilst it was drying, I made a few of my vintage looking flowers, sprayed them for color, scrunched them up madly and left them to dry. In the meantime I scouted around my 'little bit of heaven' (read, craft room!) and found a fabulous cup-cake wrapper that had been laser cut, so it was extremely dainty and suited the vintage theme I had in mind. Out came the hot glue gun, pearl rope (running out of sadly), seam binding in different colors and I settled down with the dry frame, to embellish to my hearts content.

I was more than happy with the outcome and as I have not yet given it to her - we are on our way over now - I am very certain this will fit into her idea of a 'pretty' frame.

The completed frame

The top corner with the larger flower

The opposite bottom corner with the smaller flower

Thank you for your visit and wishing you a wonderful, creative week-end, wherever you are in the world!

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Getting Festive ......

The house is starting to 'smell' festive with Christmas baking wafting through the house and out the windows. Even the neighbor is enjoying the wonderful smells....lol!


I've been very busy baking small Christmas cakes to send down to Cape Town. I managed to get them all baked and some iced, packed up and posted today!


Amidst all that, 'Lolly' was 'born' and is accompanying the cakes on their trip, to keep an eye open in case there is some interference en route! More about Lolly in the next post.


Friday, November 30, 2012

My 2013 Calendar

I'm obsessed with calendars and make one some every year. I have made calendars that fit into a CD case before, where I prettied up every month, which was nice as you could make it specific to any or one occasion during that month, but mega hard work! So my thoughts were to make one for next year, where I pretty up the frame and just change the month part of the calendar.
Whilst I was thinking about it, I kept my eyes  open on my www trips for inspiration and ideas. My computer skills do not lean towards to designing the months part, so that was where I kind of focused my search.
Now, one of the blogs I follow is Scrappy Sticky Inky Mess which belongs to Mary Anne. This is one talented lady with computer skills that blew my mind! She is also very arty and into grunge big time, which is not my forte, but I can and do appreciate the work that goes into it all. I also love to stay on top of techniques using various products, and boy does Mary Ann push the boundaries somewhat! You have to see what she does with big playing cards every month - wow! 
Anyhow, I digress somewhat. Mary Anne started on calendars awhile ago and boy was she on a roll - every post, for a few weeks contained more designs and ideas and I was suddenly wide awake to it all and knew exactly what I wanted. Then up popped a design that fitted my spec's exactly. A circular calendar in a CD case. This kick started my calendar although I wanted to pretty it up some more. I followed the instructions and this was my first attempt.
I did not like the square front, so tweaked the 'pattern' and came up with this version:
Much better, and pretty, but not pretty enough in my humble opinion!

I am a 'die' freak and want to and need to add die cuts to almost everything. Some folks are nuts about flowers, others bling, but me, die cuts and pretty ones at that make me happy! I also love the monochrome look and white on white, or cream on cream or better still white on cream, makes me very happy.

The end result was this:

Now I am VERY happy! Absolutely thrilled with this piece of art.

Anyhow, I emailed Mary Anne to tell her how thrilled I was and sent her photo's of the blue and cream versions and she contacted me to say how thrilled she was with the outcome and asked me to let her know when I posted it onto my blog. Well, here it is Mary Anne - a huge thank you for your inspiration and hard work. I intend to make a few more, but have since seen your new post for the match book calendar, and have a feeling I may well try this one out as well.
Do pop over to Mary Anne's blog here and snoop around - you will be inspired!

Sunday, November 25, 2012

The First Vintage Father Christmas Tag

If you have read my previous post, you will know the story surrounding my swap tag and the set of stamps that I purchased for the swap!

Well, here we are, with my first attempt at a tag for the swap, using the stamps I bought. 

You will see what I mean about the size of the Father Christmas. I tried to make it work, using trees and snow (which I don't ever use, as Christmas in Africa is a sweltering affair and I cannot relate to snow that time of the year....lol), but it just did not work for me. 
My heart was just not in it and the coloring of the FC is appalling, to say the least!

But, I had to share it with you.
Now I ask, was my decision to redo my tag the correct one?  (No don't answer - can't put you on a spot....)      
I think so....

Saturday, November 24, 2012

My Vintage Father Christmas Tag

 My tag for the swap turned into a mission - I always have to reinvent the wheel and this tag was no exception!

I knew that I wanted to use my new Frantic Stamper Precision Dies that I recently won and the obvious route to take was using a window scene. 

Firstly, I had purchased a set of stamps for this swap from Fran at Frantic Stamper. It was the Tweety Jill set called Vintage Santa's and it arrived in good time for  this swap. 
I, as I always do for swaps, put it into a folder and started adding bits and pieces, as I came across them to the folder, until the time came for me to start the tags. Well, bad idea, not checking the size of the stamps on arrival! They were way to small for this project - really only suitable for ATC's and that set me back, big time!!
Eventually I selected a digital image from Digital Collage Studio and worked around that.

So this what I did and used to get to this fabulous tag, that I am so very proud of. I think my best tag to date!

I crimped the tag after cutting and embossed with Distress Embossing Powder in Walnut Stain. First time I have used this product and it was exactly right for the look I was aiming for. I then adhered acetate to the back of the tag and mounted it onto the digi using foam core strips, which was a mission to cut such thin strips. With that part closed up, I added Stardust Stickles to the windows and doused the wet Stickles with Diamond Dust which created that fabulous snowy effect. I then sealed the edges of the outside of the tag with ribbon so all the foam core was hidden from view.
I came across fabulous free digi of a Santa Bingo card some time ago (sorry I can't give credit as I did not make a note of it) and it was perfect for this project, so it was distressed, inked, crumpled and poked with a stick pin with a decoration at the top which I made with bits and bobs from the stash. I stamped out, from the Tweety Jill set, the image of the child and his letter to Santa, and the 'Old St Nicholas' tag, and distressed and inked them up as well as the '25' in the set. 
Various dies and punches were used for the leaves and the sweetest bell and tartan bow was attached to the mounted '25' at the top of the tag.

This was a huge labor of love and to do it 20 times (I kept 5 for gifts!) was a mission not to be repeated any time soon, I assure you! But after all that, worth all the  time, sweat and effort, and a piece I will always treasure as my best work to date!

It really is a thousand times better in real life - my photographic skills leave a lot to be desired - sorry!


Thursday, November 22, 2012

Vintage Father Christmas Tag Swap

 I had the pleasure of proposing and hosting a swap with my RSA Online Group, this month. 

The theme was Vintage Father Christmas Tag Swap.

We each had to make 15 tags and they were all sent to me for collating and posting back to the participants.

It was very exciting waiting for the tags to arrive and I was so privileged to be the first to see them all!

As always with swaps of this nature, there will be some who don't get it quite right and this swap was no different. There were a few tags without the "Father" part of the title appearing on their tags, but it did not detract from the beauty of the tags nor the hard work put into them at all.

I felt the standard was exceptionally high and I appreciated all the effort, time and cost that each participant put into these tags!

Thank you ladies for a great swap!




Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Christmas Hanging Ornament

One of the classes I have taught for the Christmas season was this hanging Poinsettia ornament. It is so effective hanging in a window or against the wall and the colors are so rich and festive.

I used both sets from Spellbinders - the Five Stars and Poinsettia sets and added lots of ribbon, beads and Stickles.

It was so well received and enjoyed by all who attended the class and a pleasure to teach - instant gratification!

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Frantic Stamper Blog Post

I am absolutely delighted that Fran and her Blog coordinator/design team leader, Kathy, asked me if I would put together a short bio and share some of the projects I have made, using their fabulous new product, Frantic Stamper Precision Dies, which I won a set of, during their blog hop - see the post here.

When reading my blog updates in Reader last night, I was delighted to find the 'interview' with the photo's of the projects already posted - follow this link.

Thank you Fran and Kathy for inviting me to share with you both and all your blog followers.

You have a fantastic product and I am sure they will become a very popular 'go to' set of dies for every card maker and scrapper, in the future.




Vintage Father Christmas Tag Swap 2012

RSA Vintage Father Christmas Tag Swap 2012
I'm a sucker for Vintage and never more so when it comes to Christmas. A few years ago, I participated in a Christmas Chunky Book swap with my online group and every year, when I unpack my Christmas boxes (yes, boxes!) of Christmas decorations etc. I sit down with a cuppa and go through my chunky book and enjoy it all over again.

This prompted me to host a tag swap, with the same intention, and it is almost ready to go! Just waiting for the stragglers' tags to drift in, and will finish swapping out this weekend and post out.

I am very chuffed with the tags sent in by the participants, although a few ladies missed out the "FATHER" part of the swap title and left the darling man whizzing around in cyberspace on his sleigh with Rudolf at the helm, without a tag to land on!!

I am positive the recipients will be as delighted with the finished swap, as I am and look forward to enjoying these gorgeous tags year after year!

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Christmas Tags

I have been playing with tags, Christmas one's, as I have a tag making class coming up in a couple of weeks.

I have not made many tags, but am beginning to think the 'bug' may well have bitten! They are quick and you can be as creative as you want, without having to think too much about composition and placement, colours and texture. I just let it flow, as your experienced 'eye' will guide you in all the above mentioned areas, if you let it.

I used several dies, embossing folders, punches and even a printed image, with a little ribbon and bling to pull it all together.

The class will be fairly 'unstructured' as I want the girls to play not copy and I am looking forward to seeing how their works of art turn out.

I may well take a photo of their tags and show you!


Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Frantic Stamper Precision Dies

My lucky draw gift from Frantic Stamper, arrived a couple of days ago with a couple of items I had ordered.
See my post here
I was so thrilled to receive the dies that I made a gap to use my fabulous gift this morning.
I embossed the card and placed the 'two window' die onto the card and ran it through the Cuttlebug. Cut perfectly first go - not that I expected it to do any differently! I layered this embossed die cut card, onto a gold card which had ribbon wrapped around the base and attached it to the front of my card base.
Using the Inkadinkadoo Inchie set I bought from Fran moon's ago, I stamped it using the pad I had arrived with the dies, Delicata Golden Glitz, then punched the two images I chose, using a 1" punch and mounted them in the middle of each die cut aperture. Simple, quick and in my book, stunning! The little holly leaves are punched using the Olba punch set and I embossed them with an embossing tool, and added a few red beads from the stash.  Brenda told me about this Delicata pad. It is very glitzy and does not fade when it dries. Unfortunately, the camera did not pick it up, but trust me, it is gorgeous! For your information, and for a giggle, the gold card used was the back of a Ferrero Rocher label that was in a box of their gorgeous chocolates - of course, long gone! Recycle, I do, and this gold matched the Delicata ink perfectly!
My thanks to Fran for her generous gift and this is a set that will be on permanent stand-by on my desk!

Friday, October 26, 2012

Business Cards and Boxes

I am incredibly lucky to have a very talented son, well two extremely talented sons,(that's the proud Mom talking!) but am talking about the eldest in this instance. He is a Software Designer and Developer by profession who is extremely talented in designing. He designed these fabulous business cards for me and I had them professionally printed and cut.


I was asked to place some in a couple of shops to assist their clients with invitation designing and making and had to quickly prepare a box to place them in. 

I used a sheet of double sided, patterned card and used both sides on the boxes. I kept to the colour scheme of my cards, which is my very favorite colours to go to, and lined the boxes with the reverse striped side of the paper and used the floral patterned side for the outsides.
 I painted the parts of the boxes that would be showing with a Hazelnut Paint Dauber and adhered the card with Modge Podge and gave it another coat when it was dry.
Then the fun side of it began. I die cut the Cameo out of coordinating card and my initial in a contrast and attached it to the back of the box so my initial showed above the cards. It was absolute coincidence that the initial die I had was an exact match to the font used on the cards. At the top of the cameo is a hole for hanging, but I used it to place a genuine Swarovsky crystal in for the touch of bling!
I used die cut leaves, organza ribbon, some lovely chain like cord, paper flowers and hot glue to attach them all to the bottom corner of the box.
Unfortunately, I did not take a photo of the reverse side of the card. It has my contact details and a brief description of what services I offer, beautifully designed!

I'm pleased with the outcome and am very happy to place them, with my amazing cards, any place where they are needed!

Thank you by boy!

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

"Made It" Challenge

I have signed up for the monthly "Made It" Challenge hosted by Woolhogs.
If you look on my sidebar you will find the banner and click on it to take you to Woolhogs blog.














 I love the idea and will do my best to enter monthly, besides, who doesn't like to win?? There is always a little something up for grabs, so do consider taking part. I entered my hearts above.
I predict big things for this blog in the future - keep an eye on it, or better still, sign up for feeds or better than that, take part in the challenges! See you there.......

Silhouette Cameo

My precious family gave me a Silhouette Cameo for my special birthday, as well as an amazing holiday - how blessed am I??

I had to get a longer USB cable because of the positioning of the Cameo and my tower, so once that arrived I had an opportunity to play. I loaded the software, looked at the instructional video, read the manual and decided to 'cut'. I kept getting messages saying there was a problem connecting via the computer and I was stumped. I had also purchased a USB adapter with more ports to accommodate my growing collection (lol) of add on's and something made me move the USB cable to another port, nothing, then another, nothing, then to a port on the computer, and voila, it worked!

Well, I then had to contend with trying to lift off my design and as you can see by the photograph, I don't keep it simple, do I? No, I had to have this intricate tree with lot's of little curly bits that I battled to lift off the mat. So sticky, it tried my patience and I left a few bits and pieces on the mat. So next time round, I will have to 'unsticky' the sticky mat somehow, and take it from there. I am very chuffed I finally got it to work and need time to play with the software and of course to understand the many applications this amazing machine can do! So my special birthday lives on.......

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Crochet Hearts

 I do occasional orders for a lovely decor shop and I was asked to make some hearts to be used on cushions or just to hang from various items.

It was a challenge for me as I could not get this pattern right, but a friend found an error in the pattern, I could not see, and once that had been corrected, I was on my way. Funny how you can look and look and not see it, but someone else can spot it immediately!


Considering the lovely shop they were going to, I felt I had to present them in a complimentary manner, so I die cut these amazing little labels from PTI, stamped them with 'Thanks'  and made these lovely tiny flowers using my Olba punch set. The roses are made using tiny hearts - aren't they stunning? I just love this punch set and find more and more uses for it. I then threaded ribbon through the center hole and tied a bow and attached the label.

The owner was very impressed with the presentation and the hearts and I was happy that I took the trouble and presented them so beautifully.

Now, waiting for more orders, but in the meantime I have to source more lace for another big order for tea nets. Busy, busy, busy.......

Thanks for popping by....

Friday, October 19, 2012

Cheap Christmas Gifts

I am teaching these two gifts during November. Both have been inspired by friends - Gail and Sharon - who have shared details of their projects with me and I have added my own touches to the projects, where I could. Thank you ladies! I appreciate your friendship and support.

Tissue Box Cover and Note Pads

The two projects are a tissue box cover made out of lovely shimmer card stock and a note pad that uses up scraps of patterned card stock.
Very cheap projects and lots of fun to make!







Tissue Box Cover 


The tissue box cover uses any embossing folders that you fancy. Obviously, a repeat pattern is better. I also used a Martha Stewart punch and some lovely rolled flower dies and stunning leaf dies, pearls and stickles! This would look lovely made up to suit the decor of different rooms and can be fun to make up for a child's room. The ideas are endless!

Thank you Gail for sharing this with me!






Note Pads

The next project is the delightful note pad from Sharon. She sent one to me for my birthday and I asked if I may use hers as inspiration and teach it in my class. She graciously agreed. Thank you Shaz!

This project is fabulous to make and I can understand how Sharon finds it so addictive and that her pads are in such demand in Cape Town.

I used scraps of matching card stock and tags and ribbon.
I placed a small calendar onto the inside cover of my pads.
Always nice to have a calendar for quick reference and these take up no space at all!

I'm now going to make a couple suitable for men. 
Even they need a note pad at times, although they profess to remember EVERYTHING!  Ha-ha......

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Heart Themed Wedding Invitation Suite

The full Heart Suite
I hold Wedding Invitation classes monthly and have to keep coming up with new ideas - a huge challenge!

I have just changed the format of the class. Instead of teaching two different invitations during each class, I am now designing and teaching a themed suite, that will hopefully help the bride and wedding planners with all the stationery required.

This month I have used the Heart theme and have worked with the most sumptuous, elegant, embossed suede, handmade paper and a very classy mat silver card.
The picture to the left shows the full suite. Unfortunately I have not been able to capture the rich colour and detail of the beautiful paper in the photograph.


The Invitation, closed
On the right is the invitation.

It opens up and beneath the flap is the invitation together with a map to get to the venue.

None of the typed information shows when the invitation is closed, other than the sentiment on the tag "Always & Forever" and on the silver card at the bottom 'You're Invited', both stamped and embossed in silver.

The Ceremony details for the church



 On the left is the Ceremony card, which holds the details of the wedding party on one side and on the back is a double folded sheet containing the order of the service and the wedding retinue.

The table card, guests name on the glass
 and favor pillow box containing chocolates

On the right is the table card and on this side is the 'Thank You' message from the bridal couple and the Menu.

If you turn the card around, you will find the Wine list together with the Seating Plan 


This card stands open in a 'Z' shape on each table.

Also on the table is a heart with each guests name which is pegged to the champagne glass, indicating the specific seat, together with a pillow box decorated with a heart and ribbon, that can hold chocolates or sweets or a gift, for each person, as a thank you favor from the couple.



It is a very intense lesson, but certainly worth the effort when the set is completed.


Friday, October 12, 2012

I Won, I Won, I Won.................................

........a set of the fabulous new Precision Dies designed and made by Frantic Stamper!







Please click on the link below and take a look at these fabulous dies!
I  can't wait to receive them and start playing!!  Thank you Fran - you have made my day!


Thursday, October 4, 2012

Word play.....

I was asked to 'play' with these 'words' and this is what I came up with.
The "Joy" was easy - I had this lovely sheet of double sided card stock that I cut out and flipped for the center letter. I cut out extra Christmas trees and popped them up using foam squares just to add a little dimension. I sealed the paper with Gel Sealer and added some Stickles just for a little bling! 
The wire word was more difficult to 'play' with.
I took left over ribbon bits and tied them around the wire, added paper roses here and there and that was as much as I could come up with. Had I taken the glue gun, I could have placed bling, charms and who knows what else on the wire, but was just not in the mood to over embellish. Maybe I should have......

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Oh, Sweet Pea.....

....won't you dance with me.....
Fun song from the 60's. Yes, giving my age away again!!

This Flourish stamp set has to be my all time favorite and I don't even own it! Thanks to a very dear friend who parted with it for a short while so that I can stamp off to my absolute delight, I am able to have fun using it.
This card is one of the 'thank-yous' I need to send out after our wonderful holiday in Cape Town.

I stamped onto watercolour paper using Memento London Fog and coloured with Distress Ink's. I love that using this method you can achieve a softer look by flooding the paper with water. It softens it perfectly, a look that is very hard to achieve working on ordinary card stock with the Distress Inks. Using the London Fog as the outline also helps soften the look and makes it more realistic, in my humble opinion!


I used lovely paper from my friend Paola, a paper doily and some gingham ribbon.
Of course the sentiment is another old friend from PTI.

I know this card will be appreciated and enjoyed by the recipients, whom I can't thank enough for their hospitality!

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Birthday Flowers

Such a lovely surprise this week!

This stunning arrangement arrived from my BFF in London!
Ron called me on my birthday and sent these when I returned home. 

The orchids in the center are in a pot, so when the flowers are passed their best, I get to keep and enjoy these lovely orchids.This particular orchid holds special memories for me. My wedding bouquet was these orchids, almost 40 years ago!

Thank you my dear friend!
You really are so special.

Monday, September 24, 2012

Back home......

View from our cottage at Paternoster
...... after the most amazing birthday holiday I've ever experienced! I have a few photo's to share, but more to still be uploaded, so may well post a few more later.

We started off with a few days in Cape Town and stayed at my son's flat at Green Point, which was central enough for us to walk around and visit the Waterfront, Green Point Gardens and do some shopping.

We took a day drive to Stellenbosh, Gordon's Bay and Franschoek where we had lunch. Love that place, and the food - spoilt for choice of amazing places to eat. Photo's of those places to follow.

Local fishermen going out to sea, at Patenoster
We drove up the Cape west coast on Thursday to Patenoster and arrived on a 'grey' day, but it cleared up and we experienced the most amazing weather, with it only turning and a cold front rolling in on the Sunday night.
We 'shared' a wedding on the beach. The bride wore
turquoise gumboots. She is at the back of picture,
hitching her dress high...
On the Saturday, there was much activity on the beach with a gazebo going up and chairs being placed in rows in front of it and lots of white drapes and some flowers being added to the gazebo and we realised there was a wedding ceremony about to take place. All the locals suddenly appeared and took up positions on the rocks where they enjoyed a good view of the proceedings. To our absolute delight and amusement, the bride wore turquoise gumboots and her husband to be, a turquoise hat! Must have been some kind of joke, or perhaps a bet! Perfect weather and a lovely ceremony. They went on to a restaurant on the beach for the rest of their celebrations.

 I doubt that I will ever witness anything like this again in my life!


 
On Sunday, my birthday, we went to this amazing restaurant for lunch. The menu was so good it was hard to choose, but we did it justice and I once again enjoyed the amazing fresh seafood on offer.








Flowers at the West Coast National Park


On the Monday, we motored back to Cape Town with a stop at the West Coast National Park. We were so lucky to see the beautiful flowers this area is so famous for, as it only lasts a week or two every year!
It looks like a carpet of colour and something I will always remember.  
A Springbok in the field of flowers
Yellow flowers on the coast side


How awesome is this!

A Riverboat that you can hire in the park and in the
background are houses also for hire.

Stunning!
Now perhaps, you can understand why I said it was the most awesome holiday ever. We spent it with those we love, in a little piece of God's magnificence, blessed with awesome weather, and I was spoilt rotten.
How does one thank your family for all they did to make this so special for me?
Could there be more happiness in store for me after this amazing experience? Only God knows.....