The Countdown Has Begun

Can you believe there's 3 days left of this year. And the saddest part, I only have 1 week left of my holidays.

I have managed to rest a lot and stayed away from the computer a bit. The rush before Christmas really tired me out this year.

Last Monday I took Rainer to the airport and he flew from Johannesburg to Dubai, Dubai to Birmingham and then they drove from Birmingham to Derbyshire by car. Shame the poor kid was in transit for 24 hours. Coming from a heatwave, he is stressing with the cold, but he is so glad to see his dad whom he saw last on the 28th November 2007. He phoned me on Christmas morning and my house feels so empty without him.

On Tuesday I took my mom to my aunt and my cousin fetched them for a visit close to Thabazimbi. She lives in a game reserve and my mom says it's too beautiful with all the game coming right to the fence around the property. A baboon managed to come into the house and not only did he admire himself in the bathroom mirror, but he also stole a whole tin of biscuits. After the fact they found it quite funny, but they can be quite distructive and viscious so it was a bit scary while he was in the house.

Christmas day we had a very quiet day at Corné's mom. She is a polio survivor and is in a wheelchair, so the day was quite special. And like everyone we ate absolutely too much.

Saturday I went to see the Bjorn Again show at one of our local theatres. It's an Abba show put on by 4 Australians and it was absolutely brilliant. They have been doing the show for 10 years and have even perfected the Swedish accent. At the end of the show the blonde girl was singing "Thank You For The Music" and as she got to the end of the first bit without music, a little kiddie in the audience just started singing. It was really funny and she was laughing so much that they had to keep playing the musical intro to the song. If they ever come out your way, and you're an Abba fan, make a point of seeing the show.

Seeing as I haven't been near the pc much, I fixed up my very first complete drawing I did with the tablet and pen and offer you a little Commercial Use Pierot plus a sample of what can be done.

Here's the preview

And you can get it here http://www.4shared.com/file/78074558/20f530d0/Pierot.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939. I'm hoping to stop by before the end of the year, but if I don't get a chance, here's to a great 2009, with many blessings and may all your wishes come true.

All my love

Renée

Finally

Gosh, I've finally had a day to myself. Between taking my mom and the kids shopping, I'm going to go demented. By the time I get home from shops with long queus and the heat, I'm so tired I cannot think straight. At the rate we're going I'm going to be more tired than when I went on leave. My mom is leaving for my cousin's on Tuesday and Rainer is leaving for the UK on Monday evening and I've warned the rest of the family that as of Tuesday afternoon I'll be vegetating.

Enough moaning, I've wanted to tell you a little story about glue. LOL. For those of you that don't follow Bunny's blog, she does cards and mini albums that are absolutely stunning. I passed a comment that I can't do any of that as I must stay away from glue. Kim then said if Bunny can do it, so can I. Heck NO!!! Here's my tale of woe with glue.

When my brother passed away, I had trouble sleeping and after many kinds of sleeping tablets that didn't work, my doctor decided to bring out the big guns. Well that first night I took a tablet and decided that while I waited for it not to work, I'll fix my nail. So here I am in bed, nail kit the works. I roughened my nail, put glue under the tip, stuck that puppy on my nail and applied pressure. Next thing I wake up the next morning, one finger of the one hand glued to the other finger of the other hand. It was hysterical. We eventually had to soak the nail off to get my finger released. Can you just imagine what I'd stick together if I tried to make cards? LOL.

Talking of Kim, have you been to her site to see her gorgeous new kit for New Year. Boy I love that kit. She has already put 2 of my LO's on her blog, so I'm not going to put them up here, but here's another one that I did. I used a template by Scrap Saya for this LO.

Now on to my freebie for today. I have been playing a lot with the tablet and pen and I'm so imppressed with the focal point of this little mini I have for you. It's a hand drawn rocking horse that I then had fun with adding texture and elements. The colours are from Kim's DSO December colour challenge. Here are a couple of close ups of the rocking horse and the preview of the mini.

And you can get it here http://www.4shared.com/file/76976419/ef654d6b/Rock-A-Pony.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939. Have a peacuful Sunday.

Hugs

Renée

Hoarders

It has always driven me crazy that my darling mother is a hoarder, but after this weekend I'm so happy that she is. I've got a bit of a summer cold and stayed home this weekend so that I can get better. Well boredom drove me to go and scratch in my mom's stash. Boy did I find some stunning ribbons and laces!!! Things that she has kept from when I was a kid. Well I've been scanning and photographing like crazy. Now I have to clean it all up LOL.

I think I hate hoarding because my ex had this thing about buying houses, renovating them while we were living in them and then selling them. We used to move at least every 2 years. I never got fond of my kitchens or any special rooms and I learnt that excess stuff just made moving extra difficult. I've now been in this house for 8 years and I definitely don't intend ever moving again. LOL.

Well today my freebie is some blingy ribbons from my mom's stash. I kept them in similar colours as the fireworks. Here's the preview.

And you can get them here http://www.4shared.com/file/75350315/2c442282/Ribbons.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939. And I'd like to thank everyone that leaves a comment. You don't realise how much I appreciate the little comments and thanks. It makes sitting here at the pc worthwhile.

Have a great day and before I forget WHOOOOHOOO, 2 more working days.

Hugs

Renée

4 more days

I have 4 more days of work left before I go on my annual summer holidays. It's a bit hectic at work as I have to get everything up to date by Friday, but I'm starting to get that holiday feeling. From next week I'll definitely be devoting a lot more time to my little blog.

And as I'm in a holiday mood I decided to make some fireworks elements for all those new year's LO's. They're blingy and I'm quite proud of them as it's my first elements that I've created using the pen and tablet.

Here's a preview

And you can get them here http://www.4shared.com/file/75044887/2b4bdb4f/Fireworks.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939. And while the muses are still with me, let me go and do some more designing. Have a great day.

Hugs

Renée

It's all about the kids

I've been rather quiet lately because I've been working on my pet charity for the past couple of weeks. Traditionally the last Sunday in November or first Sunday in December (closest to month end) is the Toy Run. It is the world's biggest biker charity event. Bikers in all the major centres get together to donate toys for the underprivelleged for Christmas.

This year has been the biggest ever with 50,000 bikers attending the Johannesburg get together alone. Cape Town had 20,000 bikers. We're probably looking at a total of half a million toys being donated. We also had a blood donation drive. It just gladdens my heart when you see thousand upon thousand bikes with toys all over them travelling down the highway. This year I didn't participate in the mass ride as I was needed at the venue, so I also don't have as many photos as I usually have, but here's a few that I managed to take.

These are my toys I donated and I really loaded this poor guy down.

Some of the bikes

My baby

Even cars

I also have my first CU Overlay on offer for you today. This download contains the overlay as well as the sample paper.

And you can get it here http://www.4shared.com/file/73961942/ff97cd5b/CU_Xmas_Overlay.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939

Love and hugs

Renée

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Happy Turkey day to all my readers and especially to those that have become fast friends over the past couple of months. To those travelling to yourloved ones, please be careful. Have a great day, eat lots and be merry.

I'm not going to yak your ears off with a long post today, but Kim has outdone herself again with the most gorgeous kit From Santa with Love. Kim knows when she has a winner, we come up with lots of pages in a short space of time and burn up her inbox with goodies. Plese pop by her site to go and see all the beautiful eye candy already made with this kit.

I've done this LO

And my freebie today is a QP made from goodies in the kit and I've included a mystery fun element. Let's just pretend today is the tenth day of Christmas. LOL

Here's a preview of the page

And you can get it here http://www.4shared.com/file/73397742/f3a90b3a/FSWL_QP.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939. And I hope you're wearing your boxing gloves tomorrow for the Black Friday sales.

Love and Hugs

Renée

KAAAA-RAAAAASSSSHHHHH

It was a dark and stormy night. Lightning crashing, thunder bolts and lashing rain. The kids were all huddled under their duvets, fathers were battening down windows and doors, mothers were making coffee to keep warm. When...... LOL, no I'm not telling campfire stories. This is something that fit with the storm we had last night.

I was wating for my zip folder to upload to 4 shared and decided to go and make some coffee. I wanted to get my blog done before the storm got to us. I could see it approaching in the distance. Next thing there's lightening that lights up the kitchen like daylingt, next pitch darkness and then this horrifically loud bang.

I start feeling my way to the other side of the kitchen to find the flashlight, but I never noticed that my silly cocker spaniel, Venus, has once again dragged her half eaten bowl of food into the middle of the kitchen floor. Yes, you guessed it, I stepped right into pet mince. Now I have to tell you, I HATE anything that goes between my toes. I don't wear slops or sandals that have that thong thingy that goes between the toes. So now I have this mushy stuff oozing between my toes and I start hobbling to the basin, but then I think "You DEFINITELY cannot wash your feet in the washing up basin". But I have to get my foot clean, get some light and see to the dogs that are now going off their heads.

I just plonked myself on my ass in the middle of the kitchen floor and yelled for light. Corné, Rainer and Katia came storming into the kitchen thinking that I hurt myself. Noooooo, I just have gunk in between my toes. LOL.

Found out a bit later that that lightning bolt hit an old tree, felled it right across the road onto the power cables. So we were without power for the rest of the night and they only managed to restore it mid morning. I had to have a cold wash to get to the office and the electric gate's backup battery ran down during the night. So now you know why I'm telling campfire stories. Pass the marshmallows. LOL.

I really wanted to up this QP freebie last night as I'm working n a little surprise, but now we have to share a day late. I used some goodies from Kim's new grab bag, word art from Jazzy and a snowy overlay from Luna. Don't you just love her blog header?

Here's a preview

And you can get it here http://www.4shared.com/file/73057965/16014ebe/Xmas_QP.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939. I forgot to include the TOU, but it's standard. For Personal Use Only and do not hot link, send anyone over to my blog to snag. Now I have to get of the 'puter, as we have another massive thunderstorm forecast for tonight.

Silly Season

BWAHAHAHA, I embarassed Katia so earlier on. I LOVE Christmas and how the stores are decorated and all the decorations they have for sale, but my absolute favourites are the "toys" that have the little button you push to try them.

I forgot to buy parrot food on Saturday and picked Katia up from college after work and we popped into the shop quickly. While we were standing in the queue I spotted these trees, a Santa, a hat and an angel - all with that little try me button. Well I couldn't resist, I had to start them all. Santa nearly danced right off the shelf and the hat started bouncing around. I stood there gleefully watching all this, while my 18 year old daughter nearly died of shame.

Then someone else came by and did the very same thing, but she forgot to do the tree and hat, so I walked away from the till and told her to try them. Katia has vowed not to go back to the shops with me until the 26th of December. Saturday I'm going to the store that sells all the lights. LOL.

Traditionally we put our tree up on the 16th of December, which is Katia's birthday, and I'm planning a really stunning tree for this year. We don't have live trees, so I'm going to buy the biggest white tree I can find and do it in red (Katia's favourite colour). I'll then do my Christmas table in red with white trim. I can't wait.

Today I have a little ad on to yesterday's kit. A cluster frame made with some of the goodies in the kit. The papers in the preview is part of the main kit. Here's the preview

And you can get it here http://www.4shared.com/file/71912439/18d67390/Sweet_Rosie_Cluster.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939.

And you'll notice I've designed a new label for my kits. Somehow I managed to delete the old one. See silly season is in full swing.

Have a marvelous day.

Blessings

I really have been a bad blogger lately, but I hope to fix that in the days to come. Today I have quite a lot to share, so grab some refreshment and get ready for a book.

I got 2 awards. One from Jazzy and one from Bonny. The first one is the Kreativ Blogger award, thank you Jazzy, and I have to share 7 things that I love.

1. My children Rainer and Katia. They are my life, my sunshine, my rain, my sustenance.

2. My Mother. She's turning 73 on Christmas Day and she is the busiest woman I know.

3. Corné, my man, my lover, my friend. He grounds me and keeps me out of mishief.

4. Creating beautiful things. Be it scrapbooking, decorating a table or planning a function.

5. My bikes. Riding on the track in a controlled environment and being allowed to be a hooligan or going on a nice sedate road trip. It's the time I let my spirit soar.

6. My friends, the people that accept me as I am and never judge me or try to change me.

7. The digi-scap community

The second is the Sweety Award and I thank Bonny for it. Now I'm supposed to pay these forward to 7 people a piece, but I've decided that today I want to give them both to each and every reader of my blog, those with blogs of their own, but most importantly for those that don't have blogs. These are the people that make it worthwhile to design for. Every visitor to my blog is Kreativ and everyone is a Sweety. Thank you for stopping by, reading what I have to share, collecting what I create and leaving a comment.

It's when America gets ready to celebrate Thanksgiving that I become very reflective and of all the holidays, it's the one I wish South Africans would adopt. But today I'll just give thanks for the many blessings I have received. The internet with all it's bad things have some people that are amazing. They give and share without "knowing" anyone out there.

I met this guy Stefan via a biking forum. He is a South African working in Saudi Arabia. We immediately got to talking as we ride the same bikes and an online friendship was formed. I mentioned that I would love a graphic tablet and pen and YES you guessed it, Stefan a relative stranger gifted me one for my birthday. I cannot tell you how I've cried about this. I got my gift on Friday, a 12 inch slim tablet and it now has place of honour on my desk.

I have met amazing people like Kim, Bunny and Jazzy through blogs and forums and these people share their talent with me on a daily basis. Jazzy has 2 new sets of word art in store. One that I adore, all about scrapbooking, that is cute and funny and so tongue in cheek and the other designed specifically for Thanksgiving and when I saw the preview, the word "Blessing" popped right out at me and gave direction for my post today. Swing by Jazzy's store and get these absolutely deliteful packs of word art.

Another lady that I'm blessed to "know" is Kristine, a whacky, crazy, beautiful designer that is just as impossible as I am. Kristine loves life and embraces it wholeheartedly. You are an inspiration my friend and when I have no mojo, there's nothing better than yakking to all te Dork Dancing Wenches. Kristine also has 2 new kits in store. The first - Rawhide - is the cutest little boy kit.

The second is Winter Wonderland, a colaboration between herself and Carjazzi Scraps. Swing by her store and check out this absolutely gorgeous blue kit.

I have been stretching myself designing and trying new things. My freebie kit I have for you today is for the DSO Color Challenge. When I saw the colours I thought back to an absolutely beautiful paper Bonny designed with a rose that was part of the kit she created for Kim's 19th Wedding Anniversary. I went mad when I saw that paper and I printed off a copy to use as gift paper.

I created this kit thinking back to that paper and I call it Sweet Rosie. It has a few elements that I created totally from scratch. I love vintage and very realistic elements, so this has some vintage rose papers, some old laces and even a ceramic hat with roses. I hope you like it. Here's a preview

And I've got 3 download links for you.

Papers 1 http://www.4shared.com/file/71704278/2d31edac/Sweet_Rosie_Paper_1.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939

Papers 2 http://www.4shared.com/file/71707935/290c141a/Sweet_Rosie_Paper_2.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939

Elements http://www.4shared.com/file/71701021/1dc08511/Sweet_Rosie.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939

Remember to count your blessings.

Link Correction

Hi all

Seems I duplicated the one paper link. This is the correct link. Once I'm home I'll fix the post.

http://www.4shared.com/file/69608466/a9d0afbc/RB_Gratitude_Papers.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939

A Very Special Birthday

IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY, IT'S YOUR VERY SPECIAL DAY DEAR KIM!!!

Well I can now let the cat out the bag. A few weeks ago the entire CT team decided to do a bit of a colab kit for your birthday. We knew we had to jump in early and get it done before your birthday week started, so we've been sitting on the top secret files for a while now. We had this idea and Kristine was kind enough to giv us a colour swatch and from then on the goodies just started to flow.

We called this kit Gratitude. It's to firstly wish you a very happy birthday, but also to thank you for

1. Being the wonderful person that you are.

2. For bringing laughter into our lives.

3. For your generosity.

4. For inspiring us with your beautiful kits.

5. For sharing your knowledge.

6. For being a mentor.

7. For your sensitivity

BUT MOST OF ALL WE WANTED TO MAKE YOU CRY!!!! LOL. Kimmy, have a wonderful birthday. You are so special in so many ways and this is our way of showing you what you mean to each and every one of us.

We were each only going to do a few elements and papers, but with this being a special kit for a very special person it sort of got out of hand and on top of all 4 shared's NSD woes we are adding this humungous kit with all sorts of beautiful goodies from flowers, frames, ribbons, papers, bragbook pages and several sets of alphas.

To my fellow CT members, thanks ladies, you all RAWK big time. A special thanks to Beth for the beautiful bragbook pages and to Silvia for the previews. She took the one job we all probably hate the most and created works of art out of the previews.

We also have some LO's of the team and yes, that is Jazzy sitting on a statue's lap LOL. We're definitely a BAD INFLUENCE on her. I think the girls were quite worried with what I was going to come up with as I asked them if they wanted to be on the "good" girl page or on the "bad" girl page LOL. Kim, we love you so much and it's such an honour and privelege being on your team.

So without much further ado, here's the links to my kit and I'm also hosting Kimberley Rae's bit until I can influence her into getting her own blog up!!! Get to it Kimberley, I got hold of Jazzy's wet noodle and I'm high on power. LOL

Kimberley's portion can be found here http://www.4shared.com/file/69605695/46afee7a/KimberlyRae-Graditude.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939

And mine can be found here http://www.4shared.com/file/69605402/a8d14fe/RB_Gratitude_Elements.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939

and here http://www.4shared.com/file/69614097/29f0bd31/RB_Gratitude_Papers_2.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939

and here http://www.4shared.com/file/69614097/29f0bd31/RB_Gratitude_Papers_2.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939

You can find the rest of the kit by visiting these blogs

Andrea : http://boyervillescraps.blogspot.com/

Beth : http://bethbydesign.blogspot.com/

Carol (Crops) : http://crops2dawn.blogspot.com/

Jenni (Chaos Lounge) : http://jen-at-chaos-lounge.blogspot.com/

KimberlyRae : available on this page

Kristine (Wench'd Grafix) : http://wenchdgrafix.com/yakkin/

LeAndrea (Doodle) : http://doodlelt.blogspot.com/

Linda (Jazzy) : http://wordstodelite.blogspot.com/

Nett (Lady Grundlefunk) : http://www.skwerlicious.com/blog/

Pamela (Luna) : http://midnightcharms.blogspot.com/

Paula (PKDoll) : http://pksbragbook.blogspot.com/

Renee : you are here

Silvia (Phillsboo) : http://phillsboo.blogspot.com/

Please go to Kim's blog and leave her some birthday love and some love for my fellow CT members.

Kim!!!! Many mwahs and squishing hugs. I wish you a very special day.

Denim & Diamonds

I really wanted to upload this last night, but 4 shared was being difficult AGAIN.

It's my birthday today and I really want to spoil all my loyal readers. I LOVE my birthday. Especially when it's close to a weekend because my family spoils me ROTTEN.

Saturday all my friends joined us at our local pub for a few drinks, BAD karaoke (LOL) and dancing, dancing, dancing. I got such lovely presents. Corné bought me a beautiful white gold and diamond dress ring, Rainer bought me a new cell phone, Katia bought me a Kimora Lee Simmons top that I've wanted for ages and my mom got me my favourite perfume Kenzo Flower. I feel so spoilt.

I designed a kit for all of you that is totally me. I love denims, but I like to dress it up with tops that have rhinestones or sparkle and that's why I call this kit Denim & Diamonds. It has some denim textured papers, some grungy papers, some diamond encrusted laces and flowers. I hope you like it.

Here's a preview



And it's in more than 1 download, you can get it here

http://www.4shared.com/file/69430904/d6800971/Denim__Diamonds_Papers.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939 and here
http://www.4shared.com/file/69429432/5c7e0aee/Denim__Diamonds.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939

And later this evening, my party will continue and I'll have something very special up for you, but please keep on checking, our time difference is about 7 to 9 hours ahead of the States.

Keep well
Hugs
Renée

Madhatter's Tea Party

As a kid, Alice in Wonderland was my favourite story. Now I have to tell you half a century ago you got 3 kinds of kids - good, naughty and impossible. Well I fell into that impossible category. I didn't sleep, threw tantrums and was a downright nasty piece of work, but one way to calm me down was either to dance with me or read me Alice in Wonderland. Today of course they would say you're hyperactive or have ADD or a combination of both ADHD.

I don't stay very far from work, but with peak hour traffic a 10 minute trip turns into an hour or more trip and while I sit in that mess I either design in my head or plan what I'm going to blog about. I was sitting there in my car and thought that KIM's birthday week reminds me of my favourite storybook.

Like the Chesire Cat, Kim reveals a bit of her bags every day, like the doll house, you get huge bags of goodies for "tiny" prices and like the Queen of Hearts there's 45% OFF her entire store. Like the rabbit I'm always late, Nett is like the Madhatter with her crazy wit and I'm sure I can find a character for each one of us on the team if I carefully sit and think about it.

So step through the looking glass and have some fun with us. We only get to party like this once a year.

I made you a little freebie using 3 items from the CU bag. This is what it looks like

and you can get it here http://www.4shared.com/file/69024827/55eeac8f/Kims_Birthday_Freebie_2.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939

And now I'll do the cat trick and disappear LOL. Have a great day

Birthday Week

I'm not big on analogies but at the moment my life is like a Nascar race. I'm sitting in the grand stand and watching the days speed by. I can't believe a week has gone by since I last blogged.

And it's only going to get more hectic. Today is the first day of Kim's BIRTHDAY WEEK and you're all in for a treat. First off Kim has a SALE at 45% off, THAT'S ALMOST HALF PRICE, on goods that's not even very expensive to start with!!!

Then just 2 celebrate her birthday in STYLE, she has 2 Grab Bags. The one is a PU Bag and I can vouch for this, whatever is in it is GORGEOUS and it's only going to cost you $3. The whole shebang is worth $14.50

And then a CU Grab Bag (always a winner) at $8 and that's worth $44. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL, buy both bags for $10 (yeah we won't tell Kim she can't add LOL) and you get a 30 page brag book ABSOLUTELY FREE. This part always reminds me of home shopping ads, but unlike the ads, you really do get good value for money and the free items are genuinely free.

I'm going to get off now to go and make goodies for the rest of the week, but please swing by Kim's blog, she has a CU freebie up for 24 hours only and I made you a little cluster frame with some of the goodies from the PU bag (paper not included)

Here's a preview

And you can collect it here http://www.4shared.com/file/68887501/9442c6fd/Kims_Birtday_Freebie_1.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939. Please leave some love and if possible just a note of where in the world you're from.

Hugs and many kisses

Renée

Kim's New Kit

WHEEEEE, I didn't fall off the edge of the earth, I just got Bizzzzzeeeeee!!!!!

My young friends Rudie & Cindy-Lee got married on the 6th of September and I unfortunately couldn't attend the wedding as it was my son Rainer's 21st. They brought 1649 wedding photos to scrap. Oh my word, Cindy-Lee was the most beautiful bride I have ever seen. Her dress was so beautiful. It was layers and layers of little net scraps that were individually dyed. The photos don't do the dress complete justice and it's stunning in the photos. This is a huge undertaking and my payment is Photoshop CS3. Rudie has promised to bring it around this weekend if they can keep me in one place long enough.

Here's a few LO's I've done so far. Credits for the kits all go to Kim

Then this past Sunday we did our Breast Cancer Awareness walk at Kyalami race track. What a brilliant day. It was an absolute success and wll be repeated in years to come. This year we walked in memory of my late friend Jill that unfortunately did not discover her cancer in time and in celebration of 2 other friends Margie and Eloise that are survivors. I'll have some photos a bit later in the week. I got a replacement camera for mine that was stolen and I have now had 2 download cables that don't work. I have to go and collect that on Saturday morning. But I have to post the most amazing photo. As we finished our walk there was a "halo" in rainbow colours around the sun. It was too beautiful for words and I felt so peaceful, I forgot that I was tired from my long walk.

I got an award from Crops, my fellow CT member for Kim's team and I'd like to pay it forward to

Kim and the entire CT
Kristine and the entire CT

Scrapbrat

Bunny

These ladies all have HEART and they pour it all out lovingly on their blogs. They make me laugh, cry, get wierd stuff flying out through my nose and lift my spirits on a daily basis. I HEART you all.

And finally I get to the real purpose of my blog post for today. Kim, designer par excelance has once again come up with a gorgeous kit. She calls it Loryn and it's for one of her amazing friends. She's planning a kit for each of her friends, and if this is just an example of the first, I for one can't wait for the rest of the kits in the series. It has marvelous elements and gorgeous papers in an orange and green theme which are 2 of my favourite colours and as we're heading for summer, it reminds me of fresh cut green grass and lovely salads with melon and mango.

I did this LO

I don't have a freebie today, but I'm working on a little something for later in the week.

Have a great day

Hugs

Renée

As Usual

I'm late with something. This time it's about my lovely Canadian friend Kristine's birthday. Kris honey, I'm so sorry I'm posting this a whole day late. Well I didn't forget her birthday. I mailed her early yesterday as we're a couple of hours ahead, but I did promise to come and blog that Kristine has wonderful news on her blog. I was going to go to the shops to buy fresh veggies and milk and stuff and then come home to blog.

Well another birthday party intruded. We were invited to a 55th birthday party for my friend Chris (yeah how coincidental is that) and at first Corné didn't want to go and then as I get home from the shops he phones to say that he has been nagged to go and has finally rellented. All good and well, but this is a masquerade party and we don't have masks. And this silly man tells me "But you're so creative, make us a few quickly". Hellooooo, I like to plan these things in advance and get all the goodies to make them pretty beforehand.

The upswing was that I quickly had to scratch in my stash of things that I don't throw out because I may need them one day. Luckily I have a card programme with a mask template so I quickly printed 2 blank masks off. For Corné's mask I found some black velvet with a gold thread through it that was barely big enough to cover the mask. I attached some black ribbon and his was ready to go.

For mine I found a "rag wash" look pink wallpaper sample, some pink sequins and pink gift bows. I wrapped a dowel stick with some pink paper ribbon and made some ribbon swirls and attached the mask to the dowel. I got a pic of the pink mask that I'll post in the week when I've resized the photos.

It's 90 degrees here at the moment so I new I wanted to dress very cool. I have a pink camisole with the exact same colour pink sequin empbroidery as I used on my mask and I teamed that with pink pants and gold high heel sandals. It didn't keep me cool, but I would have passed out if I wore a t-shirt. I also had chocolate cake for Kristine. A shooter made of Nachtmuzik, stroh a dollop of cream and a glace cherry.

Well as my mom would say, I'll even be late for my own funeral LOL, so big appologies Kristine. I hope you had a great birthday and to celebrate I made you a little mini in melon colours I hope you'll like. I called it Wench Wishes and this is a little preview.

You can get it here http://www.4shared.com/file/66624164/874b904a/Wench_Wishes.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939 and to show your appreciation, you can pop over to Kristine's blog and leave her some belated birthday wishes.

And I'd like to say a special thanks to Benoit for her lovely comment she left. I'll be visiting your blog soon.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and I'll chat to you during the week.

Hugs

Renée

Another DSO Challenge Freebie

Have you gone to see all the lovely DSO challenges and posting gifts for the month of October?

Register on the forum, participate in the challenges and receive a freebie gift by the end of the month. Sounds like the best kind of bargain to me LOL.

There's some totally new challenges up as well this month. One being the "Great Exchange Challenge" hosted by RC Mama. All you have to do is create a QP with one of her kits, freebie or bought. How easy is that???

When I saw her Teatime freebie, I just fell in love. It reminds me of an ad for one of our tea brands - 5 Roses. The ad lists 4 of the tea's qualities and then the narrator says "And the 5th rose, the 5th rose is for you, for no one makes better tea than you and Five Roses." There's 5 roses in my QP. Thanks for the freebie RC Mama, it's really gorgeous.

Preview

And you can get it here http://www.4shared.com/file/66025623/16e95210/Teatime_QP.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939. I'm off to go and participate in some of the other challenges.

Hugs

DSO Colour Challenge - October

I'm finally recovering from Friday night. We had a ladies night in aid of our Junior Lions rugby players and it was one of those nights where the wheels fell off the bus. My friend Cheryl is the social secretary for the rugby club and usually comes up with a fun evening every 3 months. We had some strippers and belly dancers this time and a really fun evening. The guys joined us at about 9 in the evening and by then the atmosphere was so fantastic none of us wanted to go home. I eventually got home at 3:30 in the morning and had to be up at 06:00 again. All I can say is yesterday was a very long day.

I wanted to watch Shrek 3 again last night (I love that movie as we called Max Shrek) and I fell asleep soon after it started. I didn't even realise that Corné sleep walked me from the couch to the bed. But I feel revitalised this morning.

Oh and I wanted to let our American friends know that my posts aren't full of spelling mistakes. South Africa used to be a British colony and that's why we spell like the British. We use s instead of z and add letters like u in certain words.


On to today's freebie. My compatriot Kim runs the colour challenge over at DSO every month and boy, can she pick great swatches. This month she put up a colour swatch that was truelly me. I fell in love with this swatch and couldn't stop creating. I ended up with a monster kit for me. It has 12 papers and 25 elements. I call it Flower Shoppe and it has lots of flower elements and satin ribbon and bow elements. I just loved creating this kit and eventually sent Kim an e-mail to say that someone is going to have to tie my hands up, I can't stop. Thank you Kim, I love participating in this challenge every month and your Commercial Use goodies come in so handy for these kits. This month I also used some goodies from The Scrappin Cop, a marvelously generous lady that offers all her CU goodies for free to the scrapping community. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate your contribution to our community so much and hope that I do your goodies justice.


Here's a preview



This kit is so big, I have had to upload it into 4 parts and here's the links.


Elements 1 http://www.4shared.com/file/65655746/648a4ebe/Flower_Shoppe_Elements_1.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939
Elements 2 http://www.4shared.com/file/65656900/f1aeac6b/Flower_Shoppe_Elements_2.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939
Papers 1 http://www.4shared.com/file/65724142/a6aa9ec5/Flower_Shoppe_Papers.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939
Papers 2 http://www.4shared.com/file/65727247/c6337bfd/Flower_Shoppe_Papers_2.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939

Sorry for the huge download. Please leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you.

Enjoy what's left of the weekend and if you're travelling, keep safe.

Hugs
Renée

Fall Splendor Blog Party!!!!

WHEEEE, IT'S FINALLY HERE!!!!

I'm not going to yak your ears off today as I'm sure you want to get at the goodies asap, BUT I do want to say thanks to KRISTINE for putting this together. It was a huge understaking. Imagine 70 (YES SEVENTY) designers all jumped in to get this humungous, monstrous, MEGA-MEGA Fall Splendor kit up and running.

Before I show you my preview and link, here's the link to the rest of the bits.

http://blogpartycentral.blogspot.com/

Here's the preview of my contribution

And you can get it here http://www.4shared.com/file/65104132/4572b87f/Fall_Splendor.html?dirPwdVerified=1524a939. And don't forget to swing by Kristine's blog and leave her a special word of thanks for getting us all together to do this. Links will remain up until the end of the month.

Hugs

Renée