Thursday, March 29, 2012

A Glimmer Of Hope - Scrap Africa Challenge 3


Scrap Africa decided to celebrate our "rainbow nation". This photograph was taken by a friend of mine whilst on a 4000km journey through South Africa together with her two daughters. Thank you Isobel and Carla :) Please visit us at http://scrapafrica.blogspot.com/ and see the beautiful projects made by our other talented ladies on the team.


This is another layout I made which is also part of my beloved country. This baobab tree is situated in the Limpopo province in South Africa and is the world's largest and oldest living tree and a major tourist attraction. The photograph really does not do this tree the justice it deserves but I tried. She is over 2000 years old and is still growing at a rate of 1cm per year. In ancient times, kings, elders and leaders held meetings in the shade of the baobab trees and there were times when humans made homes inside their trunks. There is a room inside the trunk of this tree which was used as a fridge during the Gold Rush days. The baobab was declared protected in the Forest Act of 1941. She consists of 80% moisture and stores up to 120 000 litres of water to sustain her through droughts.


"Jewels of Africa" was created over the course of two days and trust me, for me that is fast as I usually spend a week on a layout. I happened to see that Fabscraps was hosting a competition and participants had to use their fabulous C40 collection. I am proud to say that I won the competition and the cherry on the cake was when it was published on the front cover of Scrap Affairs Issue 17. The elephant in the photograph had a very sad story to tell. Whilst in the Kruger Park my husband took a series of photographs of this particular elephant over the course of a few days. The elephant returned to this same carcass every day and we are convinced he was in mourning as all the while he was gently touching the bones with his trunk and the mournful, rumbling sounds that emanated from his tummy was very touching. They truly are such magnificent animals ...


And here is my proud moment...

Sunday, March 25, 2012

My Girl - Scrap Africa Sketch 4

My Girl (Bo Bunny)

This is my take on Sketch 4 being a DT project for Scrap Africa. If you have some time please hop over to http://scrapafrica.blogspot.com/ and join in the fun. This is my beautiful daughter Heidi and you have no idea what an accomplishment it is to actually be able to get a photograph of her. She runs a mile when she sees a camera pointed at her and I was lucky to have caught her while she was very engrossed in conversation..LOL! I have done two little tutorials below just to show you how I have done the stitching on this layout.



You actually have no idea how nervous I am about doing this tutorial :( I am still trying to familiarize myself with this whole "blogging" thing and here I go and add to my agony :(( Ok, so this being my first tutorial I am going to have to ask you to please be patient with me while I try and figure out this whole HTML thing in order to try and get this post to look half-decent. There's got to be an easier way so if you have any suggestions, they would be most welcome :)) Did I mention that I've been sitting here for five hours now and still cannot get the text below the images in the order that I want it to appear but if I have to sit here for another five hours..so be it:(( Ok, here goes:

Step 1

I am going to attempt to show you how to achieve the "raised stitch" effect on your project with a few very simple steps. Draw a pencil line where you want the stitching to go and pierce tiny holes about .5cm all along the pencil line. Like this:


Step 2

Thread your needle with two strands of yarn in the colours required for your project. I used crochet yarn. You can also use a single strand of yarn but two strands is so much nicer and much more effective in order to get the end result :) make a little knot at the end of your yarn to prevent the yarn from slipping through the first hole. Now, insert your needle at the back of your work through your fisrt hole and bring it through to the front. Pull it through until the little knot meets with the back of your paper. Now, skip your second hole and insert your needle into the front of your third hole. Like this:


Step 3

Pull the yarn through to the back ensuring that you leave a little loop in the front. Like this:


Step 4

Insert your needle from the back into your second hole (that would be the hole between the two stitches or the little hole in the centre of the loop) ensuring that your yarn is situated above the needle. Like this:


Step 5

Now pull the yarn all the way through to the front applying enough tension so your stitch lies snuggly against the paper. Do not pull too tight or too hard as you don't want to tear your paper or rip your little holes ;) Like this:


Step 6

Now your needle is in the front or the "right" side of your work so now you insert your needle into the fourth hole and once again you pull it through to the back ensuring that you leave a little loop once again. (Creating the little loop just makes it that much easier for your needle and yarn to come through to the front underneath the yarn or else you may hook a tiny strand of the yarn and you end up ruining the whole stitch.) Bring your needle through to the front by inserting it into the back of your third hole and coming through to the front underneath the loop. Like this:


Step 7

Now pull your yarn towards you until once again your stitch lies nice and snuggly against the paper. Next you will insert your needle into hole 5 from the front to the back of your work creating a little loop again and then inserting your needle into the back of hole number 4 coming through to the front underneath the loop and pulling it tightly. So now you continue in this fashion and your row of stitches should start looking like this:



Side view of the stitching: This will give you a pretty good idea of how the raised stitch should look if you look at it from the side :)


And voila..you've done it!! If you happen to try this method, please feel free to leave a link to your project so I can admire your work :) I would love to see it xx I sincerely hope that this tutorial makes sense to you and if not, please let me know so I can try and improve on it :)

Here are a few more steps to show you how I have done the stitching on the scalloped circle:

Step 1

Cut a scalloped circle according to the required size. Within the circle draw a smaller circle. Then you will prick tiny holes on this circle, each hole being opposite and in line with the valley of each scallop..like this:


You can make all the holes at once or you can do it as I did..one at a time.


Step 2

Now thread your needle with the required colour thread and insert your needle from the back of the paper into the first little hole...like this:


Step 3

Pull your needle through to the front and take the thread over to the back between your first two scallops like this:


Step 4

Your needle and thread is now at the back of your paper and so now you insert your needle into the next little hole and thread it through to the front. You will find that the little valley/ditch between the scallops anchors your thread securely. Like this:


Step 5

Now take your thread across to the opposite side of the scallop creating a cross-stitch because that is all it basically is..cross-stitch on a scalloped circle. Like this:


Step 6

So now you have your first cross :) Now you only need to continue in the same fashion all along the circle..like this:






Step 7

When you have finished all the stitches along the circle it should look like this and you need not worry about the pencil line because your other circle will hide the pencil line once you have placed it like this:




And there it is all done! Have fun and enjoy!x

PS: It is three hours later and I have managed to compose it and at the same time expanded my knowedge just a little bit more in terms of HTML codes, so if you see this on my blog then you know I was successful....now I'm off to bed although I doubt that I'm going to get much sleep after drinking all those mugs of coffee :((

Till next time
xx

Thursday, March 15, 2012


A close-up of the little flowers I made

Garden Girl - Scrap Africa Sketch 3


Today is reveal day on Scrap Africa http://scrapafrica.blogspot.com/2012/03/sketch-3.html and this is my take on Sketch 3.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Paper roses


I just felt like spending some quiet time with my Mom today and because I have such itchy hands (my hands always have to be busy..LOL) I made these little flowers while we were watching TV.

Thank You Card


Just a little "Thank You" card I made. I started off just playing around with inking, painting and stamping and then realized I could actually convert the mess into a little card and this was the end result.

Monday, March 12, 2012

The Dhow Jumeirah - Scrap Africa Sketch 2


I made this layout for Scrap Africa http://scrapafrica.blogspot.com/ and I am very proud to be a part of their design team. The challenge was to use our very own proudly South African Fabscraps products. My hubby took this pic of a dhow in Dubai which is actually a restaurant and I am delighted to have found paper that matched the photo so well. I have been asked on several occassions to please give the "how-to" as far as the string art on this project is concerned and I am pleased to say that a tutorial on this method will follow soon. Watch this space.. :)

Layout: My Mom


My Mom is visiting for a couple of weeks and she has been so amazing, patient, understanding and supportive while I was struggling throught this maize of confusion and editing and changing things backwards and forwards..you know..that thing called "Starting your own blog and having no clue what you're doing". She brought me endless cups of tea and coffee and therefor this post is dedicated to my wonderful mother whom I love very dearly.

Finally I have a blog!!

Believe it or not..I finally took the plunge and I can now officially call myself a "blogger". After days and days of trying to figure out this whole blogging thing I think I have eventually got the gist of it and although I still have so much to learn, I am really looking forward to the journey. So, hold my hand and let's take a stroll down Memory Lane.