Love Is In The Air

Hello Peeps.

I’m writing this from my winter apartment in Salzburg, Austria over looking the Salzach River, watching the snow gently drifting down, warm sox on, hot chocolate by my side. Well that’s my fantasy at any rate – the reality is that I’m actually sitting here sweltering in my stuffy studio, fan blowing all my papers hither and yon, doing little in the way of cooling me down, rivulets of sweat trickling down my back…… Still, I mustn’t moan.

So now, this being the month of LOVE we have our little Ode to Love mini book. This is made with ONE sheet of cardstock, measuring 7.5 x 7.5 cm. How nifty is that? It comes in kit form for R85.00 (golly, you can hardly get a pair of flip flops for that). It’s got all the bits and bobs you need for it – paper, embellishments, words etc. I’ve attached a few of the mini pages for you to peruse. I did mine on different couples but you could really do it on any love theme. If this holds no appeal, come along anyway and we can play.
Unfortunately (well for you maybe but not me) I’m off to do a week long mosaic course from the 22 – 26 Feb so sadly there will be no workshops. Sorry about that but I’m so excited I’m counting the sleeps.

Lovely new Keiser papers have arrived along with a bit of Making Memories, Imagenisce and Basic Grey. Also (about time!) double sided tape, tombo glue, chalk inks etc. I promise to have a lovely new page ready for right after my mosaic course, using the lovely new papers.

I’m not sure if I’ve told you that Rikki and I make Koolitz Cool Ties. You soak them in water, they swell up, you pat off the excess water and wear it around your neck. You’ll be amazed at how effective it is – great for all heat inducing activities from gardening to playing sport or even cos you’re menopausal. Let me know if you’d be interested in more info – we’ve had a fabulous response to them.

Happy scrapping until we meet again.
Kind regards
Alison

Nothing I like more than a clever play with words, so to end, I leave you with this…….. Enjoy.

Those who jump off a bridge in Paris are in Seine.

A man’s home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.

Dijon vu – the same mustard as before.

Practice safe eating – always use condiments.

Shotgun wedding – A case of wife or death.

A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy.

A hangover is the wrath of grapes.

Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.

Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?

Condoms should be used on every conceivable occasion.

Reading while sunbathing makes you well red.

When two egotists meet, it’s an I for an I.

A bicycle can’t stand on its own because it is two tired.

What’s the definition of a will? (It’s a dead give away.)

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

In democracy your vote counts. In feudalism your count votes.

She was engaged to a boyfriend with a wooden leg but broke it off.

A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

If you don’t pay your exorcist, you get repossessed.

With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.

The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.

You feel stuck with your debt if you can’t budge it.

Local Area Network in Australia – the LAN down under.

Every calendar’s days are numbered..

A lot of money is tainted – It taint yours and it taint mine.

A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.

He had a photographic memory that was never developed.

A midget fortune-teller who escapes from prison is a small medium at large.

Once you’ve seen one shopping center, you’ve seen a mall.

Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis..

Santa’s helpers are subordinate clauses.

Acupuncture is a jab well done.

This Is Me

Howdy?

Man alive but this week has been a scorcher!! I was fooled into thinking we were in for a mild summer but apparently not so.

Anyhows, no matter what the weather, we still have our scrapping to look forward to. I’m pretty sure you thought I’d forgotten about the page about YOU but alas no, that’s exactly what next week’s page is. “This Is Me”. I’ll forgive you if you choose to do it on one of your kids or another family member but I do encourage you to give it a go. It sure will be a lot of fun to look back on a page like this in the years to come.
The pictures you need are:
2 jumbo landscape
4 (4 up) portrait.
Have a peek at the attachment. I haven’t filled in the info as yet but I’ll get onto in right away.
(I rather liked the paper for this page – very different)

Valentine’s Day is drawing near (I’m a bit anti all this bleeding commercialism but thought I’d best toe the line). So why not come along and do a noo noo little love book to give to your significant other? It really is a fun project. I’ll give you more details closer to the time but you’ll need 14 (4 up) pics. It will come in kit form – price to follow. Some of you did this as a Christmas project but loads of you missed it so here’s another opportunity.
Tombo glue finally arriving early next week along with some other goodies.

Can’t say I’ve heard of too much fun and exciting stuff happening in the world of scrapping. Hope things hot up as we ease into the year. Until then, scrap on!
Kind regards
Alison

This has got absolutely diddly squat to do with scrap booking but I thought some of you might find it interesting. Did any of you see Invictus? I did and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. I usually go to these movies with Americans trying to do the South African accent prepared to cringe but I have to say Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon did a really credible job. Anyway, the point is that it did make me realize what an incredible man Mabida is – humble, intelligent, forgiving and how incredibly blessed this country was to have a man like him take over the helm of the New South Africa. We could have just as easily landed up with a megalomaniac like Mugabe.
I was intrigued to find out more about the poem Invictus so I googled it and this is what I found:

"Invictus" is a short poem by the English poet William Erners Henley (1849–1903). It was written in 1875 and first published in 1888 in Henley's Book of Verses, where it was the fourth in a series of poems entitled Life and Death (Echoes). It originally bore no title: early printings contained only the dedication To R. T. H. B.—a reference to Robert Thomas Hamilton Bruce (1846–1899), a successful Scottish flour merchant and baker who was also a literary patron. The familiar title "Invictus" (Latin for "unconquered") was added by Arthus Quiller-Couch when he included the poem in The Oxofrd Book of English Verse (1900)

At the age of 12, Henley became a victim of tuberculosis of the bone (och!!). A few years later the disease progressed to his foot, and physicians announced that the only way to save his life was to amputate directly below the knee. In 1867 he successfully passed the Oxford local examination as a senior student. In 1875 he wrote the "Invictus" poem from a hospital bed. Despite his disability, he survived with one foot intact and led an active life until the age of 53.
Apparently Mandela had this poem with him on Robben Island. I can quite see how and why it inspired him:

Invictus (Latin for unconquered)

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

First 2010 Scrappin

Hello there!

“I gotta feeling that this years gonna be a good year
That this years gonna be a good year!”
(Sung to the tune of Black Eyed Peas I Gotta Feeling).

Yes, here we are in 2010 – a whole new decade with lots of excitement and promise in store. I REALLY think we’re going to pull this 2010 World Cup off in spectacular fashion. I’ve made my usual resolutions, same one’s as last year (loose weight, get fit, de-clutter etc) but this year I’ve added a new one: Time Management. Yes, this year I plan to manage my time a whole lot better than I did last year (which was mainly in chicken running around with head chopped off mode). The good news for you is that hopefully this way I’ll also be able to keep on top on the scrap booking and be a bit more efficient at getting the pages out on time and getting lovely new stock in.
We kick off the year with “Christmas Morning”:
This is a lovely Tracy Shimper page using all her Art From The Heart papers. You need:
1 A4 landscape pic
4 (2 up) portrait - 7,5cm x 10cm
4 (4 up) portrait - 5cm x 7.5cm
4 (4 up) landscape - 7.5cm x 5cm

Be forewarned!! There is a page coming up that’s all about YOU! Yes, you may shudder but it’s going to happen!
The suppliers are all only just opening now so my apologies for running out of adhesives. My bad. New stock will be arriving soon.
The fabulously talented Ms Bee Smith will shortly be starting her card making classes in Durban North. Probably by the end of the month and most likely once a month on a Thursday evening. I’ll give you more details when I get them.
That’s about it for now except to say that I wish you all a year filled with love, peace, safety, tolerance and of course MEGA scrapping!
Kind regards
Alison

Read what follows if you like, might make you think twice about sniggering when someone’s trying to speak English. What a crazy language!

You think English is easy???
Read to the end...a new twist.
1) The bandage was wound around the wound .
2) The farm was used to produce produce .
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse .
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger, neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France . Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick' ?

You lovers of the English language might enjoy this .There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is'UP.'It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP ? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report ?We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lockUP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UPexcuses To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special .And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP .We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takesUP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you areUP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used It will takeUP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP . When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP .When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP , so...it is time to shut UP !

Mini Brag Book

Well hello there!
I’m sitting here writing this newsletter with my water wings and snorkel on. Wonder when this rain is going to let up……

So, here we sit with Christmas upon us and I thought – “why close?” So if you’re bored with nothing to do and feeling at a loose end (yeah, right, as if) or feel in dire need of a bit of scrapping therapy (more likely) or are just plain gatvol of your kids and feel the need to escape your up- country visitors for a few hours (most probably) why not rock in and spend a few happy hours scrapping?

Next week I’m going to be showing you how to make a little Mini Brag Book using just ONE sheet of cardstock. It’s just too noo-noo and makes a lovely stocking filler for Gran, Gramps, Hubby or a friend. Or just a little something special for yourself. It takes 16 (4 up) pics – that’s 4 pictures printed onto one jumbo – unless you’d like to add a bit of journaling, a poem or what have you, in which case you’d use fewer pics.

Although Wednesday 16th is a Public Holiday, I’d be delighted if you’d join me for a morning of scrapping and a bit of a Christmas tea party. You’re welcome to bring pages to finish off, do the mini album or catch up on a page that you might have missed. Please let me know if you’ll be able to come along (even if it’s just to pop in for a quick cuppa tea and a bit of fellowship).

So workshops next week will be:
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday from 09h00 to 13h00 and on Thursday evening from 18h00 – 21h00. I’m afraid there won’t be a workshop on Saturday the 19th (my apologies AGAIN) as I’m off to a wedding.
Hope to see you next week…….
Keep a happy scrappy heart!

Christmas Sale

Howdy Doody!!

Shew! So here we are already, bracing ourselves for “Let It Snow, Let It Snow” in the Malls, over indulging and the terror of family get-togethers.

I’ll start off with a bit of good news: Next week on Tuesday and Wednesday I’m having a 20% off EVERYTHING sale! Yes, I’ve gone completely mad so take advantage before I come to my senses! This includes all the lovely new papers, rub on’s, die cuts etc. (doesn’t include any ForEver Memories or Craft Ed stuff I’m afraid). Do pop in for a nice bargain.

This week’s page is a lovely page of Tracy Shimper’s called “SA Will Always Be Home”. Lovely broad subject. I’m doing mine on all the beautiful spots that I love – Drakensburg, Cape, Umhlanga Lighthouse etc but you could also just do it of your home and surrounds.
The pics you need are:
1 (18 x 14) (main focal picture)
4 (8 ½ x 8 ½)
1 (5 ½ x 8 ½)
1 (5 ½ x 9 ½)
Then there is a tag booklet (Travel Log) which takes a variety of jumbos, 2 up’s and 4 up’s.

I’m hoping to do some Christmas lay outs before Christmas day so we can just add the pics afterwards.

There won’t be a workshop on Thursday 3rd as I have another product knowledge morning. The evening class will still be on though. Then I’m afraid there won’t be a class on Saturday 5th December either as I’ve booked to sell our Koolitz cool ties at Station Market. I hate to do that but I’ve gotta move those ties!
That’s my bundle for this week. Happy Scrapping! And….. as you slide down the banister of life, may the splinters never be pointing the wrong way.
Take care

16 - 21 November

Well hello there!
Methinks summer’s here with a vengeance. I feel it in my sweat glands. I can’t tell you how much the thought of February strikes terror in my heart. I suppose that’s the price we pay for such a stunning winter.

Now this week you have a choice of two, yes TWO pages to choose from. The reason for this is cos I finished them both in the same week.
The first one is “UK 2008” – loads of pics.
You need:
4 jumbo portrait (about a third gets chopped off)
2 jumbo portraits (slightly cropped)
2 jumbo landscape (rather radically chopped by about half)
18 (4 up’s) landscape.
Can be of any theme really.

The second choice is “Friends” and is rather stunning. I can say this as it’s not my design. I did it at my teacher’s workshop last Monday and it really is a thing of beauty. Uses the new Kaiser Crafts paper which is the new love of my life. For this page you need:
1 jumbo portrait
2 jumbo landscape
3 10 x 10 pics.
Would look particularly stunning with sepia or black and white pics. Would make a lovely family page.

You are so welcome to do both pages (not on the same day of course) – one this week if you like and one next week.
I’m just a tad stressed about my Kaiser Christmas range which has STILL not shown up in my post box. Maybe it’s the old “watched kettle” syndrome and I should stop bolting up to the post box every 20 minutes hoping to see that little collection slip. Still, it will be well worth the wait.
Now, yesterday I bought the most beautiful My Mind’s Eye paper which I’m bursting to use. Think of 7 Gypsy’s and you’ll have some idea of the paper. A complete departure from their usual style. I’m going to be packing them into the most enticing kits this arvie. Then I also got in a range of My Mind’s Eye in lovely bright colours, Kraft Cuts which I’ve never seen before and also some bright new Crate Paper (another of my favourite lines).
On Monday 23rd I’m off to make up the Advent Frame which I’ll post on my blog. It really looks fabulous. I’ve ordered a limited quantity as this is not something I want to sit with so you’ll have to spring in fast if you want one.

The studio will be closed tomorrow Saturday 14th as I’m off to the Megacrop. I’m afraid there wont be any workshops on Thursday 19th in the morning as I have a Beswick Office Product knowledge day and then in the evening I have book club which I cannot miss (you don’t understand – I LIVE for my monthly book club fix).
I’m happy to do the evening class on Wednesday if you like and Friday morning.
Next Wednesday Kim will be doing an Earth Jewelry display in the studio from 17h00 to 19h00. If you’re looking for some stunning Xmas gifts at excellent prices (think teachers pressie here) or just a little trinket for yourself for good behaviour you won’t want to miss this.
That’s my bundle for this week. Take care and happy scrapping. I’ll end with some.....
Girlie Wisdom!
1. A friend of mine confused her Valium with her birth control pills... she has 14 kids but doesn't really care..
2. One of life's mysteries is how a 2-pound box of chocolates can make a woman gain 5 lbs.
3. My mind not only wanders, it sometimes leaves completely.
4. The best way to forget your troubles is to wear tight shoes.
5. The nice part about living in a small town is that when you don't know what you are doing, someone else does.
6. The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight because by then, your body and your fat are really good friends.7
. Just when I was getting used to yesterday, along came today.
8. Sometimes I think I understand everything, and then I regain consciousness.
9. I gave up jogging for my health when my thighs kept rubbing together and setting fire to my knickers'.
10. Amazing! You hang something in your closet for a while and it shrinks 2 sizes!
11. Skinny people irritate me! Especially when they say things like...'You know sometimes I forget to eat!' .....Now I've forgotten my address, my mother's maiden name and my keys, but I have never forgotten to eat. You have to be a special kind of stupid to forget to eat!
12.. The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing and then they marry him.
13. I read this article that said the typical symptoms of stress are eating too much, impulse buying, and driving too fast. Are they kidding? That's my idea of a perfect day!