Project Life | Week 36

Hello and welcome to Week 2 - 8 September.

This week has another insert, and I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to be able to finish the year with just two albums...

Going into Spring here in the Southern Hemisphere. I'm planting salad leaves, working on a long neglected granny square blanket and doing the usual homework and mobilizing of kids.

I have already blogged about these photo's before. These are all of our week-end. A trip to the park (they love sliding down the slope)...

And with the middle page turned over: Another trip to another park, seeing spring everywhere.

Red space ship made by Liam in Woodwork class.

The photolab where I print accidentally printed the same week's photo's twice, so I felt confident enough to experiment a little (seeing that I'll have a spare photo if it doesn't work out). I used a cutting tool and handcut the Word-art freebie from Ali. I placed it over the other photo (but I guess it could work as well over white cardstock.) Love the extra dimension.

I also included a flip-up piece to hold two more photo's of Theunis and the boys.

That's my week. Sorry, keeping it short and sweet as the boys are home on school break and has to eat nearly every five minutes.

Project Life | Week 35

Hello and welcome to week 26 August - 1 September 2013.

Yep, I only realized afterwards that the date's not in. Calm week around here. I felt like playing a bit so included an insert page ( Design E cut in half). I typed out lines of things making me happy right now, printed it on photocopy paper and then cut them up and stuck it onto a transparency.

Nice see-through effect. The inspiration for the list mostly came out of this week's photo's.  

And here's a closer look at the week: 

                       

A lot of bird activity in the garden :: Cars - only part of their growing collection :: A Market bag that I crocheted :: Welcoming warmer weather, only for it to get really cold later in the week :: The words were cut from a kit card :: The last two is of the boys playing with their Top Trump cards. My pre-schooler is rocking this game. I liked putting two photo's of nearly the same moment next to each other, one focussing on the cards, one on the fun they're having, and also just to animate the story more.

 (Word art from Ali at Designer Digitals.)

At the back of the insert I included a photo that was actually taken a month ago, but I loved the moment and it still felt current enough to include. Heart was cut from a (Cobalt) kit card and popped up on a sponge square. 

 This was one of those weeks that I only realised once the photo's were printed, how busy it looked. Lots of moving things around to try and make it work.

Here we have: Liam helping in the kitchen on a stay at home day :: Fixing their bikes :: A breakfast date for me and Theunis :: Earings bought for R15,00 (divide by about 10 for Dollar price) :: A trip to the library :: and a little T-shirt stenciling project that the boys spontaneously joined in. They love painting on their t-shirts.   

And lastly the mirror photo of me has a little arrow to say that it should be taken out and opened up. I cut the photo in two, and then stuck one bit onto a fold-open card. I trimmed the card to reveal the photo bit on the inside. Coincidentally the word art says:  "Photo's, holding together our memories". I think it was a freebie from Designer Digitals - there's plenty on their blog.

On the inside. (As a last minute strike of inspiration I just added another staple to the one already on the photo to make it a +).

I'll be linking up at The Mom Creative  next week Tuesday, and at Simple as that this Saturday.

Project Life | Week 34

Hello and welcome to week 19 - 25 August 2013.

A pretty straight-forward week, really.

 I used a fold-open journaling card to tell a longer story about the games Liam likes to play now, challenges he faces etc. :: Included a card from their Top Trump games they love so much now :: Last lemons from our tree :: And our cellphones. Not the latest or best, but all we really need. So sweet to get phonecalls from Reuben from school now. Usually when he doesn't come home straight, but stays at school for chess tournaments. "Awesome" card was a freebie, link here.

 Over here I did some more cutting and pasting than usual: Cutting and combining two cards was an idea I picked up from Design Editor. The "Love it" circles is a stamp was picked up at a great new shop I discovered, called Typo :: Used Cathy Zielske's photo card freebie again. (Silly glasses for 3D purposes only, hehe) :: And I cut out the star from a PL card and added it to cardstock :: The Protea flowers is our national flower and one of my favourites. Always great to have it in the house :: Oh, and the messy boy's room was captured even before I read about Tracey Clark "coming out of the closet" with her clutter. Love her post Reality reframed. I love what she says about the damage that can be done by taking in too much perfection, blog after blog we read. Good perspective after the recent WITL excersize that left me wishing my home had more light, etc etc. :: Another highlight of this week was watching Philips Philips win American Idols (yes, we get it way later over here). He was our favourite from the beginning. His DVD "Gone, gone gone" has all the soul I'm hoping for my everyday photography to have. You can watch it on You-tube here.

I'll be linking up at The Mom Creative and also at Simple as That's Saturday share.

Week in the Life | Sunday

This was defnitely not an ordinary Sunday in our lives. Instead of spending the morning in church, we were away on an overnight trip. Get-aways are not high on the priority right now, but a while ago Liam entered one of Kid's National Geographic's Birthday competitions and won a one night B&B stay for us at Maccauvlei on Vaal. You can read more about them here.  Their history is especially interesting.

We decided to make a little trip out of it and spent Saturday exploring Parys. Maccauvlei was one hour from there, in the direction back to Jo'burg, so a great place to stop over. 

We had a very good night in the hotel standard chalet. 

 Before breakfast we went to have a look at the Oak tree forest.

 We took quite a few photo's here.

More trees that reminded me of the classic Winnie the Pooh stories.

For Breakfast it was the full buffet.

We've done some buffet lunches with the kids, but since we've mostly stayed selfcatering since they were little, this was their first breakfast buffet.

After Breakfast the boys went to play large scale chess, and I went for a shower.

We had a nice surprise in that a spa treatment was included in the prize. Zorgvliet spa at the nearby Riviera on Vaal could only fit us in in the afternoon...

...so we got to spend some time at the hotel while we waited.

As the name suggest, it is right on the Vaal River.

They had their 1st swim for the season.

His favourite part of the trip.

Reuben giving me a crash course in chess while we wait for Theunis to finish his 1st spa visit.

We both were super relaxed after our foot treatments.

We felt so blessed with how everything fell in place this week-end. Felt like God was really spoiling us. And the staff at Maccauvlei was very friendly and helpful in assisting with the spa arrangements.

After that we were homeward bound. Spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on other's WITL posts.

I'm really glad I decided to join WITL. Got such an objective look at & learned so much about my routines, and already making changes to do things better. Note to self: Do this every year.

Think I should just mention that I am in no way affiliated to/getting paid by Kids National Geographic or Maccau Vlei, or any of the other venues metioned, to post about them here.

Week in the Life | Saturday

It is Saturday & we have a little trip planned. We drive about 1.5 hrs, out of town...

..and out of Gauteng into the Freestate, all the way to Parys. Parys is a little tourist town with mostly antique and art shops. In Afrikaans it is pronounced the same as Paris, France, so you always specify, "Parys, Vrystaat." But it's a bit of a joke mostly, because the two can't be confused. It was our first visit.

We parked on one end of a street and browsed from shop to shop.

We see a lot of Handmade things..

Poppies everywhere..

 Enamelware. I buy some plates to put on a outside wall.

Art galleries...

A vintage shop in the attic...

Lots to love...

And see...

Hang in there, lots of photo's...

This was my favourite art gallery. It even had work of one of my favourite artists, Hildegard.

A stop for lunch at a place called Feast. One of those places that just did everything right.

He is so great with photo's these days.

And on again, more shops to browse...

Sights to see, like a horsecart through town..

More vintage stores...

A reminder of  how some of our pioneering fore-fathers got here. And old Oxwagon.

(My Mom's family was from the area).

Lush new leaves on the Acorn trees and the peaceful sound of turtle doves.

The highlight for the boys: an old fashioned sweet store.

And then, by late afternoon we were tired and ready to head back to our sleep-over destination..

Maccauvlei on Vaal (more about it tomorrow)

A stroll around the Golf course (it was very quiet).

These trees reminded me of one of our favourite books, the classic Winnie the Pooh stories.

The evening we had the diningroom all to ourselves. As we waited for the (really great) food, I so loved just sitting with the boys, listening to their jokes and stories. A new phase coming where they will really be contributors to the conversation, on many dining together experiences to come, I hope.

Not our ordinary Saturday in the Life. But a really great get-away.

(Please do not use any of these photo's with-out my permission.)