Project Life | Week 6

Hello and welcome to Week 3-9 February. I've just been thinking that even when I see all my photo's  together for printing, I still don't know how a page will turn out. They're mostly nice surprises. And I love it when something unexpected happens, like that red candy stripe showing through from the back of the next card. What can I say, love this Project Life.

 

This week was pretty mellow. Lots of sorting out cupboards for chuck-out. And some fun that went with it. My Grade One 'r is reading. And a nice breakfast..

 

I also recorded our evening routine and included a photo of Liam having a long chat with his Dad. Phone calls is a part of our nightly routine while T is on site. I trimmed down the "love" kit card to include it with the photo. The weekend we attended a seminar at church and went to Delta park afterwards. The kids are so outgrowing the (very big) playground equipment.

And that's it for this week.

 

I used Word-art from Ali to make the "Hello Routine" card. And I'm using the Coral kit.

Sharing my page over at The Pocket Source.

 

 

 

For the love of Lino

 

I'm interrupting my PL posts to talk about my recent discovery of Lino printing.  Yes, Lino . So many possibilities! I started a Lino Printing Pinterest board and it's not even touching the tip of the iceberg of the many ideas out there. (The leaf seen here was inspired by tags I saw on my Pinterest board).

How did it start? (Not Lino printing, just my very short history with Lino) I had the pleasure of spending a morning in an artist friend's studio, learning from her. She did art school and knew quite a bit about Lino printing. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera, and only took this picture afterwards.

Here's what I learned in a morning:

- Tools matter: Get proper Lino cutting tools in stead of cheaper woodcutting tools (another friend   brought along these and you couldn't use them on Lino).
- The real Lino (brownish with a hessian backing) is easier to use than the cheaper grey version. But the cheap one worked ok enough. (Ours came from Herbert and Evans in Jo'burg).
- If you work with the grey Lino, work on the shiny side.
-  Sharp tools make a huge difference. Sharpen them by putting a few drops of oil on fine sandpaper, and gently "colour" over it with the tool.
- You need tracing paper to copy your design. Trace the design, place face down on Lino and trace. Detailed sections can just be coloured over and the picture will still transfer onto the Lino.
- Remember that you'll have a reverse copy of your image on the Lino. Sometimes this matters, sometimes it doesn't.
- Decide where you want colour and where not before you carve. Eg. The outline can be in colour (and the rest carved out), or it can be carved away and the rest in colour.
- You can make your image in more than one colour by
(a) printing, carving away more, printing in another colour and so forth. (This is tricky as your print has to be done in exactly the same place every time. You can set pins as guidelines to do this. Use cellotape to ensure that the pinholes don't get bigger) or
(b) making two separate stamps, one with the outline and one with a colour area.
- Work carefully, error lines will show.
- First go around your outline with the knifelike tool. Carve out big areas with the rounded tool. Carve deep enough and always away from yourself. Work from your outline outwards.
- To print: Put some paint (eg oilpaint) onto a piece of glass. Use a roller to apply it to evenly to your completed stamp. Paint should not be too thick, or it will run.
- Place paper over your stamp and rub hard and repeatedly with the round part of a dessertspoon. This ensures a solid colour.
- Enjoy your artwork.

Still no expert, not even close, but I'm thinking of getting kitted out for some more Lino experiments. Until then I'll make some eraser stamps just for fun.

Project Life 2014 | Week 5

Hello and welcome to Week 27 January - 2 February.

 

Looks like my eye was drawn to a lot of blue this week. It wasn't planned, but it is a great way to unify a page. There's a super example on Ali's blog at the moment of how she unified a very busy page with a colour scheme.

 

Bad light here, the sun must have ducked behind a cloud with-out me noticing while I was photographing this page. Sorry!

Anyway...On this page I mostly documented our morning routine. Getting used to waking up alone over weekdays, fixing lunches and breakfast for the kids, etc. Just love that they go to school barefoot in the summer. My constant companion in the mornings at home is madame Zoe (though she's barely conscious through it all).

 

Over here we have a little insert. Reuben taking up swimming, and some fun photo's from my laptop's camera.

 

And on the flipside: I'm always fascinated by the huge clouds here in Jo'burg. We call it big sky country. I added one of the transparent cards I had left over to a kit card. Another site photo, couldn't resist. Reuben playing with Birthday Leggo. T being home for four days, yeah! Some research (I) did for a school project about our surname's origin (found this impressive family crest), and some together moments. The stuff of everyday life.

 

Word art is from Ali Edwards, and my kit is the Coral edition from Becky Higgins.

 

Project Life 2014 | Week 4

Hello and welcome to week 20-26 January. Yep, no part a or b, one week, one spread. Hooray!

 

No big stories this week really. Except that I received my Jade kit by courier. I'll be using it for a backdated 2009 album. We are coughing it up for ivory around here too, as the boys are losing their baby teeth one after the other. Arrrgh me pirates! The planes are by Reuben. The insert is one of Liam's first writing practices from school.

 

Liam is very keen on his homework, which was mostly colouring in this week. Happy to find that blue wall at our local Spur. I went to see Walter Mitty during the week, right at the end of it's season here, and loved it so much that I had to take my husband and kids to see it in the same week. And a bit of clothing shopping - the tag is from my husband's clothes ;) btw.

 

Here's the other side of the insert. I added a journaling card and wrote about Liam adjusting to school. I also slipped in a questionare Reuben did at school about how well he knows his parents. Turns out he knows us quite well. Then I included School photo's taken around that time (I only received them later, but liked them in here.)

And the other side. Ahh, school photo's. Gotta love them. I've been enjoying just carrying my husband's small Nikon over week-ends lately. Most week-end photo's are from this little camera. Love the wider lens.

 

And that's it for Week 4.

 

 

 

Project Life 2014 | Week 3b

Hello and welcome to the 2nd half of our eventful 3rd week of the year. I'm am totally happy taking a week over two spreads if need be. I already know that this year will cover at least 2 albums, like the year before, and that's fine.

On this photo you might notice that the banner on the "This is us" card is raised. This is another thing I've realised doing PL for a few years. There is more than enough cards for the year (if you like using vertical photo's too). So here I decided to cut out an identical kit card and paste the banner over this one. I won't be doing it all the time, just here and there for more dimension.

 

This spread is all about Reuben turning NINE, and then also the School athletics and finally going Ten Pin Bowling. As I was editing the photo's I realised that I wanted to add another bit of red (learned about visual triangles somewhere). So I added a red sticker onto the top card. But since the light is now even worse than when I photographed these pages, I just added it in digitally here to give you an idea.

 

For the smaller photo at the top, I pasted a kit 4x3 kit card onto a 6x4 card, and added the photo on top.

At their school they get to wear casual clothes iso uniform on their Birthday. It was a fun day of school gala too. The stickers on his t-shirt are from all the teachers that wished him. He decided on a Mad Scientist party, but since the venue was booked out for over a month (and those dates were tricky for us) we decided that having the party anytime this year will be fine.

 

The highlight of the athletics day was that Liam finished 2nd in his race. Go Liam!

I still love the photocard freebie from Cathy Zielske. The triangular card was something I stamped some time ago, and I liked it in there. Word art is from Ali Edwards.

 

Something I'm missing on this Birthday page and the 1st day of school page is more words, more journaling on these big occasions. So I might add in a typed section once those words come to me.

 

I'll be posting on the gallery at The Pocket Source.

Project Life 2014 | Week 3a

Hello and welcome to the first part of Week 13-19 January. The big story of this week was of course Liam starting school, but let's first look at the beginning of the week...

My apologies again for grainy photo's. We've had weeks of rain here, and I just cannot wait for a sunny moment to line up with my schedule to take better pictures.

The first half of this week: It was wonderful to have my hubby home from site for a few days. We bought the kid's stationary packs and other requirements for school and labelled everything. Also did a major clean-up of my study.

And then it was time for SCHOOL...When I saw this out of focus photo of the boys, it looked very vintage to me, so I loved including it here in black and white. I added some Tim Holtz ribbon to the side of the insert.

The first day went off really smooth. Liam went to the school's pre-school, so it was an easy transition to big school. And he was so ready and brave. So happy that Theunis didn't have to miss this moment. He left for site soon afterwards though.

 

I made the "Back to school" card with digital supplies on hand. Word Art is from Ali Edwards.

And I'm using the Coral Edition this year.

Rest of the week to follow...

 

 

 

Project Life 2014 | Week 2b

Hello and welcome to more of Week 2...

 

This documents: More photo's from our time at Didingwe on the Limpopo border...

 

We had the pool all to ourselves, and when we got tired of that, there was always the river. We found a very safe spot that was like a natural jacuzzi, and my water rats couldn't get enough of it. I joined them too. The bush had a lot less creatures than what I initially thought it might, but we did had the pleasure of a Likkewaan visit in front of our deck a few times. He was over a meter long.

 

And then it was time to head back home. School was starting the next week, and we had a lot to sort out beforehand. I never got a photo of it, but on Saturday we went to buy Liam's first school uniform. Such a moment to see him in it for the first time. The scones is a Sunday morning tradition around here.

Word art is from Ali Edwards, and I'm using the Coral Edition. 

Project Life 2014 | Week 2a

I am so happy to finally start sharing my PL2014 pages! I still like to stick to a kit a year and this year I'll be using the Coral Edition. I cannot tell you how much I love this kit. It's just a perfect fit for us right now. Love the colours, love the patterns, love the new (to me) packaging. Love. it. all.

 

I'm starting with Week 6-12 January. The first week of the New Year had a lot of photo's and I was sort of working around it, being a bit overwhelmed about coming up with a cover page, and incorporating so many photo's I wanted. But I recently tackled it and it is ready to be printed and put into my album (so will post on it later). Sometimes the pre-printing phase is the most work for me.

 

This week: We are staying in the Low Veld, near where my husband is working.  Never thought I'd feel so at home in the bush, but it was a blissful two weeks. This was our wonderful outdoor kitchen.

 

I savoured the time we could spend together, like early mornings before he left for a 12 hr day. Definitely don't love the high-visibility clothes he has to wear on site. I included some fold-open journaling about his current project & some photo's of something happening at work. For some reason I'm really loving his site photo's. Also documented the time we spent outside at night under the many stars.

 

I'll be sharing more of this year's pages over next week.

PL 2013 | Week 52a

Hello and welcome to the LAST week of 2013! My viewer numbers tells me there's a few survivors out there, and to you I say thanks a million.

 

This page covers 23 - 25 December. Yes, oops, when photographing the pages I realized I never added anything in the date card. I'll probably stamp something like "Merry Christmas".

 

It was great to have my hubby home for Christmas. But we kept the festivities very low key this year. Christmas eve was a cosy family dinner. We also made time to sit with the kids and read some of their magical nativity books. "This is the star" is still my favourite.

Here I used a Christmas journaling card from Ali (digitally added the photo of us) . Not sure where the chalkboard freebie is from now. The mirror "Peace" and "25" is from a craft store. It's not clear here but I love that the kids faces are mirrored right in the corner of that photo where I added the little button.

 

Christmas day and I didn't take a lot of photo's. (The photo of the two of us was actually taken the day before). Not a traditional Christmas here as I said, but some traditions were kept: Glorified French toast for breakfast (we like the Jamie Oliver recipy, where you use  Pannetonne, mascarpone and a blueberry syrup.) Gifts were unwrapped first thing in the morning, in our PJ's. And I like having a bunch of Proteas around on Christmas Day. We celebrated the day with our Church family.

 

 The card in the top corner originally was stamped "Merry Christmas" with silver ink and a little banner, but then I liked it more when I added a printed transparency over. It is actually two different pocket filler patterns that I cut out together to make this card.

I repeated the same photo of the kids with their cars twice, just for fun.

 

The "Celebrate" was a downloaded freebie, but it came with a white background. So I digitally cut out the words (and copied it). The I made the card somewhat transparent and pasted the cut-out words onto it. I then added some Tim Holtz ribbon around the area, stapling it down in the corners. 

 

I am so looking forward to start sharing my 2014 pages. There are still about 3 pages from our last few days of 2013 left (from another trip and not yet completed). I'll share them when done.

But next up will be 2014 pages!

PL 2013 | Week 51

Welcome to the Week of 16-22 December. I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel here!

 

I actually fitted the entire week on a double page + insert.

 

This week :: Monday was a Public Holiday, but T still had to leave for another week on site::

I recorded some of the good & bad of this week on journal cards. Good was that it was great to be home for a bit. We had been away from home for 3 (good) weeks preceding this week and it was great to be in our own space again :: I missed a lot of what was happening in the garden but loved these flowers that come up by themselves every year :: Picnic and fort building with friends.

 

This was also the week that gifts were bought and wrapped and the house was decorated (though we kept it very simple this year) :: The kids loved the twinkle lights on their beds.

 

 The kids and I went to see Frozen, and then we had a nice surprize when T had to come through to Jo'burg one of the days of the week. He stayed overnight and headed back the next day and was also away over the week-end. The Moustaches was from a take-away cup he had on the road.

 

And that was week 51...

PL 2013 | Week 50c

Hello and welcome to Days 13 - 15 of  our December. I'm doing big catching up on my PL lay-outs, and I hope you don't find it too strange seeing Christmas trees in the middle of March. Relieved to find that I'm not the only one that is not doing current PL posts.

 

Day 13 and we're heading back to Jo'burg. I wrote down a few things I loved about this trip: A huge surfing Santa at the airport (only in Durban) :: Rushing and then realizing we had the time wrong, and gained an hour :: My Mom, brother and niece waiting out the hour with us at the airport :: Booking in our bags, declaring the kids' Wazooka waterguns, and being told that we have to open our suitcases and remove them, as they'll show up on the security scan. The kids weren't impressed, but it was quite funny :: Flying alone with the kids at night, and enjoying their excitement at the city lights below :: Driving home from the airport with my husband whom I haven't seen in two weeks, and hearing, for the first time, on the radio his new favourite song, Bonfire Heart.

 

I included an enlargement, since Photo First where I printed were giving them to me for free (because of the volume of photo's I printed at the end of December).

 

And then we were home again..

I was happy to still find some cherry tomatoes on my plants. They were delicious.

So good to spend the week-end together (before he had to head back to site). Attended the neighbourhood's Christmas party. The best part must have been the barefoot Santa.

Authentically South African.

 

More following tomorrow...

Project Life 2013 | Week 50b

Hello and welcome to more of Day 11, and also Day 12, of my December documenting.

 

We paid a visit to one of my favourite places.. the Aquarium at Ushaka Marine World in Durban.

 

We went in in the late afternoon and got discounted tickets because of this. We initially thought we only had half an hour, but then found out we still had about 2 hours. And we just about had the place to ourselves. Magical...

 

I added "Ocean" to the Wonderland card from  Nisa Fiin. The twinkle word art was added to a photo I took of real sea stars that were stuck to the aquarium glass. The sparkly silver letters are from Typography. "Hello today" word art from Ali.

 

This is an enlargement covering half a page.

 

And this is the other side of it.

 

Day 12: Going to the movies (we saw Free birds) and then I had a coffee date with my two best school friends. I haven't seen them in years and it was so special and familiar. We could hardly say goodbye. The evening we had a family dinner at John Dory's. And even later the kids opened up some gifts under the Christmas tree.

 And that was day 12.

I'm giving myself another week of catching up on December's PL pages, and then I can't wait to start sharing this year's pages!