Bon Voyage Maria

A friend of mine is off to Europe for a well-deserved break and a reunion with her daughter who is currently on a working holiday. I made this card to wish her well in her travels.

I've got a thing for VW vans and the "flower-power" design also appealed. I followed a sketch design and wasn't sure about rotating the van?

If you have any questions about the card, please email me or leave a comment.

Hope you're having a groovy weekend.

Love from Crafty Kim

Looking Back at Christmas 2009

Hello. Yes, I'm still breathing. Thanks to those who have written emails to me in recent times and also to those who kindly sent me Christmas cards. I received some lovely hand-made cards, a selection is shown above. I apologise for not sending out many cards this year, hopefully I can surprise you with a card sometime this year. The last month has been very eventful and not always in a good way but most of it ended well and, hopefully the future path is less arduous. One of my New Year's resolutions is to start making my Christmas cards in January; all of my unfulfilled ideas are still fresh in my mind.

I've not been creating lately. My craft room has been in such a mess that the thought of having to tidy it first was enough to put me right off. That's another of my resolutions...to cut down on 8 years worth of clutter and not just in my office, but in the whole house. Watch out for some give-aways and 2nd-hand items for sale, most of my items are lightly or never-used and these days, I'm realistic enough to know when I'm never going to use my stash (as much as I would love to).

Anyway, I thought I would share a couple of Christmas highlights for me. The first being the humorous picture below. I love suburban Christmas light displays and my son and I spent more than a few hours trawling my local area looking at house lights.

This photo was sent to me by a friend but there was a similar situation in my very own suburb of Westleigh. When I spied it, I didn't have a suitable camera with me. I managed to snap this photo with my I-Phone (new to me, still trying to master its operation):


I went back a couple of days later but clearly the neighbours had got to the witty individual who was brave enough to twist a rope of lights into the shape of an arrow and the word "Ditto".

For the last two years my boy Ashley has been asking me to build and decorate a gingerbread house with him. I finally gave in and alot of lollies and sugar later, here it is:

This side decorated by Ashley

and this end decorated by me

I always feel a little sad when Christmas is done, the tree gone and the decorations wrapped up and stowed away. I hope you had a good celebration and are still out there enjoying our holiday period.

Love from Crafty Kim

Hot in the City

Us Sydney-siders have been enduring 4 days of hot hot hot weather. A small complaint on the world scale but it's really got me out of sorts. I tried picturing snow-themed Christmas cards to chill me out with limited success.

So, I thought I would post a "refreshing" card. It's not my usual style, or should I say colour combo. But I'm happy enough with it. It was also a challenge because I don't own full sheets of this paper, I was working with 3 x 3 inch squares. Oh the pressure!

I made it for my Fiji travel companions by way of thanks for coming along and sharing the experience. I decided to decorate the inside of the card too but it did limit the space for writing which cramped my long-winded style but some might find it an advantage.

I also wanted to show you a close up of the cocktail drink:


I used Crystal Effects to make the cocktail glass look like real glass. I also cut out parts of the image and popped it up with Stampin Dimensionals. The miniature parasol was stamped on the paper too and cut out.

The stamp set used is Cheers to You which I bought at a low price while on promotion. I didn't think I'd use it much but it's come in handy lately and I really quite like it.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings. Thanks for reading. Bring on the cool change I say.

Love from Crafty Kim

Fiji Wedding

One of the reasons we travelled Fiji recently was to attend the "2nd wedding" of our friends who originally married in country NSW. Ten years later to the day, they affirmed their commitment to each other on a beach in Fiji, surrounded by their beautiful children, other family and friends.

It was a very relaxed ceremony, possibly a little less nerve-wracking than the original version. Here is a picture of the family just after the happy couple renewed their wedding vows:

Their daughters were lovely attendants. They were very excited to be part of the ceremony and were clothed in beautiful dresses.


Now I'm sure their eldest son was excited about the proceedings, he just kept his excitement on the inside, right? You can see him here with my son Ashley (they are good mates those two), playing on the beach:

It would appear that the waves, the sand and the passing snorkeller were at least momentarily more interesting than pretty dresses, bouquets, cameras and glasses of bubbly.

I made the card shown at the top of this post for the occasion. In keeping with the informal setting in Fiji, it's a casual kind of card. I added a bit of sparkle via Dazzling Diamonds to the champagne glasses:

Along with the rhinestones, this gave the card a special feel fitting to the event. And they are a "wonderful couple"; very much in love after ten years and four kids (their youngest child has just celebrated his first birthday). Of course, I only just gave them the card and gift some two weeks after the date but there wasn't any point taking it over just to bring it home again! That's my excuse ;)

It was indeed a privilege to share this time with them all, and we really appreciated being invited.

Love from Crafty Kim

Back from Outback Road Trip

(Creations courtesy of escape2create)

Hi Everyone,

It's been a long time between posts because I've been travelling around rural Australia. My destination was North Shields in South Australia (near Port Lincoln, the seafood capital of Australia, also known for its Great White Shark population) for a scrapbooking retreat called escape2create. It was fabulous, organised by a hard-working and highly creative group of ladies. You can read and view more about it here. One of the highlights for me was winning first pick of a vast collection of lucky draw prizes. Thanks to the organisers and generous sponsors, I brought home a Cuttle Bug with two embossing folders. Very cool.

The picture above shows the result of Friday night's Little House class. Not my usual thing but a nice change from a card or scrapbook page. Very cute and fun. Here's a couple more:

(Creation courtesy of escape2create)

(Creations courtesy of escape2create)

More thanks to Amanda Hall (2008 Scrapbooking Memories Master) and her husband Greg for their warm welcome at their grain farm near Cummins. It was also great to catch up with Bev Mantle and Alisa Tilsner, two Stampin' Up! demonstrators, who are local to Port Lincoln. Bev is busy preparing for her daughter's wedding this coming weekend - good luck Kylie.

I hit the ground in Sydney running, and am back working. There's lots going on and heaps of creativity to share with you. The plan is to post lots this week so please check back if you can.

Hope you're all keeping well and are as lucky as me to be crafting and seeing more of beautiful Australia.

Love from Crafty Kim

We're Home

Just a very quick post to let you know that Leanne and I arrived safely back into Sydney after a long flight from Cape Town via Johannesburg. The flight was overnight and neither of us managed to sleep on the plane. But it was so good to see our families, especially the kids who were very excited. Actually, after the initial greeting, the kids moved on to racing each other with luggage trolleys but we had their attention for a good two or three minutes.

Of course, we're straight back into reality with getting kids ready for the start of the 2009 school year. And the post-holiday unpacking and washing, along with the jet lag. But we're not complaining.

It's back to crafting soon but once I have viewed and sorted my holiday photos, I hope to share a small selection of further pictures with you.

Thanks again to my blog viewers for your interest and comments. I have really enjoyed your contact.

Bye for now,

Love from Crafty Kim

The Cape Peninsula

Hello,

This is possibly my last post from South Africa for a l o n g time (although I do want to return one day).

We took a day tour to the Cape Peninsula which is at the south-west corner of the African continent.

The scenery really does take your breathe away, especially if you fear heights. It was a clear sunny day and as we sat eating our lunch in the restaurant at Cape Point, a better view we could not have had.

The whole area is a national park and amongst other animals, ostriches roam by the sea.

I learnt that the above ostrich, being of dark feather, is a male. He sits on the ostrich eggs at night and hence he is well camouflaged while the female has grey/brown feathers and sits on the eggs during the day. The females look a bit like emus to my eye.

There are plenty of cheeky baboons in the area. Tourists are warned to lock their car doors as the baboons can open them. This is not my photo but I found it amusing:

Better go, plane awaits.

Love from Crafty Kim

Winelands Tour

Hi again from the beautiful Cape,

Leanne and I took a Winelands tour, not so much because we are wine enthusiasts, more to take in the beautiful scenery and historic towns. Although, it was frustrating not to be able to buy a few bottles and take them home.

We first went to Stellenbosch where we visited a general store that has been preserved in its original format. For example, dry goods are still sold from large sacks by the scoop full.


It was a very interesting browse. Afterwards we visited Jordan winery. Then we moved on to Franschhoek where we visited Dieu Donne winery:


Note the roses at the end of the each row of vines. They once were used as signal of fungal disease but are just there for decoration now. We had lunch before browsing the shops in the village.

Lastly, we visted Seidelberg Winery in Paarl. In the grounds there, we found this stone labyrinth:

They also have glass-blowing there and on the way to the bathroom, I found this unique flower:

It certainly was a lovely area and one in which you could easily spend a long weekend exploring.

Time for me to get to bed,

Love from Crafty Kim

First it was photos of animals, then water and now it's rocks

Belated hello from Capetown,

Sorry for the delay in communication, we've had all manner of problems here with phones and internet. Here we were thinking that we were headed back to a civilised city. Apparently there has been a major problem with ADSL in this part of the city. And as for my phone charger, it worked in Johannesburg, Kruger, Zambia and Botswana but not Cape Town.

But we arrived safely and happily back in South Africa. I don't think SA has a city more beautiful than Cape Town, it is definitely the place to be. They even have animals here, seals (at Duiker Island, off Hout Bay) and penguins (at Boulder Beach), both very tame and friendly:

Cape Town is famous for its Table Mountain which is a tall rocky plateau situated near the ocean. Leanne and I travelled up by cable car. We went up on a clear, still day but it is often cloudy and windy- in the first picture above, the top of the mountain is covered in a cloud formation, aptly named "the table cloth".

We have also been to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 20 years. As well as this we have taken day trips to the Winelands area and the Cape of Good Hope (the southern most tip of the Africa continent). Hopefully I will get time to post about these before I leave, ISP willing.

We are home soon, looking forward to catching up with family and friends and sleeping in our own beds. But a better holiday we could not have had.

Love from Crafty Kim

Goodbye to the Animals of Africa

Hello to you all from Botswana,

We've had a great two days in Chobe National Park. Sadly, today was our last day out on safari viewing the wild animals. We've seen just about every animal we came to see so no complaints from me but I wish we could visit again easily.

Many of the animals we have seen have young with them. It is the wet season here is everything is lush green and there are many water holes. So the baby animals have the best chance of survival. Today we saw a baby zebra in Chobe National Park. I decided to include it here since the Plain Zebra (also known as Burchell's Zebra) is Botswana's national animal.

The last animal I saw before we left the park was a Hyena pup. The adults aren't very good-looking but my picture confirms that most babies are beautiful.

The staff at Elephant Valley Lodge have spoiled us while we have been staying here. If only we could get rid of the malaria-carrying mosquitos, it would be perfect. Leanne and I are both looking forward to stopping the malaria prevention strategies soon.

We're off to Cape Town in South Africa tomorrow. We will be staying here.

Talk to you soon from beautiful Cape Town,

Love from Crafty Kim

Flight of Angels

Hello from the mighty Zambezi River in Zambia,

Thanks to everyone who has left me comments or emailed me. The internet connection here is slow so I haven't been able to access my email lately :(

But we have arrived safely in Zambia and enjoyed a sunset cruise on the River. Unfortunately, the sky was overcast so there wasn't much sunset to view but we did see several hippos playing and the pace was very relaxing.

I feel like a millionaire here, the Australian dollar buys 3,400 Zambian Kwacha. But it is a relative expensive place for tourists, I think due to its distance from supplies and high government taxes.

We took a walk around the falls today (known by locals as "the smoke that thunders") and got very wet. It was very refreshing and I would have rejoiced in it except for concern over keeping my camera dry. The falls were magnificent and are much wider and taller than Niagara Falls. As expected, I took lots of photos.

The highlight of our morning was the Flight of Angels. I got to sit in the front seat of the helicopter which has floor to ceiling views. It was fun and fast but very worthwhile. It put the whole area in perspective for us.

Tomorrow we are travelling about 30km by road into Botswana to visit Chobe National Park. We will be staying at the Elephant Valley Lodge. I believe internet access is extremely slow from there so not sure when I can post next but you're in my thoughts.

ASHLEY, if you are reading this, I love you and miss you lots. Hugs and kisses to my boy.

Love from Crafty Kim

On Our Way to "Mosi-oa-Tunya"

Just a quick post. I am currently in the equivalent of the Qantas Frequent Flyer's Lounge at Johannesburg International Airport (membership thanks to Leanne's husband, Rob, who is a very frequent flyer). Soon we are flying to Victoria Falls, known to the local people as "Mosi-oa-Tunya".

The Victoria falls is 1,708 meters wide, making it the largest curtain of water in the world. It drops between 90m and 107m into the Zambezi Gorge and an average of 550,000 cubic metres of water plummet over the edge every minute. The falls and the surrounding area have been declared National Parks and a World Heritage Site, thus preserving the area from excessive commercialisation.

I had the priviledge of visiting Niagara Falls with my parents 25 years ago so am very keen to see how Victoria Falls compares. I believe there are also lots of hippos and crocodiles to view on the river. So, after taking something like 500 photos of animals, I'll soon be the proud owner of a couple of hundred pictures of water.

I will be staying on the Zambia side of the Falls since Zimbabwe is considered unsafe for tourists. I think this is where I will be for the next two days and night Zambezi Waterfront Hotel.

I hear that it is very very hot back in Australia so I hope you're keeping cool in the water or air-conditioning. I'll post again when I can.

Lots of love from Crafty Kim

Hello from Africa

Well from Kruger National Park actually. I am currently located here. And here is where I will be sleeping tonight:


I can't write much as we are at an internet cafe with only one PC and my travel partner, Leanne, would like to check her email too before we go on our evening safari. I know, it is tough being an adventurer!

So this is just a quick post to family and friends to let you know that I have arrived safely in Africa and I am having a great time. Already I have seen many of the animals I came to see. The highlight of today was probably the elephants. We saw a herd of maybe 15 or more females, some with calves. Here is an example:


I am taking lots of photos with my new digital SLR camera, I'm really enjoying using it.

Hopefully I can right more tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who is sending me emails and SMS messages wishing me well, I really appreciate it.

Love you later,

Crafty Kim