Mon Repos: Scrap book week in South Africa 2008

I decided I am going to put my scrap-book adventures on my blog. I had it at the back of my mind for some time now.

Inspire Me Monday #51 – Week Of December 24, 2012

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Well, I wanted to start with the last week I had, with my scrap-book friends, at Mon Repos, a nature resort between Nylstroom(Modimole) and Warmbaths(Bele Bela) in 2008.

I started looking for my photos to use on my blog but ….

I don’t have them anymore! It seems that I have lost them. I looked through all my files of photos and none are to be found.

I did some pages using lots of photos. I am going to use my pages to show what I have done with them and also to show what a wonderful place it was to do my last scrap-book session.

The first is an album we made while we were there. Karen our organizer always had some extra tips and classes up her sleeves.

We had to make some rusty letters and small objects for the album

The front page shows the letters.

Opening the album on the first page

The front entrance to the resort

Footprints were not only from a vehicle

but also a leguane’s prints

Some beautiful Callas lilies

swimming pool and rooms where we slept

Old stuff hiding in the grass

Water fountain

flowers and butterflies

Old bicycle

From left to right.

Karen (organizer), Adrie(best friend) + me

Night time and a “braai”

Our bedroom

Kitchen and dining room.

Some more brochures

Back of the album.

Map and how to get there.

I enjoyed the week very much!

I completed a heap of pages during that week.

It’s write easy

 

September 28, 2012

Starting points…

1. Tidiness is next to Godliness
2. Manners make a man
3. I wanted/never wanted to write/paint/sing (or similar)
4. I was made to…
5. I was so embarrassed

I never wanted to

I never wanted to do scrap booking! Today I am  a scrap book fanatic.

I always thought that pasting photos into an album and decorating it with embellishments was a waste of time. I proofed myself wrong about 10 years ago.

While I was teaching at a private school in Potgietersrus, the discussion came up what we were going to do during the long December holiday 2004. One of the lady teachers said she wanted to go for a class in making dream catchers. I agreed to join her. We booked our session. The day before the session the art shop told us that they could not get hold of small hoops to make the dream catcher. There was a class in making sun catcher which wasn’t what we really wanted but we decided to do it on one condition:

I’ll do the sun catcher with my friend and she will do a scrap book class with me.

What a challenge. I never wanted to do scrap booking but this was the only arty classes we could attend.

We did the sun catcher and the scrap book classes and later the dream catcher also. After the scrap book class my friend said she was not interested in  doing it. I did the second class just for the idea to do something.

The best part of it all was that the art shop had a Saturday scrap book workshop and I attended. I made 3 or 4 pages. We had to pick the best of our pages to go in the draw for  the best page of the day.

To my surprise  I won the first prize, a beautiful album to put in all my pages.

After that  Saturday it happened that the tutor moved out of town. The art shop owner asked me if I would be interested in doing the classes. I agreed. From that day on I just got better and better. As the saying goes: Practice makes perfect. I even had the opportunity to do classes in a nearby town. At the end I even qualified as an advanced scrap book tutor.

I had many happy days doing this craft. I enjoyed preparing  unique pages and made  great friends.

Some of the ladies are still my friends although I am far away.

My first ever scrap book page!

 

This is the page with which I won the first prize.

10 minute quick writing:

Words:  uniform, war time, restriction, writing, poetry

WRITING

Writing is not one of my strong points. Also using another language than my home language makes it difficult at times.

I started to attend the Write Easy classes because I thought it could help me to improve my writing. It is really worth the while because I feel that I can write much easier and fluently than before I started the classes. I even felt yesterday when writing my passage I did not need the dictionary that much to look up spelling of some words. I still make some sentence structure mistakes. It is still going to take  time to get better and better. It also helps not to think in Afrikaans before I start writing. I must think and write in English.

I never thought that I would ever write my stories in English of all languages.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Create

How wonderful:              CREATE

I am a keen scrap booker. Scrap book gives the opportunity to create your heart out.

The following pages I used paper piecing to decorate my pages.

The next one is a delicate Polish paper-cutting craft.

It is good to create, doesn’t matter what you do as long as you enjoy it.

Share a picture that means CREATE to you! 

New to The Daily Post? Whether you’re a beginner or a professional, you’re invited to get involved in our Weekly Photo Challenge to help you meet your blogging goals and give you another way to take part in Post a Day / Post a Week. Everyone is welcome to participate, even if your blog isn’t about photography.

Here’s how it works:

1. Each week, we’ll provide a theme for creative inspiration. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog anytime before the following Friday when the next photo theme will be announced.

2. To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “Weekly Photo Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use the “postaday″ tag.

3. Subscribe to The Daily Post so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements. Sign up via the email subscription link in the sidebar or RSS

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/weekly-photo-challenge-create/

Remember South Africa 2010 (no 3 Last days in Potch)

I had a fantastic week with my scrap book friend. She took me with her for a class . Guess what? There were 5 of the ladies with whom I also attended the scrap booking weeks away every year since 2004.!

Here we both are. Busy working on our pages.

My friend also took me to Women’s tea at her church.

Rina Hugo and Elsabe Aldrich were guest artists

All dressed up for the occasion.

The next are some lovely wooden work from my friends husband.

This is their gardener and he makes these beautiful benches(riempiesbanke) in his spare time.

The next few days I visited old friends in Pretoria before moving to Polokwane/Pietersburg.

It’s write easy

IT’S  WRITE  EASY

June,15, 2012

Use one of the following words:

Paper, letter, visit, betrayal, sunshine

I used  PAPER and LETTER

Paper is the most important part of my hobby. I need paper for my background, paper for framing and also when making embellishments  on the page. Paper is also the most important part when printing photos. Even the albums I use are made from paper.

Well, did you guess my hobby?  I am a keen scrap booker.  I not only make albums using my own photos but also am a qualified scrap book tutor..  I have also made albums for friends and family and also some on demand.

When I am working on my hobby I need paper for everything, pages and albums. Scrap booking is not only pasting in some photos in an album, it is also about the journaling.

Journaling or writing down the history of the photos or events needs letters. Without letters there can’t be words, without words there can’t  be  communication. It is very important to know how to explain things by using letters.

This shows that paper as well as letters are two important substances  of everyday life. We need to look after our paper( or trees) and also our lettering (writing).

(I took one of my albums with me and showed how paper was used to construct it)

We had to use one of the following words for the next piece of writing in class:

tramping, favorite, pet, words,foreign

I used PET

Words can’t describe my pet I have. He is the most adorable pet I ever had.

Maybe I am getting older and can’t remember how good my other pets were.  Since I am not working any more I have more time to spend with my pet. He is also my best companion and mate. My pet is a dog called Trompie. He is a miniature Schnauzer . I take him at least three times a day for a walk because I am living in a unit without much space to run about.

Trompie loves all the dogs around me. He sees them as his best friends. He is always on the look out to meet them.

My pet is really very special. I had other dogs as pets but they never slept on my bed. They always had their own place to sleep. How ever, Trompie is very lucky, he sleeps with me on my queen bed. There is enough space for both of us.

Real lucky fellow this pet of mine!

My wet nose friend!

Swanlake

Taken at Stag land a reserve near where I live.

There was only one white swan while we were there. Only one photo was really kind of good to use in my scrap book page. I took these two photos.

Look at the reflection in the water! Swans are so wonderful to watch.

Here is my scrap book page.

( These are photos my son has taken with his camera that day. )