Friday, October 17, 2014

Creative Art Block Exhibition

Hi there lovelies,

I am very excited to announce that I am taking part in the Marlise Le Roux Saxonwold Art Events Gallery Creative Art Block Exhibition in Johannesburg at the end of this month.

I am doing 4 pieces for this event.

For more info, please contact artist and owner, Marlise Le Roux. 
art@marliseleroux.com

Hope to see some of you there.




Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Scrapbook layouts, markets, artworks in the making and life in progress!


Hi there lovelies,

October already and I have tried to blog more often but yet again time has gone buy quicker than expected and I am now finally forcing myself to at least do this post now. It is midnight already but it is now or never.

So our Willows Night Market has come and gone. The coldest night of the year and we decide to go out and participate in the madness. You have to be either crazy or very very determined. All I can say it was pretty cool, and by that I mean freeeeeeeeeeeezing! Thank you to everyone who supported us!




We also did a food stall and I felt very proud when a "food connoisseur" gave me the greatest compliment ever: "So, do you have your own restaurant?" she asked. This was my first try. Not to bad for a first try if someone who owns her own restaurant spots some kind of talent in you. Maybe someday I will open that little restaurant and feed the world. :)






What have I been up to?
First of all, I had to recuperate from the market experience. It took me almost two weeks to feel like I have the guts to tackle another project.

I have been organizing my studio again because clutter stresses me out and then I can't focus on any of the trillion projects I want to do. I still have a couple that is unfinished but at least I can now see them again.

I love scrapbooking but as of late I have not been able to attend to it as much as I have planned to. At least I finished this double page layout I have been working on. I still need to do some journaling but plan to just type it up and add it later. I left space for the journaling on both pages. These are photos I printed for my childhood album. On the right, I had doubles and decided to use them all to build the page. I like the way it came out. I found a little swimsuit sticker and it fit in nicely. In this design I am celebrating having friends and cousins and thinking about years have gone and where we are today…being married, having different lives of our own. I don’t have contact with the friends on the right as we moved away and never had the privilege to get to know each other as adults. At least I have some contact still with my cousins on the left.

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I had to add this sentiment. I love kids but I wanted to remind myself that I use to be one and as such, the fact that we were born is a blessing in itself. God never makes mistakes. I also still hope and pray for my own babies someday. Can't wait to love them to bits and scrapbook it all! I did a couple of project life layouts for this album but will leave that for another post.

My husband’s birthday:
I decided to make him a couple of things for his birthday. The Silhouette cutting machine is a joy. I don’t even have the latest model but I love the freedom it gives me. I can cut my own designs or stuff I downloaded for free. This was a really quick card that happened in minutes.

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I made a couple of things I knew my husband would like or that represented him. He loves lamas, landrovers, adventure, bicycles, photography, aeroplanes, he has a moustache, always looking for his glasses or looking after it. He is very particular that it should never be scratched or smudged…and then I found a little silhouette figure that represents one of his stances. I have so many photographs of him standing in this way. I also made a little pouch for all his memorabilia to go straight to the scrapbook afterwards so it wouldn’t get lost or damaged. During the birthday week, I hung it up with string in the living room. He loved that idea!

At the moment I am working on some new art that is for a show held at the Marelise Le Roux Saxonwold Art gallery in Johannesburg at the end of the month. I had the privilege to meet her a couple of weeks back. (Not name dropping but I found out I married her husband's cousin or is it she married my husband's cousin. Anyway, it doesn't matter because I love having a creative family and adding her to the list is a pleasure) What a lovely lady and so talented. She invited me to take part in an Art block exhibition with various other artists. I am very excited about this. I will blog about the event some later on. Her idea came from the Art Block exhibition held at the Spier wine farm in the Western Cape. I had the privilege to see it last year in August when we attended a family wedding. The various artists' work together makes for a lovely display. Here is a sneak peek on some of my ideas for the art blocks. I am going to do only four and have given my sister and fellow artist the opportunity to do the other four.

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This is my favourite:
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I just love these little paper bows! I also used the Silhouette to cut the owl. This machine makes card making so much easier and cards look much more rounded and professional.

Sometimes it feels like I am in a slump. So many ideas and projects I want to see happen but it feels like I am either overwhelmed by it all or stuck because their ideas are too many and the time too little. Being married, managing relationships and life and home is a tall order for anyone. Then I remember that I am just human and not super human and that it is O.K. to LIVE the life I have been given before I plan to scrapbook it.  When I look back on the last couple of months since August, I realise that I have been living it. Even if it is at a much slower pace now than when I was younger and working as a fulltime teacher, but at least now I get to do other things I wasn’t able when I had a fulltime job outside of my home life. I love my art and being able to create when ever the inspiration hits me. I love that I can be available for my family and have the energy and time to be a wife to my husband. We sometimes let our jobs and work and the things we want to do, steal the time we need to spend with our loved ones. I realise still, that I need to make it a priority daily.


Finally, I want to make a statement about the month of October. I am a Christian and follower of Jesus Christ. I do not celebrate Halloween and do believe it to be a pagan celebration. I am against it and will always discourage others from it. I urge you to get educated about the roots of this so called “holiday”. It is absolute evil and I hope none of you gets sucked in with the hype of it. I will never design or use designs or paper with this theme. I take a stand on this because I believe it to be important to stand against things like this and speak out.

For me, October is the month my sister has her birthday and all the Jacaranda trees are in full bloom in Pretoria. So it will always be a month of love and colour. This is a work done by my sister. Mixed media on a wood block.



Happy Jacaranda Season to you all. May your allergies survive it!