IT'S THRILLING TO BE THREE

{Zeoné's Birthday Party Shoot}

Zeoné's little brother:

On Saturday it was serious party time at Plantland in Krugersdorp. And it was the third birthday of a very special little girl, Zeoné. Mom, Lize had the perfect party solution up her sleeve. This branch of Plantland was just the perfect spot to keep the bambinos more than occupied and at the same time the parents could sit and relax, chat and still have their kiddos in sight. There was a small animal farm on site and a huge play area with loads of play apparatus to keep all the young ones entertained.

As the party guests arrived they were chaperoned by a very friendly young lady's paint station to have their cute little faces painted. It seemed like the girls definitely enjoyed the face decoration more than the boys.

Once all the guests have arrived and settled down playing with each other, the first activity of the afternoon was making their own mini pizzas. Lots of rolling, hitting each other over the heads with the rolling pins and messing flower all over took place. But, it was definitely clear that the parents perhaps had more fun here as they had to assist putting the fillings on top and keep guard that not all the yummy ham landed in munching little mouths. I had to laugh though ... each bambino was asked to give their names so that it could be written on a piece of paper and put with their specific pizza in order that each pizza could be returned to its rightful owner ... one little girl, when prompted for her name, she proudly announced 'Liewe Heksie'. Well everyone standing around had a good chuckle. So I asked her where her 'broom' was, and once again she was quick with her response: 'my broom is my mom's kitchen cupboard at home'.

Later in the afternoon the next activity was having each bambino planting their own little plant in a cute little bucket. Once again, the ever watchful parents did more planting so as to prevent soil flying every where. I thought this was yet another great activity to make the young one's realise the importance of nature.

The last activity of the afternoon was of course the highlight of any birthday party ... blowing the candles on the birthday cake and eating it. All the parents also had a huge slice of this very yummy chocolate cake with delicious creamy icing. Must say, it went down quite well with a cup of tea. I haven't seen so many bambinos together since attending primary school.

So near the end of the party, Conroy suggested that I take a nice group picture of all the bambinos together ... ya right ... its very obvious that he doesn't have any kiddos of his own ... how do you line up 20+ children ranging between the ages of 2 and 9 all at the same and stand still for the perfect shot, I ask you.

I just would like to complement Lize on arranging such a wonderful birthday party for her little girl at such a lovely venue and with very interesting activities. And of course for all the lovely eats that were also available for all the parents. I trust that she will be happy with the photo shoot she commissioned me to do.

PS: Have you noticed all the BLONDE bambinos? ... must be something in the water ... what do you think?

- Signing off, wishing I could be 3 again

SWEET PEA {HUGS AND KISSES}

Going Double Dutch & Basic-ally Grey

After returning from the Berg where the girls did two days of solid scrapping and yours truly took a clean break from scrapping, my Mojo was itching to start touching, feeling and breathing papers, embellishments, adhesives, etc.

You probably saw that the Inkungu Chicks' made friends with the sweetest little Duiker, named Sweet Pea. After reviewing our pics of Sweet Pea at Inkungu Lodge, the girls decided that they all wanted a momento of Sweet Pea to cherish and asked me to design a layout for the pictures of Sweet Pea. I have not quite got round to designing this layout yet, but after stumbling across a new challenge blog ( ... I know you are all shouting, ja, ja, ja ... she's becoming a serious challenge addict bore), I just had to try my hand at their First Challenge.

Double Dutch is a brand new challenge blog, hot off the press and their first challenge is to create a purse card. When I saw this Sweet Pea came to mind immediately. Mike and Paddy Behr, Sweet Pea's Mom and Dad, were clearly loving this little Duiker to bits and I thought it would be a kind of nice gesture to make them a card with some pics of their beloved Sweet Pea which they could cherish even after Sweet Pea has gone to Duiker heaven. Please visit the Double Dutch blog to have a look at the beautiful creations of their Design Team.

I have also entered this purse card for this week's challenge over at the Basic Grey Challenge Blog where the theme for this week's challenge is Distressing. I have used the following Basic Grey patterned cardstock on this creation:

Aged&Confused Vagabond Silk Necktie; Aged&Confused Vagabond Vintage Paisley and Aged&Confused Vagabond Swiss Dot.

As I started with the project, it just kept on evolving and ended up in a kind of mini memory book of Sweet Pea. I did adjust the purse measurements on the Double Dutch challenge slightly to have a bigger purse card to display Sweet Pea's beauty. The challenge only wanted us to create the basic purse card and create our own inserts and embellish it the way we wanted.

I created four mini folders to put in the four pockets of the purse card and decorated all four sides of each folder card with pics of Sweet Pea meeting Doing Life's Paparazzi.

The beige ribbon I used around the spine section of the purse was actually the ribbon that was tied around our towels in the bathroom at Inkungu Lodge. Thought this was also kind of a nice personal touch.

Measurements for the basic purse card:

Cut a cardstock strip of 29x15cm and fold it in half.

Cut a patterned cardstock paper strip of 29x25cm, cut it lengthways at 11cm. Cut the 11cm strip in half so that you have 2 pieces measuring 11x14.5cm each. Stick the sides and bottom of each piece down at the bottom on the inside of the purse, forming two open pockets.

Score the other 29x14cm patterned cardstock piece in half and stick the sides and bottom down on the outside of the purse also forming two open pockets.

Make 4 folder cards each measuring 19.5x12.5cm. Score and fold each at 10cm. Continue to decorate and embellish according to your own taste.

Cut 2 pieces patterned cardstock measuring 14.5x4cm for the flaps of the two inside pockets.

Continue to decorate to your heart's content.

Let us hope that Mike and Paddy will treasure this creation.

- Sweet Pea Admirer Signing Off