DOING LIFE

50 GOLDEN YEARS PRESENTATION

{1958 to 2008}

I had this idea of having a slideshow running on a big screen throughout my in-laws’ golden anniversary breakfast on 13 December. The photos on the slideshow should all be black and white to create a nostalgic ambiance as if an old movie is playing in the background. Initially I thought it should only take an hour or two to put this PowerPoint presentation together, but once I got started, it snow balled and I found myself digging amongst my old negatives, albums and some old black and white photos I borrowed from Mom a few years back, with the purpose then being to create a scrapbook album. I had some of my old negatives scanned to digital format for the purpose of importing them into the presentation.

After 4 full days of input, I am now on slide no.87 and still continuing. I have also tried to dolly up each slide with some doodles and photo corner watermarks in the background. The whole presentation is in chronological order from 1956 through to 2008. It starts of where Coen and Marie started the dating game way back in 1956, the marriage, the children, the grand children, etc. up to Easter Weekend in 2008. Then it daunted on me that this presentation actually relates the whole family saga (dates, names, places, etc.) and should be kept by each family unit as a heirloom. So the idea was formed that each family unit should get a DVD with the presentation on it. And of course, true to our creative beings’ nature, the DVD had to be presented in a crafty DVD case. So here are the DVD covers for each family unit.

Now we must just hope that Barkly Theatre’s equipment will be able to run the slideshow smoothly without any hiccups.

Some more self-inflicted punishment came to mind as I thought it would look nice to have a small gesture of thanks at each table setting, so I am busy creating 24 pouches with a choccie inside (I know you are all sighing with boredom, thinking ‘can’t she have enough of this pouch thing now?’) … will upload a few pics of these some time next week, when they are all done as the final prep work for Doing Life’s 6 December 08 Scrapaganza is keeping me a bit occupied at the moment.

A few finer details have also been finalised with Barkly Theatre, namely: They have sourced some ostrich feathers to incorporate with the décor (as Coen & Marie’s wedding took place in Oudtshoorn, the home of the ostrich). They will also play the ‘wedding march’ (I think this is what you call the ‘troumars’ in English) as they walk into the venue.

So far everything has still been kept a secret and Coen & Marie still has no idea what devious sneaking is going on behind their backs … lets hope it stays this way.

Off to do some final packing before we leave for Durban early Friday morning.

- Secrecy Signing Off