DOING LIFE

SCRAPBOOK CONFERENCE - Cape Town 8&9 May 2010

My birthday this year was celebrated in true scrapbooking style - Friday, 7 May, was my birthday and I flew from Lanseria to Cape Town, arriving just before 11am and waited for an hour or so for Michelle to fly in from Durban. The Ocean View Hotel's shuttle service collected us promptly and after a 30 minutes drive we arrived at the Hotel during lunch time. We checked into our room and quickly packed out and off we went to the Hotel's restaurant to enjoy a late lunch just after 3pm.

Sheila Corfe and Debbie van Coppenhagen checked in just after 5pm. The birthday girls (me and Sheila's birthdays are both on 7 May) congratulated each other (felt quite strange) at reception. Whilst Sheila and Debbie checked into their room, me and Michelle waited for them at the Hotel's restaurant where we had some cocktails and a delicious supper finished off by traditional malva poeding and homemade custard - the perfect sweet touch to celebrate a birthday.

Forever Memories' annual scrapbook conference was held at the Ocean View Hotel on Saturday and Sunday, 8 & 9 May 2010. Being a Forever Memories' consultant, I was approached late last year to present a class during the conference and was also invited to have Doing Life's shop represented during the conference. And as most of the Makaranga Scrapaganza delegates know by now, Doing Life's shop just won't be as organised without Michelle Ramsay running it. So it was fantastic when Michelle said she would gladly join me and assist me during my class presentation and at the shop.

We did not have any time to take photos of the actual goings on at the conference itself as we were way too busy taking part in the various classes ourselves as well as running the Doing Life shop. The scrap ladies were constantly popping in at the shop area even during the classes, so me and Michelle had to alternate manning the shop.

All these photos were taken early evening on Sunday, after the conference and after we have packed everything at the shop. It was freezing cold and wet with a strong wind blowing, but we were adament coming back with at least a few shots of the Strand beach.

The idea behind these really peculiar looking photos, was to create an illusion that we are actually touching the koppies in the distance ... so there was really a method behind the madness.

Michelle took the above two beautiful early morning misty photos on Saturday morning from our bedroom window on the 4th floor of the hotel. They really came out great Michelle.

Then of course the highlight of the conference was that Doing Life's representation, of 4 ladies, walked away with the honours for three of the five projects presented during the 2-day conference. I won the canvas painting/distressing technique with the above project I created with Amber's photos. I am definitely not an off the page person, but really enjoyed this project with which we had quite a bit of freedom to do our own thing ... it was very similar to decoupaging.

And then Sheila walked away with Retha van der Walt's class for her stunning layout (don't have a pic of it yet) she did with her daughter's hens' party photos. Below was my take on Retha's layout. Sheila also walked off with a third category which was a single page presented by Judy of Forever Memories. Well done Sheila!!

Unfortunately, I cannot reveal the double page layout I presented, as it will be one of the layouts the Tweespruit ladies in the Free State will be doing at their upcoming one and half day Scrapaganza on 18 & 19 June.

We flew back on Monday, quite exhausted, but pleased that Doing Life's shop did exceedingly well and us four girls had some serious fun. And of course my motto has always been that a change in scenery is as good as a holiday in itself.

Thanks again for taking some time out to pop in here and hope you enjoyed it.