LOVE CONQUERS ALL ...
{Pam's 50th Wedding Anniversary}

My dear friend Pam and her darling husband are celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary on 3 November and to honour this Pam is hosting a 50th Challenge with some lovely DigiStamps4Joy images up for grabs.  All you have to do is to create a card celebrating any 50th event and link it up over at her challenge here.  

I have created this easel card for Pam's 50th Anniversary using a Bugaboo image.  The butterflies were cropped from the original image and then scaled up, printed and coloured with H2O's and dry chalks.

Here's the wording which is on the inside:

Of all the joys in a long and happy life, there’s none so precious as the love between husband and wife.  May your years ahead

be blessed with a wonderful journey.

HAPPY 50^th ANNIVERSARY!

Here's some photos of the severe hail storm we had this Tuesday afternoon here at our home in Fourways, Johannesburg.  Some hail stones were the size of golf balls.  We did fear for our home's windows, but fortunately not damage even the indigenous garden survived quite well.

   

Once again I would like to link this creation up with the following challenges:

1. Delightful Challenges: Delightful Stitching (Faux)
2. Simply Create: Anything Goes
3. Brown Sugar: Anything Goes
4. Inspire me Fridays: Anything Goes
5. Stamping for the Weekend: Anything Goes
6. Challenges 4 Everybody: Anything Goes
7. Corrosive: Know When to Fold 'Em
8. Lady Anne's: Anything Goes
9. Make it Monday: Anything Goes
10. Paper Playtime: Anything Goes
11. The Old Back Porch Week 43: Anything Goes
12. Just Keep on Creating: Anything Goes
13. Anything Goes: Anything Goes
14. LEJ: Anything Goes
15. Party Time Tuesdays: Anything Goes
16. Through the Craftroom Door: Anything Goes
17. Pumpy's 50th Challenge: A creation celebrating a 50th
18. Crafts and Me: Bling
19. Flutter By Wednesdays: Anything Goes with Butterflies
20. Creative Draft Challenges2: Special Occasion (50th Wedding Anniversary)

Thank you to all my wonderful Followers (old and new) for all the lovely inspiring comments you leave behind.

STAPELIA GIGANTEA

{Carrion Flower}

I have posted some photos in 2009 here about this plant's strange flower.  Well, during my visit in November 2011 to Durban, I pinched  three pieces from my dear frined, Michelle's Stapelias in her garden and planted them on my return here in our home garden in Fourways, Johannesburg.  This morning I was wondering  in the garden with an early morning cup of tea and could not believe that one of the three is actually sporting a beautiful flower.  As you can see the flower is actually bigger than the little plant itself.  I just love these stunningly unique flowers and find the beautiful little red lines on the yellow so interesting to look at.  This is definitely another wonder of nature. 

Thank you for sharing in my joy nature had to offer.

Aloe Reitzii's flowering in Summer
{January/February 2012}

Its busy stations here at the Fourie household with all the final prep for {Doing Life's} debut at Hobby-X 2012.  My dear friends Michelle and Shelley are flying up bright and early Wednesday morning for 5 days to help me setup and man our stand for the days, 1-4 March.  Excitement is definitely in the air.

We usually associate aloe flowers with Winter here in South Africa.  But this lovely Aloe Reitzii variety flowers in the middle of summer.  At the moment all of them are starting to or are flowering in our garden.  Hard to believe that something so vibrant colour wise, can stem from a little brown knob.  Nature truly never ceases to amaze.

Appreciate all your visits and lovely comments here at {Doing Life}.  Will be chatting to you soon.

Freak Hail Storm
{Sunday, 5 February 2012}

Sunday afternoon at about 4:30pm, the heavens opened here in Fourways, Johannesburg {South Africa} and a mass of hail were shooting down from the sky at a 45 degree angle, accompanied by thunder and lightning.  We stood in amazement on the patio looking at the spectacle. some of the rock roses in the garden took some hammering, but otherwise everything else seemed to be hail proof.  On Monday morning there were still blocks of ice here and there in the garden.  It seemed like a lot of the houses in our estate had some problems with their roofs leaking during storm as I have noticed quite a number of roof contractors visiting the estate on Monday.  Fortunately we were okay apart from no water or electricity supply since 1pm Sunday and only functioned again in the early morning hours of Monday.

So here are a pic or two:

Floods and torrent rains have been fore casted by the weather experts for February in Gauteng.  So it seems like anything is possible, we might see snow in February here in South Africa.

LONG OUTSTANDING PROJECT FINISHED AT LAST

At last I managed to mosaic the two chairs to go with the table I did a few years ago at my very first mosaic class. The set has now got a nice spot beside our pool where I had my first early morning cup of coffee this morning. Its amazing how we tend to put off things and once we have actually done them, we don't know why we took so long.

The damp proofing/painters have at last finished our home and it is great to have our home back for ourselves after 7 weeks. It was all worthwhile. We had our first mild thunder storm last night and everything is nice and fresh this morning after the rain.

BURCHELL'S COUCAL {Vleiloerie}

At last I had the guts to upgrade my blog's template and in the end it was not too difficult. The new functionality works quite well as one can add different 'gadgets' to a blog's template. I added a few html gadgets, one of which was for my sidebar into which I just pasted the html from my old template. But of course one need to copy ones old template's html and paste it into a Word document which one saves onto one's hard drive. Then one can just keep this document open and copy different html sections into html gadgets on your new template. So for those of you who have not yet taken the plunge, go for it.

I am flying to Durban this coming Thursday to present {Doing Life's} next Scrapaganza at Makaranga Garden Lodge in Kloof on Saturday, 9 October. For those ladies whose busy schedules did not allow them to indulge in a full day of scrapping pampering, you are all still welcome to pop into the {Doing Life} shop during the course of the day. Michelle {the jetsetter - see her blog of her current USA trip} will be on 24/7 shop duty.

On another note and birds of a different feather ... a few weeks ago I was so thrilled to have spotted a Burchell's Coucal in our garden here in the middle of the Wild West {Johannesburg}. This was the first time I have ever seen one with my own eyes ... always just heard stories from excited spotters. This one actually frequents our garden now on a regular basis and loves to perch in the numerous aloe trees where it hides itself behind the aloe leaves. Its quite interesting that it behaves exactly as Sasol's 'Voels van die Bosveld - Kitsgids' describes it i.e. being a shy bird which crawls through the underbush and this is just what it does. I also caught it once or twice sitting amongst the shrubs on the ground bathing itself whilst the irrigation is on. Its quite a large bird and is not a seed eater. Its diet is taking small birds from their nests, snails, lizards and mice. It will very seldom take fruit. Being such an elusive bird, I just could not get some clear photos of it, even with my big lens. The photos below are about the best of the lot where it was sunbathing on the sandstone bench and table after a sprinkler bath.

Wishing you all a fabulous weekend and thanks again for stopping by.

LIFE'S GOOD with TRIANGLES

{DDCC Design Team Project + Stamp Something + ABC Challenge}

Okay, by now you all no my weekly drill of completing my Dutch Dare Card Challenge design team project. This week the theme is to create a triangle card. I probably haven't interpreted the challenge 100%, but I thought that my triangle iris folding design would be suitable. The triangle shape is probably the easiest iris folding design shape I have done thus far. I really enjoyed creating this iris folding project and would probably use the triangle iris folding design much more in future.

I am also entering this card into this week's challenge over at Stamp Something where the challenge this week is to create a card with black, white and one other colour. My one other colour is grey. The card's colours are actually true black and white and I apologise for the slightly yellow tint in the photos, but at least you are getting the idea ... I hope ... Then I am also entering this creation into this week's ABC Challenge's Two Tone theme.

Below is a photo or two of the nectar bottle I was telling you all about in a few posts back. The nectar drinking birdies just love this bottle filled with one third brown sugar and two thirds water. The winged tribe definitely like their drink shaken and not stirred, so just shake the sugar and water thoroughly in the bottle until all the sugar has dissolved. Once they have discovered it in your garden, they probably take just over one week to finish it. As I have mentioned before, I purchased this bottle at our local pet shop. There are colourful beads adhered to the wire holder which probably is giving locals new job opportunities.

Off to start with my latest commission for 40 wedding card invitations. Then there is also 80 pillow gift boxes for the tables ... seems like these pillow boxes just can't stop haunting me in their numbers galore.

Thank you once again for all your lovely comments. I know there are quite a few of DL's regular followers that still struggle to access the site and I am sure Mr Blogger is still slaving away at fixing this problems. So thanks for all your patience.

AMBER AMONGST THE ALOES

{Saturday, 6 June 2009}

Another update on the progress of the aloe flowers. The first two photos below just shows how quickly the aloe flowers are growing just within a few days.

Nature never ceases to amaze. Its hard to believe that the beautiful orange and yellow aloe flowers below evolved from these funny looking spiky balls.

Notice the busy bee collecting pollen in the above photo.

Above: Even Amber Thomson (2 years, 9 months) are amazed at these aloe flowers and couldn't resist touching them. Fortunately, Mrs Bee was not visiting at the time.

Below is a layout I did of Amber a year and a half ago. Can't believe how much she has grown since then, becoming a cute hugable little girl with very much her own unique bubbly personality.

I leave you all now, on my way to Durban early tomorrow morning. Me and Michelle will be setting up for Saturday's Makaranga Scrapaganza most of Friday, so yours truly will be out of action till next Tuesday. But I will be popping into all your yummy blogs to see what you have all been up to. Thanks again for all your inspiring comments.