But stamping sure has changed. I had to look up some YouTube tuts on how these clear stamps work. Then I sat my pregnant butt down in the isle of clear stamps in a PNA store in some Cape Town mall and went through every single one of their stamp sets looking for the perfect chrysanthemum… which I never found. Although a few customers took me for an employee and were quite aloof and almost cold when they asked me about a particular product. And quickly showed all smiles and understanding when I explained that I’m excersizing my right to self-service in a store clearing lacking.

Eventually I found a nice floral symetric type stamp and some orange ink. Course had to get a block too. I’m trying to make cheap no frills, nice cards to hang my earings from. I used some paper upcycled from what was leftover from Princess Lili’s 3rd birthday party. This looks like the start of a beautiful new hobby ;)

Link Parties!

It’s taken a while for this apathy to thaw out, and it’s going slow. But today, right now, after posting this, I’ll be making a few earring sets.

It’s about time.

February 2012

I had these up for sale on etsy, but decided to rather share them for free. I’ve given them as Christmas gifts and they seem to be a hit!

I wanted to make bookmarks with  real African flair; drawing inspiration from townships, villages, metropole, landscapes, places I’ve lived at, people I’ve met. And not a leopard pattern or safari theme in sight. So each month is different, some designs might reflect that month’s international or local theme: like Valentine’s Day or Women’s month.

February is the month of love. It is also our hottest one here in the Southern hemisphere. I wanted to use white to depict the blistering, blinding heat on desert sand. I drew inspiration from the sensual white and turquoise Moroccan designs. The red shweshwe heart reminds us to make loved ones feel extra special.

Every end of the month I’ll upload the following month’s bookmark calendar.

Click on the image for the full version, save and print.

Click here for previous months.

Link Parties!

Here’s what I used:
* 2-3 big scoops of Vanilla ice-cream
* half glass of Milk
* 1 Ripe banana
* 3 Oreo cookies… I ate the 4th one.
* Blender/food processor

Blitzed it all in a mix-n-store. Enjoy :)

You can follow the step by step process from the tut, I’m just posting our pics.

Handy hubby cut the bamboo skewers down to size.

Sugar coating the soaked skewers

You really need to make sure the skewers are properly soaked, generously sugra coated and dry-dry-dry when placing in the syrup. { learn from my fail } I let the sugared skewers dry in a glass of wheat.

Making the syrup

I used a 3:1 ratio of white sugar to water. I did this two weeks ago, so can’t really remember how much sugar i used… around 4 cups?

Colour and flavour

I found some edible fairy dust still left over from Big sis’ last party. I added some flavouring to the colours too. Green almond, pink rosewater, glitter pink, plain vanilla, plain caramel…and decaff coffee. {had to be decaff cause #2 is on the way}

...we wait...

I put the glasses in the spare room where they can get some sun – After handy hubby roofed the outdoor braai, the kitchen has lost a lot of direct light, but at least it’s a lot cooler in there now as well.

It's science!

I grabbed my old Biochemistry textbook and even hit the wiki, but this preggy brain is too full of fluff to understand exactly why the crystals have these cuboidal shapes. I just know it pretty, and so cool!

Ready to eat

You’ll notice some colours missing… that’s what I meant by making sure there is a generous amount of sugar coating on the skewers. But all that syrup isn’t wasted, i have some new ones baking all sciency.

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Parties I’m linking to:
List
Get your craft on Tuesday

…and it’s been about a month now. I just can’t seem to get around to actually sit down and have a productive two hours and just WORK on it. And this frustrated me up the walls and back down. I would have an inspired moment, and nowhere to blog it down! I was shaking my fist at every distraction and time robber that crossed my path. I would let out a little *sob* and promise myself that as soon as it’s up and running, I’ll get around to posting that idea, or tut or recipe or rant.

And today, while planning my week and trying to fit my blog re-opening into this week’s evenings, I just stopped. I realized that if I can’t even get the welcome post ready and adhering to my expectations, how will I ever post any other entry. This is who I am. Rough around the edges, not nearly polished enough, dabbing off perspiration, definitely not punctual, and always scouting for a place to sit my tush down if it looks like a 5 minute wait.

So here it is: Welcome to the new Tracy’s Topics blog!

New entry: soon… hopefully earlier.

January 2012

I had these up for sale on etsy, but decided to rather share them for free. I’ve given them as Christmas gifts and they seem to be a hit!

I wanted to make bookmarks with  real African. flair, drawing inspiration from townships, villages, metropole, landscapes; places I’ve lived at, people I’ve met. And not a leopard pattern or safari theme in sight. So each month is different, some designs might reflect that month’s international or local theme: like Valentine’s Day or Women’s month.

January I used patterns seen on Ndebele nurals. I tweaked he colours a bit and it looks like a ribbon that is wound around.

Every end of the month I’ll upload the following month’s bookmark calendar.

Click on the image for the full version, save and print.

Click here for previous months.