Almost 3 Months!!!

I cannot believe it’s been almost 3 months since my last post!!! Shocking! Shameful!! Terrible!!!!  and for some of that time I have some excellent reasons (excuses)… I went to London in the summer, stayed with my baby sister and her family – had a great time… the highlight of my holiday (apart from spending time with my sis and my lovely nieces) was going to the Lollibop Festival where I was picked out of the crowd whilst watching the AMAZING performers Osadia… and this is how I looked afterwards :-) 

Photography by Size Barnes

Bare in mind that I had to ride the bus through London and go to Friday night dinner at my parents looking like this!!! :-) What an amazing experience!!! if you ever get the chance to see Osadia perform… go and see them!!!

Also, whilst in London my son and niece celebrated their birthdays… so I made cakes, of course! :-) Ethan wanted a ghost castle and my niece a beehive

and whilst there… and because I don’t have any nice pictures of my son and I together, my friend Dawn, who is a photographer, took some gorgeous pictures of us, here are two of my favourites:

Photography by Dawn Aitman

and then we did come back home, but Ethan was still off school… so I spent lots of time with him at the pool… summer holidays ended… school started again…

and I went back to teaching workshop…

So, through out it all, I found it hard to sit down and do some serious beading… but somehow managed to make (and finish) these two new piece:

Tropical Waters – Necklace

Tropical Waters – Cuff

 

I have a few more pieces on the go… and hopefully as soon as my friend Michael, who came to stay for two and a half weeks,  goes back to London (yes, yet another wonderful distraction)… I will bury my face into my beads and get some more pieces finished… till then… HUGE apologies for not having been around for so long… but sometimes life takes over and thankfully this time it was all good! :-)

Happy beading everyone!!!

Birthday parties and Red Poppies…

I’ve been so busy with the preparations for my son’s 6th birthday!!! Although his actual birthday is not till the 2nd July, due to the summer holidays we had his school party two weeks ago and his big party this past Friday… Who would have thought preparing for a 6 year old party would consume so much of my time!!! OK, so I did go overboard with the cakes…. and I did burn the first 3 I made!!! but all in all they turned our great!!!

This was his cake at school:

He shared both birthday parties with his good friend and neighbour who chose to have the main party at a horse riding ranch! what a brilliant idea that turned out to be!!! The kids had so much fun and it was so nice to have a kid’s birthday party that was different to the usual, and all kids got to ride on the horses!!! Even my brave little Ethan (who was really scared to begin with) absolutely loved it!!!

This is my favourite picture of the day – he looked so cute with his riding hat on!!!

and for this party he wanted me to make him an igloo cake with penguins… and I obliged:

I loved making the igloo and the cake itself turned out delicious!!!! and didn’t melt even in the 36 degrees heat wave we had, which I was really worried about!!!

I am so glad the whole thing is over though… it was a lot of work, worry, preparations, etc. … On his actual birthday I’m planning to take him to the pool for a nice relaxing day and then dinner with my sister and her kids….

And in between all this I also had to deal with my real job, which almost made me miss the deadline to enter the first BAO challenge “A Novel Idea”, but I managed to get it together and here is my entry:

Red Poppy – OOAK Bracelet

This is the first time the BAO are putting on a challenge so I really wanted to make sure I entered!

Voting will take place on the BAO blog between the 15th – 22nd June, so go during that week to check out the entries and vote for your favourite! http://beadartoriginals.blogspot.com

Almost made it to the party....

My gorgeous Ethan celebrated his 4th birthday 2 days ago... and all was well... I spent the day shopping for the ingredients to make the cake, candles and all the other stuff needed for the party at the kindergarten later on this morning.... then I picked him up from kindergarten at 3.30 pm and took him to the pool with my friend, his daughter, my sister and 3 of her 4 kids... after a couple of hours in the water, we all went together for a celebratory family dinner.... and Ethan had a lovely day! :-)

Last night, my friend and I stayed up till past midnight making Ethan's cake.... He was in charge of the cutting out and basic shaping of the cake into an aeroplane, which was Ethan's choice for this year's birthday cake... and I was in charge of the kneading and handling of the sugar-paste.....

I think both of us were very proud of the results.... we worked pretty well as a cake-making team :-) and after almost 6 hours of kneading, cutting, shaping, taking photos of our masterpiece.... and of course, standing on our feet, we finally sit down to relax... and that is when it starts... my poor little baby crying out for his mummy.... and my son is not one to ever wake up in the middle of the night.... so there I am, 1 am and I find myself changing bed sheets and pyjamas because the poor little soul is puking his little guts out!!!... talk about bad timing! There's some form of 24 hour stomach bug going around at his kindergarten.... and yeah, seems like the poor thing has caught it.... It's now 6.30 am.... and after 3 bed changes.... the disappointment is starting to surface in both of us.... I just spoke to his teacher and we are going to wait an hour see how he is doing and if from now to then he doesn't vomit, maybe we will take him to the kindergarten just for the 45 minutes party and cake sharing.... I feel so sorry for him... he's been looking forward to this for weeks...

In the meantime... here is the cake that may never see the light of day.... and although it was a lot of fun making, I really hope I don't have to make another one for next week... :-)

My necklace from Ixela

I just managed to take a photo of my gorgeous necklace that I received yesterday from Ixela and here it is... still love it!!!! :-) I wore it yesterday and got so many compliments on it... but i'm not surprised because it is just G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S!!!! :-) I'm so lucky to own it!!!

Go check out her shop: http://www.ixela.etsy.com

and her blog: http://www.ixela-thoughts.blogspot.com/

My first birthday present!!!!! alomost glad to be a year older :-)

I took my son to day-care this morning, after 10 whole days at home... we are both still alive :-) am not sure who got on whose nerves more the last few days... the poor little chap, I'm not easy to live with :-) so was already over the moon to have a day to myself... the sun was shining, the birds were chirping and I was almost floating on air... Finally I could start exercising again, which I haven't done for so many months I'm ashamed to count them.... but the weight has piled on and sitting at my beading table or the computer does not burn too many calories, so I did my 85 minutes on the treadmill... feeling great... decided that this week i'm going to attempt to finish all the projects that need finishing and promised myself that I would not start anything new until at least 3 are completed. Well that was the plan... reality set in after a few hours of beading that 1) my legs and my not-so-little-bottom were killing me ,2) exercising on only 4 hours sleep after such a long break was probably not the smartest thing to do and 3) if I didn't go and take a break I would probably collapse from exhaustion... so I went to my room to catch up on some tv and rest... and just as I was about to relax.. .the door bell rang, the dog went nuts... I run to the door and am greeted by the postman who after all these years hasn't yet worked out that my Hebrew is terrible and I really don't understand a word he is saying, but he hands me a package and it's from my friend in Italy Alessandra of Ixela.... I open it curiously and.... the amazing person that she is has sent me one of her beautiful jewelry pieces. How absolutley thoughtful and gorgeous of her. Not only she sent me one of her gorgeous jewelry pieces but she actually sent me one of my favourites!!!!


Check this out!!!! this isn't the actual necklace, but the light is not good enough to take photos now. My necklace is very similar except that the gold chain has large pearls every 3 links... I can't begin to tell you how beautiful it is!!!! the picture does not do it justice. The large vintage crystal is so beautiful... I actually got terribly emotional and cried... like a soppy cow :-)

Thank you so, so, so much Ale!!!!! so nice of you and so unnecessary, but I absolutely love it!!!!!

In February I ordered one of her necklaces for my baby sis (I say baby because she's the youngest, however she is 35 :-D and has 2 babies of her own) and she loved it!!!!

So if you are thinking of surprising anyone or spoiling yourself, go and check out her shop. Her jewelry is classical with a twist. She even has some pieces with teddy bears and fish. I love it!!!!!

Go and pay her a visit at www.ixela.etsy.com or go and visit her blog where she features different artists every week www.ixela-thoughts.blogspot.com.

I must mention this.... One thing that has come out of me opening my Etsy shop is that I met the most generous and amazing people, from all over the world, and Alessandra is one of them.

So again, and I'm sure she is going to get sick of hearing this.... but.... thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! You have made my day and probably my year!!! :-)

My birthday is not for another couple of days, and I'm sure by then my happy cheerful self will have completly vanished and in its place will be my usual I-hate-birthdays person... thankfully that person also vanishes within a few days after the dreaded day, when reality kicks in and I once again become thankful to just be, regardless of how old I'm getting :-)

Tomorrow... less excercise, maybe only 45 minutes, if I can acutally walk, and I can tell you, it does not look so good now.... lots of beading and hopefully I will be able to post my new pieces soonish :-)

In the mean time... wishing anyone who is celebrating their birthday a very happy one :-) and happy beading to the rest of you!!! :-)