Bits and Bobs

Happy Birthday Mom! Yesterday was my mom's birthday. I finally managed to time it right with the South African postal service and got this card sent out to her in time for her birthday. My poor dad suffers from having his birthday two days after mine, and I'm always so self-absorbed I never remember to post his card out quite early enough. I am going to make it my New Year's resolution to get better at that. Anyway, I hope you had a lovely day, Mom, and I would love to be able to make your 60th cake next year...we'll have to work on that!

I saw the little owl brooch on LollyChops in her post dated 26 October. She is fabulously creative and generous too, check out her free printables link if you like digi scrapping and card making. I knew straight away that I had to make my mom an owl - she has collected owls since forever!

And then, I have been crafty, I just haven't been blogging about it all. Tomorrow I will start the reveal of my latest project...it will take nearly all of December to reveal the whole thing, hehe, can you guess? And because I managed to drill holes big enough for the pegs to fit in on these wood beads, I've managed to make a few more peg dolls. I'm going to have to find someone who can ship me the proper head beads from America though, because my wrists were killing me after hand-drilling all of these, then wood-filling the top hole and then sanding the whole bead down again. They're going to look very sweet when finished, and hopefully I'll be able to sell a couple before Christmas!

ETA Fixed the link ;-)

Mail from South Africa!

This is Jo. We have known each other since I was five, she was six, and I got chicken pox just after she'd had it. My mom took us across the road to confirm what she suspected. Her mom said yes, that looks like chicken pox. And although they moved away a few years later, we met up again while studying, much to our surprise, and we've pretty much stayed friends ever since. We even became neighbours for a second time when Jo and her husband bought a house four doors down from ours. But then we left for the UK, and contact has been sporadic, but we're still good friends. We have always shared more than just a name...Jo and I were often likely to turn up wearing the same skirt or blouse, and our love for all things sparkly will always keep us connected! She's a magpie of note, and so often I will see something in our British stores that makes me think of her straight away, and I SO wish they'd move over here!

Here we are on my first day of school - my big sis Andrea, who was in Standard One, Jo, who was in Grade Two, and me, going into Grade One. They've changed the names of school grades now, they just follow on numerically. But we were six, seven and eight years old.

Jo and Alexis got married in Cape Town last year in February, and we flew out for their wedding. Holly was their flower girl (what a treat, she loved every minute of it!). Jo made her wedding cake toppers - aren't they darling?

The whole wedding was themed around sweet little garden birds, from the invitation (see it here), to the bird cages with floral displays, Holly's petals were in a little birdcage, the cake toppers were of course birds, and we even got a pair of wings for Holly to wear!

And yesterday, I got a lovely parcel in the mail from Jo for my birthday! Typically, you can never count on the South African post service, so it took a whole month to get here, but actually, it's quite exciting receiving something out the blue! This protea brooch is gorgeous, it's already on my coat and I have had compliments on it too! The protea is South Africa's national flower, and the springbok is the national animal. This brooch? it's a protea made from springbok skin! I love it, so THANK YOU SO MUCH JO!!!

And then she also sent me this gorgeous bracelet. I took the photo of it on my table lamp, as I couldn't shoot it on my wrist! It's lovely, and I can't wait for summer to be able to wear it and show it off properly too!

One Week Later...

I had to redo the plaster dressing on his toe this evening, so I thought I'd try get a quick picture of it. The bruising has gone down substantially, you can't really see the colour in these pictures, but it is looking a whole lot better!

In this shot you can see how rotated it still is - I'm not sure if it will ever recover to a fully upright position, but the doc said it shouldn't bother him at all if it doesn't. But just look at it compared to his left toe - it's huge! Ouch, no wonder he is loving the too-big crocs his cousin gave him, they're perfect on his sore foot!

My Little Hopalong Casualty

That's what a broken and rotated baby toe looks like on a four year old's foot. Ouch! With sock imprints for added texture, LOL!


This is what said four year old looks like watching one of the Harry Potter movies I bought him and his big sis as a treat for being so brave and as a bribe for not making one more complaint while I did my desperately overdue grocery shop (I usually shop on Mondays!)

Yesterday, although fully dressed for school and happy to go, by the time we were ready to leave the house he'd got all shivery and tired, so we dropped Holly off and then headed to a friend for coffee. While there, he somehow managed to tip the very heavy piano stool over which landed on his foot/toe.

You know when you hear a scream and you just know? And then when you pry their hand off their foot and you see, and you just know? Yep, there was no doubt in my mind what he'd just managed to do, and that we had to head on down to A&E as soon as possible. He was very brave, and thankfully fell asleep so was not aware of the fact that we were there for nearly four hours in total. Why oh why couldn't the nurse have made the decision to send us to X-ray earlier? Why was it only the doctor, who saw us after two hours waiting, that could send us, where we proceeded to wait another 40 minutes or so? Only to then have to wait for the doc to get a minute to look at the X-ray, and then come and tell us that yes, he has indeed broken the middle phalanx of his baby toe, and rotated the toe outwards, and that the only treatment is to strap it to his other toes, keep the weight off it and keep giving pain relief as needed.

Of course, Liam thought it terribly exciting to be going to the hospital, and very proudly tells people now that he's broken his bone, and I think he's liking being carried everywhere and getting Harry Potter dvd's as treats! He also thought it cool to have to wear a face mask because he had flu symptoms. I'm not sure how much he's going to like our visit to the fracture clinic tomorrow morning, where I hear the wait may be just as long.

The kids wanted to say thanks...

...to Nana and Grandad, and Sharon and David for their money gifts! Liam and Holly both got money from their grandparents in SA, and Holly put an extra bit from Sharon and David in, and they bought themselves these!
Unfortunately, because I needed to prompt them, you get to hear my voice (Ughh!!) and Tris sneezing in the background. I didn't hold the camera very stable so please excuse all the shakes, but this is just for my folks in South Africa!


The poor little guy is thick with 'flu, hence the very droopy eyes and nasal voice. But he's not too sick to play with his new lego!