Family Album: The Huggy Bear.

From what I remember of the story, my mother knitted this jumper with a zipper down the front. She didn't take not of the sizing instruction and made the jumper about 5 sizes to big for her. It was then nicknamed the Huggy Bear jumper and was later passed on to my father. I don't know what ever happened to the jumper in the end, but it was a family member for some years, making its appearance during winter.

Family Album: Group photo

Something a little bit different: Kodamas

I am a very big Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki having watched nearly all their animated movies. I recently introduced a few young friends to Studio Ghibli animation and realised I have forgotten about a project I wanted to do years ago.

One of the movies was Princess Mononoke  which is a lovely film. In the movie there are tree spirits called Kodama  which are part of Japanese folk lore. Miyazaki characterized them for his film as these white humanoids that have have little bobble heads. I wanted to sculpt little ones from polymer clay. I was able to find glow in the dark Sculpey III and ended up making these little guys. 

 

Family Album: Father and Son

Father and some bonding, there are a number of these photos in the collection I have.  My brother doesn't look at all interested in what my father is actually saying, but instead is entirely captured by being pulled along.

Family Album: Grandmother

As mentioned in a previous entry, my grandmother was in her late 60's when I was born, and as a result I only really ever knew her as an elderly lady. It was only in 2006 that I saw photos of her as a young woman. Here she is middle aged and sitting for some family portraits. I will post up some other photos of Amy Olwage (nee Viljoen) when I get around to doing the layouts.

Mini Album #4 for a overseas friend

Recently I have started writing to an acquaintance as pen pal in the UK. She spoke of her admiration for my craft work and as she is an armature photographer, I felt it was a great idea to make her a mini album for all her photos she will be taking. I hope she likes it.

Family Album: Group Shot

In this photo from left to right

Eric Olwage (M Grandfather), Peggy Watson (P Grandmother), Micheal Watson (P Uncle), Halcyon Olwage (Mother), Raymond Watson (Father), Amy Olwage (M Grandmother) and Ryan Watson (P Grandfather)

I think this was taken in the late 60's or maybe 1970 I am not sure. 

Family Album: Halcyon Mignon Olwage

It is a little odd looking at photos of a parent when they were 2 1/2 years old. You don't think of your parents as 2 1/2 because well they are your parents, to you they are an adult and have always been an adult. Then the rational mind steps in and goes, "Think about it genius!" I guess for me, I never saw these photos until I was in my late 20's and mother mother hadn't really changed much since i was born because she was my mother and I was around her a lot of the time. The metal frame that is around the one photo is the original frame that the picture was in. I think my grand mother kept it next to her bed and I felt it was important to keep the photos with the the frame, it seemed right. 

Family Album: Memories, Memories Mother

Let me start by saying these two pages were difficult to do, for a few reasons. These are a couple photos that survived of my parents wedding in June 1973, 40 years ago this past weekend. I say survived because my parents separated and divorced in 2000 when I was 21 after which my mother disposed of the "Wedding album". I had mixed feeling about doing these pages as the marriage ended, however in the end I felt it was necessary to include the event in their prospective files as it was a significant moment. In saying that, no I will not be doing a "Divorce" page for each of my parents, that would just be in bad taste.

One story I recall my mother telling me about her wedding was her mother's totally dismay of the fact that my mother is NOT wearing a wedding dress but rather an all in one cat suit with flared pant legs. I never saw the outfit as my mother was not the sentimental type, however she did keep the lace jacket that she wore over the top of the outfit. My mother was a self proclaimed tom boy and never submitted to feminine ways of make up and dresses.  All that a side she did look stunning on her wedding day, she wore that big smile the whole time from what I can recall of the photos.

Family Album: Smiles

I don't have much to say about this layout, apart from I like it. in the photo is my brother, myself and my mother. 

I do miss my mother.

Family Album: Generations

My maternal grandparents were born in 1904 and 1905, my mother was born in 1946 and Danial, my brother and I, were born in the mid to late 1970's by which time my grandparents were in there late 60's. There was a massive generational gap between us and most of the time we seemed alien to my grandparents. As my grandparents live in Johannesburg and my family in Port Elizabeth, we saw my grandparents maybe once or twice a year. It was a 12 hours car ride from PE to Jo'burg and flying in South Africa at the time  was not financially doable. I didn't know Doodie and Ou poppie (what we called them) very well but they were family, I understand now that there were a lot of hardships in both their lives that were never spoken of, mostly because in the time they grew up it wasn't the done thing to talk. I wish I had of  known them then the way I know them now. I do love this photo of us.

Family Album: Grandfather

I found this lovely photograph of my mother father as a young man. His full name is Adriaan Johannes Van Niekerk Olwage but we all knew him as Eric or Oupoppie. When I saw the photo, I knew I wanted to do a layout that was simple but complimented the photograph. I am so happy with how this has turned out and know it will look wonderful in my grandfathers file.

Family Album: Family

So this last weekend I had two solid days of crafting, which was wonderful. After completing some study assignments and lectures I felt it was I was very much deserving of some creative escapism. So, movies were chosen and snacks were bought and I plonked my self down in front of the TV for Saturday and Sunday and crafted away. I was able to complete 10 full pages, the aim wasn't to create master pieces, but to get pages done. I am very happy with all the 10 pages I did and was able to get through a good chunk of stock that it seems I had been accumulating.

In this photo is my immediate family; mother, father, brother and myself, also my paternal grandparents. I have very vague recollection of the day but nothing specific as we did these photo sessions annually. I am starting to get more comfortable with using flowers in my layouts, most because I have a draw full of flowers that really need to be used.

Family Album: Happily Ever After

Danial and I used to get totally immersed in fantasy world play, something that the current generation I think is missing out on. Here we are in our rather large living room playing with Lego and race cars and video tapes and cassette tapes... and of course me in my Winnie the Pooh dance costume from a show I had recently done. I assure you we are having a great time.

For some reason I am not very happy with this layout and how it turned out. It feels very chaotic to me and rather unsophisticated. HOWEVER, I have come to a very strong belief that not all my layouts and works have to be master pieces and this layout will still go in to a file for either my self or my brother. I may not like this layout but I accept it for what it is and will leave it at that.

Family Album: Family Together

I actually got some scrapbooking and crafting in lately, which is some relaxing and some times needed when studying. It was a lovely change to be able to sit down with my craft tools and papers and create something. I found this photo and had to have a little giggle at my mothers hairs, this was her poodle phase. My mother had always had long dead straight hair, and one day in the last 70's early 80's she started getting perms. You cannot fault her for experimenting, perhaps this is where I get my keen adventurous coiffure sense from. I am not sure when this was taken, most likely when I was between 12 and 18 months old, which puts it at about 1980-1981. My father and his brother flanking my mother in the center at the back. My brother and I sitting on my paternal grandparents laps, Ryan Watson and Margaret 'Peggy' Watson. 

Birthday present and Card

So for the last 3 years a friend and I have been making birthday presents for each other. This years installment by myself was this.

This is a kodama, a tree spirit from a Miyazaki animation Princess Mononoke. He is made from glow in the dark sculpey. I made a bunch of these which I will blog about later this week.

To accompany the little kodama, I made a never ending card also the infinity card.

Another Piece of the Puzzle

Today has been a bit of an eye opener and somewhat overwhelming, but to clearly express why this is so, I need to start at the beginning  The beginning is the acceptance after 2 years of struggling with distance education starting in 2011, when I finally got assessed for dyslexia and was found that this diagnosis was positive. Granted this is not a life threatening condition and really only affects my ability to retain information in written form. So, from this diagnosis I was able to get a certain level of help and assistance from my college and other area , which has been very wonderful. At the end of last year, when enrolling in a new college, I was informed of the "colored glasses" thing that could help me even more with my learning experience  Through further research though I came to realize I could not afford to even consider to get the screening done. Further research since then has lead me to understand the importance of going and getting the screening done as soon as possible.

This bring us to today. The "colored glasses" thing is called Scotopic Syndrome or is better known as Irlen Syndrome. It turns out I don't just have a Irlen Syndrome I have a severe case of it, as well as general light sensitivity and most likely an auditory processing issue. There is also remediation I can do in order to help retrain my dyslexic brain to process and function more efficiently.

My reason behind blogging my experience here is is to help bring awareness to others who may be having problems.If only person reads this and believes that they feel they are struggling or they see their child is struggling with learning, do them or your self the service of getting them checked out for dyslexia and Irlen Syndrome.  It may stop a lot of frustration and unnecessary struggling, when there are options and support out there.

Custom Birthday Card

Customer birthday card for a client

Family Album: Far Far Away

Another page down, and I am really happy with this one. I took some time out from an assignment I was working on and decided to work on this page. It took no time what so ever which was wonderful, it gave me the chance to resolve a slight issue I was having with the a fore mentioned  assignment I was working on at the time.

I have many photos of my brother and I engaged in play, whether it is the imaginary world of books or fort building in the garden. I am sure many of your can relate to the play time fun. The next page is going to fantastic too, although I have one assignment left for school for the term, so I may get stuck in to it when I have that assignment to finish. 

Family Album: Once upon a time

Well, I was finally able to get some crafting into my busy school schedule. Nother page gets added to the family tree album I am working on.

I have a large collection of these photographs of my brother and myself either playing or involved in story time.