Comin' up roses

When we were in Kenya we had the privilage of being given a tour around one of their many rose farms. It was a really special oppertunity and amazing to see the process from beginning to end, and to learn about how many factors are at play to produce these beautiful roses. I really enjoyed taking photos there, and hope you enjoy viewing them :)

 

 

 

Grafting the new stems onto old roots...

 

A little bit more growth a few tents on.

 

 

 All the plastic pipes used to graft.

Reaching for the sky...

Appropriately named I think :)

Roses in cold rooms right after being picked.

Stem measuring...

Ready for delivery.

The beautiful roses in the reception - they cost about R15 there!

And here they are, just up the road from our home :)

A little bit of drawing

I've been drawing again lately and really enjoying it. These are some of my favourite pieces so far. I'm also hoping to start up a little online shop soon where these and others will be for sale as originals and prints :)

 

It's a small world (after all)

So Joe has this sweet app on his phone (Nokia Lumia 820) which makes your photos look like a mini version of the real place, and make you feel a bit like Gulliver visiting Lilliput. It's such fun to play with.  Here are some of our favourites.

 

Mini Nairobi

Mini Coldplay Concert

Mini Marrakesh

Mini London

Mini Fiskebackskil

Mini Yorkshire

Mini ORT, Johannesburg

Mini Great Rift Valley.

 

Isn't it great? :)

 

 

Grass and Gravel

 We gave our balcony a bit of a make over a while back. The beauty and variety of grasses had recently come to my attention and I wanted to include them in our little plant family. We set out to buy some and came home with several bags of gravel as well! The tiled floor of our balcony got dirty so quickly and always looked messy, so this was our little cover up solution. It was really quick to do - we just put it all down, no plastic or cement or anythig - and as far as an afternoon make over goes, rather inexpensive too. We've loved it so much since we set it up, it makes our balcony feel more like a courtyard, and we eat lunch out there most weekends now :)

 

 

 

Our life in chalk.

A little while ago I came across this gem of an idea from JenlovesKev. I have seen many a wall and cupboard painted with blackboard paint and I have always liked the idea, so when I saw this interpretation of the trend my first thoughts were, 'That, we must do!' and so we did.

Unfortunately we don't have smooth walls, so we couldn't paint straight onto the wall, and it was quite tricky trying to find the right piece of wood, but apart from all that we're really happy with how it turned out.

 Here's the photo story of how it happened...

 

If you look carefully you will see that we used two different widthed (is that a word?it is now...) rolls of masking tape. Getting all the boxes the right sizes was quite technical, but fortunately Joe is good at thinks quite technical :)

 

I feel it's been a great aesthetic, not to mention useful, addition to our kitchen :)

 

Ocean Sole...

We have just come back from an amazing holiday in Kenya and, amongst other things, came across this brilliant initiative. Ocean Sole (www.theffrc.com) is a company that collects and recycles discarded flip flops into sculptures and jewelry. Their tag line is "Cleaning Beaches, Creating Masterpieces", and that is exactly what they do. I was so inspired by the work being done there and just had to share it, so following is a brief description of the process.



When the flip flops first come in they are cleaned and sorted into colours.



 

They then use super glue to stick them together and start cutting them into rough shapes.



 

Then the carving begins!

 

An elephant in the process; the white part is insulation from old fridges.



 

Once it's all glued and carved it goes for sanding, just look at the size of this guy!

They then use the small off cuts to make these beautiful beads - each hand carved and sanded!



This here is a beaded curtain. Each bead was individually stamped out!

 

Some animals almost ready. Aren't they just beautiful?



 

Spot the zebra!

 Whatever is left goes to playgrounds as 'soft fall'.

 

And this is the little guy who came home with us :)