Wedding by the sea

Just got back from a week in sunny Umhlanga. What a wonderful rest, mostly just did the beach and pool thing, but the highlight was my friend Jennifer's wedding at Zimbali Lodge. Talk about a real friend. She booked us an amazing ground floor self catering (fully serviced) time share unit at Cabana Beach - out of her time share - no cost to us, except for our food of course. This was our first proper family holiday since 2004 and we thought we were in heaven! Thanks Jenn, you are a truly amazing and giving friend. Jenn looked stunning on her wedding day, even though it was the coldest, windiest day of the century of the North coast in 100 years! One of my big picture moments of this trip was that giving is the best gift of all. Jenn gives and gives to all her friends and she receives abundantly in all areas of her life. Just when I thought a friend couldn't give me any more, she gave me a thank you gift for being one of her bridesmaids!! Like the Cabana Beach wasn't enough! I love to give gifts - wrapping them is the best! How about you?
Well I got to use my camera a whole lot and got some tips from Jenn's wedding photographer (here's some of my photos) - my photography course starts next week, so here's to some bigger [photo]graphy pictures! Gonna start on a scrapbook for Jenn of all the memories of the lead up to the wedding. Maybe I'll share that with you sometime.

Believe

I was so excited to see that I had some special people read my blog - thanks for your comments. The next paintings are in progress and almost complete, but these are commissioned pieces for Fi. Promise that I will reveal them soon - to Fi first of course!
That brings me to my bigger picture for today - a thought! Believing in oneself. It's hard to do sometimes, don't you think? I'm working on that area in myself right now and with that brings thoughts of self esteem, confidence and often re-discovering who you are as a person.
But for today and the days to come while I'm on holiday in Umhlanga, I'll be focusing on believing in myself and believing in those around me to help me see the bigger pictures in life. Right now my coffee mug says it all and it's also such a pretty mug that I feel inspired to be creative when I see it.!

The bigger picture

Lately I've been driving my self crazy with all my big ideas, concepts and ways of using my creativity (to earn some extra money). It's been driving my husband silly too. So I decided it's time just to get blogging. Perhaps I'll get a little peace and quiet in my brain that way. Even if no one reads or comments on my blog. My friend Lara has once again inspired me (probably without realising it) to let my creativty show. So here goes...
For the past 2 years I had this big picture in my head of a rose on canvas that I wanted to paint, and so last year while recovering from back surgery, the rose blossomed. I spent some weeks painting with acrylics and found it to be the most amazing therapy and self-finding project I have embarked on in years. Here's the final result. Now I remind myself to never lose sight of the bigger pictures in my mind.