I absolutely love to create and make things
and I will try anything creative once.
It has been a journey of many creative experiences to get me to
where I am today.
I took great pleasure from a very young age in keeping myself entertained with my colouring book and crayons and I still have my first colouring-in book, which my Mom had kept for me. I could spend hours "teaching" my dolls and sometimes my sisters would oblige. Little did I know that years later, I would actually become a Nursery School Teacher or an Artist.
My Nanna taught me to knit, crochet, embroider and sew when I was 8 and I started sewing on her old Singer Machine with the treadle. She had so much patience and I was the only grand-daughter who was interested. Neither my Mom, nor my 2 sisters were remotely interested in needlework.
I also loved to write and had several Penpals in my teenage years and delighted in stamp collecting, which was the in-thing, back in the early 80's.
I had really wanted to become a teacher when I left school, but unfortunately, I was not able to attend Teacher College after I Matriculated. I went to study "Secretary of Tourism" of all things at the Cape Technicon. I went on to work for the South African Tourism Board for a few years. During this time I met my future husband on a blind date and on the 6th of April 2016, we celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary.
With my husband, being a pilot, we have moved several times, wherever the work has taken us. When we were newly married, I attended Mixed Media evening classes in Pretoria, South Africa after work. In our classes we created some of these:
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| Bunny Jewellery Holder for Daughter's Room |
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| Checker Sheep Board for Nursery Room |
I then started lessons at Sew & Simple in Johannesburg, South Africa and created many of
my own clothes and my husbands tracksuits, absolutely hideous when you look back.... I was still yearning to become a teacher and decided that the only way I was going to do that was to study long-distance. I enrolled and within 2 years of intense studying, I qualified as a Nursery School Teacher. My dream to teach did not materialise as in 1993, I fell pregnant with my son and wanted to be a full-time Mom.
My Son was 2 when we moved back to the Cape where I assisted a friend in her home
industry business, which is now a very big supplier of school uniforms in the Western Cape and she now has her own factory. It was then that I realised that there was a market
for Maternity Wear as the maternity clothing were just awful and had no shape to them whatsoever.
I went to night school and
learnt pattern making and started my own little home industry, manufacturing
Maternity Wear, called Mum2Be, which grew successfully.
I was able to continue with Mum2Be during several moves, and even when my daughter was born in 1999. Unfortunately, I was not able to move my business with me when we relocated to Mauritius in 2000 as I was not allowed to work there as my husband was the one with the work visa. However, saying that we were allowed to do Charity Work and Volunteer, so I
volunteered at the Children’s school at the School Shop, where I learnt
Pastel Accounting and attend the Corona Women's Group where I made many friends. Expat life there was fantastic.
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| Halloween |
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| Under The Sea Theme |
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| Nursery Rhymes |
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| Spirngtime at Nursery School |
In 2005 we relocated, again, this time to Abu Dhabi. This is where, I finally had the opportunity for my passion, which was to Teach. I loved teaching and was able to teach as a Nursery School Teacher for 5 years. Arts and Crafts was obviously my favourite teaching aspect and I looked forward to planning those lessons the most. The best was teaching kiddies how to paint, hold a pencil, cut with a scissors and watching them grow into very independent children who could write, build puzzles, throw a ball, climb the jungle gym, etc.
Part II to follow next week on 13/4/16
