Happenings

I know, I missed a week blogging, my aim is to blog every week but sometimes it's just not possible!! I think I need to plan my blog posts and pre- prepare so that way when times are busy I can still post on time!

A lot has been happening around here! Best of all the weather has cooled so I have more energy to work! We've even pulled out our doonas (duvets) so we can snuggle up at night! Love that!!!

School is back, so the morning school run has begun! 

Lulu decided to do some DIY and decorated her science ring binder. She was totally inspired by Jordan Clark, such a clever young college student. You can see her blog here and should definitely check out her You Tube videos here.

I had a market stall in town last Sunday. That was lovely and fun to see some of my other creative friends, it's great to catch up on what they've been doing over the summer. This lovely handmade market is held once a month in the Vecchia Pescheria (old fishery). The benches are marble and all uneven from centuries of fish selling!

Of course growth chart making is never far off. The last few I've made have been really fun and a challenge as I had to tackle some new theme requests. I was very pleased with the results!

I have a very talented friend Io & bianca (who I've mentioned before) who creates beautiful ceramics.  A visit to her instagram page is a must! Lately she has been painting her ceramics more, they are stunning, and she has started to do little watercolour paintings. I saw Carla at dinner and told her how much I loved her paintings and how much I would love to learn to use watercolours. I find them very intimidating though! We organised to meet a her house which was quite a challenging task with all our kids activities! I went yesterday, even though Carla had a fever, she insisted I pop round for a mini lesson! So kind!

When I arrived we swapped belated birthday gifts. We are always late with our gifts as we always like to give each other something we've created and/or supplies!

I gave Carla a stitched wall decor piece I made for her. She loves white, anything old and bunnies. I gave a sneak peek of this piece in a previous blog post where you can see what inspired me!

From Carla I received so lovely handpainted ceramic hanging decorations, a gorgeous much (to add to my large collection) and a watercolour set - paint brush, paper and watercolours. Such an amazing and thoughtful gift! 

I just loved watching her paint her gorgeous little designs and had a chuckle at my efforts! Mine aren't finished yet, I may or may not post those depending on how they turn out! Here are a couple Carla painted!

What has everyone been up to lately, any creating????

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Halloween Fair at WPS

Every year, my son's primary school has a Halloween Fair. For the past couple of years, I have helped with the decorations. Last year I made a whole heap of tombstones to create a graveyard in one of the gardens. It was a massive hit!

This year, I was asked to decorate the front entrance and some of the windows. I went with a Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets theme. We found a really cute and large spider that became Aragog! It was fun to watch all the little kids get a surprise to walk under him. He was very popular and they all wanted to touch his legs. He was a lucky boy and had caught himself something yummy to eat later!

 Along the fence, I added random decorations. We had lots of spiders, skeletons, ghosts, bats and pumpkins, etc.

 

 

"The Chamber of Secret's has been opened. Enemies of the heir beware!"

 There were signs telling people to 'Follow the Spiders' and my son's class drew lots of spiders for me to put along the fence.

  

I also decorated some of the windows. The pictures below are some staffroom windows. The teachers said that they were really surprised when they came into work on Friday and found their windows decorated. They loved them!!

 

During the day and without the tissue paper.

 

At night and with the tissue paper.

Most ideas for the silhouettes came from Pinterest. There are such great ideas on there. Some we made up ourselves and my son even designed a couple. These are just some of the cutouts we did. It was a super cheap decoration using thick black paper and orange tissue paper all from the Hot Dollar shop.

 Ghostbusters designed by my son. They looked great once it was dark with the light shining through!

 Ghost designed by my son.

Cute monsters!!!

The next silhouettes were a little bit darker in theme and aimed to appeal to the older kids. They were in another building and were quite high up. I made 10 in total but only have photos of 6 as the others were too dark to photograph at night. Again the designs came from Pinterest. All ideas are on my Halloween Board.

It was a fun night and the kids had a great time. Now for some Trick or Treating tonight!  

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Easter Craft Time at Vacation Camp

So here they are Rach... the Easter crafts that I did with the kids at camp. They absolutely loved the activities.... especially the bell jars. The idea came from the magazine that is here.

Here were my samples....

 

Here are some of the kids creations whose ages ranged from 4 to 9 years old.

Another activity was Easter toilet roll characters. Here are my samples......

Some of my ideas came from chicken (here), bunny (here) and Shaun the Sheep (here).

My son started by making a Darth Vader Bunny then just made Star Wars characters- Kit Fisco, Darth Vader, Yoda, Darth Maul and General Grievous.

It seemed to catch on with the boys and there were pipe cleaners Light Sabers galore!!! So cute as some of these were made by 4 & 5 years olds. I also love the Shaun the Sheep that one of the kids made with a massive head!!

They also made lots of Easter baskets made out of a paper plate. I didn't get photos of them as the kids were off doing an Easter Egg hunt while I was photographing the rest. Here is my sample and the idea came from here......

Art E-Classes

I really like the idea of mixed media art works and journals. Recently I took a class with Mati Rose called 'Daring Adventures in Paint'. It was a good way to get me painting. I finished one piece and have many more that are in various stages of progress.

Paintings by Mati Rose

Another artist that Rachel and I have always loved is Susana Tavares. a couple of weeks ago, I purchased her workshop called Paper and Paint. She makes it all look so easy.

Paper and Paint Workshop By Susana Tavares

I recently followed this tutorial on her blog for painting gift tags. I followed her instructions and produced these paintings. They are really little 3" x 3". I was actually amazed that they look ok. I wasn't sure if I could do it!!! They are nowhere near as good as Susana's but I can only keep trying.

Finally I love the work of Mindy Lacefield (Tim's Sally). She has a new 'Soul Bird' class and giveaway which looks really interesting. I am considering this one as well.

Soul Bird Workshop by Mindy Lacefield

Some of my favourite art works are on Pinterest. There is just so much inspiration on there. I purchased a couple of Pam Garrison original paintings and want to start collecting a few more including a Susana Tavares work so that I can start building up a wall of art.

There are so many inspiring artists out there and I hope that I can one day develop my own unique style. I figure that doing classes is a great way to get started and learn some new techniques.