I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

 

So yesterday was a red letter day - the last day of school and it snowed! My children, who normally need to be persuaded, begged, threatened and cajoled into being ready to leave the house at 8.30 on a work day, were outside playing in the snow at 7.20 yesterday! It's amazing what a bit of the white stuff can do! This is a view of the walk to school! How picturesque does it look in the snow!

As we were the first in to school, the playground was a virginal white blanket, unsullied by human footprint...That is until I dared Charlie to make a snow angel!

 

I love the snow, but more than anything, I love the look on my kids' faces when we get this kind of snow. The pure glee on her face makes me giggle. Mind you, contrast that with the state of my son after an hour in the snow that afternoon when I left them sledging in the field next to the horse whilst I was busy breaking the ice in the water troughs and filling haynets. The poor mite was crying with the cold - the snow was so deep it was coming over the top of his wellies and his little feet were numb. A fire, 2 hot chocolates with marshmallows and a blanket later, plus the final of one man and his dog - he recovered.

Countdown...

 

 

 

Inspired by Kate, who in turn got her inspiration from somewhere else in Blogland, I have created a December calender page for my big journal. This month, as anyone who works with children or who has children will know, is mad. I knew that I wouldn't have much time, or come to that, energy for creative stuff, so this seemed to be the perfect answer to getting messy, getting a few things down without having to do a whole page. As you can see, I haven't had much creativity since I did this page, cos' I seem to have done little other that scribble a few words on some of the boxes, and I'm even behind on that! Still, on countdown now, and only 2 days to go until we break up.....

A la Teesha

So, like a lot of other people out in blogland, I have been watching the online tutorials that Teesha Moore has posted on her blog and utube. I thought it would be fun to give it a go. It was, but I'm not wild about the fact that it isn't really my page, it's me copying Teesha (and that not very well)and I need to seriously practise my lettering! And it took ages! I think I've been at this one page for well over a week! Admittedly I have been nose to the grindstone with college assignments and being VERY disciplined about not doing any art. I enjoyed the process, and learned a few techniques that I want to try on my own stuff, but I also added to my ongoing shopping list of things I 'need' next. If anyone finds a UK stockist of those Sharpie poster paint pens, or Uni Posca pens which I think might be similar, will they let me know please?

Heart on my sleeve

This isn't quite finished yet, but I have reached a bit of a dead end with it, so I thought I would blog it, and them I am bound to think of a thousand things I could have done to make it better. At least that is what usually happens! The image is from Crowabout, and the stamped background is from two Tim Holtz stamps. The hearts are just drawn onto old german book text. I think a journal is an excellent way to vent all the things that usually set me off, but I'm a little concerned that I do both....

Remember, remember...

On November the 5th, it is Guy Fawkes night here in the UK. We celebrate the capture of Guy Fawkes and his team who were plotting to blow up the houses of parliament in order to dispatch King James I and most of the aristocracy in 1605. I love Bonfire night, it is one of the few really British traditions we have. We go to a local display in the next village, where they have great fireworks and you know everyone else there. Whilst I was standing there in the dark, watching the kids faces (they love it almost as much as me), I remembered when I talked about this tradition when I was teaching in France. The kids looked at me as if I was gone out, they couldn't understand why we Brits celebrate the failure of a plot to overthrow the monarchy, when they are so fiercely proud of their revolution and their Republic! I had never thought of it like that before, but I suppose it is slightly bizarre.

The background is simply black paint and then spattered paint in yellow, orange and red. The rocket is from some Crowabout papers, and then just journaled in white gel pen and lots of stickles!

By the way, thanks to Kate for the blog award. Apparently I have to tell you seven things about myself that nobody knows. Hmm, tricky..

1. I was once an extra on Emmerdale (a British soap), although I never watch soaps.
2. I failed my driving test twice (never having failed anything before, I was devastated)
3. I would love to be on a 'normal' people's version of Strictly Come Dancing. My husband is not a natural dancer, and I love dancing, although never having seen myself, I may be just as bad...
4. I have just bought my first pair of ski boots, and can regularly be found wearing them around the house..
5. I suffer from claustrophobia. It can attack at any time - sometimes just when I get my feet caught up in the duvet.
6. I wear my heart on my sleeve. What you see with me is what you get. I am quite an emotional person, and I don't generally hide it. (Hmm, journal page coming up?)
7. I never (ok, hardly ever) lost my temper until I had children - now I do it on a daily/hourly basis.

Phew, that was hard. Right, now I have to pass it on. Quite tricky as I think quite a lot of people have this already:


Katrin
Marion
Mandy

Happy Halloween

Well, ok, I know I'm a bit late, but I just haven't had time to blog this page yet - I did actually finish it on Saturday. My children are a bit grumpy because we ran out of time and they didn't get a chance to go trick or treating. My husband is a pretty fervent anti-Halloween-ist, and I had no intention of creating anything halloween-y, as I am no big fan myself, but I had these mermaid images from indigochylde on etsy, and had been wanting to use them, so I thought it would make a funky twist on the usual witch. The witches are from Lisa's Altered Images.

Find some joy in your life

A couple of weeks ago, we watched 'The Bucket List' starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, about two men who escape from a cancer ward and decide to complete a list of tasks before they die. Of all the things that they did, the one that struck me the most was 'find some joy in your life'. The Jack Nicholson character, whilst being fabulously wealthy, was a fairly unpleasant character who was estranged from his family, and finding joy was one of the things that he couldn't buy. It made me think of some of the people in my life who have been through some terrible things recently, but manage to stay positive. My husband has often been known to call me a duck (i.e. gliding along on the surface of things but paddling like mad underneath) and there is a tendency to dwell on all the hard things in life when you are feeling a bit out of control, but probably what we should do is focus on the happy things, however tiny. Like this morning for example, when my five year old crawled into bed in his stripy pj's, all warm and soft, and covered my face in kisses. With a start like that, it doesn't matter how bad the day gets, that little boy will make me smile all day....

The background is acrylic paints, water soluble crayons, oil pastels. The pennants at the top are hand-drawn on 7gypsies 'catalina' paper, the letters are magazine clippings. The images are from lisa' altered art and the leaf shapes are from Stampin' up, stamped onto pages from an old german paperback.