Yes, I'm still here!

Hi there :)

My poor blog has been a bit neglected lately... but it's not because I've had nothing to share!  I've got so many things that I've been doing lately including craft stuff, school stuff, house stuff and other stuff!

Since it's been a few weeks since my last blog I thought I'd share some snippets of what has been keeping me busy the most... school!

As most of you will be aware, I took on a permanent teaching position at a special needs school at the end of last year... and I LOVE it!  I feel like I've got passion for my career again... and that's a mighty good feeling!  One of the things I love about my job is that I'm learning so much... and in a special needs school it's all holistic. 

I've always been a teacher who teaches from the heart... which is why I take things so personally when they're not going well... but it's also why I get so much fulfillment from what I do.  To be honest I don't know how to teach any other way.  I got into teaching for the children... and I remain in teaching for the children. Which brings me to what I want to share today.

When I inherited my classroom it was honestly one of the most boring and neglected teaching spaces I've ever been in.  The entire classroom needs a makeover and I'm happy to report that we are supposed to be getting new floor coverings in the next school holidays.

In the meantime I've been doing my best to improve the classroom environment and four weeks into the school year, I'm pretty pleased with how things are going.

Just before school started I organised with Mum and Krystal to have a working bee in my classroom... to do some painting.  But we weren't painting walls... we were painting cupboard doors and a table.

Here's three generations of family working together:

 Krystal and Mum got busy painting sunflowers and cute little bugs:

Here's a few close ups:

And of course bugs will need some flowers to hang out with:

Here's the finished cupboard doors:

The kids LOVE their new cupboards and one of the boys often goes up to the door and makes 'buzzing' noises... very cute!

While Mum and Krystal were busy I was getting on with a couple of projects of my own... first of all a table for the kids to eat their morning tea and lunch:

Yes, it's a proper magic toadstool!  The kids love it and call it the 'picnic' table!

I was also working on some cupboard doors in our class kitchen:

Can you see where I'm heading with these doors??

By this stage we'd been at school for several hours so it was time to head home for some tea.  On Saturday Krystal was working but Mum and I went back to do a bit more painting.

Painting is serious business you know:

Almost done:

And here's the finished cupboard doors back in their rightful places:

Meet 'George' and 'Mildred':

And here's the finished picnic table all set up:

We've now made placemats for the kids to put their plates on and it really looks cute all set up.  I actually have six children in my class but on this day I had a couple away.

So that's my classroom so far.  We've actually done HEAPS more to make it look nicer since then but I'll share that in another post.

It's good to be 'back'... thanks for visiting xx

More rainbow cards... and a little bit of... Believe it or Not!

Hi there :)

I'm still loving my new stitched rainbow die and since I enjoyed making my card from yesterday so much I decided to go ahead and make a couple more... 'the same but different'.

Here's my card from yesterday:

I was busy putting together my next card when I noticed a cute little dragon that Krystal had coloured with my Zig Clean Color Markers and he was the perfect purple to go with the purple on the rainbow.  Then I decided I needed to add a different sentiment so I die cut 'thinking' from Tim Holtz - Celebration word dies... the 'of you' was from a Hero Arts stamp and die set called Prayers.

The final step was to add some purple rhinestones for the 'tittles' and my card was done.  Here's how it turned out... isn't that baby dragon super cute??

I went through some of the other images Krystal and I have been colouring and found a little duck from the Gerda Steiner - Lucky Duck stamp set.  He seemed to be waving at me so I cut 'HELLO' from my Tim Holtz - Alphanumeric dies.  No rhinestones this time... pretty simple really!

And here's my cards together... have to say I'm pretty pleased with them:

It's hard to believe, but, the school summer holidays are practically over... it's back to school tomorrow and although I'm a little excited there's also a little bit of this going on in my head:

I'm sure it will all be fine when my alarm clock goes off in the morning... I'm sure I won't miss getting into my art studio... LOL who am I trying to convince??

Meanwhile I have a little bit of home stuff to share with you.  We've been having open homes and we've had some good feedback.  One of the things mentioned was that the windows and doors needed a little bit of attention so Michael has been painting them.  He's worked his magic around about half of the house now.

Here's a 'before' picture of one of the window frames... to be honest I'd never really noticed the colour before... I guess I just got used to it over time:

It's kind of a nondescript peachy/creamy colour... but now the windows are looking more like this:

I'm amazed at how much more modern they look!  Michael also installed a new light above the door so it looks really good now!

He also got 'painty' with the back door... love how this turned out!

We don't have a cat but both Toby and Nivea poke their heads through when they get put outside!  I'm also greeted by one of their heads through the cat door when I get home every day...  quite cute really.

The back deck area is looking very smart now too:

It's quite cute that Nivea's dog house matches in with the new paint job too!

And now for some Believe it or Not... or as I like to put it... 'Will the man never learn' files! 

Remember when Michael fell of the ladder/concrete wall because of his jandals?  Well it would seem that he has yet to learn his lesson about wearing jandals up on the ladder... and while I do admire his 'kiwi ingenuity' in getting the window frames painted I do despair of his 'health and safety' abilities... have a look at the photos and you'll see what I mean... about the kiwi ingenuity and the jandals!

Yes that IS Michael up the ladder... wearing jandals... again!

In spite of the fact that he was up the ladder he was still finding it hard to reach a few places but with a little kiwi ingenuity he had an 'extendable paint brush'!

I thought this one was quite clever... using the 'extendable' paint brush from the safety of the deck... and then I came outside to find him doing this:

Oh dear... it seems that I'm in for a long road of dubious safety photos ahead of me!

Meanwhile, the fur babies were not to be left out of the action!  Yesterday I spent quite a long time cleaning down the stair leading to outside... I brushed, washed and scrubbed the concrete steps until they looked really good... and then this morning 'someone' did this:

Michael said it was Toby... but I suspect Nivea did her fair share of digging and dirt spreading as well!

So that's it for today... back to school tomorrow so I think I might head down into my art studio for the afternoon.  Thanks for visiting the blog today xx

Finishing off 30 Days of Thankful... and a wee story about safety!

I've finally found a few minutes to share my last few days from the 30 Days of Thankful project.  I'm actually pretty pleased with myself for getting it finished... especially since I didn't even start a December Daily album for this year!

Nov 27: Having some quiet time to create

Before I share November 28th with you there's a little bit of background to this one.  While I was working away in my studio on the 27th Michael and his nephew (Lane) were busy building a new fence on the top of the brick wall.  They'd actually started it the day before and at one stage Michael was up a ladder... balanced between the wall and the ladder... with a chainsaw that has NO automatic cutoff... and wearing NO safety equipment... and only JANDALS on his feet!

I told Michael I was 'less than impressed' with his attitude towards safety... especially since Lane looks up to his Uncle and likes to do what he does... and he promptly told me that he 'would be fine'!

The following day (Nov 28th) Lane returned to help his Uncle on the fence.  I said to Lane that his Uncle was NOT a good role model about safety and told him that if I ever caught him doing what his Uncle was doing he would be in 'big trouble' and he very obediently said 'yes Auntie'.  I left them to it and carried on with my creativity.

Less than an hour later I heard a big crash... followed by a thump of something landing on the ground... followed by some 'bad words'... and of course I came running. What was I met with???  Michael lying... in the fetal position... on the gravel driveway... cursing!  And that's when it happened... as soon as I knew that Michael was actually ok... as in there were no broken bones... I got a fit of the giggles.  It started with a little smile and then a grin... and then I had a few giggles... which then turned into a full blown attack of laughter!  I couldn't help it... for some reason laughter was my reaction.  

Lane (who had gone upstairs to the toilet) came running when he heard Michael land and curse and then he saw me laughing and the poor kid didn't know what to do.  We got Michael upstairs to the bathroom and I used the shower hose over the bath to clean all the gravel out of his elbow and leg.  Meanwhile the blood was pouring and I was still laughing.  Michael was cringing but I have to tell you that at no point did he CRY... he said that it's important that people know that!

Next I got the tweezers and starting picking bits of gravel out of his elbow and I have to admit that I was less than gentle.  Poor Lane said... 'I hope I never get hurt around you Auntie'... to which I replied... 'You wouldn't be stupid enough to do what your Uncle did Lane'... at which point he looked at me quite doubtfully and kept his mouth shut. 

Michael has since made a complete recovery although he does have some scars left on his leg that will heal in time.

Nov 28: Michael not being more injured

Nov 29: Being able to keep in touch

Nov 30: My family

I want to share with you the card I made on the 27th.  I love how it turned out... actually I liked it so much that it's still on my craft table because I didn't want to give it away LOL

December has been a bit of a whirlwind and I didn't get through any of the crafting and creating projects I had in mind but I did manage to whip up a little something via Photoshop to share with you today... 

Merry Christmas from our family to yours xx