One Little Word – October pages

Hi everyone :)

There have been tons of things happening around here and I’m trying to catch up on some projects.  I’ve finally managed to get my October pages done for my album so I thought I’d share them with you.

In October 2013 Ali Edwards prompted us to create an art journal page about our word.  For this particular month she wanted us to focus on the PROCESS rather than the end result… and that usually works for me fine… but in October I had so many ‘Choices’ going on in my life that I struggled to focus. 

Roll forward to February 2014 and I was finally able to create my art journal page and it  came together in quite an unexpected way.  I’ve already shared the actual art journal page with you so here’s my pages that will go into my One Little Word album.

During October I was making some pretty big career choices and looking at lots of options surrounding my decisions.  In the end it really did all come down to ‘taking a leap of faith’.

p.s. Once I actually took that ‘leap of faith’ lots of AMAZING things have happened in my life!

Wishing you all a great day xx

Art journal page for One Little Word

Hi everyone :)

I’ve been struck by a bit of a bug today so I’ve been at home.  I don’t do ‘bored’ very well… in fact it drives me insane… so I decided to have a proper look for my Distress Inks and I found them in the very last container I looked in… but at least I found them!

I also found my notebook of ideas for the October prompt for One Little Word… yes I’m actually catching up on a project!

Last October Ali Edwards prompted us to ‘get messy’ with our word and create an art journal page.  I’d had quite a few ideas last October but nothing would really come together at the time.  This morning I looked at my notes and suddenly saw something that I’d never seen before… a really strong message that I wanted to remember… so with inks located it was time to get messy!

I started off with one of my pages that already had gesso on it and out came my inks:

I discovered one thing this morning… Distress Inks lift off a gesso’d background REALLY easily!!!  I tried using the heat gun to set the ink but no matter what I did the ink kept lifting… so I decided to use my Distress Paints instead.

I started off with a few different shades of blue and grey to build up the sky along with a piece of wet and dry foam to help me blend.  Then I moved into the greens:

I dried it all with a heat gun and then got busy with a bit more inking to create extra depth on my page.  Totally love the way the paints and inks work together.

Next up was some stamping… I was trying to really create some depth so I did multiple stamped images using the same stamp and a variety of ink.  First up with some Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink:

Then some London Fog Memento ink:

Followed by some Walnut Stain Distress Ink:

I was really enjoying ‘playing’ by this stage so I  got busy with a stencil and some Wild Honey ink to create a hint of sunlight.  It’s not so obvious in the photos but you can see it clearly on the finished page.

I had already cut out a stencil that I wanted to use on this page but in the end I used the ‘center’ of the stencil instead. 

I wanted a darker colour so I used the ‘chocolate’ Gelato and lots of blending with my finger to get exactly the look I wanted.  A quick spray with fixative and she was ready to go!

After she was dry (which takes about a minute) I glued her to my page with mono glue and then started to add some shading with my charcoal pencil and blending it with a damp brush.

If you’re wondering where I’m heading with all this here’s the message I wrote to myself back in October…  There’s lots of choices… just pick the one that ‘speaks’ to you and take a leap of faith!  I really wanted to include part of what I’d written on my page so I got out some neglected stamps and went for it.

And for those who know me well… yes it did tick me off that I got some ‘touch downs’ with the letter stamping!!!  Moving right along… I wanted a bit more on the page and I had a cool ruler stamp that I thought might work:

Umm.. no I don’t think so… then I found some cool Prima resist canvas elementals that Esther gave me ages ago and decided to open the packet and give it a go… lovely, lovely product to work with… thanks Esther xx

I coloured mine with Distress Stains (Rusty Hinge and Faded Jeans) and then added a brad from my stash.  Then of course it was time for the date tag:

My page is now securely adhered into my art journal:

As you can see I’ve actually reached the end of the first signature of pages.  When I put my art journal together I thought I would have plenty of room for two signatures but to be honest this journal is getting really fat so I’m thinking I might take the second set out of the journal and start a new one.

p.s.  I noticed when I put this page in my journal that I’d dated my last page wrong… I did the last page on FEB 15 but the date stamp said JAN 15… I was able to fix it up without too many hassles.

Now that I’ve finally gotten my October art journal page completed I’ll be able to share the rest of my One Little Word album with you soon.  Thanks for all the comments about the last post too… it inspired me to get creative again xx

One Little Word: September Update

Hi everyone :)

Somehow the last few weeks have flown by without me updating my One Little Word project and it’s already half way through October.

This month Ali asked us to interview someone about our word and the progress we’re making with it.
I decided to ask Mum for her input and she was happy to do it… but she was also worried about getting it ‘wrong’.  In the end we sat down together at the retreat and spent some time just talking about my word.  It was a really nice time to connect with each other and she did a GREAT job!

As you know, I went to visit my sister last week.  Tracey didn’t actually know that I was doing this project and doesn’t read my blog so she came at the interview from a completely different angle.  The funny thing is that both of these interviews really resonated with me.
Here’s my first September page (6x8 size):

And here’s the second page which actually contains the answers to the interview questions:
I’m really quite pleased with how it all turned out in the end.  The October prompt is much more creative so I’m looking forward to spending some time on it!
Hope you’re all having a great week xx

One Little Word: August

Hi everyone :)

Well August is well and truly over and it’s time to update you on my One Little Word project for the month of August.

At the moment I’m snuggled up in a blanket with a BIG box of tissues beside me… it seems that this head cold is a bit worse than I thought and it’s knocked me flat.  Thankfully I got this project all done before the head cold got me!

Here’s what Ali asked us to do this month:

The first thing I want to say to you this month is that I’m not advocating that you do anything illegal.

Does that capture your attention?

This month you’re invited to take your word out into the world. By this I mean you’re invited to write it or create it somewhere (again, nothing illegal) and take a photograph.

I have to admit that the prompt didn’t do much for me… I was hoping for something a bit more ‘gutsy’!  In the end I got my kids at school to help me out with this and they totally loved it!  We did it on a day when I had all 26 of my kids at school so everyone participated and they proved themselves to be very creative!

Here’s page 1:

We started off with all my kids making the letters with their bodies.  The grass was a little damp and it wasn’t exactly warm but they did an amazing job!

That afternoon we have 15 minutes to spare before the end of the day so the kids were allowed to make the word ‘Choices’ any way they liked.  We just had two rules:

1. They couldn’t leave the classroom
2. They had to pack up after themselves before the bell went

I’m telling you… these guys LOVE a challenge!  They used bingo cards, maths beans, link cubes, counters, colouring pencils, chess pieces, jigsaw pieces, you name it they used it! … even our kiwifruit got used!

Here’s page 2:

You should have seen the team work that came out of these kids!  Honestly, I think the 15 minute time limit really worked for them!

Of course we’ve got 14 computers in our classroom as well so even they got used!

Here’s the final page:

My kids did me proud!  Thanks Room 4, you really are the best xx 

p.s. I’ll be back at school tomorrow so be good for the reliever!!

One Little Word: July update

Hi everyone :)

Somehow the end of July came without me having said anything at all about the One Little Word prompt for this month… but as it turns out I can now share the whole thing in one go!

This month’s prompt involved ‘sticky notes’ and  several different options for how to go about the project.

Here’s a little bit about what Ali asked us to do:

1. A daily/weekly visual reminder of your word.  Each time I see them it will be a signal to be more aware of how my word is currently working and what action I need to take.
2. A specific task to identify something during your day that relates to, or was influenced by, your word. You need to make a connection _ sometimes
   that will be super easy and other times it will be more of a challenge to find something over the course of the day that shows your word working in your life.
3. An alternative approach is to set it up simply as a reminder to GO and DO something related to your word - once a day for seven days, a month or
   some other number in between.

Originally I had planned on doing something quite specific for a week… but as July rolled on and the stress of school, reports and life in general occurred it didn’t really happen.

Thankfully I take a HUGE amount of photos for Project Life… in fact lots of my photos never actually make it into the pages but I take them anyway.

When I went back over my July photos – which are all in folders and organised by date and event – I was able to piece together a calendar of sorts.  My word for 2013 (Choices) seemed to appear in so many of my photos which just goes to show that it was the right word for me this year.

Here are my pages for my 6 x 8 album:

In spite of the fact that my specific week didn’t happen, my word ‘CHOICES’ has become such a big part of my day to day life that I’m quite often consciously aware of it… and these photos have shown me that it’s also a sub-conscious part of my day to day life as well.

So that’s my update for the One Little Word project… I’m really looking forward to receiving the August update later on tonight to see what this month is going to focus on.

Enjoy the rest of your week xx

One Little Word: June update

Hi everyone :)

This morning I finally got made some time to get my June pages for my One Little Word album completed.

This month Ali Edwards asked us to ‘evaluate and reflect’ on how our word for 2013 (mine is Choices) is taking shape in our lives.  It just so happened that as I was finishing my pages a PNG quote arrived in my inbox that was perfect for this months prompt:

Evaluating and reflecting is a BIG part of my day to day life at school and luckily for me I think I’m a natural ‘reflector’ because I often think about how things are going and what’s working and what’s not and then I make changes based on what I have in front of me.

In fact a couple of weeks back Carey (from Room 3) and I got together because our reading programme wasn’t getting us the results we were hoping for so we sat down and did a big evaluation of what was working and what wasn’t and then we set about designing a new reading programme for our classes.

The following week when we had our mid-year appraisals we were given the task of finding something to work on and improve for the rest of the year and when we looked at what we had to do it turned out that we’d already done it and were both ready to move onto the next stage… that’s definitely working smarter in my opinion!

Here’s my first June page:

I really am surprised at how well the word ‘Choices’ is working for me.  I’ve had some really challenging situations come up this year and at all times I’ve remembered that I actually have choices about what is happening… it’s a pretty powerful realisation!

There’s been heaps of positives… I feel like I’m living my life more authentically than ever before which has to be a good thing.

Here’s my second page for June:

After I’d done my reflections I wanted to include some photos of the important ‘stuff’ in my life… my girls come right up there at the top of my list… along with my ‘furry son’ (although I must try and get a more up-to-date photo of the two of us together!) 

I had to include my photo of creating my art journal and all the surrounding ‘mess’ because I’ve recently re-discovered just how important creating is for me… it’s that whole ‘food for the soul’ stuff that keeps me centred.  I also wanted to include a photo from my classroom because it’s such a big part of my life.

So that’s my June pages done… I’m really looking forward to seeing what July is going to bring!

Have a great weekend xx

One Little Word: May

Hi everyone :)

May was the month for words and messages… more specifically the whispers and shouts you receive from within.

Here’s what Ali Edwards’ shared: Listen. What are you saying to yourself? What are other people saying to you? Which ones do you want to hear? What are you welcome to hearing? What are you resistant to? What do you keep hearing over and over again from yourself or others?

I have been a ‘quote collector’ for a long time and I recently published a few of my favourite quotes as part of the 52 lists project here.

This time around I chose quotes that have a stronger connection to my word for 2013 ‘CHOICES’.  My OLW binder is filling up so this month I kept all my quotes to a 3 x 4 size and put four to a page… and yet I still ended up with four pages!  Here’s my May pages:

I do spend a ridiculous amount of time selecting photos for my backgrounds and changing fonts until I’m happy with the final product… but this project really is special to me and I’ve discovered that the more I put into it the more I get out of it.

Have a great week xx

One Little Word: April update

Hi everyone :)

It’s time for another One Little Word update.  I’m still really enjoying the prompts… and I’m really pleased that I take so many photos because  the April prompt was all about photos!

Here’s what Ali wrote in this months OLW email:

This month it’s time to use our cameras to see our word working in the world. How does what you see through the lens inform your relationship with your word?

At first I thought I wouldn’t have enough photos for this prompt… not because I don’t take a lot of photos (I’m definitely a snap-happy photographer!) but because I didn’t think my word ‘CHOICES’ would be easy to translate into photos… how wrong I was!

It turns out that I actually do have photos of lots of things that relate to my word… although I wasn’t consciously thinking of my word at the time.  In fact, during the process of putting together my April pages I’ve come to realise that ‘CHOICES’ is very much a part of my every day life.  It’s apparent in both my conscious and sub-conscious thoughts.  Have a look at my pages and you’ll see what I mean:

Ali encouraged us to ‘add a bit of text to give added meaning and context to each photo’ and it was a good idea because without the text the photos don’t really show how they relate to my word.

My April intention was ‘Understanding Choices’ and I’ve been thinking a bit about that too.  I’ve seen how some of the ‘choices’ I make are just really routines or old thought patterns that I need to change to move forward with my life.   I’ve been making a lot of conscious choices lately… some have been positive and some still need a bit of tweaking to get the desired results! 

I’m still surprised at how well the intentions I set in January reflect what happens in each month… I’m so pleased I trusted my gut instincts even though they didn’t make much sense at the time!

I hope you all have a great weekend xx

One Little Word–March update

Hi everyone :)

I just realised this morning that I haven’t actually blogged about my March pages for One Little Word and yet they’ve been in my album for a while now.

In March, Ali asked us to TAKE ACTION!  We had to select one thing (little or big) that we could do to move forward with our word. 

I decided that being really organised at school would be a BIG action that I could break down into steps during the month making it much more likely to actually be achievable.  It also helped that I was having a student teacher during this time and quite frankly sometimes two heads are better than one!

I started off with a ‘title page’ for March outlining the prompt and why it was important to me:

It’s funny how the monthly intentions I set in January seem to be fitting perfectly with each prompt because it was a bit ‘unexpected’ that I would have a student teacher right at this time. 

It was also ‘unexpected’ that the FOTS (Friends of the School) group would choose this month to give each teacher a budget to spend on their classroom.  That budget (which HAD to be used in Term 1) meant that I was able to purchase folders, clear pockets, labels, laminating pockets and a variety of other organisational materials… such a cool bonus!

Ali provided us with a cool template to use to work out what we were going to do as well as when and how we would do it.   The template also included a place to ‘document’ your progress as you went.

I had to adjust the template a bit to fit my needs but it worked out brilliantly. 

I broke things down into the school weeks with each week having it’s own focus to concentrate on… first math, then reading and then writing.  The idea was that by the final week everything would be coming together and I’d be working ‘smarter instead of harder’.

As it turned out I actually achieved far more than I had intended.  It definitely did feel manageable most of the time and by the end of March it was all going strong!

Since I’m such a visual person I decided to include a ‘photo evidence’ page in my album as well.

The really awesome thing is that it has been easy (although still quite time consuming) to keep everything going through April.  My weekly planning sheets are all in their folders… my planner is still really quick to do once the planning sheets are finished… and the kids really love the task boards!

This prompt has been fantastic to work on… and the difference it has made in my school life has been incredible.  It’s also been a bit ‘unexpected’ how much impact my One Little Word – CHOICES – has had on my professional life.  It’s been hugely positive thank goodness!

So there’s my update… enjoy the rest of your weekend xx

Project Life: Week 14 and another insert

Hi everyone :)

Yes I’m like the bad penny returning LOL  I’ve been busy since my post this morning sorting out photos and doing some digital stuff and somehow it’s gotten to the end of the day already.

I’ve had a really nice week… and it was nice that it started off with two days away from school due to Easter… although I did go to school for a ‘couple of hours’ on Monday (actually I was there from 8am until 2.30pm)

Here’s an overview of my week:

As I already said, I was at school on Monday and Whaea Charlie came in as well.  It’s amazing how much work you can get done without the kids (or other teachers) around.  We had the whole place to ourselves along with full access to the photocopier so it made us very happy campers!

Last week I mentioned that my computer wasn’t running very well… and quite frankly I’ve been worried sick about loosing my files and photos so after we’d finished at school I went down to Dick Smith and bought a 32GB flash drive thinking that I’d be able to fit all my photos on it… ummm NOPE!  My 2012 photo folder actually contains 18.8GB all by itself!

On Tuesday I went back to Dick Smith and bought a 1.5TB external hard drive and now I’ve got everything backed up!  I’ve got tons of room… actually I’ve got 1.5 TRILLION bytes of space for storage… super cool!

Here’s a close up of the beginning of my week:

On Monday Mikayla wanted me to watch ‘Tangled’ with her.  It’s an animated movie based on the story of Rapunzel and although we started to watch it I just couldn’t keep my eyes open so on Tuesday we finished it off.  It’s a lovely story so if you’ve got young kids, grandkids or you just like watching kids movies I highly recommend it.

For some time now Toby has been treating Mikayla as a ‘lesser person’ than himself and on Tuesday he proved it.  Mikayla was sitting on the sofa with her legs up and Toby went around and pushed her legs and sat right in front of her for a scratch!  He was quite demanding about the whole thing too!

Check out this photo:

He looks like he’s howling but in fact he’s just raising his head in pleasure of the scratching!  He’s such a boy!

On Wednesday when I got to school Ngahuia (one of the teachers) had been busy making truffles and she gave me one.  I was super pleased that I had my camera with me because the truffles were gorgeous!  They tasted pretty good too!

On Friday it was Whaea Charlie’s last day and the kids made her a really gorgeous card to farewell her.  She had mentioned that she really liked ‘practical things’ during the five weeks she was with us so instead of getting her flowers and chocolates I got her some things for when she starts teaching her own class… plastic pockets, notepads, paper clips, panadol etc… and she LOVED it!

The gift giving didn’t end there though because she bought the kids a HUGE classroom calculator and she got me a very cool lime green stapler!  Thanks heaps Charlie xx

Here’s a close up of the second half of my week:

On Friday afternoon the kids got to do the letterbox activity we spent ages preparing on Monday and it was a total success!  It really did feel like all the planning and preparation was worth it… PLUS we didn’t get time to finish the activity so I should be able to do that in the last week of term… BONUS!

On Saturday I went over to Mum’s and did some important things before heading out for a bit of lunch.  You wouldn’t believe it but we both left our cameras back at the house so I can’t show you what we had… but it was really delicious! LOL

Then we spent some time looking around a few shops.  Mum wanted to get some new tops and she’s found that even the smallest women’s sizes are not fitting her very well.  We went into the kids department and there were some tops exactly like what Mum likes so I convinced her to try one on and BINGO!  The length was perfect… the sleeves were perfect… and the neckline was perfect too! 

We also spotted a Daniel O’Donnell CD/DVD collection which had 50% off but when she went to pay for it she got two tops and the CD/DVD for only $15.49!

I also managed a huge bargain!  I needed to get a new duvet inner since ‘Mr Toby’ has managed to de-fluff one side of mine!  They had a really good quality one that is 50% feathers and 50% down for $290... I definitely wasn’t going to pay that much!  Then I saw the sign that said ‘marked down to $115’ so I now have a brand new duvet inner ready for winter!

I also found some neat cooking trays… one is for making little owls (perfect for brownies!) and one is for making mini little puddings (I have something planned for that one too!).  Then at the next shop I got some icing bags, non-stick spray and some nozzle holders for my icing set.

All in all it was a pretty good day!

This week I also did an insert about my One Little Word February project which I finally got finished this week.  For those of you who didn’t see my post this morning, it’s a printers tray that I’ve turned into a vision board and I’m super happy with it. 

I decided to keep the writing to a minimum on my insert because I’ve already written about it in my One Little Word album.  This insert is just to remind me when I actually got the project finished.

Here’s the front of the insert:

And here’s the back of the insert:

So that’s been my week.  Lots of school work… lots about the computer (which is playing up really badly tonight!) and lots of retail therapy.  It’s enough to make a grown woman giggle with pleasure!! LOL

Have a great week everyone xx