Tidy Up Time!

A number of things all happening around the same time gave me the push I needed to have a bit of a sort out.    In the last week we have done some gardening, cleaned the whole house, sorted and chucked a load of garden toys, gutted both children's rooms and the playroom and thrown a load of toys and taken another load to the preschool.  We took 2 very large TVs to the tip, filled up both recycling and normal bins and boarded the newly discovered loft space!  There is still a lot of work to be done but we feel ready to tackle it.  We are making plans to have our downstairs bathroom done which is stopping us from decorating the spare room and hallway.

However, progress is only progress if we keep moving forward and that means keeping on top of the mess.  In our old, very small house, we had to keep tidying toys away because there was no option to leave things out.  We've been in this house 3 years and the habits we instilled in Louis back then have long since gone.  We need to get back to the habits of clearing up after ourselves and with that in mind, the children and I made some labels for their stuff.

Voila!

Part the playroom.

Part of the children's art area.

A close up of the labels.  The children helped to choose stickers, laminate and cut them up.  They are stuck on with sticky dots.

And yes, I did have to go around after they had helped to stick them on and try and straighten them a bit...  When I went through their box of colouring and activity books, I found 8 that had not been touched.  I have removed them, they will never know, and I will give them back as treats at a later point.  Win win!

I am currently finishing a couple of projects in my craft room and then I will be having a good sort out in there too.  This time last week I was almost paralysed with hideous PMT.  This week I am feeling rather awesome.  So thank you to all those things colliding to give me the inspiration and energy to get things done. Thanks especially to Jennifer for her organisation celebration over the weekend that started the cogs turning on my messed up head.

Onward dear friends, some greetings cards need a little glue.

Bye for now
xx

Sharing some cake (well virtually anyway...)

I've been meaning to share some pics of a cake I made for about 6 weeks now!  It was for this little guy's 5th birthday and we celebrated by heading over to the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth and having lunch at a Yo Sushi! (On his request!)

The boat ride and lunch was far more exciting than the tower in the end but it was a clear day and we could see for miles.  Please excuse B's hair - she refused to keep her scarf on and couldn't see where she was going!

Then he had a party at a play centre and I made this cake for him.  Its meant to be a kind of tumbledown castle and you can just about see the cannon and cannon balls on the top but I was rushing to take the photos!

You can also just about see the gargoyles above the drawbridge door there too.  They take soooo blooming long to do that even if they were good enough to sell, I would never make any money!  And I get very stressed by any art work I do for anyone else.

The pirates I did recently were actually very well received.  I only asked for the cost of the canvasses but this morning the mum gave the money and a lovely card, a beautiful notebook and pen, and some gorgeous shabby chic tins to keep some of my crafting stuff in.  I was really pleased as I have been having a really bad couple of days and this got through that wall of doubt and sense of failure that I carry at those times.

I've been really enjoying my running on the Couch to 5k programme but as suspected, I will have to take it much slower and repeat some weeks.  I walked a fair bit this week and the steep inclines where we live have aggravated my SPD.  I did however go for a gait analysis this week and got some new trainers that suit my running style and should hopefully prevent some of the problems getting worse.  It was made a lot more enjoyable by the lovely fit young man who served me, so much so that when my husband asked how much my new runners were, I didn't have a clue!

Well I had better finish packing my bag for tomorrow's 12 hour crop.  I've made 8 page kits plus I have 3 in there already from last time, which is obviously a tad ambitious but I don't want to run out of things to do and it allows me to decide which ones I want to do at the time.  Expect some new layouts in the coming days :-)

In the meantime, have a great weekend.

Bye for now xx

WOYWW 108

I am very excited that today is Wednesday!  Wednesday means that my little girl is off having a ball at nursery while I catch up on a few jobs, including of course, WOYWW.  Today though, Wednesday is special for another reason - tonight is the launch of Kirsty Wiseman's MIMM class which starts with a live on-line demo in some of the techniques we can use in our art journals (and anything else later on too).  With my new passion for inks and sprays and paints and messy play, I'm really looking forward to tackling a proper journal.  As such, I felt I should share both spaces this week, my craft room AND my art room.

Working in the art room during broad daylight works well and I'm loving having a sink nearby but daytime play is rare.  Last night I cracked on with the pirates, however, the light is very overhead so I ended up working in the shadows and the result was 4 pirates with decidedly orange skin!  I have just redone one of them and I'm waiting for it to dry to see if that works any better.  You can see the orange and the new tanned version in the pic and also to the left of the pic, all my MIMM goodies including, obvs, the Moleskine itself (wrapped in the pink tissue paper - (loves!)).

My craft room, with a box of new stash (don't tell hubs) and THAT layout still being tweaked.  Must finish it today or it won't go into the round up for the month on 2Peas. Lots of stuff to put away after the crop last week but the pirates and the MIMM come first this week.  Oh and I mustn't forget teacher presents...gah!

For more craft inspiration, whatever your pleasure, please head on over to Julia's blog with her guest poster Jan and her lovely Cath Kidston inspired makes.

I'm off to see what sort of tan my pirate has...

Bye for now! xx

WOYWW 107

So I missed last week for the first time in weeks.  I just couldn't get myself into blogging.  But this week I thought I would share my other space ;-)  A couple of weeks ago I shared my children's art area and thought it might be good for me to use it too as it is all wipeable and there is a sink there.  It has worked out really well.  It means that my scrapping space stays clean and useable and that the children get to see my art work in progress.

(This photo hasn't been here all day as Blogger wouldn't let me post it - gah!)

I'm about to do a class with Kirsty Wiseman on art journalling called Me in my MoleskinE (big E on the end for ME) so it will get well used.  Add to that, I am currently painting 4 pirate canvasses for a friend's little boy's room which you can see in progress on the worktop there.  I painted some for L's room and she saw them and liked them.  It is the first time ANYONE has liked anything I've done enough to ask me to do something for them and I feel really chuffed.  I'm not charging her for a couple of reasons.  Number 1, its not a business and she is a friend.  Number 2, they are not my designs and I can't make any money from them.  Sadly I can't find the seller who was doing the original artwork so I can't tell her how much she inspired me with her fun and quirky pictures but I will keep searching for her.

Anyway, that's all from me today but I have other creations to share tomorrow.  Pop on over to Julia's blog to have a nose at other people's workspaces, whatever their work might be.  As usual, I will get to everyone who gets to me, plus some others depending on time - oh how we crafters wish we could stop the clocks once in a while....

Bye for now
xx