Rocking your world friday

Hello!

This will be a very short RYWF post as this is the first day I have managed to get out of bed since Christmas afternoon. What started out as a headache and stupid cough on the 23rd Dec, had turned into Bronchitis by Christmas day evening and I had to have the doctor out as I could not breathe. I have been in bed since, I don't think I have ever been this poorly before, its totally knocked the stuffing out of me!

Anyhow, enough of that, if you want to play along just put together a list of all your gratefuls in the last week and link up with our host Virginia.

(For some reason, any photos taken with my phone, even though I have edited them with my photo software, blogger still wants to put them on sideways and theres nothing I can do about it!)

* The 21st was Yule and Paige and me were up very early to walk up to the Long Stone to watch the sunrise with lots of other like minded people and the local Druids.

We were up by the stone at just before seven am and took part in the Druid ritual being celebrated, before watching the sun rise behind the stone.

 The view from the top of the hill

 The Stone with the sunrise behind

 Teresa and me

*After watching the sun come up we all went for breakfast together at Weatherspoons. You can't beat a nice veggie breakfast after you've climbed a huge hill in the dark!

*Our friends had asked us to do some Yule stuff with them at their yoga studio so after breakfast we all went back to the studio where we did a Yule meditation, made pomanders with oranges and cloves and made wishes on a yule log. It was a lovely morning spent with wonderful friends.

*In the evening it was our Yule Celebration which went really well followed by a lovely dinner with my pagan family and exchanging Yule gifts. We each give something handmade, I received a scarf, clay ornaments with seeds inside-you plant the ornament and when the clay disintegrates the seeds start to grow and a bag with altar tools inside- really wonderful imaginative gifts!

 For the Yule gifts I gave, I made books of my pagan poetry and art work.The group I belong to always ask for copies of my poems so I thought I would put them all together in a book each for them. I had some help with the order of printing the pages as that really confused me, but other than that, all my own work! The book covers were done with grunge paper (I would have liked to use leather but couldn't afford it!)

 Front cover

 Inside front cover- we even put the copyright in!! Everybody had a different colour inside, relating to the elements.

 First poem

They went down really well and everyone seemed really pleased with them.

*On the 22nd it was my birthday. My children bought me some Montana acrylic paint pens, hubby gave me money as I am saving for an overlocker, my sister gave me a Quaich, which is a Celtic friendship bowl, I have wanted one for ages!!

My sister made me a beautiful chocolate birthday cake and came to my house and cooked dinner for me. My friend came in the afternoon and my parents so all in all a great day.

*Right, Carmen's secret Santa!!! This is the second year that Carmen has done this secret Santa swap, i enjoyed it so much last year that I signed up again this year.I was secret Santa to Virginia this year and I made her an art journal cover and a matching pen/brush roll/wrap. I also got her an art journal, pens, brushes and tools for inside the wrap, scrapbooking papers, journal cards, hand stamped tickets and of course some chocolate.

 And I guessed my secret Santa was Sarah because of the wonderful green man stencil and the handmade bracelet which I love and has had so much thought put into it with all the little charms.

 Loving all the sequin waste as well for my art journalling, the paints, ink and gorgeous buttons

 and some washi tape and a choccy snowman

Thank you so much Sarah, the whole gift was perfect and I love it!!!!!

*Christmas day- thankful to see my kids faces when they opened their gifts, thankful that my kids were grateful for everything they got. Thankful that our whole family spent the day together, thankful that my sister helped cooked the Christmas dinner with me, not so thankful that I had to go to bed by 4pm, extremely thankful that a wonderful doctor came out to me Christmas night and helped me breathe again!!

* Extremely thankful to my amazing, wonderful husband and my wonderful son who have been running around after me, checking on me, bringing me tablets and cups of tea, changing dvd's for me and doing anything else I have asked them to do. My daughter came down with a cold on the 27th so they have been running around after her as well, plus looking after our friends two dogs. Now my hubby has a cold and my son is not feeling great but they wont go to bed as they are still insisting on looking after me. They are the most amazing family in the world and I do not know what I would do without them.They are the ones that rock my world, not just this week, but every single day.

Well, the short post was a bit longer than expected! I hope you all had a fab Christmas and I wish you a happy new year!

Rocking your world friday

Hello! It's Friday again and that means taking a look at all the positives of the last week, no matter how big or small. If you would like to play along you need to link up with Virginia over at her blog.

Not a lot happening this week in the Scott household, I think its the lull before the storm that is Christmas as next week is going to be hectic!

 * Here is a photo of my Christmas tree,  I posted about putting my tree up last week but had not taken a photo.

* I decorated my altar for Yule this week. Now, I am going to post photos of it because it makes me happy. In the past when I have posted stuff about being pagan, I noticed I lost a couple of followers so I don't really post any pagan stuff now. But I thought, Sod it!! It's my blog, it's who I am and if i lose followers so be it! Hopefully most people are tolerant of other peoples beliefs and if they are not I don't want them following me anyway!!

Yule or the Winter Solstice as it is also known, celebrates the return of the sun to earth. The 21st Dec is the shortest day of the year and the longest night, but from this point on the days will get a little longer, the nights a little shorter until we reach Litha, the summer solstice when it will reverse again. At Yule we also acknowledge the end of the Holly Kings rule and the start of the Oak kings rule.

 My Yule altar

 I have made five of these little sun disks for my pagan friends for our Yule Celebration next week

 I made this candle spiral for our Yule celebrations next week as well.The spiral represents the never ending cycle of life and rebirth and the candles when lit will represent the return of the sun at Yule and its growing power throughout the next six months.

 Another sun ornament I made for my altar, a wand of sunstone crystal, Holly, oak and ivy leaves

 Paintings of the holly king and the Oak king, painted on wood for my altar.

I find most of my inspiration for my art and creativity comes from my beliefs and the nature all around me. Making the candle spiral and the little suns for instance, such fun but I didn't want to post them on here for fear of what people will think. A lot of the stuff on my altar has been handmade by me, like the painting, the Goddess dolls and the clay Goddess statue and prayer beads. So now I am coming out of the broom closet and I hope I don't offend anyone by showing things I have created for my beliefs, as I would like to be able post ALL the things I make.

* We recieved a good news postcard home from Shelbys school this week for all her hard work in ICT and a good news letter for her excellent 'work of the week' in maths. Way to go Shelby, we are so proud of you!

* I have had fun playing with the gelli arts prints I made last week. I have doodled feathers on a couple of the pages..

 ...and made some mail art postcards with others. I just need to sign up for the mail art challenge over at collabor-art now.

 * An article about the group that I run has been featured in this months One Island magazine. You can read the article here if you are interested.(It is in the December 2012 edition on page 7-PDF file)

 * On Saturday I dragged my Son to St. Thomas church to make a Christmas wreath. We have been doing this for the last three years now but I was not going to bother this year until I saw that I had a comment on last weeks blog post from the lovely Janette (check out her blog to see her amazing art journals)Janette lives in the same town as me, just around the corner from the house I grew up in, but we have never met although we have been following each others blogs for a while now. She mentioned in her comment that she was going to be at the wreath making all day and was taking her art journals along to see how much interest there would be for a workshop she is running next year. Well, I couldn't miss the opportunity of meeting her and seeing, in real life, her fantastic art journals so I went along and am so glad I did! Janette was so lovely and we had a great chat about her journals and the art retreat she had been on where she took classes with Teesha Moore. I got to spend ages looking and touching all her journals, which was amazing. Hopefully we are going to meet up for a coffee and chat some more, it will be so nice to have an art journal friend in real life!!!!

 * My fairy is coming along nicely at Fairy club. She is painted now and I have started adding the clothes. I have also bought some purple hair for her. She is nothing like what I wanted to create. I wanted her to be a green lady of the forest with green flowing robes and oak leaf shaped wings with leaves painted onto her face. Instead she is turning into a mischievous fairy with a huge padded bum and great boobies! She is going to have big stompy DM style boots, a leather under corset with see through blouse underneath so you can still catch a glimpse of her boobies and hopefully dragonfly shaped wings. Menna, the lady who teaches us, says the fairy emerges as she wants to emerge and she is definitely right.Paige also said that she feels there is an aspect of your personality that comes through as well, sort of like an alter ego and I have to say-Yes! If I could dress like my fairy and stomp around the woods all day I would!

 Close up of her face and boobies!

 * I ordered this book from Amazon last week and it came on Thursday. It's nice to see other peoples work and their motivation behind it, but I found the techniques all a bit samey and nothing I hadn't tried already. Still, a great book for inspiration!

* I made peppermint melts on Tuesday for the kids to give as gifts to their friends for Xmas. They tasted yummy and looked sweet all packaged up.

* I received some lovely Xmas cards from ladies from the Wednesday Whine group on Facebook. Thank you ladies, they cheered me up!

* My hubby did all the hoovering and mopped the floors for me this week as I have been feeling a little poorly, I think I have a kidney infection. He is a star and I am so lucky to be married to such a wonderful guy.

* Finishing the last of the Xmas present shopping, it just all needs to be wrapped now.

* Watching the new series of Big Bang with the kids, always has us in stitches.

* I am grateful for my kids, my hubby, my family and my wonderful friends

* I am grateful for my heating, it is so cold this week!

Well, that's enough from me this week! I probably won't post again until after Christmas as next Friday it is Yule and I will be up at stupid o clock to walk up to the Longstone and watch the sunrise with friends, then we are off to have breakfast at Weatherspoons to celebrate my birthday, followed by a meditation in the afternoon and Yule celebrations in the evening, on the Saturday it's my birthday so I am going to chill out with family and friends and then my sister is making me dinner, on Sunday we will have to battle Tesco for the Xmas food shopping and then its Xmas eve!!

I hope you all have a wonderful and peaceful Christmas, however you celebrate and a good start to the New Year!

Blessed Be!

Sami x

Rocking Your World Friday

Hello!

I am a day late for RYWF, if you want to link up go to Virginias blog to play along. She is our wonderful, inspirational host for this weekly look at all our gratefuls.

You are going to have to read this post with your head cocked to the right as blogger has put my photos on the wrong way round-all but the last three! I don't know why it does this to me, I have tried five times and it still wants to put them on sideways!

*On Saturday the kids and me put the Christmas tree up. Amazingly the tree lights worked-every year we put them away working and when we get them out the next year they no longer work! We changed our colour scheme this year as all our decs were looking a bit tatty-they were given to me by my mum 15 years ago and they were on her tree before that! We have gone with pale green and lilac for the baubles and it looks lovely.

*We took the kids up to Busy Bee, our local garden centre to get their new ornament each on Saturday. Every year the kids get a new ornament for the tree and then when they move out of home they will each have their own set of decorations.

*On Sunday we went to the Christmas Market. This is the first time anyone has attempted to hold a Christmas Market on the IOW. They have done it at the Tank Museum in Cowes. Now, lots of people have slated this event on Facebook but I found it ok, not as big or spectacular as it had been made out to be but It was free entry and free parking so that was a plus. There were stalls, but not really any handmade/crafty items which I would have liked to have seen. They were mostly stalls from people who own shops and had bought their stock over to sell there. There were maybe 4/5 stalls outside, all in little wooden sheds and there were about 6 food stalls which were quite expensive. In the museum they had created a Dickensian High st which looked lovely and obviously a lot of work had gone into it, but again, the sellers were not great-more shop stock. There was a Santa's grotto but it was £8 to see Santa and another £4.50 if you wanted a photo which I thought was very expensive, especially if you had more than one child. Outside they had built an ice rink which I thought was a lovely touch and you could go skating until 11pm at night. There was Christmas music and a fake snow machine blowing snow everywhere and they had a band playing Christmas music. I thought it was a nice atmosphere, a lot of work had gone into setting it up, the stalls were not great but for an hours free fun on a Sunday afternoon it was fine.

 Caleb, Shelby and Stu in the Dickensian High St

 The Dickensian High St- all the Victorian shop fronts had been made and the floor painted to look like cobbles/paving slabs

 Caleb and Shelby

 Stu and Shelby

 I paid for Shelby to hold a huge Eagle owl- she thought it was amazing and I got lots of photos. The money went to the bird rescue place that had brought the birds to the market so I didn't mind paying the £2.

 Caleb and Shelby enjoying Belgium waffles with hot chocolate sauce- I was good and had roasted chestnuts instead of a waffle!

 My Mum enjoying her waffle with orange honey sauce

* I have new purple suede gloves I bought at the Christmas market

* We went to Shelby's parents evening this week. All of the teachers we saw were very pleased with how well she is doing. They all said such lovely things about her-what a delight she was to teach, a lovely child, wonderful manners, hard worker, popular- it is so lovely to hear such nice things about your child!! Her grades are all spot on and she is a whole level above most of the class in French so we are really proud of her.

*Me and Caleb went to see his school's production of Jesus Christ Superstar on Thursday. It blew me away!! It was so professional-just like a London Theatre performance. The students were amazing, fantastic acting and their singing was out of this world. The set was spectacular and the Cross at the end was on a hydraulic lift so when the actor was put on it, it was then raised 16 foot into the air. The whole performance was dramatic, visually stunning, intense and I cried at the end.Even the programme was done superbly-it was written like the bible and on the last page was a photo of the boy who played JC and underneath was the funny quote from Monty Python-'He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy' which had Caleb and me in stitches. We had a fab evening and now Caleb has to write a review for the school magazine. 

* I sent my secret Santa gift off this week for Carmen's Secret Santa swap and mine arrived on Tuesday-I really want to open it but am trying hard to be good!

*Also arriving in the post this week and the postman had to listen to my excited squeal, was my Gelli Arts printing plate. I was supposed to wait until after Xmas but I thought what the hell and ordered it when Stu ordered my birthday present from Art from the Heart at the weekend.( which are set of the new Montanna acrylic pens, which I have stroked but am not allowed to have until my birthday-Boo)

I had a wonderful time on Thursday playing with the gelli print plate, i had paint everywhere, every surface was covered in prints or painty stencils- it took me over half an hour to clean the mess up when I had finished, but worth it as I ended up with some lovely pages to use.

 I might join the mail art challenge over at Collabor-art now I have all these wonderful backgrounds.

* Wonderful reiki share at group on Wednesday, which I needed as my back was playing up

* Coffee- I have been drinking so much coffee as my craft room is soooo cold. My computer is in my craft room and that's where I also do all my Equals work as I do the admin side of my work from home. So I spend most of each day out there in the cold. I have taken to wearing my dressing gown over my clothes and wearing the fingerless gloves my sister made me last year! The coffee is helping to keep me warm so I am grateful for that.

* As always, grateful for my wonderful kids and hubby, great family and friends

That's it for this week, hope you all have a wonderful week,

Sami x

Rocking your World for a month of Fridays!

Apologies, apologies, apologies! I have been a very bad blogger for not posting in a month and for not even managing to find the time to come and check out all the blogs I follow. I have been so busy with work and home life these last few weeks, anything I do for me has just slipped by the wayside.

So, catching up on Rocking your world Friday, hosted by the lovely Virginia.

In no particular order as I am just trying to remember everything...

*Park of the Dead was a fantastic experience, luckily I didn't get eaten by any of the zombies although they did scare the hell out of me! The event was put together so well, even the tiniest details were thought about to make the whole night fantastic. Will definitely be signing up for next year.

*I have taken some of my art work to a gallery on the Island, scary and I don't know if anything will sell, but the owner liked the stuff. I have another four paintings at a Christmas event at Ventnor Library, so possibly will have a little cash to buy art supplies after Xmas...I really want one of those gelli art plates!

*Helping my sister make her wedding bouquet using old brooches and flowers.

*Finishing the body and face of my fairy that I am making at fairy club and painting her face so she looks'real' now. Just have to dress her and give her some hair.

*Celebrating Samhain with friends and having our 'Ancestor' dinner afterwards.

*Going to see Breaking Dawn part 2 twice...soooooo good!

*Doing two hours of the Merenque at work on Wednesday. One of our members husbands teaches Latin dancing so he came in and gave us a class. I have not moved my hips so much in years!

*The reason for me being so neglectful of my blog-funding applications to keep my job. Have managed to secure funding for a little while longer, so the group keeps going and I get to continue working with such a wonderful bunch of women.

*Getting my  Painting back from the Collabor-art 'Pass the painting' swap. It looks fantastic and so great to see all the layers each person has added.

*Going to the book signing of a local authors new book

*Receiving a postcard from a friend

*Central heating, it has got soooo cold!

*Celebrating Diwali at the group. We all made Diwali lamps and then had a huge party with lots of food to celebrate this wonderful Hindu festival of lights.

 We each made wishes and were given a blessing each and then one of the women sang for us. It is so amazing to be able to celebrate and learn about all these different festivals and celebrations with such an amazing group of women.

*Getting tickets for Damh the Bard in January

*Completing all my Yule gifts and my Secret Santa present for Carmen's Secret Santa

*Great dinner conversations with the kids over the last few weeks, ranging from 'do we believe in the tooth fairy still' to 'being pressured into sex'- very big leap! (Shelby lost her last baby tooth and Caleb has just completed training at school to teach the younger children about peer pressure and sex in their PHSE lessons)

*Seeing Shelby perform in the annual show put on by the Dance academy school she attends. She was amazing, even if I do say so myself, doing a Hip Hop routine with the rest of her class. So proud of her! Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos during the show so had to make do with one of her afterwards.

*Seeing the first frost yesterday, always looks so beautiful

*Stu bought me a new phone as my very old one has finally died, but of course, I have no idea how to actually use it!

* Being asked to put together and a deliver an art journalling for beginners course by the Gallery that has taken some of my work. Very excited about the possibilities of this and am Just hoping that it actually happens.

* Finishing a commissioned painting for a friend this week of their handfasting.

There was obviously lots more that Rocked in the last month but I can't remember!!

I am going to link this up with Virginia and will try to get round to all the blogs I follow over the next few days.

Sami x

Rocking your world friday

 It's that time of the week again and for the second time in a row I am actually posting on a Friday! pop over to Virginias Blog to find out more and check out the other Rockette posts.

I kept a daily list this week to help me remember everything.

Saturday:

* Making wedding stuff with my sister and Teresa. My little sis is getting married next year and we are trying to make as much as possible for it. We have already made and sent out the save the dates, we have finished the invitations, discussed the alterations for the bridesmaids dresses so we sat down on Saturday to make the 'guest book'. She is not having a traditional guest book she is having a branch arrangement on each table and then we have made leaves (on the cricut) which the guests will write their messages on and hang from the branches. The leaves will also double as the named place settings for each table. We had a production line going with Teresa putting the cardstock on the cricut mats, me cutting them and Zoe punching the hole in them. Then we sat and threaded jute through each leaf so they can be hung. We also made some extra little leaves to put on the branches already for decoration. We were going to use vases to put the branches in but Zoe found these beautiful little table arrangements at Dunhelm mill that look like little nests so we are going to stick the branches in them. It should look fab!

* A good friend cheering me up on Saturdayy, I have had a really down couple of months for many stupid reasons, but a good chat with her and I felt a lot better.

Sunday:

* I was a naughty girl on Sunday and used some of my art money (the money I have made from selling my artwork) to go and buy an iPod touch. I really wanted an iPad but that was way out of my price range and most of the things I wanted the iPad for I can do on the touch, like facebook and Instagram. I also bought a purple case for it. Paige came over and helped me set it up (or I should say did it for me, I am not very good with the technical stuff) and added all the apps I wanted and my music. This resulted in bursts of happy dancing all day, much to the amusement of my family! What can I say, little things make me happy!

* Watching Prometheus on Sunday night with Stu and Caleb. I didn't know if I would be able to follow this film as it's so long since I saw Alien and it wasn't really my cup of tea, but I enjoyed the prequel and thought they had done it really well.

Monday:

* Watching a huge flock of birds, hundreds of them, swooping and soaring right above my garden while having my morning cup of coffee. I don't think I have seen so many birds before and it was amazing to watch them twisting in and out of each other, creating these huge sweeping patterns in the sky.

Tuesday:

* On Tuesday the Equals Culture Kitchen Project (which I run) went to Medina House School to provide ethnic dance and cooking for the pupils there. Medina House is a school for severely disabled children and I was worried that I might find it upsetting but it was the most uplifting experience. The staff there are amazing and so dedicated and it was so wonderful to see all the children participating in this event. All the children got up to dance with the ladies and the staff twirled the children in wheelchairs around and helped them clap their hands. The dance session overran by 20 minutes as the kids were having so much fun! We had to adapt our cookery as they have no cooking facilities and the children were not allowed to use knives, but we came up with a good menu of ethnic food for them, Kimbop which is a Korean dish similar to sushi, rice and vegetables wrapped in seaweed, and Dadar Gulong which is Indonesian sweet coconut crepes. All of the kids tried the food and some were able to help put the vegetables in the Kimbop and make their own crepes. It was their harvest festival this week so we also took in a big box of exotic fruits for them such as dragon fruit, star fruit, cape gooseberries etc so the children that couldn't help make their own food got to touch and feel all these fruits. It was such an amazing day and projects like this make me really appreciate the job that I do.

Wednesday:

* I woke up Wednesday with a stinking cold and felt really lousy. This is the second cold this month, I really need to up my dose of vitamin C! I managed to package up all my affirmation cards which I am taking to the gallery/shop next week along with my paintings and prints and then I went up to bed at 2pm as I just felt so awful. Stu came home from work and cooked tea for everyone and took Shelby to Tesco to buy some things to put in her shoebox for the shoebox appeal she's doing at school. He is such a sweetheart and I don't know what I would do without him, so am grateful this week for how he looks after me!

Thursday:

* My Dad turned up a day early to put my new cabinet on the wall. I was given a lovely display cabinet for my crystals by the wonderful Menna (the fairy workshop lady!) and my Dad was going to come on Friday morning and put it up but he had some free time yesterday so turned up with his drill. After it was up, I spent a good hour arranging some of my collection of crystals in it until it looked perfect and then sat on the floor just looking at it for ten minutes with a big smile on my face! Thank you Menna, Thank you Dad!

 * Caleb and his Lego have made me smile this week. We have enough Lego in our house to build our own legoland! Caleb has been collecting Lego since he was four and he is fifteen now. I love the fact that even though he is a teenager he has not outgrown it and still sits for hours putting together the most amazing creations. This is one of his 'small' creations he designed on Thursday evening. It opens up and has computers, guns, lasers, teleporters, blast somethings etc all inside. I just love his creativity!

 * And the biggest and bestest thing to rock my world this week was hearing that Carmen had finally had her baby!! The lovely ladies of the Wednesday Whine group have all been on tenderhooks for the last few days, checking our FB page every five minutes for news and finally last night Carmen's daughter posted the first photos of Bubba. Way to go Carmen, big hugs and lots of love from us all! Considering I have never met any of the ladies from WW in real life, the support, kindness and laughs from everyone is amazing and I think we were all clucking like mother hens waiting for news of Carmen's bubba!!

Friday:

* I found out that the Equals Friendship group have been successful in their funding application so that means that the group can run for another year and I still have a job!! It is such a relief as I have been in panic mode the last few months, knowing that our funding is running out, hating the fact that that would mean the end of our group and my job. I can breathe easy for another year now.

* I am going to PARK OF THE DEAD  tonight and I am so excited. It is the first time they have run this event but the effort they have put into the publicising of it has been amazing It's all over FB, they had an entry in this years carnival to promote it and today we have been getting updates all morning on FB saying things like 'one of the experiments has escaped' and 'one of the park security force has been hurt in an incident'. It's really helping to set the scene for tonight! I know I will be screaming a lot and holding tight to Stu, telling myself 'it's not real' over and over again! We are not allowed to take photos on the tour but maybe Paige will manage to sneak a few with her phone and I can post them on here next week!

Well that's it for this weeks Rocking post, not a bad week all in all!

This bit of the post is for Carmen who wanted me to post the painting I did for her and it's the least I can do today as she has just given birth!!

I sent this to Carmen a few weeks ago as a gift for the Bubba. It is called ' May you always be watched over'. There is a lot of symbolism specific to Carmen in it, which I wont go into. Anyway, she said she loved it so that made me happy!!

Thanks for stopping by and wish me luck for tonight that I don't get eaten by Zombies!!

Sami x