Bad Blogger! And Rocking Friday.

Hello! It's been ages again, I know. Work is hectic and the sun is out!

Just a quick catch up on some art and a really quickie rockin post.

 I did this canvas as I wanted to practise blending my faces with my new prismacolour pencils and I wanted to try using beeswax over the finished piece. I definitely need to practise with the beeswax as I put way too much on to start with and then had to reheat it and take it off!

I have been doing some pages in my pair journal ready to send back to Sue.

My theme is round and round.

 Sue had added doilies to this page and I wanted to try and bring out the detail on them. Watercolour didn't work very well so I went over them with oil pastels. I drew the dream catcher and have left space if Sue wants to add anything.

 This page is a mix of brown wrapping paper, scrapbook paper, stencils, ink and texture paste.

 Water colours and stencils and plenty of room to add stuff.

 Sue had made these 'holey' pages which looked to me like a tunnel. I added the trees to the left hand side and some pop up elements to add more depth. On the right hand side I used a tree stencil, a leaf stencil with texture paste and have started a bit of a story which I am hoping Sue will add too!

Sue had done the text and border background on this page and I added some large texture paste circles and drizzled acrylic ink down the page.

I may get the chance to do a bit more before I send it off, but if not I'm happy with it!

Right, Rocking stuff, only 4 days late!

* The sunshine! How lovely to be able to sit in the garden reading a good book.

* Stu's birthday on Friday. We went to Newport so he could spend his birthday pennies in the sport shop. He bought me two lovely long flowing skirts and a sun hat as well. We had friends and family round in the evening and we sat in the garden enjoying the weather having a laugh-wonderful evening.

* embracing my inner hippy! I have decided I am going to embrace the true me, the pagan/tree hugging/Crystal loving hippy wanna be, including the way I dress. I always used to be a bit out there with my style before becoming a mummy and getting big. I constantly worry what I look like but now I am saying to hell with that...I want to wear the long skirts and the DM's and I don't care what I look like!!!

* Grateful to Amazon for good book prices. I have had a crystal book in my wish list for about a year, RRP £30, Amazon price £25, until last week when I checked and it had gone down to £13-yay, it fell it my basket and arrived last week...I have been engrossed ever since.

* Grateful for Reiki share and a much need chill out last week.Also that I can give reiki to my sister to calm her down ready for her op this week.

There's much more that I am grateful for, but my kids are calling me to go and sit outside with them!

Sami x

Rocking your world friday

Hello Friday Rockers! I did not manage to post last week so this is a bit of a mish mash of all my gratefuls over the last two weeks.

 So, in no particular order...

* Making dreamcatchers with friends on Monday night. I love our 'craft' evenings together, so far we have made spirit dolls, sea glass mobiles and now these beautiful dream catchers.

 * My new art book 'Mixed Media Girls' by Suzi Blu arrived last week. I have enjoyed having a good read and there are some good tips for drawing faces and how to blend the colours on the face. There are also techniques for adding texture, collage etc and there is a DVD with it which I have not had time to watch yet. Overall I am pleased I bought this book.

* My new Prismacolor pencils. Wow, these are expensive aren't they??? Suzi uses these in her book to blend the face colours together so I went on line to have a look at them and could not believe the price of the sets. The smaller sets did not have the colours I needed and I could not afford to buy a bigger set, but, YAY, I found a site that sells them individually for £1.05 a pencil-still a bit pricey but I just bought the few colours I needed for the faces. They blend beautifully so I am pleased I got them.

* This is how my fairy is progressing at fairy club, I think it's going to be a long process but I am so grateful to be included in this club with a wonderfully amazing teacher and a great group of people that I don't care if it takes forever!

 * Above are a couple of photos of a little art doll I made with the clay faces that Sherry sent me last week. Its a bit basic but I think shes sweet! I am going to add some beads to her dragonfly body. Thank you Sherry!

* I went to a new meditation group with Paige on Tuesday. Neither of us knew anyone there and didn't know what to expect but everyone was lovely and the teachers were really good. I am looking forward to going again.

* I spent last Saturday with Paige rummaging through charity shops for clothes that we can alter for a new project. I also went in the crystal shop and bought a new crystal. Had a fun day just browsing and keeping my mind off work issues.

* I am very grateful to Paige's wonderful Hubby Trav who spent all of Sunday sorting my computer out. My computer has been on death watch for a while and Trav managed to get me a reconditioned one (just the tower) for £45 and then spent all day transferring stuff from the old one to the new one. Also on Sunday I used my 'pimping' money (the stud fee I got for Oakley) to buy a netbook so that I can actually sit in the frontroom with the kids and be online instead of always being shut away in my craft room. The kids can use it aswell if I am working on the main computer and they want to browse or do homework. It was a bit of a luxury and I am not sure if I really needed it but I wanted to spend the pimping money on a treat rather than putting it away and then it getting spent on bills. So Travis also sorted the netbook out for me because I had to be able to use it straight away!!

* I had my pair journal back from Sue and I love what shes done with it. I am really enjoying taking part in this now I have got over my nerves about working in someone else's book and adding to their work. I am also loving reading all the posts and seeing all the amazing art on the Collabor-ART blog.

* On Wednesday at the friendship group we had a lady in from 'Get Sorted' which deals with drug and alcohol abuse, mainly in young people. She gave us a really good talk about the dangers, signs to look out for and that sort of thing. It prompted to me to have a really good chat with my kids about the dangers of drugs. I know my kids are good kids, they are sensible, responsible etc but even I was surprised at HOW responsible their views were on drugs. They seemed to know a lot more than I thought and both were really adamant that they would never touch them. We talked about peer pressure and the confidence to say no and I was really impressed with their grown up attitudes.

* And finally I will leave you with a couple of photos from the friendship groups new project-Culture Kitchen-which helps spread cultural awareness through ethnic cooking. Some of the ladies went and provided a session of the culture kitchen to staff at the IW College on their staff training day. Feedback from the staff was excellent and we have been asked when we can do it again! I am so proud of these ladies!

Well, that's it for me, I'm off to link this up with our host of rocking Friday's, Virginia over on her blog.

Sami x

Rocking your world friday-on monday

Hello Friday Rockers. Well it's Monday so I am late posting and will have to make it a quick post.

Apologies for lateness, I am just so rushed for time at the moment, I don't know whats going on! I have not caught up with any ones blogs all week so apologies there as well.

* Last Saturday my Mum, Sister, Daughter and me went over to Southampton to watch Dirty Dancing at the Mayflower theatre. We had a girly day-shopping in primark, having lunch at Bella Pasta and my Mum bought me a lovely new bag! The show was fantastic and the atmosphere in the theatre was great-everybody singing along! We had to move seats during the interval as when we got up to go to the loo someone behind us had obviously spilt their drinks and it was all flooded around our feet, our bags were soaked and my daughters programme was ruined. I went and spoke to a member of staff and asked for a mop but when they came and looked they said they would move us instead. They replaced my daughters programme for her and then moved us downstairs to better seats! Bonus for us!

We had a fantastic day-I think it was one of the best shows I have seen-for entertainment value, atmosphere and just sheer feel good factor!

* Our May Day celebrations were cancelled last week due to the bad weather but on the plus side I managed to spend the day getting my art calendar done for the calendar challenge.

*I had a wonderful gift arrive in the post this week from Sherry. (check out her blog) She had sent me some of her clay faces that she makes for her art dolls and some hair for them. I happened to mention to her that I had looked at the moulds on ebay and was umming about them and she kindly sent me some to play with to help me make up my mind! Thank you so much Sherry, they are wonderful, I just have to find time to have a play now!

* Also this week I received Sue's journal in the post. This is the pair journal I signed up for. I have never seen anyone Else's art journal 'in the flesh' so it was wonderful just to stroke it! Sue's journal theme is Alphabetika.

The idea with this pair journal is that you can add to each others pages as well.

 Sue had started this page and I just added some red ink spray some washi tape and coloured in the little stamps. I was quite scared at first to touch/alter someone Else's work but after a good talking to from Sue I just got on with it and really enjoyed myself!

 This is the page I added in her journal...I wanted to think outside the box a little on her theme!

* This is a photo of me sculpting the head of my fairy at fairy club on Friday night. The very wonderful lady who runs it has allowed me to tag along with Paige as I was so Jealous-I have been a Froud fan for many many years!

I am enjoying it so much but it is very difficult!

*Some other little gratefuls- I bought some more beads and made my mum a bracelet as a thank you for buying my bag, Making worry beads with a friend, snuggling up in bed with Shelby when we both had sore throats, amazing volunteers that I work with and amazing women in the group, good friends and wonderful family, amazing kids and a great hubby!

That's it for this week. I will link up with our host virginia tomorrow and try and get round every ones posts- have to dash now, I am supposed to be somewhere in 15 mins and I'm still in my PJ's!

Have a great bank holiday!

Sami x

Calendar Challenge-on time!

Hurray! I am actually posting this on time-1st May!

I was so late with my April page last month I didn't even bother to link up over at Kate's blog!

If you don't know what this challenge is about check out our host's blog, Kate Crane.

Here is my completed April page



And here is May!

I used Dylusions paints and sprays, Mr Hueys white ink spray and some stencils.

Thanks for looking

Sami x