Rocking your world friday

Wow, I hear you exclaim, two rocking posts in one week! That's to make up for all the weeks I have missed!

If you don't know what RYWF is all about (why not?) then pop over to our hosts blog and check it out.

* What has rocked my world the most this week was taking part in Ryde Arts Parade with the fabulous Equals Friendship Group. (photos and video should be on the Equals website next week, worth a look if only to giggle at me dancing!)

Although a hell of a lot of hard work and stress to make the costumes and organise everything it was well worth it on the day. This years theme was cultural celebrations throughout the calendar year and we were given Guy Fawkes as our celebration.

We had a special mix of music put together for us by my volunteers son and it was a mix of Fire by Arthur Brown, fire starter by the prodigy and fireworks by Katy Perry. Unfortunately the carnival centre gave us a dead battery on our sound system so we didn't have our music on the way round, but we made up for it when we performed in the Gala afterwards on stage!

 My Daughter Shelby

 My Husband, Stewart on the left, Arums Husband and my brother in law, being our stewards for the day, carrying all our water bottles and first aid kit and pushing the dead sound system all the way round the streets of Ryde!

 Before we set off

 Lining up ready to set off

 Performing our dance moves, without the music at the top of Union Street in Ryde

 The back of our costumes as we head along the seafront.

(All photos taken by the fab Travis Lumpkin!)

We all had so much fun and we won a trophy for third place for costume design.

* Fresh potato's and peas from my sons allotment

*Making baby shower banners at work yesterday for our first Equals baby!

* Finishing the shades of grey trilogy..oh my!

*Two broke girls on E4...this does make me laugh.

* Reiki share group this week. We had our auras photographed this week by a lovely lady called Charlotte. She took before photos that showed our auras and chakras and then we gave each other Reiki and had our photos taken again. Amazing results and her analysis of our personalities based on our aura colours was fantastic and spot on!

* The Wednesday Whine group. I know I don't get on their as often as I'd like, but all you ladies are fab! You can have a whine about anything and there's always a listening ear and a laugh to be had. Thank you ladies x

* And as always, I am grateful for my wonderful kids and hubby, who can always put a smile on my face.

Not a long list this week, and I am sure there were more moments, but these were my highlights!

I have managed to finish some pages in Sue's pair journal, as part of the swap on Collabor-art. The theme of Sue's journal is 'alphabetika'. We add to each others pages and start new ones for each other to play with.

 I just added the stamped trees to this page

 This page was book pages and gesso, paint and ink, a printed image which I drew over and then added the poem

 Paint, ink, tissue paper and handcarved stamps and a bit of deciphering that Sue needs to do!

 I added the parrot with the skull on this page and did the title with washi tape

 I used a magazine image as a mask on this page and then covered the page with gesso.

 This was Sue's braille page which I loved. I added chalk ink to highlight the Braille, some stamps and a cut up postcard.

 I used newspaper headlines as the background then gessoed over it, added red paint, a text stamp and an image from a magazine.

 I loved this page of Sue's so I only added the handcarved 'confidential' and raven stamp and the little dancing skeletons around the outside.

Sue had made this mini journal to go in the pocket on the left. I added some Morse code for her to decipher.

I am really enjoying working on this pair journal, although am still struggling a bit with adding stuff to Sue's pages in case she doesn't like them!

Thanks for looking

Sami x

Catch up!

Well hello there!It's been way to long since I posted, over a month now. Work has been so hectic with three culture kitchen events, Ryde Arts Parade and funding applications to contend with, which has not left me with a minute to catch up on here or on other peoples blogs. Add in the Jubilee celebrations, 3 weekends working on my friends camper van with her and a whole host of other 'life' things and lets just say I fallen way behind with everything. Apologies to those I regularly visit, I am trying to catch up with all your posts!

Anyway, I have about 5 weeks worth of catching up to do with my Rockin posts...which ain't gonna happen as I haven't written anything down...but here's what I do remember!

* Getting the bullying sorted out with the school for my daughter. It took a few attempts before anyone took me seriously, but it seems to be all settled now and Shelby is back to being her usual delightful self.

* My son being awarded an IW festival ticket in recognition of all his hard work throughout the year. Now the recognition is fab, but he had to decline the ticket as a) he didn't want to go, b) He knew I would not let him go on his own and c) the school had actually sent home a letter to parents asking them not to let their kids attend the festival if they had exams on the Monday!! Why then was this his prize!!!

* My sister coming safely out of her operation and making a good recovery

* A new meditation group that I joined. Wonderful people, very spiritually enlightening and a great Me time treat.

* Celebrating the summer solstice with wonderful friends and family at the beautiful piece of land me use, and the fact that although the day started off wet the sun did make an appearance by lunchtime allowing us to carry out our celebration and have a BBQ.

* Fairy club. I am still so thankful that I was allowed to join and that I am making my own OOAK fairy under direction from one of the most talented women I have ever met! She is coming along nicely, I really struggled with the eyes (which I am still not happy with) but managed to do perfect boobs straight away...what does this say?!

 * Managing to find a couple of hours to start my third painting of my Maiden, Mother, Crone set. It's been about 10 months since I finished the first two and my mojo for them has waned slightly! Also for remembering to get my 'pass the painting' canvas done in time and sent off to the next person (part of the pass the painting swap on Collabor-art)

 * Making this bag about 6 weeks ago...the intention was to make a whole load to sell but I have not had time so I am now using this one myself. I used one of my prints and added some lovely wave fabric to the bottom.

 * The Jubilee celebrations. Well, the extra time off work anyway! Shelby and I did go down to the seafront with my sister, mum, dad and brother in law to watch the torch being lit and to see the fireworks though. We had a lovely time and laughed our socks off at the family next to us.... a group of older women, one of them celebrating their 91st birthday, drinking Jack Daniels and getting more and more drunk and outrageous as the evening wore on...I hope I am still enjoying life that much at that age!

* Being able to call on friends for help. How nice it is to pick up the phone and ask for help and have people who are happy to oblige. What wonderful friends I have that when I need them the most they are always there. I hope I always return the favour.

Well, I am sure there were many more rockin moments over the last few weeks, but my work addles brain is having trouble remembering them!

Thanks for stopping by after my long absence, normal service should resume shortly!

Sami x