Rocking Friday

 Hello Friday Rockers!

Well it's been a few weeks again since I posted but I have found some time this morning to Catch up!

I am linking this up with Virginia for our Rocking your world Friday posts, a weekly look at all our gratefuls.

* First up, on Saturday my Mum and Dad got handfasted (Celtic wedding) as a way of renewing their vows after 40 married years together. My sister and I performed the ceremony assisted by our other pagan friends. We held the ceremony in my sisters garden which looked wonderful after we had decorated everywhere with bunting, streamers, willow hearts and flowers and lots of lanterns. Mum and Dad had invited a few close friends and family so it was a very intimate affair. I felt very honoured to perform this with my sister, for our parents. Their vows to each other brought tears to the eyes, both to me and my sister and the guests! We had a BBQ afterwards and everyone said how wonderful and different the ceremony was.

* I am grateful that when I woke up last Wednesday morning to find my right eye was filled with blood, it was nothing serious, just the pressure from a migraine! It was pretty scary looking in the mirror and having a demon eye stare back at me! I went to the doctors and she had a trainee sitting in with her so they proceeded to discuss amongst themselves what it could be...high blood pressure, glaucoma, a brain aneurysm..OMG, I was getting seriously worried! But they cleared me of everything and said it was due to my headache. it's gradually healing up, the bloods going down and my eye is turning yellow!

*On Monday Shelby and me went to Compton bay with Paige in Jenni the big gay camper van! (Jenni is Paige's pride and joy! Her hubby has spent hours fixing her up mechanically and Paige and I made the curtains and re covered all the seats and she has made it so pretty inside.)

We drove all the way to Compton with the music blaring, parked up and Paige put the kettle on and we had lunch. We went for a walk along the beach after lunch, and I have to say, Compton is one of my fave beaches on the Island, it is visually stunning with the towering white cliffs surrounding it. Here's some photos.

 'Jenni'

 The view from the car park

 Shelby, Paige and the dogs Gracie and Suki

 Shelby wave jumping

I took loads of photos which I have not done in ages, now I don't really scrapbook I never remember to take my camera anywhere!

* Planning our trip to Glastonbury next week- what to take, what places to visit, oh I am so excited! I love Glastonbury so much, it always feels like coming home when I go there. I am going with Paige in Jenni for three days. No kids, no hubby's, no dogs...sheer spiritual bliss awaits us!!

*My Nephew is down on the Island so its been lovely to see him again.

*It was Stewart and Mine's anniversary on Wednesday. Married for 14 years, I don't know where the time has gone. I am so grateful for him and thank my lucky stars everyday that I met him.

The kids made us a beautiful card with poems in that they had written themselves, which nearly brought me to tears. We are going to celebrate our anniversary on Monday along with our daughters 12th birthday by going out to lunch somewhere nice.

* Watched Mirror Mirror with the kids last night, so funny, I really enjoyed it. I love curling up with the kids and watching something together.

* And finally, seeing Virginia's crystal collection photos rocked my world this week! So beautiful, thank you for sharing  Virginia!

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I have had some fun with painting this week, inspired by this Lady's work, Erin Faith Allen. I stumbled across her blog the other day and the first painting I saw was called 'the returning' and it really called to me like nothing has in a long time. I in no way hoped to capture the spiritual feeling I got from her paintings but I loved her free style.I am still quite reserved with my painting, unable to really let go (I am getting there in my art journal but give me a canvas and I freak that I am going to mess it up!)

I decided to just go for it and see what happened and this was the result.

(For some reason Blogger will not put them up the right way so you will have to lean your head to the right and imagine them upright!)

Finished piece-Cerridwen



Another one I did-Hekate

I loved the process of creating these but not entirely sure I love the end result!

Thanks for popping by,

Sami x

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

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