Rocking your world Friday

It is Rocking your world Friday again...where is the time going? I am posting late again, sorry, and am linking up with our host Virginia. Pop over to her blog and see what has been rocking every ones world this week. This is a chance each week to list all your positives and things you are grateful for.

* On Sunday my Mum, sister, Shelby and me went to the Isle of Wight Healing festival, held at Ventnor Botanical gardens. There were lots of things going on like Belly dancing displays and hula hooping, which Shelby loved. There were many people there promoting different healing therapies and you could have a session for a donation. We all had a tarot reading from a lady called Elizabeth who runs the meditation group we go to. It was a very positive and uplifting reading and she was spot on about so many things. The weather was lovely so I am grateful for a lovely afternoon spent with my family, just chillin.

* I am grateful for having had two weeks off work. I have not had any time off since I started work for Equals 3 years ago. I was very good and didn't check my work emails at all!

* I am grateful that Stu had 2 weeks off work with me so we could spend some time together. We didn't get up to much just sitting in the garden with the kids, playing poker with the kids, walking the dogs, playing Rockband, going to the beach and going bowling.

 The 'PRO' bowler! He has his own bowling balls and shoes and plays in a league so obviously he wiped the floor with us!

 He's so proud of his balls!!!!

 Caleb

 My strike dance!

 Shelby looking pretty!

* We have been making fairy costumes this week for a secret summer fairy party that we are going to. Our lovely friend Menna (the fairy lady) has been helping us. I will post pictures when they finished. We are altering dresses we already had for a handfasting a few years ago, so we are going to be more like Renascence fairy's! I am so grateful for Mennas help, she is so talented!

* On Monday, the wonderful Menna took Paige and me through the secret fairy woods at the bottom of her garden. These are privately owned and she managed to get permission to take us in. They were amazingly beautiful with such old trees. It was lovely and unspoilt as they are private. I really felt like I was in another world.

* Making my sisters wedding invites. They look fab and didn't take nearly as look as I thought they would. It was lovely just sitting together with everyone with a sort of production line going on!

*Took the kids to Firestone Copse on Friday with Paige. It was lovely wondering through the beautiful woods. Paige and Caleb decided to have a sword fight with some sticks...it was all fun until Caleb bashed Paige's knuckle in!

 Keeping out of reach of Paige's dog, Gracie who had just jumped into a huge stagnant pond and wanted to shake all over everybody!

 This tree is amazing, I take photos of the kids standing inside it every time we go! It's trunk has split into seven pieces and it was featured on the programme coast to coast.

 Sitting by the salt marsh

 Shelby

 Caleb, doing his best NOT to fall in for fear of having to walk home on his own!

 Shelby wearing Caleb's hat and trying to look like an explorer

 Let the fight begin!

 I don't think their sticks are very evenly matched, seeing as Caleb is holding my very sturdy walking staff and Paige has a rotten branch that Caleb found on the floor for her!

 Gracie was getting a bit worried about her Mum being attacked!

  Caleb, really going for it, just before he bashed Paige!

*I spent a whole day this week making this Shared journal for a new group I will be attending. The hope is that this sharing book will become like a book of women's wisdom with every group member contributing to it with poems, quotes, words of wisdom, art, healing remedies, homemade crafts, recipes etc. I am very excited to be going to this new group and wanted to contribute something for us to share.

I made the book out of canvas which I first stitched into the cover shape and then decorated. It has loads of pages inside and a canvas pocket to store things in.

Well, thats it for this week,

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

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

Rocking your world Friday

Hello Friday rockers!

I didn't get a chance to post last week and this post may be quite short..I am failing at time management the last few weeks!

Anyhow, if you are wondering what this is all about, check out our host, Virginia's blog.

Its the time of the week to list all your gratefuls.

* Spending the afternoon on Sunday hunting the beaches for sea glass so we could make these mobiles on Monday. It was cold, raining, but the joy of finding all the beautiful sea glass was worth it!

 We found the inspiration over on pinterest here.

I was really pleased with how it turned out.

* Photos of my kids. I have loads of photos going up my stairs of the kids and family members. Sometimes I just pause on the stairs and really look at them! I found myself doing that this week and it made me smile!

*My Hubby. I am in my moody/stroppy/tired week and the stress with my job has been really getting me down the last few weeks, but as always he is there. He is not a man of  many words but his actions are normally spot on! So a big thank you to him for understanding my stroppiness, cooking the dinner last night as I just couldn't be bothered and for not going bowling so I could go and help a friend. You are amazing.

*Taking part in my first ever pair journal. I am very excited about this.

 This is the front cover of the journal I made for it.

 The first page

 The second page.

I am hoping that this journal gets my mojo going again.

* I am grateful for some exciting opportunities that may be coming my way. I am grateful that I recognised the signs that I was sent and that my thoughts and hopes were answered. I now just need to act on them.

* Caleb got an A* in his biology exam, so proud of him.

 * At group this week, Luz's husband came in and showed us how to make traditional Paella. It took 2 1/2 hrs but he was a total pro and the results were amazing! Big thank you to John for doing this for us!

(there's always one photo that blogger flips around and wont let me put back the right way!)

* Grateful for my health, my family, my wonderful kids and great friends. Grateful for what I have in my life right now and the fact that even though things sometimes pull me down I have the ability to recognise exactly what I have in my life.

That's it for this week as I have to rush out the door now. I will catch up with everyones rocking post on Monday as I am out and about all weekend.

Thanks for looking,

Sam x

Five for Friday and some drawings-Warning, one a bit naughty!

Hi! Just catching up with a few things here in blogland. I have been really pushed for time lately and have not spent much time on blogs at all so sorry if I have not visited your blog as often as I normally do!

Just a little warning if you are of a sensitive nature-one of my drawings below is a little on the naughty side-but totally in context-so I hope I don't offend anyone!

This is my week 11 Five for Friday page. The challenge is run by Laurie over at her blog. This week was list five things you consider lucky.

Now, I am a bit OCD so I really pay attention to signs and things that pop up in my life, especially the number 5-that's my lucky number.

 Other lucky signs for me are the robin that appears in my garden, dragonflies, white feathers and as I couldn't really think of another personal one I included the four leaf clover. I tried to do 2 image transfers on this page but they didn't come out very well! I used Dylusions paints and sprays, stencils and a white tippex pen.

I have been doing some Faerie drawings over the last few days (as I am hoping to take part in classes to make a faerie doll).

I have really enjoyed sitting in the evenings just doodling away at these drawings while watching the TV with the kids.

Yesterday I was thinking about our May Day celebrations this year which I am organising and as I sat doodling in the evening this came out! The poem is one I wrote last year for May Day and is about the sacred union of the God and Goddess which brings the summer back to the earth. I know it's a bit 'naughty' but i love how its turned out and may see if I can turn it into a painting.

A couple of weeks ago I also made this this little leather journal for Paige for her birthday. I used my wood burning pen to draw the pentacle on the front cover and then I roughed up the edges of the pages and inked them so they looked old.

Well, that's it for today, thanks for dropping by,

Sami x