messy Miss Kate

Family: Sportsday!

I can't think of much that I don't love about my kids school. It's a smallish Catholic primary school with lovely values, interesting & fun learning and a very friendly and supportive school community. The way our school goes about celebrating and organizing activities is fabulous and I'm always impressed.

Sportsday was no exception.

We had some pre-sportsday jitters last night at home but I reminded the girls it doesn't matter where they placed in their events, I would be proud of them for having a go & having fun with it. Charlotte wanted to make sure her sneakers were done up very tight so she could run her fastest. So cute.

Anyway, the day coincided with the breakup of playgroup for the twins, they are off to kindy next term! (umm, weren't the twins just born last year?). So Jeff took Mimi & Chels to playgroup & I took Bud to watch Georgie & Char.

The whole event was great. The whole school kicked off with a new health hustle they had been rehearsing this term and it was so great to see them all dancing and doing little spot shuffles and air punches! Hehe

It was pretty warm to be out in the sun today so I had to zinc us all up so we didn't get too sun kissed walking between the girls events on the oval. I think that's the hardest thing once you have 2 children at school, dividing the attention. Jeff and the twins got there around lunchtime with the twins so, along with all the grandparents, we were all able to cover a bit of ground and see most things.

My favourites were the running relays, both girls came 3rd in their heats and they were so proud, as were we, and I also enjoyed the tug of war. Each year level has a turn. And there's also mums vs. year 6/7 girls and dads vs. year 6/7 boys. Both mums and dads won this year! Way to go parents!

The day finished off with team chants, health hustle (with parents and kids all involved in the dancing) then results and speeches.

Our team, BLUE, won!!!! The first win for blue since 2003! 2 years before Georgia was even born!! The girls were super excited.

Good day had by all.

Kate xo

Arty & Thrifty Things: cosy cushions

Over the last month or so, I've been chipping away at making these little cosy cushions.  I've finally finished a bunch & loaded them into my ETSY shop. Just for something a bit different.

My cosy arty cushions are made with a unique mix of recycled fabrics, vintage fabrics, new quilting fabrics, doilies & stitcheries from my op shop hunting & gathering & my own personal collection.

Cushions are full cosiness & puffiness & hope people will enjoy the pretty fabrics & whimsical charm. Each one is unique in fabric selection & decoration. Part of their character is that they are 100% perfectly imperfect.


Fray checked? 
What's that? All seams are overlocked & solid. Patchwork decorative pieces are secured with crazy stitching but will have stray cotton fraying, it will not come undone, it is part of the design!

Seams ironed? 
Ahhh no.

Fabric pieces symmetrical, nice & straight & with seams all lined up?
I can almost guarantee that if seams are lined up, it was definitely a mistake. Sorry. And I can assure you that no rulers were used in measuring out the fabric pieces in the making of this item.

Cosy? Pretty? One of a kind?
Most definitely yes!

You can find limited numbers in my shop now! Click here.

I hope they make a nice addition to someones bed, special chair or comfy couch.  A little earthy homewares kindness.

Enjoy!

Kate xo

Arty Things: couple of sneaks

I finally finished 5 canvases tonight and should have another 5 finished by the weekend too.  I've been working on two batches simultaneously. Its been weeks in the making. Actually some have been waiting to be finished since well before Christmas!  

I also have original artwork that was finished well before Christmas that has just been sitting around, not ever listed [!!!] simply because I'm always running out of time.  

Lets not even mention the full filing cabinet draw of prints not yet uploaded to ETSY. Oh dear.  A constant juggle. Forever jumping from one inspiration to another, from one fire to the next, or so it seems.

So, I 'plan' to get a few things at least blogged & uploaded to ETSY by the end of the coming weekend.

Here's a couple of sneaks in the meantime.

Kate xo

 

NB. Images copyright Kate Mason. Do not copy or use these images without written permission from me, Kate Mason. Thank you.

Inspired: Floral clogs

I may or may not be addicted.

I am definitely inspired. To make pretty arty things. In. These. Clogs.

Cute yes?

Kate xo

Geeky stuff: Lost art of handwriting

The girls are well into their homework groove now & immediately upon coming upstairs, they know the drill.... they sit at my bedroom desk & start their writing.

They can copy straight from their readers or any book book from home or use their sight words to make sentences. Most of the time Georgia likes to write stories. Tonight it was song lyrics she had made up [she wants to be a songwriter and an artist when she grows up. Why not?] and she wrote 2 whole A4 pages of lyrcis, double line spaced. Charlotte is becoming more confident in writing her own stories too.

I know with technology taking over EVERYTHING, including our house, it appears that less importance is being placed upon handwriting in our society these days. And spelling, but don't get me started on that!

I guess in some ways I am still very old fashioned because I love handwriting. I just love to write on paper as well as blog.  I love complete lists, fill out forms, doodle, write letters [which I do not do enough], make & handwrite cards, draw up plans & sketches & schedules... I love it all.  I am also very fussy about my choice of writing implemet, but there's a whole post I could write about that so I will leave that for now.

I still place great importance on handwriting in my house. I don't care whether its popular or over the top, I want my children to be practiced at writing. I want them to be able to spell. I want them to enjoy writing and ensure they keep it going in some form during their life [hopefully teach their children one day if....] and I want them to able to write letters, sentences, emails that 'have proper English mate'. I can't believe how spelling standards have dropped so much.  Staff & colleagues over the years [before children] that could string a few sentences together that were grammatically correct, with correct spelling & legible handwriting always impressed me. It is surprising how many couldn't.

So anyway, I caught a bit of 'The Project' tonight as I was supervising & marking the girls homework. I didn't get to listen to the whole segment but did catch some of the discussion surrounding the lost art of handwriting. Carrie Bickmore appears to have that same early love of handwriting that I have & now my Georgia has too.  I can see changes in Charlottes effort & interest growing day by day too. I think thats a confidence thing.  And for someone in only her 4th term at school, I think she's coming along nicely.

Anyway, I've had this handwriting topic in my long list of things to blog about for over a year. So there is no time like the present to get down my thoughts here on my blog and to record some examples of writing.

Picture above is Charlottes homework from tonight. She copied from one of her readers followed by a spelling test before her evening reading. She did pretty well. There are of course mistakes when she is writing her own sentences as opposed to copying text.

Below are examples of my handwriting. I have many different variations depending on mood and subject.

Here's my:

1] cursive

2] print

3] messy scrawl

I had a few 'old school' teachers in primary school who I can't say I was extremely fond of while I was there. These days, it is only those teachers that I can remember.  Thank you Big Mrs Adams, Mrs Howard & Mrs Selley for all that you impressed upon me all those years ago. I have never forgotten.

I wrote some Irish Blessings & Irish Wishes as I have fond memories of my maternal grandmother always writing an Irish Blessing in every birthday or Christmas card recieved while she was alive.  Even at 96, although shaky, she still loved handwriting cards and had lovely old cursive writing.  I must find an example and blog it.  I know I have many cards around here from her.

And here's my mums writing. I asked her to SMS it over tonight to include on my post. I've always loved it. I even mastered it [and my dads fabulous cursive too] to write myself my own 'Kate needs to leave class at 9.30am today to attend a dentist appointment' notes at high school. Fabulous. See? Handwriting is useful!

Do you still enjoying hand writing these days? Is it something you want your children to be able to do or you think that its not really that relevant today?

Kate xo

Geeky Stuff: Draw Something...

In between all the craziness thats been going on here lately, I've been finding minutes to play a new geeky game.

And I'm in love.

Really. This game was made for me. Made for me in the sense that I love to make, I love to draw, I love to scribble.

Its a game you can download from the App Store for iPad or iPhone [actually there may even be an android version, yes, there must!] and you basically play against opponents you know or random players from around the globe. Its like Pictionary without the board. You get 3 options of things to draw, each having a difficulty level attached & the more difficult, the more you win [if guessed by your opponent].

Its so cool. I normally play sitting in the car at school pickup, late at night before bed, in the middle of the night when I can't sleep & the odd minute here or there when I can catch a tiny free spot of time.  I play with my sister, several facebook/twitter/instagram friends and also some randoms from no idea where.

If there were points awarded on how quickly I draw, I would be a definite last.  I just enjoy the process and depending on the thing I need to draw, love spending as much time as I can making it nice. Ironic saying that since I just posted about our general busy-ness lately. But really, I play in the small cracks of my 24 hours. The times when I am limited in what else I can do. And it relaxes me. Thats a good thing.

Here's some of my drawings from the last week. Just for fun. And just so you know, I use mostly my iPad and mostly a stylus. I've done several with finger on iPhone but its much nicer to draw with a larger [iPad] canvas I think.

 

   

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

So much fun yes?  So if you wanna play with me, please do! I'm Kate_Mason. Same as my Instagram ID.

Cheers,

Kate xo

Schedule: craziness...

I haven't been keeping up my 'schedule' posts the last coupla weeks because well, the schedule has been a wee bit crazy of late.  

It all started a coupla weeks back when we returned from holidays.  We mostly settled back in home, big girls went back to school and then Buddy was sick. We had doctors visits [he's all better now], Chelsea had her 4 year old health check & vaccinations, there were grocery shops to do, orders to package & post, Jeff did some overtime, he also had chiro and then we had swimming week at school & I volunteered for 3 days.

When we use our morning time slot for anything, thats it, the rest of the day is over until I get a chance to pick up the slack once I have all the kids in bed.  

In between the morning slot & kids bed, there's lunches to make, kitchen tidy to do, try & squeeze in some graphics work while the kids play, school pickup, dinner to be made, homework to be supervised, dinner & bed routine.  So on the weeks where we have something in that morning slot every day, the house quickly starts looking like a tip!  Drives me nuts. Organised chaos I can handle, even enjoy. Chaos just spilling out in not any sort of organised way, in every room, oh man, not good!

So then things continue to slide day after day and all of a sudden, my nights are gone for artworking, chatting to friends, my normal little chores here & there and I'm now trying to pull the house & housework & bills into line so we keep afloat.

We also have had 9 party invites for the school girls in the last little while. They are super excited & I'm super excited for them too of course. Obviously it does mean however that gift shopping needs to be done & there's drop off's & pickups all over the place.  

Anyway, its ok, just recording where we are at right this minute.  And at this precise minute, I'm just starting to feel on top of things again. Hence the blogging!  THIS relaxes me!

I spent some time over the weekend working on my diary & to do lists.  Ahhh, internal peace. REALLY!

I have some travel coming up & there's some coordinating with Jeff whose work hours are all over the place & about to take a major readjustment, and my mother to fill a little gap for me while I am away until Jeff comes home from work.

Its kinda full on. I wish this lady could come over and work alongside me some days. I bet I would be super efficient with a sidekick. Kinda like the idea of having 'staff'.  Yes, that would be good.

 

 

[Photo source] 

Ok back to reality!

So its fair to say, there's been quite alot of boring, routine & mundane around here lately. Not that much exciting either. Until this!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stop Press!

Seems, when I am compltely overloaded, I then go and fit in sorting 5 baskets of washing & putting most of it away AND THEN....

go and reorganise my linen cupboard!!!! With labels and everything!!!!! I know this doesn't look special, in fact most readers probably have linen cupboards that look much spicker than this one on a daily basis. But well for me, having 5 babes in 5 years, I'm afraid I have let this poor cupboard completely wear me down. With all the bedding in & out [all out babies were chucky babies, constant bed linen washing] and all the baby towels & baby blankets & everything else, things sorta got shoved in & then more shoved in & then more.... until there was no distinction between towels & sheets, quilts & pillow cases. One big clean mess of a cupboard.  

So because I had no time to spare, in a house re-ordering frenzy, I pulled everything out, labelled the shelves, folded everything & put it all back [sorta] neatly.

I am so proud. I did good mum, yes?  I told you it was exciting!  Well sort of. Not really.

 

So here we are in this new week.... It started off slightly less crazy with me working outside yesterday on one of our sunbeds on my laptop as the kids played outside alongside me in the beautiful Adelaide morning weather we had.  Glorious.

We then had a trip to the post office before picking up the girls from school. A relatively easy day. Today we had Amelia's 4 year old health check & vaccinations and Chelsea's Opthamology appointment in the city.

Here's our brave chickens.

 

For the rest of the week, Jeff has more overtime coming up, I've got parent teacher interviews [have to take the 5 kids, eek!] & I'm going back to the Naturopath. Oh and one birthday party for the girls too!

The one morning we do have free however, I'm taking it off from appointments & chores!  In fact I'm off to visit my lovely friends for morning tea/lunch, with the 3 littlies in tow.  I can't wait. Girls, I may fall asleep, just wake me if my kids break anything.  

So there's our schedule record for most of March. I already know April is going to be double time crazy. But more on that in another post!

Are you the sort like me, when faced with crazy super busy, suddenly get the urge to rip into some sort of project that needs to be done but not really in that exact second?  

It seems this is my MO.  I'm also the same when I am procrastinating about something I really need to do. Suddenly emptying the dishwasher seems more exciting. Weirdo.

Anyway, thanks for reading about my boring craziness. Promise I'll have more interesting things to post about soon!

Kate xo

Kindness: New shoes sort of kindness.............. For me.

I bought myself some spiffy clogs.

Crazy? Pretty? What do you think?

I'm not sure exactly what I think of them yet but I knew they had to be mine.

So I made it so.

That is all.
Kate xo

Inspired: New Studio plans!

Before children, Jeff & I built this big new kit home. The kind you buy off plans & feels impressive because there is so much more space than you ever think you'll need & its all new & nice.  Its not really what I would consider to be a super quality built home. They are kinda cheap in terms of housing.  Anyway, its home. 

For many years while we were trying for babies, we did have all this extra space!  I took over the top floor landing area which on the house plans is known as the kids retreat area, for my art room. It is actually pretty huge.  But then I've been collecting art supplies & merrily making things since I first became a teenager.  Stationery & art supply addict, shall we say?

So what started as a couple trestle tables & a bookshelf or two to house my crafty passions+ sewing machine & fabric addiction..... expanded somewhat, particularly after discovering scrapbooking..... add more trestle tables, more shelving & the great wall of expedits.... suddenly I have a very full room.  I now have 5 children too who need to walk right through the art space so a whole corridor runs right through it to their bedrooms.  The kids also use some of my space for their artwork too.

Basically I am at the point where I am overloaded with stuff on top of stuff & very little room to actually sit & work.  I have to block off the artroom each night so the kids won't walk into the area that holds potentially dangerous paints & mediums + knives & carving tools. I also have to climb onto my chair to face one desk and then when I want to turn around, I have to get up and lift my legs over to face the other desk behind me. Slightly crazy. You can see more here in this post from back in 2008. Its even more cramped now!

Everything is very organised, its just that is has become very very cramped.  I am actually still productive in the space but it is hard to get in & out freely & to work in relative comfort.

So I have been trying to think of alternatives to my artworking for the last couple of years.  I have moved my office space downstairs, then brought it back up.  I have moved my sewing stuff downstairs, where it is now & share the kids playroom space. Its not ideal & its not very comfortable. I don't have any permanent table space to cut out fabrics. I hardly have any room to dry painted canvases upstairs so am limited to how many paintings I can be working on. Then there's despatch for my little growing business which is difficult to fit in too.

I've thought how lovely it would be to have a professional working space outide the home but realistically, we can't afford it and I couldn't cope with it. I NEED to have both my babies & my art supplies close to me. 

Recently some of my lovely friends have been sharing their plans & set ups of their new studio spaces & I've been both inspired & dissolutioned about how I could improve my space.  Its encouraged me to think outside the square.  

And then, just this week it hit me.  Just perhaps, there was another way for me too. Afterall, the playroom space downstairs, right by the front door, is a constant source of frustration for me.  I prefer not to have messy messy messy as soon as you step foot in the house!

So I have been madly measuring away, looking at our home spaces, talking to Jeff, working out possibilities and......

I think I just may have hatched a brilliant plan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By pulling out all my trestles and bookcases & art stuff from the landing upstairs, it leaves a huge space.  A space that could accommodate kids craft table, a computer bench in an open area, a couch, a TV and of course the 'great wall of expedit' could house ALL their toys + more......  

It would be a dream come true for the kids to have all their stuff in one area and multiple activities set up permanently. I have high shelving on the wall in addition to the expedits so their supervised craft stuff could be stored appropriately too.  A lovely large floor rug would be the only expense to make this a true kids retreat. And upstairs too! Toys out of my formal areas! Yay! And it is as the house plans originally intended.  It makes sense.

So that then leaves me & my art stuff a bit homeless. But the playroom ['office' on the house plans] is then empty. At approx 3m x 3m, its certainly not big enough for all my art stuff but it would make a brilliant office, as it was intended to be!  There's already good shelving in place and a long bench the width of one wall.  Perfect!

Now for the biggest change & move our family has made in our home. I'm going to take over the garage!  Its the perfect compromise while the children are still small and I want to be close by.  At 6m x 6m, there is certainly lots of scope to house all my things, and more importantly, be able to house my things in a spread out & more organised & comfortable way.

Our cars will have to sit in the driveway of course but with a house bulging at the seams with people & stuff, there is nowhere else to go.  I've demonstrated that art is something I'll never give up. That I have had some successes & its worthy of a decent space.  Ok so a garage doesn't sound that exciting but really, it isn't so bad.  The walls are either gyprocked or rendered.  The foor is cement.  

Lighting is the only expense in the short term. Maybe some more powerpoints at some stage too.

So, now I have the big task ahead to make it all happen.  It will be a staged affair.  I will first get the garage ready.

* I need to move some stuff - sell it, donate it, throw it.

* I want to paint all the gyprocked walls & rendered walls a nice warm chalky white

* I want to paint all the odd bookshelves & second hand furniture in our garage & home, that same nice chalky white & it will all sit up against the walls in the garage

* I will then slowly dismantle my art room and move it all into the garage & into the office

* Lastly, the kids things can be moved & set up upstairs

I estimate it will take several weeks of moving and sorting and setting up.  I estimate it will also take me several weeks to sort the garage & paint furniture too. But thats ok.  I also have two trips away in the next couple of months so the timing isn't brilliant but I will just keep working away at it.  The kids are super excited too! 

I really hope my vision of my future art space comes together. I think I can totally make this work & its going to be fabulous for everyone.  Considering my husbands work hours are changing, it all ties in very nicely.

I have a board on Pinterest for art room/office spaces & in the last few days I've been ramping up my search for ideas.  

Here's the link to my Pinterest board.  Some are a bit sterile looking for my liking [do people actually make art in those spaces?] and some others will be beyond my reach financially & space wise.  

I love the idea of higgledy piggledy mismatched furniture all painted white, up against the walls. Then a few large trestle tables puched together in the centre of the room.  Lots if interesting & whimsical things to be displayed around the place & tons of colour pop all over the room against the crisp white backdrop.  Coloured baskets on shelves, colourful paints & books, chairs & ottomans. 

I want paper lanterns, fairy lights, a colourful framed mirror, clippy wires on spare walls to clip up inspirational pics, my homemade wored bircage, bunting, fave art book nook and definitely my old record player & record collection. 70's & 80's here I come.

Anyway, here are some of my favourites...

 

 

 

Picture sources from top to bottom:  

1] Pinterest and originally pinned from here.

2] Pinterest and originally pinned from here.

3] Pinterest and originally pinned from here.

4] Pinterest and originally pinned from here.

5] Pinterest and originally pinned from here.

6] Pinterest and originally pinned from here.

 

So there you go. I am so excited about our plans. It'll be a work in progress for many months but I hope it will be well worth it for everyone.  Naturally, I'll share my progress along the way!

Kate xo

Thrifty: Knitting, stitched linens & tiny man clothes...

I had a tiny opportunity today, between commitments, with kids in tow, to go to my two local op shops. And I managed to buy a few little things!

Some more knitting needles. I actually have a knitting project in mind!  Most likely I will get to it in 2026!  I also found some lovely stitched linens, a pretty red & white snowflake pillowcase & a tatty & worn old doily [couldn't resist its charm].

I found these large cushions for $5 each.

And I found a few lovely pieces of clothing for Buddy. All superior condition. I even found him these little boots [see below] & the woolly cardy!!  I'm not sure I'm comfortable buying second hand footwear however these were in pretty good condition, only $2 and obviously the type of boot that definitely requires socks. So they came home. Buddy loves them.

Loving the Esprit stripey pants. Will be cute for next summer.

Did you see my post on my stitched cushions with thrifted fabrics & linens?  You can read it here.  I'm really looking forward to making some more cushions with my found fabric & listing some in my ETSY store soon!

Kate xo