messy Miss Kate

Planning: Hello Spring!!

Hello Spring! I've been so looking forward to your arrival this year!

I don't think there is any other season I look forward to quite as much as I do Spring.  Every year the winter seems to get colder & longer & the ol' joints are getting a bit creaky. Apparently Adelaide did have the the coldest winter recorded in many years. I definitely felt it!  And grumble grumble.... even though I get terrible hayfever in Spring, by the end of winter, just the mere thought of finishing up the hibernation & thawing out in lovely Spring sunshine, is exciting.  I'm also eager to get cracking on a multitude of home & crafty projects too.

I did a Spring post last year & achieved quite a few things on my list back then. Not others, but its nice to have things to work towards. 

So here's a list of things I am working on or want to get started this Spring.

• Weed our garden beds, plant some more Rosemary, maybe a couple of ballerina fruit trees & some sunflowers. Clip my overgrown vine & little unruly tree! Perhaps Jeff could check the gutters?!

• Finish off a few paintings & start some new ones. I have been dreaming of this Nordic inspired art installation for my formal dining room & I am jumping up & down excited to get started.

• Continue with my gym work so I can drop a few kilos this season. Ready to kick goals.

• Work on tweaking a few family favourite meals & adding more from all my lovely healthy cook books.  Want to try some more healthy baking treats & staples for the kids lunch boxes & after school snacks.

• Lots of sewing! I've designed a gorgeous new product & I cannot wait to list a few in my ETSY shop!

• Want to go on a hot date with Jeff one night soon. Gold class movies & dinner would be just perfect. Its WAY overdue.

• Setting up a date chart for the kids & Jeff & I. The idea being, each month, we set aside time for the kids to have a real proper date outing with either Jeff or I.  Ice skating, dining at a restaurant, going to a movie.... 

• Get all the beach wear organised & ready for warmer weather.

• Buy a bunch of new skipping ropes & get skipping outside with the kiddies.

• Christmas is all organised already but I'd like to make a few homemade gifts for the kids. Will be checking out Pinterest for inspiration soon! 

• Enlist the help of the kids in making some cute teachers Christmas gifts.

• Lots of bike riding!

I think that is all I can think off for now.  Yay! Spring is here, lets roll!

What are your plans for spring?

Arty Things: DIY cabinet makeover...

One of the things I had to achieve when moving my art studio into a bigger space was to work within an extremely limited budget.  So far we've paid out $1200 for double doors to be put in and the lighting cost $600.  

As for furniture, I've taken all the surplus to requirements furniture from within the home & garage and I've moved them into place in the garage. All mismatched. For now thats fine but eventually I want to paint everything white. Walls and bookshelves etc.  That way I'll have a blank canvas for all the arty bits & pieces of colour to pop out & brighten it all up.  Along with all the white, I'm happy to have a few select pieces of colourful furniture too but not many.

A while ago, I found this cute little cabinet, with short legs on wheels, and 2 drawers. I think it was $20 from my local op shop.  I just knew it would make a great little hidden storage area & super useful for putting inspirational magazines or baskets on top too.

You can see my before picture here on the left....

  

And this is it now below! Oh and I have added drawer handles of course.

Now, how I made it over....

I am not the most meticulous at some things. I'm not very patient either. Good enough sits perfectly fine with me for many things, definitely making over furniture. If that horrifies you, you best move on to another blog.

If you like quick & easy, you've come to the right place. I like quick results.

The drawer unit I bought was covered in brown paint & a thick coating of chipped shellac.  The first paint store I went to, I was told that the only way to fix up this little unit of mine was to sand it right back, add a primer & then paint it.  I couldn't be bothered with all that so I went off looking for another opinion. 

Thing is, I'm not looking to lovingly restore a piece of antique furniture for a dining room masterpiece. I'm just looking to brighten up a cute little piece of furniture for my painting studio in the garage!

Next, I found this fabulous lady at Bunnings who has done the same thing many times and she put me onto a brilliant product. 

So, here was my saviour.... Grip Lock Primer.  The lady said if I couldn't be bothered sanding, 'this stuff will stick to anything, and anything will stick to this stuff!'  Paint it on, paint over it. Simple. Quick. Done! Yessss!

So off I went & primed my little unit, I only did the outside including drawer fronts, not the inside, and waited for it to dry.

I then painted the unit red with spray paint. LOVE spray paint. So quick. I've been using White Knight Squirts.

Next I narrowed it down to these two colour schemes and my dear instagram followers convinced me to go with yellow. So I sprayed the drawer fronts yellow.

I then left the unit to dry overnight before adding a floral napkin [with a white background] with gel medium, over the yellow paint.

Spray matted the drawers with matte spray and left to dry!

And there you have it!  Done.  Since these inferior quality photos, I have added the handles back on & its become a very cute & functional piece in my studio. 

Next mission was to make over my grandfathers old singer sewing cabinet.  Again I primed it & I've painted the whole thing yellow. For the moment, its just yellow. I'm not sure if I want to do anything with the doors.  But for now it proudly sits in my studio with my old 1980's record player & stereo on it. 

  

And oh how I LOVE having a stereo & record player in my making area!  Lots of grooving has been done in here already! See exhibit A below!

 

Exhibit A:

Do you have any easy peasy lemon squeezy makeover tips for updating furniture? Do share!

Arty Things: More on my Studio Move

You may remember reading about how I had outgrown my art room space upstairs and was going to take over the family garage.  In my last post about my studio move, I had moved a little desk for blogging, bill paying etc. into my bedroom next to my bed.  You can read about all that here.

Since then, I've moved my big Mac into what is now called my office.  Its office space on one side and a sewing space on the other.  Both work very nicely together and I have beautiful light in this room with plantation shutters to direct it appropriately. It also has a street view and I enjoy being able to watch people walking by. I feel quite secure in here and am even beginning to venture downstairs to this room in the evenings to catch up work when needed.

So to the right I have built in storage that my dad built & secured many years ago on the wall which now houses all my fabric fat quarters & felt perfectly. I have my Mac, printer & scanner for my graphics work & my Scrapps Flea Market uploading, editing etc.  

In the Ikea expedit on the back wall, I house all my art books & magazines as well as my scrapbook albums, vintage sheet collection & now I have my 12x12 paper racks right on top of that unit too along with a couple of white baskets to house bits & pieces.

I very much need to cull my magazine collection.  I mainly have Stampington publications [not sure I can ever part with these] but I also have a few old scrapbook magazines are in there too.  I have a filing cabinet drawer full of issues where I was published [hard to throw those out] but I really don't need any others since I haven't scrapbooked for years.  Not quite sure who/where to pass them to. Maybe the recycling bin... 

To the left of my bookshelf, is my sewing bench made up of two shorter trestle tables & a 2 drawer filing cabinet.  I keep all my art prints for sale filed in the filing cabinet.  My overlocker & sewing machine have a desk each and the girls sewing machine sits on the filing cabinet waiting to be used.  The girls have done some machine sewing on my machine but we haven't yet made time for them to learn on their own machine. Next school holidays for sure!

Under those tables I have a mountain of cushion inserts, bags of fabrics & more bags of opshop fabric finds in the form of clothing waiting to be upcycled.  I definitely have enough supply to entertain many many future projects!

So thats my office/sewing area.

Right across the other side of the entrance hall is our garage which now houses my painting & making studio!

Here's a pic of the hole that our carpenter made, before the doors were fitted.  It cost about $1200 all up to knock the wall, re-route electrics, put double doors & all the moldings in,  add locks, door handles & fittings etc. It was a project well worth our money.

So you can see the black hole of the garage here from the entrance hall.

And this shot below is taken from inside the garage, looking across the hall into my office.  Its very nice to have all my creative & business dealings in two distinct areas, but adjacent to each other.  My making & business dealings are not really in full swing with 3 little kids at home with me during work hours but I suspect once they all go to off to school that I will be able to work very effectively here in years to come. Exciting!

Here's a view into the garage space in the early days.  A couple of bookshelves that needed to be emptied & cleaned. Odd bits of furniture.  And a few bits of furniture waiting to be made over. Can you see the little red & yellow cabinet bottom centre?  It has just had its little makeover!  Post on that coming up next.

So anyway, we have dismantled, moved, tidied & arranged so many things to get my painting studio up & running but I'll save most of that for another post.  

I'll finish my post here with a sneaky peak into my studio that is now, far from perfect, but in stage one working order.  Lighting has been installed, about $600 worth including 4 sets of track spotlights. I've got all my supplies moved in & tables to work on. Hurrah!  The kids and I have done a little making in here already but now just waiting for warm weather to get cracking on some SERIOUS making. Fun!!

Family: Our little book week champions...

This year our schools bookweek theme was Champions Read.  As the school had been focussing on the Olympics alot recently, the idea was for the kids to dress up as sporting champions.  I prefer story book characters myself but oh well.  

The parades, falling on two consectutive days for the primary school kids and the kindy kids, also fell in the week that Buddy & I happened to be sick.  

I managed to drag myself & Buddy down to Big W when all the girls were at school & kindy and picked up some of the new summer range bits & pieces. Only a few dollars per piece.  Normally I wouldn't do that but given the theme [we certainly do not have green & gold tracksuits on hand at home], I was feeling pretty ordinary & the fact that I normally buy a few bits & pieces for each new season anyway, it worked out just fine.  I splashed out on a couple of headbands for $2 each & some oversize tennis balls and my little tennis champions were ready to roll. Or play... Well....... parade!

The weather has been so cold & lousy lately that I had to layer singlets, tops, t-shirts, leggins & shorts. And then we needed jackets on top of that too.  

The big girls paraded as part of the whole school parade and the twins kindy parade was a small one just in front of the playgroup kiddies on the following day. It was so cute. Mimi & Chelsea were so nervous. Buddy wasn't too interested, preferring to get on with his playgroup business and start painting. He's becoming quite the little crafty person. Loving sticking & cutting too.  Who would have thought?

 

This past week I also started reading to my big girls again before bed.  The last year or so they of course have been reading to us so bedtime reading by Jeff or I to the older girls has slowed right down.  We've read so many of our home books over & over but I've never really gone through some of my favourite books from childhood.  So I went through a pile of old books that I have been hanging on to since the 1970's & 1980's and have picked out a few that I can read to them.

The first one is Judy Blume's 'SuperFudge'.  They absolutely loved me reading to them & are enjoying just listening & imagining again.

Others I remember fondly from childhood that haven't been read to them yet are:

Flat Stanley [I bought the series for Buddy]

How to Eat Fried Worms [need to track down]

Mister Meddles Mischief, Naughty Amelia Jane & countless other Enid Blyton titles [we have at home]

The Trixie Beldon series [I own just about all of them]

And Jeff wants to find some Choose Your Own Adventures that he used to love reading as a boy.

 

What are some titles that you love reading to your children?  I'd love to add more to my list.

Living to 100: "Best lunch ever"

"Best lunch ever!'  That's what little Buddy says at just about every meal. I love getting the compliments even if it's an 'off' day and the meal is less than mediocre.  He's so complimentary except of course when sometimes he says 'yuck, sgusting!' - Also when its one of his favourite meals. Fickle kid.  I think he likes the shock value.

Regardless, I know this quick and colourful lunch is truly all their favourite. Or even for a light summer dinner.

My kids aren't the fussiest of eaters nor are they super adventurous. They do like to know precisely what they are eating though. Who doesn't? And they like a good range of foods.  I like to be able to see ingredients myself.  Put a sloppy concoction in front of me thats all mixed in & I won't touch it, particularly where meat is concerned. I don't think my kids would either. 

I've always been selective, so have my taste buds & my nose! Mum says I was fussy & determined from the second I was born. And my kids are the same, each of them having slightly different palettes, some more adventurous than others. Being that way can be difficult & limiting. Difficult to explain to or hide from people who don't understand & haven't shared that same experience but especially difficult for me in social situations. Restaurants are of course much easier because no matter what there is usually something on the menu I am familiar with. And that doesn't mean I eat bland or a limited range of foods, I like a huge range of foods, especially fresh. And I love whopping great flavour, curry/ chilli/ all sorts of herby & seedy flavours & textures.  I guess bland & colourless just aren't my cup of tea. Not that I drink tea either! 

So as I tighten up & be mindful over the types & amount of calories I consume at home, eating & offering the family fresh whole foods is the easiest thing for me to do, it's a staple here. And isn't that a good thing?  A no brainer. Chop up, display nice or throw in a bowl & toss. Easy. Pretty. Yum.

Really the only time we stray from lunches like these are when we have lovely enticing fresh bakery bread or wraps to add to the mix OR its the day before a shop and the fresh stuff is not so plentiful. Then I find I'm scratching around to put things on a plate to fill the kids bellies & to stop me from wanting an alternative. Right now I have no problem with good bread for the kiddies but for me, I want to limit the bread/sugar/white flour stuff as much as possible at lunch so I need to keep topping up that fresh produce throughout the week & steer clear from the epicure!  In the future I'm going to try & reconcile my thoughts regarding Paleo/clean eating/Sweet Poison & make steps or decisions for my family about bread/grains etc. But I'm not there yet & I'm not convinced cutting out grains is quite right for my kids. Anyway, more research, baby steps.

Meanwhile, offering an explosion of fresh in this way for lunches & some dinners along with other proteins, everyone gets the mix they like. Tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon, strawberries, tuna, kiwi. Whatever fresh I happen to have on hand really. I throw mine together in a bowl, [little fruit on the side], add lettuce, random seeds, chia, coriander (because frankly coriander tastes good on just about anything) and a few nuts from my nut stash.

Add a cool glass of soda water on ice & I think this is one of my best lunches ever too.

From time to time though, I do get bored once I've mixed as many combinations as I can think of.  Looking forward, I've marked a bunch of lovely wholefood options in some of my cookbooks & I'm ready to start trying some new things. Some combinations of foods I love, just in ways that I wouldn't have thought to put them together.  I look forward to sharing some of those. Fingers crossed the kids will enjoy them too. 

{Bento trays $2 from Ned's. My favourite big bowl from an art/ceramics shop in Beautiful Auburn, country South Australia.}

What's your quickest & healthiest lunch for the kiddies?

Simple Things Giveaway: Winners are...

If you read my little SImple Things post back HERE, you may have noticed my little giveaway, just because.  

And yes, all lovely comments of the easy things we can all do with our children.   Thanks for all that wonderful inspiration.

Decided to give away 3 prints, wish I could give you all one!

Random number generator selected Anna, Donna and Gail !!!

Please choose yourself a print in my shop & check out OTHER payment method. I'll mark it paid & send it to you! Can you also send me an email with your name & address so I know its you, thank you! xoxo

Thanks for playing along!

Kate xo

Geeky & Organisation: Mobile Blogging & that's how it's done!

We are all busy right?

We want to blog & record our lives & special moments but we are too busy living.

Dilemma.

Technology really is our friend. And we all have an iPhone on hand all the time right?

Here's how I do it...

I take iPhone photos while I am living my crazy life. These were taken as I sat sick & miserable in bed this week. Awwww.

I use the app Camera + to do my edits on my phone later on in my spare minutes. Collage done in Diptic or Fotoframe app.

I quickly dot point/write posts using Typepad app & I add photos all on iPhone,  maybe while waiting for school pickup or Buddy napping or late into the night when an idea springs to mind.

I save Typepad posts to Draft.

Later that day or week, I view my draft posts, add bits, move photos around, check over. I do this when I have time without kids around, on my desktop Mac or laptop. Nice to see on big screen.

Then I publish or schedule.  Sometimes its a quick and easy one & I publish right there on the spot. But I don't like to rush anything so its my preference to do a check over later.

 

And that's how it's done.

 

Nb. Smartphones other than iPhones can do all of that too, same goes for blogging apps, check the app store for your provider if you don't already have it on your phone.

Family: Simple stuff, is what children want...

I was catching up on orders & graphics this morning & then had a little quick click around the internet.  I came across this {no idea how I got there... one click on this & that....} and anyway, I thought it was a lovely & worth sharing.

If this is what children want, then this is what I am aiming for also. And I don't think it is too far off the mark, its the sort of list I can imagine writing many years ago too.

"Here is a list of the top ten things students around the world said they remembered and loved most about their mothers.

1. Come into my bedroom at night, tuck me in and sing me a song. Also tell me stories about when you were little.
2. Give me hugs and kisses and sit and talk with me privately.
3. Spend quality time just with me, not with my brothers and sisters around.
4. Give me nutritious food so I can grow up healthy.
5. At dinner talk about what we could do together on the weekend.
6. At night talk to me about about anything; love, school, family etc.
7. Let me play outside a lot.
8. Cuddle under a blanket and watch our favorite TV show together.
9. Discipline me. It makes me feel like you care.
10. Leave special messages in my desk or lunch bag.

Children are incredibly wise and tend to see the world more simply than we do. Perhaps it is time we start taking their advice. Maybe we would all feel a little less stressed and be satisfied with the fact that doing little things really is… good enough."

[source]

Its been a testy several days in a row around here, maybe a week or longer. The kids have been sick & now Jeff & I are sick. I am still navigating my new routine going back to the gym too. I managed 3 classes in just a few days before I got sick. I'm full of chesty coughs right now so I'll aim to move that on before I hit the gym on the weekend again. And its book week, costumes for 4... So everything is busy, harder.  

Deep breath, wipes & tissues in the handbag. One comfortable shoed foot in front of the other, one thing at a time. But if there are too many demands, the only thing that matters are the things on this list above. Right?

One of my wise little pumpkins asked me this morning, "Mum why haven't we been on holidays [lately]?"  I explained that we have had sickness & been busy with other things.  She then said, "Well why don't we just go on holidays and do busy later?"

Smart chick, think I'll be looking into a little getaway soon, maybe to here below.

Its the simple things that matter isn't it?  

I'm sending out orders today & tomorrow. Tell me one simple little lovely thing you always try to do with your kids every day or week or month AND tell me your fave print in my ETSY store & I'll choose a random person to send the print of their choice to. 

Hurry! Go!  

Living to 100: Where I am at now...

In the last few years I've had a bit of a yo-yo thing going on. Not so good. I've hit it hard & exercised like a demon, had excellent results but neglected many other things in my life [creating, creative business - things I need for balance & contentment, inner peace] and I've also dropped the exercise pressure right off & done minimal in the interests of being kinder to myself.

[beautiful raspberry photography found here]

Well turns out being kind to myself resulted in a chocolate bar when I needed a pick me up. So sadly I have undone lots of my hard work.  Yes I'm disappointed but I'm also seeing the patterns and I know I need a happy medium. I do need to choose different pick me ups, not V, not a chocolate bar, but time in my studio alone, time sewing, treating myself to beautiful fresh raspberries, putting myself to bed early to crochet, a foot massage every now & then.  I also need to focus on regular exercise and even though its puts the whole house under pressure & heartwrenching to leave little people upset every time I walk out the door, it needs to be done. And regularly.

So this week I have returned to the gym. I did an RPM class with my sister last night & tonight we'll be doing Body Pump, we'll also do another class on the weekend.  I'm aiming for about 4 classes a week.  I hope to incorporate a little bit of treadmill at home & build in physical activities with the kids on the weekends as part of our family fun day.  So I'm blocking out time to just get some good hours racked up at the gym & also doing some things at home. At the moment its not really a happy medium [because the little ones aren't exactly happy] but I'm hoping the family will recognise that this is the 'medium' the 'balance' that will just have to work for us long term because mum needs to program little blocks of time away from home to focus on good health.  

So here I go again.

The other part of good health is a strong food foundation of course.  I do enjoy cooking a mix of quick meals for the family & other more involved meals for the nights I have time.  So much I have been researching & reading about points to a couple of basic things that form the foundation of a good all round healthy diet. 

1] Minimise processed & sugary foods

2] A diet rich in lean meat protein, fish, vegetables, wholegrains & fruit

It seems every resource I've found quibbles over some of the finer details, just see the differences in these charts!

 

 

[source here and here]

But the broader message is pretty obvious stuff really. And we can't have too many reminders.  Seems not only are the many diets/models for healthy eating all pointing to essentially the same thing but many of my friends are seeking out similar things too. Subtle differences.  I am enjoying  Tamar's blogging on clean eating & taking many things onn board.  I was also intrigued when Mel started instagramming and now blogging about Paleo.  Paleo is said to be like an original caveman type way of eating food. The less processing the better, wholefoods.

After hearing about Mel's enthusiasm for Paleo, it got me all enthused too and upon her recommendation I looked into two of her favourite books.  Just a week later, I was catching up with my friend Lauren at her sister Tatums house and what do you know, Tatum had these same two books. I was able to flick through them and yep they absolutely both look like winners. So I've ordered them & can't wait to incorporate some Paleo meals into the family meal planner. It comes down to organisation for me and I'm trying very hard to have more balance in our home & plan ahead. 

 

I ordered this from here.

I ordered this from here.

And lastly, a few days ago I blogged about family organisation & a book on my wishlist.  I ordered this one also from here.

Excited to get cracking again. I'm not going to try to be a superhero, just pay more attention to things, not let the cold winter make me too lazy.

Oh and one more thing, a cousin of mine had a link to this fabulous website on facebook that I thought I would share too.  Looks like it has some super recipes.  You can find it here.

Ok, Buddy & I are off to shop for fresh produce! Yes!

Arty Things: Teaching in Port Lincoln

Earlier this year, April to be exact, I was invited to Port Lincoln to teach at a little scrapbooking retreat. I know, I haven't scrapbooked for years but my class was to be the 'something different from scrapbooking' as a fun casual class on the Friday night. That suited me & my mixed media canvas class perfectly. I like casual, messy, experimental, play, no rules kinda teaching.

Anyway, this 'little scrapbooking retreat' turned out to not be so little.  It was freaking awesome!!!!!!!!!!!  But I don't want to carry on too much because this event sells out in MINUTES and I hope to try and make it 'in' next year as a participant.  So really it was kinda average, I can't imagine you would be interested in attending. So just don't worry about investigating it any further.

Here's all the crew with the official 'silly' photo on the last day. I'm back row, absolute centre with some sort of goofball expression. Oh wait, thats my normal smile!

I flew on an early bird flight into Port Lincoln on a tiny plane on a Friday morning.  The flight went so quickly. Port Lincoln looks beautiful from the air. And surrounding the plane were those amazing big fluffy clouds that you could imagine jumping up & down on. I took lots of photos, of the clouds. I even didn't mind the turbulence flying right through the centre of those clouds. It was so cool! I have flown many many times but this was one of my most scenic ever.

A fishing mecca, the surrounding waters filled with all these circular fish farms [or something like that, I have no idea really] are amazing.  I was picked up at the airport by the lovely Sue, one of the event organisers & whisked off to the venue [fabulous] to settle in, meet fellow organisers Meredith & Amanda and the other teachers Mardi & Natalie.  An incredible group of women. 

I was blown away by the 'shed' where all the creating would happen. The name tags, the groups of tables decked out with gift bags, huge buckets of apples, all the beautiful paper fluff balls hanging from above. It was so pretty and exciting & incredibly well organised.

At my table I was lucky enough to sit with new friends Mardi & Natalie & 3 gorgeous friends-for-a-while; Ali, Lauren & Tatum.  It was so fun to have such great company over the weekend. Creating bliss, food heaven, zero responsibility.

Did I mention 3 of the crafty shops from nearby had even set up shops within the same shed?  Oh my, think I spent all my pocket money within the first few hours. Oops!

Yummiest apples I have tasted in a long time!

This was my messy desk, some of my tapes & fabrics and my class notes.

Later on that first evening I started to get ready for class. Getting my class samples ready, organising kits. Here's the sticker on my class kits. See? How organised!???  Amazing!!  And exciting!

Amanda had requested that I do a canvas class using my napkin technique so that formed the basis of my class. I've written more technique snippets about it here too. So anyway, a few delicious patterned papers, a bit of paint and people had the choice of doing either a birdy in a tree canvas or a teacup one.  There was more than enough paper to be able to complete two canvases so in fact many people brought their own second canvases and completed both over the weekend.

With cooler weather and difficulty getting layers dry, it can be a bit tricky completing a canvas in an evening, near impossible. So I arranged to demonstrate the techniques in two stages and then just walk around to make sure everyone was doing ok.  I encouraged everyone to use their creativity to make the canvases their own by using other product, leaving some bits out, adding others.  Over the weekend there were many finished canvases and I was blown away with how different and beautiful they all were!

I hope I have planted a tiny seed in many of the women who hadn't experimented with mixed media before, to do more of it. Canvases can make such a lovely gift and its so fun to just play & get messy & even brighten up your home with your very own art!

I have to thank all the ladies in my class for being so lovely & for creating such lovely artwork.  I loved teaching you all. There's always a million things I want to tell people in a class & usually I always forget something. But anyway, I hope you all enjoyed it & maybe have been getting messy since our retreat.

In fact, I myself have been working away most of this year on a little eCourse on messy art making.  I had hoped to run it earlier this year but time has just been racing away sooo, I hope to offer that soon.  Watch this space!  And for Adelaide people, I am teaching these very same canvases at Seriously Scrapbooking in a few weeks time.  Contact the store if you'd like to come along & play!

As if the retreat wasn't amazing & special enough already, there was a prize table!!!!  And everybody got a prize!!  It was amazing.  When your number was called out, you got to go and choose something from the table.  The incredibly generous Mardi, knew I was eyeing off a beautiful Lisa Leonard pendant so when her number was called before mine, she picked it out and then gave it to me, selecting something else for herself when my number was called. I will always treasure that. Such a beautiful generous soul she is. Mwah & big hugs to you Mardi xoxox

All too soon [loving every minute of the retreat] & not soon enough [missing my babies terribly] I was crying like a baby myself at having to say goodbyye to my friends, the beautiful organisers, fellow teachers & other lovely souls I met over the weekend.

Amanda I and quickly threw my bags in the car & before long, we were going nowhere. Flat battery. It was actually hilarious & dried up my pathetic tears.  So again, we quickly emptied another car & filled it with my many heavy bags and this time Sue raced me down to the little Port Lincoln terminal. Made it!

A quick flight home & I was greeted by my Jeff and all my babies. He brought them to the airport!  I was so happy to be home & was full to the brim with memories of a truly fabulous weekend. Can't wait to do all over again.

Thank you Amanda, Sue & Meredith for inviting me to be part of such a super special event. It was so fabulous, I loved every second!