Year in Review - 2011 Creativity

Looking back over the year is such a brilliant exercise, I have just amazed myself with how much creativity I have squeezed in around my teaching job! (Pat on the back and a clip round the ear, as my Grandad -who sadly passed away this year- might have said).
So here it is:

This is not even all, but some highlights of things like: launching my blog and Re:Loved, getting my packaging and company ID finalised, meeting Kim Smith, teaching amazing creative sketchbook lessons at school after going on a course, commissions for large artworks and shoes, starting my art journal - which has been the key to my creative year, making artworks and accessories, selling in two shops locally as well as craft fayres.

It has honestly been the best year for me creatively, and I have had friends say I have inspired them to work on their own books/ ideas/ products...I am really humbled by that. I feel I have reached a point where I can just go ahead and be creative without suffering massive blocks, the major one of which I overcame this year, which was recovering from the damage my degree did to my work. Blogs really helped me this year, they have been my inspiration.

So, in the words of Julia Cameron, and the book 'Heart Steps - prayers and declarations for a creative life' I leave you with this on Creativity and Spirituality:

Life is energy, pure creative energy. This energy is the source of all I desire, all I need, all I want. When I call upon this source to supply me, I am freed from depending on people, institutions, and hierarchies. My good comes from me in all directions, from all quarters. No one person can block my good. No circumstance can circumvent me.

I have more round-ups planned over the next couple days as well as mine and Olivia's resolutions, which we are currently working on. For now, Happy New Year lovely people. Mucho Love x x x



---Outfit Post: Walk in the Park---

It has been unseasonably warm so far this winter in Blighty. So far from last year's big freeze. This week we made it to the park for a picnic after a morning at the sales. We ate smoked salmon sandwiches and cucumber sticks, cream cheese crisps and satsumas - the most christmassy picnic menu I could put together.

This is what I wore:

Outfit Details:

Blouse - gift (Next)

Skirt - Charity Shop £1

Belt - Charity Shop £1

Cardigan - Charity Shop £3

Leggings - Primark £3

Boots - Christmas Pressie

Bag - hand-me-down

Olivia commented that I looked like a cowgirl. I guess she was looking through the lense and thinking 'woman on a ranch', I can live with that!

We have been in town a lot this week, as it is a tad rainy and we love coffee shops. I was so please today to find a stall selling gelato. I have been moaning on Twitter for ages that we don't have it here and all the American bloggers post Instagrams of delicious looking Gelato cups...I now know where to get me some.

Have you been to the sales yet, madly I quite like it.

Love, me x

Christmas PJs

Hello from the other side. While I try and get a grip on normality after the emotional exhaustion of Christmas...here are a few snapshots of 'what went down'.
First off - our tradition to open our present to eachother on Christmas eve: the PJs. We started this last year after a friend told me she instigated it. We now get really excited about this part of Christmas, and nothing brings on better sleep than fresh PJs, or a freshly made bed. Olivia did go to sleep very well, which meant Santa could get in early and deliver her pressies...

Here we are on Christmas morning, with our baby Sandra (the hamster).

Hope you had a good one too. What traditions do you have?

Love me x

Today I have a guest stocking from the amazingly amusing Elizabeth Jane Liu, writer of comedy blog: Flourish in Progress. Not entirely sure if she intended it to be comedy but I laugh my pants off at each and every post she writes. She is also a genuinely lovely lady, and sent out funny fridge magnets to all her followers a while ago - and I got one! Perfect as I collect them. I didin't intend for it to be used as a prop to my life, but last week found my daughter held it up to me with a wry grin after I had put the milk in the oven by mistake. (The caption on it reads 'I need protection from myself').

Here she is with her beautiful daughter, Cal.

So here are Elizabeth's Christmas Wishes - can you guess what they are?

I hope you get all your wishes in 2012, remember to make some, and if possible visualise them.

x x Merry Christmas y'all x x

The Christmas bug

I wanted to share some of the creative things my daughter and I have been getting up to this Christmas. There seems to be no end to my creative flow, and I am finding myself getting up really early with a great idea, and burning desire to get on with it. No wonder people say they need an actual holiday after Christmas.
I think my creativity is being fuelled by the amazing blogs I am reading, and the more I read the more inspired I get. Sometimes I like to create my own things, other times I like to just do something that is like another persons idea. It's nice to know what the outcome will be.

Olivia and I made stamped salt dough gift tags which were inspired by the amazing Artful Parent blog (makes me want to have a go at parenting all over again), and Kirsty Allsop on Channel 4 'Kirsty's Homemade Christmas', who I simply love. I read about Amy's love of Kirsty last week - glad its not just me! By the way, Amy is going full pedal to the metal for crimbo and over at her blog she is running a '25 Days of Christmas' feature. You should defo check it out, so many great ideas (I have jam tarts on my list now).

The following are some pictures of the saltdough making, these photos are quite 'rough' so please excuse...haven't the time to process and fiddle around:

Olivia stamping away..

You can see how small our kitchen is, and how BIG Olivia's hair is

Normal ink stamps work well - I picked up a set in the 'pound shop', for...a pound.

Out of the 3 hour oven baking

An example of how they will look, you can write on the back with markers.

Salt Dough Recipe - makes about 30 stamped shapes

2 cups flour

1/2 cup salt

2/3 cup water

1. Mix and kneed to a soft dough
2. Roll out
3. use cutters to cut out
4. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet
5. Stamp with ink stamps
6. Make holes with a straw
7. Bake in a low oven for about 3 hours (good if you can turn the oven off at the end of this time and leave them in overnight)
8. Write messages on the back and attach to pressies!

A very fun and occupying activity for kids - Olivia was absorbed for hours!

I haven't shown it on this present but I have also been stamping ribbon and webbing to wrap around gifts:

A very dear friend gave me these wooden stamps from her travels to India. I have so many, these are just a few of the small ones.
I find stamping on something soft like this packaging foam sheet, makes a good quality stamp.
I got this idea when browsing around one day and can't credit the exact source, but this blog comes up trumps for a reference.

Today we are doing some more stamped salt dough with my new letter stamps - they will be even more like Kirsty's then. And we are making cinnamon cookies for Olivia's trampoline group.
Better get on...

What are you making this Christmas? Do you get the bug?
Love, me x

Me first!

a strange range of wishes, including: lose weight, get a bookshelf, world peace, a campervan, holiday in Greece, vintage clothes, get the car fixed, a studio space, bike rides, more money and a new sofa.

Thanks Santa x x

I have a great idea for more participation, since I really enjoyed the post about Christmas Top Ten.

For me Christmas is all about making things; I have a major making marathon every year and the fruits are lovingly wrapped for my friends and family. I would like to share some creativity right here on my blog, I'd love you to join in! I actually did this activity with my year 11 group and they loved it. I told them (and I truly believe this), never underestimate the power of wishing, and if your wishes are more intense and focused at this time of year, get busy!

Below is a template for a stocking. Please copy and paste it into your documents. Then simply fill it with pictures that represent what you wish for most in your life right now, it can be material things or you can go for more spiritual and emotional wishes, maybe you want to recover or wish for strength to deal with something. Go for it. Wish it.

Once you have finished, email it to me and I will post it up here on the blog. You can send me any kind of Office document or a Jpeg/Gif file, but I don't have a Mac. You will need to get it in before Christmas to really concentrate those special Christmassy wish-vibes.

You can decorate your too if you have those kinda skills. Do try and make it look pretty and neat somehow :]

Love, me x