Monday 18th May - Scrapbooking At School

We had to be up early today as we were expecting carpet fitters and they too arrived early, which was pleasing. They had the new carpet for the stairs and landing laid in no time which now finishes the decorating off nicely. Only all of our pictures to go back up now and then a little bit of window dressing, a new plant I think. We are very pleased with the results so far, it's always nice to have a fresh coat of paint and the place looking ship shape. As for the border, well I found another batch of borders to test out, but none of them worked. So we are not having a border and when the pictures are back up I think it might work.

Almost Done Decorating

After lunch I headed up to school to help out with Creativity Week. I was going to talk to Jamie's class about scrapbooking, what it is all about and how to do it. Then I was going to take a small group and work with them to make some scrapbook pages. What fun. It was lovely to show the children how to make a page, with some help from Jamie who acted as my glamorous assistant. We then went into the shared area where some of the children from Jamie's class and Jamie then had a great time using all the different bits and pieces I have for scrapbooking. They had a go at using the paper cutter, cuttlebug, crop-a-dile, rubber stamping, heat embossing as well as rub-ons and using a variety of other papers and embellishments too.



I was incredibly impressed with the pages that they produced and two or three really stood out, but most of all they had a real hands on go with lots of materials and had fun whilst they were doing it too. Every time I come away from helping out at school I am always impressed at how hard the teachers have to work and what a brilliant job they do. I am also glad that Jamie is now at a school where parents and not only welcomed but encouraged into school. I can think of a school near Wicken (AWJS) where parents were treated as a nuisance or obstruction, well until the fees were due!

We were soaked to the skin by the time we got home from school as when we left school the heavens opened, Jamie and I had no choice but to change. I then needed to make the flower arrangement for our very dear friend Jeanette's birthday, I won't tell you what number as she may go mad, but it did involve a zero and a five and rhymes with thrifty!! I had found a lovely vase for Jeanette, and got some super flowers so all I needed to do now was put them together. I was aiming to do a contemporary design, with some hints of Ikebana. I was very pleased with the result and Jeanette loved it, which is the most important thing. It took me about 90 minutes all together but I kept tinkering with it towards the end and then had to remind myself of my tutor's advice, which is to know when to walk away!

I used contorted hazel for the backbone of the design, green chrysanthemums were the secondary flowers but give the design it's height,white anthuriums were the focal point and agapanthus took the white through the design. I used a couple of aspidistra leaves, which I folded over, fatsia leaves, which were wired to help them bend and steel grass gave a different foliage texture. I also used amaranthus for the first time and draped it over the edge of the vase, it looked lovely. I'll be using that again.

Jamie's friend David was around playing and stayed for his tea so we dropped him home on our way to Jeanette's where we forced ourselves to have a glass of champagne or two and wished the now 'old' one a happy birthday.

We were pretty shattered after a busy but lovely day and quickly headed off to bed when we got home, tired but very content.

Ciao

Sue

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