oh Happy Day!!!

Well, days really!  It all started yesterday :)  After doing my first day in two years back in school teaching (Yay, I truly never thought I'd go back to the classroom!), I bobbed in to the Bean and Brush and my tile was out of the kiln...Wow!!!  I'm so pleased with it I can't tell you :)   It's all thanks to the lovely Kelly Hennessey's 365 Tile-a-day challenge, and her huge generosity in sharing her before and after pics on facebook.  I was quite shocked, and pleased, that my before picture looked like hers...

...but I really wasn't prepared for it working out so wonderfully after firing.  Thanks Kelly, we all LoVe this tile :)  And it's proper 'upcycling' - all those chunks are leftover paint from customers, saved and dried.

Back to my school story, and yesterday saw me doing some supply cover in a local school.  After suffering with depression/anxiety a couple of years back now I always said I couldn't see myself going back into teaching.  What a fabulous day I had though!  A true miracle :)

Thursday afternoons are 'options' afternoons in this school, where pupils are grouped according to their choice of activity rather than age.  I had 28 pupils aged between 7 and 11 years and we spent a very relaxed afternoon zen-doodling leaf shapes.  I think they're now addicted!

This morning I heard from Lucy who blogs as Little Lost Soul telling me I'd won the above print.  I AdOrE ampersands and have just started a collection of cut out ones which I'm planning on decopatching and displaying above my desk.  This print couldn't have been more perfect for me :)  So huge thanks Lucy :)

Wishing you a very happy day too!!!!  They are THE best :)

thankyou everyone

There's just something special about having 100 followers so I  wanted to say a huge thankyou to all those who follow me, and those who leave comments.  It really means a lot :)

Our playdate numbers are growing and there were 4 of us in total at Sue's this week.  Sue had to go out unexpectedly and not knowing where she kept her crafting tablecloth, we got stuck into a clean activity - zendoodling!!!

Having completed Milliande's challenge and created a large circle of doodles in my journal, I continued in some smaller ones.

There's still more to do on this page but I'm loving how it's turning out.  Despite it being such a clean activity, we seem to have made enough mess on Sue's table lol

What was fascinating about this activity though was that we'd see a doodle someone had done and replicate it in our journal, but they still looked so different as we all had different pen thicknesses, size preference and a different way of working.

I've got some photos to share with you from my busy weekend (teaching for the first time at the Cubby Hole - fab, and a visit to the NEC) but as I have a four year old nephew hanging around my neck I'm going to leave you with this journal page which is a result of my demo at the Cubby Hole.