My big plan!

As part of my college course, I have to undertake a personal development program, this involves identifying my weaknesses and devising a strategy to improve. I have decided to present this in the form of a blog.

Please take a look :)

My Big plan

Student life!

Well , nearly six weeks in and I'm surviving! I am just coming to the end of my first project which was on the subject of identity.

I decided my project would be Me v football because all my life I have had football inflicted on me even though I'm not interested in it at all.

I set out to football training and matches every weekend, camera in hand to study various aspects of the game, I needed to represent how football has inflicted itself on me during my life, Liverpool as a child and still now, Manchester united through my marriage and Rayne youth in motherhood.

I also had to present my work, which I hate, there seems to be a lot of presenting during this course, and writing, (which basically just isn't art , so not popular!!) no one told us that.
still I'm really enjoying it and have made so many new friends:)

all of my photography project work can be found at Me v football and football set.

Sams Flickr photostream

Todays happy thought: "some people think that football is a matter of life or death, it's much more serious than that" -Bill Shankley

Fairy tea time

So I said I would post about the fairy tea party we held for my six year old daughters birthday so here it is!
Being on a bit of a tight budget, it was all to be created at home, nothing bought in, plus, I like creating a party for her that no one has been to so I set about drawing like crazy and prayed for good weather!


First the decorations, I drew some fairies and coloured them in with pencils, you won't understand how much I enjoyed this♥ ........I cut them out and laminated them-beautiful, I also scanned them in and "miniaturised" them to make a "find the fairy" game, I hid them all round the garden.

I made the going home gifts, a fairy wand, using polymer clay stars and a painted wooden handle, bedazzled with glitter and finished off with a ribbon:)

The activity we did during the party was making fairy headbands, these are relatively easy to make and were very popular this summer in high st shops, quite costly too but much prettier to make yourself with florist wire, green paper & some flowers from the craft shops:)

The weather held out and a fab fairy day was had by all:)

Ouch!

I know I was going to tell you about the fairy tea but last week I had my first wasp sting, I was setting the table indoors, with bare feet when I thought I had stood on a pin, just for a nano second that is, as then the real pain started to kick in! I had squashed a wasp, squeezing out the stinger from the wasps body, deep into my middle toe....oh the pain, who knew it would hurt so much? I couldn't bear to look at my toe, I thought if I did I would certainly pass out and I was trying (but failing massively) to be brave in front of my six year old:(

Mr H looked at it and it was still pumping poison into me, I waited while he took it out expecting the pain to at least lessen after doing so, but no, two co-codamols and one Ibuprofen an extra Benadryl and wasp sting cream later and the pain was still the same!

After half an hour I started to look this up online, as I was sure that this was lasting too long, but no, it was normal, whats more,apparently, fatalities usually occur within the hour, "hmmmmm" I thought, not what you want to read when experiencing the most pain you have ever felt (And I have had three children by the way)

Five days later (yes five) and the pain stopped, although each day it hurt less.

I now know why on picnics, some people flap around and run away at the mere sight of a wasp, they must too have been barefoot once:)

Fairy tea party next, promise:)

Todays happy thought: Smiling is infectious,
you can catch it like the flu,
when someone smiled at me today,
I started smiling too:)

Back to school!

No, I know the holidays have just started, I'm talking about me! yes, I have been spending the last few months applying and preparing to go to Art college! I have decided that I want to get my Art degree:)

I'm soooo both excited and bit scared, as it's a massive change to me after being my own boss at home for the last nearly thirteen years and it's going to be a challenge fitting it all in around school runs and children stuff-but one that I'm looking forward to!

So, I haven't had time to make any miniatures for a while, what with trying to get a place at college and.... since my last post what has occured?-a rather splendid royal wedding, our fairy tea party (next post), a totally amazing Take That at Wembley, a trip to the X Factor auditions, a school fete, other school fundraising stuff (including a very successful trip to see JLS and Olly Murs at Hylands park) and so much more but I'm getting withdrawal symptoms and might have to shut myself in Happy shed some time soon..........before september...eeek!:0)

Art gallery visits

This week, my friend & I decided to visit some Art galleries. The original plan was to go to London, but as the fares were ridiculously expensive (something I will never understand, if those in power want us to be "green" & use public transport, why make it cheaper to go in the car??!) we decided to stick with Essex, which turned out to be well worth it!

Dunmow is a lovely little town, with a kind of holiday feel to it, maybe that was due to the lovely weather, but it was a very friendly place.

We headed out to Dunmow & found the Aubrey Art Gallery , some lovely huge works of art, I loved (if I had to choose) The Beach by Gordon Crossley & Summer Breeze by Elsie Bouffler, I am always drawn to the delicate watercolours, take a look at the website to see more:)

We then visited The Gallery on the park which was a tiny little place & was more like a working gallery, we bought some cards by Artist Simon Drew, they were very unusual & funny, never seen anything like it before-definitely worth a visit!

Finally we drove out through the lovely countryside to The Lindsell Art Gallery which was amazing-here there were Art & craft exhibits, life drawing classes & many artist including fellow Guild of Essex craftsmen member, James Merriott whose paintings are amazing-please take a look at the website & visit if possible, I suddenly feel all inspired to take up glass painting again! ♥

Todays happy thought: It's not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something.

Art days

I have been lucky enough to be able to give myself some art days lately, you know just me & the sketch book, clay, watercolurs-whatever takes my fancy! I have also felt the need to sort out my art work, as in true creative fashion, (creative minds are never tidy) it is not organised into any folders or files or even frames, just sctattered around the shed/loft so I have been putting together a portfolio of my work.
As you can see, I have my work cut out for me!
I am at the moment painting a picture of Bocking windmill from a photo I took, I'm finding it kind of frustrating as the wall facing me has no windows, it's just a blank wall and I really have the urge to paint in some anyway!

will post pics when done :)

Todays happy thought: A mother holds her childs hand for just a short while, but she holds their hearts forever ♥

Lucky Leprechaun giveaway!

Well I spent yesterday making these lovely little chaps & was trying to name them & thought it would be a lovely chance for a giveaway!

What I want you to do, is comment on this post, telling me what name you would like to give to the little fella on the right here, on his own, with the ginger beard!

The winner of the lucky leprechaun will be chosen on Friday night, 4th March by my family (pot of gold not included I'm afraid !)
So come on, get commenting, I can't wait to see some names!

Todays happy thought-When Irish eyes are smiling, they must be up to something :)!

Glitz & glamour!

I will be taking part in this Ladies Glitz & glamour evening at the Art centre, Dunmow on Saturday 5th March-it looks fab! looking forward to it :)

I'm busy making some St Patricks day goodies today, leprechauns & happy thoughts.
It's nice to have a day to create, the children are all watching a film so I just snatched a few minutes to have a coffee, another one as I spilt the first one-all over the printer & the carpet ! Ages it took me to clear it up :(

Anyway, I think we should have a giveaway-it's been a while, I think I might give away fergus the leprechaun, mmmm let me have a think!


Todays happy thought-A best friend is like a four leaf clover: hard to find and lucky to have.

Secret little studio....

I found a wonderful little place last week, hidden away, the kind of place us creative people love to be ♥

Its called The Art Centre & it's in a town near me called Great Dunmow in Essex, I hope that I will be soon holding a six week course on miniature making, how exciting!

I just need to decide on what to create in the workshops! what do you think students would like to learn? I thought, fruit, whole & cut/sliced etc & posibly bakery items to begin with!
What do you think?
Todays happy thought; Get up early & take control of the day, get up late & the day takes control of you!

Exciting new year!

So, happy new year, what's everyone got planned for this year? One of my resolutions is to keep up with my blog & etsy shop more,also, seek out some exciting new shows, I have already been asked to do two, which I can actually attend:)

Firstly, in February (my favourite month) I have been asked to attend a medieval fair, right here in Braintree on 12th, right before valentines day, then in June, a village fair in a little village not far away called Tolleshunt D'Arcy, can't wait!

My exhibition has ended, it was sad taking it all down, I haven't heard if I had any sales yet, but the invite to the medieval fair came about as a result of that & I had a lot of interesting & positive comments in my guest book:)

We in the Humphreys house are now thankfully coming to the end of our Christmas chocolate, I am, as typing this, eating the last slice of Christmas cake-then I feel that, over the next few weeks, lots of extra exercise is in order! However, valentines day is fast approaching & who doesn't love a romantic box of chocolates? Certaintly the little lady of the dolls house does, hmmm maybe she would prefer her favourite perfume or a bouquet of beautiful flowers!!!