Me-Made-May 2014 ...

day 3 of my countdown! (or should it be count-up as I'm counting from 1-80??)

making my feet lovely and cosy ...

These pics are for my niece.  They feature my Totoro slippers, which were a present from my lovely daughter :)  Totoro is a wood spirit ... Google him, I'm sure we'll be talking more about him before long ...

Looking like possums caught in the camera flash light! ...

I made a pledge today for Me-Made-May 14 - very basically it's a chance to show and tell your handmade items, be they sewn, crocheted or knitted clothes and/or accessories.  You don't need to sew a brand new wardrobe!  You can simply get an idea of what you like to wear, and maybe what you will want to make in the future.  There's still enough time to join up in certain parts of the world, so here's the link ... as usual I've left it to the last minute!



But here's my pledge:

'I, Lara, of 'Create for Life' blog, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '14. I endeavour to wear 3-4 me-made items of clothing and/or accessories each week for the duration of May 2014 (which will hopefully help me see what is missing from my wardrobe and inspiring future makes!)'

Let's see how I go ... have you joined in the fun?

Mandala Magic

This was my day at work.  Drawing.  Yes!  My kind of day :)  I do a craft session once a month as part of my work, and as you probably guess, I was happy as a pig in mud!

I even got some other people drawing and colouring in, and a few protests of 'but I'm not creative!' - a few did take up the challenge, I'll get the others next time :)

These are my demonstration model mandalas. 

We just used plain old office copy paper, small plates to draw the circle, some templates to draw around (made from an old cereal packet!) and some coloured pencils and oil pastels.  Easy and cheap, and lots of fun.

We had a relaxing evening too.  Little Man* came with us for a walk in the woods with the dog.  He challenged his dad to a run, and off they went.  I caught up eventually, I just can't run without my sports bra - it's pretty dangerous - ha ha!  It was good to see everyone happy from expending some energy and just running for the sake of it.  I must say since we moved our wee man from one school to another, he's been much happier and has his old bounce back.  He's even (and this is the best bonus) stopped playing on the X-box so much.  He's happier playing Lego for longer and joining in activities like our evening walk.  Almost as if the X-box was escapism from his unhappiness at school ...

* I really need to think of a new blog name for him - he's getting enormous and is nearly as tall as my mum!  Maybe I'll ask him what he thinks ...

Countdown ... day 1

1, 2, 3, 4 ...

Okay, I'm really putting myself on the line here, with you all as witnesses - I've set myself a challenge ...

When I first started blogging, I set myself a '100 days of blogging' challenge, and I did it!!  Well, to help myself back into blogging after a fairly long break I'm going to do the same sort of thing again.  Including today's post, there are 80 blogging days left until I leave for the UK to visit family and friends. 

So I am going to attempt to blog something, or at the very least post a photo, for each of those days. 

What should be a little motivator is that if I'm successful, I will have beaten the total number of posts that I wrote for the whole of 2013!  Today is day number 1, and is my intention post ... now I just have to creatively fill 79 more days of blogging.

I'm looking forward to it :)

Everything is Awesome! ...

This blog is dedicated to Lego and 'The Lego Movie' which I saw with Little Man today.  It really is awesome!  Lots of action and explosions to satisfy kids and adults alike with a lovely feel good ending!  Also features amongst others, the voice talents of Will Ferrell and Morgan Freeman - (in a Lego featurette his character Vertruvius boasts Morgan can even make reading the telephone directory sound interesting - and he's right!)  So check out YouTube for the featurette and the song - title is the same as my blogpost.  It's annoying, but also annoyingly catchy- Little Man and I have been singing it at anyone who will listen (and those who won't we just run after them and sing ...)

My treehouse ... I built it all by myself ... sometimes a mermaid lives there ...

And now ... an apology for not writing for so long :(  This year has been an emotional rollercoaster, without going into too much detail we've had a lot to deal with, compounded by the fact I started working again for 3 days a week back in February.  And I just can't get used to trying to still be a full-time mum, artistic person, employee and all round well-adjusted person in the same amount of time I had previous to working!  Not to say I don't enjoy working, I do.  I get to drive around and manage my own time and meet lots of interesting people, and I love the people I work with.  I'm just not so good at managing time at home and some things have fallen by the wayside, such as my blogging and creating. 

Looks like some kind of terrible Lego massacre - and yes that is my mermaid ...

But, tonight I had a call from my dad, who told me it wasn't good that I was letting work get in the way of doing the things I love and he's right.  I've still been taking pictures and thinking of ideas to share here, but when night-time comes, I just do my chores and fall into bed.  So, now I'm going to have a re-think and see how I can do things in the future; blogging may still be sketchy, but there must be some creative way for me to be able to work and do the things I love.  It's called having a balanced life - it must be possible!  Any ideas are welcome! :)

Catch you again soon xxxx  (And thanks Dad xxx)