art in april with kelly canby

my mum follows a super fun childrens author and illustrator on instagram called kelly canby... then a few weeks ago, mum sent me a post of hers, saying that she was running free drawing workshops at the subiaco library for school aged children during the coming holidays. i quickly tried to book them in, was super annoyed to see that it was booked out, then saw that there was a junior workshop too - and madeline just scraped in. hooray!

kelly was so much fun! she encouraged them to get as messy as possible and to have a huge imagination! she began by asking "just to make sure" that no one had worn their best clothes or arrived in a wedding dress. haha. joseph was pleased, he looooves to get messy.

one of the first activities was to draw an alien. each child was told to draw a body and we watched them carefull do exactly what they wanted, only to be told that they had to move one paper to the right each time they finished drawing something. kelly had a few dice and would let the kids roll them, to decide the number of whatever they were adding next. 3 mouths! 12 ears! don't forget, they can be anywhere, not just in the normal place. 

the kids had so much fun at her workshop. she was so easy to like and interacted with them all as she went around the room. 

one happy messy boy.

their final task was to draw a special character of their own with everything they had learnt today. this is joseph's, a boy called kyilem (kylam) after our friend kylam parsons. (em he still talks about him nonstop! haha)

and madeline's a very flexible girl called isabell (i swear she is going to call her daughter that one day. every girl thing she ever has to name is either isabel, or isabella) yes. that is he leg she is holding up like a ballerina/gymnast whatever she is. 

my favourite part of the morning was when kelly got the kids to come up and tell everyone about their drawing. "come up here and show off your picture, but i'd like you to do it like this: i'm joseph and this is my picture. everyone: wow joseph that's amaaaaazing. joseph: i know right! then tell us about your picture. okay go." so much fun!

kelly canby, you are a national treasure. i truly hope we get to meet you again one day! ♥

and one more thing from my book loving self... how cool is this wallpaper in the bathroom! obsessed! i need some for my bathroom!

temple pics!

last night my gf bianca and i got together and had a girly craft night. our project was to gold and silver leaf pictures of temples that are special to us, hers being perth (where she and her husband rob were married) and johannesburg (where she grew up). we had such a good time together... gasbagging, catching up and trying our hardest to do a good job of our pics.

just in case you want to make one (and of course you totally should)... you will need:

picture of your favourite temple (disclaimer - none of the ones in this post were personally taken by me - or bianca - if you happen to be the person that took them, i apologise in advance, but you should totally be complimented that your mad photography skills are on display in our homes) google images is your new best friend. save that sucker to a usb stick, take it to your local officeworks and have it printed in black and white on acetate (transparent) paper. this will cost you a grand total of 

60c per piece. (for an a4 size - easy to find a frame for that...)

spray adhesive - get it here

gold/silver leafing - here and here

a soft brush (i used my makeup powder brush)

old crappy sheet for your table (things can get messy)

this is what they will look like before you start! all you do is turn the page over, spray with the adhesive, then lift your gold or silver leaf carefully from the protective pages. you then need to place it on the glue and press  it down with your brush. this is the hard part. touching the leaf is hard because it is very fragile and can easily damage or tear. using a pair of cotton gloves is a good help.

once your page is covered it will look like this below... not attractive...

but it will dry and then you can pop it in a frame ready to keep and hang or give as a gift!

so much harder than we imagined, but well worth the trouble. can't wait to find frames for my ones and get them on display! (these are bianca's - so organised!) but they look great and i am so glad we made the effort, it's something a little different than a regular print. 

she climbs mountains

illustration copyright paula mills melbourne australia
available for sale here

last week, miss grace turned 8 so off we trekked to kalgoorlie over the weekend for her baptism. what a wonderful girl our grace is. tiny, sweet, enthusiatic, lovable, cuddly, strong, determined and just... gorgeous. i'm not biased at all, i swear. she received the print above from the neighbours, for a baptism gift - and it describes her so perfectly, for if anyone will climb a mountain,
it will be our grace.

big sister laura and i sang together for grace:
i like to look for rainbows, whenever there is rain
and ponder on the beauty of an earth made clean again
i want my life to be as clean, as earth right after rain
i want to be the best i can - and live with god again

i know when i am baptised, my wrongs are washed away
and i can be forgiven and improve myself each day
i want my life to be as clean, as earth right after rain
i want to be the best i can - and live with god again
childrens songbook #103

it was so lovely to see grace in her beautiful white dress (the same one i wore to be baptised!) all those years ago - and laura wore too! - followed by big sis laura's flowergirl dress from our wedding. it was a wonderful day and i was so pleased
(and extremely proud) to be a part of it!

grace with dad (my big brother) jared and mum donna