my drifting (wood) heart

hi all,

i have been hanging out by the sea all summer and even though we live 20minutes drive from the coast it just doesn't feel the same as when we're away. we've been at Lytham st Anns, lancashire (with best friends ben and emma) and around whitby, yorkshire (camping) . Plus a most amazing, and occassionally hair raising, drive through the yorkshire moors. I find all these places so fresh and inspiring that it forces creativity to happen. 

well that and a tight budget. 

      

so whilst enjoying the lovely north beach at St Anns we noticed loads of drift wood. Lying in the sun begging to be collected and made into something beautiful. plus we really needed a special gift for our special friends who let all SIX of us live with them for TWO weeks!! This included coping with my early rising kids (5am, i kid you not). there's nothing like bens dulcit tones telling the kids to 'SHUT UP' in the morning. especially while steve and i are hiding under the covers laughing. sorry ben. and well the small incident involving steve, oakley, a wooden meat tenderiser and bens face... um, yeah.... lets just say everyone is ok now and i am not still laughing so hard it hurts when i think of it... well not every time...

And because they love the beach and coast so very much, and we love them so very much, this is what we decided to make. steve helped with the drilling, he seemed to think i might hurt myself?? 

its amazing what you can do with a wire hanger, driftwood and a drill!

 it was so simple and yet works so well.

i have actually brought enough home to make a matching heart for our home. a little bit twee but i loved it so much i can't wait to get the drill out. I especially love that it can be so personal to where you are and have been. 

but always be careful what you take. we want our beaches to stay beautiful!

cheers 

angie xxx

teacher appreciation

 Teachers work hard! no question. they plan, they mark, they put up with kids being rude, active (mine), crazy (mine again), sad, slow, fast, you name it they deal with it. as primary school teachers they are expected to sing and dance too, not to mention teach drama! scary!!! so at the end of the year i think its only fair to give an appreciative token to these amazing educators.

But what to give to a teacher who will recieve gifts from possibly 30 other kids? its a mine field!  Last year my sons teacher expressed a great love of donughts. so come the last/few days of term he ended up with close to (if not over) 100 donughts! not all would feel this to be a bad thing but as a parent i felt a bit foolish!

i actually broke my coccyx at the very begining of this year, and it has taken this whole half of the year to recover and i'm still not there. so they have done loads extra.  as a result this year i wanted to focus on doing something useful and due to my husbands redundancy coming up fast, economical. previous years gift have included doughnuts (of course), notelets, mugs, sweets, chocolates, biscuits, bookmarks, bag charms etc...

for our teachers we have some special recycled keyrings. i'm always looking for new ways to recycle and i'm happy to see these work so well...

first i cut up some old leather boots (they were totally beyond repair) 

and some broken wellies (no one wants wellies that let water in)

then i drew & cut out the desired shapes allowing one side to be a little bigger for the actual ring.

adding the keyring cleaning the edges. perfect. 

I've gathered some other awsome ideas ou there in blogland, check these out...

its really american but i just love this DIY teachers survival kit found here

this teachers kit would is a bit easier to replicate

what could be cutter than these cookies here (look out for all sorts of ideas!)

lovely bookmarks here  and beautiful book covers here

gifts in a jar round up here thanks to club chicacircle

quilted notecards here

or quick note books with a difference here

for quick and easy treats that make you smile here

 for the 5 minute bread bag tutorial

  tutorial for covering pencils & jars with scrap paper here
i've actually seen this done with book pages. really great especially if you can find a favourite book. especially effective if the print runs the length of the pencil!

If the idea of making your own doesn't appeal then here are a few things i rather liked,

found here all thanks to not on the high street

 

i'm not a teacher but these happy apple brooches

feature pretty high on my own wish list!!

there are so many more options and i will be adding a couple more of my own shortly.
good luck!!

cheers angie xx

beach plastic fantastic / the art of collecting stuff

ever wondered what to do about all the rubbish dumped on our beaches?? 

well artist steve mcpherson has spent the last 15years collecting bits from around the kent coast to create amazing peices of art. On his website you can find his whole collection of marine plastic

fantastic!

of course, it would take 15 years to not only collect....

 but also clean, organise.....

  label,  and display...

 i love this,

thinking about the histories and adventures of such objects

 i wonder if it would work with the debris in my kids rooms???

I can't wait to see

what i can see

when i go to the 

sea sea sea.