IKEA has arrived!!!!!!!!

Not only have we finally got an Ikea here now it couldn't be in a more perfect location, its not even 5 minutes from my house! They must've realised I lived nearby when they were looking for a site. This makes me so happy, I just love Ikea and really missed not having one here. Although' saying that I haven't had time to go yet and I have no money, but I think I will be venturing there for some yummy meatballs very soon!

Anyhoo, I thought I would briefly recap over all the things that have been going on...

...I think I am some kind of volunteering problem because I keep saying yes to people when they ask me to do things for them and this has been getting out of control lately. Even when I had decided that I was already doing too much and volunteering for too much I found myself offering to do the artwork for a DVD of Emilys nativity, I have even dragged Warren into it, who is now filming and editing the video! Just to give you a brief idea of some of the things going on - last week I was an elf (yes an elf!) in a Christmas drama comedy thing, which was a fundraiser for Emilys school. How did I say yes to that one? I am also designing and hand making the invitations for my friends wedding, making scenery for the playgroup (which I just can't get my head around), I joined the pre-school committee and volunteered for fundraising...as you can see I can't help myself...

...I have also got a couple of freelance design jobs hanging about which I have yet to start

...I started working in Marks and Spencer this week. It is such a weird experience for me after not working with the public for god knows how many years, let alone not working at all for the past 4 years. I will be working in the food hall four nights a week, which will be very busy indeed. I had a whole 16 hours of training last week, which I have to say is very impressive and I really enjoyed it. But I did miss the little monkeys when I worked all day on Saturday, its the longest I've been apart from Harrison too.

...as for blogging, housework or anything else for that matter, when have I possibly got time!? So maybe you'll see me about and maybe you won't. I don't think I can give up altogether, but it certainly is taking a sideline at the moment...

xxx

Just a quick post with an update of my latest painting session. Here is 'Afternoon Tea' finally finished, with some close up details. I have gold leafed the cupcake cases and printed with the gold leaf onto the teapot and cups to add a little more sparkle. This and a couple of the smaller ones will be going in the Knock Golf Club Exhibition which runs from 13th to the 18th November.

I have also managed to get a few prints into the Yard Gallery in Holywood which I am really pleased about. Fingers crossed I get some sales, this is pretty new territory for me so its exciting just to put some things out there.

On a separate note if you are local please check out Susan Whitla and Sara Wallace's exhibition - 'Begild' at Cregagh Library, which runs until the end of the month. This is a collaborative exhibition of mixed media canvases and they are pretty much selling out, so get down there, check it out and buy yourself an early Christmas present!

That being said Emily and I did make Halloween biscuits today and iced them in this holidays colour of black with yummy jelly beans and we did carve out a pumpkin yesterday too. Good old traditional things to do! I also have apples waiting to be made into a pie but we will just have to see if that happens.

On a more exciting note I made these two masks the other night in preparation for the masked Halloween Ball I am going to Belfast tomorrow night. I can't wait and its full on glitzy glam. I have my black party frock complete with gold sequin shrug, fur stole and long black gloves! There is always a swing band that plays followed by a DJ and last time we went there were can can girls! Its all based in the Spiegaltent, which is a fancy marquee, in Custom House Square, Belfast. I made the gold mask for me and the silver one for a friend who is coming too. I am so chuffed with these and here is my little princess modelling them!

Oh and look at my gorgeous cuties. Emily is on the left making pretend beans on toast for Daddy's tea - a sponge cut into triangles and painted brown for the toast, with orange tissue paper beans and orange pva for sauce (as inspired by Mister Maker - how great is that show?!). Of course Daddy's boy wouldn't be complete without his Hammers shirt! He just looks so grown up.

Sorry to go on but on a completely different note I wanted to say thank you to everyone who posted and left such encouraging comments on my last post, I am a bit rubbish with replying at the moment but I appreciate all the kind words and support. I have now taken a job with good old Marks & Spencer and will be working 3 nights till midnight in the week and a Saturday night. Its a much better compromise than the original 5 mights they were offering me. I now feel that I can at least get a little bit of money in without it totally compromising my relationship or my creativity. Its only short term and certainly not what I want to be doing forever, but for now I think its the right thing to do.

And on another note I went to see Jose Gonzalez last night and he was just fantastic, a nice mellow and relaxing night out (apart from my annoying sore throat and cough - boo hoo! But hey thats another story)... :)

It seems a while since I posted about my tea exploits and these are some experiments I did a few weeks back. I decided to apply a subtle palette to the above canvas and also experiment with gold leafing, which I have never done before. It really is an easy process and very enjoyable when you get going.

I also decided to try a couple of experiments with texture and printing on just a couple of pages of acrylic paper. The one on the left is about A5 and the right hand side one is A2. I quite like how the printing turned out and it certainly is something to think about as a way of applying pattern in the future.

Over the past few weeks I have been working on a big canvas but I keep forgetting to take my camera to my friends house, where she is kindly storing it for me, so hopefully there will be photos of that to see soon.

I know this past year has been hard with Harrison coming into our lives but I feel like I need to draw a line in the sand and get on with my life now. I have fallen into the trap of completely vegging in front of the TV at night and not getting anything done or anywhere in my life. I think just this week it has come to light more than ever as due to a complete lack of funds I have been applying for part time/evening jobs. These are obviously minimum wage no brainer jobs, but I really need the money.

Anyway to cut a long story short, my name was put down for (but not yet confirmed) an 8 to midnight shift five days a week, Mon-Fri. After feeling positive about this at first I am now starting to get really frustrated and thinking 'What the hell am I doing?'. There are so many things that I could potentially do from home yet I am not utilising my skills at all. I think part of the reason is that I hold my hands up and say, yes, I do need a big kick up the bum and I definitely work better with other people, especially in a creative situation - which is why my painting has been coming along nicely. If I took this job it would be an end to my regular painting evenings, I would y really see Warren properly on the weekend and I would be bloody knackered which I am sure wouldn't be very conducive to being creative.

I really do have to try and overcome this night time hibernation thing that I have got into and just focus on other ideas. Maybe I won't be financially rewarded immediately but long term surely this is the way to go. Its so hard to get going it really is.

Half a week later, after the bedlam of a monster party (16 children and at least 20 adults squeezed into our little home) I am finally posting pictures of my little monsters! I don't know what it is about birthdays, I always start off small with the odd bit of embellishment and bit by bit I just seem to lose control. I probably invited too many people, baked far too many buns (including 24 for all the kids in pre-school!) and spent too much time deliberating over party bags and what should go in them. I really have to try and learn to rein myself in - if its all possible...which it probably isn't!

But everyone had a great time and there were some really fab monsters. It was great that the kids got into the spirit of it and dressed up! Not that they needed to dress up to become monsters! Finally here is a picture of my monster cake that I made. I was so unbelievably chuffed with this! I have only baked cupcakes before so I was slightly nervous about attempting a proper cake, but all in all it turned out really well and tasted yummy which is the most important thing of course.

I used one sandwhich tin for the base and baked the top monster bit in a pudding bowl (it took a bit longer than expected, probably about 45 minutes in the oven in total). I then cut the cake in half to add buttercream and jam and finally just covered it with roll out icing. The spots are white chocolate buttons. It was a lot easier than I anticipated and I will now vow never to by a shop cake again!

As you can see I have been getting mighty productive around here! Still working on my favourite theme I produced another three canvasses, in the same way as the last. I set out to produce a more neutral palette and somehow ended up with these candy colours! I don't know how I arrived at this but I quite like the end result. The cupcakes are decorated with 'cherry' buttons and bead 'sprinkles'.

Anyone who knows me knows I am obsessed with tea. I simply just can't get enough of the stuff, it is like an old friend, who is always there to sort me out, perk me up and make me feel all lovely and happy.

Last week I went to my friend Susan's house for a night of artyiness and ended up creating these two little canvasses. I have to say I am quite pleased with them and they have inspired all kinds of other things in my head, which I hope to do. It was so enjoyable actually spending the evening being creative instead of being slumped in front of the TV too knackered to do anything except veg out. In fact I was so tired before I went out I didn't think I would achieve anything. But once I got stuck in, I really woke up and felt excited to be creating.

Here is a close up of the two pieces. I built the canvasses up with a variety of texture before painting them and used pages from an old book to create the teacups. I really love the richness of a canvas built up in this way and maybe its the designer in me that draws me to words, not just what they say but how type looks aesthetically on a page. I have a feeling there will be more like this...

Well its that time of year again when Emily, myself and lots of other people/family I know have a birthday. This is such a busy month for us! So above is a peek at what Emily wants this year for her party...any guesses? I know its looks like it could be a number of things but in fact when I asked her what she wanted there were no princesses or fairies in sight. Oh no, my little girl wants a Monster Party! With lots of green things and green icing on the cake too I am told! So I am half way through doing the furry invites and have managed to get hold of green spotty tableware, so I am half way there!

And just look at my lovely cake stand! I was so chuffed to find this sitting in a charity shop window in Derby when I visited my brother last month. I have been looking for one for ages and I quite like this retro wood effect melamine one, even if its not as pretty as some. It will be put to good use very soon.

I really don't know where to start with it all, it feels like I have been away for years. In fact I spent a couple of weeks in England staying with my mom & step-dad and seeing as many of my family as possible. This is cutting a very long story short by the way, I really don't want to bore you with all the details. But just let me tell you this - we tried to have a lovely weekend away (with the kids of course) to a 4 star hotel in Stratford-Upon-Avon. I kind of knew it wouldn't be totally relaxing but I didn't realise it was going to be quite a hellish as it was! A combination of me being sick with some kind of bug and Harrison yelling, screaming, crying and generally being VERY noisy whenever we tried to eat out anywhere, or even just have breakfast. Suffice to say there will be no more hotels for a while. Here are a few picks anyway...

Harrison play shop in moms garden...

My little brother Chris (or not so little at 6ft 7!) and adorbale photo of cousin Ciara & Emily...

A rare and lovely photo of me, mom & the kids
...

One of my favourite photos of Harrison and Grandad...

***

On another note, I am quite conscious of the way my blog has started to veer towards more family stuff lately. I know this is inevitable with the fact that Emily & Harrison are my life right now and there is not much room for anything else. But this is not why I started Noodles & Doodles. This blog was meant to be for me. To encourage myself to be creative, be inspired by the creative world around me and to spur me on to do the things I always procrastinate about doing. Also, I have a whole other blog dedicated to my family and its just silly having things in two places.

With this in mind, I am going to aim to steer myself back around and get Noodles back on track. I am not going to put myself under any pressure to get this done with any kind of deadline, but I feel better that I am announcing it to myself if not anyone else! This is how I started in the first place! I am aware that my family life and creativity may overlap from time to time, so there will always be some element of family on here. I just don't want it to be the primary focus. Well its a long term goal anyway. Everything is long term at the moment.

So thanks for sticking with me and hopefully things will pick up soon and hopefully I can get back into the swing of reading your blogs too! Sometime soon...I'm hanging i here...

Well I made some absolutely delicious (even if I do say so myself!) blackcurrant jam with my crop from yesterday! I have fond memories of my mom making jam when I was little but I have never made any myself, but thanks to an excellent Google search which led me Jane's blog I got instructions on how to make it! Sal this is definitely a blog you will love! She has a wonderful blog about her allotment and other interesting stuff. So thanks Jane!

It is so super easy and very satisfying, I am sure there will be more jam coming my way soon!

A trip to W5, a local science park which is just fantastic for kids of all ages. There is a floor for under 6's which is where we spent our time, playing with water, shopping in the mini play Tesco's, building houses with cranes and foam bricks, building bridges and generally have lots of fun...

The view of Belfast harbour from one of the windows. This sky just sums up the crazy topsy turvy weather we have been having lately...

Harrison is not a great sleeper and after trying to get him to have a morning nap to no avail, I packed a bag with a picnic in the hope that the car journey would send him to sleep. When I went back into the living room I found him asleep on the rug! Grrr....

Last minute decision to go strawberry picking on a local organic farm. Here are Emily & Tristan. This turned out not as successful as anticipated. Firstly there were no strawberries!! So we decided to hunt for other berries but then discovered the knee high nettles everywhere!! Emily and I had shorts on and I had sandals on so needless to say there were lots of stinging and crying...

We did however manage to pick a few (about 20!) raspberries, a punnet of blackcurrants and some lovely peas. I had no idea what I was going to do with the blackcurrants but I felt like I needed something to show for our efforts! Here is Tina with Emily too...

Harrison taking it all in - the little mischief...

After all that, finally a much needed cuppa...phew...

Just decided what to do with all those blackcurrants.... :)

Good good friends Lucy & Simon come to visit and meet Harrison for the first time...

Emily with her cousin James, visiting from England via a tour of Ireland...

And on a separate note...

"Sorry love, yer supensions gone. It'll be Tuesday before I can get the parts..."