Al Pacino - Scent of a Woman

Recently saw a poster of Al Pacino - surprisingly - as the new face of Vittoria coffee.  I think he's close to 70 now?  and still looks great.

Reminded me of one of my favourite movies "Scent of a Woman" in which he gives the most fantastastic performance.

I've got the soundtrack, but now must make a note to self ... buy Scent of a Woman DVD for 'rainy day' collection ...

That Tango scene is to die for...
 

~  inspiration comes from everywhere  ~

~ MoSAic PhOTo FrAmE - PAriS ~

My first attempt at photo frames!  

I had these gorgeous imported tiles for ages and wanted to make something really special with them. 

Job complete!  Now adding photo frames to my repetoire...  back to the studio...

  

  ~  find something beautiful every day  ~

friday faves

more things i'd love to have ...

Shabby chic dress form - Doll - kellbellestudio

 

White fabric embroidered linen cotton - Appeljar

 

Juicy blueberry crocheted necklace - TomBjornDesigns

Pink Forget me not Ring- TaylorsEclectic

 

Miss Lacey - Flower accessory - storytale

French madeleine tray - goodtymes

Art Print - Industrial Decay - TriciaMcKellarPhoto

If I can't actually sit here one day and have a coffee then I guess I'd just settle for the print..  Le Petit Zinc Restaurant - ParisPlus 

~  find something beautiful every day  ~

garden idea

Saw this tonight on Pinterest and thought maybe I could find some old doors to do it in my garden... wouldn't it be gorgeous???

I'll keep you posted...

 

~  find something beautiful every day  ~

stinky tuesday

so today when I was vacuuming the office... it took me AGES to locate what the disgusting smell was.

finally, i traced it to the fax and 'voila'... the sneaky little culprit was extracted from the machine and given a proper burial.  (ie. tossed into the garden for mulch)

it even looks cute or funny, but let me assure you, geckos smell like nothing else on earth when they die in your fax.  (or anywhere in the house for that matter)


the good news is, the smell is now gone... the bad news is, it's probably not going to be the last time it happens.   these little suckers get into all sorts of electrical equipment and wreak havoc.  ho hum...

I think today I'll just finish with
 
~  happy tuesday  ~  ...
(sent from my 'smell free' office)

Our week in Julia Creek

Mini School is a well organized week of fun, food and school for any kids (and mums) who are living in remote places and educate their children via Distance Education.    We are with the Mount Isa School of the Air (MISOTA) and since we're in the 'Julia Creek' Area, our kids do mini school at Julia Creek ... which makes sense...

MISOTA also hold mini schools at Normanton, Gregory, Cloncurry, Camooweal and Bedourie but that's just more driving for me and why would I do that to myself???

... so ... our week consisted of ...
Eating meals together
Designated day of Kitchen Duty
School, art and fun activities for the kids with teacher and Garth Jankovic - the wonderfully inspiring, energetic and multi-talented PCAP artist.  (Thank you Garth - your energy was infectious with all the kids)
Marimba practise for mums and kids
Tennis, swimming
Jewellery and Mosaics for sale (yours truly) and hat making for mums as well
Grand finale of the costume night and marimba concert - eek!

Exhausting, but will be back next year to do it all over again!

Julia Creek - main street

Walking to school from the breakfast hall

   

Busy breakfast line-up

Marimba practise

... and bongo practise ...

   

Working on their 'future world' drawings together

Karen Price's jewellery

Caroline Butcher's jewellery

 

Yours truly ...

Caroline Butcher shows Melissa ways to wear her design

Sold!

  

I just HAD to have this one... so lovely!

Karen Price works with coins sooo well

Karen also does colour ... very well...

   

Very popular range

I think most of this range actually sold out!  Fantastic Karen :-)

   

Garth - our PCAP artist helps the kids with their drawings

Multi-talented artist Garth Jankovic drawing upside down... how DO you do that???  

ps.

Garth is a great bloke with a huge artistic talent.  He works as a freelance artist and has a fun, easy going personality.  His positive, encouraging nature made him a huge hit with the kids.  Our school managed to be lucky enough to get Garth for all our mini schools for the 2nd year in a row.  As a parent, I would highly recommend Garth if your school or community were looking for someone to help with an artistic project.  Contact details below. 

smizler@hotmail.com

www.smizler.com

~  enjoy your week ~

some of the goodies i sold at mini school

Safely back home now ... had a great week (can't wait to tell you all about it) and the kids had the most wonderful time.   Here's a some of the goodies from my store I managed to sell - yippee!!!

thank you to all my lovely supporters at mini school!!! yay - more $ to buy materials :-)

~  find something beautiful every day  ~

Julia Creek ... here we come!

Well, I think I'm ready ...

kids clothes
costumes
food for a week
my clothes
schoolwork from our last unit to return to teachers
art and crafts from my store
de-activated my ETSY store for a week
de-activated my MADE IT store for a week
swimming togs
shoes
hats
laptop and September invoices to process
mailbag


We're off to Julia Creek this afternoon for the week for mini school.  All the kids from the Julia Creek area who do distance education with Mount Isa School of the air descend upon Julia Creek for the week and either camp at the sports oval or stay in motels. (I'll be motelling it ... and not afraid to say that - see my camping blog post)   The kids then spend the week eating together at the main hall, exercising, doing schoolwork and fun activities with their friends that they hardly ever see.

For us mums, it's a week of (also eating together at the main hall) planning, cooking, working the kitchen roster and this year I'll be taking my art along with 2 other mums (Caroline Butcher and Karen Price - previously blogged about here) to see if anyone would like to buy some presents for Xmas!

One of the mums has also organized for us to learn the Marimbas... apparently some kind of African drum, so I've put my name down... see how that goes.

On Thursday night the kids will all dress up in their costumes, do a parade and interview on stage with one of the teachers for all to see.  (Usually the dads all come in from their respective cattle properties on Thursday to see their wives completely frazzled after the week and the kids super excited to be sharing their costumes on stage).

My mum will be coming out for the week as well which is great  - she gets to see the kids, catch up with all my friends as well as I can rope her into helping when I'm on kitchen duty and looking after my art store while I'm bashing the marimbas...

See you in a week!

ps.  there's an obscene amount of food that we all take to feed the 30 families and so lots of things like lamingtons, peach blossoms, sausage rolls etc which we never have at home... possibly a new exercise regime will follow when I get back as well.

good old Aussie lamingtons - image via Pinterest

mmmm... Peach Blossoms - EVERYONE'S favourite!  recipe on Macellina in Cucina

 ~  enjoy  ~