Project Life 2012: June part 2

I will be doing the usual link up with The Mom Creative on Project Life Tuesday. Great place to meet other PLers and get some inspiration and encouragement.

This week's page is all about one very special evening in our week. Chloe and I got tickets to go to the Scottish Fashion Awards show which was held in the Clyde Auditorium (known locally as the Armadillo because of its unique architecture - see below) in Glasgow.

An annual event, this show celebrates the best of Scottish fashion and design, and this is the first year the public have been able to attend. With Miss C aspiring to a career in fashion or design related work one day, this was an opportunity I'm glad we were able to take advantage of.

This year's awards show was hosted by Alexa Chung, with lots of fashiony types and celebs present. I was very excited that Christopher Kane was there, but being a total Whovian, I was most happy to see Karen Gillan, who played Amy Pond in Dr Who, win the award for fashion icon of the year. She is my total girl crush!

The best part of the whole thing though was seeing Chloe get so excited and also so dressed up. This is probably the first 'grown up' event she had ever been to - and it had a red carpet! She looked so glam and grown up!

Also cute was the photobooth you could go in and get some branded photos. PLer's dream addition at any event huh? Chloe got a couple of strips, and she let me have one to put in the book.

Anyway, here's the full page:

And the close ups:

All in all, a fab nite. And I'm happy that I was able to document it like this, so we'll be able to look back on it for years to come!

Have a Project Life-tastic week ahead, all.

Project Life 2012: May part 3

I will be linking up with The Mom Creative for Project Life Tuesday, as always. If you've hopped here from there, a big welcome; and if you haven't visited yet, drop by for inspiration and lots of fun stuff.

It's been a while, huh? But my blog-silence has been for a very good reason - I found a job, hurrah! Ok, it's only a short term contract, just for 6 weeks, but it may lead to other things, and it's so rewarding to be back in the workforce once more. So I have been busy getting to grips with the new job and the office and the people and, well you've been there,  it's like new girl on first day of school!

So, after the birthday extravaganza of my last PL entry, this one is much more everyday. It's bits and pieces of what happened in the rest of May.

Here's the whole page:

I was very proud of myself for making this yummy looking pavlova. I had a craving one day, and my friend sent me this foolproof recipe from Delia Smith, so I put on my apron and got to work. This was the rather delicious result of what seemed like hours of old school whisking by hand (I think meringues taste betterand have a better texture hand whisked):

Chloe's love of all things Instagram continues. This is her latest profile pic on facebook. I know I am biased, but how gorgeous does she look?

A little mini story about my return to working life:

Scotland had a very rare mini heatwave the week after Miss C's birthday. My parents thought it was a good reason to BBQ. Chloe took this photo of my dad getting all alpha male with the BBQ:

We are so very lucky to live so close to Glasgow. Chloe and I love nothing more than a girls' day out in town. Usually that revolves round shopping and eating, but we do try to find something different to throw into the mix. This time it was a visit to GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art) which is in the centre of town, unlike the other galleries which are on the outskirts. Miss C, my budding artist, was very taken with the Karla Black exhibition. This piece on the ground floor is huge in scale, and quite something to experience. Outside GOMA is the Duke of Wellington statue, which is capped with a traffic cone! This is a long-standing tradition in Glasgow, and has become something of an attraction in itself.

While in town, we also saw these drummers and pipers taking some contemporary and well known songs and giving them the Highland fling treatmeant. Their rendition of We Will Rock You complete with dancing was fabulous. Obviously, it was for the tourists really (we don't all wear kilts and play the bagpipes) but as a proud Scots lassie, I can't help but feel a patriotic stirring when I hear the pipes.

Lastly, a little card documenting my love of the deli opposite work. Noodles to go at lunchtime, mmmm.

And that is pretty much that! This weekend (2-6 June) is a weekend of celebration in the UK and Commonwealth. Celebrating 60 years since the coronation of Queen Elizabeth to the throne, there have been events all weekend. Street parties in some places. And we have been given extra public holidays, so we are off today (Monday) as I write this, as well as Tuesday. Thank you, ma'am. I'll be sure to include some royal touches in next week's layout.

Till then, have a fabulous week, all

A picture of the future

It was Miss C's 3rd year Parents' Evening last night. I'd had the interim report a few weeks ago, which indicated that she was doing well. I know her attitude and I know she works hard so I had expected positive updates from all her teachers. What I did not expect was to be almost moved to tears by one teacher.

We did indeed get great reports from all her teachers - she is diligent, mature, doing well in all her classes, and it makes me happy. But one teacher, her Art teacher, actually gushed. About what a wonderful kid she is. About how super-talented she is. About how she works hard and has an amazing future in art ahead of her. And about how she isn't arrogant and how she helps others in the class and is a role model. I sat there and listened to this woman show just how much she cares and how much she thinks of my daughter, and it was one of the proudest moments of my life.

I'll be the first to say it; as an ex-teacher I value academic studies very highly, and it makes me happy that Chloe works hard and does well in her academic subjects. In fact, when Chloe was little, I probably imagined her with a future in a very academic driven subject and career. That was what I saw as success, because it was what I was good at. I wasn't looking at the whole picture.

For all Chloe is very much a mini-me, she is also most definitely her own person, and her talent has opened my eyes. She 'gets it' and sees her way of contributing to the world in a way I didn't until I was much older. She understands that her rules of life are her own. I never dreamed that I would have a daughter who was so amazingly talented artistically; and who would discover her gift and passion quite so early in life.

Chloe doesn't know exactly what career she wants to do yet, but she does know it will be something in art. I know that's not the easiest field to get into, and that it will take hard work from Chloe, and support from me to get her into this career that will make her happy. Even though I don't know much about that world, my support is what she'll get. Because my daughter is amazing. She is already an artist. And I'm her biggest fan.