Finish-Off Friday.

Thursday and Friday were a bit manic as everyone tried to get their last project finished. But it was worth it… there were some real crackers.

I have 2 basic beanies which the students get in their Year 8 Pattern Pack. They are challenged to modify one of them to make an original hat which they would wear. Jay came up with the strawberry idea and a few people copied…

This is the second beanie pattern and Ada used it to make a penguin guy I’d never heard of. She grew 3 inches when someone asked her at party where she’d bought it.

Stef modified one of the patterns to make Cat in the Hat stripes. You can see it in 2 colour ways because its a fully reversible hat. Named The Stefacino in her honour.

Frosty needs no introduction really. Smile I said while I was taking the photo. I’m trying he said from under a drift of white.

This unicorn quickly became famous all over school… she really gets around. I managed to snap a picture as she scooted past my window.
And just in case you think it’s all sweetness and light:

“Mrs Smythe, have you ever majorly
screwed up anyone’s work” asked Kay as I was overlocking the final seam on her One Direction beanie.
“Only the once” I replied “and then I fixed it up so you couldn’t tell.”
“That’s nice of you” she said as she took the completed beanie, folded the band over and put it on her head. There was a collective gasp from the class as they saw at the same instant that the words on her band were upside down. And then a look of horror from Kay as she realised Mrs Smythe had just screwed up a second project. While she was talking about screwing up the first. Oh the irony.

“Hand me that seam ripper would you?” I said.

Wednesday.

Today, when I was struggling to figure out what to wear, Sophie said something blue. So here it is:

A blue top and a blue Glassons cardy.

Me-made skirt using a half-cut-down dress I found at an oppie. Someone had made a terrible job of altering it and I rescued the gorgeous polished cotton to make a simple A-line skirt.

Look at that fabric – gorgeous! Dark tights and flat brown winter boots because today was a real running-around day. I didn’t really spend it with my feet up.

A me-made brooch – scraps of woollen fabric and a bit of lace doily with a shiny old button.

Whole outfit blinged up with a couple of necklaces including Venetian glass from Venice and a gorgeous little pendant from Once Upon A Time. (She’s at Shop Me Pretty – Paparoa St School on Friday night if you’d like one of your own.)

It was a crazy day at school because this week is the last week of the current Tech rotation and everyone is trying to get something finished.

I won’t look this serene by Friday.

For Miss M, With Love.

Henry’s class have a student teacher at the moment and she’s been ‘dreamy’. (Not my word!) She wears the cutest op-shopped outfits, sings a lot and enthusiastically climbed mountains on school camp. Whimsical is the word I would probably use. I think she looks just like a sweet, old-fashioned china doll with a porcelain complexion to match.

Henry wanted to make a gift for her because tomorrow is her last day so we threw some ideas around and came up with this upcycled bag.

We used this tutorial pretty much word for word, just removed the batting and added a button loop and a cell phone pocket. The bag is made from an old jersey of my own, a floral curtain remnant and the leather handles off an op-shopped purse. It was tricky going at times because the woollen layers were very bulky but I used a walking foot and took it slowly.

The leather handles might just be my favourite part. Or maybe the leather coat button? Or even the fact that there is new life for this comfy old jersey I have worn and loved for years. I am crazy about this whimsical little bag and can hardly bear to give it away, no matter how dreamy Miss M may be.

So, as a consolation, I awarded myself Student of the Week and hung it in the Highlights frame so everyone could admire it for at least one more day.

What I Wore Wednesday.

Such a lovely, long weekend that I forgot today was Wednesday until I arrived at school and opened up my planbook! So this is a take-me-as-I come post. Which actually probably speaks volumes about the kinds of clothes I default to when I know it’s going to be a busy teaching day.

Navy blue cardi from the Sallies with my red Ashley House badge

Pink and grey striped Glassons tee from the Sallies

Dark red Spice jeans from Farmers.

My most favourite brown boots in the world, bought many years ago from Overland, so so comfy.

Brown leather bucket bag from the Sallies

I’m  a bit crazy about this bag. I found it yesterday and paid $4 for it. It’s roomy and squishy and has that wonderful old-leather smell. $4! And it matches my best ever favourite Overland boots.

Also roomy, squishy, a bit slouchy and worth every bit of the several hundred dollars I paid for them about 7 years ago. Brilliant for running from one sewing crisis to the next. And don’t tell the kids I climbed on a wheelie chair, totally illegal not to mention dangerous. But my photographer didn’t want to get down to ground level so what’s a girl to do?

Treasure Hunt.

I counted… and 17 years is how long we’ve been doing these Easter treasure hunts. If you want eggs around here, you really have to work for them. It began with simple photo trails and jigsaw puzzles and graduated to code breakers, riddles and lines from famous poems. There have been geocaching clues and compass hunts, foreign languages and algebraic equations. This year I handed it over to the kids, mainly because my creative well was dry and they had some cool ideas, and everyone organised a hunt for someone else.

There were rhyming couplets and a real parchment treasure map. James got crazy hard maths problems. And Henry had to work the Periodic Table.

It was genius and he loved it. As always, there were little treats along the way and a big surprise at the end.

I always thought that the Easter Egg hunt would be a little-kid thing but, if anything, it’s developed as the years have passed into this huge, exciting, brain-teasing thing and now it’s an annual institution. One which, despite having a houseful of teenagers, I can’t see us abandoning anytime soon.

Friday

Can you believe this Easter weather? So beautifully warm and sunny, like about the third round of summer. We spent the afternoon at the beach surfing and swimming. Fried up some sausages for dinner and added chips from the food truck.

Nothing better than hot, salty fries eaten straight out of fingers as the sun goes down after a day of being tumbled about by breakers.

The kids had watched Pitch Perfect earlier in the day and were serenading passers-by from the seawall. They didn’t want to go home.

Hangdog.

One of the reasons we enjoy hosting international students is because they inevitably stretch our family, introducing new foods, new games and new ways of thinking, and our family is changed, always more than it was before.

We travel a lot, all over the country, dragging our students to the prettiest tourist spots as well as the secret local treasures (Kerosene Creek at sunset is the hands-down favourite) and the iconic Kiwi landmarks, trying to make sure they get to see as much of our country as possible. Sometimes their interests take us to places we’ve never been before…

Which is how I found myself, during the last week of summer, in the back of beyond sharing a very primitive camp ground with over 100 laid-back, dread-locked, yoga-practising, sun-loving (in the nakedest possible sense) rock climbers. It was a place we would never have known existed if it wasn’t for Maja.

Maja is a climber and her team, most of them Year 13s at the same school, made their annual trek to Takaka to climb at Payne’s Ford. So we went too, fascinated by the eclectic mix of young people from all over the world, the way they dressed, the food they ate and the ideas they good-naturedly debated. The weather was sensational, the campground welcoming and the wood-fired pizza oven made dinner magic every evening.

And again, last weekend, at Castle Rock for the national bouldering champs. Another gorgeous day in the most spectacular of locations. Twisty, agile, fleet-footed people hanging upside down in the most ridiculous of places.

 

She’s one-in-a million this girl. Throwing herself into life in a new country while still keeping up the things she loves. Busy at school while working part-time at the local cafe. Taking the opportunities that New Zealand’s great outdoors offers. And, for a change, she’s the one dragging us along for the ride.

Hangdog – A climber who hangs on the rope while working on a very difficult sport climbing route, which usually takes many attempts and requires the climber to wire or totally figure out all the movements for a successful ascent from ground to anchors.