Gratitude and Thanksgiving

On the last Thursday in November people in the United States celebrate Thanksgiving.  In the crafting world in particular, November has become synonymous with giving thanks.  I have organised art challenge blogs in the past to produce Gratitude Journals.  You can find links to them by clicking on the Art Challenge Blogs link at the top of the page.

After being away in Australia for over 3 weeks and the recovery time since I had not done anything creative and just as I was wondering what I could do to kickstart my creativity Shonna released a new class at His Kingdom Come.  I hadn't planned on making a gratitude journal this year but Shonna was using techniques I don't usually use so I thought I would give it a go.

The journal is 7 inches square and as I don't draw I used various of my autumnal stamps and used watercolour paints to colour the pages and the stamps.

The cover

The pages

Some of the stamping didn't come as well as it might.  Here are some diappearing dandelion heads.

And finally, assembled with the book rings and some fibres.

Now it's ready for me to use.  If you are thinking of making a gratitude journal you might like to check out my Pinterest board where you will find quotes, journals and pages.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

12000 miles

I've always thought that Sydney was 12000 miles from where I live in the middle of England but depending on what you read it's anywhere between 10599 miles and 11000 miles.  Whatever the mileage, the time it takes to fly there consists of at least 22-24 hours in a plane and several hours in  airports plus losing a whole day to time zones and date lines.

But it's all worth it when you get to see this little cutie.

We left Birmingham on Sunday night and arrived in Sydney very early on Tuesday morning.  This was our 3rd visit.  We went there in 2006 and 2008 when our son Andy was at Hillsong College.   The purpose of this visit was to spend time with Andy, Naomi (our gorgeous daughter-in-law) and their new baby.

We arrived far too early to check into our hotel so Andy suggested we went for a walk.  It was so much warmer than we were expecting.  It's Spring in Australia and we were thinking of UK temperatures so not expecting anything much over 22 degrees.  In the 3 weeks we were there temperatures reached the upper thirties on some days!  It was also quite cold on occasions so fortunately we did have the right clothes with us!

This was our first view of the Sydney skyline on our walk.

On Wednesday we got a closer look as we took the ferry from Circular Quay to Darling Harbour.

The ferry takes you under the famous bridge.  We did the bridge climb in 2006.

And a closeup of the iconic Sydney Opera House.

We went to Darling Harbour because I wanted to get a photo of this water feature.  I had tried before but it's really difficult not to get either people or buildings in the background.  This was the best I could get and I rather like that the large bird looks as though it's watching the gull.

On Thursday afternoon we went to Chowder Bay which we hadn't been to before and Andy walked with us to Bradley's Head.  Naomi met us with the car at the other end.  That brought back memories of Roger and Andy walking - mostly in Pembrokeshire - with me driving to meet them at the end of the walk.

Along the path we spotted this Kookaburra.

Andy was looking to buy a new car so on Friday we all went to look at a Ford Focus.  It is so much easier to buy a car in Australia than in the UK because the car is insured not the person.  So since there was still 2 months insurance left on the car Andy was able to buy it and drive it home in the space of a couple of hours.  It actually took longer than that but only because we went out to lunch before he collected the cheque from the bank and went back to collect the car.

Roger and I were dropped off at the beginning of a coastal walk and we walked back to Manly.

We had an ice cream each in Manly which you can read about here.  Then we took the ferry back to Circular Quay.

Back at our hotel if you peered round the corner from the hotel roof garden - and used a zoom lens you could see this.

I took 1400 photos whilst we were away but I have whittled it down to just a few to share with you.   This was just the first week.  I will bring you news of week two, which we spent in Tasmania, in another post.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

Why blog?

Now there's an interesting question!   Why blog?  Why do I blog?   Today is my 901st blog post.  Well done me!  But I'm still asking myself the question.

I started in 2008 with two blog posts for the whole year.  I have no idea now why I started or what purpose I had in blogging.  Which is maybe why I've got to this point and am challenging myself to blog for 30 days.  I'm using the 30 day blogging challenge from Sarah Arrow.   It's much better to have a purpose, a goal or a vision when you start something because then you can measure whether you achieved it.   Since I don't know what I set out to do, I can't tell whether I've achieved it.

However I have achieved 900 posts.  I've hosted giveaways, I've shared my artwork and my photos.  Occasionally I've been brave and shared my feelings and my state of mind.   Many of my readers have been with me the whole time and some have joined me during the journey.  Thank you to you all.

So I would like to ask you a question.  It might be questions!

What types of blog posts keep you coming back?  Which are the ones you most like to read?  What sort of posts do you just click through - go on, I know you do because I do the same with the blogs I follow.  What would you like to see more of on my blog?

I would really appreciate it if you could answer in the comments below.  Thank you