missjekyllslife
live.create.enjoy
My little zoo…
I would if I could. Have a zoo I mean. I love taking care of animals. Observing them. Getting to know them and create a environment that they are happy and strive in.
Many people have their opinions to my passion for animals, but that is fine by me. I don’t expect anyone to understand what it gives me. I’m always happy when I find someone that shares that passion though.
But long story short, to our two budgies and the dog, we have a new addition to the family.
Three Giant African Land Snails. Their breed is called Lissachatina reticulata. They are beautiful. I’ve always had a fascination for snails. And then a while ago I got to know about those slow lovely giants.
My snails are seven month old and by now 11-12cm big (just their shell). When they are fully grown, they can be up to 20-22cm big.
They are fantasic. Their names are “Peanut”, “Butter” and “Jelly”. They have their own Instagram under the name “peanut_butter_jelly_snailwich” 😉
For now they live in a clear platic tub. It turned out quite nice, but it’s only temporary. I’m planning on building a proper terrarium for them. So stay tuned for the next DIY project. 🙂
But for now, I’m just getting to know them.
Some of my favorite shots:
Magical midsummer
As I mentioned in another post before, we decided to celebrate midsummer with a few friends. It became like a little tradition since we bought the summerhouse. Its been the third year now and it gets better each year.
It was so much fun and I was really happy with how the decoration turned out.
We fixed two tables to assure that everybody has enough space and we can still keep our distance during these uncertain times.
More tables meant more space to decorate for me 😉
We were really lucky with the weather. After everyone arrived around lunch time, we ate something and then went for a walk to collect flowers. It was time to make some traditional flower crowns. Also we decided to build our own may pole. Bigger than last year. Of course 😉
The rest of the day, we played Kubb, Klask, ate and just simply had a great time. When it was dark, we lit a lot of candles. It was magical. Can’t wait for next year! 🙂
Little fairy garden
We went to visit Martins family. They live further up north on this georgeous farm. Whenever we’re there, we like to stroll through the barn where they store all the old things left from previous generations. I love to do that. All those things have a story to tell. We usually chose a few pieces to take home and reuse. Accompanied by their story.
This time we took a few metal tins that were used to store cookies and bread and a big old zinc tub. I already knew what I wanted to do with that. Inspired by some posts on Pinterest…of course Pinterest 🙂
I bought a cute little “Fairy Set”.
I painted them white with an outdoor paint.
Then I placed the tub and filled the bottom with some rocks in different sizes. And top of those I placed some moss. And then the cute little fairy door, ladder and mailbox.
I also had some white gravel left over which I used t create a “Fairy path”. Some candles added and I was done. It looks really pretty and got better and better the darker it got. 🙂
Easy craft with popsicle sticks
The only materials needed for this craft activity are:
12 popsicle sticks per student/child
Some kind of ribbon
Paint
Glue
Hot glue gun
We started with laying 10 Popsicles ticks neatly under each other. Then we put glue on the remaining two and glues them across all the others to make them stay together. Then we attached a piece of ribbon to the two popsicle sticks sticking out.
When everything had time to dry properly, it was time to decorate it. I printed a few quotes for those that were uninspired on that day, but they were free to put on it whatever they wanted.
Here are some examples of what they chose and created.
Impressions of Secondhand treasures
Just a few impressions of corners in our house that make me happy. None of those things were expensive. They were either given to us, bought secondhand, built by us or picked in our garden. Most pieces have a history. Now they make me happy.
Reviving old sunchairs
Another one of those attic treasures. What appeared to be just a pile of sticks in a dark corner, turned out to be sunchairs. Well, somewhat sunchairs. The wood was in bad shape and they had no fabric on. But I decided to change that.
We took it down, cleaned them and clipped off some old nails. Next it was time to measure and cut the fabric that we bought at Ikea. I’ve never made sunchairs. No idea how much it has to hang through to be comfortable…But I decided to just give it go.
The sewing was difficult since the chairs were fully mounted and I had to sew the fabric directly into the chair while holding up the entire frame. But I had some help for that.
Half way through the second chair my sewing machine started eating the thread…It was nerve wracking…
But I fixed it and it turned out good. Both boyfriend AND dog approved.
Folks are like plants; we all lean toward the light. – Kris Carr
I have this new passion. Growing indoor plants…Multiplying them. Looking at them. Taking care of them. Right now I don’t feel like I can have enough.
Our apartment is absolutely wonderful but also very special. We have those two incredibly huge windows in our kitchen and a pretty long one in the bedroom. But that was pretty much it with space for plants. At least for plants that require a lot of light.
And experience showed that our plants are happiest in one of our two kitchen windows. It was quite crowded there lately. So I talked to my boyfriend about it. Told him that we maybe need a shelf in the window, so that I get another level to put pots on.
Well, he’s my handy man. And he built me a new level in that window. I’m in love with it and there’s space for more plants now 😉
Collaborative Artwork to promote diversity
Working with Children, it is very important to me to help them become self-steered, educated and open-minded adults. Especially with the current situation in our world, I’m trying to bring it into the activities I plan for them.
In this weeks’ art lesson, we made a collaborative piece of art. I found the printable on “teachers pay teachers”. It is a quote from Dr. Seuss. And I feel like it sums up what I try to teach my students every day.
Every student worked on their individual piece and used the colors and techniques they prefer. In the end we put everything together.
In the beginning they worried that it won’t fit together when they don’t use the same colors and pencils.
But when we put it together they realized, that the diversity made it specifically pretty. Which was exactly the point of this activity. Proud teacher!
It’s almost the end of this academic year. We decided to give this piece to the our PYP6. They graduate and will go over to the MiddleYearsProgramme. This message will be a decoration for their graduation party and hopefully inspire them in the future.
Make Every Day Earth Day
Throwback to Earth Day. As I mentioned before, I work in an international School. Wednesday afternoons I teach Arts & Crafts. All different types of activities. Also for Earth Day of course.
I like to think that we are doing our best to raise a responsible and caring next generation. In our school we try to raise awareness for sustainability and the responsibility all of us have and how even small things can change the world in the long run.
For this activity we reused a big piece of acrylic glas from an old picture frame I found in the storage.
Other than that we used acrylic paint, glue, and many many buttons. I sorted them before because we only needed the blue, green and red ones.
And then we started. We decided to make the world heartshaped. My students said that would express how much we love the world. The heart-world is held by hands and those hands are quite surreal. In form and color. But we didn’t want to chose a certain skin color to not exclude anyone. So the kids decided to use bright red.
First they painted all the parts. Then moved it to the sun to help the paint to dry quickly. They couldn’t wait to continue working on it.
Next we used glue to trace the outline of the oceans and continents to surround those with blue and green buttons. My students loved that part. There were a lot of discussions about whats enough and when it is too much. I ususally take a step back at that point and watch. They figure it out. They have a good eye for that and usually it turns out different than I anticipated it but also often a lot better than I thought it would.
So also in this case. In the end we decided to add a “slogan”. The kids decided that that would be my “job” because they love my writing.
Then they signed it and presented it proud to the rest of the group.
Next day it was completely dried and I decided to talk to our principal. The kids did such a great job with it and I wanted as many students and teachers to see their work. She agreed and we found a spot right by the dining hall to hang it. So every single person going to lunch would see what they created.
I had to cover their names to maintain their privacy but here you see it hanging, visible for everyone.
I didn’t tell my students about that and their faces when they came for lunch were priceless. So proud. I love to see when they are proud of their work. When they believe in themselves.
Low budget garden decoration for a wild garden
My favorite thing to do is to decorate our garden. And that without investing too much money. I challenge myself with using what we’ve already got. Since we have the summerhouse, we never throw away glassbottles and glasses. Because they are perfect vases and candleholders.
Here I used all my leftovers of hempstring to do some super simple and improvised macrame around small glassbottles to hang them in trees and fill them with flowers. Super simple but effectfull. Always makes me happy when they get hit by the sun.
Many years ago I got this little greenhouse from my mum. We forgot it out in the garden last winter and some of the glass broke. But its still beautiful. We had two odd flowers that we got in a sale that moved in here now. They don’t fit exactly, but I think that’s what I love most about it. I like it odd. The rest of the greenhouse I filled with rocks to make it attractive for insects to move in. Some of the rocks I decorated with colorful patterns.
This weird carrier on two wheels we found in the depth of the garden when we started digging up some bushes. Now it found use as a little table for candles, leaning on a tree. Further up I hung a little mirror candleholder. It needs to be windstill to keep the candle going and that rarely happens here. But it’s already a cute decoration without the candle being lit.
Those three things change the look of the garden quite a bit and together with the plants we bought it cost under 100kr (about 10€) altogether. If you like it wild and used and odd, you just have to use your imagination and you won’t really need money to have a beautiful garden.
If you have inspiration for me, I would be happy about some ideas in the comments 🙂
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