Our Moroccan Themed Night!

I was told we were going to Bunnings to get some stuff for a herb garden cover.  I was told we might grab a coffee on the way. Little did I know that my husband had been secretly communicating through ‘Words with Friends‘ with one of my best friends!  We pulled up in front of Jodi & Chris’s place and I figured we must be picking something up or dropping something off.

No idea.

We get up to the steps and there is Moroccan music blaring, Jodes dressed up as bedouin beauty, and the lights in the house are out.

I still have no idea.

Chris and Jodi lead me to their balcony and BEHOLD – the most amazing set up is before my eyes.  The whole place has been transformed into a bedouin fantasy with drapings, cushions, roses, candles, palm leaves, gold stars and more! I supposed to be in Israel for my 30th and waking up in a Bedouin tent in the desert, hence the theme, but unfortunately we couldn’t go.

The four of us danced the night away with our jingly scarves (she bought for us to wear), ate the most incredible Moroccan food (Jodes, please comment below exactly what we had!), cocktails and such laughter.  It was perfect 🙂

Of course, Kirk set up his camera and it went off every couple of minutes with three shots in a row.  He put this together as a memento of the evening.  The singing at the beginning is actually Jodi! Kirk auto-tuned her voice and then created a Moroccan remix to go with our photo slideshow.

Check it out –

Everyone Collects Something?

I have never really been one to collect things.  One exception would be when I was in primary school and my friend and I started to collect the coloured tips of pencils when they broke off.  We used to store our treasures in little Itty Bitty Bins and we would draw out mansion plans that we would live in together when we were older.  We had a whole room set aside just for these coloured pencil tips and we dreamed of filling that room up to the roof.  As you can see, I was not the best at collecting practical things.  My husband used to collect the old phone cards when he was little and we still have his quite substantial stash somewhere…..I have no evidence of my pencil tips.

Only as I have gotten older have I really begun to hoard certain things – journals and notebooks, diva earrings, cute stationary (don’t get me started on the Typo shop!), fiction books……  but my biggest collection frenzy are the Usbourne Art and Craft books that you can get through Scholastic or any legendary bookstore.  Whenever I come across a herd of these books in a shop, I have to really hold back from buying the lot.

Here are some of my that books I love collecting!

It is not just the pretty pictures and fantastic ideas, but I have a practical slant to my collection fetish. I use these books every week for Art with my Year 4 class, when I teach Year 5 art, and when I used to teach Year 7 and 8 art.  The activities are brilliant and easy and teach a whole range of techniques!

Here are a few samples of what my class has made so far this year –

Glad Wrap & Watercolour Paints

Magazine Faces

Food Dye, Crayon & Black Paint

What do you like to collect?

Geddan! Huh?

Geddan is Engrish for “get down” and it is a new dance craze – a mix between video game nostalgia, dance style and a music video.

It all started when Nintendo 64 gamers would be in the middle of playing the Golden Eye (James Bond) game and the characters would spastically spin or dance in one spot. The cause of this was an improperly inserted game cartridge.  These would be glitches that would occur during the game – very frustrating but funny as.  People would start purposefully “tilting” the cartridges and then grab the graphics to put with music, creating a new craze.  Then, of course, people took THAT to the next level and started filming themselves to make their own spasmodic dance clip.  You can find them all over YouTube.

To make a Geddan you need three basic steps:

1. strike a pose
2. pelvic thrusts
3. shaking your hips

Here is a clip explaining where Geddan came from and how to make one.

We decided to make our own spin of the Geddan Dance by making a Geddan Dinner!  I think it will really catch on…