5 tips to help you manage peak-assessment time.

Hey,
It's just past the middle of term 3 for me and that means that all the assessment is piling up, there are so many dates to remember, things to write and bibliographies to write. Sometimes it all feels a bit too much and like you will never be able to get over the workload but using the tips and websites below will hopefully help make things a bit easier for you, and help you achieve your best. (I know they all help me a lot).

1.Make an assessment calendar! This is a super simple and easy way to know what is coming up. Assessment planners are pretty much a calendar of the term or semester in which you write all your due dates, tests, exams and distribution dates. To make one simply create a table with a row for each week of school you have (plus one extra) and 6 columns. The way I organise mine is to have the weeks down the right hand side, and the days of the week across the top. (That wasn't a very clear explanation so I've added an image below). You then add the dates (like a calendar) and fill in the assessment.

2.Use a diary/planner. A diary or planner gives you a chance to record all the things you have to do for each day, the classes you have and assessment that could be given out or due.

3.Start as soon as you get the task and work on it steadily. You've probably heard this a million times before but starting the assessment as soon as you get it makes a world of difference the night before it is due (you get that amount of time to do it for a reason). But make sure you do a little bit most days (or starting early will be pointless)

4.Break the task into mini-tasks. I find this a great way to make the task a bit more approachable. The day I get the task I usually spend about half an hour working out 'mini-tasks' and creating ',mini-due-dates' for the tasks. This helps me see how far along I am and how much I have left. It also helps you to not panic about how much you have left to do.

5.Use some of these websites. I use all these websites for pretty much all my assignments and they make things so much easier. Hopefully they will help you too.

Wunderlist- wunderlist is super useful for point four, it lets you create folders for different assignments and break the assignment into chunks. You can create due dates for each chunk and even break your afternoon up into sections (more about wunderlist coming up next week)

Cite this for me- I'm sure you've all heard of cite this for me but it is soooooo useful I couldn't leave it out of this list. Basically it creates a bibliography for you, all you have to do is copy and paste the website url.

Instagrok- Instagrok is like a search engine mind map. You type in a key word and it brings up heaps of relevant information in a mind map format.

Grammarly- grammarly isn't quite as helpful as I'd hoped but it still works pretty well and can really help push your grades up.

Hopefully these websites and tips will help you as much as they help me. Don't forget to let me know in the comments if you have any other tips or websites that might be useful.

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How to create a watercolour silhouette

Hey there, It's Poppy!

Recently I have been doing some watercolour painting at school and we used masking fluid  to create silhouettes. 

For those of you who do not know masking fluid is a liquid that is painted around or on areas of the painting that you do not want to get paint onto and when it dries it acts as a barrier against paint, it can then be peeled off to leave areas clean

I loved doing it so last weekend I went to the art shop to get some masking fluid, and I found that it was super-duper expensive (I think it was about $20 for a 75ml bottle). I decided against buying it and tried a technique that I have heard of but never really used before. Crayon.

It worked surprisingly well and I don't think that I will be buying masking fluid anytime soon.

How to create a watercolour silhouette without using masking fluid

You will need:

Watercolour paper (watercolour paper is much better to use for this because it is much more sturdy and can take the amount of water we are going to be adding)

Watercolour paints (the ones I used were not the best quality paints, as in a $15 set of 30, but still worked well)

Paint brushes (I used various sizes, but if you can only have one size a medium or small brush would be best)

Water

Paper Towel

A white crayon

Some printer paper

A led pencil

Optional-a computer to print from

How to: (for variations and different ideas see the notes below)

1. Find an image that could be used for a silhouette on the internet (you could alternatively draw one straight onto the printer paper). (I used a single elephant silhouette) and print it onto the printer paper.

2. Cut around the outside of the image on the printer paper.

3.Lay the cut-out image onto the watercolour paper in the position you want it to be for the final painting.

4. Trace around the outside of the image using a led pencil, make sure you only do it lightly!

5. Remove the image that you cut out earlier from the watercolour paper 

6.Using the white crayon carefully trace just inside the pencil line, around the whole shape.

7.Fill in the rest of the shape with the crayon.

8.Choose the colours you would like to use (I used a turquoise and pink)

9.Cover the area outside your shape with water (this makes the pain easier to spread, remember that you may have to reapply it in certain areas, depending on how fast you work)

10.Paint the area outside your shape (I blended my colours together with water), be careful and try not to get to much paint on the crayon but if you do get some on the crayon simply dab it or push it outside the shape with the paper towel. 

11.Wait for the paint to dry (you may want to rub the pencil out carefully)

12.You are finished. 

Notes

-You may want to do more than one of the same image on your painting, to do this simply do step three and four for the first image and then go back and repeat steps three and four for the rest of the images.

-Alternatively, you could paint the inside of the shape and leave the outside white, to do this simply reverse step three (trace on the outside of the pencil line) and don't worry about filling in the background.

Hopefully, you had fun doing this. I would love to hear about your attempts or see some photos (if we get enough I could post them on here in a few weeks) of your artwork.

I'm about to go out and take some photos that I might share tomorrow :-)

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Why I love Photography

Hi all,

A few days ago shared with you some of the photos I took over the weekend if you haven't seen it yet check it out here. It seems to be a bit of a theme at the moment (this weekend I will post about a different topic ) I was thinking about what makes me love taking photos so much. Here are a few of the reasons I came up with.

1.It allows you to capture things.

One of the things I love about photography is being able to capture exactly how things were. It is kind of hard to put into words but it is almost like a different kind of memory. You can capture the expression on someone's face when you have just given them something and when you  look back on it, you remember the way you felt and all sorts of other details about that moment. Things you would have otherwise forgotten.

2.You can share your memories with other people

Photography is interesting in this way because it allows other people to kind of see how you see the world. You can share things from your point of view.

3.You can share your photos with friends and family.

This is similar to point 2 but instead of showing them the world from your point of view you could be showing them where you went on a trip or what happened somewhere when they were not there.

4.Photos last forever.

Photos last forever (or a really long time, depending on how careful you are with them). If you are careful and keep all your photos in a safe place (one that you will actually remember) you can look back on them when you are older and be reminded of things you had forgotten.

I could go on and on with reasons why I love photography but I think I will stop there for today. Let me know in the comments what you love about photography.

PS. Don't forget to enter the photography competition, you can enter here.

PPS. And don’t forget to tell us what you think of our blog in our survey, you could win the chance to have something of yours shared on the blog.

Image featured in the background of the header of this post was found on canva.com as a free image. 

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Some blogging questions...

Hey there,
It's Poppy again.
I have been thinking about some ways for you to get to know me better and I thought that a question and answer post would be the best way. So here are a few questions that I think will let you know a bit more about the way I blog. I would love to hear your answers as well! Leave a comment below with your thoughts.
1. Why did you start blogging?
I started blogging 6 years ago to share my favourite book reviews but recently I have chosen to create this blog, with Mop, to share advice, tips, tricks and stories from our lives. We looked at soooooo many other lifestyle blogs and we both really enjoy reading them- so why shouldn't we start our own.

2.What is your favourite thing about blogging?
I absolutely love reading the comments that are left on our posts. It makes me really happy to see that our efforts are being appreciated by someone and we are achieving our goals. Your feedback is one of the reasons we started this- blogging is not a one sided thing.

3. When you are stuck for post ideas what do you do?
When I have absolutely no idea what to post- which happens often considering my mind is normally full of ideas- I look at pictures on Pinterest, or some websites with post ideas. Often thinking about something else can make a great idea pop into my head.

So there are 3 blogging questions that will let you know a bit more about the way I work around this blog. If you have any more questions, or would like some helping setting up your own blog leave a comment below or use our contact form.

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