What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 512

Hello Everyone

It's so nice to be back WOYWWing again - it's been weeks!!! Not that much has changed on this desk.

After such a long period doing very little crafting  I'm trying to get enthused about something -  anything crafty at all. It's not as if I haven't got plenty of goodies that should have the creative juices flowing ... pretty patterned paper, embellishments, tubes of pastel shades of acrylic paints, even a Vicki Boutin Art Wedge to enable me to 'create unique textures and contours for mixed media projects'. Ah well, all in good time. In the meantime, I'll just sit here and think about it.

And just outside my window I have a little feathered friend as a very welcome distraction. I think he - I'm assuming it's a he - is doing his best to attract his partner and he sounds quite agitated too. Wonder where she is.

I I should say that t's not been entirely a craft desert here. Another UFO done and dusted. There's nothing quite so soothing as hand sewing hexagons while recuperating on the sofa and watching endless daytime TV.

Finally, the book bit is back. Needless to say, I've listened to quite a few books recently. Now that it's possible to listen on a mobile, and now that mobiles are allowed in most hospital departments, waiting times are so much more pleasant when you can while away the hours with a good book. Here's just a few I got through in NHS waiting rooms.

I do like an Ann Cleeves mystery. This is one of her earlier books, 2001, so it's quite different from the later ones with Vera Stanhope & Shetland's Jimmy Perez. However, it's still entertaining and I enjoyed this book.

This is a hoot of a book. Connie McColl, 66 years old, loves her children and grandchildren but is fed up with being taken for granted, especially by her husband, Roger, who spends more time at the golf club than at home, so she decides to take off for an adventure, on her own. In her little car, Kermit, she meanders up through England to Scotland meeting interesting people on the way. It's a bit of fun, not, I think, to be taken too seriously but I thoroughly enjoyed this light take on the road trip novel.

Another fairly light read based on one of my favourite themes, knitting. It's also a novel about friendship, grief, trust, privacy and the therapy found in keeping busy. You don't have to be able to knit to enjoy the story but if you get excited by a basket of different wools and colours you'll understand one of the main characters, Martha.


That's me for this week. I hope you are all having a wonderful WOYWW.

Take care and have a great week.

Snippet Card 02/2019 - Dreamy Hearts

Hello Everyone

As you might have spotted my blog has another new header. As it has been so springlike here for the last few days I thought it time to put winter behind us and welcome the new season. And this time the daffodils featured in yesterday's post seemed just perfect. Hope you like.

The card I'm sharing today is another 'one I made earlier'  - this one for February's UKPC challenge. The theme was, appropriately for the month of February, 'heart(s)'.

It's a very simple design using one of my favourite stamps and a hearts die - another that I'd had for some time but never used. 

Supplies used:
- a 5" square white base
- grey patterned paper from Kanban Crafts 'In The Garden' 6x6 pack
- stamps - Penny Black's 'dreamy' flower; 'For You' greeting stamp from Winter Woodland stamp set
- ink - Stormy Sky TH Distress Ink pad
- die - string of hearts from The Works
- scraps of deep pink cardstock
- a few pink sequins for embellishment

I can't think why it has taken me so long to try out the string of hearts die because it is perfect for using snippets of card - so perfect I used it twice more to decorate the inside and back of the card.

I'm submitting the card to Pixie's Snippets Playground .

I hope you are having a happy, crafty day.

In A Vase On Monday - The Last of the Daffodils

Hello Everyone,

It's been a few weeks since my last IAVOM posting. Not because there has been no material ripe for picking - instead life got in the way for a while there and trips round the garden have had to wait.

In the meantime, the garden has been looking particularly cheerful due to the many daffodil and narcissus bulbs hubby has been adding to each autumn.

I teamed up these last few with some twigs from the Osmanthus x burkwoodii with tiny but deliciously scented white flowers splitting them up between three glass bottles that are just the right size to fit along this mantel shelf.

I don't think there will be many more daffodils in bloom by next Monday but that's okay because we have tulips in bud just waiting their turn.

Such promise.

Many thanks for visiting and have a lovely day.

Scrapbook Pages 13-15 - Summer Challenge 2018

Hello Everyone

Here's the last of the layouts made for the MTS Summer Challenge. Phew! It's been a bit of a marathon but it's good to have them all posted for the record.

Once again, all the layouts have the letter 'Q' somewhere in the title.

Down by the Quayside

The photo on this layout is of the EM enjoying a wee moment to himself on a trip to a fishing village in Fife, Scotland. The coast of Fife makes a lovely holiday destination with plenty of picturesque villages to explore. I was beginning to run out of supplies by the time I got to this layout so it's very simple indeed.

Little Quackers

Ducklings! Who doesn't love them? This little brood was spotted on the edge of Lake Bala in Wales.  Again, I've used the minimum of supplies - a few scraps of patterned paper and some embellishments.

Quote of the Day

Finally, a photo taken in Sanquhar, Dumfries & Galloway, of a quote engraved into the back of a bench which reads, 'Never Injure A Friend'. One to live by. The background is smooth white card spattered with ink to create a bit of interest because, by this layout, I was scraping the bottom of the barrel for supplies.

I'd like to say that I'd found my way back into my room and am crafting up a storm but that wouldn't be true. Although the EM is recovering nicely from his operation, he still needs to be held in check ... he's too impatient and wants to run before he can walk again. He has an OP appointment for a check-up at the end of April. And, as for me, my jaw is healing well but I'm still restricted in what I can do. For example, I'm still not allowed to blow my nose and have to be careful when sneezing - and I sneeze a lot!! I have a check up appointment with the Maxillofacial surgeon soon - hopefully he will give me a clean bill of health. All perfectly timed for Spring!

Hope you are well and enjoying the weekend.

 

Christmas Card Club - Cards 6/2019 - Festive Food

Hello Everyone,

It's another Christmas Card Club Sunday and Lorraine (Rainey's Craft Room) chose today's theme - Festive Food. 

Once again the theme threw me into a spin - another impossible challenge! I was convinced I had nothing related to festive food in my stash but, as you can see, I was so wrong. What's more festive than a cup of hot chocolate and a gingerbread man for dunking. 

Supplies used:

- a 5" square white card base

- red/white patterned paper to cover the base, trimmed to leave an eight inch margin

- a square of white satin finished card embossed with a snowflake die. This was my first try out with the thin die (from China) and it failed. The card was too thick and obviously needed the addition of a shim to create more pressure. Still, I'm glad I saved it because it made a very nice background for this card

This close up shows that I tried putting it through my die-cutting machine twice, the second slightly off - a rookie error!!!

- a scrap of blue card for matting the topper

- scraps of white card for the topper, gingerbread man and sentiment

- stamps from Winter Wonderland stamp set

- ink pad - Archival Ink Jet Black

- colouring - Spectrum AquaMarkers in reds in Crimson & Scarlet, Peacock blue & Fawn

- embellishments - dark blue gems

I cut a slit round the rim of the 'mug of chocolate' to slip the stamped, coloured and fussy cut gingerbread man into place. I used sticky tape to keep his feet in place and put a small piece of dimensional tape behind his head so he didn't get squashed when the card is in the mail. 

Please pop round to the other ladies' blogs to see their beautiful creations ... the links to them are on the right side bar. Fortnightly we post a Christmas card - the plan is to get ahead and avoid the last minute stress at the beginning of January. 

Thanks for popping by - your visits are much appreciated. 

Scrapbook Pages 10-12 - Summer Challenge 2018

Hello Everyone

I'm back again today with three more of  the layouts made for the MTS Summer Challenge. What unites these layouts is just how much old stash I was able to use up. Not that that made much of an impact on the mountain of paper I've accrued over the years but every little bit helps.

Lacie ... Cute & Quirky

I'm very fond of this photograph of my youngest great-grandchild, Lacie. She is not only cute and quirky but feisty and just a little bit bossy too. I'm not sure now, but I think all the papers were from one of the first MTS kits from early last year.

Quite Lovely

The papers on this layout are definitely old - like very old - but still beautiful and perfect for this photo of my stunning step-niece, Kirsten. The wooden word, 'Lovely', and the camera sticker are the only new items on the layout.

A Quiet Study

I used some leftover scraps for this layout and the photograph is of my husband sitting in the quiet corner immersed in a book. The buttons on all three were from jars that are displayed on shelves in the sewing corner.

Hubby goes into hospital tomorrow so it might be a day or two but I hope to be posting the last of the layouts soon.

Thank you for looking - your visit is much appreciated.

Snippet Snippets Card 01/2019 - Thank You

Hello and Happy Sunday,

Some of you will know from Facebook that I had an appointment with my dentist this week to have a back molar checked out. I won't go into the gory details - suffice to say after removal of the offending tooth I had to go to the Maxillofacial department in hospital for further treatment. I'm now missing a  a piece of my jawbone and there's a wee hole through to my sinus but that will heal in time. No permanent damage done and I'm recovering nicely now but it's been a tough few days. Of course, no crafting whatsoever has been done since. And with my husband due to have an operation on Wednesday I don't foresee being able to craft much at all for quite a while. However, all is not lost. I have a few 'Blue Peter' projects completed but not posted - standbys to be shared so I won't be completely absent from blogland. Starting with this thank you card.

This was my contribution to the January challenge for UKPC which was to make a 'thank you' card.

Supplies used:

- A6 white card blank used landscape format
- a piece of shaving foam patterned card for topper base - colours used red and gold shimmer sprays
- stamps - Rare Earth Spring stamp set - free with Issue 130 from Papercrafter
- embossing powders American Crafts Zing opaque Rose and Wow Magenta Twinkle
- ink pads - Versamark, Memories Black
- ProMarkers in shades of green, pink, yellow, lavender and peach
cardstock - scraps of white for stamping flowers and butterfly; deep pink card for greeting
die - Docrafts Mini Sentiment 'Thank You'
- adhesives - DS tape, Glue Gel
- tools - decoupage scissors, small die-cutting machine

Here's two close-ups showing the dimension created with the stamped and cut out flowers and the embossed butterfly.

I really enjoy stamping, colouring and cutting out the images - very therapeutic. And it was also very satisfying to use up the piece of shaving foam treated card - and it smelled gorgeous too!

I'm submitting the card to Pixie's Snippets Playground - a lot of snippets went into the making of those flowers.

Thanks for visiting - it's much appreciated. I hope eventually to be able to get back to my desk and do some new craft projects, when the EM and I are both much better, but in the meantime I'll keep posting projects in true 'here's one I made earlier' style periodically till then.

Have a wonderful week.

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 509

Afternoon Everyone,

I've had a busy morning and only just made it to my workdesk for today's WOYWW post. And, given that I'm still not firing on all cylinders, so to speak, it hasn't seen a lot of action these last few days.  Oh, I wake up with great plans alright but despite the mind being willing the body is still weak! I'm told it takes just as long as it takes.

So here's the desk today. As you can see it's piled high with lots of lovely goodies. At the back, and on top of the usual - I'm not sure I dare say the 'C' word again after upsetting fellow desker, Lynn (One I Made Earlier) last week so I'll just refer to it as the box of festive stash for now - there's two, yes, two Mind The Scrap monthly kits waiting to be used, and buried underneath that is the garden album still nagging at me - it could become a permanent feature the way things are going. At the front are the hopefuls - well, I hope to do something with them fairly soon ...

Over to the right is the most recent issue (171) of Papercraft Essentials. I couldn't resist the beautiful set of dies, stamps and embossing folder that came with it. There's also a very nice paper crafting pack included. All for £7.99 - a bargain!

Also adding to my guilt are these lovely goodies from MTS's mixed media kits - Vicki Boutin textured paste with iridescent glitter and three fab stencils, a set of acrylic paints in pastel shades and a new stamp set - all absolutely gorgeous and screaming to be tried out.

And underneath all that is the makings of a scrap layout for this photo - the only one from this year's Valentine's Day. What could be more romantic than heart shaped crumpets!

The book bit is back.

The Chamber by John Grisham. This was highly recommended by one of the lovely guys who delivered the EM's new armchair (for those interested, it's one of those electric jobs - very comfy) but it should have come with a warning - it's grim reading. It's all about a young lawyer, Adam Hall, who, on  discovering his grandfather is on death row, tries to save him from the gas chamber. That his grandfather, an unrepentant racist and one-time member of the Ku Klux Klan, has been found guilty 30 years previously, in 1967, of a bombing which killed two small boys makes all Adam's attempts to stop the execution hopeless. It's inevitable. However the way Grisham describes the family story, the legal battles and even the preparations for the execution made for compulsive reading.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention Henry - he'd never forgive me if I did that. He's been doing a sterling job of cleaning this keyboard and I don't know what I'd do without him.

Quite a lengthy post this week - I hope our Head Desker, Julia, will forgive me, especially as I won't be around next week. The EM has at last got his hospital appointment to have his gall bladder removed - it's scheduled for Tuesday - so I'll be chief cook and bottle-washer while he recuperates. Fingers crossed the appointment isn't cancelled and that all goes well.

In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying WOYWW, take care and have a great crafty week.

Scrapbook Pages 6-9 - Summer Challenge Week 2018

Hello Everyone

I'm back today with a few more layouts from last summer's MTS challenge. I don't remember all the details of the challenges but what links these layouts in particular is the titles - they all contain the letter 'Q'.

Quilting

This layout is to record my daughter's quilting - a king size quilt in English paper piecing - because this is a labour of love and worth recording. The background was created with Vicki Boutin's paint, shade 'Blue Hawaiian'. First brushed in broad strokes along the length of the white card base and then, watered down, splattered from the upper left corner to the bottom right.

Quality Produce

This one is a very simple layout using up strips of leftover patterned paper as a base for the photo of the colourful, and delicious, contents of a vegetable box delivered by a local supplier. I tried to keep the layout looking as fresh as the vegetables!

St Quivox

We often pass this lovely old church, in a tiny hamlet close to where we live, as it can be seen from the bypass. There are several very interesting gravestones, carved by local masons, in the cemetery. I managed to use some very old papers and ribbon from stash for this layout.

Quiet

This is my favourite of the four because the photo is of my beautiful granddaughter, Shari-Ann. She's a master when it comes to taking a selfie! The base card is actually black which proved to be difficult to photograph. I used some bubble wrap and inks to create a background down the right side before adding layers, photo, embellishments and the title.

I hope to be posting the remaining layouts over the coming days.

Thank you for looking - your visit is much appreciated.

Christmas Card Club - Cards 5/2019 - Poinsettia

Hello Everyone,

It's another Christmas Card Club Sunday and Valery (Mrs A) chose today's theme - Poinsettias ...

... which means I get to use one of my all-time favourite stamp sets from Penny Black.

Supplies used:

- a white 5" square card base, ready made from Docrafts Papermania, used in the tent style orientation, the front of which is randomly stamped using a tiny poinsettia stamp from a Cardmaking & Papercraft Fairy Stamp set (2010) and Memento Dew Drop Rhubarb Stalk ink pad. I found the set buried under a ton of other stamps totally forgotten - the fairies would have been so useful for CCC week 3. 

- white card for the topper. The poinsettia, from Penny Black's Wonder Collection, was stamped on to the card twice and coloured with ProMarkers in shades of red, green and yellow. I then fussy cut one of the flowers and used a circle punch to cut out the other. I then layered the flowers together using a dimensional foam square and added yellow Stickles to the centre for a bit of bling. 

- die from a pretty doily nest set, M& C Boutique from The Works, and green glitter card from a Mixed Media pad - Dear Lizzy New Day collection from American Crafts. Note: I cut this on my Cuttlebug making up the sandwich as instructed, passing it through the machine twice. This wasn't entirely successful so I think I should have added a sheet of cardstock to my sandwich to increase the pressure. Glitter card is notoriously difficult to cut cleanly. 

- the topper was then put together with Tacky Glue - ordinary glue tape doesn't work well, actually it didn't work at all, with glitter card - and then adhered the topper to the front of the card base with dimensional foam squares. 

- the greeting die, also from the PB set, was stamped in Rhubarb Stalk on to a scrap of white card. I used an oval punch to cut out the greeting. To create the mat for the greeting the green glitter was punched out with the same oval punch - this was then cut in half and adhered to the back of the greeting leaving an edge showing at either side. I'm not sure I've explained that well so here's a close up and hopefully all will be clear.

- the card was finished of with green neon gem embellishments - they went so well with the glitter card that I had to use them - especially as the pack has been in my stash forever!

Looking forward to catching up with what how the others have interpreted today's theme. Check out the links on the right sidebar to see for yourself too.

Thanks for popping in and have a great crafty week ahead.

Friday Smiles

Hello Everyone

Friday again! My how the week flies. It's time to join in with Annie's Friday Smiles over on A Stitch In Time.

We took a trip to the EM's favourite fishing village, Portpatrick, on Sunday. It was a cloudy but dry day so the photos aren't the brightest but here's a few taken there and on the drive down the coast.

On a summer's day this view of from the coastal road, just south of Girvan, looking down on a beautiful bay which is popular with walkers, is simply stunning. 

The following shots are of Portpatrick.

Of course, after such a long drive we found somewhere for a cuppa and bite to eat. We chose the 'Port Pantry' and we had a table in a very cosy wee corner. We had a warming bowl of potato soup with coffee and cake to follow - delicious.

On the wall next to our table I discovered this article written by the Sunday Post's Scone Spy.  Unfortunately my photo is not at all legible so here's a link to the full article.

I borrowed the photo - taken by Jamie Williams, Sunday Post - showing how very welcoming our table was.

The weather has been unseasonably warm this week and we continue to spot unmistakable signs of Spring in our garden.

And finally, unbelievably, we've been spotting bees buzzing about the place.

Here's one I caught on the Skimmia. This one was clearly just basking in the warmth of the sun.

So there you are - I've had a lot to smile about this week and I hope you have had an equally good week too.

Take care and have a lovely week ahead.