Friday Smiles

Hello Everyone,

The bug I mentioned on Wednesday is taking it's time going so I've been nowhere and done not much at all - I've no wish to pass it on to family, friends, or, for that matter, strangers. Which means I have few photos to share. But then again, I have some. And I have to thank my DIL, Elaine, for those I do have.

Among my son, Alun's many hobbies there's sausage-making!

Then there's cheese-making. This is his homemade cheese-making equipment.

And there's beer-making. The hops are the ones I harvested from our garden last year.

You can tell he's into self-sufficiency!

And finally ....

With some re-wording this could be every crafter's mantra for the week!

I hope you have enjoyed my smiles this week and will share yours too by linking them over at Annie's A Stitch In Time. Everyone is welcome to join in.

WOYWW - Week 556

Morning Everyone,

And happy What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday to you all. Not that there's anything on my desk today, as can be clearly seen in today's snap.

I've been poorly, with one of those pesky bugs so prevalent in winter, so there's been no crafting done here - nothing, naught, nada, nowt, zero, zilch, zip! The layout I was working on last Wednesday - still not finished.

There is, however, a new addition to my sewing accessories though.

A pretty box of snaps. As delicious to look at as a box of Smarties - but with the bonus of zero calories! Another case of WOYWW enabling - this time it was a photo on LLK's blog that is to blame.

That's it from me this week. I'm off now to see what Julia and our fellow deskers have been showing us today.

Take care everyone and have a great week ahead.

WOYWW - Week 555

Morning Everyone,

And happy WOYWW to you all too. Yes. So soon! It's Wednesday and therefore the day of the week we get to join in the fun over at Julia's and reveal as much, or as little, as we dare of what's on our desk. And so, for the record, here's mine:.

Here we are fast approaching February and I'm still making pages for December. So many photos, so little time. Not that it's not fun. It is. Especially because there is a great stencil and bright red ink to play with. The Heidi Swapp stencil came included in a mixed media kit last year and this is me just getting around to using it. Without a doubt I have far too many lovely unused goodies. I have no resistance. Which is why one of my goals for 2020 is to try out all unused stash. At least once. Really! It's the very least I can do in justification of all the pocket money spent.

And talking of money spent, here's a cheap little something I picked up at a garden centre at the weekend.

I know it's a make-up organiser but I thought a better use for it might be this:

Stickle storage. The perfect answer to the problem of how to store these little bottles top down. No more of the frustration that comes from trying to squeeze out the contents which stubbornly remain stuck at the bottom of the bottle.

That's it from me this week. I'm off now to see what Julia and our fellow deskers have been showing us today.

Take care everyone and have a great week ahead.

Blogging - is it dying?

Hello Everyone,

I've been thinking! About blogging, and more specifically this blog, and whether it is, as some articles I've read recently are suggestion, dying or dead. So is this true? I'd say, no - it's just evolving. It's changed and is now very different to how it was 10 years ago, when I started this little blog, because it's competing with other platforms, e.g. Instagram, YouTube, etc.

Well, I had reason recently to look back on on old posts from a few years ago. What that confirmed was that keeping a blog was, for me anyway, very worthwhile, even after almost ten years. Looking back brought back so many memories, both happy and sad - my beloved crafty companion, Bonnie, featured a lot back then! So if you ever wonder if it is worthwhile keeping your blog, just look back on previous years - I found it fun to see how many projects I've worked on and how many friends I've made along the way too.

Incidentally, what struck me most from my trip down the years, was just how many cards I've made and shared and how few scrapbook pages. Given that I call myself the Silver Scrapper you would have thought the concentration would have been the other way round.

Particularly as I only started making cards to tackle the growing mountain of leftover paper scraps!

Must try harder!

So to wind up on this post and get back to the point, I sincerely hope blogging is not dead,  even though it's just one of the many platforms we have at our disposal that enables us to share our interests with others. I'd miss it too much, otherwise.

Whatever your views on blogging, I hope you will continue to pop in, whether regularly or periodically, and catch up with my doings. 

Christmas Card Club - Cards 02/2020

Hello Everyone,

It was my turn to choose a theme for today's Christmas Card Club challenge - a difficult task but after much inner debate, not to mention more than a little help from Margaret, I opted for 'holly and/or ivy'.

And because my goal for this week is to concentrate on stash busting all the supplies for today's cards are not new - check out my post for Wednesday to see the boxes I'm working from.  I managed to make four altogether, two with holly and two with ivy.

The bottom panel on this one is a leftover piece from a masterboard I created autumn last year using lots of paint, leaf stamps, ink, stencils and texture past. The matting for the holly sprays and greeting was cut from scraps of glitter card. I had to cheat and use two snippets, butted up together, for the greeting.

The topper for this one is the last scrap from another masterboard, created way back in 2018. The background is made up of sponged inks. It was overstamped with two of my favourite Penny Black stamps , Winter Bough and Winter Berries in shades of green and gold. The die-cut holly spray was made from snippets of green and red cardstock.

The background piece, if I remember correctly, was made using a technique that involved embossing wax paper which was then ironed on to a white card base to create a resist for ink. The backgrounds on the next two cards were created in the same way.

The backgrounds were almost pretty enough to leave as is but, of course, the challenge called for some ivy so I stamped up some narrow scraps of white cardstock with trails of ivy. For the blue one I used a stamp from the Have a Holly Jolly Christmas set - the same one used for the green card above - and Memento Danube Blue ink. And I used my very first stamp - bought in 1995 - for the red one. This time I embossed the ivy trails with gold powder. In truth, there's not a lot of difference between the two stamped images - I just have a special fondness for the old wood-mounted one. The edges of  the panel are embossed in gold too. The ivy trails on both cards are decorated with tiny gems.

That's it from me for today's CCC challenge. This brings my total for this year to five already - not bad!

I'm also submitting one of these cards to Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #369 - I'm not sure which one yet as I've used a bunch of snippets in the making of them.

I hope you will pop over to see what my teammates have created for today's theme. You'll find a list of their names and links on my right sidebar - as always they are so much more creative than I will ever be.

Friday Smiles

Hello Everyone,

It's Friday again and so time to share some of what made me smile this week, but, first, I must welcome all my new followers, both here and on Bloglovin' - you're much appreciated. It's so nice to know that you are there and I hope my postings will continue to interest you.

Now, on to my week in photos. This first one isn't exactly something to smile about but the wildness of the sky and sea is amazing.

Taken on Sunday, just as Storm Brendan was about to hit our coastline, you can see how wild the sea was and how louring the clouds. Unbelievably, just a few minutes before, it was dry and sunny which is why we had driven down to the seafront. Our plan was a stroll along the promenade but didn't even get the chance.

Wild weather. Hailstones battered the windscreen.

Happily, once the storm passed over the weather improved and today it's been good enough to pop out into the garden.  It was the jasmine that drew me down to the woodland area.

The sky was a lovely blue.

I was hoping to spot some snowdrops in bloom but so far there's no sign though I know that further south they are already putting on a show. Happily, there are signs of spring is on the way.

English bluebells just showing through - shouldn't be too long now.

And a pot of hyacinths doing very well.

All the bad weather is the perfect excuse to curl up with a lovely cup of coffee and a good book.

Books bought with Amazon gift vouchers I was given at Christmas - definitely reason to smile.

And finally,

With some re-wording this could apply to many of us, I'm sure.

I hope you have enjoyed my smiles this week and will share yours too by linking them over at Annie's A Stitch In Time. Everyone is welcome to join in.

WOYWW - Week 554

Afternoon Everyone,

It's another Wednesday and another excuse to reveal all for the weekly deskfest that is What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday. Not that what's on my desk today is much of a revelation, as you can see. 

I'm in cardmaking mode and, because Julia mentioned them last week, I've unearthed a lovely bunch of wood-mounted stamps. All winter foliage, my favourite Penny Black's, and festive greetings. The little one with the trail of ivy image is the first stamp I ever bought, brought home from Massachusetts in 1995! Good stamps never date.

As is often the case at the start of a new year, I've been thinking about sorting out the mountain of stash there is cluttering up this craft space. It's just been too easy to ignore it. There's a box full of all the inky, painty, stenciled experiments - the one on the left - and all the scraps used for testing new embossing folders - the one on the right. It's too easy to toss them in a box, to be used one day, never! Well, never has arrived. The coming week is going to be spent working my through those boxes. Hopefully, when you see my desk next week, the contents of those boxes will be very much reduced and there will be a lovely pile of cards to show instead.

Now, the book bit.

Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons - a classic children's adventure and a childhood favourite.  Absolutely brilliant even though it's dated and I'm certain parents today would not allow a group of young children to sail away to camp on Wild Cat Island for the summer holidays without adult supervision. Putting that aside, this book is a delight, and still an entertaining read even today.



That's it from me this week. I'm off now to see what Julia and our fellow deskers have been showing us today.

Take care everyone and have a great week ahead.

Friday Smiles

Hello Everyone,

Happy Friday to you all - I hope you have had a good week with plenty to make you smile. It's not been a too bad week here - everything back to normal, including the weather! And, at last, I'm finding time to join in with Annie's Friday Smiles meme with a few photos taken over the last week.

First up, I had a foot care appointment on Tuesday and until now these appointments were held in a dismal building that didn't warrant writing about. However, with the new year comes a relocation for FootcAyr . It has moved from an industrial estate into a town centre location.  In fact, it's in here:

The Book & Bun is a social enterprise in partnership with Bookcycle, South Ayrshire Council and the NHS. It is also one of my favourite cafes in Ayr, not least because, as well as serving tasty snacks and good coffee the cafe is lined with shelves of secondhand books to browse.

Bliss!

As if all that wasn't enough, there's also a room at the back of the cafe, The Venue, where volunteers run classes in Arts & Crafts, Quilting, Knitting & Crochet, Tai Chi, Creative Writing, Sketching & Painting, Yoga - to name only a few. I can see I'm going to enjoy my regular visits there, and my feet feel all the better for it too.

Finally, last Saturday we were treated to one of nature's best sunsets.

Stunning!

I hope you have enjoyed my smiles this week and will share yours too by linking them over at Annie's A Stitch In Time. Everyone is welcome to join in.

WOYWW - Week 553

Morning Everyone,

After a longer break than anticipated, this is the first reveal of my desk of 2020 for What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday so Happy New Year to you all - may it be a happy, healthy and crafty one!

Predictably, I'm still scrapping December so there's the most recent batch of photographs and the contents of one of my homemade scrap kits taking centre stage. Making kits from old stash is the best way I've found yet to make some impact on my sizeable, but lovely, stash mountain. And can you see my fabulous new desk calendar - from Cindy, one of our crafty WOYWWers - love the cat! The rest of the stuff is just the usual mess. I try to keep it tidy but I'm as effective as Canute trying to push back the tide!

There's not been a lot of crafting going on here but I did finally finish this quilted Christmas tree cushion.

I did add some diamonte 'lights' - randomly on the ribbon trim - but it they don't show up on this photo. Here's a close up.

Still not too obvious but they look lovely in real life. Needless to say, it's now packed away - along with the trees and the decorations - until next December.

There's some new fabric on my sewing desk.

There was a sale and I couldn't resist these patterns - perfect for the little bookworms in the family and 4-year old Callum, who has a thing about globes and maps of the world - just like his daddy before him.

Now for the book bit. Not that I have a book this week but I thought I'd share my latest app, Libby.

After a trip to my local library, I'm now, through Libby able, to borrow audiobooks - free! All that's needed is a library card and password - it's so easy. It's also possible to borrow e-books through this app which can be sent to Kindle if preferred. I've now discovered a huge collection of books - both new and older ones - that I'm able to 'borrow' for a couple of weeks at a time. That's more than long enough for me to 'read' any book.

That's it from me this week. I'm off now to see what Julia and our fellow deskers have been showing us today.

Take care everyone and have a great week ahead.

Christmas Card Club - Card 01/2020

Hello Everyone,

As I mentioned in my earlier post today, today is the first of the Christmas Card Club challenges of 2020.  GranMargaret has set the theme of 'Angels or Fairies' but, as I don't have dies or stamps that suit I am, just for today, falling back on the alternative of 'Anything Goes'.

The topper started life as a scrap of white card I'd used to stamp off on to when I was creating this Christmas themed header ...

... now history, and these cards all from this 'one-sheet wonder'.

No houses this time but I've added a few more trees and snowflakes to make the topper.

Supplies used:
- a square white card base
- patterned paper from an old Paper Cellar 6x6" stack, 'Traditional Christmas'
- a scrap of blue cardstock for layering
- a scrap of white cardstock for topper
- stamps from 'Have a Holly Jolly Christmas' (trees) and 'Forest Magic' (snowflakes and Santa's sleigh)
- ink pads; green Letterpress, blue 'Stonewashed' Adirondack, black Archival 'Jet Black' and 'Crimson Red' Versafine
- glitter glue, Stickles 'Crystal' and 'Baby Blue' 
- green gems

That's it from me for the first CCC challenge of the year. I hope you will pop over to see what my teammates have created for today's theme. You'll find a list of their names and links on my right sidebar - as always they are so much more creative than I will ever be.