Friday Smiles - It's the Little Things

 I've been intending to join in with Annie's meme, This Week's Smiles, on her blog, A Stitch in Time, for weeks now but somehow never quite got there until today. 

I'll try to keep it as brief as possible because it's been a week of appreciating the little things.

I'm finally, after two years of living without, able to set up my sewing machine. After the move I couldn't find the power lead so I finally phoned a sewing machine repair service based in Glasgow for help. Help they did! Even though they don't usually post spare parts out. So thanks to Sewing Machines Direct for service above and beyond expectation. 

To celebrate, I took a trip up to the black hole, aka the shed, where the packing boxes have lain unopened for just as long as the sewing machine has been untouched and found these. Fat quarters. Just the thing for rusty old me to practice on. 

More little things. The October issues of my two favourite magazines - The Simple Things & Happiful - have been delivered. They go so nicely with a cuppa! Happiful has a recipe for Blackberry Banana Bread which, as I have blackberries growing at the top of the garden, I had to try.

Not quite as illustrated but baking is another thing I'm out of practice in. I haven't mastered the new fan oven too. It's all trial and error.

My 'staff of tasters' reported it was delicious and I enjoyed this slice smothered in butter. It will look better next time.

Finally, it's my lovely son-in-law's 60th birthday today. Graeme's had a tough year having lost both his father-in-law and, just a few weeks ago, his own much loved father. Here's wishing him a a less traumatic and happier year to come. 

Hope you've had a lovely week, with much to smile about, and that next week is good too.

Take care Everyone
Elizabeth 

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 799/19

Hello Everyone,

Another Wednesday, another What's On Your Workdesk, and it's so nearly a real big one too. One week to go to No.800! Want to know more about this weekly show and tell for crafters worldwide? Check out this post over on Julia's Stamping Ground for an explanation of what it's all about. Joining in, just pop over to Sarah's Craft Shed where you can now link your desky post. It's all great fun.

Because I've been distracted by the chaos in my craftroom and unable to give myself permission to just sit down and scrapbook, it's clear I had to find some inspiration. 

Here is, I hope, the very project to get me going again. It's a jar of challenges, the idea for which is based on an old class of Shimelle's, The 20 Project.  

So far, so good. This is the result of the first challenge pulled out of the jar which was to complete a page for a gap in a near completed album. This one for my own personal album. The photo was taken at my 50th birthday party in 1997. Alan loved a party so he made all the arrangements. He wanted me to celebrate with all my siblings, my children, their children together with our mum. I'm so glad he did because it was the last time we were all able to get together at the same time. 

Materials are just the usual mix of goodies from my stash, some old, some new. I'm happy to report that some progress has been made in organising the craftroom. It's not perfect yet, but some improvement can be seen.

Yesterday was a beautiful day - one of the very few we've had this year. So when my grandson sent me a text to say it was so nice we could see the Isle of Arran clearly from the shore, I just had to pop down to check it out. Not only could Arran be seen but that wee dot in the far distance is the island of Ailsa Craig. 

And finally, of course, it has to be my wee furry friend:

She's sending her best meows to you all. 

Best wishes from me to you all too. Have a wonderful week.

Take care Everyone,
Elizabeth 

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 798/18

Hello and Good Afternoon Everyone,

I'd love to say I have a great excuse for being late but it wouldn't be true. As my mother would have said, I'm like the coo's (cow's) tail, all behind! I just can't seem to get organised and it shows on my desk.

See what I mean. It's a mess. To quote a fellow desker, Lynn of One I Made Earlier, I need 'to give it all a good coat of looking at' and and then just sort it all out!!!

Maybe I should explain a little of why things have got to this abysmal stage. As well as being the designated craft room, this room became my bedroom. I had to move out of the main bedroom when Alan was becoming increasingly disabled so he had the necessary space to move around with his walker or in his wheelchair. While I slept in here, I kept it reasonably organised, crafting in one area, sleeping in the other. However, recently, after many months of dithering, swithering and generally being somewhat unwilling, I have moved back into the main bedroom. And what an upheaval it's been. Stuff has gone from one room to be stored in the other. Result the main bedroom is a haven of peace and tranquillity but the craft room is in a real muddle. I dare not show you the rest of the room - it's the very definition of chaos! I'm ashamed. 

Unlike Jan of Lunch Lady Jan's Fabric Frenzy, brave lady that she is, I won't be posting a photo of the bed! See her post here. Like she says, it's just become an extra work surface. In my case it's a dumping ground! 

So if you'd rather see more organised workdesks than mine, and why wouldn't you, do pop over to the keeper of desks, Sarah on Sarah's Craft Shed and check out the many links thereon. Better still, why don't you join in the fun and let us see what's on your workdesk too.

As there's no show without Punch, here's Silver's contribution today.

'Me, shameless, not a bit of it!'

Best wishes to you all. Have a wonderful week.

Take care Everyone,

Elizabeth 

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 797/17

Hello Everyone,

It's been another while. Another unscheduled break. I won't make any declarations along the lines of being back for good this time. But I'm here today and there's something on my workdesk too.

Another of my kits made from a combination of old stash ...

and leftover scraps. The tan and brown printed paper is actually a sheet of saved wrapping paper that I thought too nice to toss. 

I'd also included a stencil that I thought would be great for a mixed media background. Taking my cue from the two chosen photos - there's rather a lot of sand in each - I inked through it with the colour Pumice Stone in Ranger's Distress Ink. The spatters were created with Heidi Swapp's Colorshine spray in Teal picking up on the blue of the hills in the distance.

The photos were taken on my first visit to Barmouth in Wales in 1995. City born and bred, Alan much preferred to be by the sea so when we met he couldn't wait to introduce me to this little seaside town. I'm a city girl too but, in truth, I didn't like sand. At all! Not between my toes, in my hair or on my clothes. Not anywhere.  Fortunately there's more to the town than sand, those blue remembered hills for instance, and I did grow to enjoy visiting Barmouth as much as he did. 

Like the layout in yesterday's post, no new stash was used in the making of today's page. The stencil is from Design Worx. 

I enjoyed having a go at a mixed media background again and there's a lot of satisfaction to be got from using up old leftover scraps of paper. Anyone looking through my album in the future won't have any idea the materials were old when the page was made. Well, not unless, like you, they've read this post!

And finally, 

Silver couldn't resist the empty wash basket and beat me to it. 

As always, I will do my best to visit and comment on the posts, Blogger permitting, of everyone who leaves a link on Sarah's post today. 

Best wishes to you all for a brilliant week. 

Take care everyone,

Elizabeth

Catching Up Again - August Scrap Pages

Hello Everyone

Once again it's been quite a while since my last post. I thought I was 'raring to go' but clearly I got that wrong. In fact, although a lot of sorting and organising has been going on in the craft room, I've managed very little real crafting time over the last few weeks. The result is I have just two scrap pages completed in August to show today. 

There's still a lot of the kits I put together before we moved house waiting to be used up. That was two years ago! There's between four and five kits in each of the boxes you can see piled on the shelves above. They should make it easier for me to get down to creating pages, and would do if my get up and go hadn't got up and gone. Despite this sad state of affairs I did pull a kit out to work on last month - here's a few photos of the contents:

That last photo is of a partly used sticker sheet that I really wanted to use up completely for that reason it the kit was based on it. I was able to make the following two pages using the kit.

I chose the pocket style for this page thinking that it would be best for the three poor quality photos of an occasion from the 1990s It's going to be added to an album I've put together as a keepsake for Alan's nephew. I'm regretting the choice of pocket style because now I have to create another layout on the reverse!

This page uses one portrait and one square shaped photo. Challenging. It's so much easier to create a page when photos are the same size and orientation. I didn't use a sketch for this layout. Not that there aren't sketches for photo combinations like this available. There are but I decided that, as I was working with leftover paper scraps, it would be best if I just made it up all by myself. 

Some of you may recognise the photos from a recent Facebook post in which I mentioned that this year would have been our 28th anniversary. We married late in life so we considered every anniversary a huge bonus!

All the materials in the kit were old, 2013 being the oldest, so probably no longer available but the paper used for the base, 49 & Market's Kaleidoscope Solids Paper 2, is bang up to date. The glittery alpha set used for the title is also fairly new from Shimelle's Reasons to Smile collection from American Crafts. 

That's it from me for today. I'll be back hoping to join in with tomorrow's What's On Your Workdesk. Well that's the plan but given how long it's taken me to type up this post, I'm perhaps being a tad optimistic. 

Take care and enjoy the rest of your day.

Elizabeth