WOYWW Week 898/118 - Burning Eggs

Hello Everyone,

Happy What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday. I hope you are all well and enjoying a great crafty week so far. Here on the Scottish coast of the Clyde Estuary it is cloudy and there's promise of yet more rain. We've had a lot of that over the last few days. All of it very welcome - for now!

On my desk this morning - photo actually taken yesterday evening but nothing has changed so far this morning. I thought you might like to see the contents of one of my home made scrap kits. Not in numerical order - this one is No.67 - and possibly not the best example but it was the next pulled out of the pile. It consists of one sheet of yellow cardstock, one sheet of patterned paper, a wee pile of paper strips, embellishments and a photo. I'm not sure what I had in mind to do with all those paper strips when I put the kit together but I'm sure I'll come up with something. Just not today. 

I have another desk I'm working on today and for the foreseeable future. 

It's the table in the living room. It's a very old gateleg table. The Ikea craft desk is practical and serves it's purpose but it is no match for the solidity of this old table made of real wood. What I'm working on there is a pile of recently made layouts. They are almost complete. All they need is for me to add some journaling then they can be filed away in the appropriate albums. It's one of those jobs we scrapbookers tend to procrastinate over but eventually it has to be done!

This is the page last made and is there in front on the table waiting for that final journaling. The photos are of my youngest granddaughter Shari taken in her 20s in 2023. She was a guitarist and singer performing in a band at the time. I associate the colour purple with her so this, another of my kits, was perfect. All the supplies are from old stash, details of most long lost but I can say that the foiled background card used as a photo mount, 'Sheet Metal', is from Kanban Crafts. Now there's a blast from the past.  The foam letters for the title are from Shimelle's ' 'Main Character' collection, appropriately enough dated 2023. There's scraps and bits and pieces from Simple Stories and Studio Light Art. The finishing touch is the sewing machine stitching. I can't remember when I last did that. 

And now it's Silver time. 

Looks like she's decided that if she can't beat me, she will become a bookworm too. 

She's checking out the shelves. 

Spot the cat in the library!

It's August, start of the school year and time for me to begin the home study of Scottish literature. This term I'm concentrating on Scottish crime fiction. I'm doing it for pleasure so it has to be my favourite genre. Over summer I've been reading 'Read Yourself Happy' by Daisy Buchanan. I love books, and there's rarely been a time when I didn't have my nose in a book, but recently I went through a long spell where I couldn't concentrate on reading. Seems that it's down to something called "grief brain", a temporary condition that I admit I did find distressing. Happily, the love of reading has returned to normal and 'Read Yourself Happy' has helped. It's a great book to dip into with chapters such as 'Read yourself funny', 'Reading like a writer', Reading around the world'. The author recommends so many books to read - many of which I've added to my TBR (to be read) list. So many books, so little time. 

I realise I haven't added any funnies to my posts as I once did. I haven't been collecting them like I used to. But maybe this will make you laugh - it certainly had my daughter laughing out loud. Recently I was hard boiling three eggs to use in potato salad. I put them in a pot of water and on the hob to boil. I knew I had seven minutes to wait. Seven minutes can't be wasted. I thought I'd just do a bit of prepping for the scrap layout I was working on. I'm sure you know what happened next. I forgot the eggs. It wasn't until I smelt a strange odour that I remembered them. I found some very burnt looking eggs but I was just in time to save the pot. 

When my daughter stopped laughing she recommended that this electric egg cooker was the only way to ensure I never burn eggs again. I should add, this isn't the first time I've burnt the eggs. I've done it several times before. The first time I remember was when I was in the army and working shifts. When I came off a night shift I boiled my breakfast eggs in the kettle in our barracks kitchen. I burned out the kettle! Of course, I had the cost of a new kettle deducted from my wages that week and banned from the boiling of eggs in the new one. You'd have thought I'd have learned, but, no, I've repeated it many times since. 

It's a long post today so if you have got this far give yourself a pat on the back. However that's me for this week. As usual, if you don't already do so, I urge you to join in with WOYWW. You can do this by clicking on this link, Sarah's Craft Shed, where you will be made most welcome.

Take care and have a fabulous week.

Elizabeth

WOYWW Week 897/117 - On Photography and Cameras

Hello Everyone, 

Happy What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday. Hope you have a lovely day - whatever the weather.  

On my desk is the scrapbook world's newest recruit! (Photo taken yesterday), She's a quick learner.

This has now become a bit of a change for me - a layout with just one photo! It's of my only niece and I just have this one photo of her from that time, about 1984/5. This page just had to have flowers, butterflies, hearts and the colour pink - all so appropriate for such a pretty little girl. The spending freeze is still going surprisingly well and I've not felt the need to buy anything except the essential adhesive tape runners. The oldest supply used is the alpha set for the title - Dear Lizzy's 'Serendipity' foam letters from 2011!

I'm finding it increasingly wasteful to create a page with a single photo. Mainly because, as I may have mentioned before, living in a small flat means there is so much less room to store scrapbook albums, but there's also the inescapable fact that I have hundreds of photos to deal with. I've been sorting through all those photos, binned the ones that are no longer relevant for one reason or another, e.g. if I don't recognise the subject or it's yet more of the many beautiful plants in the beautiful gardens we visited. There's only so many pages of flowers anyone needs in their albums!

So, knowing this, the aim from now is to get as many photos on one 12x12 page as possible. I've completed Shimelle's 3x4 Photo Love class which has helped enormously. This page is an example of what I've learned. The photos are all of my late husband's mother holidaying on the Isle of Man. To make scrapping them easier, I used my camera to photograph the original, very old photos and printed them all out in 3x4 size. Much easier than trying to work with the variety of sizes of the originals. 

This page is going into an album I've been putting together for Alan's nephew. It's one of several I'm putting together for various members of my family, like my niece in the page above. Another way of dealing with the limited space I have for my own albums. 

Of course, I wouldn't have this problem if I wasn't such a keen amateur photographer. I just can't help myself. Ever since I watched my father taking snapshots with his old Kodak Box Brownie, I've been interested in all things to do with photography so found this exhibit in Callender House, Falkirk, fascinating. 

The photos are a record of the people and industry that were once seen in the area. 

Most of the pictures in the exhibition were taken with this Mamiya 545 from 1975, using the Kodak Tri x 400asa film. I believe the film is still available today.

It's totally different from this, my first camera bought in 1964 - an Ilford Sprite. I remember being so thrilled to have saved enough from my job in the bank to buy it before I went off on my first solo holiday that year. It's a world of difference from the digital cameras I have to choose from today - either my Nikon D3400 Digital Camera, or even the one on my mobile phone. 

As Silver has taken the starring role already today and after that trip down memory lane, I think it's time I left you with my usual message. If you don't already do so, I urge you to join in with WOYWW. You can do this by clicking on this link, Sarah's Craft Shed, where you will be made most welcome.

Take care and have a fabulous week.

Elizabeth

WOYWW Week 892/112 - Don't Eat The Daisies

Hello & Good Morning Everyone,

Hope you've all had a good week wherever you are. It's been a cool, cloudy and damp Ardrossan here. Perfect weather for watching the tennis at Wimbledon! 

Which is why I'm really late today. I had to, really I had to, stay up very late last night watching, with bated breath, the battle between Djokovic & Auger-Aliassime. I'm sure it did my blood pressure no good whatsoever but what a match! 

Not that it stopped me scrapping altogether. This is my desk this morning. 

Under the folder full of the leftovers from the page made yesterday is a pile of homemade kits waiting for me to decide which one to work from next. They are surrounded with all sorts of bits and bobs that are slowly amassing around me. I can feel a time fast approaching where it will all have to be sorted out and filed away. Only to be brought out again I'm sure. 

Here's yesterday's make. It features two pics of the daisies that grow up through the cracks at the base of the retaining wall in the back garden. They remind me of among many things, times in my childhood spent picking them and making daisy chains to wear in my hair, and of Doris Day singing that song. That lovely piece of die-cut paper, from My Mind's Eye's 'Quite Contrary' collection, is, I'm embarrassed to admit, 16 years old. I've been hording it far too long!

Having completed one course I'm on to another. This time it's the 3x4 Photo Love classes again from Shimelle Laine . These concentrate on using photos half the size of the more usual 6"x4". The benefits are that I can print off two photos per page from my Canon Selphy printer - with the help of the collage setting on the new app - and more photos can be used on a 12"x12" layout. It means all the difference between having to either make double page spreads or having to reject many photos down to lack of space. In fact, space is the real problem. I'm running out of room to store my many albums and I have had to admit I need to put a limit on how many to keep. That's a sorting task waiting on my to-do list for another day. 

Given that I'm so late this morning, I'll just leave you with this photo of Silver and get on with the job of posting this to Sarah's Craft Shed where you can see many more creative workdesks every Wednesday.  If you don't already do so, feel free to join in the fun and show us what's on your workdesk today.  You'll be made most welcome.

Have a great WOYWW day and a fabulous week everyone,

Take care everyone,

Elizabeth

WOYWW 890/110 - We're Having a Heatwave ...

Hello Everyone,

Happy What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday to you all!

Oh my, but it's hot here in Ardrossan! Too hot for comfort. I thought I'd spend the day in the garden yesterday but had to give up as the temperature rose to an uncomfortable high. Today looks as though it's going to be just as hot giving me no option but to stay in the craftroom where it's cool. Oh, what a shame!

This was what was on my desk yesterday. It's what's left of homemade kit no.9. That doesn't mean I've worked my way through nos.1-8 already. I'm just pulling them out of storage in no particular order. More fun that way. This kit had some Disney themed papers and sticker sheets in it which had me stumped for a while. The only time I've ever been to a Disney park was in 1984 and the photos from then were scrapped a long time ago. 

One thing I've learned from following Shimelle's scrapbook videos, it is that it is possible to ignore the theme of a paper collection, in this case Echo Park's 'Magical Adventures', and adapt it for use with non-themed photos. On this page the photos are of Alan cuddling our great-niece way back in 2012. She won his heart from the first too. Her mum has reminded me of how his singing of a naughty ditty made Arihanna laugh much to my embarrassment! Happy days. 

This is what my desk is like this morning. Silver has given it the once over and approved the next kit I'll be using. This one is no.116 and I had the foresight to label it with details of the contents, Echo Park's summer themed papers purchased from Hey Little Magpie in 2022. Just before we moved house. 

I'm still struggling to sort out the garden after months of neglect but despite that the roses are in full bloom and this one is a real favourite with the bees. This is a rose I inherited with the garden and I've no idea what it's name is. It's beautiful whatever it's called. 

You've already seen a pic of Silver today so I thought this week I'd introduce you to Glasgow's Scottie Dogs. 

And finally the one with the cone, of course!

There's a total of 40 giant Scottie sculptures and 52 wee ones on this free art trail around Glasgow. The large Scotties were designed and painted by local artists, the wee ones were created by local schoolchildren. All in support of Maggie's a charity that provides support to people with cancer, their family and friends. They will be on show until 16th August and then the large ones will be auctioned off to raise funds for Maggie's. The wee ones will be returned to the schools. 

Well, I think that's enough from me today.  More than I intended but I hope you enjoyed those photos of the Scottie Dogs. 

To see more creative workdesks pop over to Sarah's blog, Sarah's Craft Shed. If you don't already do so, feel free to join in the fun and show us what's on your workdesk this Wednesday. You'll be made most welcome.

Have a great WOYWW day and a fabulous week everyone,

Take care everyone,

Elizabeth

WOYWW Week 889/109

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all well and enjoying time at your craftdesks. Thank you to everyone for all the lovely comments welcoming me back last week. They were much appreciated.

This was my desk yesterday morning after I spent some time reorganising and clearing a space for Silver to sit/snooze on while I work. She loves to pop up and see me at work but she usually plopped herself down on the pile of materials that were kept over to the left. I think she likes making herself snug under the shelf. She clearly likes sitting on paper so I've forfeited that 12x12 sheet for her own personal use. 

My desk just a few hours later. I had been working on a layout and these are all the materials and scraps leftover once it was completed. Notice there's no furry friend keeping me company after all my efforts to make her welcome. It took no time at all for me to clear up so it's now as organised and tidy again as in the first photo. 

The photo in today's layout is of my middle grandson, Joshua, and his girlfriend as she was then, now his fiancee, Annie. It's dated 2019 - seven years ago and they've hardly changed at all! Having finished the first homemade kit I pulled out another to work on. I will just keep working through these kits for now because it is fun to discover stash I'd forgotten I had. The design is based on a sketch from Shimelle's Start With a Sketch classes - from a few years back. 

The last few days have been a bit warmer and drier too, Just a few light showers to keep the grass green! We take advantage of any good days and get out into the garden to potter. Well, I potter while Silver chases around after bees. 

And there are plenty of bees to see popping in and out of the foxglove flowers. I grew them from seed but, as they are biennials, I had to be patient and wait until now to see them in bloom. 

Sadly, much has been neglected and the weeds are threatening a takeover but I can only do a little bit at a time. I'm not fretting about it. It is what it is!

Now, I know some of you are just here to see Silver so here she is.

 As you can see she was hissing at another cat who had the temerity to stray into her territory. You can see her hackles are very much up. This is the kitty that used to welcome all her furry friends into the garden of our last house! The episode passed off without fur flying and the trespasser left unharmed. 

To see more creative workdesks pop over to Sarah's blog, Sarah's Craft Shed. If you don't already do so, feel free to join in the fun and show us what's on your workdesk this Wednesday. You'll be made most welcome.

Have a great WOYWW day and a fabulous week everyone,

Take care everyone,

Elizabeth

Scrapbook Page - Recording Memories of the Scottish Highlands

Hello Everyone, 

10/2025 - On Honeymoon

Now that the heatwave has ended and my garden is soaking up the much needed rain, I suddenly have more time on my hand to do some scrapping and I'm using it to catch-up with recording all the lovely memories I have stored away in my photo collection. It's an extensive collection and the chances are I will never really catch-up. Just as I am unlikely to use up all my old stash. Especially when I'm so sorely tempted to buy some of the new collections released each year. 

However, that's the two main aims for this year and this page is one that combines both a happy memory and old stash. Tick! 

The photo is of my beloved Alan taken when we were up in the Scottish Highlands on honeymoon in August 1996. We got married in July but had to delay the honeymoon until we could both have time off work. I'd just returned in June from a year of study in America - a great experience but an expensive one. To recoup some of what I had to spend, I did some temping in a GP's surgery for a few weeks before the trip. It wasn't the first time we had been to Scotland together, We'd gone up the summer before stopping to introduce him to family in Ayrshire on the way. Alan had completely fallen for both my family and Scotland and couldn't wait to return.  I think you can tell from that lovely smile that he was delighted to be back in the Highlands. 

The layout was inspired by not much more than the materials that I had available in a kit I had put together prior to packing up and moving house in 2022. Though I should mention that Shimelle's classes, Half and Half and New Pages from Old Stash, have clearly influenced the outcome. I just built up layers of scraps to mat the photo and then created a half and half page for the background. It's a tried and tested formula that works well when using up scraps. 

I wish I could give more precise information on what's been used but I all I remember is that most of the papers are from an old Project Life collection. The light green scrap is from 49 and Market's Kaleidoscope Solids Pack 3 from 2014 - that is old. The alphas are from Elle's Studio Jane collection of 2021 - not so old. A few of the stickers are from Dear Lizzy and the wooden button is from Cocoa Vanilla Studio's Storyteller - one of my all-time favourite collections. 

I thinks that's enough from me now. There's so much more scrapping waiting to be done.

Hope those of you in the UK are enjoying the Spring Bank Holiday despite the inclement weather! And those not in the rainy UK, have a happy Monday no matter where you are. 

Take care

Elizabeth 

What's On your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 831

Morning Everyone,

And it is a lovely morning here in North Ayrshire.

On my desk this morning Silver. She's thinking about going out by that open window but first a few quiet moments watching a magpie perched on the neighbours fence. To the left of her is my next project. 

I've put together photos and materials for a page I hope to make later today. Homework for Shimelle's class. It's all from old stash, of course. Even the photos are dated 2022! I have unfinished albums from the year of Covid, 2020, up to 2023 so I hope to remedy that this year. 

January 2025 - Side 1

At the same time I'm working on this year's album and this is the introductory page. I'm not a great fan of pocket pages but they are the best way of beginning each month. 

January 2025 - Side 2

The photos used capture some of what's happened during the month. There will be a few 12"x12" pages following this introduction. I spent a few hours over the weekend sorting through photos taken so far this year trying to decide which to scrap. Decisions! Decisions!

Most of yesterday was spent in the garden. My daughter and SIL were round so we stopped to sit and soak up the sun. It wasn't all play though. I did check on my seedlings in the mini greenhouse, which turned out not to be as mini as I hoped. Sorry, I forgot to take a pic to show just how big it is. I also planted out a climber, Clematis Grandiflora Alba. 

We had this fabulous one in our last garden. I'm hoping for a similarly stunning display with the one planted yesterday. Perhaps not this year, but in years to come. 

I did think to grab this shot of Silver squeezing into an empty basket during a latte break in the summerhouse. She never fails to amaze me!

 

And finally, a few funnies for this week.

That's me for this week. I hope you all had a lovely Bank Holiday weekend. Just in case you missed it, there's another one in a few weeks time. To see more creative workdesks pop over to Sarah's blog, Sarah's Craft Shed. If you don't already do so, feel free to join in the fun and show us what's on your workdesk this Wednesday. You'll be made most welcome.

Have a fabulous week.

Take care everyone,

Elizabeth 

Old Stash

Hello Everyone

I've been prompted to search through my stash to look for the oldest items I have. Here's just a small selection of papers that I found. I've purposely concentrated on papers because it would take me forever to sort through stickers and embellishments and I'm in a hurry!

The oldest paper is dated 2004 from Paper Adventures. There's also papers from Basic Grey dated 2009, Prima Marketing dated 2010 and Echo Park dated 2011. That's the dated ones. There's even more that are not dated at all which suggests that they are very old indeed. For example, there's Anna Griffin, Le Crea Designs, Kaisercraft and Webster's Pages. 

Some were bought from a shop in Ayr that has long since gone, and others were from one of the first online shops I discovered, Funky Farm Scrapbook Barn also sadly gone.

As I aim to use up as much old stash as possible before I begin buying any new, I'll be focusing on making pages featuring these lovely old papers. If only, because my current craft room is much smaller than the previous one so I need to make space before I'm tempted by all the lovely new collections!

I hope you are all enjoying this Bank Holiday weekend. Up here in the not so frozen north we are enjoying lots of sunshine but the breeze is still a tad chilly for my liking. Perfect weather for staying in and joining in with some of the challenges to mark International Scrapbooking Day weekend. 

Take care everyone,

Elizabeth 

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 830

Hello Everyone,

This is so late. I try to write this post on Tuesday evenings but yesterday was such a beautiful day, and we have had so few beautiful days recently, that I stayed out in the garden way too long. All that fresh air was so good for me that I slept like a log, woke late, and I've been chasing my tail ever since. 

Not the best photo of what's on my desk now that it's daylight and the sunshine is poring in on what is going to be my next project. As of later today I will be joining in Shimelle's new class. I may have mentioned before that I have challenged myself to use up all the lovely but neglected paper collections/kits that have accumulated somehow - I wonder how! - in my craftroom. Shimelle's very timely class, a follow on from last year's This Year's Story, aims to help me do just that. Use it up!!

Threatening to topple over on the right hand side of the desk is a pile of pages removed from my very first album. Not just removed but rescued. The album was amongst the boxes stored in the shed since we moved into this flat/apartment. Turns out the shed is very damp and so are the contents of the boxes that still remain.  I intend to replace the shed with a new one soon but in the meantime I need to empty the remaining boxes, many of which are full of crafting stuff. Such a shame.

Not still in the shed is this lovely box of enamel dots. I spent an hour or so sorting through them on Sunday. It was a cold rainy day so I had no reason not to. I'm still trying to get the craftroom organised to perfection but it's proving an uphill task. This is a much smaller room than the one I had in Ayr and it also has to double up as the very occasional guest room. Apart from anything else, I'm struggling to get rid of stuff. I've already gifted a gazillion stamps to a beginner crafter and I've still got more to house somewhere. Just not that awful damp shed. Not the worst problem to have given what's happening in the rest of the world today!

Pages made recently:

06/2025 - They Met at the Dancing

I was inspired by the Making Memories, 'Tie the Knot' patterned paper to record how my late parents met in 1945. The layout is based on a Scrap-a-Sketch No. 128, Jul/Aug 2024 and the papers are from Ella Bonella's 'Cherished' kit. Everything else, including the fussy-cut flowers, is from old stash.

07/2025 - Hello Massachusetts

This was the work in progress on last week's desk. Another trip down memory lane for me as I record the trip Alan and I took together in 1996 motoring from Rockport to Plymouth on the Massachusetts coast. Alan, a Mancunian to the core, was delighted to discover Manchester-by-the-Sea. It made him chuckle because, of course, Manchester, England, is nowhere near the sea. 

The sketch the layout is base on is from a 2013 issue of Scrap 365 magazine - sadly now no longer published. Papers from the same Ella Bonella kit as above and also as before stickers and embellishments from old stash. 

This is the view from the craftroom window. Have you ever seen such narrow steps? They need to be broadened for safety's sake. Another job for the future. 

That's about it for this week. Like this post, comments will be late. I have a garden which still needs a lot of work so that's where I will be this afternoon. To see more creative workdesks pop over to Sarah's blog, Sarah's Craft Shed. If you don't already do so, feel free to join in the fun and show us what's on your workdesk this Wednesday. You'll be made most welcome.

I'll leave you with just a few photos taken in the garden yesterday.

Spanish Bluebells

Pansies

Clematis 'Elizabeth'

Aquilegia

Take care everyone,

Elizabeth