WOYWW Week 901/121 - After the Week 900

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all well and having a good day. After the fun of last week, I must thank all who left their very welcome comments to last week's post celebrating WOYWW 900! It was a pleasure to catch up with so many deskers we haven't seen in a while. 

That's not a mess on my desk today. I've been preparing for a class that had me putting together a few autumn themed kits ready for the off today. The class is Shimelle's Clear the Desk Autumn 26 - an extension of her earlier Clear the Desk Live. 

Most of you will have seen me banging on about the kits I put together before moving house in 2022 but I don't think I've ever mentioned where I got the idea from to make them. It's all down to several clever scrappers who make videos for YouTube and/or run classes on how to put kits together. My first introduction was from Nicole Jones (nicolejones911). Then I discovered the many videos from RTS Scrapbooking - Record the Story And, of course, Shimelle who puts together monthly kits and then creates live videos throughout each month using the contents of those kits. It's thanks to these talented ladies that I am now having great fun working my way through my own kits, discovering supplies I'd completely forgotten.  Beautiful papers and fabulous embellishments all making it easier and quicker to put together a layout, and as I am the slowest scrapper in the world this is a bonus! 

This layout was made using one such kit. 

I had fun using up the sticker borders - something I continually forget to use - on this layout inspired by a sketch from Scrap-a-Sketch. The photo, dated 2019, is off three of my great-grandchildren getting excited on the car trip to Motherwell Country Park with their grandparents. One of the patterned papers used is 16 years old, and others have no date on them at all!

Last week, I wanted to include a photo of this layout but didn't locate it until too late so here it is now.

It's of Shaz in Oz who travelled all the way from Australia to be with us at the WOYWW crop in LLandudno. I thought traveling down to Wales from faraway Scotland was quite a long trip, but Shaz's journey beat me hands down. That smile says it was worth the journey. 

It's been more than a wee while since I posted what's in my vase today. That's because my garden here isn't as floriferous as my previous one.

This very dry summer has been particularly hard on the garden but early in spring I tossed a mixture of annuals on the top of the pots of clematis more in hope than certainty that they would grow and flower. But, the Welsh poppies, marigolds and clarkia, together with a few cuttings of ivy, have struggled through.  

Finally, it's Silver time.

Here she is supervising what I'm up to on my desk - one of her many duties! 

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

Further Finds From in the Shed

Hello Everyone,

Just a quick post this evening. 

Following on from yesterday's post I have uncovered more treasures from the boxes in the shed. This time it's a selection of page kits I put together what must be at least four years ago now. There's seventeen altogether, four of which are Christmas/winter themed. I remember now that I added a cutfile title to each one with the aim of using them up. Big fail so far!

There's photos in each one too; all bringing back happy memories. Always a bonus.

Less welcome was this wee, actually not so wee, insect. My bug app tells me it's a fly but I'm not so sure. It's huge and it's made itself at home despite all my efforts to show it the way out. Help!

So that's one more box emptied. Just six more to go. 

Take care and goodnight.

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 

WOYWW Week 702

Afternoon Everyone,

After a morning taken up with yet more unboxing and sorting through stuff, I thought I'd unwind by joining in with Julia, at the Stamping Ground,  and show what's on my desk today. 

Well, there it is. My desk. Covered in stuff. So not ready for scrapping yet but closer than the last time I was here. 

The sewing table is a lot less cluttered but no sewing machine to top it so nothing doing there either.

But fear not, fellow crafter's, the temporary workdesk is still serving me well. Here it is between projects. 

And these are the projects. Before the move, I had the foresight to put together page kits from stash. Over 140 of them. Each one is made up of cardstock, patterned paper, alpha's, embellishments and one or more photos, whatever seemed appropriate - all put away in a polythene baggy and stored in a numbered 'pizza' box saved especially for the job. 

I expected to get just one layout from each page kit but that has rarely been so. For example, from page kit #22 I got the following three.

The photos on all three are from different periods, years apart, and will be filed in different albums. I'm delighted. A little paper goes a long way! 

Update on the internet status: we're still not online though we were promised it would be up and running by 17th November!!! So communication is still patchy and I have discovered that I am unable to listen to an audiobook on my phone if the microwave is on. It's life, just not as we've known it. 

That's me for this week. I've given myself an hour or so to check as many of your posts as possible before making dinner. 

Take care everyone and have a wonderful week. 

Elizabeth