WOYWW Week 847 - Not a Lot to Show

Hello WOYWWers, Followers, Everyone

It's true. There isn't a lot for me to show on my desk this week, or, for that matter, any other week recently. I'm finding it tough getting back to the fun things when there's still so much other stuff needing my attention. both here in the flat and outside in the shed. Those boxes seem to be bottomless! 

Anyway, enough of my moaning. What's on my desk is the beginnings of a new layout. The photos are of my mother and her older sister, taken sometime in the 1930s. The papers and alphas are leftovers from a kit I used earlier this year to make another page.  When will the layout get done is anyone's guess but it's there waiting for me and my mojo to return.

Silver enjoying a blissful moment of sunshine. We've had a lot of rain in the last few day. I believe the slab she's sunning herself on covers a well of sorts but for her it's just the perfect sunspot. She brought me a present the other morning. A live vole! I know she was only showing me how bringing home food should really be done - there's no need for those trips to the butcher's after all - but I'd rather she didn't. I was able to catch the poor wee thing, take it out to the garden, and set it free. Hopefully, it survived the trauma. 

Finally, the funnies - these make me think of how Silver must have felt when I rejected her wee pressie this week.

A really bad-tempered cat cake! 

That's enough from me today. 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

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 836

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all well and you've had a good week. What's on my workdesk this week is a series of part done project life style pages. Apologies for the glare from the plastic pockets. They are for a very special project I've been working on for fifteen or so months now. It's an album in memory of Alan for his eldest nephew who also appears in a few of these photos. They are all original - I've kept copies of course - that I think should be kept in his family. 

12/2025 - The Oban Games

This is the last of the scrap pages completed recently. The photo is another taken on our holiday in Scotland in 1995. We stopped off in Oban for an overnight stay on our way north and just happened to arrive in time to attend the town's Highland Games. Alan was really impressed with the pipe band, particularly the outfit the drum major was wearing so insisted we pose together for this photo. The rowan sapling I'm clutching was free from the Scottish Woodland Trust, distributed as part of a drive to encourage the planting of more trees. 

Once again I've matted the photo onto a bunch of leftover scraps before adhering it all on to a tartan patterned paper, 'Nantucket', from a Carta Bella collection from 2018. The base of the clusters are made up of punched circles, again from scraps. Alphas, stickers, fussy-cut flowers and enamel dots from stash. 

Seen on my walk to the shops yesterday was this demolition in progress. Bear with me, I have good reason to show you this. 

It's a 1970s block of flats/apartments that I'm told were in a bad state and no longer fit for habitation. 

This is the far end of the block. I looked up and had to laugh at what I spotted in the second window on the right.

Someone has a sense of humour. That dummy head must have had more than a few passers-by giving it a second look!

And almost finally here's a couple of snaps of a sleeping Silver.

Love that smile!

And she has the cutest paws. 

Finally, that's all from me this week. I will be late commenting today. It might even be tomorrow before I'm able to because I'm off to an all-day conference that is being held by the Carers Gateway here in North Ayrshire  It's a service that provides support and resources for unpaid carers in Ayrshire. When Alan was ill, the Gateway very kindly provided me with advice and support when I most needed it. 

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

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 835

Hello Everyone,

I hope you have all had a good week finding lots of time for crafting. There's not been a lot of crafting going on here. Too busy elsewhere, unfortunately. Because of that, all that's different about my desk from last week is a pile of pages waiting to be filed. They are waiting because I can't decide which album to put them in. The photos on the right are old ones found when I was sorting out a box of framed photos brought from the old house. We had a lot more wall space there but it's much more limited here so I've had to decide which to keep and which to sacrifice. Not that I plan to bin the photos, just the frames. I hope to scrap the photos eventually. 

11/2025 - Misty Loch

The two photos of Loch Linnhe were taken on the first morning of the holiday we had in the Scottish Highlands in 1995. The B&B we stayed in was almost on the shore of the loch. Only a road separated the house from the loch shore. That morning we were both enchanted by the sight of the loch partly shrouded in mist. Magical!

The inspiration for the layout was simply the leftovers that had accumulated after making a few earlier pages. After choosing the base sheet, from Jen Hadfield's Peaceful Heart collection, 'New Day' 2021, I juggled the scraps until I was happy with the way they looked. Once I had the photos in place all I had to do was build the embellishment clusters from bits and pieces found in my stash.

Materials - printouts from Scrap-A-Sketch, 49 and Market's Vintage Artistry Mango Ephemera Stack, flowers fussy-cut from various patterned sheets and wooden buttons from Cocoa Vanilla's Storyteller collection. Title made up from Simple Stories Snap Studio's alphas. 

Due to the change in the weather, from heatwave to deluge, not a lot of real gardening has been done. However, I'm pleased to show you the work my daughter and SIL did, while the weather was good, to the patch of garden to the front of the flat. Above is the before shot. That grass was hiding a very uneven base. It was difficult to maintain and equally difficult to walk on for someone like me with dickie hips. 

And here's what they have accomplished so far. They've removed the grass, levelled the ground, cut the hedge, removed the dead ivy that was adhered up the wall, and laid the weed suppressing material. They have done a brilliant job, don't you think? The only thing I've had to do was weed and tidy up the plant pots. The next phase is to choose and order the gravel which will cover the entire garden. The idea being to make it as low maintenance as possible with only the pots to take care of, leaving most of my time for the new back garden. 

Speaking of which I have been enjoying watching and photographing the antics of the starlings that visit the birdfeeder there. Alan bought it when we moved in here but, sadly, never got the chance to see it erected and enjoy his birdwatching. 

And finally, no funnies this week but a photo of Silver out in the garden with me.

She's my constant companion whether inside the house or out in the garden. In fact, she would be happy if I spent much of the day out there with her. 

That's all from me for this week. Apologies yet again to those of your posts that I didn't manage to leave comments on. Life just got in the way. There's a story there but I'm not ready to tell it just yet.

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  

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 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 

Visiting Alfie - Rainbow Challenge No.2

Hello Everyone,

I'm back with the second layout for the Facebook challenge mentioned in yesterday's post. The colour to use for this layout was blue which I found more difficult than expected. I have lots of material in shades of aqua, turquoise and teal but very little in what I call real blue. So I scraped the bottom of the barrel for this one. 

I love the photo, dated 2019, of Alan feeding carrots to Alfie the donkey. One of last taken before he caught Covid and became to ill to drive. Alfie was living alone at the Ballantrae garden centre by then, his last companion had sadly died, so we visited him as often as we could back then. 

The challenge includes a sketch. I always find sketches inspirational even if I don't stick rigidly to them. This one included a heart shape which did prove a problem. I still haven't unpacked my large die-cutting machine - it's in the shed in one of the last boxes somewhere and, in all honesty, I'm in no hurry to tackle the unpacking just yet. There's too much stuff and nowhere to put it so it can stay in the shed for now.

Fortunately, already unpacked is this set of templates. It's ancient! It's what we scrappers used before dies and die-cutting machines became available. Yes, I've been scrapping that long. Twenty-eight years or so. The advances I've seen in papercrafting in that time is, well, amazing! The largest heart shape wasn't really big enough but I made it do. 

The papers used are from Heidi Swapp's 'Set Sail' collection except the floral one which is from Hobbycraft's 'British Garden' paper pad. Embellishment items for clusters from various sources, some old (e.g. 2017), some new. 

That's me done wittering tonight. I'm getting the 'time for bed' look from the resident furry nag. After all she has a 4am start in the morning!

Take care, everyone,

Elizabeth 

Blogging for Scrapbookers

Hello Everyone,

It's amazing what I've found during the settling in process. Whilst ferreting through one of the many boxes, I came across a document entitled A Year Of Blogging, downloaded whilst taking Shimelle's Blogging For Scrapbookers  class a few years ago. 

It's a list of suggested topics to blog about set out in order of months.  Out of curiosity I had a look at what was suggested today's date and it's 'What's under your bed right now?'  I had no idea! With the second bedroom still chock-a-bloc with stuff, we've been struggling to find storage space so nothing would have surprised me. 

Phew! Not so bad. Two plastic boxes full of my winter Woolies - I'll be swapping summer clothes for them very soon - and two hat boxes. The one in the photo is my wedding day hat as seen in more than a few scrap layouts. 

I used to be quite the hat wearer in my younger days. 

This brown one was in one of the boxes together with my altogether favourite one. 

It's red with a black velvet band. It's never featured in a scrap page so here's it modelled by yours truly. 

That was more fun than I expected. I may dip into the list again - occasionally. It will be particularly useful on days when I can't think what to write about. Even if I'm the only person to read this post it makes a fun record of a day in the life of this crafter. 

Hope you've all had a lovely Thursday. 

Take care,

Elizabeth 

Scrapbook Layouts 2022 - Nos. 13-15

Hello Again,

Another Monday, another new week and I hope it finds you well and all ready to go after the weekend. 

Thought I'd drop by to share a few more pages out of the forty plus made so far this year.

13. 1910 Great-Great Uncles

This layout covers the tragic story of these two great-great uncles who died, in America, tragically young in an incident in a coal mine. This is another page from the family history album. 

14. Together

And here's another. This photo is of my paternal great-grandparents taken, I think, on their wedding day. It's a fairly typical studio portrait of the time - very stiff and formal. I never knew my great-grandfather, he died early of tuberculosis, but I did know my Portobello great-grandmother. The stunning flowers are from a Maggie Holmes Marigold ephemera pack by Crate Paper. 

15. Under the Old Pine Tree

And now for something completely different. This, a scraplift of a page by Karin Dahllof, is nothing like my usual style but I really love it. There's a mixed media background, a limited colour palette, and a selection of whimsical embellishments in the clusters and the smallest strip of patterned paper. 

I feel I'm getting over the dreaded lurgy and will be, I'm hoping, fighting fit again by the end of the week! 

Take care and stay safe. 

Elizabeth

Scrapbook Layouts 2022 - No's.10-12

Hello Everyone,

Many thanks for checking out my posts. Any comments left are much appreciated. I hope you are all well and enjoying the weekend.

I'm still none too well - what the old advertisement for Aspro referred to as 'one degree under' - so it's another post from my sickbed. And that gives me the perfect opportunity to share a few more layouts made earlier this year. Might as well try to catch up. 

10 Urban Birds

It's not everywhere you will spot a swan walking along the pavement and crossing the bridge over the river! Both the gulls on our rooftops and the swan on the bridge are essentially waterbirds and yet here they are adapting to changes to their environment and becoming urbanised, even if not always welcome.

11 January Week 2

This layout is another faux project life one. Week two seems so very long ago now. 

12 Our Family History

This is the title page for the family history album. I did start this a few years ago using the Project Life journal cards and pocket style inserts, but I didn't enjoy that method of scrapping. As a result I've neglected this project. I'm a 12x12 page scrapper at heart. I'm grateful to Emma from Mind The Scrap for showing me an alternative way that's more my style. There's hope for this album yet!

That's all the layouts for today. I think three pages are quite enough. All the materials used were from my not inconsiderable stash - some new, most old. Any questions about this or anything at all to do with the layouts, I'll be happy to answer. 

Silver is here, on my bed, comforting me. It's amazing how our pets sense when we need a little extra attention. Of course, it could be that she enjoys the extra attention too. 

Take care and enjoy the weekend.

Elizabeth