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

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 

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 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 789/9

Hello Everyone,

It's Wednesday, our day for sharing to What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday now hosted over at Sarah's Craft Shed. Here's what mine is looking like today.

I have a feeling that this is going to be a very short post this week because there's been no scrapbooking going on. I had plans as can be seen from that pile, the contents of one of those homemade kits I put together before the great house move in 2022, but a delivery of tiny shelving proved too diverting. 

Of course it came in the form of flatpacks. Everything does now. Sigh! Saves on shipping, I know, but just for once I'd love to be able to simply unwrap and go. 

The plan was to have both units on the craft desk but the two together took up too much scrappy space. One is now on the computer desk - sorry I forgot to take a shot of it. The intention was to get as many of my ink pads as possible out of the inconvenient drawer they were stashed in. Success! 

And that's it, I'm afraid. Not a lot of crafting. However, a break in the weather let me fit in a lovely walk down along the seafront.

And a bit of gardening. Well, pottering and enjoying the wildflowers growing happily in the back garden.

The pottering above and a few of the wildflowers below.

Scarlet Pimpernel

Common Daisy

Hawksbeard

So nothing exciting doing this week. Just continued improvement in the weather and my health. And talking of health, Silver's been in the wars. 

She's taken to searching in the bramble patch growing at the top of the back garden. I'm sure it's home to many a tiny creature but it's also very thorny. It might be hard to spot in the photo but she's got scratches around her nose. All healing nicely but I don't think a few scratches will prevent her going a-hunting in the bramble patch again.

As usual, I will do my best to visit and comment on everyone that leaves their link on Sarah's post today. 

Have a brilliant week everyone. Here's hoping for good weather so the children can enjoy their summer holiday. 

Take care, everyone,

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 

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 779

Hello Everyone,

I'm determined to not only join in with WOYWW over on Julia's Stamping Ground this week, but to be bright and early too. It's time to get up, dress up and show up!

But before I get on to this week, let me show you last week's desk which never made it to WOYWW because there's a very important little person in residence. Our lovely Annie, Wipso on here, made this sweet little memory bear from Alan's favourite shirt. The tie, a reminder of his career in chemical research, is pretty special too. Thank you, Annie.

Now on to this week's desk. Photo taken yesterday.

I was putting a page together for a Facebook challenge. The first I've been up to participating in for a very long time. It's proving to be a great way of using up old stash and leftover scraps that I've been hanging on to for no better reason than I can't bear to throw any of it away! 

As can be seen, stickers I think I might include in the embellishment clusters get stuck temporarily to any available surface while I think about where and whether to use them. Not all got used on this layout. 

The finished layout is based on a photo taken of us 22 years ago, when my hair was still dark and Alan still had some! His big sister, Margaret, put on a get-together for the family to wish us good luck when we made the big move from England to Scotland. Margaret loved to entertain and she made the most amazingly tasty pink cake too. 

Silver is still a happy distraction in my life. Here she is cuddling up on my lap, preventing me from doing anything but enjoy the moment. 

And finally:

This is the message printed on the side of the box of tissues that's on my desk today. 

Sent to me on Facebook. So appropriate!

Wishing you all a very creative and wonderful week. 

Take care, everyone

Elizabeth

Sunday Scraps & Rudolph Day - Christmas Cards 34-37

 Hello and Happy Sunday to you all,

I hope you are all safe and dry. I see from the TV News that many on the East Coast of the UK have suffered badly during the recent storm and now it's snowing. I can only wish any of you that live in the affected areas well. 

I have been making some scrap pages for the Scrap Backwards, a FaceBook group, challenge this week - the aim of which is to use up old scrapping materials, particularly stickers but including other supplies we've had lingering in our stash for some time. One page I made helped me use up quite a bit of an old, 2011, Graphic 45 8x8 pad, Christmas Emporium but, as is always the case, there was a lot of scrappy leftovers. Some scraps were used up for the Christmas Card Club this week but I didn't stop there so here's another four. 

Apologies for the quality of the photos - the lighting, like the weather, has been very poor this week. With the exception of the ribbons, all the materials used were either scraps or leftovers - e.g. the beads were just the last few on a sheet. The stamps and embossing folders are from very old collections - the stamp sets are Docrafts Papermania Noel Christmas Wishes and Marianne Vintage Christmas, the embossing folder is from a Sizzix Christmas set. 

Frankly, almost everything in my craft room is not new. I'm happy with the embossing folders and stamp sets I have and only give in to temptation now if I think I will really make good use of them. I admit to still finding it hard to resist new patterned paper so treat myself to a kit from Mind the Scrap on a monthly basis. Otherwise, the only craft stuff on my shopping list are the necessities such as adhesives, scrap albums & plastic inserts - all those scrap pages have to go somewhere - card blanks & envelopes That sort of thing. In truth, I think I have enough stash at my age to keep me going until I leave this mortal coil. 

It's been a long while but I'm submitting these cards to the following challenges:

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #417 - Ruby's Memory - where anything goes as long as there's scraps used.

ScrappyMo's November Rudolph Days Challenge - a bit late but I think it's okay to enter to the end of the month.

CHNC Challenge 570 - where anything goes as long as it's Christmas

Craftyhazelnut's Patterned Paper November 2021 challenge - a challenge that is always about using patterned paper or patterned cardstock

It's not quite 4pm here on the South West Coast of Scotland and the sun is going down already and just because I can't resist it here's the view from my window right now. 

So that just leaves me to wish you all a very good week and as my late mother would have said, look after yourselves and be good :)

Bye for now, 

Scrap Pages 13,14 & 15/2021

 Hello Everyone,

Welcome again to my blog and thanks for dropping in. I'm back with a few more of my scrap pages for the record.

Popeye Village

Family

Smile

These three pages were inspired by various Facebook challenges ... though I don't remember which ones now that weeks have passed. The photos in the first were taken many, many years ago (1986), in Malta on a visit to the set built especially for the Popeye film. We could only look at it from a distance then but I believe it's now a fun park.

The other two pages were made of photos of my daughter, both taken a long time ago when we were all a lot younger. Those two little boys in the Family page are both grown up, one married and the other engaged. How time flies. 

I'm keeping to my aim to use old stash up. All three pages were made using leftover paper scraps and ancient stash. In fact, the only new supply used, as far as I can see, is the white card stock that make up the background of the second and third pages. 

Hopefully, I'll be back again soon with a few more pages, just for the record.

In the meantime, I hope you are all well and thank you for taking the time to visit my blog.

Scrap Pages 10,11 & 12/2021

 Hello everyone,

Welcome again to my blog and thanks for dropping in. It's another 'for the record' post, catching up with more pages that count towards my personal challenge to create 200 this year. 

You Are Amazing ...

Kitchen Update

Home Schooling

More dipping into old papers, embellishments and scraps from recent MTS kits went into the making of these pages. I'd like to say that I'm making quite a dint in the stash mountain but I'd plainly be kidding myself. It's clear I have a way to go yet. 

The photo in that first page is of my lovely mum and me after my graduation ceremony. I wasn't the first of mum's children to graduate, my youngest sister beat me to it, but mine was the first ceremony my mother attended. She was so proud and loved every moment and I was so happy for my amazing mum to be there to enjoy the experience. 

The other two pages are records of happenings from during the pandemic months. As we all know, home schooling became a necessity during the lockdowns and the EM's great-nephew and niece joined in enthusiastically. At least they did to begin with. The novelty wore off eventually and their poor mother discovered she wasn't, despite being a devoted mother, cut out for teaching. Still, they kept it up and somehow survived. The kitchen update just had to be recorded because it was planned before the pandemic hit us but couldn't be done until after the first lockdown finished and I can't begin to tell you how delighted I was with the results. 

Hopefully, I'll be back pretty soon with a few more pages, just for the record.

In the meantime, I hope you are all well and thank you for taking the time to visit my blog.