WOYWW 439

Wednesday again, these come around quicker than the local bus.

Still got a cold, it comes and goes (first one in years), so not much to report on the crafting front  Did get my Dylusion paints out and squirted them all with a bit of water as they are thickening up.  Needed to use them for my journalling with Wendy.  We are working in square journals now and doing something different but trying to continue using the Dylusion figures in the main.  I needed to colour the pages in with some paints and love the bright colours of Dyans.

Here is my desk to the left early evening yesterday, Tuesday.

The booklet with the green page on the right is my Butterfly Book and that is the lat page in my booklet on our holiday in Nerja.  To the left of it you can see some tags and a stamp plus some wooden butterfly buttons that my friend Wendy bought me for Christmas - not sure which one as we haven't seen much of one another recently.

This is my desk to the right of the other picture and shows my Dyary hiding my journal page which I have started but nowhere near finished.  It is open at last week's page when I went down to Liz's celebration of her life service.  The figure on this page represents her by wearing orange which was Liz's favourite colour and is sporting a flamboyant hat in memory of the wonderful ones she wore after both of her chemo treatments.  Not that she would have ever worn boots like that with a full skirted dress, or even a dress like that either.  She was a snappy dresser.

Well, it is time for you to go and visit Julia, our glorious founder, who will lead you on to looking at other blogs showing desks and things that have been made during the week.  Do enjoy yourselves and join in if you haven't already done so.  You make so many friends - and you even get to meet up with some of them.

ps I made some little bags of sweets up for the children but for the fourth year in a row now we did not get any trick or treaters.  I know it is hard but we are just going to have to sit and eat them all ourselves.  Shame!

421 WOYWW

Short and Sweet this week as I still have no craftroom.  Not to worry, by next week I might have the saga of the craftroom unfold and be able to show you that I have, at last, regained control.

In the meantime please be content with the latest page in my Dyary - sorry it is not more and please just concentrate on the right hand page ignoring the left.  Then take yourself off to the delights of Ms Julia and her latest travels then further journey into the unknown depths of the desks of those lovely crafters who make up WOYWW each week.

WoYWW 420 (amended - sorry if I confused anyone)

Well, someone we all know seems to be having a lovely holiday - talk about wish I was there!!

Things pretty much the same here - still crafting on my knee or anywhere I can - not doing much but keeping up with my pain diary entries.  Still need to do lots on the pages but finding it difficult to do stencilling which is something I feel is missing.

Don't think there are any dark deep secrets on this page.  You will notice that after the 15th March I had no pain in my back ... until Friday 9th June - but that is a 'not yet decorated' page - good long run wasn't it.

The craftroom is being painted at the moment.  I have to wait until October for the flooring to come but cannot live much longer in this disarray so everything is going back (well most of it) until later and then when the floor is being done it will have to come out again but only for the day.

Saw this stamp (right page, wavy lines) when I was at Art from the Heart and just had to have it.  It is great for doing writing on but I still need to experiment with different lettering etc.  Fills a page up nicely.  All the zeds are when one son had to sleep over because he was on nights and his neighbour was having work done - during the day obviously. Good to have him home although I only saw him about 5 minutes in a morning and 5 more in the afternoon.  Literally just "bed" and no breakfast (his choice).

Won't show you any more pages, can get kind of boring, but here is something that will not bore you - an atc and this time from Robyn

To the left is her atc and to the right the card accompanying it

Thanks Robyn!

Hoping everyone is well, enjoying this sunshine and not finding it too hot.  Do I owe anyone an atc? I have a feeling there is one I owe to someone, is it you Sandra de?

Apologies if I did not get to you last week but it was the back pain which is a little better at the moment but will it last to lunch time?  Only time will tell.  I will try to make up for it this week. Sorry.

Time to go to see where Julia is in her travels and see what others are up to - see you here later.

416 WOYWW and and ATC

First of all let me begin by saying my thoughts are with the people who have suffered in any way from the Manchester bombing.  

I remember 21 years ago only too well, as I was a teacher then, and Head of Careers and Industrial Coordintor for the school I was at.  I had children on work experience in Manchester at the time of the bombing.  I panicked and with 150 of them placed in industry all over I could not think which ones were likely to be working there that Saturday.  A quick dash to school, meet up with the Deputy Head and and hour or two checking the computer and ringing around saw all were safe. Thankfully most of the pupils were at a basketball rally (I think it was that) so well out of harm's way.

I cannot begin to imagine the awful hours that some families are having at the moment with loved ones missing or lying in a hospital bed - some critical.  I know how I felt all those years ago but to have a son/daughter/mother/father/any relative/friend/colleague hurt or worse still missing I cannot begin to imagine their feelings, the amount of tears that must have been shed.  All I know is that hearing some of the stories, seeing the bravery of all those people, the wonderful warmness that has gone alongside this tragedy has been heartwarming and it reduced me to tears on several occasions as I watched the story unfold.

God Bless Manchester and its people.  Stand together and stand strong.

Oh, hecky pecky - it's 8 wonderful years for Julia and it is also time to sign up for ATC's.  I have been a bit "muxed up" these past three weeks and I am no better now.  Those of you who have seen me on a regular basis will know that my craft room is in complete disarray due to the room next door being redone - the bathroom.  A connecting door has meant that my craft room has now got to be gutted as well.

Today I went in after the guys had left and looking around I had a brainwave.  We should not have the bathroom put in but rather have an archway (large) in the wall shared with the craftroom.  Imagine that - how lovely it would be to have a large craftroom - and a window!

craftroom as is now - empty

bathroom - door blocked off to craftroom

bathroom - an actual window with light

Not to be, so my crafting area has to be on my knee or, as yesterday, in the garden on the patio playing catch up in my Dyary.  Fell asleep so only one page done - well partly done!

Yes £110 to have my rings made smaller

Today I am going to get my paints out, my roller and make a background and then work on the pieces I cut out for my atc's.  Not sure how many I will make but if you want to swap just let me know in the comments and I will make them until I run out.  Might be late commenting - I have a date with a roller and some paint!

Well, time to wrap this up - Congratulations Julia on eight wonderful years.  So nice to see some of the 'old faithfuls' still joining in on a regular basis and lovely to have new people joining in.  Now to see what Julia has to say and check up on those atc swaps.

WOYWW 415

First of all may I extend a big welcome and the hand of friendship to my latest follower, Patricia. Nice to see you here, hope I can do justice to your joining my band of followers.  I did try to find your blog but unfortunately the links did not point me in that direction.

I hope some of you looked at my post on Friday of last week which I did for Annie's Smiles - I found those photos of me so amusing.

Week before last I showed you two of the three cards I had made. Here is the third - a birthday card for my journalling buddy, Wendy.

Craft-room-wise things have not changed - it will be a while before I can show you the craftroom which is going to look pretty much the same as the old one - apart from the door will be missing behind the tall cupboard on the left as you walk in.  A lot more stuff has gone but I am still keeping some things in my craftroom , on the worktop in boxes, so that if I feel like a bit of crafting I can get on with it. Providing I can find things that is.  Hopefully though the bathroom will be being started next week so things will go from chaotic to "chaoticer".

So my desk this week - well that has changed because I am in Hartlepool for a few days. I have gone up north to see my friend Dot.

Here it is:

Hope it has all I need

A Dyary tag page I have been colouring

and a flower page below

You can see Tracy Scott's new images at the top (pink) which she kindly allowed me to stamp and you will see that I now need to do the left hand side of both pages in my Dyary.  You would be surprised by what is underneath that open Dyary.

A box full of bits so I can do some doodling in my mini journal and my Dyary whilst I am on the move. Who wants to sit and watch tv in a hotel room when there are lots of good things one can do craftwise?

Let's hop over to see what our Julia is up to.

Good Friday (Smiles with Annie 216)

Well, the day came and went in a flurry of, not Easter Eggs, not bunnies (well not quite), no hot cross buns - but lots of lovely friendship and paint (and stencils and goodies).  Yes, I went and had a day at Art from the Heart with the delightfully delicious Dyan.  And my bessie, Lorraine, of course  Met up with Carol from the NE and sat next to her and the lovely bright, colourful Donna was sat opposite (but a little down on the other side).  All the other ladies were lovely but I cannot remember their names, except Marilyn who did the egg and spoon race with me, sorry folks.

Dyan gave us all bunny ears to wear and we had an egg and spoon race part way through the afternoon and then settled to gorge ourselves on delicious Carrot Cake and Red Velvet Cake  - and there were tempting little chocolate Easter eggs for us to top up our energy levels as the day went on. Think I smiled all day.

Pinched this from Dyan's Dylusions Facebook page - hope that is ok. It shows some of us having an egg and spoon race.  Dyan is creased with laughing, Marilyn is lagging at the back and Donna (who cheated and held me back) has lost her egg - serves her right LOL.

My Dyary does not seem to have much in it but I flitted about and got lots of bits in it rather than concentrating on a page.  Here are some of the lovely goodies we got to go in our Dyaries to start us off. Remember these are in no way finished pages, or even a quarter finished, just us having fun and learning about all the goodies we can put in our Dyaries.  There will be stamping, stencilling, collage maybe, colouring, words and embellishing with stickers figures, pens etc. before a page can begin to look complete - and are they ever complete?

See the stars on the left?  They are long blank stickers for you to stamp on - I stamped on the wrong side - couldn't understand why I was having so much trouble trying to peel one off.  DOH!  Need to go to Specsavers!  DOH!  Blonde Moment!!!

Some of the bits I stencilled, stamped etc

Love this stag

Stamped cats and a border

This was my favourite stamp of the day

I love all the Dylusion stamps but this border really caught my eye, now I want it but I bought enough - forgot to take a photo so you cannot see but suffice to say it was a fair bit of shopping!  Now to disappear and enjoy myself putting some more work into those pages - might start off with black paint and do a bit of touch up work first. Oops!  Must visit Annie first of all and see who else has linked - off for a nosey.