Jeudi Journal - Africa

Here we are, another journal day with Wendy.  This time our journey has taken us to Africa.

Must admit, this journal page was done quite quickly.  The initial page was already painted and I have not a clue how I got that background which you see on the left - must have been a stencil. However, it shouted "Africa" to me - hot blazing sun and all that.

So out came my Dylusion images and this one was already coloured in, obviously from a sunny day sat outside, so the idea of her dreaming came about coupled with some of my favourite (very old) Non Sequitur images from the Africa plate.  I used to love those plates and do have several.

I stamped the two African figures on cardstock and enjoyed colouring them in although I did get carried away and forgot not to use orange on either of them - he ended up with some burnt orange bits in his already orange outfit.  Doesn't she suit the green?

Well, that is it for this week - now I must look and see where we are off to next week.

WOYWW 425

Click here to see what WOYWW stands for if you don't know (you mean there are some out there do not know!!??!!).  Then join in and come along to our crop (see top of Julia's page).

So what is on my workdesk today (or should it be yesterday - had to post early as I was going out. Excited because my new purchases had arrived!  At last I had got myself some Distress Oxides. They are awaiting labelling in the window storage area along with all the Distress Inks I own.  But, wait what is on my actual desk?  Yes, Alice stuff!

Laid out just for you!

My bff had alerted me to these wonderful little dies.  Well, not so little.  The largest is about 4.5" high I now have ideas running around in my head as to what I am going to do with them.  Anyone got a birthday coming up?

I have been busy buying boxes - more of the lovely white ones that I fell in love with from that Swedish store.

Don't you love my Harry Potter box?

I have also got some pots to store all manner of things in.  These will keep changing as time goes on until I settle on something permanent to go in them.  At the moment there are scissors (I have lots), those hand punches, inc. Cropadile, sponges and palette knives (who needs so many?).

The last thing I bought and which I am going to show you are these hooks - such fun

hanging my HUGE dies on

and the tool to open the hatch in the ceiling

Now you might all be thinking how organised I am and how nice (look back at last week's WOYWW) and organised I am.  Well, today we heard that the flooring they were not making until October is now ready for delivery to US!!!!  Help!!!  I never thought I would have to undo my room quite so quickly.  I had just got the house more or less back to normal.  Still, we might find that missing plug next time.

See you over at Julia's in a short while.

Jeudi Journal - India

Today we have travelled to India.  Unfortunately I only have teeny weeny stamps that PaperArtsy brought out years ago.  I did a couple of pages in rich jewel like colours, or so I thought, but then hadn't a clue what to put on them to suggest India.

I was certain I had an elephant stamp somewhere that was not too small so the obvious place was the "Animal" drawer and sure enough it was there, right on top.  It was one I had been given a few years ago at CHA and is an Animal Spirit one designed by Sue Coccia.  I stamped it four times on white cardstock, cut it out and placed it along the bottom edge of the two pages.  Now what else could I do to fill the page up.

Then I thought of Sanskrit and its lovely shapes.  I put 'India' in a transcription website and came up with a lovely pattern.  I then extended it to say something else (which I have since forgotten) and made that my central image.

If you enlarge the page and look carefully at the elephants you will see that they are made up of several animals - see how many you can spot.  Then go over to see what Wendy has done - she has lots of those authentic Indian stamps so should have done a super page.  Oh how I wish I had had some of those stamps.  Maybe one day!

WOYWW 424

Well, here we are with another week - and another week less to our meet up in Llandudno with the crop.  Not to late for you to join in with showing your work desk and then coming to the crop with a lot of other like minded people.  Any craft will do - it doesn't have to be papercrafting like me, it could be sewing like LLJ or Annie, Dumfing like Jo and Annie - you can join in and show us anything.  If you decide to join in then pop along to Julia's today and read about the crop at the top of her page.

Here's my desk

As you can see there has been a mammoth tidying up since last week and most of my things are now put away in their allocated spots.  It's been a good 'sorting out' session and now all my painting stuff is in one place, all my stamps in the one space and all my ink pads more or less in the one place.  I say 'more or less' because I have that many that it is impossible and today I bought some Distress Oxides which I swore I was not going to get.  I seem to have more display areas too. Look at this shelf - I have boxes of flowers on it but one end could be display and does have one or two bits on now.  The little tubs are a new purchase and hold all manner of things.  The two smaller black drawer cabinets are new - why does Ikea keep changing the colours - I now have grey (started off with them) then a cream one (no grey when I went back) and now it is black that I had to buy!

The door wall has a grey and a cream drawer cabinet which now houses my fabulous Cutterpillar, the best paper cutter I have ever used, on top and is now my little cutting station.  You can see the large cupboard at the bottom which has the punches on it - well it now holds all manner of colouring materials pencils, crayons, inks, paints etc. Moving along the shelves underneath the worktop contains two nappy boxes (remember those, they were all the rage for crafters when I first began) and they are full of paints also.  Then we come to die cutting machines and dies themselves.  The black box on top has all my Dyary things in, remember how I put them in so I could carry on crafting whilst work was going on?  Well, I was using it yesterday to catch up in my Dyary and still will be today.

The two small boxes next to my Dyary box need sorting as they have lots of bits of things in them and need homes finding.

See the two small shelves up above - they are for display and the fancy boxes on top of the grey drawers and the white ones are only displayed - they are actually empty at the moment.

So basically that is my craft room, a quick peep around a small room, 8' x 11'10".  It needs a new floor but that cannot happen until sometime in October when the company does a run of the flooring I want.  I hope I can keep it clean until then and not spray the walls when I use my inks.

Off now to see what Julia & Co are up to.  Follow the link at the end of the first paragraph and remember, if you aren't in it you need to be.  I'm off for an ECG and a blood test in a short while and then for a bit more acupuncture in the afternoon.  See you sometime later - I am good at playing catch up.

Jeudi Journal - Paris

Well here we are.  Doing a bit of Europe and this time it is Paris that we are visiting.  Poor "Effel" has got a bit muddled and thought the French had named their famous landmark after her. Understandable as the spelling is so close to how they pronounce her name.

Left until the last minute again (well, I have been rather busy trying to move things back into my craft room) I decided to do a black and white page.  Not wanting it to look as if it was a "cop out" with just simple stamping on it I decided to use clear embossing powder on my figures etc.  Could I find my embossing powders?  Could I heck!  I searched and searched and even got Chas involved. A quick look in the study and in the porch at the remnants lying there but no joy. Back in to the craft room.  Now I knew they must be there but what had I put them in and where?

Eventually, searching BEHIND other things on the deep shelves they came to light.  In a red box marked 'embossing powders'.  Must make a note of that in my Rolodex system.

So here is my page, at last.  Parisian type adverts, the Eiffel Tower and Fred and Ethel (sorry, 'Effel") all stamped in black ink and embossed with clear EP.  Think I quite like the black and white, reminds me of a journal I did with Sandra Botham at Art from the Heart a while ago - but that had lots of 'tangling' on it and I am afraid there was not time, nor space, to do anything like that here. Perhaps another day, another page!

Now to see if Wendy has finished her page

WOYWW 423

These last few days have seen me doing as much as I can in my craft room and doing a little, bit by bit, on my canvas which I did at the last Dare2Create.  I wasn't happy with it so I pulled it to bits and started to redo it.  I did a little altering on the board we did with Tracy too.  In fact that one is finished:

Love the bump technique I did with the circles (thanks Leandra).  I just remembered it and decided to use it in my background.  The colours are so me but not my usual choice when I am at retreats - usually blues and greens - sea colours - but no lilac.

Well, the desk was a bit tidier and I had room to work but gradually I moved one or two things back into the craft area from the study and porch and this is it ... again!

Can you see the difference between this week and last week?  You can hardly see the pretty paper on the board on the right.  I did say it might as well have just been painted, would have been a whole lot cheaper!  Poor Chas has painted endless boxes for me, you can see some of them lined up along the back of the worktop.

Below is the wall joining onto the bathroom, where the door used to be.  If you look closely you can see more of those cubby hole type boxes that Chas has been busy painting.  Then there is the white set of drawers he painted which I edged in pink and the set of pink drawers underneath.  I haven't the heart to repaint the green box on top as it is covered in pictures of Paris and is something I did a long time ago - when recycle bins first came into being.  Yes, they delivered more than one to our house seeing as we have two doors on the front of the property - many people get mixed up with it and think it is two bungalows, not just the one.

Maybe next week you will see an actual work desk.  We went to Ikea on Tuesday night and bought two more sets of drawers on wheels (guess what - they have changed the colours AGAIN!!!) and two shelves.  Once they are up I will need some boxes but it seems they do not do the metal ones that I have quite a lot of.  Oh heck, why do they have to keep changing things?

One thing that does not change is Wednesday morning for us crafters. There is always WOYWW for us to join in with and so I am heading over there to see what Julia has for us this week.  It's another visit to the Chinese Medical Centre for a bit of acupuncture in the afternoon (he talked about doing the "cups" as I still have the pain now and then but I am going to try to talk him out of it, don't fancy it at all).  It has been much better most days although Friday was pretty bad but that was my own fault for reaching high up and cleaning a rail in the bathroom on Thursday night.

Well, will leave it there for this week, hope to see some of you over at Julia's and then I can see what you have been up to.  Happy Crafting to you all!

Jeudi Journal - Egypt

Well, the best laid plans of mice and men  or so the story goes.  One of these days I will get back into rhythm and do my blog post ahead of time.  Last minute as per usual with wanting to get the craft room set up and find the stamps etc that I needed resulted in my being late with production.  Then this morning, with only the background page done and the idea in my head I started with an upset stomach and have been either in the bathroom or in bed since.

So unable to do any more stamping, colouring etc I give you my shortened and re-thought page. Doubt if I had had all the time in the world I would have produced something like my partner in crime as she has a much better head than I for this type of thing.

I leave you with Egypt:

WOYWW 422

Have I got the number right at last?  Sorry I did not get to all the people who visited me until yesterday.  My shoulder blade pain has been really bad and I spent most of the week in bed flat on my back. Went to a Chinese Doctor on Friday and had acupuncture.  I am back again this afternoon and hoping that a few sessions will put me right, cannot stand being like this.

Anyway, I know most of you have waited wanting to see some photos of my newly decorated craft room.  It was lovely when she had finished although I had to halt her and stop her spending a further £200 on things to put in for storage etc.  I did only want it painting but I think she wanted to do a makeover and no doubt she would have made it look lovely but .... a craft room without a ton of money being thrown at it doesn't necessarily look lovely.  It can look nice but it has to be functional, easy if you are starting from scratch but when you already have lots of storage in the wrong colourway you cannot just go and buy new - well I cannot.  Plus some things come in different colours ie my super duper cutting machine is lime green and is not made in any other colour.

Here are the photos I took when she had finished:

wall to right as you walk in

pink wall with pegboard and stag

I love the stag and the pegboard, and I was going to paint pink edges to the huge cupboards so it was good to see that she had done the same on the little boxes.  The painting of this wall was covered in the bathroom costs because of the doorway being blocked off.

Close-up of stag and pegboard

So you have to admit, even if you are not into pink as I am not (gave her freedom to choose) it is lovely and she made a super job of it. Now I have to move back in and already it is not looking quite as beautiful as it was originally.  I just have so much stuff.  It will probably take me a week or two to get everything back - poor Chas is busy painting more boxes for me and I am hastily trying to work out where to put them and what to put in them.  Think a trip to a Swedish shop is on the cards as I need some bits and pieces yet.

This is part way through my moving things in - note all the extra boxes Chas has painted for me (the paint gets on my chest and affects my breathing plus I cannot do too much lifting and carrying if I want my back to have chance to heal).  Gotta get right for The Crop!!

The pinky-lilac cupboard on top and the lilac and pink cupboard underneath will have to be repainted eventually but at the moment I want my house back to normal - ie the spare room and study empty of craft things.  Oh and the porch/sun room which I keep forgetting about.  The only place that is back to normal is the hallway.

Won't be buying a new chair so that will have to remain blue and the filing cabinet which is a dark grey will have to stay like that.  I might get around to painting the black cabinet ... but when??

Adirondack pads, envelopes and tall canisters

The stag has come in useful

The yellow tub will be going and the container on the left is going to be redone all in pinks.  Took no time at all to fill the shelves on the pegboard but I am not sure the tub is big enough for my palette knives - did I really always have so many?  Now I can display the jewellery I have made, mainly in make and takes at CHA, or Creativation as it is now called, although you might think I have spoiled the whole effect of the stag - have I?

Boxes, boxes, boxes

Poor Chas has been kept busy these last few days painting boxes for all he was worth.  Now I have a whole row of them on the worktop and a couple on that filing cabinet too.

I do need a new floor but the one I want is the same as the one in the kitchen and hallway.  We live in a bungalow and I want the flooring to flow through, besides which, I love my kitchen flooring.  Sadly I cannot track any down anywhere in the country.  Even had the UK distributor looking for supplies. So I have some on order with the company who did the kitchen and when the manufacturer does a run (in Belgium in OCTOBER!!!) my order will go through and I will have to undo my craftroom all over again to have the floor laid  One day it will be worth it.  I might be straight for Christmas!

Well, you have seen my work desk at last so now I am off to see Julia and to get the lowdown on what she and others have done.  Next week I will have finished off my canvas that I did the other weekend and will be able to show it to you along with the other two projects.

Have a good week!