What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 360

The anniversary of WOYWW is on May 25th, it will be number 364. for goodness' sake.  I've finally made a page for the top of the blog and copied it into a post on Monday, so hopefully there'll be nothing to question about the ATC swap. If it's all as clear as mud, email me.

So, to the real reason for your visit - apart from linking of course!

Oh my gawd, this took me about 15 minutes! I was stencilling paste through the green stencil Ive washed that but as you can see, I haven't actually cleaned anything else. I used tweezers (bottom right) to add colour to the paste which I mixed on the glass mat, then swapped to my faithful old Jamba card to use as a spreader. (Jamba Juice is a smoothie bar, it's not the name of a special tool!). The heat gun is in place to quick dry the background over which I stencilled. The rest of the stuff on view is detritus. You can see also that I still haven't opened or put away the mini dies. (Bottom left)  The other stamps are out because I like them. The packets are awaiting a putting away session or return of the odd  stamp....I didn't conduct the workshop last week, but I did make up baskets and kits, so I still had control!
Join us won't you, for a look at other desks the world over, it's just fun. Link your blog post here, just make sure that you've got WOYWW in the title!

Anniversary ATCS

It's difficult to believe, but 25th May WOYWW 364)  is the seventh anniversary of WOYWW. We're not doing anything differently compared to previous years:

• Make an ATC (or some ATCS, you may want to send one to more than one person). There is no specific theme, but it would be nice to include WOYWW and 7 somewhere on it; the reverse would be fine.
• On WOYWW 364, the seventh anniversary, which is 25th May, post as usual. When you link, if you are joining the ATC swap, add an asterisk * to your name. It's the devil to remember, so don't worry if you forget, just link again. (Only the administrators can remove links, so don't worry about it!)
• Get in touch with the next name on the list that shows an asterisk *; you need a postal address from whoever that is. Their presence and asterisk * means they're your recipient.
• Post the ATC. Preferably on the day, certainly very soon.
• Visit desks as usual.
• If you've made more than one ATC,  swap 'em, send 'em, give 'em to whomever you choose. You can flag them up on your WOYWW post on the day, every post between now and the day, keep them for private swapping. Whatever suits you.

Enjoy. Don't participate if you can't, or don't want to, it's not the law and you will not lose your valuable (ahem) status as a desker! It's just a bit of fun to mark a ridiculous anniversary, no pressure.

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday? 359

Be upstanding, ladies and jellyspoons, my desk is involved with crafting again!

And therefore back to it's normal state. What a relief! In between these horrid bouts of lethargy, I've made three cards! I think I've also settled on my ATCs for the anniversary, but I haven't yet tried to put my idea on card, so it definitely remains to be seen! My desk is post preparation for a workshop - you can see empty stamp packets and the A5 trimmer is a give away; cutting mounts and bits of card for labels and things is so much easier in the sunshine. Well, it was sunny....now it's very late Tuesday and I've decided to schedule this.  My iPad deckchair is showing remnant cards that I've abandoned; I will go back to them or cut them up or something, they aren't wasted. They just didn't match what was in my head. Again.
Just behind the cutter are two small dies that I picked up for £1 - would have been rude not to, huh. They are waiting to be put away and have been on my desk for about a week. I will not learn!
Share your workspaces will ya? Much more inspiring surfaces they are, and we all need to see 'em!
Put WOYWW in your post title and link here. Nothing to it.

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 358

The anniversary is week 364, 25th may. The ATC Swap circle will be the thing. I will post about it soon.
My desk doesn't look very different; suffice to say that I'm still working on the first tax return of three. It takes a while anyway, but this year it's taking an age....must remember to tell Mr Dunnit not to make more than a living next year! Of course this fatigue doesn't help, but I'm being quite patient about it; it is what it is!

Oh it's a sad sight....

I spend most of my evening chair time on the embroidery or playing memory puzzles....I'm getting paranoid about my memory! The embroidery is slow to grow, but it was never for anything specific and I've learned to avoid making promises when it comes to finishing stuff!

So, blame the tax returns for an uninteresting desk again, and hope that my one job at a time thing sees a return to form for next week - I've got ATCs to make!
Join us anyway..post a pic of your workspace on your blog and link it here, I need the inspiration!

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 357

Listen up Deskers, the anniversary will be on WOYWW 364, by my calculations, that'll be 25th May. We'll do the ATC swap circle thingy. To prevent 8 million questions, I'll make a page for this blog with a Q&A about it. No changes anticipated though, so if you've taken part before, you already know what to do and when!
Meanwhile, here's a sight.....

Here's my desk before I got a grip and tidied up. Believe it or not, it didn't take long to get to wood and empty space! I had to tidy so I could use the desk for month end and the painful beginnings of tax returns. It's that time again, already!

Anyway, to keep me from being craft deprived, as you know, I keep something next to my armchair too. I'm bored with crochet so have gone waaaaay back to my craft roots with some embroidery. I'm not great at it, but that's OK - it's meant to be fun! I love this print, was a little worried that it was too thick an outline initially, but as nothing I do involves finesse, it's OK. I got this from the Zenbroidery section of www.smallscrafts.co.uk. I know that is blatant publicity, but it might save me a lot of emails and I am a bit slow to answer these days. 

Now, please join me, show and tell about what's in your space of work right now. Upload to your blog, put WOYWW in the post title and link it here. Bob will be your Uncle.

Stcky business

My very good friend Laura is one of those people that you want to be. She has time for everything but seemingly no time at all - works full time, has a young family, boundless energy..you know. She crochets and sews as the mood takes her. Her forte, for me, is the papercraft. Her scrapbooking is what I would call sublime. She has been quite an influence on my pages, especially over the last couple of years. I dare not call it style. There's one thing though, that I've resisted and resisted until last month.

Glue.

I get it, and as you can see from my to hand sticky collection, I do use it. I stick on tiny embellishments and fabric-y things, lacy bits and tricky die cuts. But only if I have to. I watch gals at workshops using glue like a pro and I wish I did. It buys you a few seconds to straighten stuff up And then I do, and then I get covered in it and my work looks like nursery school stuff. I use too much and end up with globs on the side of whatever it is, fingerprints and smear marks. I use less and the damn thing (whatever it is) doesn't stick. It's a bit of a nightmare for me. Last month though I deliberately chose glue as a scrapbooking adhesive because Laura uses it all the time. And frankly, she powers through a LO and I want to, too. I may be in my fifties, but I am very, very childish about these things.

Crispy, weird finish LO. Left edge is there, I just cant make anything straight at the mo!

Well, it didn't make me any faster, obviously. Nor frankly, did it make me a super LO maker - no surprise there! Yesterday I finally filed the LOs I made at that crop. They were crispy. That's the lasting effect I can tell you about. The rest of my experience was very normal. No one noticed or commented; after all,  I wasn't doing anything unusual really. Only stepping out of my comfort zone! S no, the grass wasn't grrener and yes, I'm a tape gal. But glue will always have it's place. Just not as my 'go to' adhesive. And certainly not in my heart; more all over my fingers.