What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 508

I thought it was a bit gloomy, so I’ve enhanced the photo - I selected ‘dramatic’ as the preferred colour. Well of course I did. Everything now looks really grainy but bright; believe me, although it is light, it’s not that sunny here just yet! As soon as Mr Dunnit has left for work, my desk will become a preparation area for workshop kits for tomorrow. (Because he’s using the printer and spreading papers around...you know what I mean..) At the moment, it shows last night’s feeble attempt at some scrapbooking. I’m not sure if it was the photo or the papers, but by the time I’d got around to deciding what to do, it all felt a bit lack lustre so I abandoned it. 

That lovely bag with ‘the coven’ on it was a gift at our Coven Crop weekend away. It’s going to be useful, I plan that it will hold glue pens, glue sticks, glue bottles, tape and foam pads when I go to crops which won’t half free up my little Jan made tote for scissors, glasses and real hardware! I see three pairs of glasses which isn’t any surprise at all, the pair on top should be by the computer screen, and the other two belong on the table - two strengths depending on the light! Seriously, a string round my neck with the glasses on won’t work, I’d need to wear about four for an average day! Anyway, enough drivel, blog, post and link please, I need some less lacklustre desks to visit!

Sunday. In sentences.

This morning was bright and quite lovely for the time of year. It changed my plan. I was going to skulk about and do housework stuff till after lunchtime and then sit at my desk an immerse myself in something involving colouring and cutting. I don’t quite know what I was going to make, but my stock of cards is very low. And I need a stock. Because I’m so last minute that I can’t actually plan to send a card. Anyway, the sunshine made me fickle. I put on my wellies, picked up the secateurs, did a lot of dramatic huffing and puffing to get the garden waste bin out of the garage and into the garden and set about a bit of tidying. I consulted the RHS website and pruned. I cleared the dead wood from erm, some bushes. I revealed a frog who scared me almost as much as I scared him. I picked up all the fallen branches from next door’s beautiful weeping laburnum. And then, like a fool, I sat in the lounger whilst trying to determine whether the grass was dry enough to cut. Apparently, this took me about half an hour because Mr Dunnit came home and found me lounging in the sun! We had a coffee and a sandwich outside, it was glorious. So then we sat a while. He got all fidgety and wanted to get on with something, which made me feel guilty. So I gave up and came in and pottered about a bit. Then I decided on a big old roast supper, so prepared that. Sat at my desk and pushed stuff around for about an hour. Not hugely productive on the card front.....but, in the spirit of a lovely sunny day, there is a sunset tradition to uphold.....

Hope your week starts well. 

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 507

Well I’m sorry to say it’s a bit boring. All the crafting has taken place elsewhere! I went away with The Coven for a couple of days of scrapbooking and eating and chatting. My desk this morning proves that I haven’t unpacked yet. And I came home on Sunday evening, so you are allowed to be shocked or mildly irritated, or just plain resigned. 

That lovely black box is gilded and silvered by hand, and now contains the photos I want to scrap. The very dear friend that gave it to me also included dividers so that I too could organise the photos by subject or year or occasion. Or in my case, not at all. Another epic fail, but it is lovely to have the pictures in a box instead of a variety of processor lab wallets! There’s also four little packets of Dolly Mixtures that I picked up yesterday, to put in my Mum’s sweetie jar when I go and visit at lunch time. Other than that, there is little happening. But that will change, not least because there’s a card deadline looming. Oh how inspiring a deadline can be!

Sorry about the missing Linky last week...way too high a temperature to think straight when posting in advance! It should all work this week. So link please, share and tell. 

What's On Your Workdesk? Wedeneday 506

Untouched by human had since Sunday..

You could be forgiven for thinking that you're seeing double, and you are! I'm working on cards for a workshop using some fun and a couple of snarky stamps, and I like them. So decided to make two of each. The pleasant looking woman in her dressing gown (next to the sticky tape) are images destined for the bin, badly coloured and too heavy. You can just see the edge of a card with a doily on it at right, this pleasant woman appears on that, but coloured differently. Impressively for me, only one pair of glasses and one pair o of scissors are visible. Good going. I haven't been anywhere near the old desk since then, struck down, almost literally, on Sunday evening with a temperature and a cough that destroyed Monday; this is scheduled on Tuesday because I'm very confident that I wont be up at the normal working time tomorrow! Am very pleased that I can't spread these germs on the interweb! Determined that Wednesday will be a little more productive, so please link in when you've blogged about our desk! I thank you.

Snippets....

I follow a few blogs (thousands) and try to keep up to date. So this is late. 

End of last month, Darnell posted on her blog that she’d arranged a surprise blog hop to thank and celebrate Miss Di who is amazing and has been successfully running the Playground at Pixie’s Crafty Workshop  for seven years - and those years having taken over the management when it was already 8 years old. What a brilliant record for encouraging people to make nice stuff with their ‘snippets’. Scraps to you and me. Go visit, you’ll be amazed. By way of tribute, I used snippets to make a whole scrapbook page at the weekend.

I like it. Just as well, I can confidently say that it took longer to make up than any other LO! I got bored by about tag number 3 but was committed by then..... none of the patterned papers were whole, all came from my scraps box. And the embellishments were all from the I-never-use-these-so-why-am-I-keeping-them department. So I’m starting to get it, this snippets thing, very satisfying. There have been several ‘stash busting’ challenges on Facebook recently, but I find that they involve layers of different patterned papers. Don’t get me wrong, I love a layer or five. But I create more scraps by ‘busting’ my patterned papers in such a way. Argh, yes. But also...note to self, pull your brain out of the scrap box and look at Pixies challenges too. Simple, surely? Watch this space. And if you can, show us some of your snippet usage. Of course, my motives in asking are dishonourable....I want your ideas! Thanks ever so!

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 505

I had to schedule this, and it’s very dark outside at this time on a Tuesday night! 

 This desk has been more interesting and more untidy. 

But, it is what it is. Until later that is. Then it will be a card making factory. Ha ha. Saying that is a guaranteed mojo blocker! It’s been a month end and VAT return this week (VAT is a UK sales tax that we have to organise quarterly). It’s weird that the desk isn’t covered in paperwork and accounts books huh? Yep, the tax office will now only accept online returns using certain brands of software, so I’ve been on another huge learning curve as I shift our company accounts to digital. Man some of it has not been intuitive!! 

The sign of hope is the scan and cut cutting mat. I scrubbed it with soap and water, scraped it clean with a scraper thing and it’s ready to add more sticky to it. It will e the third time I’ve done it, each application lasts less because I’m using it so much more. hurrah!

Hey, join us in the looking at each other’s blogs and desks will ya? Put WOYWW in you blog post title and link here. That would be marvellous, thank you.

Those lumps of wood

This may not make any sense to you because I live with a craftsman who can make lovely furniture. The two lumps of oak that were on my desk on Wednesday are shelves, or more precisely, lifts! They do a particular job of raising up two of my most used items.

I've had it in my mind to do something to them for ages, as they were (as I asked) literally picked out of the offcuts pile, not re-sanded or finished in any other way. I was feeling all organic and naturel in my interior design moment I guess. Anyway, my other love is bone china. The Japanese repair breaks and cracks by mixing glue and gold leaf together and making the fissure obvious. Well, thought I, splits in oak are really no different...

It wasn't my intention to fill the splits...not least because I don't have that many gilding flakes - but to accentuate them and if possible, make them prettier. The old Duo glue once again proved it's worth. I brushed it on..not altogether carefully or sparingly, then tipped on the flakes. At this point I stopped breathing because they go everywhere....
Tamp it down with a stencil brush, brush off the excess. Turn chunk around, repeat. Easy.

There is no good angle to shoot the photos - the snow makes everything too light! But you can see the gold if you concentrate.

And here they are in situ, being shelves. The mirror I've no doubt you understand about instantly, but the jewellery tree? I searched quite long and hard for a plain style tree to hang my most used necklaces upon, twisted chains put me off wearing them. But it really did bug me that the 'tree' wasn't tall enough for the necklaces to actually hang! No idea why. Probably for the same reason that odd lumps of unfinished, slightly gilded lumps of oak cluttering up his house make Mr Dunnit's teeth itch!