What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 573

Congratulations one and all, last week was a triumph, what a great way to mark our eleventh anniversary! Loved seeing and reading the stories behind some very old, not so old and new intentions that IWOYWWs anniversary may have pushed you into! I admire you all enormously for making and then taking the time, thank you. And I hope you all feel really good about yourselves for the achievement! 

Talking of achievement, my desk was tidied ready for a card making day (mindful of the UFO snowmen, see), but I didn’t get to them. Shopkeeper Gal has been working really hard creating workshops and delivering or posting them, so I went through my most recent delivery to ‘do’ the cards and have the nice surprise of discovering what I’d ordered to go along with the workshop! That’s that thing about seeing good samples and delivery to your door...you just say yes and forget about it till it arrives! There were three dies, so I had a pang of guilt about that for a couple of minutes and resolved to do some extra housework. You can see my newly altered bin, in full use. The smaller pot with the feathers on is already getting on my nerves because since I untangled the spare die cuts and put them into a little photo album, (thank you for the idea, Kelly, you genius gal), I don’t need it so much. Watch that space! There’s a large scallop shape at the far end of the table which is an ‘edger’ shaper from Bramble Fox, also new. I know, now you’re starting to feel a bit embarrassed for me aren’t you, the guilt is appalling. It will stop soon, I shall need all my spending money for when the hairdressers are allowed to re-open! 

Please join us in a look at busy desks here and there. Put WOYWW in your post title, link your post here and put the kettle on. I wonder if we’ll still be doing this in another handful of years!

Lockdown

In this Time of Pandemic, lockdown has forced a few changes (!) and for me, one or two of them have been positives. One of those is that I’ve never seen so much of The Coven. We usually try to get together once a month for a pub supper and catch up, and once a month we all go to the Artful Angels crop. as you know though, gentle reader, we gals have to be flexible and it’s sometimes 3 months before we can all be together either at Crop or in a pub. That’s real life, innit.

Over the last eight or nine weeks though, we’ve managed at the least, to get together online once a week to craft whilst we chat . It means that I’ve disciplined myself to be ready for the call, and have done many more scrapbook pages than I would have normally in two months! I’ve also sorted through some old photos and been ‘inspired’ to use them. You can tell they’re old because in some cases, the colour in the picture is decidedly iffy, and other big clues like the fact that you know already that our baby gal is actually a grown woman who chooses not live with her Mummy and Daddy anymore. 

I’ve also been using my Basic Grey collections. They no longer make/print scrapbook papers and I think I felt it might be wrong to use them. But of course, I’ve seen the light. Even if I use them, they’re still in my possession after all. This may be subtle way of saying you may never get a card made with scraps of BG from me! They are, in the main, frighteningly busy patterns, which makes me sort of shut my eyes and just get on with it! I’m still scrapping in that one photo format, it clearly is my formula. although these pics are old, I also think that I’m aware that this is my formula because despite digital photography and that thing where you take 10 pictures of the same thing because you can, I often don’t now. Subliminally unable to cope with the choices I end up with!

I’ve made quite a pile since The Coven began meeting once a week. When this is all over, some sort of ‘normal’ returns and my furloughed friends have to return to their real days, I wonder if I’ll miss this feature of lockdown? I would very much like the opportunity to find out!

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 572

572. That’s a ridiculous ELEVEN years. The WOYWW years are not in any way related to our growing up years. They can’t be, I’m not eleven years older; I can’t be, the weeks go so quickly that I’m not keeping up! There is a community here and especially now, during this Time of the Pandemic it’s important to me, I hope it is for you too. From the heart of my bottom, I thank you for every single post and every single comment. 

Meanwhile....there’s a desk and a challenge. 

 This is yesterday’s desk. I was on the phone for a while and decided it would be a good chance to attack another UFO, so I coloured the snowmen. I wonder how long it will be before they find themselves on a card. More interesting....can you see, just visible to the right of the big orange scissor handles, there’s three large chocolate buttons. They aren’t there now, obvs. They are the new Cadbury’s milky dark chocolate. Absolutely delicious, smooth creamy dark chocolate, not bitter or harsh. Definitely a new favourite. There’s a geo tag cut file slung in the basket, I made a LO yesterday and thought the cut file would make a perfect background. Most of it didn’t make it onto the page. And then there’s a sneak peek of my challenge UFO...

It started life as the cotton bud tub you have seen on my desk many times with it’s fellow, the hot choc tub.

Well, ignoring the tray full of flip flops and thong thingys, I generously coated these tubs with gesso. Took two days to dry type of generous. Forgot to take a photo, obv. Then I painted them with blue and then random strokes of green sparkle paint (the one that gets all over my skin, including my face...I was nothing if not intrepid for this challenge.) 

Betcha you can’t see a single shimmer or sparkle, can you? I honestly don’t know why I bother. Meanwhile, I expertly moulded some feathers and stars with my incredible moulding foam, detailed moulds and another day to dry. Yawn. I used a creme shimmer thing by Cosmic Shimmer people to burnish the moulded shapes and then I glued ‘em on. Tip...silicone glue makes the paint go black. I don’t know why but it looked horrid, so I changed to regular PVA and sunshine. Oh and some pegs to save my little fingers after the first star. And because you know, patience.

...ta na...two useful tubs, altered to be two useful tubs! With huge thanks to Marit’s Dutch Summer and Szaszu for the inspiration and you, gentle desker, for the motivation.

 Can’t wait to see what you all managed. I should add here that dragging out and working on a UFO is a great thing to do...but don’t be stressing about finishing it...the whole point is that you’re doing it! 

Show off and tell then, and erm, drinks are on me. Happy Anniversary!

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 571

Believe it or not, this is a scheduled post, I’m actually busy first thing this morning. I’ll explain after you’ve seen my desk. As it still is, actually. I thought I’d get more done before I had to photograph it, but something else distracted me.

I was chatting online and crafting at the same time. Clever, huh! As you can see, my lovely easy to use moulding foam and a couple of moulds are in use. And can you see the jar of gesso under the iPad? Well, all three items are to do with next week and the Anniversary Challenge which some fool came up with. Good grief, I could very easily not be ready. I’ve changed my mind about exactly which UFO to tackle so many times! There’s evidence also from Saturday’s garden work. As in, I sat in the garden and fussy cut everything you can see in the blue tidy tray. It’s a lot of flip flops stamped on patterned scraps and the thongy bits that hurt the gap between your big and next toe are cut out separately. I’m just steeling myself to glue them all together now; I had this idea to use silicone on the thongy bits to get a bit of dimension, but I need the will to do it. There’s also a sheet of images that I stamped and embossed on Sunday, waiting to be coloured. So that’s another set of UFOs right there! There’s a hair band on the table too. Abandoned because I realise after using it that it’s not the fringe/sides getting long that irritate me. It’s the way it curls and sticks out around my neck that’s driving me nuts. It’s all part of the growing out process so I won’t be taking up offers or ideas for cutting. Just whining. 

So I’m out early today to collect my car because it had to be towed away after some idiot filled it with unleaded petrol instead of Diesel. And then drove it nearly a mile before the missing and bumping made me her realise why. Because it was filled from empty and because modern cars are fitted with anti-syphon technology, the whole fuel tank had to be removed in order to drain it and start again. So that record of going 9 weeks on one tank of fuel? Slightly bu**ered by extraneous costs! 

So now, join us do; in celebrating lockdown and being well by showing us what you’ve been up to. If you aren’t well or need a chat, say so please. And if you’re getting better, we celebrate you.

No change here

Our Prime Minister has asked us to stay at home if we can, go to work if it’s necessary and safe to do so. Whatever the media and the critics say then, no great changes were announced.  So, to stay well, no change here then. 

                                                                     Except, loads of things are changing.

The cherry trees blossomed under blue April skies and reminded us that the weather was unprecedented and  not to be taken for granted. 

Then I changed my walk to take in some changes in the woods. The bluebells and wild garlic completely change the groundscape.

And my red Peony and scarlet poppy have grown themselves stacks of buds. So there’s a rather spectacular change coming there.

And, apart from some plinths and a lot of tiles, the new kitchen is finished. Well I say finished. There’s a snagging list as long as my arm because Mr Dunnit is a perfectionist. It involves taking off all the doors and worktops so I’m enjoying this space before it changes again!

Change isn’t bad. It’s not always good. But it is always happening. Sometimes you have to make the change. I’m almost grateful that the rest of this house now needs attention. One change I can’t deal with is Mr Dunnit with nothing to do!

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 570

It’s extra super whizzday isn’t it! My word, I thought that we were meant to be a bit fed up and bored by now? Obviously not enough of us are, because even these lockdown weeks are speeding past. I hope they are for you; if you’re having one of the fed up days, reach out. I’m very confident that any of us are up for a chat either by typing or speaking! Anyway, here’s a long shot, incorporating the top layer of my lovely, uber useful trolley.

You’d never know it, but I’ve used so many more scraps since I transferred them. Mind you, it’s been during lockdown that I’ve done loads of scrapbooking and created more scraps! You can see there’s a finished LO on the desk, and considering how busy a LO it is, it’s a minor miracle that I’ve kept the desk so tidy. Laziness really, the boxes of embellishments and other stash are all on the floor under the desk and even picking them up, let alone going through them and making decisions seemed like hard work....so I used what was knocking about on the desk surface.  You can judge..

Yep, more from the WOYWW Anniversary Crop last year. And, talking of Anniversary......number 11 is week 572 already my life. So in these strange times, I am setting you a challenge which you can read about in the previous post HERE.

Now, usual rules apply here, please share your desk by blogging about it. put WOYWW in your post title, exclude blatant promotion and link here. Thank you very much!