Get a cuppa,

and do what I did last night...........nothing particularly shocking but oh my, well overdue; and I'm guessing it's the same for the majority of scrapbook and journal crafters.

I'm conducting a Workshop tomorrow morning and wanted to take a couple of my scrapbook pages with me in an amateur attempt to illustrate what we're going to be doing. I have, since about 2003, amassed all of 4 completely full albums and I have another couple with LOs in that I did for product demo purposes and so haven't quite got my head round whether they are really 'mine'!

We are all our own worst critic I'm sure, and although lots of us blog lots of the things that we make, I think we are all still relatively modest. It's a nice thing. So imagine trying to pick just a couple of LOs to have to show off. It forces you to look deep into the abyss of your collection I can tell you! And guess what? I really enjoyed myself. The lovelies were in the same room watching TV and eventually had to give in and join me in the exclamations and 'remember this' type remarks. Truly, I've scrapped, looked at the page for a few minutes, possibly photographed it to put on this blog and then put it in an album, and I can't remember the last time I looked through them. I've flicked impatiently through one or other album looking for something in particular to show (as at Christmas when Miss Dunnit's Godparents wanted to see the Prom layouts). Set aside the massive differences in your 'style' then and now, and the creeping use of embellishments and computer aided stuff, that's another post entirely. It was a pleasure, and collectively, we enjoyed the re-visiting of some really special stuff, and perhaps for me, more importantly, we laughed at some very everyday stuff too. The power of scrapbooks. Somewhat diluted if you don't look over them once in a while. Make a resolution to do it this weekend. Go on. Have a lovely time.

The card - made with Papermania papers and stamps from Stampington & Co.

Two states of shock

Here's the first state of shock: I've been slightly up against it this week in terms of desk time, and what do I manage? Not the printing or instructions for a workshop this weekend, and certainly not the mini album project sample for my friend Janet at Japonica in Exmouth. Not the correct number of tree cards to make up a workshop. No. Instead, a challenge card for Christmas. And that despite the fact that I have nothing stamp or image wise to meet the criteria (Gingerbread). So I had to cut out and draw my own. Don't look too closely - I think they're a little manic! Anyway, the card goes into the collection that will save me hours in December (!) and Susie and Vikki's challenge is the erm, richer, for another entry!

And so to the second shock: If you're a regular visitor here, you'll know about Wednesday and WOYWW and the sort of blog hop it causes. It's lovely, and getting lovelier, frankly. I'm in a state of shock over yesterday though - 58 comments meant about 54 desks to visit - and all very interesting to me. It is a great opportunity to 'pimp' your blog, and we all love visitors and comments - well I do - so keep it in the spirit of the circlecultthing, huh? It's fun, it's a bit crazy and it doesn't matter at all. The only membership card is the button you can pick off here and you don't get a discount..you might pick up some customers but mostly and more importantly, you're likely to stumble on a friend. This blogging thing. Shocking good!

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday

Taken in the dark this morning, so not a bad attempt I think! As you can see, I've been playing with the Basic Grey papers 'Origins'. I love 'em. But as usual, they scare me to death. I love the double sided-ness - especially as a lot of them have grids and blocks on and I'm a sucker for anything office-y. I'm not sure there's much else of interest to be honest - a new set of stamps (for me) by Kanban of all people, and the image on the card-in-progress is one of them...so far so nice. You can see my patterned paper scrap box at top left. Again, since I stopped throwing them in flat and have them all standing up nicely, they are much easier to flick through and access and so are being relatively well used - very well used if you consider the lack of use because of the previous storage option. Now, Shopkeeper Gal has suggested we swing our cameras a bit, and show our top drawers next week as well. I will. But only if you will too. And of course, by top drawer, I mean another part of your working space...like the sofa, Ann!

'This is where I'm going with the green cord'

If you joined the WOYWWers last week, you'll know a little about this fabric project already. Of course, my gifted and waaaay more patient sister Stephanie seems to be winning in the organised sibling stakes too. This was waiting in the inbox this morning for WOYWW. I'm impressed. At the organisation sure, but hugely and mostly at the colour-the-cord-yourself-and-then-go-to-the-trouble-of-sewing-it-around-the-existing-patterns. Wow, that Steph sure got the patience gene!

Join the madness then, so we can all trot around and see what you're currently working on. And what you've got. And how tidy you are. These seem to be the three things we all like to find out about each other! Photo your surface, put it on your blog (with a disclaimer if you feel it's untidy!) and leave a comment here. Then put the kettle on. Quite a few of us will be around for a rummage! There's a button in the left side bar if you want to go public as a member of this circlecultthing!

Celebrating the difference

What's not to like about a workshop or a crop? A couple of hours, half a day, or if you're lucky, a full day to try something, product, technique, style that you might not otherwise try.
Immerse yourself in a crafty community for a while, meet new people, paint, cut, stick, chat. And coffee, tea and biscuits sometimes. It's all good.
So recently and locally, I did this 'decorating the jumbo peg' workshop - if you visit here even vaguely regularly, you'll have seen a few of them. There was a point before Christmas when I couldn't stop doing them - and they made great stocking fillers!

These pegs were made by some of the workshopeers. And ultimately, this is what I love about an unstructured 'project' based workshop. Everyone has access to the same stuff, paper, products, blahdy blah, and yet everyone comes up with something different. I love that. And frequently I find it a further inspiration. The aqua coloured paint for example, really set alarms off for some retro ideas, not necessarily pegs, and it hadn't occurred to me to use black paint as a foil for those perfect epoxy stickers. Once the decision to keep or give away the peg was made, we all used different messages. I made another during the course of the morning that used small foam alpha stickers, and because it was finally destined for my workroom, it says 'do this'. I don't want to be too polite to myself, any excuse to procrastinate! There were several pegs that ended up saying 'do it'. And I encouraged those gals to put 'do' and it' on separate lines.....you don't want to squash it on and have some smart-arm asking what a 'doit' is, do you!

Lynn, in a timely message, was telling me about a gift catalogue that's selling regular wooden pegs covered with a strip of paper. Once again, craft life becomes real life. I love that.

Photos were taken with my phone..as if that's an excuse for them not even being up to my usual bad standard. Miss Dunnit tells me that my phone (I use it to text, make calls and take the odd photo in that order) is a better MP3 player than most on the market - apparently, the ability to text and phone from it is secondary to its other functions. They ought to come up with one that has a built in photographer if they're so damn clever then, huh!

The thing is..

These pages are from the 12 of 16 - really appreciate all your comments about it, I must say, you made me feel very noble about something I started without much forethought! It's a teeny album (6x6), so it feels like I'm doing loads at a time - you'll be sick of them soon!

I'm easing myself into a week of being away from my desk more than I'll be able to sit at it. And I know two things will come from this. One : I'll be uber inspired, everywhere I look there'll be ideas; architecture will prove to me that patterns that don't match can still go together, the strange decor of public buildings will give me colour inspiration and I'll come up with a handful of the best ideas I've ever had for workshops, crop challenges and the like. And Two: I'll be mega efficient when I can get to my desk, I hope. See, I'm not a night bird, I cannot complete a busy day and then stay up all night because I'm inspired. That doesn't work for me - I've tried. I had that romantic notion about artists working alone in cold garrets, lonely but creative. Well, what happens is that I spend ages getting ready to be an artist - tidying, making a cuppa, finding a decent CD or radio station to keep me company. Then I get cold and fidgety and nothing even vaguely crafty happens, so I have to go to bed. It's better, really, because it means that I'm not over sensitive and whining all of the following day!
So me and my notebook are stepping out. I've learned to make proper notes too - if I want my inspiration to be of any use to me back in my work room, I need to be able to read my own writing and have more than one stupid word to remember the idea from. I'm not after inspiring prompts here, I'm going to be penning the full on descriptions. Wish me luck. And ask to see the results in a handful of months!

Read these numbers

There's a bunch of really great sounding, year long scrapbook 'classes' available online at the moment; the turn of the year always brings these and this year there seems to be a trend towards using numbers instead of words for a title. Me likeee. And in the true tradition of my position as 'follower', I've started this here mini album and imaginatively entitled it '12 of 16'. Bit of background then? Hell yes, this is me doing the typing! I am one of four sisters and we lived abroad with parents who believed in the joy of travel - there must have been kerjillions of photos. But tragedy struck and on one of many house moves back in the day, a crate containing albums photos and keepsakes was lost. It was probably on a ship in a container with crates belonging to other families, containing much more important stuff, but for us it has proven a real loss. Anyway, to counter that, and because digital photography has drastically reduced the cost of such lunacy, I encourage Miss Dunnit to take a camera (and use it) whenever she's out and about with chums.
And generally she does. So this little album will show some of the silly and lovely shots that she's taken over her sixteenth year. I'm mostly using Basic Grey's Sugar Rush (because I like it) and will keep journalling (by me) to a minimum. When I told her what I planned, Miss Dunnit was as usual, luke warm about me using her photos, doing another album, blah blah...but since I finished a couple pages and she can see the sort of direction of it, she likes it! She might even do some journalling herself. But don't hold your collective breath on my behalf. 'Might' and 'in a minute' are added to anything I ask of her these days! Have a good weekend.

Through the Window Thursday

No really, I'm kidding. I just thought that as Carmen picked up on my idle threat yesterday, it would be fun to announce it. It's not going to happen - photos of my car parked outside the house or of the back garden showing off its lack of attention every week, nah - not exactly thrillsville, huh, and certainly no allowance for nosiness and rummaging on your desks! At this morning's workshop, prompted by me of course (it is all about me, after all), we had quite a discussion about work desks/spaces. My friends Mrs Precision and The Colonial were there. Shopkeeper Gal too of course, we were in her shop after all. She pointed out that The Colonial has a lot of stuff. A lot. Too much for the spare room; the garage has become her craft room storage facility. Well, I celebrate that....that's an impressive amount of stuff. Even if it takes a lifetime to use, it's still lovely to have it, isn't it! So there we were chattering about working spaces and another friend who used to craft at her dining table. And would religiously tidy, put away, clean and hoover after each session to restore her dining room to its customary precision state. This lady has, over the years, chastised all of us for being untidy; I swear her favourite part of the workshop is the bit at the end when she grabs cups to wash up and starts emptying bins. Anyway, turns out that relatively recently, Chatty Woman moved her stash into the spare bedroom, set up her desk and started to craft. And now her desk looks like most of ours; she's working on a space roughly the size of a large cutting mat and is surrounded by the 'stuff' that she's using. And then she leaves it like that. Because she can. I'm not scoffing or point scoring here - (well, OK, maybe some points please) but it turns out that given the opportunity, most of us are like that. Mrs Precision summed it up perfectly: she said it's the 'real comfort zone'. Totally.