OK, so I'm a large behind..

Apart from checking that my scheduled post for yesterday actually happened, I seem to have only had about 5 minutes at the computer in the last handful of days. Seriously, I need to get a to do list for my lists. No stress nor nuffink, just more to do than I can, clearly! I am late thanking Paula for an award; she said some terrible lies about me in her acceptance speech and worse, she seems to understand me a bit - sort of knows already that I ain't going to bore you to death with any more of my trivia lists! You should read hers though, her antics at 'work' are great fun, or naughty - if you work at MI5!!
In lieu of the trivia lists, and because I forgot to photo my watch collection, I'm going to answer some questions that have popped up as comments:

1. Being born in Hong Kong makes me erm, British. My papa was in the army see, and did a two year 'tour'. Frightfully un-exotic!

2. I don't eat seafood because I'm a foolish, squeamish 'eat-with-the-eyes' type of gal; fish looks somehow so like, well, fish. Head, poppy-out eyes, and worse, shells, eyes on stalks..oh lordy. This makes me peculiar even in my own family. I know.

3. This morning, I got a bit down and dirty with paper glue and ink. Can't show you yet, but I will. And I should tell you, that this whole altering problem....yep. Clearly it's because I don't like the waiting time for drying!

4. This is Ginny's comment. It is one of the most profound comments ever left on this blog:
'as to the "basic" kit...I'm sure there's a LOT of things here I wouldn't bother to replace but there is still sooooooooooooo much I just HAVE to have...'
To which I'd like to add: Bejeweller, anyone?

5. The garden bin is fine Rosie, and not at all neglected. Following a day of sunshine, it is currently digesting a Christmas tree. A return to photographic glory is not guaranteed.

6. And finally. If you're going to be at Japonica's Workshop day next Monday, please say hi in the comments. Then next week when I tell you the story in photos, we'll know you! And I might tell the story about me and Janet and the photo saga.

Gah - forgot to add that the card is made using Kanban's clear stamps and Basic Grey Origins papers. But you knew that. They've been all over my desk in pieces for a couple of weeks!

Sticking Pins in...

Here's a card featuring the Daring Cardmaker's challenge. Aquamarine. I must be honest and say that I did not for one minute consider the deeper meanings of the colour, the stone or its origins. I was simply moved to use this lovely paper and make a card. See: sometimes, all I need is the smallest nudge. And then you only have to suffer a short paragraph of the how and the why. Yeah. No! I originally intended this card would be for my sweet mother-in-law next weekend. But the inclusion of the pin instantly rules that out. Even though cards will stand on a shelf at least a foot taller than her younger grandchildren, and even though both of the 'little 'uns' are well trained not to touch, she will perceive untold peril in having a stray pin within a forty metre radius. So before even opening the card, she'd be trying to pull the pin out - which would, inevitably cause the embellishments to fall off and the card would be spoiled. Then she'd tell me what a nice card it is and could I please save the lives of her younger grandchildren by doing something safe with the pin. Like - ooh I don't know, swallow it. Do anything as long as you remove the danger! Honest. That's pretty much how it would go. Miss Dunnit is one of her 4 grandchildren, so I'm au-fait with her caring levels when it comes to her children's children. The youngest is nearly 3. Grandma still tries to put cushions over the corners of her coffee table, just in case. I bet she thinks my generation of mothers are a bunch of slackers! The best and easiest way to handle this sort of stress inducing behaviour is to avoid it. And so I shall keep this card for something else and make another, more safety inclined one for her Mother's Day greeting. I expect a lot of you are thinking that it should therefore go to my sainted Mother. It can't. Despite my pleasure at the presence of that long pin on the card, I'm not sure I wanna post it. What do you do - post and be damned? (or worse, arrested!?) I'd be mortified if Gorgeous Gordon was wounded in any way in his diligent and cheerful delivery of my post. Do you double wrap, bubble wrap or disarm? I need to know. Before last post for Mother's Day. Advice please.

Are ya free on May 15th? 2 Scrap Ladies had a committee meeting today and that's the date. The Clockhouse project. More during this week and full details at the weekend. Yikes.

Here's one of yesterday's cards. Tree made from Nestabilities shapes and the owl is part of a stamp set by Dovecraft. And just so we're clear - it is an owl, standing on a branch. Not a sheep. Or a frog. Because I don't have the imagination to put anything other than a bird in a tree, see. Other stamps by Hero Arts and papers from Basic Grey and Core'dinations.

It's Ludgershall Crop tomorrow. You will probably understand when I tell you that I turned the computer on about an hour and half ago, ostensibly to print some photos. Haven't been off the web yet, so suddenly the time thing is going to be an issue again! How come this interweb thing - which I so enjoy - means that every other job, chore or 'thing' ends up being done in a hurry? I don't get it. I thought that having a baby was the biggest soaker-upper of time ever in the world. But she was born pre-internet-in-nearly-every-house. Imagine how neglected they'd be if I had babies now! Or would I just be a really media savvy well informed Mum? Hmmm, no need to answer that. I wanted to thank you for your responses to my iPhone lunacy - I really need you to understand the lunacy part of it. Like: unless I suddenly move into a job that involves a public transport type of commute, I know that I won't ever use it as an MP3 player. I already know too that I won't use the 'notes' section. Like: at this stage I can't see my downloading an 'App' for anything. Like: the keyboard's small-ish and hugely touch sensitive-ness is already driving me nuts. I will definitely go on doing what I always did - phoning and messaging. Because that's really all I 'need' it for. And in case you thought that having the iPhone is all about me showing off to you - no, definitely not. The showing off part was the almost loving, romantic part of the acquisition...not the actual 'objet'. It's about letting me think I am cool. And I know that you are generous enough to allow me this delusion.

Have a super weekend.

Romancing the phone

Of course, there's background. I'll try and be brief. Don't count on it. About fifty years ago when Apple produced the first iPod, I whinged and moaned and generally made life unbearable enough till Mr Dunnit bought me one for my birthday. People, this is pre 'iPod Classic' day I'm talking about. We still had dial up internet. The itunes store was a thing of the future in Great Britain. And to be honest, the motivation for my desire was much more about how totaly COOL I would be if I had an iPod. I have to say that the iPod packaging in terms of design and function were to me quite, quite sublime. It took me almost two days to open the thing completely; I was so unhappy about spoiling it! And then I discovered my inner Luddite. Turns out that I found listening to music in public was incredibly inconvenient and a bit anti-social. Turns out that I felt a bit foolish. Especially as the uber cool control dial and 'touch' operation was so easy that I simply couldn't remember how to use it if I didn't practice daily. And then I managed to change the language setting to Japanese...and it took ages of just 'touch and guess' to change it back...(I was way too embarrased to ask for help!) - eventually it turned into French and I was at least able to follow screen indicators back to English. It was at this time that really I discovered that Apple saying that something is easy is not really in my-line-of-vision 'easy'. They pre-suppose that I know waaaaaay more than I do about computers, technology and well, everything really, even the wires. So Miss Dunnit inherited my Toy of Cool and she was incredibly happy about it. She still uses it too.
So, lesson learned huh? No. Of course not. When the iPhone was introduced I of course, expressed an instant desire to own one. I mean - how cool? And really, I have a mobile phone, so it's not like it would be so difficult to learn as the iPod, I reasoned. Anyway, then we discovered from the safety of the sofa in front of the tv that it would be a one network, set amount a month type contract, and I shelved the idea. I have a perfectly good, FREE phone. I don't know if you know this, but my mobile phone is a perk of my job as Mrs Dunnit. See, Mr Dunnit has a contract at work for the supply of a number of mobile phones for staff and blah...and I'm the blah! I guess there's a point at which for the provider, it doesn't matter how many phones as long as there's a good contract. So lucky me huh!
Phones are replaced annually, I don't know when, to be honest, I've only just found a confident way around the two features that I actually use on my current phone (making calls and sending text), so had no idea that I've had it for a year already! Mr Dunnit came home the other night and gave me an acrylic box with an iPhone 'sleeve' in it - a sort of non slip holder thing. When I worked out what it was, we laughed at it being a freebie which would be the closest I'd come to an iPhone. And then he gave me the beautifully compact black box containing the actual real thing. Apparently, it's phone upgrade time on the contract. His partner had mentioned that he was ordering Blackberry types and Mr Dunnit had told him not to include me (Julia) in that; he was going to buy me an iPhone, because that's what I really wanted. Did you hear that? He was going to buy me one even though I haven't whinged or moaned or really even talked about it. And, and - he didn't set it up or charge it or anything because he didn't want to spoil my opening and enjoying the packaging experience. He remembered! Oh I'm feeling giddy just telling you. You see why I'm excited!! Double spontaneous gesture alert!! Lucky for him and me, business partner included an iPhone with their order - apparently he chose Blackberry off the list for the guys in the offices because he thought the iPhone was a bit girly! Oh my. It IS a very clever phone, and it is going to take me a while to get my head around...but it is much easier to use than the iPod was - or have I just learned more in the last 5 or 6 years? Whatever. Who cares! So that's the romance. Again, lots of you won't even have recognised it as such. It was. And I'll take it. And apparently, brag my breeches off about it too. You get that it's really not about the phone don't you? Like I said to Mr D, really I am deep. Just a bit deep shallow. You know.

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday

Well, not really a lot going on here this morning. I'm trying to come up with another card for the 'Trees' Workshop. It's tomorrow. I have NEVER left it this late before, but me and the Shopkeeper Gal were holding out for a delivery that hasn't materialised. So another idea is needed for the fourth card. Then there's one of the stamps I brought from Stamps & Memories at the show in Farnborough last week. It's on the desk to remind me to play with it a little..I think I want to use it for some party invitations, but until I've fiddled and faffed, I will not know for sure. Story of my life, fiddle and faff! In the absence of any more room to 'swing' to, I thought you might like to see the heap of stuff that accumulates on the worktop to the left of my desk. Inevitably, because it's a corner, I tend to completely overlook it in terms of tidying. See I have an admirable collection of beautifully coloured Shimmering Mist. They are on the surface to remind me: to use them and to use them on the 2 Scrap Ladies project I should be half way through by now. You know how that's going then.
I think that's it then for my desk. Am amused and amazed by your interest in my watches and mobile phone (see yesterday's post). But I'll blurb the stories over the next few days; hell you already know I'm untidy, hormonal and a little strange, you might as well know about my collecting problems too!

Meanwhile, I'd like to see your desks please. Show us what you're working on and give us a chance to see what you've got. Lovely. And, cometh the hour, cometh the man. Mr Linky that is. (And that's if my understanding of the instructions has been successful!) Probably easier. Please leave a comment as well as your post link though, it's still fun to have your reactions!

More about interesting ol' Me

Really, there is some sparkle on this..
the horrible grey colour is the Sakura sparkly pen which is applied rather too liberally in real life. Hey ho. It's an entry for Susie & Vicki's Christmas Club challenge - girly. I kinda knew - as I'm sure you did - that whatever I did, it wasn't going to be lacy or include an image of a young girl, either in a long dress or with a ginormous head!

Anne has shared a blog award with me, and there are rules for accepting:
I have to pass this on to 5 other bloggers, write a top ten list of things that make me happy and 5 pieces of trivia about myself. There is a risk of boring you to death with these, but as they change daily, at least you get a better idea of the confused and hormonal old bag that Mr Dunnit has to live with! So currently, these 10 things make me happy - and they are not in any order:
1. My marriage
2. The story behind my new cell phone; it's almost romantic!
3. The message alert on that new phone! Great sound.
4. My daughter.
5. Being part of an extended family that still includes babies.
6. March; feels like the year really begins this month!
7. Planning for the Crop this Saturday.
8. Cooking
9. My current hair style
10. Browsing junk mail at coffee time.
And five bits of trivia:
1. I don't eat seafood (unless you count fish fingers!)
2. I can't remember the last time I wore nail varnish
3. Or earrings, actually.
4. I have 36 watches. Most of them Swatch.
5. I was born in Hong Kong.
Man I'm so interesting. Now you just know I'm going to cop out of extending this award to anyone in particular; I can't: it makes my teeth itch. Maybe I'll come up with a way to do it and pass it on late in the week. OK? And thanks Anne...am sure the money will have arrived by now!

Well now, I just whizzed through my Google reader and decided that I need to get fresh air before I settle in for a good read. But, Angie's post caught my eye and here I am explaining myself! I've been having a think about this for a while....Angie has been inking and spraying and stamping and squirting and frankly, getting down and dirty fingered with it. And the tags that she's shown us are just fab. And certainly not in the seven shades of wee wee that so often crop up with these techniques.
I think despite my 'need to be creative' dahlink, I'm limited by my skill. So I think that in order to make my time pay off with a decent result, I avoid this sort of 'try this and see where it takes you' stuff. No doubt that as I approach my desk, I have an idea in mind that I want to at least get close to finishing. I also usually have a picture in my head that I want to commit to the card or layout. No doubt that the extent of my frustration is always merely that what comes onto the paper is frequently no match for what's in my head. Is there an exercise - you know - jiggle your head and flop your arms around, warm up style - to allow me to let these images out and approach the desk with a blank and creatively open mind? I do not know.
Could it be that I don't work this way because most of what I do is procrastinated for so long that I can only be creative to some sort of a deadline and therefore do not have (what appears to me to be) 'experimental' time? Possibly, for a lot of that is true (!). Or could it be that, despite all the proof that I offer every Wednesday, I just can't bear the mess? Actually, I have a feeling it's a combination of the two. Angie, send me some vibes, I wanna get into that zone and try it out. Then I can get over it or add it to my 'range'.
But I don't want to clear up. Which is why I'm going out for a walk now. If you're booked into the day long Workshop sessions at Japonica in Exmouth this month, you will be delighted to learn that I'm avoiding clearing up after cutting chopping measuring and checking stock for 44 kits. See, told you I need fresh air.