Visitors

I hope the weak sunlight bouncing off their little baggies won't make it too difficult for you to see my visitors. They came about five minutes after I had ordered them from Wipso. Teeny, hand felted hand stitched bears, each with their own poetic message. They are visitors though, for they are destined to live with others. There's a couple of Christmas Bears, the lilac craft bear, a Bon Voyage bear and a small comfort bear that will be delivered today. They fit perfectly well inside a card - and for me that underlines the gesture that the card has created.


Workshop day today; appropriately, we're doing Thank You cards; and here's one of them....rocket science it ain't, but I am still very drawn to text on a card. Indeed, I have a little voice in my head called Sandie who once - totally off the cuff - said that I was incapable of producing a card without text on the front. She was right, and every time I'm searching around for a finishing touch - and it turns out to be a text stamp, or die cut letters, I hear her, but don't stop! Can't help it. So these are the perfect card for me. Quick and easily repeateable if you are still lovely enough to write thank-yous after Christmas and Birthdays...and I've shoved it on quite a big card, so could easily double as a lovely post-Christmas letter, or use it as a biggie for the kids to share so that the torture of formal thanking doesn't go on forever. Because it often does! Do you still write the odd thank you? Or is it all about email and text now? I dunno, the number of cards I make, you'd think someone would tell me not to bother if it was really a waste of time, wouldn't they?
But the very best thing about this card - I made it out of my scrap box! No, not 'out of my scrap box' - because that would be altering it beyond comprehension, frankly, and even Tim Holtz couldn't do that! But you get it. And I'm terribly glad that someone does!

What's on your Workdesk Wednesday

If you visited earlier this week, you'll know that I was in a state of panic and shame. Panic over finishing up my share of the card samples for the Card marathon and shame at the state of my desk. OK, the whole workroom, but the desk is the pertinent part of today, after all. And it keeps my shame and guilt in proportion too! The blue tidy tray is actually next to the space that I was working on..the ribbon reel on the right is balanced on a square pot of embossing powder which in turn is standing on two stamps..next to which is the basket in which I am supposed to put the used stamps. Naturally, there's all the tape peelings and as usual, the wooden card holder is under employed in favour of the old 'push back' system. You know the one - instead of clearing up, you just keep pushing everything back until there's room to make a bit more mess. Out of sight on the left is a pile of papers - some used, some pulled out and not used but added to the pile, and a couple of acrylic boxes with gems and stuff in..all in a towering pile of potential spillage disaster.

But yesterday, when Teresa and I were putting the world to rights, I tidied - I even put away the bits of paper. I found the beads as you know. I put away 14 ink pads, 4 pairs of scissors and six pots of embossing powder. The dirty stamps are in the basket and after some gentle playing last night, my desk looks like this right now: The little yellow pot has just received a generous coating of diamond glaze. It's one that Miss Dunnit made at Primary School and has been on the kitchen window sill all those years. Which is a site of another potential mess problem I can tell you. In this house, if you don't quite know what to do with something - the odd Euro, screw, biro, peg, blah blah, stick it on the kitchen window sill. And leave it there for years. Anyway, the little coil pot, painted with my favourite colour has been used and abused and in a purge of window sill-o-bilia yesterday, I realised it needs preserving. So I did what I could. There's a red one in use elsewhere in the house and the DG has worked a treat, so am quite pleased again, that my craft materials have saved the day!
There's a bit of foil that still has chocolate in it - top left. But that's because during the messy period, the scissor sharpener fell over and hid it. Don't worry, I'll deal with it before the coffee cools. There's the seasonal bag of snowflakes waiting to be turned into I don't know what, and as you can see, I'm playing with a Christmas tree stamp. Which is today's plan - apart from cutting and counting for tomorrow's workshop.

Come on then, show us your work desk/space/surface. Don't be shy...photo, upload and link to it in the comments here. If you want to, grab the button from the left margin for your blog. It's nonsense, it's light hearted and it means nothing, but it's very interesting. Feeds my nosey person perfectly!

For the Ffrog.

Teresa, aka Ffroggie 'phoned and while we chatted, I tidied my desk. Really tidied. The sort of deep clean that it only gets when I'm in the mood - and I was in the mood alright; whilst the Ffrog and I chatted about the possibility of taking A Magnetic Year in a Day over to her magical place in Northern Ireland, I sorted, put away, discovered (!) and even got the dustpan and brush to finally clean off the surface. Well aren't I smug. You would be too if you'd found the essential packet of square glass beads that were just nowhere - and I had even been through the bin, so convinced was I that I had seen them teetering on the desk edge. They were actually on the edge - just the opposite edge, safely against the dreaded scrap box under a huge pile of discarded papers. Oh for heaven's sake! So huge thanks to Teresa for finding the beads - I think I need them. I'll show you if it turns out that I do! Meanwhile, part of our conversation touched on the buying stuff and not using it. We all know about that really, although I think that eventually, we mostly do use it - if not out of guilt then for reasons of pure economic logic. A little bell went off in my head when Teresa was bragging (yep, bragging) about some fantastic covered brads she had. Well, I've got some nice brads too. And I'm afraid to use them. Mostly because if I use them, I won't have them anymore! Does that make any sense? None at all, huh. Even the sensible and true 'use them on a scrapbook page and then you can keep them' hasn't quite reached me yet - I just like to see them on their foam storage shapes, hinting at the gorgeous things I could do with them. Don't let me be alone on this one - never mind about all the unused stash, I already know about that - what've you got that you can't use? Show and tell!

Safe to post...

Monday is usually a domestic day, I really like to restore the household harmony after we've all been together at the weekend. I gave up cleaning and tidying on a Friday not long after I realised that if I did it on a Monday, there was a good chance that I would only have to maintain it for a whole week instead of re-doing it within two days! So now you know..the best day to visit me is a Tuesday! But all I've managed is a load of washing and straightening the kitchen. Since then, I've been back at my desk; all this pressure I've put on myself - to produce a bunch of cards!
Again they're for the Card Marathon, and you'll be relieved to know that I've finished. All I have to do now is 'kitting' and that is so, so much easier than the ideas part! I'm going to photo my desk too - truly it has never been so shocking, but I'll save the picture for a comparative narrative on Wednesday. (I know, it's not enough that I think I can write a bit, suddenly I'm a poet too. Somebody'll stop me, you'll see.)
It's not the cards that are difficult, gracious no. It's the ideas and the constant thought that everything has to be new and shiny and loaded with techniques. But of course it doesn't. But they do have to be cards I'd like to give away myself as a minimum, and to come up with a card that I can't part with because I like it too much is a bonus! And I think the 'design fatigue' is entirely due to overkill. In one form or another, I've been using Christmas products since the end of August, and from a seasonal point of view, just as I should be really getting into it, I'm ready to opt out, thanks. So I'm going to turn myself to other things for a while, no doubt Christmas related, but more about the presents than the greetings and certainly nothing on a C6 card for a few days at least. Here's a start:
This little canvas is intended for Mr Dunnit; the robot is from Stampendous but the text is erm, borrowed from a stamp set I saw for sale but didn't buy (Woodware). Guilt guilt. The set had a couple of robots and a couple of text blocks in it. I already have the Stampendous set which contains 'body parts' for robots, so I kinda didn't need the other set, huh? It's not the major work of paint and masks and spritzes and inks and 38 images required by 'altered canvas' artists, but he's quite fun, and Mr D will get it. After all, the only thing I can do with a canvas that would actually alter it is to turn it into a tent, and there is no way that I want Mr Dunnit to suddenly get deep and understand from my gift that I want to go camping. Seriously. You'd never hear the end of it. So back to domestics for me then. Hope this Monday finds you facing a fulfilling and stress free week,

but hello, it's Saturday!

My routine usually precludes a blog post over the weekend. My weekend resoultion is to stay away from the computer, which consumes more of my time than I care to admit, and therefore dedicate more of myself to my lovelies. This wholesome and unselfish dedication to my family goes totally un-noticed by them - we are, whatever I tell you, a perfectly normal disfunctional family. But, whaddya know, Mr and Mrs Dunnit are both wide awake at a non-saturday hour. Mr Dunnit knows that if I work out that he's lying in bed awake, I might engage in a conversation - and you all know that conversations that take place in bed are usually about the cost of something, the trouble with the child(ren) or, horror, something involving our feelings.
So he got up and went to work early.
And here I am. There's a large deadline looming and I need to do some tweaking of cards and ideas, so I'm going to settle in and get on.
I've been flicking through a handful of cards I've made for the Card Marathon - I usually discard and add a couple. This has hit the 'no' pile and you can probably see why at a glance. I've added a sort of mouth/smile to this fella with a thin black nib, but is he possibly the most depressed snowman you've ever seen? How can I use that on a card that's meant to offer greetings, which are surely, meant always to be cheerful? So he's a gonner. I wonder how many more will strike me as spectacularly inappropriate. What amazes me is that even though I drew the enigmatic smile on at the time of making the card, I didn't see quite how depressed he is, poor love. Tell me you agree, just so I know that the emotional chat I missed out on this morning isn't manifesting itself in rubber stamp critique! Have lovely weekend.

And in other, shocking news...

So thank goodness, the early starts come to a finish today. I know you're on the edge of your seat wondering what domestic goodness and life serving creative actions I filled my extra hour and a half with this morning. Well, you may need to sit down. Or Paige, Lyn and people of the OCD persuasion, lie down while the going's good - you can't fall off the floor. Here in absolute order, is what I did, in my sloppy long nightie and birkenstocks, in front of the kitchen heater from six thirty this morning:

I made coffee (I like a cafetiere).

I melted two bars of chocolate and poured them over yesterdays 'cooking' session of rice krispie cakes.

And then I cleaned my stamps.

I know! Joy be unconfined! There's an A4 size space on my work desk where a once overflowing basket of inky stamps once stood. You see, I noticed yesterday that there are stamps languishing in the to-be-cleaned section that I want to use, or worse, I may have forgotten about. And worse actually, most of my acrylic blocks are in there too. So I did the honourable thing. There's a drawback though - they are now sitting on two specially-reserved-for-the-job tea towels, cluttering up the draining board. So the plan is to finish a few chores, finish drying them off and put them away. Then I can settle in for some more stamping. Obviously, I can't do anything at my desk until I've dried and put them away...because there's the gap created by the absent basket, and you know how fast I can fill that with erm, artistic detritus!

Back to that difficult list of questions to accompany the Over The Top Award: it needs saying that all the blogs that I read are, to me, great. The handful of people listed here as 'awardees' have qualified because I feel it's time they exposed themselves a little more (er, !). I know I'm nosey, I've manipulated it in my mind to be an endearing characteristic. So, come on:

Wipso - the prolific stitcher

Ginny - the challenge conqueror

Ann - the cupboard crafter

Carmen - the alterer

Paige - the tidy one

answer the questions - sign the 'fession!

Overdue

..housekeeping that is..I don't want any one on this world wide interweb thingy to have a thought in their heads about anything related to maternity and me when they see the word overdue. Just to clear that up. It reflects badly on me that I've been passed a couple of fab awards recently and haven't made time to deal with the details...they always require revelations see, and I think I spout more than enough about me on here as it is!

At the beginning of the month, Ginny shared the colourful Making Smiles On Faces Award with me - a huge irony really. The pay off for that is I have to tell you five things about myself, but any minute, you're going to get a bonus - 35 things about me! This because the marvellous Jo and then Jane passed me the 'Your Blog is Over The Top' award which requires me to stuff socks in my mouth and sit on my hands and bite on bullets and eat tripe to stop me using more than one word per answer. I can do it. But I might have to do another post explaining, justifying, enlarging and quantifying each answer!



1. Where is your cell phone? desk

2. Your hair? middle-aged

3. Your mother? Sainted

4. Your father? Well

5. Your favorite food? loads

6. Your dream last night? ridiculous

7. Your favorite drink? Gin and Tonic

8. Your dream/goal? world peace

9. What room are you in? work-room

10. Your hobby? craft

11. Your fear? loneliness

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? here

13. Where were you last night? here

14. Something that you aren't? quiet

15. Muffins? nah

16. Wish list item? nothing

17. Where did you grow up? worldwide

18. Last thing you did? phoned a friend

19. What are you wearing? black

20. Your TV? Off

21. Your Pets? dead

22. Friends? incredible

23. Your life? charmed

24. Your mood? fighting

25. Missing Someone? yes

26. Vehicle? Yaris

27. Something you’re not wearing? hat

28. Your favorite store? Paperchase, silly

29. Your favorite colour? yellow

30. When was the last time you laughed? today

31. Last time you cried? today

32. Your best friend? One?

33. One place that I go to over and over? home

34. Facebook? Reluctantly

35. Favorite place to eat? out

OK, so it turns out I can't do it all in one word, but what the hell, today of all days I'm here to remind you that we live but once and this small stuff musn't make you sweat! I must say that I quite like the idea of my blog being Over The Top...how ridiculous. Someone just slap me when I start to take myself so seriously, huh! Actually, now! - my blog posts have just exceeded 200 for goodness sake, and to celebrate I'm sending Angie a RAK. Because I can. On account of that charmed life I have. I really, really do.
Oh, I should add that this award is to be passed on.....will do that tomorrow.