So now she thinks she can review anything...

Oh get me, I've been asked to do a series of book reviews. Ok, two reviews, but I shall spin it out into a jolly important series if I can, of course! Ya may or may not know that because of the traffic through this blog, I am now and then asked to promote/review a product. Usually I don't because there's nothing in it for the 'traffic'. That's you. This time though, the publisher of the books offered a discount and free P&P which I thought quite attractive.

So I had to choose from the huge New Holland Publishers site - and I thought that the books should reflect what I blog about. So this is the first one - a book of 50 card making ideas by Vivienne Bolton. It's a semi hardback and yields beautifully - you don't have to break the spine to make it lie open while you faithfully copy from it..gotta be a good start! The projects and instructions are really nicely photographed, step-by-step and not overloaded with superfluous text, a real skill in terms of instruction and description.

It's a great book for anyone who wants to know how craft, stamp, stick, to create cards, but is a bit scared to have a go without instruction or change up their modus operandi a little. It's also a gift for those people who feel the need to save anything to use again - Vivienne employs wrapping paper for central and background images and a has nice easy way to line envelopes; she like so many others, says 'never throw anything away'. Definitely in her blood then, crafting!

Now the thing about any craft book is that it can show you what to do, but it can't update the products or the terminology. This book was published before the word 'sketches' was applied to card making; the gallery of ideas that shows variations on a basic design or use of colour are just that really, and there's a nice selection of templates for scaredy cats like me too. I particularly liked Vivienne's house template, and her tips for tracing them - there's always a tip you don't have yet, huh.

There's a nice attempt at using largely generic equipment too, which I think is most important to the beginner or the hesitant! The over-stashed like me will recognise the Fiskars branded tools (even a Shape Boss!) ; they are acknowledged for supplying some equipment. However, the use of these obvious pieces is limited and wouldn't I don't think, put the reader in a panic because they didn't own them - after all, a punch is a punch, n'est pas?

In every respect it's a classic 'how-to' book and once you know how to, it's a useful 'springboard from which to create your own designs' as Vivienne says. This is one of a handful of books by Vivienne Bolton - remarkably, I couldn't find out much about her online; I don't know why, but I was fully expecting a blog; I guess three Google pages about your books is actually far more fulfilling!

Handmade Cards and Gift-Wrap is published by New Holland Publishers, price £12.99.

Enter the discount code Stamping at the checkout to receive 20% discount and free P&P.

(Free P&P to UK residents only!)
Offer valid until 1^st September 2011

You'll be amused to know that the second book review is about Crochet. Watch this space!

OK, so the WOYWW PiF thing...

Lots of WOYWWers have asked for more information about the PiF idea for the second anniversary, and so here's the scoop. By my calculations, the 104th WOYWW (2 x 52 weeks) will be on Wednesday (*g*) 1st June 2011. A PiF stands for Pay it Forward. A 'pressie' is shorthand -OK, slang, for a present, gift.

So during the course of the coming weeks, decide if you'd like to take part in the PiF on that particular WOYWW. If you would, please make a small present - can be anything of course, but really needs to be made by you. The difficult part is that somewhere on/in that present, please incorporate the silly acronym WOYWW.

Then, on 'the day', when you join the link list, add an asterisk before or after your name. So if it were me, I would enter my name as *Julia. Then we know you're participating, see. You make contact with the next person on the list who has a participatory asterisk against their name, get their address and post off your gift. If you are the last participator on the list, you send your PiF gift to the first participator. Perfect circle then, which really is very WOYWWish!

Of course, there'll be reminders about the asterisk thingy on the anniversary post. And probably some angsty chat about making something between now and then too!

Again, trying to keep things simple and least complicated for my little brain, but here are a handful of 'rules':

- You don't have to take part in the PiF on 1st June to take part in WOYWW on that day or any other. If you can't or don't want to, that's just fine!

- The PiF will only occur on that anniversary Wednesday, it's not an every week thing!

- Please have your gift made and ready - given this much notice, it won't be much fun if your recipient has to wait an age to receive!

- the hard part now - don't show us what you've made until it's been received by your giftee'. This is the hardest bit, to be honest!

So there we are, I think all questions answered and I think relatively straight forward...we'll see! Any questions, please ask.....there's bound to be something I haven't thought of!

Oh and the card - Martha Stewart punch meets Paper Artsy stamps - the theme of last week's workshop was Nature, using Paper Artsy.....my first real foray into Leandra's world. As soon as I worked out that I couldn't copy her skills, the stamps started to talk and I managed a handful of cards. Phew!

Gimme a medal

for self control - the picture above shows you honestly and without under-embellishment what I bought at the Make It! show at Farnborough yesterday. I think the picture's bad because I'm a bit shaken by my tiny haul. Pleased nonetheless. I went with a completely impartial but totally enthusiastic Lunch Lady Jan. I think it was twice as busy as last year on the Friday, but the layout works so well - large aisles (are you listening, Ally Pally?) We cruised half the show and then met up with Chrissie and Mandi and made them join us for a lunch break; they had a sandwich and we had roast pork in a giant roll. Not so much self control there, huh! We rejoined the stands at the half way point and carried on mooching. Julie Hickey was swamped, I think she had a small demo area and I was disappointed to miss Jennie, the Artistic Stamper who was doing demonstrations with all her lovely stamps - they said she had gone for lunch; I couldn't see her - she wouldn't exactly have been sitting alone, huh!

I thought that there were a few more new shop names on the exhibitor's list this year - alongside established names. Good for them I say, it's great to see people taking the plunge. There was, to my perception, less scrap booking than I'd have liked to see - but I wonder if the logistics of carting papers is just too difficult, after all, they don't exactly get handled well in a shop environment, let alone a packed and pacey exhibition space.

Actually, having had past experience of this show, I'd say that this year was as good as ever in terms of organisation, stands and blahdy blah. What the organisers have no control over is the lack of demonstrations on stand; disappointing. I wonder if the space is so expensive that room for a demo has to be ruled out? I do not know. What I do know is that nothing sells an idea or product to me better than a chatty, friendly demonstrator who inevitably makes it all look so easy! Pretty much real life WOYWW! The show is open till 5pm tomorrow.

Entirely Sponsored.....

Today, I'm going to the Make It! Craft show at Farnborough.How's this for honesty, and possibly, stupidity; I only buy one craft related magazine a month and often, I don't look at it for months. This means that special offers and events and craft shows tend to pass me by. Unless someone gives me a heads up. I'm not good at forward commitment either; so writing dates in my diary months ahead, that aren't work related, tends not to happen; even our holidays are a bit last minute. Anyway, this weekend is the Make It! show in Farnborough. I didn't hear about it before Wednesday because of my 'head in a bucket' syndrome. And I decided that even though it would only take an hour to get to, I wouldn't bother. After all, I work and I'm super busy keeping my house and laundry in celebrity style perfection.

So then Rosanna from the show organiser people contacted me and offered me a free ticket. The exchange is to blog a bit about it. I thought you'd like to know how easily swayed I can be - a free ticket means that I'm off this morning! And I'm going to meet lovely Chrissie again, so it's a real bonus. Now, I'm not under any illusions as to why I was contacted with this offer - your WOYWW numbers means that the traffic across this blog is of interest to some people. And that's down to anyone that participates, so I thank you!

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday? 90

Mine has been a very active space - I photographed on Tuesday because this is a scheduled post. I'm off out to play today, and need not get up at 5.30. Although I probably should - it takes an age for the creases from the pillow to wear off my face these days!So here's what I did first: packed the tote with supplies and papers etc for Thursday's workshop. Took about 3 hours; lots of die cutting for this one!

Then I had to settle down and do some non craft work..honestly, this week is all about filling in multi page forms; it is not interesting and I hope not to have to repeat it; but the pay off is amazing. Get the forms filled and in their envelopes and presto wham! clear desk, ready for playing.

So I did. It was fun and the light was awful, so is the photo!

Really pleased that you think a PiF for the second WOYWW anniversary is a good idea, we need to keep it relatively uncomplicated; I'll ask you on the day to add an asterisk * to your name in the link if you are participating. And the last participant simply sends to the first..then you're all in the loop. Easy, huh!

Meanwhile, show us your current work desk, tray, table, floor space so that we can see what you've got and what you're doing with what you've got and what we might want that you already have. Upload a photo to your blog, link here and we'll come round as soon as we can! You don't have to visit everyone - taking into account numbers, word verification and blogger's hormones, just get around as many or as few as you can. No blatant advertising please - good blogging will promote your products far better than a flash on WOYWW!

Colour Me Lucky

Boring day, devoted entirely to work, grey and cloudy and drizzly out, a bit chilly in. Too mean to put the heating on all day though, so I waited for Mr Dunnit to come home for lunch. He was a darling (as I predicted) and lit the wood burner for me. Told you I was lazy. During the course of the afternoon I decided to check the post. I find that I finish all the filing and 'posting' of invoices and blahdy blah, only to be faced with a fresh pile when I remember to check the post box. Arrgh. We don't have a letterbox in the door see, a metal box on the wall serves us - because I can't let Mr D ccut a hole in my nice bespoke front door. It's not over posh or special, it just deserves not to have a hole in it! Oh look, an unusual digression from me.

Anyway, the post. Junk. Invoices for accounts as correctly predicted (I'm good at predictions, have you noticed?).....and a lovely lovely surprise. Oh how I love a surprise!

Wrapped and posted abroad and containing artwork too. How marvellous. Even more marvellous - see the lovely set of stamps at left? Notice that she's not the skinny minny at right? I love that! I love these stamps. Thank you so much Amber and Pam...as gifts go, they're the best sort...I totally wasn't expecting them!

I appear to love a lot of things today. It's a result of sleep deprivation. Miss Dunnit went off on a *cough* History trip to Berlin with College today. And by today of course, I mean 2.30am. Half an hour before this deadline, we staggered into the car to find that the petrol warning light was not only on..but predicting 12 miles before breakdown. I guess, because it was only 8 miles to College and the waiting coach, I probably shouldn't have worried so much.....but this is a small market town and I have no idea how far I have to go to find 24 hour petrol. I am so unsophisticated. And apparently very scarey. The young man at the night till of the only open garage I could find en route seemed very scared by my gabbling relief. Or was it my bedhead and general bedraggled appearance because I'd tried to tough it out and stay up (and of course, failed miserably). We'll never know. So you see how the stamps are the bright side for today. Love that.

Shape Up, Mrs..

Now then, you may have stumbled upon this WOYWW post very early last year. I'm not one for retrospective (or any other) analysis particularly, but was flicking through an album last night and thought it would be fun to update the situation.

I don't know if you can see the writing, but it lists my 10 top intentions for 2010:

1. Sort out my hair

2. Learn some camera skills

3. Improve computer skills

4. Develop the garden

5. Make the most of good weather

6. Keep workroom better organised

7. Be better at keeping in touch

8. Spend less

9. Cook more

10. Procrastinate less.

Well, would you like to know how it went? Lordy, if you have read this blog on anything resembling a regular basis (thank you) , you probably won't need to read any further! Well, here goes:

1. I did. It's back to short and will remain so forever. It's more 'me'. Even Mr Dunnit agrees about this and he loves long hair. Hey ho, can't please em all. But it has to please me, huh! There's a lot of discussion surrounding how short my short hair should be, and sometimes after a 6 weekly appointment Chez Sonia, I do have to wear a little more make-up to enhance...underline....OK, prove that I'm still a girly girl...but I like a bit of a spike after a trim!

2. I've learned a little more, particularly general as opposed to just about my own camera. It's quite hard to keep the rule of thirds, the angle of the subject, the light filtration and blah blah blah in your head when you have a point and shoot camera and one chance, but I am trying. Frankly it's a miracle that I can remember some of the rules, let alone remember to actually apply them.

3. I have. A bit. Mostly through the medium of panic. You know, when something goes horribly wrong and you have to learn how to make it un-horrible. I'm never going to be great at it - I think blogging and Mr Linky for WOYWW are my most complicated moments. Thing is, just like this craft habit of mine, there are a milllion billion people out there who have a computer habit and they're happy to help me and humiliate me in equal measure. And I let them, because it's easier.

4. Hmmm. This took a back seat in the summer. The garden was tended and tidier this year than others, but I don't have the will. And Mr Dunnit has the will and not the time. Big landscape plans were drawn up, but not exercised. No time when the weather was vaguely good enough.

5. I did, mostly. I had coffee in the sun in the garden and read in the sun in the garden and enjoyed it when the sun shone. I am British. I have now learned that it won't necessarily be nice tomorrow, so sit in the sun today. I also have since I turned 40, a huge respect for my skin (there's enough of it!) and so I urge you to consider Factor 15 as a minimum. S'all part of the service.

6. Yeah. This didn't happen. WOYWW is living proof of this, so I cannot lie.

7. I don't know - this is hard to judge. I've tried hard, but guess there's more to do. Especially as I have pretty much given up Facebook.

8. Achieved. The previous and present Governments have a hand in this. I am not offering them thanks. I believe I've exercised a better approach to stash too, I've become a more sophisticated consumer in order to make my money go further and my guilt lessen!

9. Loads. Second hobby. Trying to rescue week night suppers from tedium and repetition. Doesn't always work. Look forward to summer, but have to again applaud the slow cooker as an invention.

10. I can't answer this - I need more time.