What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 330

Hello and welcome. Last day of month nine already! It hasn't stopped my Christmas card making (I'm saying that word a lot now!), but I have been a bit side-tracked, it's probably temporary.

I'm having some fun with some Autumnal naturals. Working in three dimensions is very challenging so I'm expecting y'all to be very kind when you see what I'm making. Aren't the skellington leaves lovely, such beautiful colours. You can just see the first fix of a Bah humbug card too...still walking around it, certainly don't think it's a finished card yet. I haven't actually been using those pieces of sponge (Cut n Dry foam) that you see littering and loitering in front of their tin. Slovenly. The blue burlap, pegs and wax paper are all together too - pegs holding a sheet into a shape whilst glue sets, the wax paper was to protect the 'mould' from all the glue. No idea if it will work yet.
Show us what sensible things are going on at your work desk will ya? Link your WOYWW post here and wait for us...it takes time!

Hallowe'en..or the next WOYWW Crop as we call it

 October 31st is conveniently falling on a Saturday this year, and it is the day and date of 
WOYWW CROP2 BPD. Like it? Like it? It's another bloody silly acronym and came about after some very silly conversation between three of us Deskers who know no better. Obviously it's What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday Crop2 By Popular Demand. But you got that straight away, I know. 

What it actually means is that those of you that can and would like to, tip up at the village hall in Burbage with a shed load of craft stuff to do. You meet other deskers, you eat Jan's lunch and various people's cakes and then go home. If you manage a bit of crafting, well, that's great. We don't all know each other. We certainly don't recognise each other, this online stuff is very anonymous! But we have the workdesk thing in common and our crafting, and that is more than enough!

There are real details on a separate page HERE.

The earlier (April/May) Crop has, for two years, coincided with the WOYWW Anniversary, and we've taken advantage of the meet to exchange anniversary ATCS. I don't want to make the ATCS two a penny, the anniversary is extraordinary after all! So, for the CROP2 meet, we're going to exchange themed tags. Of course the theme is Hallowe'en and that's about the extent of the rule...do a teeny tag or do a huge tag. Make one, or make a dozen, it doesn't matter. You can attempt to exchange with all the deskers that attend, or just the person that approaches you first. Up to you. You can make them in advance, or on the day...

At this point you would expect a picture of a themed tag

really, wouldn't you. Hmmmm, somebody's a slacker.

Best decoy photo ever!

I think that's sufficient notice of our intent. Certainly sufficient notice to induce panic among the tag giving proportion of attendees. It doesn't matter if here or on the other page, but it would be a great help if you could indicate your intention to come before 15th October. Thank you!

There is no Onion

I went to a Crop a couple of weeks ago and actually did some scrapbooking. I took photos of the pages and then filed them in another growing album. That actually, is part of the pleasure for me - the satisfaction of the filling album.

Deskers will recognise' Stamping by H' Helen..trying my desk out for
size and then a year later, opting to work on the floor!

It's a strange thing scrapbooking. I love it. I'm never going to use all the photos we have in 'archive' or indeed all the digital photos we've taken since digital became the reality (don't ask me to remember when!). I don't feel any pressure at all to use certain photos or chronologically record our lives, and I don't apply any order at all to the use of photos or indeed the filing of layouts.

I haven't experienced a sense of competition over the number of pages completed at a crop. We all want to do more, we sometimes jest and even complain about how little we do against how much we talk and eat, but that's part of the Crop experience and isn't genuine!

So how come,  every time a page is finished, I feel relief - as if that's 'anther one out of the way'? I don't know. Perhaps it's the actual 'making' of the page that makes a bit tentative - I do sit next to people with awesome scrapbooking skills. Perhaps I have a sense of guilt over the photos sitting around unscrapped? I don't think so! I don't know.

But there's a genuine sense of relief. If you would like to analyse this, please do. I won't, because I can't be bothered. I will just live with it and enjoy the little surprise I get when I realise that instead of being the usual, not-very-grown-up smug at the completion point, I'm relieved!

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 329

Well Deskers of the world, yesterday I managed to go to work late (got there about 10.30) and then through hard work and diligence, I managed to come home early. OK. So the need for my unskilled labour was over, whatever! It means you get a picture of my desk in semi decent light showing my next move...

Reading glasses which are now letting me down; must get around to another eye test. Only one pair of scissors which is most unusual...you can tell that I'm not sure yet where I'm going with these images. The BAH and Humbug are a a single stamp so I've separated them with a scalpel (and the use of better glasses!). I think they're of more use to me this way. Mr Dunnit came in from work whilst I was playing with the stamps and had a look at my desk while kissing me hello (he's nothing if not a multi tasking romantic). He then announced that my trial run was the best Christmas card ever. I think a lot of blokes would agree! There's also a grim cup of instant soup. Grim, but I love it. And an empty glass from more than 24 hours ago. Sorry! And a small pile of new Woodware stamps to get my mojo going. I hope!

So share and tell will you? You've got to be doing stuff more interesting than I am!

PLEASE put WOYWW in your post title and then link here. It makes it easier if we know what we're looking for! See you later!

It's genetic...

On Thursday, I conducted my second Christmas Card workshops for this year. The low September sun graced us with a well lit table and the talk was of everything, almost to the exclusion of Christmas. Even though we were making cards for the occasion. I like to think that this is because we are practical and sensible crafters who recognise the need to make time for all of the quality hand made greetings we want to send. Others, I've noted, think we're nutters. And they resist hard and usually very vocally. 

Sizzix dies, Hobby Art stamp

I was trying to rationalise our position to a protestor; if we can only carve out time for a workshop once a week where we make 4 cards, then starting now is a must, really. One needs the opportunity to pick and choose over workshops so that the cards you make are actually cards that you like! And..getting the cards made sooner leaves time to enjoy the season and have time for other things.

a slightly doctored stamp...I had to snip the nose to make it less cartoony
lovely stamp from Chloe Stamps

But these rationales fall on deaf ears, and to be honest, I'm a bit sick of hearing the 'not till at least the end of October' and such. For me certainly it's true..the sooner I do them, the better. No, I don't feel Christmassy, no I don't feel it brings on the winter too fast, I'm just trying some time management. I don't want Christmas to last 4 months, nor do I want the stress of trying to squash it all into a week. I think it's called balance. 

Marianne die mittens (I think) and the snowflake is from a Spellbinder set

No doubt that the people who 'accuse' me of contributing to the super extending of 'the Season' are the ones who 'don't get' the paper crafting thing anyway. And in some cases, are the ones who were surprised last year because they didn't receive a hand made greeting from us. Because I was super busy and hadn't made them early enough. But they don't get that. Let's face it - I'm relatively impatient and can't get involved with the wonderful cards and techniques that take ages to set up, layer, dry. Its all about fairly instant gratification for me. And even when I have a plan and know exactly what I'm doing, one of my average makes takes about 20 minutes on a good day.  

Woodware stamps - the robins are a set and the holly die is erm.....a green one

Understandably, if you don't make 'em, you have no idea how long it takes. And on that basis, their argument isn't really going to stand up in a logical and technical way to us who do the making.  But that's not a good counter argument because time spent on something is very much measured in 'worth' to us crafters. The pleasure of using the stash, playing with paper and colour, making something to give away is worth far more than the minutes spent. Each side of this opinion has different genes, frankly, and never will understand the others need or lack of need to play with paper and ink. So I give in; I'm not going to make the case any more. When people pop in to the shop to see what we're up to and exclaim that it's too early for Christmas, I'm going to agree. And get back to the glittering.  

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 328

You can find out a little more about this by clicking HERE. Or you can just jump in and discover that it's absolutely what it looks like and no more, no less!
My desk is a nightmare of indecision. I've got layers. Not painful but definitely needing a good seeing to! The gloomy light of Tuesday evening reveals that my five minutes here and there is working. Although I'm utterly distracted from matching photos to scrapbook papers. Now, I've decided to archive my least used wood mount stamps. This box is but a portion and I'm not getting rid of them. Merely clearing them away in anticipation of having to do this before the building work starts and because they are rarely used, bless them, and I really could use the space. To be untidy in.

You can see from the shelf that my action hasn't made much of a dent. I shall do some more while supper's cooking. It's about the only way to clear my desk off now! So please, after you've recovered from the horror, join us and show what your desk is tolerating! Put WOYWW in your post title and link it here. Thank you!

A little preparation..

I think it was a WOYWW post where I explained that I was trying to do some advance planning for scrapbook layouts. A five minute gap here and there means that I can at least try to match a photo to a piece of paper. On the whole, this approach has worked. The small amounts of time and effort totally paid off. I'd been too tied up on Friday to even think about Saturday's Artful Angels Crop, and so I had to get up early to pack. It was so easy, because I didn't have to spend ages finding pages and photos and sketches....the part that takes the longest.

I don't plan further than paper and photo, although I take my tablet with some screen shot Layout ideas. Titles and embellishments are decided as I'm gluing stuff down; if I went as far as choosing the title and embellies in the planning stages, it would not only take twice as long....and I might as well stay at home ! 

We were talking about our scrapbooking formats. I cant remember the last time I did a double page Layout - even a page with more than one photo on it these days seems unusual to me. So formulaic! Lisa Jane had me agreeing with her over paper choices, she referred to herself as a 'B side girl'. I couldnt agree more - I so often buy a sheet because I like the 'back' more. 'Specially if its got lines and margins! 

I did more than three Layouts (incidentally all on the B sides), but I won't bore you with the others just now. It's enough that you can read the smug in my tone of writing. I've spent a good hour today ordering more photos, and this time I've gone to the trouble of sizing some of them so I can actually move away from one photo per page. It might make me more interesting at the next crop. I'm also going on with this five minutes here and there to plan pages, as it's worked so well. That might me unbearably smug at the next crop. Lawks, won't I be a pleasure to sit next to!