What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 577

Please be keeping well, and looking forward. It’s going to be a lovely summer. If you need company, please reach out, we could set up a group chat if you’d like to spend an hour at your desk so that you can chat and erm, work. Seriously, don't be without company - as you can see, I’ve a lot of colouring to do.

I spent a happy hour stamping and embossing these images over the weekend. The idea was to then scan them, so my Scan and Cut machine could cut them out for me - all that fussy cutting! Well, I cant get the machine to recognise the scanning mat, so after a bit of a tantrum, I’m doing that thing - walking away from it and thinking when I go back and try again, it will have magically sorted itself. Believe me, it doesn’t need a good talking to, I have already done that! All the stamps you see laid out and propped up are new to me. The gnomes and the girls are a direct result of a WOYWW post from Soojay about a month ago. I can’t even lay ‘blame’ on her, it’s been so long since I was moved to buy new stamps just for fun! You can see that my Tri-Blend pen collection is growing nicely. I really like them, far more than any others ‘felt tips’ I’ve had.  So now, before I bore you rigid, lets see the colour of your desks then! Please put WOYWW in your post title and link it here, as usual. Thanks, you’re special.

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 576

Plus ca change, la meme ca change. I’m blogging on iPad, using the app. The new dashboard on blogger wont let me perform any basic functions, like add a photo, choose a font, blah blah. it seems last week may have been a happy fluke. We’ll see. This is a scheduled post; the gas man is coming to remove unused pipes in the old kitchen. Sometime between 730 and 9am. Yikes. You just know, don’t you, that I’ll make a coffee, sit down to start blogging and he’ll turn up, need my attention and make me a) very late to post or b) forget to post. Given the early start, either would make me a bit cross! I haven’t quite put tape on the floor, but I have worked out a safe distancing strategy and as he’ll be working in the old kitchen, he’ll pretty much be isolated! 

Annnnnnyway.....

Good lord, the mess never stops! I’m contemplating a title for a scrapbook page I started on Friday. You know, a bit here and there when there’s a lull in activity. The canister bin at a ridiculous angle because I needed the surface room for other clutter. That lovely pink envelope at centre stage is from Kathy (she’s an Instagram desker).At left hanging in a bunch from a stick on hook is a bunch of string lights with colourful ball shades, a gift from my sissy some years ago which I promised to save for use in the new kitchen. Well, they’re out, but not actually ‘placed’ yet....turns out I could do without 20 metres of them!  At bottom right in the front of the basket there’s a green envelope that I found this week when looking for something else (of course). You might just be able to make out a picture of a slightly raggedy looking me, 26 years ago. I can be precise because I was pregnant and on holiday in Australia, two things you don’t forget, huh! I’ve no idea why it’s in the envelope (or indeed the other pics with it that are unrelated). What occurred to me about it was the hair problem. Here we are a quarter of a century later, and my hair is behaving just as badly, but this time I blame lockdown instead of salty seas and the care less attitude of comparative youth. Ah, me. Gosh, stop me wallowing and show me your desks, please, as usual, I will be happy and grateful and I hope, slightly quicker to visit. 

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 575

I’m trying Helvetica today. Slightly less wide that Verdana, but still not seriph-y which is my preference. Thanks for the new interface input after my last post, all very helpful and very interesting; we do blog differently! Enough. To business:

I did quite literally take my glasses off and walk away from this last night. Then went back and took this photo...look, the sun finally showed up and cast a shadow on the paper! I’m mid way through a LO as you can see. I’ve cut paper and stuck on to another and now am not convinced its going to be right..I think the paper, whilst a good colour for the photo (both of which look very dark, but aren’t really), isn’t a great match to the subject. Does that even make sense. Lawks. The usual suspects appear..3 pairs of scissors, two pairs of long handled tweezers, lots of new scraps and a basketful of acrylic embellishments from Bramble Fox. Look ‘em up if you aren’t familiar...I use a lot but the basket doesn’t seem to reduce. The Corona Virus information leaflet is on the iPad stand as a safe place. I want the words for use on my actual Lockdown LOs. As opposed to my non actual lockdown LOs, which are just pages I’ve made during the period of Lockdown. Not about lockdown. Oh this needs editing. Forgive. Show me what your work surface looks like to prove you forgive the waffle! Put WOYWW in your post title and link here as usual. Lockdown or not, some things will not change! 

I

It seems to be working.....

This is almost a test post; to see if I can use my iPad directly through the Blogger interface - as you know, I was driven to pay for an App to be able to blog from the iPad. The first thing I notice about this new Blogger is that the font I use, Trebuchet, has changed! This one is called Verdana and is crisp and clear and Sans, which suits me well. It’s not too different to the font in my last post, in Trebuchet. But now, Trebuchet looks like this. So, has Blogger had it wrong all these years or just chosen to reassign names and styles? I do not know. Changing back now, this font does not suit me.

An almost decoy; one of many LOs I’ve done during lockdown and whilst gossiping online with The Coven. It details the beginning of my shop, Stamping Ground, back in 2000 when stamping was fairly new in this country and not many people were foolish enough to make a B&M business out of it. So if Billy Jane reads this, it will make her gasp, because she scraps chronologically and isn’t far behind in terms of years. This pic is twenty years old. But take heart BJ..the photo I used on a LO yesterday was taken last month!

I should like to know if you’re sticking with Blogger ‘legacy’ or trying out the new interface and more, I’d like to know if you find it use-able. I’m a bit change resistant and didn’t like the idea of it, particularly this thing about using little icons instead of words. Tapping on little icons with fat fingers often results in the wrong, er, result. I may have inadvertently helped Blogger out with this though, as I’m sure a lot of you have too. I have a lovely screen tap tool- an Apple Pencil - it’s the best investment I’ve made in terms of iPad usage. However, thats coincidental to the Blogger changes. I got the Pencil because ha, well, my daughter had one and she let me play with it and I really liked it and I’m such a kid.

Accessing photos hasn’t been difficult either, although I cannot yet work out how to enlarge them! A greater mind than mine will tell me very soon, I hope! One of the 

Problems that originally drove me to use an App for blogging on iPad was that I could type as far as I could see on the screen and then it wouldn’t scroll or allow any further content. That doesn’t appear to be happening. Indeed this post is two photos and lots of words longer than I would have previously been able to achieve. So I’m going to encourage you to try new Blogger, send them your thoughts, hates, problems but also tell us! The more we discover, the more likely that we can write sentences about interfaces and such that make us sound as if we really know what we’re doing! OK, I accept it, that was very probably a ‘royal’ we!

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 574

Whizzday? You bet. I am struggling with the speed of time. I could do with some lessons in quantum physics so that I can understand why my life is passing at such a pace. But obviously I can’t take lesson in quantum physics. Quite apart from my complete inability at sums and especially the ones that involve brackets, I haven’t got time.

This morning’s desk shot shows very little of what’s actually been happening. I’ve stamped a load of pics and spent the last hour of the last few afternoons colouring in. Sitting in the garden and enjoying the shade, gentle breeze, the perfume of my wonderful roses and the sound of a neighbour using a very whiny electric sander. Seriously, if he was sanding garden furniture, it must be doll’s house furniture by now. Five full afternoons in a row. I wonder if perhaps whilst on furlough, he’s taken to restoring or upcycling. Who knows. Might not even be a he. Damaging to my mojo though, that sander. But hey, it’s weekdays and let’s face it, usually we aren’t all at home. Which leads me to another thing. I’ve had to work this week. Really. Proper, wear-steel-toe-caps-in-the-workshop work. So the colouring in has been bliss. You can’t even see the felt tips because I store them in the dark of my real workroom; now I’ve found pens that I really like (the Tri-Blends), I’m not about to leave them in the sun and heat!  Anyway, digression aside, I’ll photo the cards I make from the random pictures I’ve coloured and you will see just how random my stamp choices are!

Meanwhile, show us your desks, please, its the name of the game! Put WOYWW in your post title and link your blog here, as usual please. Apart from shopping, I’m having the day off. Don’t tell anyone.

What’s On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 573

Congratulations one and all, last week was a triumph, what a great way to mark our eleventh anniversary! Loved seeing and reading the stories behind some very old, not so old and new intentions that IWOYWWs anniversary may have pushed you into! I admire you all enormously for making and then taking the time, thank you. And I hope you all feel really good about yourselves for the achievement! 

Talking of achievement, my desk was tidied ready for a card making day (mindful of the UFO snowmen, see), but I didn’t get to them. Shopkeeper Gal has been working really hard creating workshops and delivering or posting them, so I went through my most recent delivery to ‘do’ the cards and have the nice surprise of discovering what I’d ordered to go along with the workshop! That’s that thing about seeing good samples and delivery to your door...you just say yes and forget about it till it arrives! There were three dies, so I had a pang of guilt about that for a couple of minutes and resolved to do some extra housework. You can see my newly altered bin, in full use. The smaller pot with the feathers on is already getting on my nerves because since I untangled the spare die cuts and put them into a little photo album, (thank you for the idea, Kelly, you genius gal), I don’t need it so much. Watch that space! There’s a large scallop shape at the far end of the table which is an ‘edger’ shaper from Bramble Fox, also new. I know, now you’re starting to feel a bit embarrassed for me aren’t you, the guilt is appalling. It will stop soon, I shall need all my spending money for when the hairdressers are allowed to re-open! 

Please join us in a look at busy desks here and there. Put WOYWW in your post title, link your post here and put the kettle on. I wonder if we’ll still be doing this in another handful of years!

Lockdown

In this Time of Pandemic, lockdown has forced a few changes (!) and for me, one or two of them have been positives. One of those is that I’ve never seen so much of The Coven. We usually try to get together once a month for a pub supper and catch up, and once a month we all go to the Artful Angels crop. as you know though, gentle reader, we gals have to be flexible and it’s sometimes 3 months before we can all be together either at Crop or in a pub. That’s real life, innit.

Over the last eight or nine weeks though, we’ve managed at the least, to get together online once a week to craft whilst we chat . It means that I’ve disciplined myself to be ready for the call, and have done many more scrapbook pages than I would have normally in two months! I’ve also sorted through some old photos and been ‘inspired’ to use them. You can tell they’re old because in some cases, the colour in the picture is decidedly iffy, and other big clues like the fact that you know already that our baby gal is actually a grown woman who chooses not live with her Mummy and Daddy anymore. 

I’ve also been using my Basic Grey collections. They no longer make/print scrapbook papers and I think I felt it might be wrong to use them. But of course, I’ve seen the light. Even if I use them, they’re still in my possession after all. This may be subtle way of saying you may never get a card made with scraps of BG from me! They are, in the main, frighteningly busy patterns, which makes me sort of shut my eyes and just get on with it! I’m still scrapping in that one photo format, it clearly is my formula. although these pics are old, I also think that I’m aware that this is my formula because despite digital photography and that thing where you take 10 pictures of the same thing because you can, I often don’t now. Subliminally unable to cope with the choices I end up with!

I’ve made quite a pile since The Coven began meeting once a week. When this is all over, some sort of ‘normal’ returns and my furloughed friends have to return to their real days, I wonder if I’ll miss this feature of lockdown? I would very much like the opportunity to find out!