WOYWW - Holiday Scrapping (and Shopping)!!

Hi hope you are all well - I'm looking forward to seeing what you are up to this week !

Well, today was back to work after a week & the bank holiday off - always a dreary state of affairs !

Yesterday it lashed with rain morning noon & night - typical bank holiday !
So we huddled in the house & didn't step a foot outside the door !

But they were clouds with a silver lining as - having done 7 post-holiday washes & over 3 hours of ironing on Sunday - I was able to have a play day at my desk !!

First up was dragging the best of my holiday snaps into Powerpoint & printing them out onto photo papers - and I even got a couple of layouts scrapped too !

So here is a double page layout & a pile of photos ready to cut & scrap.

Then I have some new goodies - I had seen in the adverts page of Craft Stamper that there was a craft shop in Bude called Moments, so whilst I was in Cornwall on holiday I thought I should do my bit to support a local shop as so many have sadly closed in the past few years (well that's my story & I'm sticking to it !!)
They had a nice cross section of products & were very welcoming.

I particularly liked their stamp selection - I hadn't seen these stamps by Cherry Pie Art Stamps before & really liked them ! Plus a couple more that insisted they wanted to live in Wales jumped into my basket !!

At the back are a couple pages from the calendar on my desk at work - they have little quotes & thoughts at the bottom & these are fun to use as inspiration for my art journal - one of these says "Happiness is what happens to people who are too busy to be miserable" - think this is a thought I can relate to - so will plan a page around this !!

Also having time to browse a few blogs whilst on hols I have ordered a couple of books - the "Page After Page" one had great reviews & arrived today - as did the new Cloth Paper Scissors magazine.
We are away again at the end of September - so I'm saving these to read then !

And as the rain kept on lashing down I moved from scrapping to a bit of journalling - playing with drawing round my hands & messing about with the idea of my inner life (left hand) & outward life (right hand) - just a bit of fun !

Then finally here's my August attempt for the challenge that my friend Jan (Jan S on WOYWW) in Spain & I are doing - this month we each pulled out our challenge idea from our pots & we have to combine them ..... I really struggled with this one !
My prompt was "use something you have had in your stash for over a year & not used" - and Jan's was "a recipe".
Trying to do this on the little cards we have chosen was a real challenge !!

Even a simple recipe like this takes the whole side of card - so not much room for embellishing !!
So I had to keep it simple - ink sprayed on the card then heat gun dried, the recipe (one of our favourite supper dishes) was added (I messed up the first one - so that went in the recycling !!) and then my "over a year old" bit was these cute "Chook" stamps from Artemio & the chicken peg.
Not very inspired but a bit of fun !

Well I've rambled on enough - thanks for visiting & have a fun crafty week !

WOYWTW - On Tour !

Well this week it's a case of what's on the work table rather than the desk - as we are down in Cornwall in a rented house with Rich's family to celebrate his Mum's 80th birthday.
So this weeks arty stuff is happening on a table in the corner of the open plan living room dining room.

The weather has been mostly unkind so we have had time indoors to play with some painting. I finished adding the colour to the drawing I did of the Rubeckia in my garden and draw & painted some deep purple hydrandeas we saw at Lanhydrock on Sunday. The gardens there were stunning & loads to paint but the rain was threatening so not much time to do anything other than take photos (and pick up a few petals from under the bush as a colour sample).

They had the most amazing wooden doors which are also on my "must get around to painting" list !

Yesterday the weather did smile on us which was fortunate as we had pre-booked the helicopter from Penzance to Tresco in the Scilly Isles - we had booked the disabled buggy for Rich & we had a lovely day in the Abbey Gardens whilst his sister & family explored the Island.
The helicopters were smelly (diesel fumes) very noisy but exhilarating & with brilliant views of the coast & Bishops Rock Lighthouse. It was a great trip ! And sneaked a bit of sketching in too - struggling with perspective & building up to painting my sketches at some point !

Anyway have a great crafty & looking forward to seeing what you have been up to.

WOYWW - Calm Restored !

Hi ! Hope everyone is having a good week ?

As you can see there are a few bits & bobs happening on the desk this week & my house has been restored to calm & order after decorating our bedroom !

On the right, I have a journal page that I have made to try out some new goodies I succumbed to from Art From The Heart - the new Beatrice stamp from Pam Carricker (I really enjoyed her book "Art at the Speed of Life" & a Donna Downey Poppies & Peony stencil (I love all things Poppies !) and a new Bubblegum Pink Dylusions Ink - it's a stunning fuchsia pink !

On the right of my desk I have the birthday card I made for my mother in law's 80th birthday - here's a close-up !

In the middle of the desk I also have a sketch started of the stunning Rubekia in my garden - I am using the swatches I made of the colours of my Inktense watercolour pencils in my journal - I take the book out, hold up the swatches & match the colours the best I can & then make some notes for when I get time to paint!
The colours of the flowers are dazzling ! And my fennel is now taller than I am & looks stunning covered in rain drops - and my Dad sowed & grew on these Cosmos plants & brought them to me at Easter - they sat for months doing nothing in all the cold rainy weeks we have had but now they are just starting to flower - a stunning vivid pink !!

And not on the desk as it is all wrapped up - but the scrapbook Rich & I have been working on for his Mum's 80th birthday for months is finally done - hope she likes it !

And finally many thanks to everyone who said not to get stressed out last week - with our bedroom being redecorated & a new carpet put down the house was in chaos & it was hard work heaving & shifting everything in & out of the room - but happily it all went well & we are very happy with how it turned out !

Hope you all have a lovely crafty week & looking to seeing what you have been up to this week !

WOYWW - Calm in a Madhouse !

Hi hope everyone is well ?
Don't faint but I have had a mega-blitz tidying & literally scrubbing my craft desk clean !

It is my spot of calm in what is a madhouse this week - with everything else in chaos it was something I could get tidy & under control !

We are having our bedroom redecorated & a new carpet laid next Friday - so the dining room is crammed with wardrobes, the parts of the bed & chests of drawers !

And the conservatory is festooned with clothes & drawers from all the units !

Whereas our bedroom is stripped bare - it's very strange how small the room looks with all the furniture removed - wouldn't you think it would look smaller full of furniture - not smaller empty !

So Saturday was a heaving & shifting day - all the stuff from the room had to be moved out - with Rich's disability he's not able to carry anything at all - so he gets frustrated at not being to do what he'd like to do & stressed at me getting frazzled & worn out doing it all !
Two great colleagues came up to the house to shift the heavy stuff I just couldn't budge !

By Sunday I had had enough of all that - and took refuge in having a total strip-down of my desk and cleaned off weeks worth of ink, paint & mica powders !

Then I was able to get stuck in creating a couple of pages for my journal.
The first page was inspired by a phrase that came up on my calender on Friday - "Life may not be all we want - but is all we have" !
So I used some stamps that came free with Craft Stamper magazine & then some lovely grasses stamps I ordered from the Craft Shed - I have a terrible weakness for these grasses, dandelion and seed-heads type stamps - I can't resist them !

and the second page was created spraying my new Dylusions Inks onto card & then sticking these pieces into my journal - this was to stop them soaking the paper & spoiling the other side.

It is about us selling our original holiday house in Spain. After 13 months on the market -this was a real relief - yet tinged with sadness as we were very sentimental about the house as it was our first venture into owning a home in Spain.
It was our bolt-hole and we had a lot of happy times there.
We decided to sell as Rich wasn't able to cope with all the steps now & so wasn't able to enjoy the outdoor lifestyle.
Our new house is lovely - and we are hoping to make lots of new happy memories there!
But we'll always have a soft spot for "nuestra casa" !

Anyway need to get on now & get my Mother In Law's 80th birthday card made !

Hope you all have a fun crafty week !