WOYWW #394: First day of Winter!!!

Happy Winter Solstice, Peeps! Isn't it strange how the first day of Winter marks the point when the daylight hours start getting longer? I always find this amazing - and somehow comforting at this time of year, as if we were already coming out of winter, although we still have a few more cold months ahead.

If you're here from WOYWW, I haven't got anything to show on my desk today. Although I've been busy binding my LifeBook, I forgot to take photos of the proceedings on my desk. I decided to use the 'hidden hinge' binding method and I've got all my pages glued together, which is most of the hard work done. All I need now is a cover, but I didn't have a big enough piece of suitable fabric for this, so I had to order it online. As soon as it comes, I'm good to go! This is as far I've got:

LifeBook pages stuck together with hidden hinges

In other news, I've received a wonderful parcel from my online arty friend Lynette all the way from New Zealand! She sent me a pretty stencil, a Christmas card, a bookmark and loads of papers, fabrics, napkins and postage stamps to play with. Thank you so much, Lynette! I feel thoroughly spoilt!

Happy mail from Lynette

One of the papers is of paua shells, which I had never heard of before, so I looked them up. Here's what I've found on Google Images. They truly are stunning artworks of nature!

Now that school is out and hubby is off work, we aim to do something together as a family every day. On Monday we went to Hay-on-Wye just over the Welsh border. This town is famous for its many book stores and book festivals. Here are a few photos I took:

Open air 'honesty' book stalls

A window display for a shop that sells maps

Old books in the Cinema Book Store

I loved the atmosphere of this small town and it was lovely to see some quirky shops and being surrounded by so many books everywhere. I love reading my Kindle for practical reasons, but nothing beats the physical feel of a real book in your hands!

Thanks for popping in today! I'd like to wish all my visitors a very Happy Christmas! Here's a festive shot of Oreo that my son took. Oreo only tolerates dressing up costumes when he's asleep and can't be bothered to protest, so we took advantage of him being dopey! 

Oreo in his festive gear

We're going to the cinema later today, but I'll visit as many desks as I can before and after! Cheerio!

WOYWW #379: Happy Mail and Back to School

Hello all you lovely people visiting my desk today as part of the WOYWW blog hop craze. I'm actually in between projects, so I can't show you much on my work desk at the moment, but I still have something very exciting to share. I received a lovely bundle of goodies from my overseas BFF Felicia along with a letter that melted my heart! Felicia is a Master of Tags and I will be scrutinizing her work, hoping to steal some of her techniques and ideas! Just look at them - aren't they the most beautiful things you've ever seen? The birdie twinkles in the sunlight and the clustering is simply amazing!

Thank you so much, Felicia! You have no idea how much this means to me! I will think of you every time I look at these beauties and every time I use the bits and pieces you sent me :))

In other news, my son went back to school this week, starting secondary school for the first time. I'm probably finding this more stressful than he does. He seems to be taking it in his stride, while I run around like a headless chicken trying to send him off on time each morning. I did this quick digi layout to commemorate the occasion of moving up to secondary school. If the next seven years go as quickly as the primary school years passed, he will be all grown before I know it!

Thanks so much for visiting today!

I wish everyone a wonderful, creative week!

WOYWW #371:Grungy gelli prints II and happy mail!

Yet another WOYWW week done and dusted! It went so fast! I've come to think of a week as Wednesday to Wednesday these days. That's when we gather on the Stamping Ground to share our latest projects and a photo of our work desk, no matter how messy! Temporarily, we meet at LLJ's FabricFrenzy until our regular hostess, Julia, feels better following her surgery. Best wishes, Julia!

Today I'm sharing a few things neatly arranged on my dining table, just to show you. Better cheating this way than showing you an empty desk, I'm sure you agree!

You can see some more grungy gelli prints similar to the ones I made last week. I was glad that I was able to duplicate that look, but this time I made the prints a bit more green/teal. I've also bought a couple of things: two books by Pam Carriker (they're both fantastic!) and a plain canvas bag from HobbyCraft for just £1.49! What a bargain! I'm not sure what I will do with it at this point - might try to gelli print it. 

Also on my desk are two lots of happy mail! One from Win Dinn all the way from Canada, who sent me some awesome ATCs, and the other from Anita of Itsamistry Design Studio, who sent me a goodie bag full of ribbons, diecuts, dimensional elements, beads and all sorts of stuff along with a lovely card. Thank you both so much - I feel so spoilt! 

Here are a few close-ups of some of the items on my desk.

Gelli printed regular envelopes

Gelli printed ATC envelopes

Gelli printed ATC envelopes- flip side

Gelli printed ATC backgrounds

Gelli printed ATC backgrounds

ATCs and other bits received from Win 

Goodie bag from Anita

Thanks for visiting today. Hope you could find something of interest in my post. 

I will be in and out all day, but will visit as many of you as I can! 

Happy Wednesday!

WOYWW #365: Gelli printed envelopes and painting outdoors

So this is it - the week after the big 7th anniversary! Today's WOYWW is numbered 365, which would translate to a whole year's worth of blogging if you were to do it on a daily basis! Of course, it only happens once a week, so it's logical that after seven years it has reached #365. Our kind and generous hostess, Julia, is recovering from major brain surgery as we speak, so in the meanwhile our equally kind and generous, LLJ is hosting the blog hop, while we keep Julia in our thoughts and prayers.

My first desk shot shows the state of affairs the day after the big anniversary. I was gelli printing some envelopes for my ATCs. The ones sent to UK addresses will have arrived by now, while overseas deliveries should happen sometime this week. (Neet and Cardarian - if you're reading this - I haven't got your addresses yet!)

I've already received two ATCs from Annie and Angela. Angela sent me a wonderful triptych creation - I've never seen anything like this before! Will sure steal the idea! Annie also sent me a load of metal embellishments and some other goodies along with her lovely ATC, which made me feel thoroughly spoilt! Thank you both so much! I have to start thinking about a storage solution for my ATCs now!

Now onto my second desk shot. This was taken yesterday afternoon, while working on a LifeBook page. As you can see I moved outdoors to do my messy play. It wasn't very sunny but nice and warm and I was able to sit outside barefoot. I really enjoyed it! I'll have to do more of this whenever the weather permits. 

Of course, Oreo is never far away. See if you can spot him in the next photo. I'll also show you a close up of my page in progress.

I managed to complete my page last night but I can only show you a sneak peek at this point. I will publish a full blog post about it later in the week. Thanks for visiting!

WOYWW 299: Last week's projects and happy mail

We're closing in on the 300th What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday rapidly now. One more week to go! I hope to make it next week, it would be a shame to miss it! Such a round number only comes about every two years, which tells me WOYWW must have been running for at least 6 years, though I only joined earlier this year. Anyone is welcome to join in this fun blog hop, just head over to Julia Dunnit's Stamping Ground to find out the details!

I expect you guys want to see my messy desk first. This is what it looked like on Monday afternoon. I was working on my latest LifeBook project, while munching on a piece of banana cake. I had to blur out a tag in that tray on the right, because it is part of a tag swap I'm taking part in and I don't want to ruin the surprise. Since my last post, I bought another few bottles of Golden fluid acrylics while they were on offer and I made that orange box to store them in. The problem is, there's room for another six bottles! I like things to line up neatly, don't you?  Though I try not to be too specific about it, LOL. Here's the pic of my desk:

And here's another pic of my work space on Tuesday afternoon with all of last week's projects laid out, including the one I was working on the previous day. You can find all these projects under the LifeBook/DLP/WOIW tabs in my menu bar. (I'm too lazy to include links to each like I normally do plus I can feel a headache developing - hopefully, its just a mild one that will pass quickly).

Also on my desk is a surprise delivery: happy mail! It came just as I was staging my stuff for this shot. Talk about perfect timing! All the way from Canada! I couldn't imagine who it was from. I completely forgot about the RAK I won a few weeks ago from our very own WOYWW-er Nikki C.  Thank you Nikki, I love all the items you sent me, especially your cute card! Here's a closer look:

That's it folks! Thanks so much for visiting! I'll do my rounds a bit later today as I've got somewhere to go this morning. Remember that job interview I had two weeks ago? Well, it looks like I got that job - well, actually there was no specific job to get - I just went there for a chat to see if  I had anything to offer that they might need. And looks like they will take me on, temporarily at least, but with prospects of going permanent. It's nothing glamorous, just picking and packing online orders but here's the sweetener: it's with Jackson's Art Supplies! They have a warehouse in a business park not far from where I live. I will be surrounded by art supplies all day long!  I couldn't ask for anything better than that, really!  I'm sure I can get a discount as well, or at least get my hands on the best deals. I'll have to be careful not to spend my entire pay cheque though, LOL!

My only concern is that now I won't have enough time to create and blog, but I know many of you also work full time and still manage somehow and I find that encouraging. Wish me luck!

WOYWW #281: Happy Mail from the US!

Happy Wednesday! Yesterday I received a rather large packet from the US from my crafting friend, Cindy Wirl. It was such a wonderful surprise, I was (and still am!) completely overwhelmed by it. I decided to share it with the world as it would be a sacrilege to keep it to myself! Here it is sitting in the middle of my work desk/dining table along with the lovely card Cindy has also sent me. It's a desk organizer, which is very useful as I do need to organize my desk a bit more, as you can see! Thank you so much, Cindy, for such a wonderful gift! Now I can always find my favourite pens and pencils!

I'm showing my desk in its full glory today, which is not something I usually do. I normally just show you the tidy bit. I thought I would be brave enough today and show you the full monty. I should have warned you that it ain't pretty! I have a lot of clutter, but whenever I tidy up, I can never find anything! (Tiding means stack things in a big pile and shove it somewhere never to be seen again.) Out of sight out of mind. No wonder I can't find anything!  If you would like to see some more gloriously messy desks, hop over to the Stamping Ground to snoop around other crafters' work desks!

I have taken some close up photos of Cindy's creations (both the organizer and the card), which I'd like to share with you below. I know you will appreciate the pretty patterns and yummy textures as much as I do! I'm always amazed at the precision some paper crafters like Cindy are capable of achieving. I can never make things line up so neatly! If you would like to see some other fantastic paper crafting projects, please visit Cindy's Paper Creation. Perhaps she'll even post a tutorial for this organizer!

Thank you for visiting today! I return every single visit, just don't forget to leave your number!