WOYWW #562: Not quite back yet

Another short check-in from me just to let you know I'm still around. I seem to have fallen off the proverbial bandwagon and haven't been very busy in my craft room. As you can see, my desk has been taken over by Oreo cat - in fact, the whole room has been taken over by him as I often find him in there either staring out the window or sleeping on my chair. He thinks it's his domain now.

Instead of spending my spare time creating, I've reading a lot and also got hooked on Lost, the TV series. It's quite addictive - I've still got two seasons to whiz through. I'll be back at one point, no doubt, but I'm not sure when.

I have found an old project I can share though - you've probably seen it sitting on my shelves but I've never shown close-ups of it before. It's a little tag book with pockets that I created a while ago from a single 12X12" sheet of paper. I admit, I can't quite remember how I made it though!

So that's just for a quick fix. A couple of photos left to share. I caught this little guy sitting on the fence the other day. I keep forgetting to get some peanuts for him. Or could be her, who knows? 

My dad sent me this photo for my birthday last week. I must have been around 6 when it was taken. That orange monkey was my favourite toy for many, many years growing up. 

So that's it, just to let you know that I haven't fallen off the edge of the Earth. Hope everyone else is OK - will catch up soon! xx

WOYWW #556: My (relatively) tidy craft room

I thought I'd better check in today after 4 weeks of absence so you wouldn't think that I've completely disappeared. I'm taking an unplanned breather from crafting and blogging. No particular reason - we all need a break from time to time even from things that we enjoy - and I know from experience that I always come back with a vengeance with fresh creative ideas.

Although I haven't got anything creative to show you today, I can boast about my tidy craft room. It took me a couple of weeks to declutter. Not because it was such a big job,  but because I kept putting it off.  There comes a point when you feel so suffocated by all that stuff around you that it starts weighing you down. I ruthlessly got rid of a lot of scraps (cardboard, die-cuts, magazine cut-outs, bits of rubbish, etc|) that I was holding onto for future projects. I will admit though, that on second thought I retrieved some of them from the recycling box after throwing them out LOL!

Now that my room is (relatively) tidy, I feel refreshed and so much lighter! Here are some photos of my entire craft room shown from all angles. I go in there every day to admire it but I still feel reluctant to mess it up again, though I came close to it a couple of times in the past two weeks. I even got my paints out at one point to do some pouring but never got around to it. I'll get there, don't worry!  So for now, just enjoy the view - it won't look like this for long:

Happy WOYWW! I'll visit soon to find out what everyone's been up to in the past few weeks! xx

WOYWW #552: Finished Advent Journal 2019

Well, Happy New Year! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's Eve. I was up bright and early today - that is if you can call 8:30 bright and early. I spent the last two weeks playing catch up with Kasia's advent calendar prompts and finished my journal a week late but still before we entered the new decade with just a few hours to spare. Here's the state of my desk - this photo was taken yesterday afternoon but it looks exactly the same this morning. Yes, I know it's messy, even for me! My next project will be a major clean up operation.

Below are the pages I completed since my last post. Just scroll through them, or watch the slide show at the end. I had a bit of a journal-catastrophe on my hands when I decided to expand the spine by cutting off the back cover without thinking it through properly. Now what? Bookbinding tape to the rescue, I managed to bodge it together in the end. 

Wishing everyone all the best for 2020! xx

WOYWW #550: Advent Journal 2019 - Part 3

I wasn't sure if I would be able to link up today for WOYWW but then I thought I'd better because I won't have a chance to say merry Christmas to everyone before next week. So here I am. A quick shot of my desk this morning - literally taken a few minutes ago:

 After boasting last week about my ability to do daily journalling, I fell behind with the Advent prompts - serves me right! I'm three days behind - four including today. No worries - it happened last year as well - I will catch up! I can show you the pages I made for day 11 through 14. Day 11 was about about smells and it has real cinnamon on the page - it smells lovely! How about that for a 4D experience?

This is as far as I got - more than half-way through with the prompts. Here's a shot of my journal at this stage, filling up nicely:

I've also received a cute little Christmas card from Shaz Silverwolf - somehow, quite undeservedly -  I got onto her Christmas list! Thanks so much, Shaz - it was a lovely surprise! I managed to take a photo of it showing the sparkle in the snowman.

Oreo had his annual jab on Saturday. I had to wake him up from a deep sleep, put him in his carrier and take him all the way to the vets - how cruel! We used to have a mobile vet, which was a lot less traumatic for him, but I couldn't find one around here. When we got back he went straight back to sleep. I bet when he woke up he thought 'what a terrible nightmare I had!' Here he is curled up on the settee, newly vaccinated. I hope we won't have to see a vet for another 12 months! 

I'm not sure I'll be able to link up next week, so I'd like to wish a very Merry Christmas to everyone!

Enjoy your festivities! xx

WOYWW #549: Advent Journal 2019 - Part 2

Looking back on my desk a week ago, it looked positively tidy compared to its present state. Here's a shot of my desk fresh off my camera this morning - and I had a surprise visitor as well!

I was working on Day 11 (today) in my advent journal following Kasia's prompts, so I'm all up to date. I'll finish this spread later today. When I originally constructed my journal, I only included 24 pages - one for each day - but I soon realised that I prefer working on two pages side-by-side (i.e. a whole spread) so I started sticking in additional pages. Luckily, my book spine is big enough to accomodate the additional thickness. Here are my pages from day 4 to day 10. There's a yellow tinge on these photos as the sun was rising around the time I took them this morning - except day 9, which was taken on a previous occasion.  I tried to include a little gold on every page - it's Christmas after all! 

It's really not hard to keep up with the daily journalling and I can even do it on my work days. 15-20 minutes is all it takes and it makes me feel good that I did something creative, no matter how small or quick. I could get into the daily habit of doing this. The key is that you should not worry about the outcome, which is something I still have to work on but I find Kasia's attitude to journalling very inspiring. 

We've added some more twinkling lights to our decor and it's really beginning to feel a lot like Christmas! Thanks for your visit - I'll be over soon! xx

WOYWW #548: Advent Calendar and Journal

Hello again lovely WOYWW peeps. I'll jump straight in showing you my desk as I have lots of other things to share. This photo must have been taken on Sunday might as I was just beginning to work on the first prompt of Kasia's Advent Calendar.

So far I managed to keep on track and even managed to complete day 3 after work yesterday - which seems like days ago but it was just last night! Here are my pages so far. As you can see, I included some of the art cards I made earlier in the year - I thought it would be nice to give them a home in my journal. I will be working on day 4 later today - we're encouraged to spend just 15-20 mins on each page, so it doesn't get overwhelming. 

I've also managed to complete my DIY advent calendar in the nick of time for Sunday. Here it is all decorated. It came with little red velvet pouches each containing a number of charms. When I received it a few weeks ago, I couldn't help opening them but I didn't look! I touched them with my eyes closed and tried to work out what they were - this way the surprise is not ruined but enhanced! I'll show you what it contained today and I'll show you all of them in the end. I open them in the morning and it's a good motivator for me to get out of bed early! 

I haven't done any new pours but I have been working some more with resin. I added die-cuts to some of my "failed" pours with a layer of resin over the top, which really enhances them. I've learned so much along the way - especially that resin is very forgiving and you can repour it as many times as necessary to get a good result. The one on the left has three layers and at one point it really looked like it was a gonner, but I managed to save it! 

I've also managed to fix this one I showed you last week - I just had to sand it back and pour another layer of resin and all the scratches, bumps and imperfections disappeared! Here it is again - do you recognise the reflection in it?

Just in case you didn't: 

We've also put our tree and lights up. Same a last year except for this little fixture I made from some lighted branches from Aldi, a glass vase from Home Bargains and some glass pebbles from Ebay. Once you add these up, it wasn't exactly cheap but we can use it all year around not just for Christmas. And of course our little rustic Santa came out of exile as well. 

Happy #548! xx