WOYWW # 315

Absolutely nothing. Nada.  Not a single thing to show you for this weeks WOYWW, courtesy of Julia over at The Stamping Ground. Why a bare desk? you may ask. Two reasons, firstly, we spent last weekend at Download, and I'll share a pic or two in a minute, but mainly because we are off on holiday on Friday- 10 days in Crete- absolute heaven.
We did have a great weekend, despite the British weather, but I can definitely say I am done with mud for a very long time!










Friday morning the weather was glorious, we even caught the sun a little. Then later in the afternoon it started raining. A lot. There was potential for needing to build an Ark.

After all the rain Friday afternoon/night, this was what the field looked like on Saturday. Actually, this patch wasn't the worst, you can still see grass.

One highlight of the weekend was an entertainment called Battle Heritage. These guys  fight in full armour.  I won't say mock fights, because these guys are not playing at it! The guy in the middle of the picture, with the white cloth held to his face had a huge gash across his nose and cheek. There is not a playful tapping of swords here, they full on batter each other to the ground (with blunt weapons).

Fellow fans of Game of Thrones, I swear that's The Mountain- he was enormous.

Highlight of Sunday night- KISS! Just a small portion of the crowd in this shot- 85,000 people on the field for Sundays bands.

I'll leave you with a final shot from my room, thanks to Tim Holtz and his 12 new colours for the year, I needed to re-organise my inkpads to accommodate them. Right on the top of the shelves are the only Wood-mounted stamps I have now. All the really big ones, which I'm sure are easier to manage still on their block.

OK, I lied. One last pic, as I just turned around to look out of the window, to see this sky.
 So that's me done for today, I won't be joining in next week, but I'll take a pic or two to share when we get back.

WOYWW #314

Hi folks, here we are with yet another Wednesday link up. I know we all keep asking the question, but just WHERE do these weeks go?Time again for everyone to call in at The Stamping Ground, home to our esteemed ruler, Julia (that'll make her laugh). Post pics of your desk/floor/ironing board, link up and let us come have a look-see.The person who turned out to be sending me an ATC in the link list, Sandra de, and I had already arranged to swap privately, and so the lovely Sandra sent me a surprise package, which arrived on Monday.

 Wrapped in gorgeous gold and white tissue paper, and tied with white ribbon, with a lovely hand written message on the tag.The tag also had a stamped tree on the other side.

The first item I found was one of Sandras beautiful watercolours. Not sure if you can tell from the picture, but the speckly nature of the pearskin is picked out in gold leafing.
 Just look at the colours- it is so realistic, so lifelike, I'm truly honoured to have been sent this alone. It will be framed, and go on the wall in my craft room.



And then I unwrapped the parcel!

So many goodies- glitter and velvet ribbon, die cuts and laser shapes, tissue tape, eyelets, charms- and of course one of Sandras signature tea bags, lol.

This is an amazing piece, so intricate.







These two were from Tesco, I spotted them in the magazine racks- Adult colouring books. You are all no doubt well aware of my opinion of my colouring, but as I'll explain in a minute, I'm looking at having rather a lot of time on my hands soon, and these will help pass the hours, and give me some much needed colouring practice.








And finally, they're here! My Tim Holtz Bird Crazy stamps. Just look at those faces- aren't they fabulous? Been waiting a few weeks to get them, and finally on Saturday, Countryview Crafts had them in stock.

Right, so, I've updated my cancer page with all the info we have at the moment,which is quite involved, but for a quick run down, last Thursdays appointment was awful! In hindsight, I rather think the Consultant and his Registrar thought we knew more about the implications of where the tumour was attached than we actually did,as well as the potential complications of the surgery and didn't seem to realise that what they were telling us was one shocker on top of another. Left feeling stressed, worried and upset. Saw my own surgeon Monday, who did help a lot to clarify the things we'd been told. One thing is that I will be in hospital for 10-14 days, as this surgery I'll be having will be much more radical than originally planned.  That would have been a 3-5 day stay. Hence the colouring books to occupy me. It also seems that its very probable my Stoma will now be a permanent thing, rather than reversible. Not something I wanted to hear. But for now, I'm putting the whole issue to the back of my mind, I'll get it out and have a melt down closer to when it's actually going to happen. This weekend, we are going to Derby, for the Download festival- we booked the tickets back last year, expecting all this to be done and finished by now, we've been getting a bit worried that the surgery was going to clash with it. Then, as both Docs have agreed a holiday would be good, we are off to Crete next Friday for 10 days. Pretty certain I will more or less come back to go into hospital, but we should both be a bit less stressed by then.

WOYWW #313

Good Morning everyone, back to our regular review of desk apocalypse the world over, all lovingly managed by our much loved Lady of Desks, Julia, at The Stamping Ground.
 Mine is showing signs of use at last- the glittery sparkles are the remains of the Glamour Dust used in the card in the previous post. Laying amongst the sparkle are the ATC's I've received in the last few days.

This beauty, along with a larger card, is from Diane, ( A Focused Journey).
 Here is a larger image of the ATC, so you can see the gorgeous 'cracked glass' effect used on it.

These ones are from Neet, (top left), Sandra de, (top right)- love the 'WOYWW Fan'! and its funny, we'd already arranged a private swap, and she was actually the person who had to send to me.
 Bottom left is from Angela,(Felix the crafty cat), bottom right is from Nann4, and the middle one from Laura R.  They are all amazing ladies, thank you all so much.




One picture I forgot to include last week, from one of our walks along the beach at Seaton.
These are known as 'Hag stones' or 'Odin Stones'- they have a hole straight through them, worn that way by the sea. They are said to heal, and offer protection, and almost all fishing boats, especially in the South West of England, will have at least one on board, threaded onto rope, for protection at sea.They were also used by West Country folk for 'protection against malevolent witches'! Another belief is they allow you to see into the world of faerie, or to see the truth behind a glamour.
They are said to bring you luck if you find one. You are supposed to find them 'by chance', by walking over them, rather than specifically searching the beach for them.
 Talking of luck, I had the results last week of my liver scan, and it came back completely clear, so that was fantastic news. On Thursday afternoon we have an appointment to see the surgeon at the QE, so it looks as if either the cancer is attached to my tailbone, or he can't be sure from the scan images, so will be doing the surgery just in case.
 Either way, I'll update my Cancer page on Friday with whatever info we get.

Welcome Home card

My card was inspired by a Pinterest find the other day. About time I actually used some of that 'inspiration', lol.This is the card that I CASE'D, and the ladys blog is HERE.












 Made a slight alteration, this is a one layer card, but I did my panel on a separate piece of card.










I started by sponging on two shades of D I, Squeezed Lemonade and Mustard Seed.

 Then I added some of the new Fossilized Amber and Dried Marigold.
 I found out a mask, TCW (The Crafters Workshop) Mini Bricks.
 Through this I sponged Wild Honey and Spiced Marmalade D I.

Moved the stencil down and finished off the strip. Gave it a blast with the heat gun to dry it, so I could stamp.
The stamp I chose is called Agapanthus Cluster, by Stampendous, stamped in Versafine Onyx Black.


I stamped the first one about halfway up, and extended the stems with a stem from another stamp set. Re stamped it again lower down,then added a partial stamp over the left hand edge. The butterfly stamps are from an Inkylicious set.

I changed my card up a bit more, by adding some double sided adhesive sheet to the front, then sprinkling with Glamour Dust.

Once the adhesive sheet was in place, I brayered over it with a hard rubber roller, to make sure it was completely flat.
I also put the backing sheet back over the top and brayered it again, over the Glamour Dust to make sure it was stuck firmly.





Next step was to mark the width of the panel on the inside of the card, then score lines to border the panel.

It looked like it still needed something, so two butterflies were punched out of sparkly vellum, and coloured on the reverse with DI markers in matching colours.Folded up the wings, then stuck down with Pinflair glue.

 At this point I discovered that in all my stamps, I do not have a single 'Welcome' or 'Welcome Home' stamp! Neither do I have anything in my ageing peel off collection, so no other option but to hand write it. I added a small orange flat back gem to the exclamation mark. Some orange ribbon wrapped around the spine to finish.

I'm linking this to 'A Focused Journey' blogspot,
 for the 'Stop pinning and make something' party, which is Diane's idea to encourage us all to actually use some of those ideas we Pin for inspiration!