WOYWW #425

Hello folks, and I'm back again. While we were away, The Range opened a new store in our town, and Tuesday was the first chance I had to go pay it a visit. It's not as big as many of their stores, but I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of craft stuff they had still.
 The bag full of scrabble type blocks- 200 of them- was £4. I also got a pack of ATC cards & envelopes, a quite large Happy Birthday stamp that was £2.50,  and two pots of metallic paint, one blue, one white. Both a quid, I think.

 Both of these arrived while we were away- a set of Posca paint pens, and a set of waterbrushes with various sizes & shapes of brush.



So, the holiday then. Those of you that know us via Facebook will know about the Earthquakes felt on Kos while we were there, on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Made the holiday far more exciting than necessary, I can tell you.

We visited a Roman Amphitheatre that had been excavated.

On a boat waiting to go out on a trip.

The sun going down behind us.

 This trip, on Saturday was to Nisyross, which is an active, but dormant, volcano. In fact the whole island is actually the crater, and the area you can see behind us is the caldera, which you can go down and walk across. Doug did, but the path down was getting too steep for me- if I'd gone all the way down, I'd probably still be there!

This was a view from one of the restaurants along the main street.
The harbour did take a lot of the effects of the eathquake.
 I can tell you that nothing wakes you up faster than the bed shaking and stuff falling off shelves & tables at 01.30 in the morning.

This cycle lane had a split develop the whole length of it's joint to the main footpath.

A whole section of the harbour path- about a mile in length- dropped by between 4" and 12" for the whole length of it.

The cracks even went straight through the grass.

Large sections of slabs from walls fell away.

Here you can see the top from a stone pillar which has fallen to the pavement, with the toppled pillar above it.


The last earthquake felt by Kos was in 1933, the major tremor we felt was on the border between Kos & Turkey, which is just a few miles away across the sea.

This was a sort of bandstand in the centre of the old town square.


Many of the buildings in the older part of town suffered damage, and sadly, two people were killed by falling masonry.



The part that really amused us the next day was how the Greeks dealt with it. All along the path they just tied red & white plastic tape, and then put plywood boards over the affected footpath so people could still get on & off the boats. If this had been the UK, the whole town would have been evacuated, and the various committees formed would still be talking about what needed to be done!

This screenshot is off Dougs phone- he downloaded an Earthquake tracker app- yes, that really is a thing. This was taken on Saturday, and all those rings are the aftershocks, so you can see how many there must have been. Most too mild to be felt, but occasionally you could faintly feel a tremor through your feet, and on the odd occasion it was a bit stronger, and you felt stuff shake.


So, that's something that can come off the bucket list, rofl!

....and finally, something to make you smile today. 😀


Oooh, I almost forgot my exciting news! Some of you may have seen the announcement by Art From The Heart that they have Tim Holtz over for 3 days in September. As we were on holiday I asked my lovely friend, Debbie Rock( Tattered Rocks), if she would try to get me a place when she tried to book hers. And she got us both a place! So I get to meet the God of Crafters!

WOYWW 423

First thing this week is an ATC I received  last week, from Anne at Copper Beech Crafts. Love the colour, and the stamp. Smashing card that came with it too.

 Right, this desk shot is going to be a bit of a shocker. All of those joining us from The Stamping Ground will find this hard to believe.😲








I decided it needed a complete clear up, and cleaning- I had a few rainbow stripes at times, as stray Brusho crystals got activated!
But as we are off on our holibobs tomorrow, I thought it ought to be done. So that's what it's going to look like for the next 10 days, but I'm sure it won't last past us getting home again.






There has been some stuff done in the last week- that canvas I was working on is very almost finished- these are some wooden pieces I wanted to add.



Sprayed with a mix of Dylusions and Distress sprays, and a Cosmic Shimmer pearl one for good measure.










I'd added some paste through a Tim Holtz stencil.

Then stuck down my various pieces using Glossy Accents. Apart from the clock face- that has silicone glue so the spinner will still turn.


I'm just going to add some runs from the top with diluted ink once this is all dry, and then I think I'll call it done.



Well that's it, I'll be round to visit as many people as I can today, and I shan't be joining you next week, but I'll be back the week after.

I'm sure this will make a few of our WOYWWers laugh!

WOYWW #422 (I think)

Well here we are again, and I have to say, this time next week, I'll be in holiday mode, as we go away next Thursday. But, my desk this week,for our weekly meeting at Auntie Julias, The Stamping Ground.
It has a few things on it, to be honest. First off is this fab Dragon, kindly sent to me by Sue Dyer (Graceful Greyhounds) , when I admired a dragon on her desk a week or two ago.
He's smashing, thank you Sue.

Then I started work on a couple of canvases. I keep saying I'm going to, and I have two ideas in mind, but I'm only right at the start of the process.

The first one so far has had a mix of yellow & orange Acrylic paint spread on with baby wipes.

That's as far as I am with that one at the moment, as I'm more concerned with getting the second one done, as I'm planning on adding it to Eldest Sons Birthday pressies, and that's the end of July.
And I'm already on to Plan B, as Plan A didn't work as well as I hoped.

The canvas has been coloured using the ink & shaving foam technique. Wasn't sure how well it would work, but it works fine.

 Plan A was lighter, and then I added some images stamped on tissue. Unfortunately, the tissue around the image picked up the dye ink, and it had a sort of dark halo around the images, so I wet it and got them back off. Then re- coloured the canvas a bit.

 Used an assortment of blue Distress Inks, and as I had plenty of usable foam left over, also covered 3 sheets of card.

Still had foam left, so I tried something else. Patting it through a stencil.

I did try spreading it, and dragging some off, but you end up with it going under the stencil, so I took to just scooping up a little on a palette knife, then patting it on, and leaving it to air dry with the foam still on, after I'd removed the stencil. This does seem to take a few days, especially if you leave the foam too thick.

Like I say, they don't turn out perfect, but I reckon I will be able to stamp an image over the mistakes.

Used all the blue, then made a small batch of green.That ones still not dried out completely yet, so remains to be seen how successful it was.

For the non knitters, just substitute any craft item of your choice, lol.


Had my MRI on Tuesday, and I now have an appointment to see an Oncologist at the QE on the 1st of August. They did actually offer me one for next Tuesday, the 11th, but I asked them to swap it. Partly because I don't want to run the risk of getting there, and they haven't had the report from the MRI- it would only be 4 working days after the MRI, and partly because I really don't want to be doing it two days before we go on holiday!