WOYWW #285

Someone, somewhere must be hoarding Thursdays to Tuesdays! Seriously, another week gone already? So here we are, back for another WOYWW, courtesy of Julia over at The Stamping Ground.
My desk for this week has nothing going on at all. Nada. Nowt. But I did realise, looking at last weeks picture, that when I showed the stamps I bought, pretty much none of them were visible. Bit pointless really. So I thought that as my desk was bare, I'd lay them out and show you.

Some bare trees from Inkylicious, and a flock of birds. A Christmassy sentiment, and a stencil that I'm hoping will be useful.

A few more of my favourite Visible Image stamps.

These sentiments, available in two sizes, appealed to me, from Bee Crafty.

These from Card-io, some of you may remember the Rubber Stamp Tapestry stamps from  a few years ago? The ones on little wooden pegs? Now they do clear stamps, and clear acrylic pegs to attach to, if you want, or you can use small acrylic blocks. I saw her demo some fabulous Christmas cards with them, and to add colour, instead of sponging she used a dry baby wipe wrapped around her finger, which I intend to try out.

This Clarity set looked like it would be a useful addition for scenic stamping.

And lastly, I could not come home without some Lavinia stamps- love those funky toadstools.







 Final item is something I forgot about last week, as it was still inside a bag.
 Glitter. How could I miss that?

Some nice orange shades, which seems to be sadly lacking in glitter colours, although there are quite a few in the Barbara Trombelli range. A nice variety of purples- you can never have too much purple, I say. And the obligatory black.

One or two thoughts on the NEC- its getting smaller every time I go, I find. And there are less stamping companies attending every year. Quite a few of the big names were noticeable by their absence this time round, and a lot of others had much smaller spaces than they usually do. Looks like Hobbycrafts is pricing people out of taking part.
  So that's me done, I'm not working tonight,(Tuesday) I'm absolutely shattered. So glad this is my final week of treatment, its getting to me now. I was quite wiped out over the weekend, I slept till midday on Saturday, then went back to sleep at 3.00 till 6.00, and was back in bed by 10.30, and slept till midday on Sunday. All I've been thinking about since I got up is going back to bed, so that's where I'm off now. Only 4 more treatments, and until at least Thursday, when I see the Oncologist, I'm off the Chemo tablets. One of the side effects you are supposed to tell them about is getting sore hands/feet, and for the last few days the balls of my feet have been quite sore. Like when you've been wearing heels for too long? Or had the seam of your socks/tights under the ball of your foot? Anyway, I phoned them and told them, and I've not to take any more till I see Dr Sothi on Thursday. And I also now have 6 weeks worth of Vitamin E tablets to take for it!

WOYWW #284

Another week, another Wednesday blog round up over at The Stamping Ground, chaired by Head Desker Julia.So on the desk this week are my purchases from Hobbycrafts at the NEC last Saturday. Had a smashing day, especially getting to meet up with Linda B and Ali H, along with some other members of their scrapping group.

As you can see, a selection of stamps- Lavinia, Visible Image and Cardio in the main. Saw the lady on Cardio's stand making some amazing Christmas cards, and using dried out baby wipes to add the ink, instead of sponging. Very effective, and looked really easy, so I shall be trying that out. A few new ink pads, Tim mini blending tool pads,low tack tape and some background sheets also from Lavinia stamps. There is also some packs of black and white leather effect card under the tape.

On the other desktop, 3 Sweet Poppy stencils, two Christmas ones and a Thistles one, which appears to be hiding. A set of Tim Holtz snowflakes, and some Memory Box bauble dies, which one of the stands was selling really cheap.
 The rest of my room is gradually getting back to normal, I've got everything put back on my desk, and have a few drawers to put stuff away in yet.
Running update, I now have only 9 days of radiotherapy left, thats gone by really fast. Oncologist was very happy with me last week, and said that if I still feel ok this week, I don't need to wait and see her, I can just see her next week, and she will organise the CT scan for 6 weeks time then. Works Occupational Health Nurse was also happy, and said she recommended that I continue doing half shifts until my treatment has finished, and gradually go back up to full hours after that. Which I am happy with, I do find that I tire easily- thats how its affecting me, lack of stamina. I can't do anything for as long as I used to be able to.  I am really glad to come home at 2.00am at the moment. Apologies to those I didn't get round to last week, Thursday was a long day, with treatment and having to see the Oncologist, as well as the Works Occupational health lady, and it was early hospital appointment, so had little sleep. Lost most of Friday catching up on sleep! I shall be doing better this week, lol.

WOYWW #283

Morning folks! To be honest, my desk is a mess this week. No crafting, as there was a bit of furniture building, and new PC building going on. Which meant the removal of all the stuff from my old PC desk, so that could be disassembled, and the new one built. We got me a slightly smaller desk from IKEA, as my old one was rather huge. It also meant I could fit in another couple of Alex units by the desk- well, you can't possibly have too many drawers, can you? So this is what my room, and workdesk, look like right now.

Everything moved and piled in one half of the room.











This was the corner where the old desk used to be:

Hubby getting ready to construct- I'm still banned from lifting, and to be honest, I felt really worn out all weekend, just seemed to move from sitting down in one place, to sitting somewhere else. Which is why nothing as yet has been put back, my energy levels were on the floor!

New desk put together and in its corner. Now I just have to put stuff back.

 Did get two new drawer sets, and a new chair. My old one would collapse down every so often- most disconcerting, lol. Nice shiny new PC all built, thanks to Beloved Hubbys tech skills. Still have to put everything away!
 By today, I am half way through my treatment, it has gone quite quickly. Didn't go in to work Monday night, as I still felt tired, but was feeling a lot better last night, so went back.
  So that's my show and tell for this week, keeping my fingers crossed my energy levels stay up, as I've booked a ticket for the Hobbycrafts show at the NEC, I shall be going on Saturday, as Thursday and Friday I have my treatments, so they are out, and Sunday I will have time to recover if I'm tired. Anyone going Saturday, give me a heads up, and we'll meet up somewhere. Which also means I need to get my stuff sorted and put away, as I need to find the ticket I printed off!

WOYWW #282

Another week gone, another closer to the years end,lol.  Back at WOYWW for our regular browse at the desks of the world, thanks to our Champion Desker, Julia at The Stamping Ground. Only a couple of things on my desk this week, I've been swapping stamps over to the Aileenes Tack it Over and Over method, and I must say I'm liking it.

Last weeks selection of Stampscapes, and a few oldies, painted with the glue and drying off.
 I reckon this bottle will last forever, such a small amount needed, and I'm painting it on with a foam brush.
 For those who don't know about it, its a sort of repostionable glue, almost like you find on the edges of Post It notes.  Stays tacky for ever, almost. This way, they stick to the holder sheets, and your acrylic blocks, and generally take up far less storage space than using the foam EZ mount. I did at first put all my u/m's onto that, but over the years have found that it started to separate from the stamps, and quite some number have started to 'cup', which means they don't stay on the carrier sheets, or the blocks. So thats an ongoing project. Talking of stamps(!), Chocolate Baroque, every now and again, have a sale of what they call 'Broken Biscuits'. You can probably figure that out, its stamp sheets that didn't all come out perfectly, so the poor ones have been cut away, and replaced with a good stamp. It means you get all the stamps in a set, they are just not all joined together on a sheet when you get them. As you are going to cut them apart, that's no difficulty. And generally they sell them at roughly half price, which means I got an A4 set for £15, instead of the usual £24.96.The set I bought is called Artistic Affirmations.

I was expecting to get a bag of mainly loose stamps, but when it arrived, it was almost a complete sheet- just one stamp separate from the rest!
 Not a lot of crafting done this week, we called in at IKEA on Friday, and I bought another couple of drawer units, a tall Alex and a wide one, so there has been some tidying and reorganising going on.
Last and final thing I want to show you: Beloved Hubby has struck again! The things he manages to find on the Internet never ceases to amaze me. I knew he had ordered something for me and Mikey, but had no idea what it was. Then on Saturday morning two packages arrived, and he told me to go ahead and open them.
 This is what was inside:

Two cushions, with pictures of Ambrose on. One set for us, and one set for Mikey and KT.The fabric is suede- like, and the image quality of the prints is amazing. Got Mikey to pop over yesterday, with KT, said we had something for them. They were both chuffed to bits with them.
My treatment is  plodding along, still so far, so good. The worst part is the time involved- 45 minutes there, the same back. The actual treatment takes less than 10 minutes, and three days last week I was called in within 5 minutes of arriving. Monday this week, we got there to discover they were running 70 minutes late! Not funny. Also this week, on Monday, I returned to work, doing half shifts at first to see how it goes.

WOYWW #281

Yet again, another week has flown past, and here we are back at our Head Desker, Julias place at The Stamping Ground for another WOYWW.
 I actually have a few pics of purchases this week, so the weak willed amongst you may wish to look away, lol.

 First up, some new Stampscapes unmounted stamps. I do love my scenic stamps and these extend the range of scenes I can build up. The top two are intended to be snowy brooks, but can easily be grassy ones with a change of ink colour, and the next two down on the right are a right and left version of a river bank. Some small filler grasses and rocks, and a wading fisherman to add detail.

Next up is the engagement card I made for Mikey and KT.


Just a simple diamanté buckle threaded onto ribbon, and matted onto matching navy card, with a stamped and heat embossed sentiment.


Next up is a book I saw advertised in a Chocolate Baroque email, about Brusho paints. I still haven't got round to trying them out, been concentrating on the C- cards, but thought this might make interesting reading. Its full of various techniques for using them with other products, such as alcohol inks/gilding waxes etc.

Final pic is something I purchased thanks to Shoshi's post last week- some more mini misters. She had found an online store, Ampulla, selling them very cheaply. I went to have a look, and they turned out to be identical to ones I had bought from the NEC last year, just a lot cheaper.

These are the ones I ordered, and they are 54p each-and it works out to 49p each if you buy 25. I paid about £4.50, for a pack of three, at the NEC, and that's about average if you do an Internet search,so these are a lot  less than a 'craft' version, as usual!
 These are the ones I bought at the NEC, one set was branded, Mist-It!, one has nothing on it. The one on the left is the 'new' one, the two on the right the originals.










Can't find any info on the volume of the Tim Holtz ones, but I reckon these hold at least half as much again, at 8ml. Here they are side by side. And they do spray a lovely fine mist.


 Last couple of pictures now. One from Saturday night, when we went out for a meal with Mikey and KT to celebrate, and also my Eldest son Ant, came along, with Becky and the grandkids.
From the left, clockwise: KT, Becky,Mortimer, Ant, Merlin behind Doug, and Mikey.

 A better pic of Merlin.                                                                                                              

 


Finally,as all of those who know me on FB  know,  on Sunday, we had to have our much loved cat Ambrose put to sleep. He was 16 1/2, and in final stage of heart failure, all his organs were shutting down. Mikey is heartbroken, he and Ambrose were pretty much inseparable when he lived here, where Mikey went, Ambrose followed. I phoned him to tell him what the vet had said, and he and KT came over, so all four of us were with him and fussing him when he died. We all left in tears, he'd been a big part of our lives for so long. I do have to say the veterinary staff inside Pet City were wonderful, and could not be faulted. Later next year, when all this cancer thing is done, we will adopt a rescue cat from Cats Protection, and give another cat a forever home. Speaking of the cancer thing, by now I've had my first day of chemo/radiotherapy, and be having my second later today. I will post up on my page later in the week how its leaving me feeling.The chest infection has gone also, so that's all to the good.