WOYWW 536

Well, here we are again - another Wednesday - another WOYWW - these weeks are simply flying by.  It will be Christmas before we know it - hush - we have Halloween before that - but as I don't make Halloween cards to send out it doesn't quite matter as much.  I do like a good old Halloween display though.

Not been doing much crafting.  I do have a little project on the go but it is like walking in glue with it as I have only been able to do a tiny bit at once, I need to be in my craft room to do it.  Not too far off finishing but then it is only a tiny project.  Can't show you as yet, it wouldn't be worth it for what little there is of it so you will just have to wait.

I can, however show you two cards that I missed putting on here when I first did them, waiting for the recipients to get them.  Both were for "Mingle challenges" on one of my favourite internet groups.  The first one was to make something that was black and white with a hint of colour.  For this I chose to use white embossing powder on a black background.

The words are a bit squiffy aren't they, they were done in black with clear embossing powder over the top and the touch of colour was on the stems of the stylised flowers - you can just about see the pale green.

My second card was another of my Laurel Burch purchases.  Bought to make a card for my 'horse mad' little friend who has a birthday coming up.  Hope she likes it as she is only 12 and may not understand Spirit Horses and why I have coloured them as I have.  Anyway, the one I am showing you today was for a "Rainbow" swap and I coloured the horses in various shades of the colours of the rainbow.

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain - gives you the colours of the rainbow - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.  That's how I remember them.

So that is it for this week, no desk as such hope I am forgiven, but here is a

health update:

Last week I told you I had a window of 'no pain' on the Monday.  Well, it happened again on Saturday and I had a good day with less tablets than usual, same on Sunday so I was getting quite hopeful.  But then on Monday it started off well but soon the pain was back. Tuesday not good either but it is back to the chiropractor on Friday and then on Tuesday next I will be having my first session with Pain Management.  No doubt I will report honestly on the latter.  See you next week!

Are You Still Talking? Jeudi Journal

The latest challenge for Wendy and myself is the quote "Are You Still Talking" from Dyan of Dylusion fame.  

I forgot to write this post up and did it a couple of weeks ago so I 'think' I used Distress Inks for the background.  It was just a fairly plain background in yellows and oranges, see I am using those bright sunny colours again whilst I can, with some text stamped very faintly which could hardly be seen on a scan so I added some more dots in Sepia so I could enter it into Art Journal Journey where Erika has asked for Polka Dots amongst other patterns.  I could have left it, and in many ways wish i had, as the figures all feature polka dots on their clothing.

I chose two figures of a similar size who are saying "are you still talking?" and a larger figure who has "blah blah blah" going all around her head.  This says she is 'rabbiting on' and the other two are being a tad sarcastic.

This was a reasonably easy one to do but again those figures would have done for many other sayings if you think about it.

WOYWW 535

Cor blimey, it's September already and here we are with Ms Julia again and her WOYWW blog hop.  Pop along to find out what I am on about.  To explain it a bit more here is my desk, photo taken yesterday in readiness for the hoppity hop hop.

Yes, rather set up.  It was Shaz mentioning those ColorBox tools (see the RH pot) last week.  Those are mine.  The pot is a can I made years ago when on a CHA workshop.  It was using Lumiere paints and we painted the can first of all, then stuck some sand like stuff on to give it a bit of texture, a picture and some plastic buttons.  I still remember it well.  It is finished off with a piece of string tied around the top for a handle

Couldn't show you that one without showing you my funny faces.  This was one I made with my friend, Liz Welch a few years ago on one of our weeks away crafting.  It was not long after she had done a Nolitex exhibition where she made this HUGE pocket watch and covered it in faces for numerals.  Well, she had me putting some gauze type fabric on a can, wrinkling it up and then painting it. It must have had some kind of stiffener in it before I coloured and draped it on.  Next was to make those little faces with paper clay.  Each one had to have a different expression so it was good fun making eyes, noses and ears in different ways.  Wish I could find a photograph of her pocket watch, it really was something rather special.  She had it on a wall in a spare bedroom later and I was thrilled one weekend to be sleeping in the bed by the side of it.  Hard to believe she is no longer with us.  Such a talented lady.

Well, this is turning into a lot of chit cat and, as it is Tuesday evening when I am writing this, I am falling asleep.  Think I dropped off twice already!  Just before I leave you, remember the little guy I asked you to identify a short while ago?  Well here he is and as you can see he is a hand held fan - perfect for the hot sunny days we had.  He came, originally, filled with sweets.  Think he can go away until next year now though.  Don't you?

Health Update:

Nothing to report really.  My chiropractor is on holiday as I mentioned last week so no treatment until the 13th.  Bad weekend but then Monday brought about three hours of 'no pain'.  I was beginning to think something had moved in my back and it was over.  No such luck and yesterday was a bad day again.  Ah well, Rome was not built in a day.  And there's a lot worse than me out there.  I keep reminding myself - I have 'hope' and I have 'faith'.

Jeudi Journal - Well Behaved

Another already done background - thank goodness.  This time it was kind of out of doors with a leaf border stencil running up the two short sides with a little along the bottom left and some individual branches across the top.  

I realised I never have used the large head with a different body so I thought I would try it with a lying down figure - and it worked.  Different - for me that is.  Luckily I had already drawn a neck on that particular figure so the head went on just fine.

I felt it needed something else and so I looked at the Dylusion flowers but most of them are rather large so I chopped them in half and just used them along the bottom and up one side.  Oh, and I added a little buzzy bee on one of the flowers, can you spot him?

I am once again entering this into Art Journal Journey where the theme is "Eyes".  Doesn't my lady outline hers so well! 

WOYWW 534

Well here we are, another week has just flown by and I don't really have much to show you on my desk.  I have been busy putting the finishing touches to the painting of my rag book and I think (after checking and re-checking several times) all the painting is now done.  So the next thing is to get some lining (cannot remember what it is called) and start to stitch it up.  I might even show it to you before it is sewn on the machine, ie, just tacked into place.  Then again, I might even have it sewn up if I can remember how to thread my sewing machine never mind use it.  But, think that is a big "might"!

Thought I would show you what is on my real desk - my boxes of paints.  Well some of them - the acrylic ones

My desk - full view

Deco Art & Golden

All kinds

PaperArtsy

Amsterdam (small ones)

The two nappy boxes, left over from my cake icing days, are now full of paints, one with my Deco Art and Golden products in and the other with Stewart Gill, Dylon Fabric Paints, Lumieres and many, many more.

I do have some large Amsterdam tubes on my shelves but these are only repeats of some of the small ones so I just left them there, preferring to use the small tubes.  I know I have nowhere near as many PaperArtsy paints as Helen but I have promised myself I will not buy any more paints until I have used some of these up.  

Why am I showing you these?  Because it is What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday again. The day when lots of us gather together and celebrate ten years of desk sharing.  We actually share a lot more than just desk sharing.  Friendships have grown and there is a lot of love and loyalty within this gigantic blog hop started by Julia here.  If you have happened here by accident and never heard of this blog hop then why not join in and make some new friends, I can promise you will get a warm welcome.  See you there?

Health Update:

As you know I went to see a chiropractor last Wednesday and I was a bit of a wreck.  Well, it was a very pleasant meeting and despite what I have heard about chiropractors she did not hurt me one bit.  She is so gentle and said she has to be extra so because of my Pacemaker etc.  She treats a baby of five months and an old man of 93 so needs to be careful with them.

After establishing my past history and the state of play up to now she more or less said I was a bit of a mess ie there is a lot wrong.  In her opinion (and that of my Chinese doctor) it is nerve pain and not muscle that I am experiencing, my nerves are twisted in my thoracic area and my rib cage is out of alignment.  Think I have that right.  Anyway, after a week of doing as much "heat/ice/rest" as I could fit in each day I went back to see her yesterday and had a second treatment.  This time it was more manipulation and she feels positive that she can help me.

I am not pain free, in fact I have felt pretty much the same but whilst doing the treatment above I have been comfortable - and I have "hope".  The biggest thing for me is that she has given me hope! Unfortunately she is on holiday for two weeks and I will not see her again until the 13th September but she is going to work out some exercises that I can do, so not to cause problems with my Pacemaker, and will send them through to me in the next day or so.  In the meantime it is "heat/ice/rest".  So I am a much happier bunny than I was.

Lots of you came up with great suggestions and you made me feel better knowing that there were other options out there that I had not thought about.  So, should this not work there are other things I will explore - I am not going to give up!  YOU made me feel so much better about myself and restored my faith.  

Thank you so much, being part of WOYWW really is being part of a big family.

Jeudi Journal - Exercise

"I ate healthily and exercised today ... I better frikken wake up skinny" is the quote from Dyan's stamps today.  

I had the idea of making it a dream sequence but then the size of the page sent that one 'through the window' but I still kept on with the idea in some way.  I was particularly pleased when I saw that the lounging lady (centre one) can look as if she is doing that "bicycle" exercise that I used to be happy to do ..... a few years ago!

To begin with I painted my page, using a roller, in a light blue and then, using the same colour, went all over with a swirl stencil.  Ugh!  Didn't like it.  So I tried a bit of Iced Spruce, worse than ever, next came some Broken China all over - better but not happy yet.  Did a bit of circle stamping in Blueprint Sketch, no no no, blot it all out with the Blueprint Sketch all over - Better!  So my background ended up much darker than intended but by this time I had had enough.

I looked for the chubbiest figure I could find and it had to be the one in the coat and with a scarf around her neck.  I had to cut the house from the top of her head (and subsequent heads) as it does nothing for me.  Next came the chubbiest legs I could find with an umbrella for her hat,  just a bit of fruit from a magazine and we had the main figure who 'ate healthily'. 

Next came my tiny figure who is doing her 'exercise today' and her hat is one of those bits of a building that has fallen off, like a bit of plaster or something.  Not that she is bothered, as far as she is concerned it is a stylish hat with two bobbles on.

The third figure is all the first one wants.  A slim, lithe body (notice the change between no 1 and no 3) in her keep fit gear plus a little fancy hat perched on the top of her head.  You may have noticed I used the same face for all three figures - that is because it is supposed to be the same person all the way through the three stages.

I really enjoyed doing this one and think a lot of my enjoyment came from finding that the lounging lady can also be one doing exercises.  Ooh, I do enjoy my Dylusion figures when I can mix and match body parts.

See you next week with a new one but in the meantime I am entering this into Art Journal Journey where the theme is "Eyes" - I have three pairs of them on here. 

WOYWW 533

Well, here we are, another Wednesday and not much to show for a full week of crafting time.  I did however send a card to a friend a couple of weeks ago which I forgot to post on here so this is/was it:

It flew all the way to Renate in Switzerland and was accompanied by another one (two friends sharing the birthday month and both living in that beautiful country) but for some reason the scan on the second one shows the word "text" all over it so I cannot show it to you.  I can, however, show you a card I received from Nikki, the other friend, to say she is thinking of me.  Isn't it lovely and bright and cheery?  Just the ticket for me at the moment.

Well, you came here to see my desk so I will show you my alternative desk in the spare room which is, at the moment, doubling as another desk for me.  This is my rag book, still not finished, back cover to do, words to put on and then it all to stitch together.

So that is it for this week, now to hop over to see Julia and what the other WOYWW'ers have been up to.  Pop along here and maybe join in, or just have a nosey.

If you want to read on please do but this is just a giant whinge about my health:

Health:

The news last Wednesday was not good.  I had pinned all my hopes on this meeting and really thought they were going to come up with something to free this muscle, nerve or whatever it is but oh no.  I went to see the Spinal guy, after waiting seven weeks, on the 12th July, came out full of hope with the option of choosing pain management and physio.  He did not explain to me that I will have this chronic pain for the rest of my life, but this is what I was met with on Wednesday.

I just sat there in agony whilst this female told me there was nothing they could do to help get rid of the pain as it has gone on too long.  The only thing they can do is teach me how to manage the pain.  It was as if my whole world had collapsed around me and I think I cried for two days.  Still cannot talk about it without the tears coming.

In the meantime I am going to a chiropractor this afternoon where I have three sessions booked, the osteopath I used to see has offered to examine me free of charge to let me know whether he can try to do something for me.  So I just have to pluck up my brave and believe that there are other avenues to explore and maybe one of them will come up trumps.

No fun in getting old!