WOYWW 626

Here we are another Wednesday, another week (making a total of two) since the 12trh birthday of WOYWW and I have some more ATC's to show to you.  These were too late to be shown in last week's edition so it made the celebrations go on a little longer - aren't they lovely?  Spyder sent two (the one with '1'' and the one with '2' on making the magic number '12').  Diana sent the lovely birds egg one and the final one was from my Pif, Morti, with the stars all over it.  lovely postcards too.  Love the little envelope and belly band, bottom right that came with Spyder's two ATC's..

Well, I haven't been up to much this past week but I decided that I enjoyed making ATC's so much I would continue and do more.  To begin with I made a little notebook and then an ATC holder.  The idea is to keep a note in the book of the ATC's made and sent and fill the holder up with ATC's ready to send out.  I got in a bit of a pickle with the little box inside the ATC holder (there should have been one on the other side) but I didn't think about making the spine wider to accommodate!  As you can see, they are made from washi tape by Janet Klein.

the notebook is on the left and the ATC holder, opened fully, on the right

This shows the little box affair I put on the left hand side of the ATC holder - I put a corner piece on the right hand side (I hastily made two ATC's to show them in the holder).  There is a toilet roll inner covered in tape too that I stuck some paint brushes in just for the photo.  It makes a nice little desk set don't you think?

Jeudi Journal - Ignore (sorry, it's long)

For this page I used one of Dyans paints on the background - I haven't used these paints for a while and I think this one is going to feature a few times now as I really do like the colour.  I made a border down one side and across the top with one of her stencils and I put tiny circles in some of the squares, some in black and some in white (although the white seems to have disappeared into the page - if you enlarge it you might manage to see them).

I chose two slimline figures - the one on the left is a mix up of several and to be honest I am never sure whether that stamp I have used for the skirt is really a skirt or what?  I put some of my lovely Van Gogh washi tape across the bottom to 'ground' the two figures and when I had finished the wording I realised it looked a bit bare so I added a dog.  Sorry but it is not a Dylusion dog, it's a Katzelkraft one that I like to use because they do look a bit more like dogs and sometimes I feel that is what I want.

I am entering this into Art Journal Journey's challenge, as set by Elle of Empire of the Cat - Language - and this is my interpretation of the quote we are using today "Please don't interrupt me when I'm trying to ignore you".

"Several things had been going through Paula's mind, it was a worrying time at work with redundancies on the horizon and she knew she was probably going to be one of the first girls to go as she hadn't been there long.  Jobs were not easy to come by, the whole country was in a bit of a mess and she only had a few qualifications - a smattering of examinations she had passed at school.  She realised now that she should have worked harder in school and listened to the career's teacher who had been always there to hand out good advice.

She had taken her dog for a walk that day to clear her head and was wondering if she should enrol at evening classes to better herself with some qualifications that would mean she could try for something else.  She had always wanted to go into nursing but now they expected you to train to a very high standard -  a degree course was needed, or so she had been told.  There was just her and mum at home, it wasn't easy to keep up with her friends and all the things they did and the clothes they bought.  Her wage had not been a big contribution and mum was working all the hours she could to keep the mortgage going on the house.  If she went to evening classes for a year or so and then to university it would be mum's wage alone that kept them going.

All the time she was worrying and thinking what to do next her friend, Amelia, had been going on about some clothing store that had opened in town and how she had seen something she wanted from there which would "be perfect for going out with the girls in".  Amelia's family was comfortably well off, her father owning the largest factory in town, she had only to ask daddy for a rise in her allowance and he gave it to her, she was the apple of his eye.  In fact he had just given her the money for the new jewelled beret she was wearing and the 'ever so expensive glasses'. She went on and on, raising her voice with a slight exaggeration now and then until Paula finally blew.  "Please don't interrupt me when I'm trying to ignore you", she shouted.  Biffo, her dog, recognised the tone and sat down quickly, his ears stood up waiting for the next blow out, his eyes looked upwards to heaven.  Amelia stuck her hands on her hips and asked what on earth the matter was, she was rather taken aback at the tone of her friend and Paula felt a bit sorry that she had spoken in that way.  "I'm sorry", said Paula, "I didn't mean to be rude, but I think I am going to lose my job".  And so she began to talk about her fears to her friend.  I wonder if Amelia could help?  Or maybe daddy?"

My stories are getting longer and longer and I think I need to learn to cut them down.  So sorry, maybe I think I am writing a novel when in fact I am just trying to explain the pictures above.  I am entering this into Art Journal Journey and their challenge set by Elle which is "Language".  Sometimes we all need to talk to a friend and it is surprising where friends often are - like just around the corner.

I've been getting lots of BOTS (like 500+ then 35 already this morning) for some reason, apparently they pick on a word you have used and then start deluging you with Spam comments.  Last week, when it started,  I lost three comments (Elizabeth, Erika and Alison).  I posted the comments and then went back to delete the Bots.  I tried to use a symbol which I thought would delete them "en masse" but it went and deleted the ones I had published also.  Now I have to delete each Bot singly and that requires two actions.  If anyone knows how to delete a block of them without deleting the good ones please shout out.

WOYWW 625

Guess who has been bot/got at again?  The "Bots" are here once more.  89 yesterday, 124 the day before, 186 Sunday morning and another 171 later that day.  I scrolled through and published all those comments that were genuine, then highlighted the Bots and deleted them as Spam.  Trouble was, the published ones went as well.  So now I am deleting one by one all the bad ones!  Scream!!

On a much better note, we went away for a couple of days but had to return when we heard the news about our town having to lock down.  Now we are back we are confused, the news says we CAN travel.  My head is in a whirl.  So now my desk is empty, tidy, and there is nothing to show you that I have made BUT, of course I have some lovely ATC's to show you that I received from last week's celebration:

Zsuzsa - Jo (Twiglet)

(top Jan, Caro, Annie, and below

Cindy, Lynne, Mary Anne)

and on it's own because it could not be scanned

Debbie (against a peach card)

(the photo does not do this justice)

... and Postcards which accompanied the ATC's

I sent 11 ATC's out to either a "Material Girl" or a "Crafter" - all were the same depending on the persons crafting but colouring and backgrounds were different on most of them.

and I still have one in an envelope waiting for the address from someone who asked to swap with me.

So, if you are reading this and not active in WOYWW but would like to join in and swap ATC's at some time why not pop over here to see what it is all about.

The Language of Flowers

 At Art Journal Journey the challenge has been set by Elle of Empire of the Cat- "Language" is the topic and when you start to think about it the word Language covers so many different things.  Today my journal page is illustrating the "Language of Flowers".  Not in the traditional way whereby different flowers have different meanings - eg we all know Red Roses are a sign of Love, and every young woman dreams one day of receiving red roses from a beau, but did you know that a yellow rose means infidelity, jealousy?  A daisy represents purity and innocence, whilst the sunflower represents pure thoughts, adoration and  dedicated love.  To find out more (lots more) visit here.

My page today was not chosen because of the flowers it contained, indeed I do not know the names of the flowers on the stamp I used, but it was chosen because I think ALL flowers have a language of their own in the fact that when you give someone flowers it always brings a smile to their face.  When you have some flowers and you put them in a container, it brings joy to everyone who sees them.  Therefore to my mind, when I see flowers they always make me smile and bring joy.  I would not be upset or angry if someone gave me yellow roses, they would still give me pleasure.

For my page I used a background made in the past using up paint from another page which had been brayered and which had some delicate stencilling on.  I then stamped one of Tracy Evans' flower stamps as my main image and added some other stamps to fill the page.  The images were coloured with Inktense Pencils and I drew a border around the whole page with a Posca Pen.  I wanted some words that were in a pleasing script and so I chose "There is Beauty all around us".  I am now going to enter this into Art Journal Journey for the current challenge.

Jeudi Journal - Listening

This week we have the quote from Dyan's rubber stamps which says "I know you were talking - that's why I stopped listening" - not very nice is it?  In fact if you look at my journal page you will see just how sad Patsy looks when her friend says this to her.  But I get ahead of myself and you need to know the story.

"Sarah and Patsy were two friends from primary school.  Even though Sarah had been two years above Patsy in school their friendship had started back then and stayed with them all through the years Sarah was at school.  Now at sixteen she had left and felt that she had rather outgrown Patsy whom she felt was 'still a little girl at heart'.

It was a Saturday when Patsy called around to see Sarah and to show her her new handbag.  She really did think it was lovely, all covered in hearts - and the first faux leather handbag she had ever owned that didn't look like plastic.  It had been her birthday and she had received lots of monetary gifts which she had put together and bought herself the new bag, a new hair band made of lovely big roses and the most adorable little bunny rabbit.  A toy one of course!

She had been experimenting with eye makeup and was particularly pleased how her time in front of the mirror had turned out.  She felt her eyes looked much larger than normal with this eyeshadow and mascara.  So she was all ready for a girly chat and a bit of advice from her older friend, Sarah.  Sarah knew everything about make-up, how to dress and things like that.

Unfortunately Sarah had other things on her mind, since she had left school and started at college she had made new friends, more her own age, and with interests that she felt would fit into her new lifestyle.  They had told her about this fabulous group of young musicians that were all the rage with most of the girls at college and she had streamed their latest hits and was busy listening to them.  So when Patsy started talking about her birthday and what she had bought Sarah could feel that she was no longer interested in the goings on of a fourteen year old.  It was when Patsy mentioned the little pink bunny she had bought that Sarah lost all interest.  

Patsy could see that Sarah was not really listening and she asked her if there was something the matter as she felt she was 'talking to thin air'.  "I was talking to you and telling you all about my birthday presents but you seemed to not be listening" said Patsy, "are you listening to something important?"  

Sarah decided to take the bull by the horns and simply replied "I know you were talking - that's why I stopped listening".  At which point Patsy felt a tear well up in her eye and she said, "sorry, won't bother you again" and went off home to experiment a bit more with her eye makeup and play with her new little bunny rabbit.  Perhaps some of the girls in her class would be interested when she told them about her things on Monday when she was back at school."

Sorry this has been a long story today, I hope you did not lose interest.  I  am entering this into Art Journal Journey where the theme is "Language" as decided upon by Elle.  I hope my story fits the bill for this as there is dialogue between the two girls plus Sarah's rude reply is there on the page for all to see.  Maybe this is an example of how language can be upsetting and hopefully Sarah will learn from this and think before she opens her mouth in the future.

WOYWW 624

Happy Anniversary!!  Congratulations Julia on your achievement - to still be running a blog hop after all these years (a daring dozen) is some achievement and I must add my thanks for all the friendships I have made, virtual and in real life as a result of joining this awesome venture.  

Now to some serious talk.  Some of you may be aware that my home town, Bolton, has hit the news in a not so nice way.  We have seen the highest number of cases per 100,000 for over a week now.  The powers that be have rushed extra vaccine into the town and an appeal has gone out for all over 16's to step forward to be vaccinated, soldiers have been deployed to the streets to knock on doors with test kits and we could be facing a lockdown.

I have been in isolation for 15 months now and just when I thought we could venture out and maybe visit a shop we have had that taken away from us.  It feels like someone has held out a sweet to me and then popped it in their mouth.  I am not asking for sympathy but instead asking my Pif to let me know if they no longer want to swap with me.  I'd hate someone to feel uncomfortable.  If you are willing to swap I will send my atc out to you from a postbox in Bury and I will write my name on the front and the back of the envelope so that you can leave it behind the door for 48 hours (which we do anyway) so that it is safe to handle.

At the moment I am down as sending an atc to: Jo, Annie, LLJ, Julia, Zsuzsa, Diana and Mary Anne but there could be others my old brain has not remembered so if I have missed you please shout.  

Now to the real reason for being here - my desk.  As well as being busy making atc's I had three birthday cards to get out in the post this week - two for Switzerland and one fairly local (well up north actually).  This is my desk and then my cards that have been sent out

It's only bits of paper - will be tidied in a tick

Apologies for the wonky scanned butterfly card above, it refused to stay straight on the glass scanner bed.  I won't show you my atc's that I made as my recipients won't have theirs yet so they can appear next week.

Happy Anniversary to all WOYWW'ers out there, stay safe and well.

Jeudi Journal - Running Away?

The quote from Dyan chosen this week is "Does running away from your problems count as exercise?"  I first thought of doing a page with green at the base and blue higher up to represent the outdoors and someone running up a hillside but then I realised it didn't fit with any of the figures from Dylusions.  Back to putting on my thinking cap.  In the end I went with a page I had already coloured in using Mermaid Lagoon and Peacock Feathers Distress Inks.  I had a fairly wide border (Dylusion stencil) around the four sides making a kind of frame but I decided to ignore that and let my figures overlap onto it if need be.

My story this week concerns Celine, a natural born worrier.  I am sure we can all equate to being a bit like that at times, especially given the last year with all the Covid news we have had, but Celine worries about anything and everything.  And she knows it!

"It was a Friday afternoon when Celine met up with her friend Jill, or 'Agility Jill' as friends liked to call her.  Jill was a natural at keeping fit and doing exercise, visiting the gym four times a week, running home from the gym each evening and watching what she ate.  She had a body which Celine and all their friends envied, but there was no malice at all with any of them.  And Jill was Celine's best friend.  I would go so far as to say Celine worshipped her and any envy was only because she so wished she could look like Jill. She would have done anything for Jill and vice versa.

Poor Celine had had a rough few days.  Things were not going well at work and she had gone shopping to cheer herself up only to find she had gone up another dress size.  it wasn't fair, she really did try to watch what she ate, in fact she had been dieting for the past few months and thought she was doing well.  That wasn't the total of her problems.  Her mother had been having a go at her about her not keeping her room neat and tidy, she didn't see what she meant as, ok, she did leave her clothes in a heap up in the corner, but it was only because they were due to go in the wash.  And the place was tidy!  Then a boy she liked at work had been seen talking to another girl and colleagues had said it was definite that he liked the girl and was more than likely going to be asking her out.  Life just wasn't fair at the moment!

So Celine had gone over to see Jill for a bit of advice.  Jill was looking lovely, she was getting ready for a night out but Celine had declined the offer the girls had made and said she had to stay in that night and wash her hair.  In fact she had her hair in rollers when she left home to see Jill.  Poor Celine just stood there and poured her heart out to her friend, wringing her hands as she went through all the things that were getting on top of her.  Jill made her laugh with some idle comment she threw out and Celine asked her "Does running away from your problems count as exercise?"  Jill had to smile at her friend, as she stood, hands on hips, thinking what a chump Celine was.  "No, certainly not, but let's do something about some of these problems - you start running with me, we'll take it slowly at first - just a gentle jog."  Celine thought she would give it a try, after all, she had nothing to lose but those extra pounds she had put on and maybe in a few weeks she could be back to her normal size 14 - and mother was right, she would put her clothes in the laundry basket as she took them off.  Plus she'd show that guy at work!  In fact, right now she would go home, take her rollers out of her hair, have a quick shower and get changed and then join the girls on their night out.  Life really was what you make of it!

Once again I am entering this into Art Journal Journey where the theme is 'Language' as I felt this shows us that the conversation between two friends helps so much.  A problem shared is a problem halved so they say.