WOYWW 642

Another Wednesday, another WOYWW and another desk to bare.  We've had another nice week weatherwise so it's been some nice sunshiny days for us in the north, hope everyone else has had much the same.

I did find my inner pages for my spineless journal just after I had posted, it was in the pile of papers on the right hand side of my journal.  Recognisable by the sari ribbon - which I did not see - needed my new glasses from Specsavers!  Well, it is still in the same state, ie not done the front and back covers but that's because we have been away again and I didn't want to mess up with Gesso and paint etc etc.  I did, however, almost finish a tiny teabag junk journal.  I'll show you the front cover. I just ran out of tiny things to put in it so there are three pages still to finish. I'll put it on my You Tube later when it is finished.

Talking Journals, Mary Anne mentioned a Traveller's Notebook in her comments to me last week.  I wonder if she means the Midori Books.  If so I have lots of those, they were quite the craze a few years ago and I made my first with Abs from AA&C but I had bought a Jane Davenport one previous to that.  The posh bought one came with all kinds of attachments - I really did not need all of those - could have made similar myself.

Anyway, here is my desk:

And here are some journals for you to look at, I'll dig my Midori's out next week.  Maybe even have a Journal Fest.

Finally some sunset photos from Monday evening, strolling along the prom

The colours are not as vivid as the one I took, a few weeks ago, but it had not been as dry a day.  However I still enjoyed it and it was worth waiting for as we walked along,  I loved how the top edges of the clouds were tinged with gold.

That's it for now so see you next week hopefully.

Jeudi Journal - Judgement

 Today we will go straight into the story:

"Leah and Toni had met up outside the new store in town.  Both obeying the rules about Covid they were suitably masked and sanitised with extra sanitiser with them for when they came out of the store.  They had heard all about 'VB & S' and as both were very fashion conscious they immediately wanted to shop.  Toni would not say she had a fetish for handbags, but she certainly had more than her fair share of them tucked in her wardrobe and this was a store that specialised in Vintage bags and shoes.  Both girls were fans of the 20s to 40's and anything Art Deco really was a 'must have'.

Inside was like an Aladdin's Cave to them.  There was every colour of handbag under the sun and whilst Leah just bought the one, with cute hearts all over the front Toni went crazy and bought four handbags, all different colours and styles.  Her favourite was the green one but she loved the pink one and it would match the outfit she was wearing today.

They came out of the store and straight away Leah wanted to know what Toni had bought so with no hesitation she piled them all up on the floor and began chattering about them all.  The pink one would look good with today's dress, the green one with her pant-suit, the small red one would be ideal when they went dancing and the brown squishy one was ideal for work.

Leah thought she had bought too much in the one shopping spree and told her so.  "You know what you are like, you see something and immediately you have to have it."  "Really Toni would it not have been better to wait and see what the new deliveries would bring?"  "You already have one very much like the brown one, and do you think the red one will hold all the 'clobber' you take when we go out.  It's hardly big enough to hold a mobile phone."

Toni was annoyed and started to justify herself ending by telling Leah she was jealous of all the nice things she had and if she hadn't anything nice to say she should keep her mouth firmly closed.  It really began to look as if the two girls were going to end their friendship.

Leah realised this was going to blow up out of all proportion and so she ended it by saying "The only thing I ever have to add is judgement," and the two looked at one another and began laughing."

I really want to get using some of my Dylusion paints up before they dry out and so I used the blue to cover this entire page.  I was intending to put a stencil on top but my right thumb is so painful at the moment that crafting (and typing) is a real chore.  So I set to and began drawing the accessories I needed for the page.  I was sure I had a lace rubber stamp somewhere but as which box I looked in I could not find it.  Then I found this Art Deco border stamps and decided that would do.  It was difficult stamping it at the beginning of a Journal but I did my best

So that is it for this week, Wendy I am struggling to link to AJJ but so far am managing even if the stories are going wilder and wilder.  So my Jeudi Journal page is once more entering the challenge at Art Journal Journey.  See you there.

WOYWW 641

 Another week, another desk picture and this one is only a tiny bit of my mess of a room.

I'll just show you the desk, the bit I work on.  Like last week I have been doing my journal page ready for Thursday so I've flipped back to an old one.  I did want to do some cards but the mojo for card making has not come back as yet despite my having my Janet Klein figures out at the side of my journal.

I have done something this week, I've made a start on a spineless Journal book.  I thought it meant I could add pages as I went on but I found out, when making it, that that is not so.  Anyway, I went ahead and cut some lovely papers up that I was sure I would not use - more suited to a scrapbooker.  Then I folded them in half and stuck a hole through the centre and made them all fit inside one another.  I now have to do a cover and I have the mountboard cut, just not got around to painting it as yet.  That doesn't really matter as I can't find the pages.  Doh!

After my journal on my desk are some of my scraps of paper which I am going to use to make another junk journal, but at the moment my bff sent me a link to a Phoebe Tonasaki video where she made a teabag book from some teabags.  You only use three or four and I actually managed to find some which I can use.  They are not the ones I have at home but more the kind you find in cafes and hotels - where the bag is doubled up.

So next week I might just might have done something of interest.  Will it be cards (that I need to do), a teabag journal in miniature, or my completed spineless one.  See you over at the Stamping Ground in a minute.

Jeudi Journal - Old Enough

 Today the words I had to work with were "I am starting to think I will never be old enough to know better" and so many times they really do apply to me.  But then I tell myself that really I am "young at heart if old in body" and it is only the aches and pains that have come on in later years that have stopped me from doing some of the things I would love to do.

Take for instance the background to this page.  It began life inked up with Tumbled Glass Distress Ink, but because of the pain I have in my right thumb I was finding putting it on with a light touch was not going as planned and it looked very patchy.  So on with a stencil and some more ink.  Well, that covered up the blotchiness but it didn't look at all right.  A coat of Pistachio paint was next, not keen on the colour although it looks good where the stencil pattern shows through a little.  Another coat of paint, this time Birch, ugh!  No that was not nice at all - back to the Pistachio.  At first it looked a bit like one of those lovely textured paint jobs that Valerie does so well but then it dried - flat!

By this time I was running out of time and so it had to do, now to the figures.  No, they won't do and the story has to be vintage so I can enter it into Wendy's challenge on Art Journal Journey.  Another think.  Yes, Bill Haley can be classed as Vintage.  If you look him up it says he was active from 1946 - 1980, surely that makes him vintage.  And so an alternative story was formed and the page was constructed.

I remember "Rock Around the Clock" coming to our local cinema and some teenagers were asked to leave the cinema for dancing in the aisles at the music.  Now I am not saying I was one of those teenagers or even a bystander but I do remember it clearly.  And so does Ethel ...

"Ethel was a terrific grandma to young Gemma, or so Gemma thought.  Always lots of fun when her gran was around, and the stories she used to tell were wonderful.  Gran had been telling Gemma about the time Bill Haley and the Comets were all the rage.  In fact he was known for being one of the pioneers of rock and roll music, and credited by many with first popularising this kind of music in the early 50's with his band, The Comets.

Gemma had loved listening to gran and her stories and listening to the music that gran played on her old record player.  Gran had been trying to teach her to jive to some of the music and Rock Around the Clock was a big favourite of the two of them.

Gemma's mum had gone to her local craft group, held in the Community Centre and she came back eager to tell her daughter about a tribute band that was coming to their town and playing at the centre in two week's time.  Gemma could not wait to let her gran know.  Little did she know that her mum had secured two tickets, one for Gemma and one for Gran.  At last she was going to hear the real sounds of Bill Hayley and The Comets.

She rushed around to Grans as soon as she could and the two of them began planning what they were going to wear and to brush up on their dancing skills.  Poor gran said "I am starting to think I will never be old enough to know better" as she felt the aches and pains coming on from her old bones dancing about in a frenzy. "

So there you are, I've done my best to use the quote which Wendy chose and also include her other challenge, Vintage, into the story.  Figures were Dylusion ones as usual and the posters were from the internet.  I added some words from Rock Around the Clock to the poster on the right to create a border.

WOYWW 640

A nice round number today, and I am feeling 'round' so think it is time I took myself in hand.  All through lockdown I was fine, stayed a nice reasonable weight but as soon as I start actually going in a supermarket I start eating all the wrong things.  Too much temptation on the shelves.  I must learn to have a bit more restraint when I go shopping later this morning.  I've had more exercise but that does not make up for all the munchies I have had.  Confession:  I am a chocoholic!

Confession over, now to my desk.  Yes, away again but home later today so once more it is a different desk you are seeing.  Actually taken Tuesday morning I thought I would treat you to a view outside on the patio - to the woods that surround us when we are up here.

Obviously I have turned my Journal to another page, not the page I am working on as that is work in process for tomorrow.  At the far end of the coffee table is a box with some images in and on top are my stencils from AALL & Create.  I was using blues and greens so I have my tiny Distress Inks out in a small tin storing those shades and there are also two brushes that I use, one for each colour.  So that is it - my desk for WOYWW for today.  Want to join in?  Follow the link and we'll see you there.

That geranium you can see has been the most prolific plant I have ever had.  Endless flowers, I think it could really do with a bigger pot now.  I've cut lots of flowers off as they have died but it still goes on producing. Well worth the £3.99 from the local (to home) garden centre.

Monday was quite a misty morning down on the sea front but it was lovely and warm and we had a good long walk spotting lots of Sandpipers, Curlews and Cormorants.  Unfortunately they were a bit too far out for me to take a photo that would be worth saving so here's a photo I took of the water and some boats - it was as still as a mill pond.  You can see how misty it was when you look across at the Lake District - you can hardly see the mountains in the distance.

Well, that's it for this morning, nothing else to report.  Had my eyes tested, just a slight change in distance but not enough to warrant definitely getting new specs but I did as I want new frames.  Funny though as I took an old pair of specs with me as I wanted as close to that design as possible,  Luckily I got some very close so I will be a happy bunny when they arrive in two weeks time.

See you around. x

Jeudi Journal - Normal

When I saw the theme for Art Journal Journey I did wonder if I would be able to link in to the challenge this week.  For our Jeudi Journal we have to use Dyan Reaveley stamps and they are certainly not vintage.  However, with a bit of thinking and redressing one of the figures I have managed to link up in my own way.  You do need a bit of a story though to understand this one, and it is a bit strange to say the least.  Scary even!

It is the 1920's when Art Deco influenced design everywhere - buildings, cars, furniture, fashion, transport and even everyday objects such as radios.  It represented luxury and glamour and  took its name from the "International Exhibition of Modern, Decorative and Industrial Arts" held in Paris in 1925.

"Dorothy was a pretty girl who worked in a tiny office as a telephonist.  Her best friend, Betty, was a clerk in the same tiny offices, that meant they both took time off for lunch each day together when the talk often turned to dancing, music and ... boys.  Most of their time was spent dancing with their other friends, Helen and Mary, in fact the four of them had been learning to do the 'Shimmy' only last week.

Mary had begun dating William, who worked at the local car factory, Helen had been seeing Robert down at the local dance place for about three weeks now but Dorothy and Betty were footloose and fancy free, preferring to remain single "for the rest of their lives".  That was until Betty saw George call into the office.  Before she knew what was happening she was "so in love" and poor Dorothy was left on her own.  Sure enough the girls all still went down to the dance place together but once there, towards the end of the night, Dorothy was left to walk home alone.  Had her father known she would have been banned from going out at all.

Dorothy was a lovely chatty, friendly receptionist and had been talking on a regular basis to someone called Edward, or Ed for short.  They had talked about various things like what they enjoyed doing, where they went, and Dorothy had told Ed all about her family and friends.  

One day Ed asked her if she would like to go out with him, not to the local dance place as he wasn't much of a dancer, but they could go to the cinema, in fact he would love to see her that night at about seven.  Dorothy really enjoyed their chats and she felt she knew quite a lot about him, he was just a normal guy who lived in the nearby town, to hear him tell.  What harm was there in meeting him to go to the cinema, maybe she could persuade him to go dancing afterwards and meet up with her friends.  And so she agreed.

That night she raced home and got ready, putting on her best dress, her new blue shoes and the pretty blue band in her hair that Betty had given to her that lunchtime.  Only Betty knew about the meeting.  

Dorothy arrived a few minutes early, standing just to the side of the entrance of the cinema,  She had told Ed about the blue band she was to wear so he should have no difficulty in recognising her.  Would he be tall she wondered, would he be well dressed?  What she had not anticipated was that he was 'what' he was!

Imagine her surprise, her horror, when this guy came over to her wearing a top hat and with the boniest hands she had ever seen.  She looked up into his eyes and saw that he was not like any of the other guys she knew - he was a skeleton!  Ed noticed the look in her eyes, the way her bottom lip trembled and he said to her "When I told you I was normal I may have exaggerated slightly".

What happened next is another story, sorry.

WOYWW 639

Wednesday again, and the start of another month.  On TV yesterday it said that the 31st August heralded the end of summer.  Where the heck has it gone?  Now I have finished my stint as GD on Art Journal Journey I am feeling a bit at a loose end so I suppose the obvious thing is to get started again on my "C" cards.  I'm sure I have a tidy box somewhere with some in that I began last January in my attempt to do some each week - failed miserably - early on!

Here's my desk this morning

The letter cards (left) are some that my bff gave me to use in my Journal.  I could not bear to cut them up so I made copies and used them.  They are on the top of one of the books she loaned me to use for my Illuminated Lettering page.  You can see a bit of grey sticking out that is a rubber stamp from Stampers Anonymous that I ended up buying because I saw it on Jo's blog and liked it so much I just had to buy it.  Next is my Journal, waiting for me to colour the page for tomorrow when the new theme will be decided by the new GD, and after it you have a black page that I have just painted for something I want to do in my 'faces' journal.

I did make a couple of cards last week, one I forgot to scan for you but there are two more you can see

The Charlie Chaplin one has a Starry background but it doesn't show in the scan and it was for my friend Paul who celebrates his birthday today.  Happy Birthday Paul!  I haven't seen him since before the pandemic and I do miss him.  Hope it's not long before we get a chance to meet up.

That's it for this week folks, see you over at Julia's desk where we all meet up on a Wednesday for our weekly woyww.