WOYWW 732

 Well, I can't show you an empty desk yet again can I.  Am feeling much better apart from this heat is panning me out.  I am exhausted but I guess a lot of you are.  I just cannot cope in this heat.  We are not used to it are we?  We had some welcome rain last night, a lovely downpour which the garden welcomed with open arms.  I did hope it would be feeling a lot fresher today but it came back, hot and sultry.  Not grumbling though, it's about time we had our share of this weather.

So last night I decided to attack my journal and try to do a page ready for Thursday's challenge which has been sorely neglected for weeks.  This month it is all about numbers and so I took one of my Tracy Evans stamps which had numbers on and tried to make a background of it.  Not sure it has worked, if it will stay or be painted over, just waiting for it to dry and then hopefully having a play in the morning with it.  Thursday will tell!

Had to go for a blood test yesterday.  Someone new to me taking the bloods so I told her, as I do all new to me nurses, "my veins move about so I have to tell you I need a baby's black needle".  "We'll see" was the reply. and sure enough she got it soon enough but when I took the plaster off that night I saw just what I had inherited

Don't normally end up like that!

Hope I don't get her again - and she was a phlebotomist from the hospital.

Ah well, guess it will fade in time.  That's it folks, hopefully full service will be resumed soon and hopefully that journal page will turn out ok with a bit more fiddling about.

Thanks to all you WOYWW'ers out there who have been so patient with me over the past few weeks.

WOYWW 731

 Well still nothing creative to show to you on my desk.  My desk has, however, been tidied up a little from what it was on the 3rd May and I can show that to you.

All I have done since then on my desk is tidy things up so that it didn't look quite as much of a mess as it did because we are having a surveyor coming tomorrow to measure up for new windows and this was the untidiest room in the house.  This is from the prep I was doing, before I was ill, using my spray booth.  I need to use it again as I used the two sheets of card for my ATC's that were for my upcoming workshop in August.

An assortment of small punches line the back of the green board and there's a tin of all bits and pieces in the spray booth along with sellotape, a hole punch and bits of card in a tin.

I hope by next week to have done at least a journal page which will have very little stamping on it but will have colouring in of figures already stamped.  After that I might try something like a simple birthday card.  Just realised I have another birthday coming up for this month and nothing suitable.  Watch this space - I a feeling much better.

Also hope that by now my ATC's have started to drop through letterboxes.  I popped an extra one in from my stash as a way of saying  "sorry I am so late".  Hope you WOYWW'ers who have been so patient now have a full complement of ATC's for this year.

WOYWW 730

 Another week, and another ATC to show you from the great big swap.  It was just too late to include in last week's post but here is my ATC from my Pif, Kyla:

Thanks Kyla!

I still haven't done mine but rest assured, all you who sent one to me, I will be doing them shortly.  The pain is nowhere near as severe and I am doing all I have been told to do plus steaming twice a day (something my mum would have had me doing had she been here).  Years ago my son turned up with some menthol crystals, must have had a cough at the time, and I have been using them, but only a tiny piece (gosh they are strong).At last I have been able to lie down in bed so hip hip hooray..(this is for me to look back on, not for sympathy, honestly).

Well what a lot of excitement there has been on WOYWW bloggers pages.  Some gorgeous ATC's on display showing what a talented bunch you all are.  You should all be proud of yourselves, it has been lovely to look through the posts and see what a variety there is out there.

WOYWW 729

 What a lovely week for mail we all had.  Despite not having done my ATC's as yet I still got some lovely snail mail.  I expect this week will be a show and tell session with us all showing the lovely ATC's we have received.

Well, sadly as I said above I have not done my ATC's as yet and I cannot see me doing them for a couple of weeks at least, but I promise I will send them out to those who sent them to me.  Please understand.  I think most of you know I was very poorly for just over three weeks and last Thursday I was happy as I thought I was finally on the right side.  Then in bed, that night, I coughed and tore my intercostal muscles and am now in a great deal of pain.  Because of things that are wrong with me I cannot have ibuprofen which would be the normal medication. I'll just leave it there.

Anyway, here are my lovely ATC's, once again on my footstool.  Thank you ladies, they are wonderful, as were the various little envelopes and cards that accompanied them.

Top middle - Angela (Felix), then starting left and going across LLJ, Annie, Jo, Diana, Julia, Lynne, Christine, Cindy, Tracy.

These will all be put in a book as soon as I can get in my craft room but for the moment they just sit close to me and remind me of some of the lovely friends that WOYWW has forged.

See you next week.

Jeudi Journal - Grammar

 "I am silently correcting your grammar" is this week's quote from Sir Tim (Holtz) that we have to work with alongside Aimeslee's theme for the month at Art Journal Journey - Flowers.  That and figures from Dylusions range by Dyan Reaveley completes the parameters we have to work with.

I was very lucky in that I had not got anything prepared but whilst leafing through a National Trust magazine I saw an article on Sissingham Gardens, Kent.  A full page and a half page of a floral garden.  Perfect for the background to my page.  So with a bit of trimming and putting together the two pages made a full one which was perfect for Aimeslee's theme.  That solved the problem of a background.

I chose to use two tiny figures from the Dylusion range and I decided to leave them without colour.  The background was so colourful that I felt it would have made them fade into it had I added colour.

"The story is simple.  It's a week since Billy and Sam were at the Gardens and Sam had been asked on his return to school to write all about what he had done over the weekend.  Sam was, of course, excited about his morning out with his older brother and so he had written about that in great detail.

Although quite a bright young man for his age Sam had a failing, his grammar was not good.  He often got his tenses muddled and as for 'split infinity', well!

It was later in the week that two of his teachers were walking in the same Gardens and Sam came up in conversation.  Both agreed what a lovely young man he was and how well he was doing in school.  In fact they were discussing whether or not he should win the math prize that year for brightest young student.

Miss Bennett was unaware of his prowess in English but was soon put right by Miss Heslop who told her she had had to tell him "I am silently correcting your grammar" only a few days ago.  Yes, he definitely deserved the math prize, but he was not really a contender for the English one."

WOYWW 728

 Happy Anniversary!  Congratulations Julia on an idea that started 14 years ago and is still working.  I wonder how many friendships have been forged by WOYWW, how many hands across the sea have been woven together from its early beginnings.  I still remember years ago when I used to go to CHA the thrill of actually meeting up with WOYWW friends from other parts of the world.

Well, yesterday I got some lovely ATC's in the post but sadly I have not been able to do mine as yet.  I PROMISE I will do them asap so thanks ladies for trusting me to get them to you some time soon.  I still have terrible shakes so my colouring skills etc are severely tested.  I know it's no excuse, I should have done them earlier.

Here are my lovely ATC's, not on my desk but on my stool at the side of me.  Thank you Lynn, LLJ, Jo, Annie

I sincerely hope all of you are having a lovely celebration of the friendships that have been made over the years with WOYWW.

Jeudi Journal - Want

Thankfully today we have yet another  Journal Page for Art Journal Journey's theme as set by Aimeslee.  I am glad I was working a week or two in advance.  A lovely theme for the month of May because it is "Flowers" and what could be better as our gardens and the countryside are becoming a hive of colour.

So what do I need?  A Tim Holtz Snarky Comment, some Dylusion figures, flowers, maybe a stencil or two ... and colour of some description.  Oh, and a story to illustrate it all.  Like this page?

Esme was at the same Gardens as Billy and Sam.  In fact she was in the same class at school as young Sam.  That was about as far as the similarities went with the two youngsters.  Where Sam was kind and a thoughtful little boy Esme was a bit of a spoiled young madam.

In fact we find her just as she was being naughty.  With total disregard for the beautiful flowers in the garden she was to be seen pulling flowers up and scattering their petals on the ground.  "He loves me, he loves me not" she was chanting as she destroyed the pretty flowers.

Billy saw her and was rather taken aback to see what she was doing and so he shouted over to her.

"Hey, you mustn't pick the flowers, they are here for all to see and enjoy.  What do you think you are doing?" 

Esme turned, and looked in the direction of Billy, not a look of remorse or anything at having been caught destroying flowers.  Haughtily she shouted back at him "I do this thing called what I want" and carried on picking at the petals of the daisy in her hand.

"Well", said Billy to Sam, "I think you might have a word with teacher on Monday and tell her just what we saw today.  In fact you can write it up in your school diary for the whole class to see."

Samjust grinned.