Jeudi Journal - Sarcasm

 This week the quote from Tim Holtz' book of Snarky Comments is "My level of sarcasm has gotten to the point where I don't even know if I'm kidding or not".

Because I missed a substantial amount of Valerie's challenge "Geometric Shapes" at Art Journal Journey I decided to include a few using my Aall & Create Stencils to give her 'circles, squares, diamonds, circles and semi-circles' which remind me of protractors as used in geometry.

"Jacqui woke up early that morning having had a troubled sleep filled with not so nice dreams.  Nothing scary, just 'not so nice', and they bothered her.  "Am I really that kind of person?" she asked herself, hands on hips, as she looked in the mirror.  

She had been at the gym the day before and she had overheard some of the other girls obviously talking about someone.  When she went over to join them they all had fallen silent.  Now if that wasn't an indication that they were talking about her she didn't have blonde hair.  Jen had gone a bit red in the face and so she wondered if that was anything to do with her having a bit of fun with Jen towards the end of the session.

"My level of sarcasm has gotten to the point where I don't even know if I'm kidding or not" she said to Laurie her little dog.  "I'm not a bad person really, I just make these sarcastic comments now and then but the girls all know that it's just my way of having fun".

Laurie just walked past her and she realised there was not much point in talking to the dog but who could she talk to about such a delicate matter?

"Perhaps it's time to go and see big sister" she said.  "At least Valerie will be honest with me and tell me  if I am being a bit paranoid or not.  She usually sticks up for me when I have arguments with my friends but this is a bit different, it's me asking her for honest advice."

And with that she turned to Laurie, "Go get your lead, we are off to see your Aunty Val.  I know you like going to hers because she always has a treat for you.  Hope she has one for me too."

Last week Wendy said she struggled with the quote, well Wendy - this week I did.

WOYWW 777

The "Wool" idea I mentioned last week hasn't come off.  I was going to knit something but the pattern arrived and it needed three needles.  Apart from not having three needles I don't think I know how to knit with three needles.  So I suppose I need to view a You Tube video or something and get cracking.  At the moment the pattern reads like double Dutch to me.  Don't hold your breath on that one it might take a while like the crochet.  Still am not happy with my tension but I do keep trying to do it each week.

I think I am out of touch with shopping, especially for stamps.  I wanted a polymer stamp and did a search for it on the internet - finding it was £15 put me off a bit.  Just one image of a flower.  Fair enough it was a large one.  Is that normal these days?

Remember all those images a friend sent and I coloured in at the start of my accident?  Well here they are now mounted up and made into cards.  Some are purely coloured pencils and some are Inktense pencils used as watercolour.

The top two photos are the cards and the bottom one is my desk as it is at the moment.  My foam mat for stamping on my poppy stamp, watercolours and my guillotine.  Oh and a piece of card I was using for a card but never stamped on it.

Hope the other WOYWW desks are more interesting than mine.

Jeudi Journal - Best Friends

 Here we are with another quote for Wendy and myself to work with whilst attempting to work within the boundaries of Valerie's challenge at Art Journal Journey which is 'geometric forms'.  My page uses hexagons which are from a stencil by Aall & Create and the quote is taken from Tim Holtz' book of Snarky Quotes - "That moment when you hear someone else call your best friend their best friend and you are like ... No."

"Tori was feeling ever so upset.  She felt that she and her bestie were no longer exclusive and a third person had come into the equation and so she needed a shoulder to cry on.  That is where Frankie came in.  She and Frankie had been to school together and friends for ... oh, it must be ten years now.  So off Tori went, to see her friend Frankie.

Frankie was getting ready to go out when Tori called.  She had bought herself a lovely new hat with a tiny bit of veil hanging over one eye on which there was a tiny spider with sequins for eyes.

"Oh, Frankie" said Tori with a tear in her eye.  "Are you going out?  I am so sorry, I should have rung before coming around.  So sorry."

"No worries" replied Frankie, realising that Tori was upset about something.  "What's the matter?"

Oh, it's Sarah" said Tori, "we went out bowling last night and she brought a friend of hers from work along.  I thought we were all going to get on well, and we did, to a certain extent, but then I heard her friend talking to someone and she said she was out with her best friend.  You know what it's like, that moment when you hear someone else call your best friend their best friend and you are like ... No.  I was fuming at first, then I felt so hurt.  I just carried on for the evening watching the two of them laughing and joking and talking about work whilst I just joined in as best I could but my heart wasn't in it.  I ended up making some excuse about a headache and left the two of them to it."

"So you didn't say anything to Sarah?" asked Frankie.  "Have you rung her today and said something?"

"No" said Tori, her lip beginning to tremble.

"Well, the first thing you need to do is go around to Sarah's.  Just tell her you felt a bit left out last night and it brought on a head ache.  I know that is a lie but it's only a tiny white one.  There will be some silly explanation, where Sarah will not have been aware you felt left out.  Much better to say something than carry on in this state.  Now come one.  Let's have a coffee and I have some nice chocolate muffins here, nothing like coffee and chocolate to make you smile again."

And so the two of them sat down with a coffee and some cake and Tori really did feel better for having talked to her friend Frankie.  Now to go off to see Sarah."

WOYWW 776

What a day it has been again.  Sunshine this morning meant I set off to clinic with just my hoodie  over my t-shirt and on the way back I went into Iceland with Chas only to hear thunderous rain, as we thought, beating down on the roof.  When we ventured outside it was hail.  So many days now we have had these hail storms and on Monday it turned to sleet as we were driving to the hospital.

Well, I got signed off at the hospital on Monday for the cutaneous horn I had removed back in December and I don't think it will be long before the clinic sign me off for the knee.  Last week there was only a tiny bit still open (over granulation) which was bleeding and today it was the same, a tiny bit bleeding, but I think it was in a different place.

Now, ages ago a lovely friend sent me some images for me to colour in.  It was fine for me at the time and now I have made some of the images into cards but I only have one to show you, do you remember me showing them to you - I had used coloured pencil crayons to colour them.  

You can see one of them on the left of my desk - a tea cup with two more images waiting to be finished and then I can make them into a set of three cards.

So this is my desk as it is at the moment.  My small guillotine, the cards, images, my coaster (thanks Jo) my favourite flower stamps with some new pockets in front as I am putting them all in pockets to keep them safe.  The rest is as it always is - ink pads mainly.

Here are two cards I made last week.  Remember the blue Bluebell looking one?  Well, I tried again with a poppy stamp.  The first one is the last one I did as it is a second generation image.

and here is the tea cup mentioned previously

I used gingham card behind the image to represent a tablecloth but now I am thinking it should be a 'posher' cloth than gingham for that classy cup.

I am hoping to get a bit more into my stamping and also do one or two other crafty things (with wool?) that I have on the back burner this next week.  I would love to get out more but as I am so slow on my feet at the moment I daren't risk it for fear of getting soaking wet if I am caught in one of the downpours we all seem to be having.

See all you WOYWW'ers next week hopefully, in the mean time, happy snooping.

Jeudi Journal - Not on Track

Hopfully I am back on track but the quote isn't.  "The pity train has just derailed at the corner of Suck It Up and Move On" is, I think, today's quote from Tim Holtz' book of Snarky comments.  Anyway, that is what I have based my journal page on.

I know I have been missing for ages and I still can't sit to craft or stand for too long so I was thrilled to see that Valerie had "Geometric Forms" as her challenge for Art Journal Journey and I knew I had seen a magazine page somewhere that had shapes on it.  Sure enough the page had rectangles and circles on it and with the addition of two figures and a few more punched out circles my page was complete.  I could easily colour in the figures whilst sat in my chair so it was a nice easy page - now to think up a story to go with it.

"Amy was feeling very down, her boyfriend of a full two weeks had dumped her.  She had thought he was 'the one'.  At seventeen she really wanted a permanent boyfriend and Billy had seemed so grown up and perfect for her.  Turned out he was as bad as the others and so poor Amy had spent the night in tears, playing love songs and crying into a pile of tissues whilst she wrote a letter to her favourite teenage agony aunt explaining how she felt.

The next day she felt a little bit brighter but there was still a big ache in her little heart as she got dressed in her prettiest dress and wandered into town.  It was there she saw her big sister, Sophie.  Sophie had left home when she was 20 and got herself a lovely little flat above a hairdressers shop in town and she was just the person Amy needed to talk to.  Surely she would understand.

And so Amy began relating all her troubles and woes about Billy her ex to her big sister.

"Amy, you know I love you and I would do anything at all to help you don't you?" asked Sophie.

"Of course" replied Amy, "You must have been there when you were younger."

Sophie grinned, she was only six years older but then being the baby of the family Amy had always seemed much younger than she actually was, probably because mum and dad gave into her so much, and always had done.  What was she to say?  Yes, she had suffered when boyfriends had come and gone but it was all part of life and you just had to accept it.  She realised that now.  The right man would come along some day.  She smiled to herself - she was still waiting.

"Look Ames" she said, this is all part of growing up and these things happen.  Besides which Billy wasn't right for you.  He hung around with the wrong crowd and I am sure mum and dad would have not been happy if they had seen you with him. Besides which, let's face it, you only knew him a couple or so weeks."

"It doesn't matter how long we had been together, I loved him" shouted Amy.  And there is nothing you can do or say to make me believe he was not the right boy for me.  I thought you would understand, you are my big sister and you should be there for me all the time."

As what Sophie said, Amy came back at her, tears of anger and frustration spilling down her face and half an hour of Amy in one of those moods was enough for anyone.  In the end Sophie had had enough.  Being nice had no effect, maybe it was time to give her little sister a bit of a shock.  And so when Sophie came out with 'the pity train has just derailed at the corner of Suck It Up and Move On' Amy was so surprised that she stopped shouting and the tears disappeared.

"What do you mean?" she asked her big sister.  

"I mean it's about time you pulled yourself together and stopped spoiling that pretty face of yours and listened to me.  There's plenty more fish in the sea and you are only seventeen.  Let's go to mine and put the kettle on and then we can get your face washed and sit and talk like two sensible young women.  How about that Ames?"

Amy agreed, and grabbing her sister by the arm she said 'sorry' and the two of them went on their way.

WOYWW 775

 Another Wednesday morning when this is out for you all to see but in truth done yesterday on a very very wet afternoon.  In fact I got soaked going just from the car to the clinic Tuesday morning.  It rained so hard when we were coming out and it hasn't stopped since.  I really think we are all going to end up with webbed feet!

Well, nothing much to show you but good news on the knee front.  It is doing so well that next week I will be ditching all this padding and be reduced to a dressing and a 'toe to thigh' stocking.  That will make bending so much better as at the moment, although I can bend my knee, it is restricted because of all the bandaging (first gauze, then two layers of foam on the cut area, then a pad before a stocking, a cotton wool full length bandage, another bandage and then a full length stockinette stocking type thing). All this behind my knee only lets it bend so far but I am walking much better and bending my knee now as I walk.

On Saturday I had signed up for a workshop on the internet and managed to do one of the techniques, not very successfully, but at least I did it so it was a real sense of achievement.  Next day I did another one.  Oh dear, really not very good.  Maybe another week when I can sit properly I will manage.  Anyway, here they are - the bluebell one is a first and second generation and the one I did in the workshop.  The second generation I did a bit of a sketch around the shapes with a black liner.  The other one, done on Sunday, I think my watercolour paper is too thick and the embossing does not show up enough.  Others didn't have the problem, and some lovely work was produced, maybe I should get some decent paper.  I need to try the other two techniques, and redo these, maybe I will have more success.

See, you can't see the embossed flowers on the yellow ones.  The first blue one is the second generation, the last one is a first stamping and then overstamped with black ink.

Well, that's it for this week, maybe I will have more to show as time goes on.  In the meantime enjoy snooping around the WOYWW desks, hopefully more interesting than mine which I am sharing below.

On the left is my box with my most used floral stamps from Lavinia in, then a background which I did in readiness for some stamping and my printed list of Lavinia stamps which I have on a database.  That's my cleaning cloth on top of the list.  Behind are some Elements ink pads, my tin which contains some tiny stamped images, an empty Memento reinker a lid with some brads in and my lovely coaster gifted by dear  Jo.  Told you, nothing interesting here this week but next week I have some new stamps arriving, not many, just four or five.  I need to stamp out the stamps I have bought whilst being incapacitated - maybe another week I can show them to you - and get using them!

WOYWW 774

 Don't collapse, I have a card to show you.  Should have been two but I only just sent one of them so I can't show it until next week.  Hopefully by then I might have another for you to see.  The weather is so poor here that there is nothing else to do but stay in and craft although I don't do much of that yet.  Saying that it won't be long before I can sit at a table and do a bit, I hope.  

Here's my desk after making the bare bones of the card

Paul might recognise the two boxes at the back of my desk (top left) next to my blending tops.  The yellow card is the waterfall card before the actual mechanism was stuck on.  Inside there was a story about the birthday boy and his travels through the dark jungle in Ababongo Land and the green card is all the bits, left over and cut out wrongly for this birthday card.  

You can just see my carousel peeking in at the left hand side of the photo and there is a piece of kitchen roll on a bit of craft mat by the side of it.  The only other things are my computer and a pair of scissors, a Tim Holtz Clock waiting to be decorated (been waiting for years) and the wires and things for my computer.

Now for the waterfall card.  I do hope that this uploads ok which is why I am publishing my post early so I can check the video.  Apologies for my voice, it's been like that since I had pneumonia a year ago and it disappears altogether if I talk too much.  It was the only way I could think of showing you without too many photos.  

Ignore the "thank you" at the end, I didn't know if Chas had stopped filming or not so I just said 'Thank You" to make him stop.  Hopefully next time I want to do one I can do it myself with the gadget Jayne once bought me whilst sitting at my desk as usual.

See you next week at Julia's for another week of WOYWW.