WOYWW 314

Bit of a busy week, well, bit of a busy month really.  Went to Manchester on Monday and we had lunch at one of those Red Hot Buffet Bars.  Gosh, what a lot of choice. There was an Italian section, a Japanese one, a Chinese one, an Indian one, a Tex Mex one, a Carvery, a huge Salad Bar - and the Dessert section - oh!!!  With some of the foods you put them on your plate and took it to the station where they cooked it for you.  (Reminded me of one of the restaurants we went to in America with our lovely friend Mary.  Gosh I do miss her.)

I started with Salads.  Various green leaves, the most delicious Casablanca salad (a kind of orangey flavoured couscous), beetroot salad, honey roasted butternut squash, tabouleh, humous with something stuck in it but I don’t know what it was, tasted ok though, the usual veg salads, tomato salad, onion salad, everything you could think of and more.  I loved that orangey thing even though I am not one for orange flavoured anything normally, so much so that my second foray to the buffet was Chinese food (couldn’t begin to tell you what I had, must take a notebook next time) but I had to have some of that Casablanca stuff on as well.

Now I must in my defence if it seems I ate an awful lot, I did just have about a dessertspoon or maybe sometimes a tablespoon of each thing, and the desserts were cut wafer thin.  I tried to have a bit of almost every dessert there was but the one that had captured my eye most of all was the one I left on my plate.

Anyway, you didn't come on here to listen to my eating my way around Manchester so here is my desk, which you will notice is nice and tidy.  And before I forget here is the card I left on my desk last week:

As I said, it was a Brusho background from ages ago and I put one of Dyan's stamped images on top.

The desk:

Tried to show you the card which is on my desk ready for when my friend Wendy comes to stay.  I thought I had better have a little something up my sleeve for her to make.  It is a tunnel card, made at Vicky Stampers on Saturday with Carole.

Monkey and Katy Koala are sat up there right by the Cola bottles.  Katy is sporting her WOYWW badge which I must remember to wear when I next go to a workshop, you never know who else might be there.

My journal is at the back and that goes travelling with me whenever I go away as I love adding bits of pen-work to the stamped or stencilled images.  There are a pile of paper towels to the right of it (as you look) and they are what I put in the pages to protect the underneath ones when I am spraying. The kitchen roll on the left is the one I roll over the page (notice the Dyan touches here?) and on the right you can see a clear box.  Well, on Monday I got some ear rings like little feathers and I am going to alcohol ink them later.  Still not sure which colours to use.

Think I am going through an AI moment or two, they seem to be out of fashion so I am bringing them out again.  What are others doing?  You may well ask, so I suggest you hop on over to Julia's blog and take a peek at what is on offer today on desks all over the world.  Ta Ta for now!

313 (WOYWW that is)

So here we are in the aftermath of the atc swap.  Did anyone else have a problem with that spell checker on their computer?  Every time I wrote to say thank you for the atc received it got changed to an "act".  Very confusing, and annoying.

Anyway, I have been looking for something (seem to have been searching for weeks) and in the process have unearthed a few things but got very little done.  Did go to a workshop with Lorraine on Sunday where we did two canvasses with the multi-talented Finnabair (who also suffers at the hands of spellchecker and becomes Cinabar).  You can see them in the post below this one.

Anyway, you want to see the atc's I received don't you?  This is the one I sent out in those little packets I showed you last week.

It's a Lindsay Mason stamp 

The background on some of them was done following a You Tube video from PaperArtsy which is as per the one above, others had a Distressed Ink background.  The little figure was coloured in with Twinkling H2o's.  Not a clue what a "piffy" is, we had this discussion with Lindsay herself when she once came over to the club.

I got some beauties in return

Annette, Shaz, Jan

Zoe, Sandra, Jill

Annie, Jo, Eliza

Thank you one and all!

So that is it for another year - but hey, here is my desk in all its glory today:

Atc's and the cards which accompanied them waiting to be put away in the top left.  I changed my mind about a birthday card that was going in the mail and made a different one so that is why the atc's got left - you can see the card and the pens out on my desk.  The pansies are a 'maybe' for a tag I am doing - or they could end up on a birthday card yet.  Not sure, but they took ages to fussy cut out!

See you over at Julia's blog as there should be quite a display of atc's for us all to look at today.  Race you there!

A Day with Finnabair

Had a lovely day out yesterday with Lorraine (ok, I said Finnabair above) when we went to Harrogate to a workshop by Finnabair.  It saw us leaving home quite early in the morning and travelling up in the rain.  Poor Lorraine driving as usual with me as chief navigator, assisted ably by the Sat Nav I must add.

Anyway, in the morning we had a workshop entitled Beauty and the Beads and it was in my favourite dark dark colours.  The metallic sheen on the canvas that comes from the sprays we used is just wonderful.  I wish you could see it on here.

The first workshop I ever did with Finn was down in Wiltshire (I think - take me south of Lancashire and I don't know where I am) and I came home with a gorgeous pale blue and green journal and a canvas that shaded from black to a very pale blueish colour.  I just loved them.  Then at another workshop, yes I was hooked, I did a black journal (similar to the canvas above) and I was totally head over heels in love.  So you see, I just love the canvas above and was so glad we did a black one.

That is not to say I do not like what I made in the afternoon.  Because I do.  This workshop was called Time Capsule and the pocket watch centre piece was perfect for a photograph but I decided to leave mine 'faceless'. However I am hoping to make another one of these and this time it will contain a photograph.  That is because I like it and can see me making even more than one more of these.

Can you see the metal flower top right?  I love this which is part of the new collection I think.  Also I liked the screw heads (Junkyard Findings) and the twirl at the bottom.  The paper roses are lovely too and I can see I am becoming addicted to these embellishments but rather surprised myself that I used so many on each canvas.  Usually I am a bit "skinny" when it comes to sticking them down.

Well, hope you like what you have seen although I realise they have been seen a lot on Facebook so I don't expect many, if any, comments on here.

If you did see them on Facebook do you notice any difference with the black one today?

WOYWW 312 and the Anniversary ATC Swap

Drums beat, trumpets sound ... the day has arrived ... it's the Anniversary ATC Swap on WOYWW. Guess who did not get many more atc's done?  Yes, that's right, moi!

Not putting my ATC's up here yet but here are the folders for my atc's to fit in, made from some Gelli printed paper that I did when I went to stay with my friend Wendy a few weeks ago.  If you look closely you might see an atc peeking out now and then.

Not only did I do those covers last minute but as you can see from my desk I have been rather busy.

I spent most of Bank Holiday Monday trying Tangles, going through the book (Anya Lothrop - I can recommend) and looking on the internet and copying lots of squares and filling them with ideas which I can then keep and use in the future.  So there are one or two bits, if you look closely that I have been doing.

Unfortunately I found out the other day that Flat Susan (you remember her?) had got separated from her belongings so also on my desk are duplicates, thank goodness I saved them on the computer, of the blurb that goes out with her.  Also the laminating pouches as I laminate what I can so it is durable. Sadly her passport is one of the things that is missing and I cannot get back the 22 signatures that it held from those that have already hosted her.

This is the side bit (the "L" shape I now have to work on, remember last week I showed you I had moved some stuff to make more room?) and it just has some passport pages I am in the process of cutting out, a die I want to cut out, and some folders at the back which are going to be moved (and decorated when I get time).

Well, that's about it folks so meander on over to Julia's place and see just who is posting atc's - and you might get a sneak peek at some of them.  Me, I'll get over asap and see who I have to send my atc too.  (Note to self: do NOT forget the asterisk)

Friday - A Poppy Comes Home

On Friday my son came over with his partner because it was 100 years to the day since my Great Uncle (Andy's Great Great Uncle) had been killed at Gallipoli.

To mark the occasion I had decided it was the appropriate day to put the ceramic Poppy, that had previously resided at the Tower of London, in the garden so Andy and I went outside and hammered the metal rod in and then attached the ceramic head.

Wanting to verify that Great Uncle Harry really was 21 when he was killed I got the family bible out. Andy searching in it amongst the pages found some newspaper cuttings and I cannot remember ever having seen this one that he unearthed which mentions Great Uncle Harry being killed on the 4th June 1915 so maybe someone got it wrong somewhere.  I think I'll go with the War Commission date.

To keep in with the day I had made a Lamb Tagine (Turkish'ish) which we had with roasted veg, from a Mediterranean recipe which was the best way of serving veg I could think of to be in keeping with the day. The veg recipe was new and we really enjoyed it, so much so that Chas and I had it again yesterday with some fish.

I used courgette, aubergine, peppers, onion, all cut into big chunks, and cherry tomatoes, baby potatoes (parboiled) which I put in a bowl and marinaded with basil, rosemary, thyme, pinch of chilli powder, garlic and balsamic vinegar for an hour or so.  Then I put the whole lot in a dish and sprayed with some Frylight before putting in the oven on a high heat for 30 minutes.  Try it and add anything else (I added mushrooms last night) that takes your fancy.

Now Andy and I have a laminated copy of the War Graves Commissions certificate and I have a couple of copies to give to other family members and I will send copies off to Australia where we have other family members.

My poppy has come home!

Au Revoir to Artful Times - with a Party!

Today marks the end of yet another chapter in my book.  I can remember the flush of enjoyment and anticipation when we first launched the Artful Times blog.  It was hard work in the weeks running up to the launch and the three of us (Sam, Von and myself) had to choose a name, two of us agreeing and one not, then another name, same voting, then another ... and so on.  Eventually we agreed and we then had to sort out the header.  Neither Von nor I had a clue how to go about it but Sam came up with the goods, it got tweaked and pushed and pulled and tweaked until we finally settled on what has stayed with us throughout close to 200 weeks.  BIG Thanks Sam!  Also for staying around and helping out when I was desperate at times for a bit of TLC or assistance.

Thanks also to Chrissie who came in and helped Von and I for a short time and thanks certainly to Wendy, who joined the team in March 2014, stepped into the breach when I was left on my own and has remained with me until now.  (Wendy had entered every single one of our challenges so she HAS now done all the challenges from the very beginning, some achievement I think you will agree.)

Anyhow, rather than dwell on that at the moment it is time to move onwards and upwards and to put this edition to bed.  Wendy and I have agreed it is time to close and maybe we can join in a few more challenges ourselves now so regretfully this is our last challenge at Artful Times.

Mr Linky runs out on the 4th June so this challenge has to finish the day before and so you will notice it is ending close to midnight that day.  We hope you will help us to celebrate the fun times we have had on this challenge blog and join our Party.

My journal took on an unexpected "Party" theme when I did this page on Friday morning - but, as per usual, I cannot think of any caption to put with it.  I thought of "taking my Louboutins to the Party" or something like that but it didn't sit right.  Anyone able to offer help out there?

Here is the first thing that I made (then changed my mind and did the journal page as well) - a bit late for Mardi Gras but a party is a party at any time and this is more of an "Anything Goes" theme as long as it is celebratory, hence my "Carnival" interpretation. See, last challenge and I give you two for the price of one. LOL!

I knew I had this Spellbinders' die, which is long since retired, as I did use it in a sample when I was told it was no longer going to be available.  I remember making a card with it and we sold out of the dies we had.  Good result!  So here it is again, this time in a page format for one of my art journals. Pretty self explanatory, all the diecuts are from the one die except the lettering.  Silver card and a shiny black card has been used.  Lettering has been coloured with Twinkling H2o's.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us with our challenge blog over the years, especially those of you who stuck by us through the leaner times.  Cheerio!

woyww 311 - long but you don't have to read it all

Got all muddled and thought it was the great ATC swap today.  Doh!  Still time to do some more.

Well, what a busy time I have had of it, travelling around.  First Spain, then home for three days and off to my friend's house for a few days and a trip to another friend straight afterwards.  Then home for two days and off again to Nottingham to see my lovely friend Liz who is going through chemo at the moment for breast cancer.

What a wonderful lady she is.  It was so good to see her and reassure myself that she is still, kind of ok, and the little tinker had gone and made us some biscuits (I had made some buns to take down with me).  Well, Liz has discovered zentangling and what wonderful work she has been doing.  You can check it out on her blog here because she has now posted some pictures of some of her work.  We had a wonderful time with me trying on her hats, she has some amazing creations and they are so comfortable to wear.  Anyhow it is the 'tangling' I was going to mention, I am digressing.

Liz is convinced I can do it (me not so) and as she pointed out, it will be good with the journalling that I have been doing of late.  Imagine me doing my own borders.

Well, she set me off on a hunt for a couple of books she recommended.  One was available in supermarkets - err, supermarkets?

After visiting quite a few and then ringing other branches of Sainsbury's/Tesco/Asda/Morrisons I gave up.  Chas finally found one of them on a bookazine for me and I duly paid up and was ready to receive it tomorrow when I got an email telling me they had refunded the money as they did not have any copies.  To cut a long story short I am now paying over the odds for it via ebay.  Guess what? Chas was in our local tiny Morrisons today and he rang me to tell me they had it on the shelf!!!  The one place I had not checked ... ah well, woe is me.  I don't need two and the order is on its way.  Roll on Thursday.

Anyway, here is my desk, complete with a journal page that needs some doodling on:

Observant followers of WOYWW will notice that I have a little room to the left of where I normally sit - I have cleared a bit of space by moving some drawers along.  Much better for me to work.  But look what I got today

More Dylusion stamps.  Have waited ages for these and am now raring to go in my journal with some more images.  There are some new stencils underneath too.  Doing a (Helen) Happy Dance.

I am so tidy because as outlined at the beginning I have been away rather a lot and today my niece came with her adorable baby boy.  She is a beautiful girl, both inside and out, and as a result she has a very happy little boy who has the most beautiful blue eyes and is so so good.  I would love to post a picture of them but am always wary of posting kiddie pictures on the internet and would not do so without her permission.  You just have to take it from me, they are both beautiful.

Can't leave this post without telling you about last week when I went to see Liz.  We stayed at the Eco Hotel (De Vere) in the grounds of Nottingham University.  Fabulous - will go again.  Everything is "green" and the rooms are quite minimal but to a high standard.  Comfortable in every way - and I am hard to please about beds!

The restaurant was good, we had a lovely three course meal in the evening and a super breakfast next morning.  Staff are very nice and extremely polite and helpful.  All in all I can recommend it for a good night's stay.

Shower

Bathroom with lovely toiletries

Bed

Desk & TV

View from our window (floor to ceiling window)
Just to show how modern it is in design

Iron, ironing board, hospitality tray, safe, hairdryer (all tucked away in the wardrobe with a full length mirror and lots of coathangers).

Just wish I had taken some photos of the reception/bar/restaurant areas - everything sparkling clean and modern.

hotel entrance looking from side

(see the apple)

Hope I have convinced some of you to give it a try, it is very moderately priced.  The next day we went to Newstead Abbey, but that will have to wait for another post.  Must get over to the stamping-ground to see some pictures and hear the news about the crop last weekend.  Hopefully next year ...