WOYWW - Week No.788/8

Hello Everyone,

It's been a while since I've been able to join in with What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - hosted by Sarah on her blog, Sarah's Craft Shed. I won't go into the gory details, and risk boring you all. I'll just say I've been too ill to do much at all. Not least, scrapbooking. I think I've made about three pages since my last post, which was way back in May! 

That's why all that you see on my desk is the album I'm keeping for this year, with guidance from Shimelle's class, This Year's Story. Needless to say, I'm way behind! Not to worry. I'll catch up eventually. Anyone who follows me on Instagram or Facebook will have seen my recent progress but for those of you who haven't here's the latest pages made for the album.

This last page was made with really old stash and I even managed to add some inky stencilling to the background.

The stencil is from Scrap-A-Sketch's collection. I've been a bit naughty recently, spending more than I should on new stash. My way of trying to cheer myself up when I've not been up to anything more than wishing, dreaming and mentally planning future scrap projects. And when I've not been doing that, I've been doing this:

This book, The Consolation of Nature: Spring in the Time of Coronavirus written by three noted nature writers, has indeed been a consolation. And with a nice cuppa in this cute cup, a gift from my daughter, what could be better. Not much, that's for sure!

Before I go, I just want to thank everyone who has left me their kind comments and emails. They have been much appreciated even if I haven't been able to say so at the time. Indeed, one of the reasons I haven't shown up on WOYWW for the last goodness knows how many weeks is because it wasn't possible for me to visit you all and admire all the crafty stuff you've been up to. I changed supplier recently and found I was without broadband, WIFI and TV for longer than expected. Never again!

To end, late as I am to the party, I still intend to visit everyone who is participating in WOYWW today and leave a comment where possible. Experience has shown that's not always possible for reasons beyond my ken. Suffice to say, I plan to do my best. 

Take care everyone,

Elizabeth

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 781

Hello Everyone,

It's all change for WOYWW today. Julia has handed the baton over to Sarah at Sarah's Craft Shed after 15 years of keeping her wonderful blog hop going. I remember being delighted to discover WOYWW almost 14 years ago. It was a joy to 'meet' so many crafters, like myself, who were willing to show the spaces where they craft, be it on desks or floors, and all because Julia had the idea we could all get together virtually through her blog, the Stamping Ground. So it may be the end of an era with Julia retiring, not to mention her able assistant, Lunch Lady Jan, but I'm sure Sarah is a worthy successor. 

And this is what's on my desk today. I wasn't able to travel down this year to the 15th Anniversary Crop but Jo (aka Twiglet) and Annie (aka Wipso) sent me their ATCs so I don't feel completely left out. I've seen some of the photos taken at the crop and I can see it was great fun for everyone there. Maybe next year I'll make it. 

Over recent weeks, if nothing else, I've managed to revive my enthusiasm for scrapbooking. It's good. It's an improvement. Participating in the Scrap-a-Sketch Rainbow Challenge helped enormously. That's seven pages completed for seven colours! With renewed interest, I've not stopped. Here's two more made from the remnants of kits put together from stash before we moved house in 2022.

Crafting Keeps Me Sane

This page is about crafting being therapeutic for me. The crochet blanket is progressing slowly but it helped get me through the worst of winter weather.  I love the quilted knitting bag I made a few years ago at the quilting classes I attended in Prestwick. Sadly, the pandemic led to the closure of the classes. 

I don't often remember to take a photo of leftovers when a kit is done but there was so little left of this one that I just had to take a pic for the record. 

Zillenials Doing It Their Way

Another page that uses up the tail end of another homemade kit. The two photos show my grandchildren, Shari & Josh (hands and phone only) ordering our food online even though we were in the restaurant at the time. It's showing my age I know, but I was gobsmacked! When did that become a thing? Clearly, I need to get out more! Not my usual style of scrapping. It's inspired by one I watched Shimelle create in an old video of hers on YouTube. It was done from memory so probably not anything like the original at all, but the base is much the same and the mixing of many colours and use of many layers reflects Shimelle's very individual style. Much to my surprise, I like it!

Now, the cat bit:

Not Silver, as you might have thought, but her brother, Taz. If it wasn't for the black smudge on his nose, he'd be her double. Love the pose!

And finally, I'm even later than ever today but I have the best of reasons so no apologies. Shari brought my very grown up 12 year old great-granddaughter, Rhian, along to see me and we had a lovely time chatting over lattes and chocolate brownies. 

With that I'll finish here.

Take care, everyone,

Elizabeth 

Curiouser and Curiouser - A Scrapbook Page

I think this page is why I scrapbook. The photos taken of my son and granddaughter at Landmark, Aviemore are from 2014! Now that my granddaughter is an adult it is lovely to remember her when she was just fourteen. 

I put the layout, loosely based on a sketch from Scrap-A-Sketch, together from one of the kits I made up back in 2022 whilst preparing to move house. The plan was to use the kits in my spare time on a temporary table until my new craft room was set up. But to quote John Lennon, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans". Now I have a new plan to work through the kits, alternating with the pages I'm making for my 2024 album.

Materials are all old - from 2017 to 2021 - but I think the finished result doesn't look dated. Papers used are from Echo Park's 'Farmer's Market' & Simple Stories 'Simple Vintage Cottage Fields' collections. The flowers were fussy cut from one of the patterned papers. Embellishments from my inconsiderable stash!

The spatters, which can just about be seen on the background in the photo, were created with Heidi Swapp's Color Shine 'Citron'.

That's it for today. It's late and I need my beauty sleep, so I'll bid you all a good night. 

Elizabeth

December Scrapbook Layouts - Nos. 2,3,&4

Hello Everyone,

I hope this finds you well and you had a good day. We've had foul weather today - wet and so cold - and I stayed cosy indoors.

I'm back catching up with the next 3 pages made for my December daily. As before, all challenges and groups mentioned can be found on Facebook. 

No. 2

This page is based on Lisa Sikorski's for Day 2 of her December Sketch-a-Thon, as are page no's. 3&4. This photo of Alan was taken two years ago before he caught Covid. He looks so well. For him, putting up the Christmas tree is all about the lights. Will they still work after 11 months in storage? They did that year and they did this year too.

Everything used on the page is from the kit put together for the Scrap Backwards challenge this month. Once again the flair in the lower cluster is from Dotty About Flair. There's three daily requirements all this month over on this group - on this day they were hearts, snowflakes and the colour teal, all of which I managed to include. 

No. 3

Dotty About Flair's prompts for Day 3 - circles, florals, red - are all included in this page. I chose the spray inks, red and navy blue, for the background spatters after picking out the papers, from my kit of course. For more about the photo scroll down to yesterday's post.

No. 4

This page was completed today. The prompts for this one was Christmas decorations, sequins and Kraft. The beautiful background paper is 'Sweet Winter Season' from StudioLight which is so old I can't find a date for it. The cute Docrafts Papermania snowman and deer are a few years old too. 

The photos are of my youngest great-grandson. I'm not sure I've mentioned this before but Callum is autistic and he's amazing. His main interests are geography, space & the planet's and maths and he's ace at puzzles so this jigsaw of the world map is just perfect for him. He made it up in only two days! He wants to be a scientist when he grows up and I don't doubt for one moment that he will.  

Even though I'm not exactly up-to-date, I'm pleased that I'm not far behind and enjoying scrapping a mix of old and new photos, all taken in December. Having a monthly theme is helping me work my way through a ton of old stash too. 

Now it's late so I'll bid you all a good night. Have a good day tomorrow. 

Bye for now,

Elizabeth

December Scrapbook Layout - No. 1

Hello Everyone,

I hope this finds you well and keeping warm - unless, of course, you live in the southern hemisphere where you are probably trying to stay cool. 

Following on from my WOYWW post yesterday, I've decided to post the pages made in December daily rather than sharing them later when it could be way past the event. Here's the page for December 1st - all challenges and groups mentioned can be found on Facebook. 

It's based on Lisa Sikorski's sketch for Day 1 of her December Sketch-a-Thon. I tweaked the sketch to enable me to use the green cut-apart - it just had to go on the first page of the month. 

The photo is of the Christmas lights on Ayr High Street taken on my birthday at the weekend.

Everything used on the page is from the kit put together for the Scrap Backwards challenge this month. The oldest item is the 'Holiday Words' patterned paper from American Traditional Designs dated 2006! I'm chuffed to bits to have used it at last :) 

The flair in the lower cluster is from Dotty About Flair. There's three daily requirements all this month over on this group - for this month they are, paper layers, gold and a rainbow. I stamped and coloured the rainbow from the April Showers stamp set from Clearly Besotted. I forget where I got the gold enamel dots but it was a long time ago. 

Before I go, I just want to say that my thoughts go out to anyone who is still living without electricity. It's the sixth day for many and that's too long to live without heat, light and cooking facilities. In the meantime, I hope you're all managing to keep warm and stay safe.