WOYWW 218

Last week you may remember I asked about using Blogger more effectively and thank you all for your help. I'm not sure I have achieved anything much better than I had before, I haven't really sat down and studied the tool with reference to the help offered.
thank you also for all your kind comments last week about the tidying.
Bit of a worry here as Max went to the vet this morning for a 'scale and polish' and when we collected him at 2.30 they said they had taken out one tooth. He was very groggy and slept until 6.15 and then wanted something to eat, which he had, just a little bit and then asked to go out. He sat on the pavement for about 2 minutes, with one of the cats from across the road and I pulled a couple of weeds out of the drive, looked up and he had vanished and we haven't seen him since, so the evening has been rather stressful. There's only so much calling one can do.
Anyway since last week's post, which showed a lot of clearing up of the the left push pile and revealed a large number of UFO's, this week I have worked hard at making them finished objects.
On Saturday I had finished 9 cards, and you can see them here on the blog labelled UFO's, and then since then I have finished another 7

 and have another 6 nearing completion.

then I can start on some new stuff, maybe Christmas cards.














Actually if you look along my worktop you can see that the next big project will be sorting and organising my stamps.

I have started but am not sure quite how to go about the final storage so I will sort them first by putting all the sentiments together and Christmas ones together etc and then decide about how to make them accessible. I don't use them very much at present because it is so hard to find what I want.
Also you can see that the tidying up doesn't seem to have stuck. I keep trying but the good Lord chose not to give me tidiness genes. I definitely didn't take after my mother and it drove her mad.
Well it is past bedtime here in North Wales and the wonderful Mrs Dunnit has not put Mr Linky up yet so this post will not get on the web until the morning.
Just finishing this and Max has strolled in looking absolutely fine, so I will sleep tonight,
Thanks for visiting
Chris

U F O's

Well on Wednesday my worktop was full of part done things or as Eliza put it UnFinished Objects, so over the past couple of days I have been a good girl and worked on them and now, on the hall carpet because the colours look better there, you see the results of my diligence.

Eight finished cards, some of which had been around for a long time, especially the green one with the bow and the one with the owls.Actually that is not quite true as the one on the top left still needs the gems stuck on but it was gettig dark and I can never get good pictures with the flash on. Mirri card reflect it back like red eye.
I'm very pleased with myself as the green one with the bow and the one with the owl have been hanging around for at least 6 months.

As well as finishing all these I made a card for some friends who had a baby boy last week, not the same day as Prince George, but baby Jonah is far more important to us. I am pleased with that as well.

We have had another glorious day here in North Wales so I have been out in the garden doing some tidying up, cutting back and even planted up a sink that has been hanging around for ages. I hadn't been very sure what to put in it, but was in teh garden centre this morning and took the plunge and bought some alpines for it. When they have settled I'll try to remember to post a picture.
Well it is nealy bedtime and I am yawning and have a book to finish tonight.                                     

WOYWW 217

Well the left push principle had to stop. I had reached the stage where I could no longer use the guillotine without lifting up a pile of papers and finding somewhere to put them while I did the cutting and then piling them back on the guillotine, now with additional scraps of paper I had cut off the current project. It had to be dealt with!!

So I gathered it to the centre of the worktop and slowly worked my way down.
'Oh, I wondered where that had gone',
'I'd forgotten I had that'.,
'I remember why that got pushed, I couldn't decide where to put it, now it has to have a home',
'Part finished project, to be attended to. Add to pile of part finished projects.'
Slowly the left push pile went down, and unfortunately theunfinished project pile grew. I finished a couple of cards as I went along and managed to put then by the filing box for glue to dry and then they can be put away.

 
 However there is still the pile of projects to be dealt with, sorry not a very good picture,and some of them I still have no idea how to proceed. Maybe I can put the them in a box under the bed instead of on the guillotine!

 

And here is a picture showing that the worktop where the pile was, is indeed clear.

Actually you can see some of the projects better in this picture. so I have my work cut out for the next few days, but will try to put pictures of the finished project on here for people to see, and now it is over to Julia's to put this up for peole to read, and to get some poking around other people's worktops.

Just a PS, if anyone else uses Blogger and can tell me how to make it do what I want it to do and not what it wants to do, I'd appreciate you help. It takes me so long trying to get a good presentation and I'm sure there must be a way to do it more easily, effectively and consistently, without all the big gaps.

Blessing 

Chris

Aaarrgghh!

Today has been a bad day!
It started off fine, I spent an hour or so playing with Pan Pastels with my daughter, these were the bits that worked. The doily is actually a sheet of greaseproof paper that I used in a die cutter to be an inner layer to ensure that my main paper came out easily. I tried to use it as a mask but that wasn't very successful, but it was clear that the Pp had coloured the greaseproof so I added a bit more and coloured it completely and will use it for something.

While we were playing, son in law was walking the dog, grandsons were watching video, and hubby was taking the motorhome to the garage to have some work done on the suspension.

About midday the garage rang to say they were having problems and the job would take longer than they expected, so could only do one side today and other side on Wednesday, but vehicle would have to be collected this evening because it would not go in the garage overnight.
Stress levels start rising!
Daughter and family left after lunch  to go to my sister, near Manchester, on their way home to Doncaster and encounter further problems there adding to the stress levels!
So just before 5 pm we went down the garage and immediately noticed that what they had done clearly had not made any difference to the fact that the back of the van was still lower than the front. The parts alone were £350 and a whole days labour so far, would push it up to £500 and no real difference!!!
While we were discussing the problem with one of the mechanics, hubby notice damage on the side of the van and thought it was just dirt, Closer examination revealed that in getting it out of the drive that morning he had put a 4 foot long gouge, 2" wide, in the side. Probably going to cost another £300+ to repair so we are not going to have much change out of £1,000 and nothing has been improved so far.
Very bad day!!!
Never mind, the Lord is still good and the sun shone and I sat in the garden for an hour with the cat on my lap. He is pleased that family have now gone and taken their monster, guide dog puppy, with them and he can have his home back.
Tomorrow I can see if I can make something with the bits I have made.

WOYWW 216

Yesterday I was cheated. BBC weather told us we would have thunderstorms and torrential rain by the afternoon, so I was out in the garden at the crack of ..................... 9 o'clock. I planted new plants, moved old ones, soaked them all, did some serious weeding, picked soft fruit so it wouldn't be damaged by the heavy rain and then went in for breakfast at 11.30 feeling very virtuous, and confident that new and old plants would be well watered again later in the day. Four o'clock came and I looked at the weather forecast and Manchester got all our rain!!!! This is Wales for goodness sake, we always get more rain than the rest of GB , but the forecast just showed the rain all over the east of the country for the next few days.
I want my licence money back!!!

After my breakfast, for various personal reasons, I was feeling very low and had a whinge to that wonderful Shaz in Oz who sent me a very encouraging email, so I went on her blog Calligraphy cards and looked at her entry for July 20th and thought 'I have some Pan Pastels lurking in my cupboard, I could make a feeble attempt at creating something nowhere near as beautiful as she had',  so I dragged them out of the cupboard, and that is what you can see on my worktop.

I have pushed that bit of lilac coloured card, already cut, around for weeks and then having pulled out the Pan Pastel thought I could make a backing sheet for it and found the picture while finding room on the desk. Unfortunately, I don't have very many colours in pan pastels and somehow managed to order myself some more. Also realised that I don't have any 4 x 6 backing stamps so I ordered some of those, it gets expensive trying something to use what I already have in the cupboard!!

This other picture is a card I have half made and can't decide what to do next. Not even sure it works at all. I got the die, Spellbinders nestabilities. Elegant labels 4 before hubby went into hospital and just played with it on the lilac and the pink card, the stamping was already on the pink card so I teamed it with black but have got stuck now, and you, fellow WOYWWers, can have the pleasure of telling me it is rubbish if you think so.
Well I'd better get this on line at the wonderful Julia's party at Stamping Ground or none of you will have the opportunity to be critical or otherwise about it.
Happy Wednesday all.
Chris

Breakfast in the garden

Well isn't this weather wonderful, how many others have been having breakfast in the garden? Some of you many have seen my WOYWW post where I showed my sister's garden and said that I was going to have breakfast in the sunshine, well I am back home again, but still had breakfast in the sunshine and shade, but my garden isn't a patch on hers, however it was very nice sitting out there, with just a cat for company.

Then I spent half an hour, before it got too hot, picking fruit.

There is still at least three times as many gooseberries and twice the number of red currants but like all these things they are low down and I got sick of crawling on my hands and knees with the hot sun on my back and a cat trying to persuade me to cuddle him and leave the silly fruit alone.
Tomorrow I must clear my worktop and think about making some cards, several birthdays coming up, but later this evening we are going to annoy Curry's and ask them if, the new printer hubby wants to buy, will take 250 gm card. Sure they won't know, but it is annoying when you buy 250 or even 300 gm card, and it says 'Inkjet' on it but the printer won't take it.
I would like to print pink Petticoat designs onto card and make a double sided one but 160 card is a bit flimsy for a card. Type of thing can be seen on my post WOYWW 213 again, the blue wedding anniversary card was be printed both sides on 160 card and is not very substantial.

Well I must post this and think about supper.

Bye and thanks for visiting,

Chris

WOYWW 215

Well here we are on another Wednesday and I'm still away from home in beautiful Herefordshire. However as you can see I have been doing some crochet so I have spread it on the garden table to take a picture of it. It needs some more work before it is ready to go in the caravan, but at least it is now in one piece.
Well it will be home to North Wales tomorrow morning, to Max for lots of cuddles and demands to know why we left him, and a garden full of weeds. I know what I shall be doing for the next few days.  Pulling out bindweed!
Well my wonderful sister tells me that breakfast is being served so I will take the crochet off the table so that we can have breakfast in the sunshine.