WOYWW 292

Happy New Year, its been a few months since I've been around to join you all on a Wednesday as  we had an extended visit to our family in San Francisco. We started our trip in London with our Eldest son and Gf before flying out to Chicago for three days, it really lived up to its name ¨The Windy City¨as you can see from the photo below.

 This was out on the lake, where we all ended up in the downstairs
lounge leaving the poor girl narrating on the upper deck on her own,
luckily she did have some cover from the rain. Thankfully the other two days were dry.

We spent three days and two nights travelling across country on the Californian Zephyr, an amazing experience, we had an en suite cabin on the top deck so was able to take in all the views going through Denver, Salt Lake City and the Rockie Mountains, arriving in San Francisco where our youngest son was waiting for us. The train is an amazing sight, being a double decker,  I took this photo after we had passed through the Rockies.

We celebrated our two Grandsons birthdays, my birthday, which is Halloween so we had an evening of Trick O Treating, our Grandson who is six told all his friends I was a witch and said I needed to prove it to him by making his bed fly around the room, If only!! 

We were fortunately able to stay long enough to spend our first Thanksgiving with them too before flying home. Luckily we had really warm weather so we had some lovely days out down the coast.

Of course quite a few days were spent craft shopping at Michaels and Joanns with my DIL who managed to spend even more than I did, we followed that by meeting up with our other halves in the city to have lunch at Macy`s Cheesecake Factory, no wonder she bought me a Jawbone to monitor how much exercise I`m doing!

 I haven`t done any crafting since, just a little try out of my new dies, I seemed to have lost my mojo so I`ll just show you what I managed to squeeze into my suitcase.

I`ll finish there and nip along to see what exciting things you all have on your desks, until next week, Happy WOYWW

WOYWW277

Hello Desk hoppers, I've finally managed to find my way back again this week, we've had a busy few weeks but here is my desk this morning.

I must admit I'm really not back into a crafting mood yet, you know how it sometimes is when you have had a few weeks away from it, takes a while to get going again, then you get an idea, rummage through the drawers for interesting bits and then the spark of inspiration just fizzles out, well that's been me this week, this is the third Christmas card I've started for our Grandsons.
You will notice the plastic containers, I do find it hard to throw any away as you just never know when you will need one, especially for all those unused die cuts!!
The box in the background is an old perfume box, oh yes something else I never throw away, anyway this one is being used to keep all my cards safe, hopefully they will survive the journey in my suitcase.

I am quite pleased with this baby card, I had already made one a few weeks ago when I spotted a free SVG on the Whimseydoodles blog, it looked so cute I just couldn't resist making one.

That's all I have going on over here, the weather is cooling nicely though, down to 23c at 9am. Just off to catch up with what you are all up to, thanks so much for your visit and comments.

Jan x

WOYWW 273

Happy WOYWW, I hope the weather is being kind to all of you fellow deskers, the temperature in the car was showing 36c as we drove back from the beach this morning at 10am!!
I must admit it was quite an effort walking back and only the thought of cool orange juice and breakfast kept us going this morning I can tell you.

 This was my desk a few days ago, trying out ideas for my Christmas Fireplace, its still not finished but its a little bit nearer as you can just see in the photo below, I had to give up on the flat pack idea as it was far too complicated measuring everything.
I've made the little Christmas Stockings, they are hiding inside the fireplace, the breeze from the window keeps blowing them on the floor! I'm trying to find a way to use the dog somewhere too.  

You'll notice how tidy my work top is now, well the part you can actually see, I had to clear a space as Steve has just finished writing book number four,  the exciting adventures of Joey, Charlie and the two headed Dragon,  Joey insisted it had two heads!!  we  spent yesterday afternoon laying all the pages out in order so its now its  on the dining table to ready to have the pages laminated. 

The cards are gift wallets, they open up with two pockets inside, one to hold a tag with a sentiment on and the other to put Christmas money in, much easier and cheaper than buying presents for sons and DIL's seeing as we all live in different countries!

Well must be off to visit some desks so until next week, enjoy the sun if you have some,  and have a great weekend

Jan x

WOYWW 271

Another Wednesday, another Doctors appointment, only more medication this time thank goodness but another late start for our walk which meant the temperature had already reached 29c at 9.30am but undeterred we walked trying to keep under the shade of the palm trees as much as possible, quite hard to do now its August and so busy, a much needed coffee at La Gloria, yesterday our coffees were on our table as we arrived again, sometimes we are even given little treats, melt in the mouth small pieces of cake to try with our coffee, sometimes I even have to eat Steve's too, only if he insists it will spoil his breakfast!

Still not much going on up here, I've only been spending about an hour a day, its been far too hot to do anything with the humidity but I have started a Christmas gift wallet, I saw one in my Making Cards Mag and as we always give the family money with postage charges being so expensive I thought I'd give this one a go.
As you can see so far I've printed the Christmas paper, cut out and folded the wallet and that's it up to now, just trying out flowers versus snowflakes for the front at the moment. The board at the back was meant for me to write reminders on but I decided that postcards from the family are far more cheerful so I still have pieces of paper floating around my desk.

The tiny suitcase is a sample one I made, I saw a blog by Bonnie, Live, love and Peace where she made so many of these cute suitcases for all occasions, they were gorgeous, mine, well, still work in progress , the pile of bits are leftovers from my first attempt, as usual I went rushing ahead without reading all the instructions first. oh the iron, well eventually even in this heat I had to knuckle down to it but its the job I hate the most!

Hopefully you will all have much more interesting desks to visit this Wednesday so I will say goodbye and see you over there. Have a great Weekend

Jan x

WOYWW 270

How quickly Wednesdays roll around, I'm afraid there's not much happening on my desk due to the humidity up here so I thought I would show you our seafront.

 I took this photo last Thursday night, 7.45pm, it was still glorious and still people were arriving at the beach, being British we were already showered and having a cool drink while making our minds up where to eat, something we've never come to terms with since living here is eating so late!
Anyway this is where we have our daily walk,  it's 1km each way so our first stop is at La Gloria for a coffee, I'm not saying we're regulars but the waiter walks out with our coffee before we've sat down if he spots us passing the Marina,!! it gives Steve a chance to have a breather before heading back to the other end for breakfast, usually tomatoes on toasted granary stick and fresh orange juice, we don't even have to order there either, as we arrive Miriam asks, normal? we say Si, we aren't really are creatures of habit!!!!

 I briefly mentioned last week about our Yucca having to be chopped down, it was starting to push the tiles up in the garden, this is the root! and the happy chaps that managed to get it out, it took them a couple of hours of hacking at the roots with one of those tools they dig roads up with!  one stood on the trunk rocking it backwards and forwards while hanging on to the top of the wall, in all this heat too, 32c.
 After Steve had paid them he sent them on their way with a cold beer and a jar of home made Marmalade each.
I think it looks so bare now but we are still debating what to put in its place.

My stash arrived last week but I totally forgot to post the photo, it was mainly texture paste and paints, I bought the Mixed media book ages ago but wouldn't you know I didn't have half the stuff I needed to try the techniques, I have had a little dabble but maybe when the weather cools and I get stuck in I'll be able to show you some samples!

I think I've rambled on for long enough so I'll wish you all a happy WOYWW, have a great weekend and I look forward to having a peep at your desks.

Jan x

WOYWW 269

Hello fellow desk hoppers, I`m hoping I manage to Join in this week, I thought I had a problem with my blog but a kind person from SCS took a look, thanks so much Leeann, it seems I had put a digit too many in my URL causing the problem, a senior moment! so here goes, lets hope I can do it right this week.

Well here's my desk, not much activity with the heat but back left is another fireplace, this time a Christmas One, I'm trying to make it flat pack so it fits in my suitcase without getting damaged.
 I will glue it all together when I arrive, I'm still fiddling around with it, as you can just see I've made the tiles for the hearth, I had to buy myself a brick EF, I tried printing brick card but didn't really like how it looked, I think you can just see a piece, I ran my tea dye ink over the raised parts, I think its looking quite effective.
Other things are a couple of Christmas cards for the Splitcoast Stamper Challenge, still not finished, and the piece with the purple flowers is what I've been messing with, that is the right term too, I have always wanted some Gesso, everyone seems to use it so I finally bought some and then didn't know what on earth to do with it, I had a go with it yesterday, managed to get it everywhere but its what you would say is work in progress, no idea what its going to be used for but I really enjoyed myself!!! Oh and I found an out of date phone card to use as a spreader too, better than using my cricut spatular anyway.

Short and sweet this week as I have to go and supervise the chopping down of my prize Yucca, after 11 years it has to go as its pushing up the tiles in the garden, poor thing started life only a foot high, now its a whopping 9 foot high and about five foot wide.

Thanks for your visit and comments, they are much appreciated, hope you all have a good weekend

Jan x

WOYWW 268

Happy WOYWW, I won't bore you with my desk today, we only arrived back from our little trip to Salamanca and Portugal yesterday so nothing is happening on it at the moment.
 Our trip was so that Steve could watch his team, Nottingham Forest play a pre-season friendly against Braga in Portugal, unfortunately after we booked a hotel in Braga the game was moved, twice, in the end they played in a small seaside town just 40 mins drive away so not too bad. Not the most exciting place we've ever stayed but fine for a two night stay.
Unfortunately our team lost but Steve had his photo taken with his hero Stuart Pearce, the manager so that more than made up for the disappointment and of course he's been busy sending it to everyone.
We decided to have a two night break in Salamanca on the way to break up the journey to Portugal, after eight hours driving in temperatures of 38c  we were pretty pleased we did,  our hotel was right on the edge of this beautiful city.

Salamanca, the view from our room, amazing, and the room had the biggest bed we've seen outside of America and even had a telephone in the loo!
The parking was via a car lift, which took us down to level -2, pretty scary as I never willingly go into lifts and I was convinced it wasn't long enough for our car and would trap us in there.

Calle Major in the centre of Salamanca, this is only one side of the square with bars and restaurants on every side and other streets leading out of the archways, we passed a pleasant hour people watching before dinner, small groups running around with Brazilian flags capturing tourists to have their photos taken with them, another group performing  a kind of play, we could only guess what that was all about!

With Churches and beautiful buildings on every corner, we gave up taking photos of them after the first day as there's so many. We spent our first evening oooing and ahing at every corner we turned.

 We were intrigued as to why there were so many American students around, apparently they spend a month studying at the University, lucky people as its a really amazing building.

Anyone who has visited Spain will have seen the shops selling Jamon, the little cups underneath are to catch the drips from the ham. Loads of shops selling luscious cakes and pastries, and I must admit to trying a few along the way.

I hope this has been more interesting than my desk, I will be getting down to crafting tomorrow, that's if I can concentrate with the baking heat, 30c at 10.30am this morning so after having a nosy around some other desks I shall be off for a cooling swim, hope you all have a great week, thanks for popping over to visit. Jan x