WOYWW 481

Hello fellow deskers, I’ve finally made it back to my desk after the month long visit from our Grandsons, it was so hot but we had such fun, we are totally worn out with all that swimming, they were like baby seals by the time they left, seems pretty quiet here now and pretty boring just swimming lengths after all that activity but now after their marathon journey home, 32 hours after being delayed they are back at school and Nan and Grandad are slowing recovering!!

I did have a fellow crafter here too, Charlie loved coming up to my secret room as he called it, he loves nothing more than sticking things together and having found my mini stapler even had Grandad helping, never thought I would see Steve with curvy edged scissors cutting card into shapes!
No boxes were safe, anything and everything had to be saved, LOL it must be hereditary, it got to the point when Steve was putting things into the recycling box before he spotted them as the conservatory was gradually being filled with his projects. He also managed to use two rolls of the tape you use for decorating that he found in Grandads little tool cupboard, we were scared to sit still in case we were taped together.
Joey was happy with a book and my water colour pencils as he loves drawing, mainly dragons but he spent hours between swimming sitting in the shade drawing.

My craft room is messy but here's my work in progress, I'm making a shadow box card for Charlies 6th birthday with Batman stickers, he's mad on super heroes, it's taken me two hours to get this far, I printed the BG from google images but it's taken me three attempts to get it in line, just pondering on how to decorate the front.
You might also notice quite a few half finished cards and whatever, I've been trying to complete them but I must admit I'm not having much luck, I think the heat is frazzling my brain, much too hot to have any inspiration at the moment although it has dropped about 5c since the torrential rain we had last week, typical we had rivers running down the streets but the next morning our water was off!

I bought this border punch set for Charlie, I spotted it and thought he would love it but after having a go I'm not sure he is strong enough, I had a red hand from using it so I think I will keep it until he comes over next year to play with as he might need Grandads help with it!!

Hope you all have a great crafty week, I'm off for a swim before I melt!

Jan x

WOYWW 476

We've been up and at it since 7.30 am, Steve to clean the pool and when he had finished we cleaned all the tiles around the garden while it was still in the shade, it had to be done seeing as our visitors arrive tomorrow afternoon. Our son is landing in Heathrow about now before flying on to Manchester and GS's are en route to Manchester to meet their Dad, they are staying in a hotel tonight near the airport ready for the flight tomorrow.

Anyway this will most likely be my last Desk showing for a while so here it is, not very exciting as I've been tidying after finishing my Stash buster page and a card that needed posting today, it was made but I had to check if Sandy was actually 65 before I attached the numbers, didn't want to insult her if she wasn't !!! Apart from that all my July birthday cards are already posted.

I've been collecting together all the pieces that I had out, parts of cards,cards with stamped images, all were spread over my desk so they will find themselves in the orange box behind, couldn't throw the box away! well I never do if I'm honest, this one was a gift for Mothers Day, Tangerine bath goodies from The Body Shop, they smell lovely too.

Not much here either, I was just cutting some sixes from different card, I saw a shaker card that looked like it might be an idea as GS number 2 is six in November not sure what he is currently in to at the moment as it was super heroes when we left them and Minions before that! Apparently 2 year old GS is into them now!

My first page, I've decided to start from our trip in January and try to do a page for each Month through the year of our travels seeing we seem to be doing such a lot at the moment, especially as we are mostly with family so it will hopefully be a book of memories too. This was our journey from home to Bilbao.





 If any of you have traveled around Spain you may have seen the black Bulls, they are huge, they used to advertise Osbornes Brandy but then they started to disappear, seen as a distraction I think, in the 80's travelling over here on holiday we used to play spot the bull with our boys, they were very competitive trying to spot the most, funnily there's only the two of us now but we still find ourselves shouting ?Black Bull? Ha,Ha, very sad I know but guess who always wins, not me!

That's been my week, still baking hot but we are going out early every morning. Big excitement just before I started my blog, our mini air cooler arrived, we are hoping it might be enough with fans to keep the boys cool in bed, someone is playing with it downstairs, just hope it doesn't have a remote control, we have enough already!

Hope you all have a fun week, Happy WOYWW, I hope to visit as many desks as I can, in between the cleaning of course, LOL

Jan

T is for Tuesday

Happy 5th Anniversary! My T stands for Tea cup and Saucer!

Well no walking this morning as DH has a problem with his calf muscle, a sign of getting old, he had cramp and is still suffering from the after effects, we have been down to the paseo for breakfast and my intention was to show my cafe y tostada con tomate, I forgot to take a photo as we bumped into a couple we haven't seen for a few years, totally lost track of time and then had to rush off for my hairdressing appointment.

So today my photo is a cup and saucer which was a gift from DIL's Aunt, it was a welcome gift on our visit to Poland to meet the family.

It is from Bydgoszcz and the image on the front of the archer is of a statue in the town centre, I also have a lovely jotter with the same picture, for some reason the photo I have refuses to upload so I thought I would show you a couple more of our trip.

The town square with a huge statue

I love this and it was the first time I had seen this done.
Attaching locks with initials on them, I think the sentiment being together forever, I wanted to do it on our visit for our sons wedding but apparently they had stopped it because of the weight unfortunately.

This statue is over the river, quite impressive.

This is our son and DIL's  summer house near the lake.
We didn't stay there, as there wasn't room for all of us but we had
a lovely BBQ outside with all DIL's family





We are busy getting ready for our family arriving from San Francisco on Thursday, they are here for almost a month, we have the booster seats in place in the car, ice creams of various flours in the freezer, especially mint choc chip! bags of ice and plenty of cold drinks In the fridge, of course they are mostly looking forward to swimming and lots of Shrimp, according to our GS.

Finally I just want to say a big thank you for the lovely welcome on my first visit to Bleubeard and Elizabeths last week and for all the comments, they were very much appreciated, sorry I can't join the ATC swop, I just haven't had time to make one but hopefully next year!

Have a great week everyone.
Jan

WOYWW 475

Happy Wednesday to one and all, yes I am overjoyed this morning after a refreshing sleep with a cool bedroom, our new air conditioning unit was installed yesterday, oh what joy, it's been just too hot to sleep, we’ve been waking up more weary than before we went to bed!
I woke up wrapped in the sheet with cold feet but what bliss, of course it’s yet another remote control for someone to play with!

Crafting wise I’ve had a productive week, made three cards, played again with my gelli plate, it was for a challenge on SCS, to use oxide inks on the plate, spray the colours with rubbing alcohol, stamp over the top of the inks and then press the card over it, although I did end up with a piece I had to re stamp the car, firstly I only have one oxide ink so used distress inks and no alcohol so had to spray with water, ha,ha no wonder it didn’t work! I was also supposed to put the gelli plate on the stamping platform to stamp on the BG piece, guess what! I forgot and it slipped!!

This is the journal I’m making, I’m starting from January when we left home for our first trip from Spain, UK, Chicago and final stop San Francisco, I’m joining the Stash busters challenge organised by Sharon, Foxy Stamping, I must say it’s working, using old papers, stamps and embellishments long forgotten, I even spent half an hour looking for my crimper, that hasn’t seen the light of day for many years, we have to incorporate certain items for the challenge! Nothing is glued down yet, I still have more photos to print, I've had to transfer photos from my iPad and phone to my computer before I could print the photos. I had to put it on the top of my cutter and card folder as it was the only spare space I had!!

The small folders on the bookcase I found in Target and Staples, one has TH clear stamp folders with my Altenew and sentiment stamps in, the second one has TH crazy birds with dies in and the third has Christmas Stamps, the large Clarity folder has a mishmash of stamps in it. At the back, my magnetic wall hanger where I keep post cards and drawings from GS's.

I've finally made the labels for the DVD cases, I kept having to go through them all looking for the one I wanted and after getting annoyed I quickly typed one for each a glued them in the spines so now I can see at a glance the one I need.

My Magnetic platform and old platform are flattening a card I made with an old BG piece I made ages ago with inks, sprays and whatever, it wouldn't lay flat after I put it on a card base!
 I've been going through the drawer to try and use all the discarded BG pieces to use for card bases, it was my New Years resolution to try and use stash and not spend toooo much this year, I actually only spent a couple of hundred dollars on my last visit to SF and that included DVD cases and my TH stamping platform and it's already July and I haven't spent anything since!!

                                                                          

Our beach at 9.30am this morning, looks pretty quiet but at 2pm  yesterday when we popped down for a quick lunch it was very busy, the lull before the storm, wait until the holiday makers all arrive from Murcia and Madrid next month, they will be cheek by jowl as they say!

Thanks once again for your kind comments last week, it's much appreciated, I'm off Julia's so I can   have a peek at other desks around the world, it's great to see the variety of crafty things everyone else is creating.
Have a great WOYWW
Jan

T is for Tuesday

Hello everyone, Greetings from a sunny and very hot Spain,

As I was sat in bed drinking my mug of tea and reading Sharon’s post I decided I would join in the fun, for the first time,

My drink is lemonade, it's a strange orangy red, which was quite a surprise when I opened it yesterday expecting clear liquid, I’ve added sparkling water as I found it quite strong, it’s very tasty, of course this morning I decided to read the label, it often helps I find,  LOL, well guess what, apparently it’s strawberry lemonade, well that accounts for the strange colour although it does look very much like the juice we get when we squeeze our Pink Grapefruits, you can see the tree in the BG, the fruits get so big it actually bends the branches to the ground.

After missing our early morning walk we have just been out for a quick lunch to save cooking tonight,  I spent the morning trying to keep cool in the conservatory while the engineer fitted the new air conditioning unit, it was 30.5c in there at 11am with all the windows open,  we are hoping for a lovely cool bedroom tonight, after ten awful nights without it, I think it might be an early night just to enjoy being cool.

Off for a swim, enjoy your day.

Jan

WOYWW 473

Happy Wednesday, I remembered it was desk hopping day, probably as we were awake early as the air con decided to stop working the night before and the engineer was too busy yesterday to come, we resorted to open windows with a fan going, fingers crossed he can fix it today.
Thank you so much to everyone who came over last week for a visit, such a lovely welcome back, I did visit quite a few desks but quite a few wouldn’t let me post, not sure if I’m doing something wrong!

I have been doing quite a bit of crafting, catching up on making birthday cards for next month and I have actually finished our sons card, I did get this idea from Pinterest, I thought it would make him smile, when he was single he would buy designer jackets that, well, lets say not many would wear, the girls in the office said they looked forward to the Christmas party just to see his outfit, a cool dude as he would say! now he's married and a Dad those days of designer clothes are long gone!

To have a break from card making I’m joining the challenge on SCS to make a scrapbook LO using stash, well I have so much to chose from and so many photos,  I have my papers ready and have picked out the photos I want to use, apart from that it’s still guess work,as usual, I usually have a few false starts but I get there in the end. I do envy anyone who can do a page with just one or two photos, I just always feel the need to use as many as possible!

 I’ve also been filling the DVD cases you can see on the shelf with Dies, some have matching stamps too but my next job will be to put labels on the spines, my nesting dies I have on magnetic sheets in the drawer below,
 I also treated myself to the storage cases for bits and pieces, just showing to the right of the DVD cases, most were stored in any plastic container I could find so that’s much better, although I still have quite a few to sort out still, I seem to have suddenly found quite a few pairs of scissors too, you can perhaps see my collection of glitters on the shelf, the tiny pink box had a tiny heart shaped silver earring holder from number one GS so I couldn't throw it away.

Thanks for stopping by and all your comments, they are greatly appreciated, take care and have a great weekend

Jan

Seasons Greetings

My card for the Jingle Belles challenge to use more than three layers, I love layers so an easy challenge for me.

I used a TH Festive stencil with sage distress Ink for the background layer as it matched the green card and die cut the poinsettia and leaves, the sentiment is from a sheet of foil ones I've had in my stash for a few years.

Jan S