WOYWW #178 - Hopping Mad!

Fear not my fellow Workdesk Wednesdayer’s, I’m not hopping mad about anything at all really but it’s an appropriate blog title, you’ll see what I mean in a minute.

As you know, it’s desk visiting day over at the The Stamping Ground and Julia is waiting patiently for everyone to link a picture of their work spaces as she does every Wednesday, so without further ado, here’s mine.

I’m still working on layouts.

The one of my brother that I was working on last week is now finished and on My Heritage Blog  and I’ve also put on another page of  Mum & Dad’s Wedding, which you’ve may have already seen on here when I was working on it,  but it never made it to the other blog.

The one I’m working on now is actually a remake of the very first double page LO I ever created.

I was never very happy with these originally LOs, the papers were of poor quality and my artistic flare was nowhere to be seen as you can tell, so I decided I would do the two pages again using some of the original embelishments, including the journaling tag I made and now I’m happy with it I think.


The pages are of my Great Grand Mother and her extended family on their annual jaunt to the hop fields of Kent, hence my blog post heading.

The photos are from various years, my dad was seven in the one of him in the hop bines, so that was taken in 1930 and at least one of the others was from 1951 so the family tradition carried on for many years.


The finished pages are   on my other blog too, together with a first-hand account from my 2nd cousin Roy Jenner who’s featured in the photo from 1951.
In it he recounts one of their train journeys down to Goudhurst from London.

It’s well worth a read if you get a minute because it really does give you a feel for the era.
Roy lives out in Auckland now and is a talented crime writer, in fact the book I’m reading of his at the moment,   'There’s No Hiding Place'  is set in London and Goudhurst in Kent!

Well that’s it for another week.

I’ll be by tomorrow to see what you’re all up to as I’m out on my broomstick tonight, Lol!
Happy Halloween and
Happy Crafting!

Sue

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WOYWW #177 - Big Brother!

Well, it’s not so much ‘Big Brother’ as ‘Little Brother’ really because on my desk this morning is a LO I’m trying to construct of my oldest brother Keith when he was around a year old.

I’m working from an old template from Scrapbook Steals.com and have only just started so nothing has been stuck down yet and I’m still looking through my stash for embellishments.

As you can see, I’ve copied the photo and tried to clean it up a bit in Photoshop but it’s still not great and I think I may have lightened it up a little too must, so I’ll probably have another little play with it before I stick it down.

If it still doesn’t look right I may consider using the original.

I’m know that some people don’t agree with doing that but on the other hand, the photo will just sit on the box with lots of others that don’t often get looked at so it will be safer in the album. At least it will be ‘true vintage’ with all the creases and marks on it.

Last week I was saying that I was in the process of putting some of my other LO’s on my heritage blog but I got a bit distracted and didn’t do any in the end, so this week I really do intend to make a concerted effort to get them on there. I think I’ll aim to put this one on as soon as it’s finished and then add some of the others at the same time…….so watch this space!


So that’s about all I have to show you for this week and it’s just as well because I know that  Julia  likes her What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday’ers to keep things short so it makes it easier to visit more desks.


Thanks for stopping by and ………….

Happy Crafting!

Sue
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WOYWW #176 - Play Station!

Another Wednesday and another What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday, which means that Julia is hosting yet another desk hop from her blog, The Stamping Ground.

On my ‘Play Station’ this week is a card I’ve just finished which has a boy playing with his PlayStation on the front of it, which is quite apt really and strewed across my table are all the bits and bobs that I’ve used to make it.

There’s nothing very interesting really, a few tools like my Creative Memories cutting system for cutting circles and my Croperdile which turned out to be no good for where I wanted to punch the holes, so I resulted to the good old fashioned way of adding my eyelets, which a hammer.

There’s lots of Promarkers out too but I really need to perfect my technique with these because my shading certainly isn’t up to scratch.

Also out are my newish set of Paula Pascale Birthday Greeting stamps, a couple of ink pads and the My Mind’s Eye ‘Complete Boy’ papers that I’ve been using.

So that’s it for this week, short and sweet for a change, just the way Julia likes it, Lol!

I've shown a few more of the little pillows for the Advent Wall Hanging on my My Sewing Blog  but have noticed that something on yesterday's post about this months TUSAL needs to be altered, so I'm off to do that and then I’ll be back armed with my coffee for a good old snoop.

Happy Crafting!

Sue
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WOYWW #175 - Where did the year go?

I’ve been such a bad blogger lately and didn’t even manage to drop in on everyone that visited me for  What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday  last week.
There’s no excuse really other than the fact I was a bit distracted by a hospital appointment that was imminent, when I would get the results of the genetic blood test, but I’ll try and do better this week if I can.

The appointment I speak of was yesterday and it didn’t really go the way I wanted it to.
It turns out that I do have the hereditary faulty gene that was responsible for my cousin’s stroke last year, which increases my chances of having one by 5 – 7%.  I’m not going to dwell on it though, after all, I’ve lived with it for 57 years without knowing and had no problems so it’s a case of forearmed is forewarned. The only precaution I have to take is Aspirin everyday so I think I can cope with that.
I still would have been happier if it had come back clear though.

Anyway, enough of that and on to the reason we are here this morning and that’s so I can show you what’s on my desk.

I was quite shocked when I realised that it’s been a year this week since I last updated Family Footprints in the Sands of Time, my heritage blog ………..how ashamed am I………..…so I decided to get my albums out and that’s what’s laying on my table this morning.

It’s not that I haven’t done any layouts in that time, just that I’ve not put them on the blog, so it’s not quite as bad as it looks.

There’s also some very old pages that are not on there either so my aim this week is to bring it up to date with all the things I’ve already done and then work on some new pages.

Maybe I could start with Keith, my big brother, given that he celebrated his 65th birthday and Retirement at the weekend with a family get together.

Thanks for stopping by this week. I’m going to grab a cup of coffee now and then I’ll be by to see what you are all up to.

Happy Crafting!

Sue

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WOYWW #174 - A Stitch In Time Saves Nine

Even though I managed to miss last week’s round of desk hopping I’m still in denial that Wednesday’s here again and it’s time to let you glympse what’s on my table curtsey of Julia, our leader over at The Stamping Ground.

And despite being AWOL for two weeks I still don’t have very much to show you really.
It’s been a bit of a messy week with lots of odd jobs being done, including the paper work for my dreaded tax return which for once I’m getting it done early instead of the last minute rush I usually end up having.

So anyway, here’s my table as it was at 11 o’clock this morning.

As you can see, I have the sewing machine out again and am just stitching the sides of some of the little Advent Calendar pillows so they don’t fray.

I’ve been spending a lot of time working on it because I’m very conscious that I only have about seven weeks to get it all finished and to its new home but I think I’m on track. I just have seven motifs and seven dates to stitch, and then all the making up to do, so fingers crossed it all goes to plan.

Just behind my machine you can see the fabric that I brought on ebay for the quilt backing that the little pillows hang on. I’m just waiting for the wadding to arrive and then come the very scary bit for me because as I’ve said before, I’m useless at machining. I just keep telling myself that it’s just straight stitching, take my time and it will all be alright but the little scardy cat inside me keeps saying, but what if I mess it up………only time will tell!

I’ve done some more of my own personal Christmas cards over the last couple of weeks too and they are all sealed in their envelopes with stamps on ready to post when the time comes but silly me forgot to take photos of them so I can’t show you…………what am I like!

You can see evidence of some of the coloured images still sitting at the back of my desk though and there still lots more stamped and ready to colour when I get a minute.

Well, that’s about it for another week and I have a few things going on before I see you next time.
The first is the family get together for my brothers birthday and retirement on Saturday, which I’m looking forward to and then next Tuesday is the dreaded hospital appointment when I find out if I have the hereditary gene that caused my cousins stroke last December.
Can’t say I’m looking forward to that one at all.

Lastly, I have a couple of photos to share with you that were taken from my kitchen window of my bird feeder.

Seven little Gold Finches enjoying a meal of Sunflower hearts.

I do love to stand and watch the birds feeding and at one point there were nine of them on there, as well as two Blue Tits on the peanuts and a little Robin on the tray at the bottom.
The Squirrel was about too but he’s just a pain in the bum because he keeps digging holes in the grass to bury the nuts and when he’s not doing that he’s nicking the stones from the tops of my pots.

Well, that really is it.
Don’t forget to visit Julia’s and add your name to Mr. Linky.

Happy Crafting!

Sue

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