WOYWW 460

IT AIN'T WHAT YOU DO, IT'S THE WAY THAT YOU DO IT
AND THAT'S WHAT GETS RESULTS.....

A couple of things before we kick off into Desk Mode today - if you follow me on Bloglovin' then I have deleted my account there so you may find I don't pop up in your feed anymore. And thank you for the various tips on how to deal with the BPOs  (B****y Peel Offs)...I think they might be a step too far for me..the aggravation factor completely outweighs the satisfaction!

My card making took a different turn this week - my son gave me a beautiful Mother's Day card with a paper-cut front. Well, it HAD to be recycled...look:


Pretty huh? Well, I had fun with a craft knife and 5 minutes later.....

...had deconstructed it into several pieces. Also, the back of that navy card had rather lovely stripes on so I used that instead. In all, I made three new cards from the one! I did ask R if it was ok to do all this first :-D

It struck me that I need to do some sewing as well and I thought I'd make some more bags for Margaret's charity so the fabric stash was upended onto the JanCave table again!

Well, a small part of it anyway! I sorted out the stuff that I don't think I'll use again and cut out another 8 bags' worth.

And this is the final piece of this fabric - I must have got this 7 or so years ago, there was just enough to make one bag. Bye bye fabric, I've really enjoyed your muted tones, great typefaces and design - you're going to be used for a great cause.

The weird upsy-downsy weather has continued this week but Sunday was a gorgeous day, blue skies, sunshine, warm. Hooray!! I know it's going to change again by the end of the week but G and I made the most of this day and went for a walk.  This magnificent Norman Castle is in the next village:

It's a beauty! We didn't go in this time but walked all around and up lots of hills!

Can you imagine being an attacker and facing an assault on this? No, me neither - no wonder sieges and undermining the foundations were the most effective ways of achieving a surrender! And I know it's wrong of me but I kept expecting to see the Monty Python and the Holy Grail mob peering over the battlements  :-D

Have a great week!

WOYWW 459

RING OUT THOSE BELLS....

Hello everyone - another week of the crafting madness that is WOYWW rolls around! Hope the weather hasn't been too bad for you, we seem to have missed the Mini Beast that struck with snow at the weekend...fortunately.

My crafting has moved downstairs from the JanCave and I'm now in residence on the dining room table:

If I have a spare ten minutes, it's good to be able to sit and make a couple of cards - the pile is mounting up and hopefully will sell at the next WI Meeting. I'm not asking much for them but every little helps ;-)

Shaz Silverwolf donated a HUGE amount of bits and pieces including these butterflies which go really well with the soft tones of the paper. I turned them into Get Well/Thinking of you type cards - any tips on how to get those blasted peel off words in a straight line?! It may seem like teaching your granny to suck eggs but I need all the help I can can get!!

My other downstairs crafting has been some crochet:


This lovely lot is slowly being turned into...

This! A blanket for a prezzy. Nice colours huh? It's a slightly different colour choice for me which was dictated by the fact that these were the only ones available in Hobbycraft. They're WI double knitting yarns, for every ball sold a small percentage goes to the WI. It's acrylic which I always use for blankets as it's washable and is of a good quality. But why is it that white yarn always seems thinner than coloured?! It's weird, I know the ply is identical, it just doesn't seem as thick!

I also played in a contest with my band last Saturday, we thought we played well but weren't positioned very high - ah well, c'est la vie, adjudicating is very subjective. We held an open rehearsal a couple of days before when friends and family can come to hear us play, which entailed moving from our smallish band room to a bigger hall - and EVERYTHING had to be taken over including:

So last Thursday I was helping to lash tubular bells and timpani to a trailer ( you couldn't make this up, huh?!)


We got some really funny looks, I can tell you!! I was tempted to play them in transit but wasn't allowed....spoilsports :-D  They got there in one piece, phew, and then back again the next day.

You can't say my life isn't varied...........


Have a good week!

WOYWW 458

MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS....

It was tough to top the Boobs lyric from last week! Today's is a little more mundane but all will be revealed later :-D

There's been no crafting done in the JanCave this past week, but plenty elsewhere!


In fact, it's pretty much how it looked last week - just too many other things going on at the moment. I bought a metre of fabric that spoke to me in the shop:


Be still my beating heart!! It's got it all - hares, patterns and that wonderful graphic lino print that has always been a favourite of mine. I bought a metre of it and am going to make something for me, but am not sure what yet. It might even get framed, I honestly could live with it on the wall!

Some more cardmaking went on at the kitchen table workdesk - Janet, my friend, came over for a cuppa and a play. She is a scrapbooker and wow, did it show. Her cards were beautiful!

Is that enough of a mess for you?! Ron looks seriously unimpressed :-D  We had a wonderful couple of hours and made quite different cards.

Janet made the two at each end of the bottom row and the second from left on the top. Just fab! I had a go at making Man Cards, using up a couple of prints of G's photos. They turned out ok but it taxed this newbie cardmaker's brain, that's for sure!

G and I went for a day out to the Mumbles, a cute little seaside town on Swansea Bay - we had a coffee and a mooch as you do. And then found this place:

Now, a new quilting shop is reason enough to take the pic but the flat above it is special too! I spent quite a lot of time as a child visiting my mum's cousin and aunt who lived there. They were old even then and I remember the rooms being dark brown with lots of Victorian bits and bobs. Uncle Ron had a study that was tobacco brown, with bookshelves, racks of pipes and a desk and battered leather armchair. Such strong memories for me, just standing there took me back to being about 8!

But apart from having a Proust-type Madeleine moment, I HAD to go investigate the shop!

Small but beautifully formed! There was a lot packed into a small space - they do classes and online too, see here for the link. This was where I got the hare fabric from, don't you think that was restrained?!

But the thing that made me hoot was this:



And mine was there....and he pretty much said that....but I was a good girl. Well, it's got to happen sometime huh?   *grin*

Have a great week everyone!

WOYWW 457

CAN YOU PLEASE TELL YOUR BOOBS
TO STOP LOOKIN' AT MY EYES.....

 What a seven days that was! From -10 to +10 in temperature range, from snow and howling gales to the most beautiful balmy Spring weather. Crazy! No wonder the weather's always a hot topic of conversation in the UK :-D

But when it was freezy cold last week, I did not venture out at all and consequently had some good days crafting. 

Last Thursday's desk looked like this - I needed to make a thank you gift and got the scraps box out.

I've had that ditsy flower and butterfly fabric for AGES and these really are the last scraps, I shall miss them when they're gone!

There you go, it didn't take long!  

I also spent a happy couple of hours making some more cards for the WI - honestly, I am really enjoying doing this. My technique would probably horrify most of you however so I won't mention anything :-D

A couple of weeks ago, my mate Helen asked me if I had any DK yarn odds and sods as she'd run out of boobs. An odd request, you may think, but Helen is a Community Midwife in our local area and she uses knitted bosoms to help teach new mums how to breastfeed and they hang on to them! So she's always replenishing her boob stock.
Anyhow, I'd invited her over for a cuppa and chat and she bought what she'd knitted with her in order to stuff and sew up.

Unstuffed......


...to beautifully pert :-D


The product of a good morning's work!! I can't repeat the comment my dear hubby made. Naughty boy *grin*

As I said, from snowdrifts to balmy sunshine, here is the beach yesterday. G and I had a wonderful walk and had the sand to ourselves.


*Happy dance* We watched oystercatchers and heard the skylarks singing - maybe Spring isn't too far away here in the south-west of Wales?

Have a great week and enjoy your crafting :-D xxxxxxxx

WOYWW 769

 WE'LL MEET AGAIN.... I'm going to take a break from blogging for a while - please don't worry, all is ok! - think I just need a...