WOYWW 499

TAKE TIME TO THANK, TO SHARE, TO LOVE....

Happy Christmas to you all, lovely WOYWWers and others who read but don't comment - thanks for stopping by this blog each week and reading my nonsense. It's week 499 of WOYWW! Congrats to Julia on a momentous 500th bloggyversary next week.

There is very little to share this week:

Yesterday morning before the unwrapping started! I did make those two stockings though as both boys are home, I had great fun using up some spare fleecy fabric - all the daft little knick knack presents went in them and I think the boys liked them!

Those who are in the know are aware that I'm a huge Terry Pratchett fan - you can see a lot of his books on the bookshelves there - well, one of my presents was:

I'm a jigsaw fan too!

But this, I think, is going to take some time!!  Ah well, it'll keep me quiet (maybe that's why Gordon got it for me, lol!!)

And I shall leave you with one of the prezzies I got from Julia:

Love it!! That's going up on the JanCave wall straightaway :-D

And so, to all my dear digital/analogue friends, may I wish you a happy, healthy and fun-filled 2019. Here's to another year of desky shenanigans and wonderful friendship.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

WOYWW 498

HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS.....

The last Wednesday before the main event! Thanks for all the wonderful support, comments and feedback this past twelve months - I can't believe how quickly it's gone and how much has been packed in :-D  Let's hope 2019 is a kinder, happier and healthy time for us all.

The desk hasn't seen much crafting:

but has been the wrapping station.

I bought some teeny prezzies for my WI mates, can't tell you what they are as I know some of the girls read this blog!  I enjoyed myself a lot playing with pretty tissue paper, twine and buttons.

One crafting achievement to show you though is:

I came second in all the points total for competitions in the group last year! It's a nice thing to have especially with the banner roundel at the top, which I was part of creating.

I shall leave you with a bit of retail therapy that I indulged in last week:

Isn't it gorgeous? I love Whitby and 50's style posters and the work of this artist, Georgina Westley, really floats my boat. Brilliant designs for a very reasonable cost. Check out her work. I'm pretty sure I shall have to get a couple more!!

Only four more playing events with my bands and then I shall be putting my feet up and indulging in a gin or two. Merry Christmas you lovely lot, hope you have a wonderful time xx

WOYWW 497

ON THE SECOND WEEK OF CHRISTMAS

MY CRAFTING WENT LIKE THIS......

(Many people asked if I was going to carry on the carol so it seemed a shame not to!)

On the sixth day of Christmas:

Pretty snow cones made by my WI buddy Gisela

On the seventh day of Christmas:

There HAD been seven biscuits on the plate at the WI craft club but two have been eaten by the girls!!

On the eighth day....

Two eight inch strips of red dotty fabric. But what am I making?? You'd never guess in a million years! All will be revealed later :-D

On the 9th day.....

A little forest of trees in our dining room (I'm counting the white ones as a unit so I can cheat the numbers, lol!!)

On the tenth of Christmas:

I made a couple of these tags in the WI group and put them onto cardstock - I enjoyed it so much I made some more and there's 10 of them - convenient huh?! Julia had donated some card blanks to me and I've used up a few.

On the 11th day of Christmas, up in the cave of Jan:

11 things necessary to make some bunting (the flags are counted as one unit of stash)

ON THE 12TH DAY OF CHRISTMAS MY TRUE LOVE GAVE TO MEEEEEEEEEEEEE:

12 baubles on the wreath I made which is now gracing the front door!

And a son helping with the jigsaw-aw-aw-aw:

Owen popped home for the weekend as it was G's birthday - so good to see him!

Now then, you've forgotten about those red 8" strips, haven't you? Well, they became:

*DRUM ROLL*

An eye patch for a dog!!

Poor little Seren (Welsh for Star) had to have an eye removed because of glaucoma and while the wound has healed, her mum and dad (who are in band with me) asked if I could help. D'awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Back to a normal post next week! Well, as normal as it can be.......... ;-)

WOYWW 496

IN THE FIRST WEEK OF CHRISTMAS

WE HAD A LOT OF FUN.....

(with sincere apologies to those of you who love the original carol....)

One bestie crafting:

(Julia made the lovely toppers, I just plonked them onto card, lol!)


TWO LARGE GINS

Well, it's gotta be done ;-)

THREE LOVELY FRIENDS:

Mary ransacked her garden and we had a fun wreath making session in her gorgeous cottage!

FOUR RNLI LADIES:

We made a good amount in the Carnival fair for our local station.

FIVE YELLOW WELLIEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS.........

...wot I made for the tree in town!

And a brass band tooting with glee......

 I've had a lot of fun!!

Joining in the desky madness at Julia's Stamping Ground, which must surely be a candidate for the Longest Running Blog Hop out there xx

Enjoy your week!

WOYWW 495

A SPACE ODDITY....

That's because there's lots of oddities filling the space this week!! You can't say my life is boring......

I finished off the little Christmas trees that were in pieces last week....

I stuck on lots of raffle tickets ending in 5 and 0 for the bottle stall I'm running in aid of the RNLI on Friday evening at the Christmas fair......

...and made 15 little wellies to hang on the RNLI decorated Christmas tree that will be in the window of the pharmacy in town. I couldn't find felt so this foam made a good second option!

And then Julia came to stay!  The weather was atrocious this morning so our planned visit to Ali had to be postponed...it brightened up later and we managed to fit in an hour's browsing in a funny little shop that I'd seen previously but not ventured inside:

It was idiosyncratic to say the least and some of the stock was ancient (!) but it was fun to have a poke around....

I just loved the labels on the drawers....

Odd eyes and noses anyone?! lol, that made us laugh!

These boxes reminded me of Ollivander's Wand shop in Harry Potter! I'd have loved to have had time for a more in-depth furtle. And then there was the range of vintage hat moulds on the top that you could hire out. Didn't expect to see that either!!

I feel some millinery making coming on :-D

And of course, it's been great to have my bestie staying....

Have a great week! xxx

WOYWW 494

THE FOG ON THE TYNE....

This week has been great fun - G and I went up to Newcastle for five days as a mini break. More on that later!

The desk:

This is what the desk looks like at the moment, I've been cutting out some linen triangles to make Christmas tree decorations.

You get the idea - Scandi inspired, using up some of my ribbon/trim stash. However, I'm not in the mood for sewing today so it's still looking like that right now!

Before we left for the weekend, I made this with the fabric shown last week:

It worked quite well, I may make some more!

We did enjoy our trip up North. G and I lived in Northumberland for 11 years so it was a trip of reminiscing and catching up with old friends. We visited Penny, whom we last saw about 25 years ago and met up with her daughter Charlie, who was 11 last time we met and is now 36!!! Anyway, Charlie is a crafter and this was her desk:

Quite compact but nicely laid out with everything to hand!  Stupidly I didn't get a pic of us all, we were too busy talking. Penny had I had lost touch through multiple changes of address on both sides but were reunited through FB, just marvellous!

The main reason we were in Newcastle though was to attend the Brass in Concert competition where 12 of the top bands play an entertainment programme, it's a full day event and was held at The Sage.

Which is the big curved glass building, a beautiful place. In fact the quayside was looking extremely lovely all floodlit like that!

We stayed right by this bridge which is the newest of all the bridges over the Tyne. It tips up to allow boats to sail through and is beautifully lit at night.

Our favourite band Cory won the event by a country mile (hooray!) but the real icing on the cake was this:

Meeting up with some lovely folk from the Summer School in Nova Scotia earlier this year! Bona (far left) is from Detroit and incredibly involved with music making and teaching at all levels. Scott (far right) was my tuba tutor on the course and the loveliest, most laid back person you could wish to meet. He's also Professor of Low Brass at Kansas University and an astonishing player. His band, Fountains City, were taking part in the competition and came fifth with an entertaining programme. I hadn't met Scott's wife Mary before but she was a lovely lady who was great to chat with (and was also one of the percussionists). A very unexpected and happy reunion!!

Back to earth with a bump now with lots of practising to do before a band contest in Cardiff on Saturday, Life is picking up speed again!

WOYWW 493

YOU GOTTA HAVE FRIENDS....

Another week has whooshed by with so many different things going on - but the weather here in Wales has been foul for a lot of that so my downtime has mostly been spent in the JanCave. I'm trying to get as many things made and put by for the various things I'm doing.

*WARNING* this is a photo heavy post (sorry Julia!)

I've been having fun with some fabrics that were gifted to me recently - Debbie Rock passed on about 4m worth of the paw print fabric out of which I've made shopping totes, specs cases and little coin purses. It was great getting those coloured pop fastenings out again, I love them, they're so bright and cheerful.

Now doesn't that pic just make you smile?

A dear friend from Wiltshire, Helen, sent me a surprise parcel of fabric out of the blue - they are brilliant and I've dived in already:

Those bright colours are FQs that I got from Hobbycraft a couple of weeks ago and they are perfect as linings for the various projects! The colours couldn't match better if they tried.

See? What a great combo!

We got some new bedside cabinets recently and I didn't want to throw the old rattan ones away so they're being recycled in the JanCave as fabric storage - and jolly handy they are too!

Now then you may remember that I was hosting the WI Craft club here last week - everybody was surprisingly well behaved (!) but it made me smile as, true to form, just like the Crop attenders, there was more chatting and eating of cake than crafting, lol!!

Everyone's very studious here - it's only cos I was taking their photo! Some were in the kitchen and others were in the dining room:

Well done Jean and Kathleen, you did crack on.

I'd set up all my fabrics, beads, buttons and ribbons on the worktop so people could pick what they wanted...

There were various templates to choose from, most went for Christmas trees.

And everyone managed to thread the needles ok (with the help of reading glasses, lol)

Some chose traditional colours...

I do love a bit of tartan ribbon....

While others went down the Boho route...

Rightly pleased with their efforts!

Well done girls! It was great fun and a good morning. The December one is going to be Tags and Toppers, led by Janet who is a far more experienced paper crafter than me!

But the girls weren't the only ones creating - you remember G in the garage last week? Well, this is the result:

A two tier set of shelves made from decking cutoffs and other bits of wood, painted with left over white emulsion and cream and grey chalk paint testers. I like it so much I'm going to use it as part of my Christmas decorations later. And G made the marmalade too - he's a keeper :-D

Have a great crafty week - see you soon! xxx