YES, YOU GUESSED IT RIGHT!

Some of you guessed right! These are a cunning tool for spreading distress inks - and much cheaper than the official Ranger applicators which are £4.95 EACH! This lost cost me about £8 for the lot, being just bare wood doorknobs from a DIY store! I added colour labels before I gave them a coat of clear varnish, and you must admit the pink looks FAB! All done with one 99p match pot and I've got lots left ...

Got to confess that this clever idea isn't original, but pinched off my lovely friend and almost next-door-neighbour Alix. I watched her use her knobs on a project and was impressed by how easy it made inking - I was doing it with just lumps of cut n dry foam, but was finding them hard to grip and had permanently inky fingers! So if you feel inspired, why not have a go yourself?? We could start a new fashion for pink knobs??

IT'S THOSE KNOBS AGAIN ....

OK I reckon this next picture is a dead giveaway and almost all of you will recognise what I'm planning to use them for?? More clues tomorrow if you're still in the dark .... he he he

WITH KNOBS ON??

Yesterday got away from me a bit, so (better late than never I hope) here's what my workdesk looked like! Now you may have noticed from other posts that I am rather partial to pink? You hadn't, well scroll down and it should become obvious! I thought I would do a bit of a tease and invite you to guess WHY I was painting wooden doorknobs this delicious shade?? I could have left them wood, but most things look even better if they're pink!

Anyway, this week I also remembered to swing around a bit, and provide glimpses of my beautiful attic! You will see that pink does feature here and there. This is a brilliant trolley I bought from Amazon which holds 12 x 12 papers and cardstock, and you can also see the smaller of my two Expedit bookcases.

Then next to the trolley is the start of the built-in storage which runs around the entire bay window - where I work when it's warm enough (which it isn't right now). I've got a lot of Really Useful Boxes, and this is more paper storage using the slim boxes you can buy everywhere.

Down at the bottom are the boxes in which I keep mini books and completed circle journals. These shelves are to the right of where I (normally) sit, so I can easily reach out for stuff. Still guessing about the knobs? He he he .....

WOYWW Update ...

Quite a few people clocked the MDF pen holder pot I was painting last Wednesday, and several asked for an update ... so here's the finished set! A friend of mine is having a new craft room built and I'm so happy for her, and wanted to make her something pretty to put in it.

She told me that the walls will be painted Apricot, so I took this colour as my baseline and painted the MDF a warm shade of this. Then I added little touches of clover pink, as in the patterned paper I used, which also covered a little tin to keep bits and bobs in. Hope she likes it, and if you've guessed who she is, PLEASE don't say anything .....!!

DESK EXPLAINED SOME MORE ...

I was fascinated by the way in which WOYWW people spotted my new Stampotique stamp, and commented that while they rather liked them they'd never actually bought one! Well I'm just the same ... I never could decide whether I thought they were interestingly original or distinctly UGLY, but they have been sneakily growing on me ... so I decided to try this one just to see.

Now I think she's rather nice, and the stamp will be useful for a few things, not least times like today when I just want to send something that says hello to cheer a person up. On the other hand, I still think some of the other images are so ugly as to be downright spooky, and can't get my head around them at all! And what on earth has she got clutched in her other (ie non umbrella) hand? Perhaps its meant to be a handbag, but if so why has it got a sad face on it? Maybe its a turnip lantern or sumfink? Dunno but maybe you do??

Am also publishing a better picture of the ATCs which were also on the desk and aroused some curiosity. I LOVE making ATCs but had sort of got out of the way of it, but have begun to do so again lately in pauses from editing the book. Sniggered madly to myself when making the birdy one ... it just sort of tickled my fancy!

WEDNESDAY DESK

Now you may think this workspace is tidy ... but I confess that I messed it up a lil bit so that you wouldn't hate me! I can't help it, I'm a neat worker and to me this looks like a right old state, whereas to some of you this amount of clear space to work in would be a luxury.

OK, so what am I up to. Painting this pen pot which is destined to a pressie for a friend - that sheet of paper in the top right is probably going to be used to decorate it. On the left there's a couple of ATCs I made, the first in ages! After a difficult session with the book I'm now in the stages of editing, I gave up and made these just because I wanted to!!

Top right are a couple of 3D cards which will be my next class, and lower left are the new stamps which came in yesterday's post ... you can never have too many after all!!

Then I remembered to swing round a bit, so here to the right is Sewing Central, not to mention the refreshment station. Because of my disability I don't climb up and down the stairs to my attic more often than I need to (its on the second floor) but once I'm up here I've got the wherewithal to make a brew, and the bathroom is just next door. Put some in get some out as they say ...

And by the way, this looks MESSY to me! Must sort those blooming wires out ... Get on over to Julia's place for more sneak peeks at other peoples desks.

LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED

Me and my lovely man have been together 30 odd years (some of them very odd indeed!) and I consider myself a fortunate woman that we are both still just as dotty about each other as we ever were. Now after all this time we don't go in for a whole lot of romantic gestures, so on February 14th I like to make a particular effort to say the things we really should be saying more often ... so I made him this little book.


The pages are about "you" "me" and "us" but I'm not sharing the things I wrote on the tags which tuck into the end of each page. They might reveal what a big softie I really am .... especially when it comes to him. Having raised three daughters who all left home, we ended up with widowed mother in law coming to live with us 12 years ago, and now one of our girls has come back home for a year or so. I love them all dearly but SO look forward to the day when (finally) it is just the two of us again ... after thirty plus years!! I can dream ...

WOYWW

I'm sure Wednesdays come around more often than they used to, but it's What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday over at Julia's again, so here is the great reveal of today's workspace ... photographed exactly as I left it last night (except for the addition of this morning's highly necessary cup of coffee)! I've either caught another cold, or got the old one back again, and feel stupid today ... all expressions of sympathy gratefully received, self pity not being encouraged in this house!!

Current preoccupations are demonstrated here - on the right is the card I've just finished making for my Secret Sister in the USA. This is a fun project run by Split Coast Stampers where you send someone cards and little gifts over a four month period, all anonymously, and in your turn receive from someone else. At the top of the cutting board is my pink rose - a first attempt at the 3D roses which are all the rage at the mo, this one done with double sided paper and a flower from the George Cricut cartridge. Works pretty well too!

The flower brooches are there because last night I was finishing sewing the brooch backs onto them. I knitted several in a variegated Patons yarn made specially for felting, and below you can see the before and after pictures. They are knitted on biggish needles then you put them in the washing machine on a hot setting, and they come out felted and shrunk, as on the right.

So now I'm off to see what everyone else has been up to and nurse my germs a bit. Bah humbug. Still the sun is just about shining out there, so Pollyanna here will do her best to be grateful for the good things in life ... like whisky, chocolate and stash shopping :)

IT'S JUST A CARD ...

Sometimes, much as I love doing arty stuff, you just need to make a card for somebody. So I did. This is it. Can't remember where the papers came from, or the leaves I found at the bottom of a box, or the stamps which I bought in the USA and couldn't tell you the brand. Pink isn't it? Can you tell I'm having an 'off' day?????

WEDNESDAY BLUES ...

OK I admit it - got out of bed the wrong side this morning - and then fell over a piece of furniture left on the landing waiting for someone to shift it (eg not me) and have now got a bruise the size of Wales on my thigh. NOT a happy bunny ...

But this week's desk contains a work in progress which is coming only slowly, despite using the most gorgeous, scrumptious and utterly beautiful papers from the Basic Grey "Granola" range. Honestly, this stuff is so yummy it's positively criminal to use it! I'm doing a Shimelle class where you document your year in one album, so this is January I'm trying to put together, a kind of collage of the month. Since I don't get out all that much (all together now, say 'aahhh') there didn't seem to be a whole lot to record, but when you actually look for it there is! We are supposed to keep an envelope of stuff like receipts etc for the month, but I kept forgetting ....

Also forgot to do the swinging around part to reveal more of the room, in accordance with HRH Dunnit's instructions, so yer tis ...

This is the bay window where I craft 75% of the time, just not in the deep midwinter because it's frigging freezing! Dec/Jan/Feb I decamp to the table in the middle of the room, nearer the heater. As you can see I tend to just dump stuff over there at this time of year ... and yes I do know I'm dead lucky (hypothermia excluded) to have all this space, and I do share it with lots of people!!

Anyway, will be back later to admire other desks, but if you want to see some more, get on over to Julia's place! I'm off out to buy myself some SMALLER trousers, because my other ones are all baggy!!