WOYWW 199 - What a week!

Not feeling the greatest - kids have been off with colds, snow has been battering the UK, and I move sooooo slowly in the cold - spent most days bundled up on the sofa reading*

So I haven't made much more progress on the wedding pics, but I have managed to make Dad a card for his birthday on Saturday.

So here's my desk as of late Tuesday afternoon

My trusty trimmer, the photosplits I showed last week - also useful for sticking card elements and two boxes of bits and bobs...

Here's a close up of Dad's card...

... I'm jut hoping everyone's fit and well for Easter weekend, so we can have a family get-together!

I'm also hoping Blogger will behave itself! I visited so few desks last week - I just couldn't get the links to open from the list, even when I visited on other days - but I was able to reply to those who left a comment on my post... Go figure!!

If anyone else had similar problems, I'd love to know if they found a solution...

So I'm away to Julia's Stamping Ground and the weekly desk hop, once again crossing every digit... maybe this week it will work... maybe this time...

* I'm really enjoying this book - I don't read many novels, but this has been made into a film and comes out in the UK in June - a period drama about artists? What's not to love??

Focus on Life - Week 12

My goodness, week 12 already!!

This week's prompt was 'Observe the Curve', and Sally used one of my all-time favourite quotes:

In life, as in art, the beautiful moves in curves.

Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

We're experiencing bleak mid-winter here in the UK - snow storms and floods! - but I did manage to get out on my scooter on Tuesday and took my camera hoping to capture some architectural curves, or natural curves... but it was soooo terribly cold, I dashed straight home after my errands in town!

And, of course, it only hit me as I was parking up at home, Scoot is all curves - especially the main console on the handle-bars :)

So here is my trusty steed, after I'd played around in Picasa :)

It's like a photo competition - how many curves can you see!! It's easier to spot the straight lines - there are so few!!

My scooter certainly isn't a work of beauty, but all it embodies - mainly, my independence and freedom - certainly are :-)

Here's the pic before I played...

She is a pretty blue (hence I echoed it in the inner border), but I wanted to give the pic the comic book treatment - not exactly the Batmobile, but hey, I'm no Bruce Wayne...

Can't wait to see what curves you've all come up with! Come join the party over at The Studio Sublime :-)

WOYWW 198 - Making progress s-l-o-w-l-y...

My workdesk early on Tuesday...

Finally, beginning to create pages of my parent's wedding, and hopefully saving the photos for any future generations :)

I am discovering two objects I cannot live without while I tackle this project - my trusty lil paper trimmer on the right, and this...

I struggle to cut tape, etc. one-handed, but these little beauties come ready cut and from a handy dispenser! The piece pops up, I grab it, position it on the back of the photo, there's a handy lil tab to grab off the backing strip AND you can reposition the photo if it's not quite right!! Pure genius!!

Here's page 1...

They were 16 and 14 when they first met - I'd love to know who took the cuddly picture (top centre)... at least they were chaperoned! (Well, I am the mother of a 17 year-old boy and a 15 year-old girl...)

I, then, took a break from the album and mounted and framed their large wedding photo in an A4 frame.

Returning later, I tackled another page, making more and more mess...

Here's the finished page of rather fragile local paper clippings...

I think I'm getting the hang of this scrapbooking... I'm hoping to have most of the pages done before Easter weekend, as a surprise for Dad :)

Well, that's what I've been busy doing, now I'm off to play I-spy on all the other exciting workdesks listed over on Julia's Stamping Ground...

PS Abundant apologies for hardly visiting any desks last week - between Blogger playing silly b*ggers and our lousy internet connection, every time I tried, I failed :(

PPS The eagle-eyed among you will notice I've changed the text under my beautiful header... I found this quote the other day, and it was too, too perfect :)

I'm ever-confident it won't happen again... **fingers crossed**

Til next week xxxx

Focus on Life - Week 11

This week's prompt is 'The Possibilities Are Endless...'

I was especially struck by Sally's final thought,

 

This week pay attention to your surroundings and your daily activities and show us what holds endless possibilities for you.

My first thought was my newly cleared desk (you can see it in Wednesday's post below), but it is just too busy a photo...

I'm realized, working through Sally's photo challenge week by week, the power of a really focussed image...

I'm not a photographer, and our lil digi-camera is pretty rubbish... but I'm learning if I just zoom in a little, have a play in Picasa, I can create quite a strong image full of meaning...

So I give you this...

 

It's a personalized stamp I bought the other week to stamp the back of any cards I make. 

But it may not be a card I make today. It may be a painting... a drawing... a journal page... an ATC... a postcard... a scrapbook page... endless possibilities, you see :)

The real power for me in this image is that I may have lost the use of my right side in the stroke (almost 6 years ago now), but I still have my left side, and it's getting more and more dexterous, the more skills I learn to do left-handed...

I may only have half a fully functioning body (and to fair, the possibilities are curtailed to what can be done one-handed), but I can still make things some things, and I am proud to stamp them to prove it :)

WOYWW 197 - The Marie-Celeste desk...??

No...

I needed more space, so I'm on the dining room table

I'm finally working on our family photos, which Dad brought round last summer... the boxes have been piled in the hallway ever since!!

The big baby picture, above the album, is of my brother, whose birthday was yesterday - I know, he was adorable!! I was 7 when he was born...

 

(The pic on the centre-right is of me, Jon and Michelle - she and I have been friends for 45 years!

Love those hippy dresses - even Jon has flares!)

The old polaroids from the 1970s are suffering for not being in proper albums (i.e. acid-free)...

... same for my baby pics from the 60s, but hopefully, I can save them :)

Not that I know what I'm doing - I'm a totally novice scrapbooker, but I've been so inspired by visiting your desks each week, I figure it's time I gave it a try... I hope to at least show you a page or two next week :)

And before I go,  I have to show my Mother's Day goodies from Sunday...

From my gorgeous boy, who actually started his first ever weekend job here, so I didn't see him much...

And these from my beloved girl - the awesome artist!

Here's a close-up of the cards - both soooooo beautiful!!

I hope other UK mums had a lovely day on Sunday - maybe you're showing your goodies too, so I'm off to Julia's Stamping Ground to spy on your workdesks to find out :)

Till next week xxxx

Focus on Life - Week 10

I promise that this week's post will be much shorter! Thank you to all those who left lovely comments last week - it means a lot :)

This week's theme is 'All Wrapped Up', which has loads of possibilities...

Sally included several dictionary definitions of 'wrap', both as a verb and a noun... I decided to take one of each and express them in one photo...

 

Verb: To cover, envelop, or encase, as by folding or coiling something about

 

Noun: A garment to be wrapped or folded about a person, especially an outer garment such as a robe, cloak, shawl, or coat

My beautiful pashmina, sent to me from the States by a beloved friend, after we moved back to England over 20 years ago!! It has worn extremely well, and gets even softer and snugglier each year.

Whenever I wear it, I am enveloped by warmth and love, encased in a life-long friendship, and the miles apart just slip away...

WOYWW 196 - Having fun...

Not a great shot - another gloomy day in England...

But another ebay bargain is brightening my day - I got a great journal kit for £5.99, which includes a blank A4 memory book, papers, embellishments, pencils...

I've covered the front with one of the papers included in the pack, and added my own decorations, which I haven't stuck down yet, as I'm not 100% sure of the lay-out...

The pages are a lovely weight cardstock, just made for mixed media, so hours of fun are in store. I'm planning to use it as a scrapbook, using old family photos, hence it says 'Remembering the Special Times' :)

Also, on the desk is a card I've just made for my brother - his birthday is next week. It's my first attempt at decoupage, using the Hunkydory card-toppers I showed a couple of weeks ago. I found the coordinated cardstock a bit much, so I used a standard plain card instead.

You can't really tell, but the grill and a front bumper, and one headlight are 3D. I'm learning what I can and can't manage one-handed, and those lil foam squares are wonderful for this! I hope he likes it - he is a bit of a petrol head :)

And that's it for this week - short and sweet! Make sure you pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground to see what everyone else has been up to...

With love, til next week xxx

Focus on Life - Week 9

Oh my, week 9 already in Sally Russick's Focusing on Life photos challenge...

This week's prompt is Knock, Knock... a picture of a door, or a gate...

I knew exactly which door I was going to photograph as soon as I read the prompt...

This is the door to St Wulfram's, Grantham's parish church, which is almost a mini cathedral, and shows what a significant place Grantham was, when the church was first built in the 1300s.

But it has a very personal meaning for me, as I have returned recently to the Anglican Church, with which I have had a very long, often stormy, relationship!

I discovered, by chance, that St Wulfram's offers an Iona community communion service every other Wednesday, and so I have been attending for the last couple of months...

Crossing this threshold (not easy, as they have to open these impressively huge double doors, and put down a ramp, for me to drive my scooter in), marks a deeply significant homecoming for me to the Church of my childhood, and I am deeply grateful to the friendly helpers who have warmly welcomed me.

I was in the choir in my village church growing up - it was a place of safety and refuge.

I was very active in St Aldate's, a vibrant evangelical church, when in college reading Theology.

I went to Kenya for a year to be a missionary at a Bible College in 1987, where I met Nick, my future husband.

I took a Master's Degree at a seminary in California, when we were first married.

I trained to be a lay Reader when we returned to England, and was dedicated in the very impressive Southwell Minster.

But sadly, this is where it all became unstuck...

I thought I was being called to the ministry... but the Bishop of Southwell, at that time, was anti women clergy! The more involved I became in our local church in Newark, the more I felt the higher powers in the diocese against me...

The more I questioned the Anglican Church's (not our local church's per se) official stance on women, gays, and any who didn't conform to nice, middle-class values, the more I felt alienated, and eventually, closed off from the God I had known only as a safe place, a shelter, since childhood.

And, for more than a decade, I have been searching to find a god by whom I could feel comforted, and to whom I could feel connected.

I have been on a long spiritual journey and have finally realized the God I feel closest to, is the intimate Mystery encountered by the medieval mystics; the awesome Creator worshipped by Celtic communities, like the one at Iona. In fact, the God worshipped in the often wacky carvings, and the always lofty gothic structures, of the Church of England.

There is still a lot deeply disturbing about the organized Anglican Church, but there is, as always, pockets of sanctuary... and I am thankful that I have found one in this gloriously impressive church just down the road...