Well, hello my friends. Where on earth did that week go? It hardly seems any time at all since last week’s wonderful show and tell! So, as time seems to be slipping inexorably by… let’s cut straight to the chase – my desk this week!

From top to bottom… the usual clutter of stamps, inks, dies and card bases when having a card-fest; dst, blade, ruler, tweezers, bone folder, pokey thingy, metallic colouring pencils, and three piles of cards. The ones in a bag are some of my own photos printed straight onto the card front. I needed some really quick “Thinking of you” cards to use myself. The other piles are for orders – some general and some more thinking of you. Three quarters of the way now to the two orders being accomplished!

These are a couple of anniversary cards I needed to make in the past couple of weeks. Great celebrations were had by both couples apparently!

Remember the pile of squares two weeks ago? Well, this is what they look like now – a soft, scrumptiously cuddly, cot blanket. I’m now 10 squares in to the next one – a real stash buster… using everything I have left. Multi-coloured, one round of this, one of that. We will await the end result.

A water iris in the garden pond – taken at sunset on Monday evening – and a few minutes later….

Taken from my landing window – the most incredible sunset. Wow! God is in His Heaven.

So that’s me here in North Wales, folks. Still in lockdown, and thoroughly enjoying playing… erm… I mean, of course… working! I have actually started to decorate the upstairs shower room as well as doing all sorts of artycraftystuff! Still not bored, and still on the same gallon of diesel I was 10 weeks ago!

Take care, dear ones. Stay safe. Those who have been ill, I trust you and your families are recovering. Thanks to Julia for a fantastic, fun filled week for our anniversary!

God bless you all.

Margaret

Happy 11th anniversary my dear friends. I trust you are keeping well and safe, and for those who have been ill, are now recovering speedily. Firstly, many thanks to dear Julia who has faithfully brought us this blog link-up for the past 572 Wednesdays. You can find her at https://stamping-ground.blogspot.com She has done her best to keep us in line, encouraging us, drawing us out to greater artistic endeavours – and not least of those is this celebration today. Setting us the challenge of delving deep into our cupboards where we might find our unfinished – or even unstarted – projects, she has challenged us to finish one! So, did we take up the challenge? I for one certainly did – and here’s how I got on…

I learned a lot about scrapbooking from this challenge – the main thing being that you simply never finish! I had decided to finish the scrapbook I gave to my hubby for our Ruby wedding anniversary in 2012. I learned that I could have done hundreds of pages – but in the end, decided to keep it true to its original intent – a celebration of 40 years together. No good adding photos of the family as they are now, or indeed adding the pictures of our actual Ruby family celebrations. They hadn’t happened when I started the album. SO… here are the pages I added in order to complete what I had set out to do

It wasn’t the emotional roller coaster I had imagined – in fact it was a time of sheer joy, delight and thankfulness to my Father God, as I looked back on all our time together. There was so much more I could have added – but that will have to wait! Having achieved what I felt was success, I turned my attention to the other – very long term – unfinished project that I wanted to tackle. That HUGE tapestry. I added yet another “workspace” to my home by sitting on the bed in the main bedroom to do this. The light there is spectacular! And, oh boy, did I need good light. I had forgotten how similar some of the colours were. I confess that I haven’t finished it – for one thing, I ran out of ecru wool, and for another – there was SO much to do. But, here’s the comparison…

I have managed to completely fill in the bottom of the picture, and work up the right hand side almost to the sky line – that’s when I ran out of wool – for the snow! Two trees on the right are now complete, the bushes in the background are done. I’m pleased with how far I got – but am ready to try out something else, as sitting on the bed to do this means incredible backache! Sorry about the apparent striations on the picture… not sure what happened there. The disappointment is that the basket of threads doesn’t look any emptier!!!

So, my friends, that is life here on the North Wales coast. Unlike many areas, the lockdown is still very much in evidence here. I have just noticed there are people out on the golf course for the first time – but we still should not take our car in order to travel and then exercise. We can only exercise straight from the house. The police are at the border with England, as you are able to now use your car – but we ask you, for your sake and ours, please don’t come. We are around two or three weeks behind South Wales here, and they are two or three weeks behind London. In a hugely tourist area, this is so hard for us to say – but we must.

I will endeavour to visit everyone this week. Kathryn – I do come, I do look, and I think your art work is stunning – but I can’t comment… I’m so sorry – but apart from yourself, I think I can comment on everyone else. Take care of yourselves, and stay safe.

God bless you all, and thanks so much for indeed being a piece in the picture which is my life. I appreciate you.

Margaret  

Hello my friends. I do trust this finds you well, and able to get out and about as you are permitted. Can you believe it is our 11th anniversary next week? How quickly that seems to have come around – I wonder how many of us have taken up the challenge set by Julia to complete an unfinished project? And whether any of us have actually finished it yet… I certainly haven’t! However. Our desks this week…

On my desk on the landing this week is the yarn and started blanket I am currently working on. I think I found that glorious random yarn in Aldi when I was shopping for my daughter back in February. It is gorgeous – and SO soft! There’s a little stack of dies on the cutting mat, which I ordered from Joanna Sheen – well, they had this fantastic sale…. and right in the background is the scrapbook – but I’m not saying anything about that at the moment – that must wait until next week.

So the reason there is a new blanket is because this lovely beige, cream and brown one is now finished and waiting to go on the poile (rapidly growing) for Uganda! I have been sitting crocheting in the evenings whilst binge watching Death in Paradise! It’s all there on I-player. I missed most of it when it was originally on as we didn’t have a tv then. It’s a great fun series – and the chief inspectors are becoming more eccentric with every series!

These are the dies I bought the other day. I was impressed how quickly they arrived – so once I have “finished” (???) my projects for next week, made 25 cards for the hotel, and generally tidied up again, I can continue with some more Christmas cards!

And that’s about it here on the North Wales coast. Except for a little walk around the garden. I had some fun with the macro lens, and it will prove to you that my large garden is indeed escaping from me!

Do take care, my friends, and stay safe. Wales is still off limits, as the laws here are different from the laws in England, so a little glimpse of Llynnau Mymbyr near Snowdon. NOT taken this year!!!

God bless and keep you all.

Margaret   

Dear friends. hello. I do trust you are continuing to stay safe and well. To those who have been ill – I hope you are really recovering. Why are we hare? To see our desks – in all their glory and mess. So, here goes…

…From top left to bottom right. A basket of inks and brushes; my basket of ATCs received; a pile of boxes with card making projects; a scrapbook, glue, light, clutter not yet put away; empty cutting mat; plastic box of peel-offs, blade, scissors, ruler, tweezers; pile of papers to practise stamping; guillotine; the church’s Lockdown contact list. on the floor is a nearly full waste bin – must remember to put that out this week with the recycling!

So, Julia, you really threw down the gauntlet this past week, didn’t you? I decided I would take up the challenge. You know me, not content with one project on the go… have to have one in each room! It took some hunting in the unfinished-symphonies-cupboards-and-drawers!!; but I got there. Two ideas of things I had started and never, ever, finished!

It must be over 20years ago when John and I bought this tapestry. It was to be a Christmas present for my brother and his wife. Yes, well… let’s just say he hasn’t got it yet! It was the first thing to come to mind when Julia threw down her challenge to us all. So the first thing to do was put the tapestry frame together – easier said than done… I couldn’t remember how to do it!!! However…

… after a lot of messing about. Here it is up and ready for action. Yes, we don’t do things by halves here. It is 24 x 20 inches! You can see by the photo how much is still to be done, as it shows the carpet and quilt through the canvas! I’m going to have my work cut out to even make an impression into it.

So, not content with that… I added a second unfinished symphony. I wonder if Beethoven and co worked on more than one at a time?? Now you must understand that I am NOT a natural scrapbooker. Some of you are – and produce the most wonderful pages. I don’t. Mine are boring in comparison. However… for some unknown reason, when John and I celebrated our Ruby wedding anniversary in 2012 – YES 2012! – we decided that, as there was nothing we needed, we would each make something as a gift for the other. John produced a lovely collage of photos of our life together. Me? I decided to make him a scrapbook of our life. WHY? I ask myself??? However, I set to – not realising how long these things take. This is where I got to…

Yes. Those last few photos do indeed tell the story. Some photos chosen, and simply pushed into their wallets; some pieces of paper simply telling what that page would have been; and a pile of stuff not yet allocated. So I am going to try and finish the whole album. It may well prove to be an emotional roller coaster – but that’s called life. I would like to finish it because we had such a fantastic life together and to document it for the sake of my girls (not to mention me) would be special.So there you have it folks. Life on the North Wales Coast. If it’s OK with you, I think the lockdown should continue so I can get some more of my unfinished symphonies – and my unstarted symphonies – done. Hop[e that’s ok. Do take care, my friends, and stay safe.

God bless you all.

Margaret