WOYWW 184

Well, Wednesdays wend their way round the weekly calendar like whisked whitening don’t they… how’s that for a bit of wobbly wordplay? To find out what all those W’s mean, click on the WOYWW link in my sidebar, which will Take You To Our Leader the wonderful Julia who hosts the weekly desk-snooping extravaganza where we all delight in how messy and creative (or otherwise!) we all are.

Not a lot to show on my actual desk this week, after I’d finished my friend’s birthday card. There are some swirls I cut with Sheba, my Black Cat Cougar cutting machine (details in my sidebar of this wonderful machine), some of which I used on her card. Also my ongoing Tattered Time album – not too much done on that since last week except that I’ve pretty well finished page 1, apart from all the other stuff I’ve decided to add. I think that’s going to be the story of this album – it will never be finished as I will keep thinking of more things to put in it!

In the ice cream tub are the sentiments I made for the album. Under the swirls you can see the initial sketches I made for designing some file tabs (see below), sheets of planning notes for the album, and various pieces of the papers I am using in the album. Top left, you will see the beautiful little pincushion that Lunch Lady Jan sent me when we did our ATC swap a few months ago – thanks Jan – you can see it’s in constant use! One of those thick hat pins is just right for unbunging my Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive, for example. On the left you can see my mess of rulers all mixed up with paper scraps – now my hubby’s bought me that nice piece of guttering, I really must get on with making my ruler holder! The rulers drive me nuuuts.

The other thing I’ve done this week is to design a couple of file tabs in Inkscape, which will be cut and used in the album. They will be useful to add to tags and photo mats etc. which need to be pulled out. You can get a punch that makes them, but I haven’t got it, and anyway, I thought it would be fun to design some of my own, in different styles. The first one is a semi-circular one which will fit nicely into a semi-circle cut in the pouch or page edge.

The second one is a simple, plain tab such as you might find on office files.

I am planning to design some further shapes, too, including ones incorporating gearwheels (for this project) and also maybe some butterflies and flowers. The tag and pouch I showed you last time is finished, but so far I haven’t cut any of these shapes. Once I am satisfied that they cut out and function as expected, the files will be uploaded to my Skydrive ready for free download for anyone who wants to use them. For someone who was initially terrified of Inkscape and disgusted at its non-user-friendliness, I am now a complete convert, and like many such converts, I am quite evangelical in my enthusiasm for this extraordinary piece of software that is soooo powerful and has endless features that I have barely began to explore, and what’s more, It’s FREE! There are loads of helps online in the form of Youtube tutorials etc. but first and foremost I am grateful to the experts on the Thyme Machines forum (the forum for my cutting machine) who really got me going on it.

Have a great week everyone, and I hope you all manage to survive the weather here in the UK, or wherever else you might be.