WOYWW 259

For details of how to join in the fun of WOYWW and to expose all (on your work desk at least!) click on the WOYWW icon in my sidebar, which will take you to our hostess Julia’s blog, where she will explain all.

As usual, I seem to be between jobs again at this midweek stage, but at least my desk isn’t quite as bare as it was last week.

Centre stage is my recycled mini-album. The construction of the book itself is now complete, and I have started on the decoration of the pages. Unfortunately I cannot show you very much of this as it contains personal family information relating to the person for whom I am making it, but you can see how the borders are beginning to work. Each of the five signatures (made from recycled Christmas cards) is arranged so that the smallest pages are in the centre, and the largest on the outside. When the pages are opened as in the picture, the borders on the different pages build up in layers so that at the centre, there will appear to be quite a deep border, but it will be made up from smaller borders on the underlying pages. I have created two backgrounds for the first pages of the book (not visible) and this will continue as I proceed with work on subsequent pages. You can see two photos ready to be mounted.

The book is sitting on a new scratch paper made from materials going into the book – acrylic paints, inks, rubber stamp cleaning, etc. I decided to make some interesting swirls this time, from the brush cleaning. It’s already looking quite nice!

Just beyond the book is a small silver-coloured card. This is actually a failure – my first attempt at creating a background using the empty sachets from my colitis medication – you can read all about that project here – after an epic struggle I eventually managed to make a birthday card for my hubby (his birthday yesterday) from this most unresponsive material!

On the left, the purple box contains my drawing pens for Zentangle etc. I have found out that the Zig archival pens I have been using have a problem dealing with acrylics – if I try to draw or write on an acrylic background, the pens almost immediately stop working – it’s as if something in the paint seals the flow of ink. I have wasted a couple of pens doing this, which is a real pain, because it’s something I need to do. After searching for the problem online, I discovered that the Faber-Castell PITT artist pens do not have this problem, so I ordered some last week and so far they are brilliant – eventually I shall probably go over exclusively to these pens which will be useful across the whole range of my work.

Arranged around the rest of the desk are various acrylic paints and gel mediums, brushes and other equipment, and you can see (as always, because it’s so useful!) Lunch Lady Jan’s pretty little pincushion in the cream coloured mini-bath.

I thought you might be interested to see how my knitting is coming along. I am making very good progress with the first sleeve, and this is how it looks now.

I am decreasing down the sleeve, following two graph patterns as I do so (one for the shape, one for the colour pattern, which I have to keep correct).

We are very busy at the moment in the run-up to my hubby’s retirement, with a lot of different farewell events to go to, and preparing for our holiday in June (the first for 4 years), so please forgive me if I don’t visit many desks this week! I have got a stack of boring paperwork to do before our appointment with the tax consultant immediately after our holiday, and am struggling to keep up with everything – today I haven’t done much but rest and sleep!!

Happy WOYWW everybody, and wishing you a creative and fulfilling week ahead.