WOYWW 344

The first WOYWW of 2016! A very happy New Year to all desk hoppers! What’s On Your Workdesk this Wednesday? Hop over to Julia’s blog to find out how to join in, and show us what you are up to at the moment. I am doing this post on Tuesday evening as we have got a busy day tomorrow.

It’s been some time since I’ve been involved with WOYWW. For several weeks since I finished my chemo, my creative mojo vanished and I couldn’t be bothered to do anything and had lost interest in all things art. I wasn’t worried because I knew it would return – it is too much a part of me to be absent forever.

On New Year’s Day, I decided enough was enough, and as one of my New Year resolutions was to try and make art every day, however small, I thought I would begin with baby steps and start doing some painting again – painting my florabunda mandala print-outs. This is my first effort of 2016, painting with Perfect Pearls. All the same design but the different colour schemes give a quite different result in each case. These will be made up into cards eventually.

Following on from that, I have been doing some Zentangle drawing, making more ATC-sized cards to go in my Zentangle album of designs. I am working through the alphabet with designs from the Tangle Patterns site, choosing designs I like, and which I think I will use. Here are the ones I have done so far.

Whenever I am not using my ARTHaven studio, it becomes a dumping ground and very quickly becomes very untidy. It was in a sorry state at the end of the year, with the rail from which I hang my rubber stamps having collapsed, but this is now fixed.

I have now started to tidy the rest of the room. Here are the before and after pictures of the left-hand side of the room as you enter.

The right-hand side is still a tip. I got too tired to do any more after I’d finished the first part! More work for another day.

This is what the main work area looks like now.

I am in the middle of sorting out my rubber stamps. At the moment each one is in a zip-lock bag with its original packaging so I know what it is. I am getting so many that I am running out of the rings with clips, that hang on the rail, so I have decided to bag them up in groups (e.g. butterflies, swirls, flowers, etc.). The individual zip-lock bags will go into larger ones which will then hang from the rail.

I am hoping that from now on I shall be a more active participant in WOYWW, and actually have something to show you! My first priority is to continue with the Card Factory I started last year as I want to make a good collection to take into the Ricky Grant (chemo) Unit at the hospital so they can sell them to raise funds.

For Christmas I made some mince pies:

and this week I have made some more – they soon disappear! I am enjoying doing the cooking again, and in particular I’m enjoying baking, which I haven’t done for simply ages. (I have lost my rolling pin… Like many kitchen things, it has found its way into the studio, but so far I haven’t been able to find it! Maybe in the course of my tidying efforts it will turn up again. Meantime, I have had to use a mulled wine bottle! Very seasonal.) I have to go to the hospital on Friday to have my port flushed at Ricky Grant (they still haven’t removed it) and I want to take some cakes in for the chemo-ites if I get time to make some! This week is quite busy so we shall see.

Happy WOYWW everybody, and let’s all look forward to a productive and inspiring year, with lots to share with each other.