WOYWW 370

I haven’t had much studio time lately, being very busy with other things, but I have managed to open up my new Infusions paints and start playing with them, using a masking technique that I’ve used with Dylusions spray inks in the past, which produces some lovely backgrounds as well as some useful flower pieces. You can see more details here.

Here’s my desk today.

On the left you can see the flower background I created, and underneath it is the leaf background. I am currently working on embossing the leaf shapes, and you can see the flowers that I’ve already done, in the black plastic pot at the back. Beside that are the sheets of card from which I die-cut the flower and leaf shapes, and I am planning to use these pieces as stencils or in other projects in some way. To the right of these you can see the new transparent 3-D gel mediums I bought last week, which I haven’t yet opened – these will have all sorts of uses, and I am looking forward to experimenting with them in combination with the Infusions paints, which you can see in their little bottles on the right of the desk. In front of those is the Heartfelt Creations stamp and die set which I used to make the flowers and leaves for this current project, together with my heat gun. This is a brand new heat gun – my other one recently gave up the ghost, and as it appeared to be completely impossible to open up, I was unable to see what was wrong, so it couldn’t be fixed. Oh well, I’ve had it a good few years.

Moving On After Cancer

Yesterday we had the penultimate session of this excellent course, this time dealing with two topics: “Thinking, Feeling and Doing,” and “Body Image and Self-Esteem.” You can read full details by clicking on the page tag for Session 4 at the top of my blog. It was a fascinating insight into exactly what “thoughts” are, and how powerful they are in influencing our emotions, and in consequence, our actions. Most of the time we don’t even think about thinking – we just do it – and understanding exactly what’s going on in this three-sided interaction, we can begin to take control of our lives in a way I’d never really thought about.

Again, I took in some nice home baked goodies for us to snack on in our tea break, and as usual they went down very well – particularly the new coconut macaroons I made, filled with chocolate ganache – this was a sort of hybrid recipe I devised from 3 existing ones, one of which was from my new “Bake Off Crème de la Crème” book. Though I say it myself, these were truly delicious and I’m not surprised they elicited expressions (both facial and verbal) of supreme enjoyment on everybody’s faces!!! I also made lemon drizzle cake, that I’d never made before, and it was a roaring success too. It’s a good thing I prepared for all this by having a very late breakfast and no lunch, or my diet would be truly up the spout. I also took in some of the almond slices I made last week, and a new batch of chocolate chip cookies (a recipe I’ve made many times and could practically do it in my sleep now).

Almond slices:

Lemon drizzle cake:

Coconut macaroons filled with chocolate ganache, and chocolate chip cookies:

A selection:

Is your mouth watering yet?

The adjustable baking frame that I bought recently on Ebay is proving very useful and is very easy to use, and enables me to make perfectly shaped squares and rectangles with nice straight sides. It has a removable divider.

The only problem with it is that it is very difficult to clean because it keeps opening up into a huge square and it’s all pretty flexible, and it’s a bit like wrestling with an octopus. (Not that I’ve ever attempted such a thing, of course.)

One of the ladies on the course is a neighbour of mine, and we are starting to get on very well together. She’s a great expert on the bus service in Torquay, and we travelled back together via B&Q where we made a quick visit. For some reason the route to the Lodge at the hospital (where our course is taking place) is relatively simple, with one bus change, but the return journey is different, and it either necessitates two changes, or a long round-trip incorporating the centre of town! No doubt I shall get the hang of it eventually! Not having got out and about much at all on my own since we moved here, finding where all the shops are in town is a new adventure for me, and it’s interesting seeing how the different bits of town all connect with each other. When you’re being driven, you don’t really think about it, and I’m ashamed to say that I really don’t yet know my way around, even after living here for 2 1/2 years!

Have a great week, everybody, with lots of creative time. Happy WOYWW!