WOYWW 455 Reorganising my Desk

Last Thursday I went to the craft show in Exeter and had a truly wonderful time – a real treat after a pretty horrendous couple of months recently. You can read about the craft show here, and see all the fabby new stash I got to play with.

Since then, I’ve decided to have a clear-out in my studio and to reorganise my desk a bit, partly to make room for new things, and also because certain aspects of it have been rather frustrating. There’s a long way to go but at least I’ve made a start.

For this WOYWW, I’ve done a couple of annotated photos. The first one shows the normal view of my main work area. You can see that I’ve put my ironing pad over the top of my mystery project which is still literally under wraps! I’m progressing slowly with it – not so many opportunities this week, what with the craft show, and needing to recover for a couple of days afterwards.

On the brown shelf unit above the desk you can see my various carousels for frequently-used things. I used to have a lot of odd things on there as well – small bottles of glue, the odd rubber stamp, etc., and every time I revolved the carousels these things would fall off. When we cleared my parents’ house I rescued various things from Dad’s workshop and among them was the partitioned wooden box now on the right of the desk. It was filthy, but after I’d scrubbed it with hot soapy water and left it to dry, it was quite respectable, and it now contains these bits and pieces, close at hand and more tidily stored.

I also screwed a cup hook onto the side of the eye-level shelf unit above this, and have hung my two heat guns on there. This frees up desk space and keeps the cables tidier, but they are still easy to reach. The wooden shelf right at the top (just visible in the photo) usually has the box of embossing folders on it – currently on the desk because I’ve been using the Cuttlebug plates that also live in there, and I’ve also got rid of the CD storage box that used to be up there, which held some very old clear stamps, which are now filed away with the rest of the stamps on the rail. At the craft show I got quite a few new dies and now have too many to go in the original box which used to be on the shelf unit top-left in the photo, so I’ve now got them in a similar box to the embossing folders, and they will live side by side on the top shelf above the desk.

On the far right of the desk you can see my new purple scoring board that I bought at the show, stacked up with my other boards (envelope punch board, paper trimmer etc.). These used to be lying around flat, taking up space, and always the one I wanted was at the bottom of the heap! I have ordered a nice rack from Ebay, designed for storing chopping boards in the kitchen, and this will be used for storing these, making them easier to use and keeping things tidier.

This photo shows the pull-out unit to the right of the main work area, and shows things better organised now. The RUBs (Really Useful Boxes) with card scraps are only being used temporarily for this, in an attempt to keep things tidier and free up the unit for its original purpose as a cutting station. The boxes of ribbons used to sit on top of a plastic unit with 2 drawers that used to be where the Cuttlebug and wooden box now are – this unit, and the ribbons, were not in constant use. The unit is now stored on the top shelf above the desk, and the ribbons need to find another home.

The far side of my studio (sewing area) has been an absolute tip for months. I got a whole lot of knitting yarns out when I started knitting the socks before Christmas. This project went into abeyance when everything went pear-shaped with my hubby breaking his leg and Mum dying etc., and I need to finish that second sock, so that I can tidy up again! The mess is driving me nuts.

Another thing I’ve been doing this week while resting on the recliner is to go back through a lot of old posts on my blog, and replace the photos. For some time they were all linked to my Photobucket album, but when I had too many photos on there I had to subscribe to the pro version, and after a while I let that lapse, so the photos disappeared. I’ve still got a huge number of posts to work through, but again, at least I’ve made a start.

Even this small change in my desk organisation has made a huge difference – freeing up space, things more easily accessible, tidier and calmer environment! Let’s hope it lasts because I’m not the tidiest of workers!!

Now that’s sorted, I am hoping to crack on with the mystery project this week.

Kittens

What is it about kitties and boxes?

They are still enjoying chewing this little cardboard box. However much I sweep up, there are always bits of cardboard all over the carpet.

Today I managed to make a start on editing some of the kitten videos that have been mounting up for a while. Here are a couple to keep you going. More next week hopefully.

Ruby really enjoys walking around the back of this wooden chair. This was filmed on 1st January.

The two of them wrestling on top of the cat tree! I was scared they’d fall off. The whole thing rocks about and one day I think they are going to have it over, but fortunately the base is very heavy and it’s withstood their attentions so far! They have pulled off quite a bit of the fur, though, and it now has some bald patches. This one was filmed on 14th January.

Marbles in the Sunshine

Yesterday a friend came and spent the afternoon with me. She had just been to the House of Marbles and had treated herself to a small bag of marbles, really inexpensive, and so pretty! When I laid them out on the table, I was struck by how beautiful they were with the bright sunlight shining through them, and had to photograph them.

Here’s the full set.

Here are some of them, photographed individually. I was very intrigued by how the light is reflected on the opposite side of the marble from the light source, and how the colour and reflection shows in the shadow in each case.

A very pretty veined marble.

This one was clear blue glass, encrusted with glass fragments to create an interesting sparkly texture.

This one had been sand-blasted and had that gorgeous silky feel, like sea glass.

Laying the sand-blasted one in front of the clear red one, see how the colour is transferred from one to the other. An interesting shadow too, with an extra bright spot.

It would be interesting to try and draw these. I had a bit of practice drawing Zengems and this made me observe more closely how light behaves with transparent objects. Time to get the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil going again!

The House of Marbles

Recently, a problem has arisen between Windows LiveWriter, my preferred blogging software, and Google Blogger, and I have been unable to publish any new blog posts since then. Now, thanks to the valiant efforts of a team of volunteers, Windows LiveWriter (which Microsoft is no longer supporting) has been launched in an open source format as Open LiveWriter. The team has been working hard to iron out the various glitches over the past week or so. This is my first post using the new software, and is also by way of a test to make sure everything is functioning as it should. So far, there is no facility for adding categories, but we are hoping for this to be available soon, after which I shall edit this and subsequent posts to include these.

It has been a long time since I posted to my blog. My creative mojo is still distinctly absent, and my health remains about the same – still feeling pretty fatigued and the peripheral neuropathy and other neurological symptoms from my chemo still around, but I live in hope that all this will soon be diminished.

We have had a busy couple of weeks with several meals out and meeting up with family and friends, in the run-up to Christmas. Hoping for a fresh start in the New Year, getting my life back to some sort of normality!

On Monday, my hubby thought we needed an outing, just the two of us, for a treat, so he took me to the House of Marbles at Bovey Tracey.

I do not feel as if my Christmas is complete unless I go and see their wonderfully tasteful (not!) Singing Christmas Tree:

 

The House of Marbles has a glass-blowing workshop, a shop, gallery, museum and restaurant. Plenty to see, and excellent food.

We began our visit by going to the gallery and museum. The gallery has a beautiful collection of art glass pieces which are all for sale.

I love these organic forms.

In the museum they have glass from many periods. Here is some Lalique glass, which I adore – one day I would love to own a piece of genuine Lalique!

Glass eyes!

Some beautiful lead crystal.

On the outside of the building is a series of murals. I love how the little girl in this one is peeping in at all the customers in the shop, and the other girl is pressing her nose against the glass.

In the restaurant is an animated jungle assembly, and this mural depicts that. I am very intrigued by trompe l’oeil (literally “deceiving the eye”) and have done a bit of this myself on the murals I created in our old house. Particularly intriguing in this picture is the way the edges of the bricks are painted to capture the perspective, with the tops of the lower bricks being visible, and the bottoms of the bricks at the top.

This mural depicting a hole in the wall crammed full of marbles on the left, shows that to get the proper effect of trompe l’oeil, one has to stand in one particular place to view it, because although the picture represents something in three dimensions, the drawing itself is flat. You can see that the edges of the bricks, photographed from this oblique angle, do not work, and it looks all wrong! The mural on the other side of the corner shows a real mastery of perspective with the brickwork receding towards the vanishing point somewhere in the clouds. I love how the artist has incorporated the opening times sign into the picture. Unfortunately the Christmas lights in front of this mural are obscuring it somewhat.

Mural depicting the glass blowing workshop. Great perspective again.

Finally, another fun “hole in the wall” mural showing children playing with marbles. I love the kid on the right, wearing the sweatshirt of a local school, and the pair of feet disappearing over the wall in the background!

On the roof of the building is an animated Santa who moves his arm, waving at the customers below.

We had a great lunch in the restaurant (which is part of the old pottery) and I was very unadventurous and had yet another Christmas dinner – turkey and all the trimmings followed by Christmas pudding! (About my third or fourth this year… I am not cooking a Christmas dinner this year and didn’t want to feel deprived.)

My hubby had booked a table because we knew the place would be very crowded this close to Christmas, and we were seated at a table for four. He said to the waitress that if another couple wanted to join us to avoid waiting in the queue for a free table, we would be more than happy to accommodate them, and a delightful couple came to join us and we chatted together throughout the meal. They ended up by giving us their address and contact details and inviting us around to their house on the evening of Christmas day!

When they left and my hubby went to pay the bill, another family came to occupy our place. They were an older couple with their daughter and her baby. The man was a wheelchair user and we got talking about our disabilities and wheelchairs, and I told him I’d had quite a year of it with bowel cancer, and now had a stoma, and he said, “I’ve got one too!” so we ended up talking about that, too! They were a delightful family.

I am always amazed at how many great people one can end up meeting while out and about. Having flowers and decorated spoke guards on my wheelchair has brought so many people over to me, full of smiles and nice comments, and it’s made my day, and theirs. Without decorations on my wheelchair I am overlooked and feel quite invisible.

On the way home we called in on some friends at their business, where they and all their staff and some other friends had gathered to sing carols and eat mince pies! After this we called on some friends at home where we had another cup of tea and enjoyed their company (and that of their relatively new kitty who I had not met before) before returning home. It was such a lovely day out.

Yesterday we had another outing when my hubby took me to Sainsbury’s! It may not sound very exciting to most people (grocery shopping just before Christmas isn’t most people’s idea of fun!) but I can’t remember the last time I went in a supermarket – I always do my shopping online, and for most of this year my hubby has been going out shopping for me. As usual just before Christmas, all Tesco’s delivery slots had been taken so we had to go out to do the shopping. It wasn’t nearly as crowded as I’d expected, and I really enjoyed the experience. As well as the normal weekly shop, we stocked up on a few party bites and treats to have as our Christmas dinner. The only thing that blighted the outing was the fact that it was pouring with rain…

All being well, from now on I should be a bit more active in Blogland, and hopefully I will soon be back in the studio with all my creative juices flowing again.