WOYWW - 143

These photos  are really just a continuation from last week, for the simple reason that nothing new has happened to my desk, and the cards I have not shown you so far are to be hidden for another couple of days, until they have been delivered and opened.

The clipboard on the left contains my birthday and anniversary lists for about 6 years, also showing, in red,  how many years they celebrate. Underneath that list are all my labels that I stick on cards, and all the address labels I need for the year (apart from Christmas).  Printing the labels once a year is far easier than hunting for addresses every time I want one.  I do a separate list for Christmas, which also gives me a quick check to see if I miss anyone.  If the label is there, then I have not sent a card

While I was sorting things our last week, I came across several things I had lost or forgotten about, including several lots of pencil items.  I had forgotten I even had the set of Burnishers and Blenders for the Derwent Watercolours - very useful bit of kit those.  Above those are a set of Lakeland pencil crayons - not watercolours, but just basic standard crayons like I had and loved as a child, with all my very favourite colours in.  I had to have those just for reminiscing, the sky blue was always my favourite.  Across on the right are my very useful Dufex pens - not sure if they are still made, so I may have to check those out.  They are brilliant for colouring peel offs to suit whatever I need and also gems colour in well with them.  

You may also notice my tiny spring type scissors, and the packet next to it is for my crafting tweezers.  If the packet is there, then the tweezers are on my desk and need to be put away at the end of the day, before the Borrowers pinch them.  

There has been a serious lack of crafting today, for family reasons.  Our son, daughter in law and the two girls came down from Derby for the day to wish my DH a happy birthday for tomorrow, Leap Year Day.  So we have had a great time singing nursery rhymes and singing songs and playing with old and new toys.  My snoring Bagpuss and Janiemouse (one of the mice on the mouse organ who sings) were a real hit and so was the little yellow kangaroo with the joey in her pouch.  Something totally new that you cannot take home is always a hit.

As there are not cards to show you, I thought you might like to see one of the cross stitches I did for a wedding sampler a few years ago.   This started off as an A4 size picture with the usual basic sampler things on until my DH suggested that it would be nice to put in things that were special to them only.  So then there was a working narrow boat (belonged to the bride's parents), their own yellow Land Rover, a Springer pup (theirs), a mountain bike for him, a dragonfly (she worked on the Dragonfly project for British Waterways), the obelisk at Eastnor Castle (where they got engaged), and the church at which they were getting married.  The centre was going to be just the usual doves, rings etc, until someone told me that the bride had expressed a wish that someone would give them a cross stitch of Eastnor Castle (anyone with Land rovers will know that Eastnor is the spiritual home of the marque).  so. with four weeks to go, I set about adding the centre oval with the castle in.  It was all done by converting photos, and working on fine linen with one thread going over one stitch at a time, I wish I had had my Ottlite then.  As you can see, it was not A4 when it was finished, but they seemed to like it.

Now I am sure that Julia is waiting for you to sign in and move on to the next blog in her group.  I had quite a good mooch last week, although I was miles away from getting all round.  Apologies to those I missed and thanks to all who came to see me.  You are all very welcome at any time.  I do have one personal little niggle though about the dreaded Word Verification problem.  It does slow us all down seriously, meaning we get round to even fewer than we would like.  I did persist through them although a lot are really hard to read, but I know that many people give up as soon as the Word Verification pops up.  I found it was easier just to check all messages before publication, rather than use the Word Verification.  If you want to see what I mean have a look at the http://allsortschallenge.blogspot.com/ , who are asking everyone to turn it off as they will no longer work through it and they are not the only ones.   What you decide is definitely up to you and should be whatever makes you feel most comfortable.  In the meantime off you go to Julia's and I hope to see you all later.

Happy Leap Year Day.