WOYWW 2011

Happy New Year WOYWWers!

Thanks to our Great Leader we get to rummage around everyone's workdesk again. Hop over to her blog to leave your link if you want to take part in this madness. We're a friendly crowd, just excessively nosey!

Here's my desk this week. Not too much mess but I notice that the TV remote is visible!

There's nothing new to be seen today. I'm trying not to buy anything new this year (I tried last year and failed) so you can see my purple magnetic mat and large guillotine. There's a plastic box filled with brads and a couple of small drawers with ink pads. And the scrapbook page I made with lots of spare photos that I didn't use. 

Does anyone else always print too many? I have an idea in my head for the layout but it rarely turns out that way, hence the wasted photos. I also print the them out in different sizes too. 

Maybe that should have been my New Year's Resolution - to only print off what I will absolutely, most definitely use!

Matchbook Cards

What have I been up to today? I've made some matchbook-style cards. Nothing new, but if you've never made them before, I thought I'd show the very easy steps to making one. You can make them any size you like but mine start off as an A4 piece of card.

1.Take an A4 piece of base card and score and fold it down the centre to make an A5 card

2. Score 1.5cm in from each of the short edges

3. Cut off one of these edges

4. Fold the card in half along it's centre fold and fold up the remaining scored edge to enclose the front panel of the card

You now have a matchbook card to decorate.
I like to cut the A5 card in half to make two smaller cards like these;

And here's some I've decorated today 

mainly with Paper Adventures papers and stickers.......

standing up (above) and lying flat
with the fold-up bottom edge

Two more...

I hope you give them a try and have fun decorating them! 

2010 New Year Resolutions

Around this time last year I posted this page with a list of Resolutions.....

TEN CRAFTY THINGS FOR 2010

1. Attend a big craft show in London
2. Do not spend any money on stash in 2010
3. Make many more scrapbook pages than in 2009
4. Take many more photos than in 2009 
5. Learn to use Photoshop
6. Post more often on my blog
7. Regularly take part in challenges
8. Set aside more time for crafting
9. Set a Challenge on my own blog
10. Reorganise my Stash so that it takes up less room.

Did I actually achieve any of the goals I set myself? Nah! Although I tried.

This year I aim to do better and will carry the same Resolutions over to 2011. After all, you never know, I might just manage to achieve one of them! I can live in hope.

Now, if I had included knitting and crochet in 2010's New Year's Resolutions I might have done better. In the past few months I have completed my ripple blanket .....

.....and a snowboarder's hat, 

made up my own patterns for leg-warmers and wrist-warmers, 

and knitted this....

....an easy Sirdar pattern with lovely chunky yarn.  

Karen nabbed the waistcoat when she was home for Christmas and Jenni now wants me to knit one for her! I'm quite happy to knit another one, but before I do, I need to finish my third pair of wrist-warmers! 

Papercrafting has taken a back-seat lately but I'm sure I'll be Scrapping in 2011.  I just need some new photos to inspire me. 

And for that I really need much warmer weather to get out and about with my camera!

Post-Christmas Tradition

Happy New Year Everyone! 

I haven't posted in absolutely ages I know, but as the Christmas Tree was put away today, along with the lights, baubles and tinsel, it seemed time a good time to join my friends in Blogland again.
We are always the last house to put up and the first to take down the Christmas decorations. Hubby's OCD prevents him having too much 'mess' around without him getting anxious to clear it away. But one task I always sit down to after the decorations have been cleared, boxed and hidden away, is cutting up the seasonal cards and turning them into tags for next year's presents. A post-Christmas tradition that the children used to enjoy but now I do on my own.

From this...

........to this......

...in front of a warm fire 

with a mug of hot tea ....

Shame it's not a real fire!

Knots And Flowers

I get very irritable when I am partway through a knitting (or crochet) project and one ball of yarn seems to have knots every few yards. I hate knots. I understand why the manufacturers repair broken yarn this way. They want to sell the yarn after all. BUT why do we as consumers accept this practice? Can they not (no pun intended) put these balls to one side and sell them at a reduced rate? 

It's like buying a stack of scrap-booking paper and finding ink stains over a third of the pages.

Anyway, to change the subject slightly, today I have made a snowboarder's hat for a Christmas present. Happily the yarn I used was one and a half balls of Sirdar Crofter (Fair Isle Effect) Chunky and there was not one knot anywhere to be found!

I used a very easy pattern on CocoKnits 

I also wanted to share with you a couple of items I bought from an online company called Bloom. They are a UK company making very realistic-looking silk flowers and flower arrangements.

Firstly, two Hanging Hearts made with ranunculus flowers.....

.......... hanging on my wardrobe door

... and a close-up view.

Secondly, a cute arrangement in a glass bowl:

I am very pleased with these purchases. 

Much more so than with my knotty yarn buys!