What's on Your Work Desk 8th June 2011

I keep seeing how people are melting in their personal heat waves and wondering where the sun has gone... we seem to be having a very wet and rainy spring (please nobody tell me its summer because that would send me into a spiral of depression)!! LOL
On my work desk today is my first attempt at a smash book.. they appear to be the latest thing in the scrap booking world and have taken off like hot cakes... which makes me laugh, as they are exactly the sort of stuff I made before I started scrap booking and then got into making mini books!!

I'll let you know how it turns out...

Oh and I went to a garage sale at the weekend at my neighbours church... they snuck me in the afternoon before the garage sale was to start so I had a lovely time mooching about without the distraction of hoards of people looking for a bargain!!  Look what I found!

I saw this box of beads... wooden beads and asked the lady how much the beads were... she looked at me oddly and said they were hoping to sell the entire box.... eeek, that's a lot of beads!!  $3 for the box!

and these are hand made pottery beads... $2 for the entire biscuit tin!

and this tub of lovely coloured ones was $2 too!!  I think I will be using beads on my next few projects.... lots of beads....

Curiosity and the cats....  don't worry, she got her head out fine!! 

Any suggestions for using up beads??? Please?

Don't forget to go and check on Julia and her linky list of desks to be perused!!

Fat Book Page Swap

I joined a swap on UK Scrappers of fat book pages and they are just about to return home!! Yay!!  I have still to make the actual covers etc so that it is ready to put together when they arrive in the post.

This is my attempt...the idea was to try out different techniques so that we have a set of ten different ideas to play with in the future and my theme was Time Flies.  I painted the background chipboard brown and then coated it with crackle medium and then added a final coat of black paint.  I then stamped a time image and heat embossed this in bronze (some are in gold) and then sealed it with Mod Podge.  The chipboard clock face was papered in dictionery paper then the clock image was printed onto tissue paper and coated with Mod Podged.  The small clock images were printed on tissue paper and attached with Mod Podge.  I added brass wings to the clock face to represent the 'time flies' theme and hung a silver time piece on each which was filled with liquid embossing fluid.

Hanging from the chipboard page with chain is a little bottle of beads/glitter and a brass key, a little chipboard mini book and a chipboard watchface.  I really hope my swappees like them, this is my first attempt at fat book pages!

WOYWW 2nd Anniversary!!

Two years!!  Yes, two entire years of WOYWW!!  Bet Julia never had a inkling that it would become so huge or continue so long and achieve so much in the land of us crafty bloggers.  Well done, Julia!!
Now anyone who follows my blog regularly knows that I have been away on vacation and when Julia announced  the date of the second anniversary I was really upset that it coincided with me being away.... because last year on the first anniversary I was in the middle of moving from Saudi Arabia back to Scotland before then packing up again to come out here to Canada.... which made it impossible for me to join in the celebration.  So finding out that I was also going to miss this one was pretty disappointing.... I asked Julia if I could make a PIF and send it to her as she wouldn't be on the linky list and then she could PIF me back... so that's what we did.... but then someone actually got a calendar out and announced that the second anniversary wasn't going to be two weeks ago but this week!  Poop... too late, already done the deed and sent the PIF's in both directions!!  So this is the lovely canvas that Julia made for me....

and I love it... so many lovely quotes and bits, thank you Julia!!

This is the canvas that I sent to Julia...

and when she gets bored with that side she can turn it around...

and of course, the WOYWW letters hang from little chains on the side...

and sitting on my workdesk this week are a few of the bits I bought when I was in New Orleans... which is the home of the Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau.  I picked up a couple of Voodoo dolls and a fabulous notebook and some pens and stuff... woo hoo!

Isn't the notebook fab?  I think it will make a great journal for my trip!

and the coffin with the little Voodoo doll inside!!

Happy Second Anniversary of What's on Your Work Desk Wednesday!!

Costa Maya - Mexico

At Costa May in Mexico, Chris and I went ashore and explored the Mayan ruins of Chacchoben which is surrounded by jungle. We visited the sacred temples and almost died from heat exhaustion after climbing the steps of the Gran Basamento which was above tree level.

The next day we docked in Roatan, The Honduras and had my favourite excursion of the entire trip which was playing with the bottlenose dolphins.  

Who could resist this happy smile?? Margarita was a star, only 3 years old and considered an adolescent in dolphins terms... they don't reach maturity until they are 6 years old.

The Cruise

So on the Sunday we finished our quick trip around the French Quarter of New Orleans and then got ready to start our holiday proper... a quick taxi ride to the port and onto the cruise ship, the Norwegian Spirit.  Now, you will see from this photo that I was unaware of the fact that the cruise line takes every opportunity of snapping photos of you... for blatantly commercial purposes!!  This photographer stopped us, told us stand in a spot and snapped this... heck, if I had known I might I have brushed my hair and put some lippy on!! And yes, I am blonde and I also suffer from senior moments but I'm not completely daft and spent the rest of the cruise side stepping the camera at every opportunity!!

We were given out 'stateroom' keys and headed directly there... the ship was huge and I knew with my complete lack of any sense of direction the next couple of days were going to be 'interesting' to say the least.  Luckily, Chris does not suffer from this and had the place figured out pretty quick... well, the restaurants anyways!! LOL

The room was a good size and we had our own balcony with sliding patio doors onto it, a huge bonus and I really think if we did it again, the balcony would be a must have... I don't think a small room with a port hole would be much fun after a couple hours!!

So I sat on the balcony and watched New Orleans go by...

and a few paddle steamers!

the Mississippi was very high and there were flood warnings... you can see the trees on the waters edge... with no trunks... the water was a couple of feet from the top of the bayou and if I had one of the people in the beautiful homes the other side.... I would have been exceedingly worried!

Chris and I on deck of the Norwegian Spirit... trying to find our sea legs!

This was the pool and bar area in the evening...

Me in the moonlight on the top deck with the moon up in the background.