WOYWW 788/8 I am starting again...

 Dear friends and bloggers!

Some of you might remember me some may not but I used to be a regular WOYWWer. Unfortunately lots has happened to me in recent years ( my partner passed away, health problems, operations)so I just couldn't get up to crafting.Well I did make a card every now and then but not much really. Recently I just started intensely watching crafty videos and suddenly I felt that I need to go back to my beloved hobby! I am sorry I missed Julia's farewell but she is not really gone, but I am really happy that Sarah has taken over and the happy Wednesdays can carry on. Enough of my talking I think I need to show you probably the worse desk you have ever seen...

Left side.....

Right side....

I recently thought I would get rid of my paper pads and make a few cards but that didn't really work you just can't use much of the papers really but I ended up with 2 very similar cards....and I used only 2 papers 😞

I decided to start making some ATCs to send off to you ladies on WOYWW. When I actually make them I will let you all know and I will send them off. I have addresses of some of you but not all of course so if you want one let me know in the comments bellow and we will arrange something.

Anyway I bought these new Tim Holtz Distress Spritz products And used them to make backgrounds for my ATCs...

They are very nice and shiny....

The colors of the Spritzes are lovely but the mica does come off a bit so that is something to think of when you use them...

So that is me for today... I will try to get round to all of you during the week but it won't be today... I walked around Ikea today so you can imagine how tired I am...

Have a lovely crafty week and I wiil see you all next week...

Love and hugs to all

CARDARIAN

WOYWW 738

 Hello dear friends!

Are you surprised? Yes I am back! I must admit I struggle just sitting in front of the computer ( terrible sciatica pain) , but I said to myself I have to start with my crafting and blogging again. So here I am.

My last post was in January when I hoped I would be a regular but life keeps interfering, I was ill, my 89 year old mom had terrible problems with her eyes so I had to take care of her and then I finally got a date for my knee operation ( after 11 years of waiting) so I started going swimming to get stronger and ready for the op and now the sciatica happened.Oh well...luckily my daughter is a physiotherapist and she is trying to sort me out. It is a year since my Alan passed away and I still think of him every day but I am being positive and remembering all the good times we had.

Now about my crafting... to be honest I haven't been doing much as I just didn't have the will to do stuff, plus I still haven't sorted out all the boxes of stuff I brought from England, but recently I have been watching a lot of videos and the will for making cards has come back. Also I am pondering about all these new techniques especially foiling. Is it worth it? The thing is my main way of making cards is stamping, die cutting and using stencils and embossing folders - if I start with foiling that means I have to buy a foiling machine, foiling plates... and all that goes with it. I used to like to go with the flow but some how I think these new techniques are just demanding too much... so what do you think crafty friends? Do you think the investment is worth it? Well that is my debate for the day....

And now my desk...very boring...I have bought yet another set of washi tape, die and stamp from Pink fresh studio...I am a bit obsessed with this stuff. It is quite easy to make nice cards with these washi tape die cuts and me not being to good at coloring it really helps. If you look closely you will see to pairs of glasses..why? Because if by any chance one gets buried under piles of my stuff the other one then pops out! Neet aye? 

 I have recently made a card for my 91 year old neighbor. He and his wife are such kind people and take care of me although I should be taking care of them. But I do help with phone and computer problems. So here it is a sort of man card....Layering dies from Honey Bee stamps - love the flying bird. The background is a die from Pink fresh studio.

So there my first blog is done can you believe it? Hopefully I will carry on. I will try to visit you all depends on my sciatica. I am rushing back to bed now - Pain, pain, pain! Huh!

Love and hugs to all of you lovely WOYWW-ers.

Have a lovely crafty rest of the week

Cardarian 

WOYWW 712 Still cold but my desk will start to look like spring!

 Hello friends!

I hope you all had a good week and did a lot of crafting ! That did not happen in my case BUT I did start sorting out my boxes. I had a box full of A4 tonic studio card-stock and I am telling you I have found that I have every color imaginable, so my files where I had a few  are now full! I think there is enough there for the rest of my crafty life! Also I put away all the Christmas stamps and dies which I didn't use much as I didn't send any cards although I did make a few and they will be used next year! I also sorted out some Valentines day stamps and dies and also some Easter ones.

Now to my desk! Another rather bad photo! My camera is somewhere - I don't know exactly where so I am using my phone camera - as my phone is on its last knocking ( I am deciding to buy a new one but I haven't decided yet)   the photos are not very good - sorry!

As you can see I pulled out some Penny Black stamps with a Valentine's Day theme: I did stamp them but haven't colored them yet. Also there are some new dies from Penny Black (resolution to not buy anything went out the window) I found a heart stencil from Simon says stamp so I have a few Valentines day things ready to make things. Although my dear Alan has passed away and I can't make a card for him anymore I will give some cards to friends who don't have partners but are happy to get a Valentines day card! 

I hope I will have some cards to show next week when I sort my desk out so that I at least can put a A2 card on there! To write this post I had to prop my keyboard on top of that pile of things you see on the photo! 

I want to share a memory with you ... Whenever I went to craft shows like Ally Pally Alan would come with me and while I was pottering around he would patiently wait for me. Here is a photo of him at Ally Pally happily waiting for me - He was such a nice man! It was 6 months since he passed away and I decided to only think of happy memories.

Lots of love and hugs to all have a lovely week - enjoy crafting as it is still cold and our hobby is the best thing to do on a cold winters night!

CARDARIAN

I am back after 2 years! WOYWW 711

 My dear bloggy and WOYWW friends!

After 2 years of absence I am back to start my new blogging life! A lot has happened in these 2 years! Most of 2021 I was very ill! After a lot of physiotherapy and suffering I got to a point where my life was a bit easier and I was hoping to have my knee operations and then be free of this pain! But in 2022 tragedy struck again! My dear Alan fell and broke his neck and in a second became  paraplegic! Which means he could not feel anything from his neck down. He was hospitalized here in Slovenia and then flown back to England after a month and sadly passed away a few months later. A few weeks after Alan passed away my dear friend Jo Pritchard a fellow crafter also passed away so I have lost 2 of my dearest people. I will be honest I did not expect this to happen and it has really struck me down so bad some days I couldn't even get out of bed. No crafting has been done for many months. I did try to make Christmas cards but also gave up on that as there was no mojo at all. My daughter got really worried for me and has been sending me encouraging messages for weeks now every morning so I thought I must get out of this terrible route otherwise I will pass away too and I still have to take care of my 89 year old mom and my daughter, so I decided to give it a go and start life over again! It is hard to do it but I must! The sad thing is because I went back to England to be with Alan I have lost my spot for my knee operation so have to start anew on the waiting list! Also I had to move out of Alan's house and my flat now is full of boxes I have shipped from England and have no will at the moment to unpack, well I don't even know where to put things! So my dear friends that is what has happened to me in the last 2 years! I have finally made 2 cards this week, one for my moms birthday and also for my cousin - they both have their birthday on the same day! My photos of my desk and cards are not very good as I have taken them with my phone and well the quality is poor but I hope to improve my blogging and photo skills as time passes.

So this is my messy desk and craft room!

And here are the 2 cards I managed to make with Pink Fresh Studio washi tape and dies! Not very good but that is all I could manage for now!

Sending lots of love and hugs to all of my friends and I hope I will have the courage to carry on crafting!

Cardarian

WOYWW 604 Happy new year 2021?!?

 My dear WOYWW friends! 

I have not blogged since August! So sorry I haven't been around! My plans for 2020 were to have 2 knee operations - one in April and one in November! Of course none of that has happened thanks to COVID so I am on crutches now - well at least if I go out of the house! Luckily  we are still healthy - my daughters boyfriend did catch the virus but he got over it and is well. We are very careful, don't go out much - except for a walk when it is sunny and to our little local shop to get bread and milk. 

To talk about crafting - I have made a lot of Christmas cards and birthday cards! I am having a big rethink about the way I will be buying stash and crafting. Maybe some of you ladies have seen a video from a lady called Justine Hovey! She was on various design teams and has made 700 videos over the years! She talks about how she has given up being on all design teams and how she is really fed up with these constant new "kits" coming out, pushing us to buy more and more. And I agree! When I started making cards and that is believe it or not now about 12 years ago new things were coming out twice a year or maybe 4 times a year! It was mostly spring and just before Christmas! Now it is almost every week ! And it is overwhelming! You try to keep up with the trends but it is just impossible! I am taking a new approach. I find that when I had less I was making nicer stuff or should I say more inventive! I still love all the dies I am a big fan of but I need to just try and use other techniques and use all the thousand things I have and have never used or used only once!!! I wonder what you ladies think about that. Do you still buy a lot or do you choose wisely? Let me know!

To show you my desk .....it is in a big mess, lots of leftovers from my Christmas crafting - ink pads, glitter, glues, dies, washi tape, bags of pearls and sequins, cards....

 

I hope 2021 will be better for all of us, although there will be a few more really tough months ahead! Covid cases will still be rising so please everybody stay healthy and safe and listen to the advise of the science! Research on this virus is evolving and they are finding new things every day, so be patient and listen to what they are saying!

Here is my last card of the year - I hope I will be back with more interesting cards and crafts  in the new year.

Happy New Year! Enjoy your holidays - see you soon...

LOVE AND HUGS,

Cardarian

WOYWW 584, Greetings from also hot Slovenia!

Good evening crafty friends! 

I hope you are not suffering too much in the heat! I am in Slovenia, finally got here and very happy too. Of course it was not all happy here as I came to a disaster on my terrace - the pidgins have taken it over and well I needed 2 days just to clean their mess up! I don't think they will be coming anywhere near my terrace in the future. It is hot here but bearable. I cleaned the whole flat now (you wouldn't believe how much dust gathers in 6 months huh!)and I will now be able to concentrate on my crafty stuff!
I managed to bring a few things with me and here they are all dumped on my desk!

In this bag above is exactly what it says! I have also brought some liberty fabric, a few dies and stamps and my new travel Tim Holtz glass mat ....in England I have the big one but here I only have space for the travel one!  Works fine for me.
Here are some photos of my desk from this morning.....

As you can see my Distress Oxide inks and sprays are always close, but in general a big chaos just because I haven't had time yet to tidy up. I did miss my crafting so I made a card - not anything fantastic but it is a start!

 I am going to mention the C word! Yes I will start on Christmas cards next week. I am going to spend some time with my mom next week - she is 86 - lives on her own and has just recently installed internet in her house! She can actually Whatsapp me! YIPEEE! This of course means that I will be connected and able to show what I have been making next week! This post is a bit short today - I am exhausted from all the housework so I will be commenting on your desks tomorrow!
Have a lovely week, connect to Julia and I will "see" you soon!
Love and hugs to all from Slovenia
CARDARIAN

WOYWW 582, The new blogger (no clue) and a slim line card!

Good morning friends!

First an apology! I haven't had time to comment on many blogs and I probably won't be able to do it this week as I am finally off to Slovenia. I will be leaving on Friday so there is a lot to do before I go. It is not just the packing but also visiting people, people visiting us before we go, going to shops to buy stuff we need to take with us - ah it is just an endless list! The biggest problem for me is to decide what crafty stuff to take with me! I am thinking of putting it all in a box and sending it via Hermes! I have stuff in Slovenia too but there is a lot I want to take with me! We used to go by car but it is risky this year (boarders might suddenly close) so we decided to go by plane which means 2 suitcases and no more! 
Anyway 2 things I want to talk about. First - the new blogger! I haven't got a clue! I reversed to the old one today as I didn't know what to do with the new one but they say they will get rid of the old version very soon. I really hope my daughter or her boyfriend will know what to do with it and will tell me when I get to Slovenia! Why did they have to change it? It was quite clear to understand as it was before! Anyway that was my moan. I am interested if any of you other people have a problem with it! I noticed Julia had to call in help from her daughter! 
The second thing I would like to talk about is the magic triangle. I think  a few of you liked it so I looked up what it is called and it is the MAGIC BEAD TRAY. You can get it at Bumbleberry Papercrafts, although at the moment they are sold out. How it works you ask! They have this pattern at the bottom of the tray looks like a hexagon and it is a little bit raised - I guess that helps the beads turn around! 
Ok then that is all my talking about things,  now back to the business of showing my desk....another messy one....

On the left there is my new project, which I will show in a minute, right at the front is an envelope I made to suit to the card, bone folder ( not the fancy one). and in the back there are new Dina Wakely gloss sprays. I did try them out and found they didn't do for me what they did for Dina on her video but still I think they will be useful. And now the big reveal....my first slim line card....they seem to be the in thing at the moment ...

I have been making cards for Alan's daughters and grandchildren for years - as I like flowers on my cards that is what I do mostly. It has been recently revealed to me that one of his daughters is not very keen on flowers - I could have taken notice of that before as she never wears anything else but  black and gray - no flowers in their garden and no flowers or color in their house!  I still can't give up color but I gave up flowers - no flower in sight on the card - only animals which she loves so I am probably good now! :-) Slim line cards? Well I am not that keen. Is it better upright or across? I fiddled with that for about half an hour...in the end decided this was the way to go....
I was going to make this  blog post short and sweet - turned out way to long! Sorry!
Don't forget to link up to Stamping ground HQ.
Lots of love and hugs to all, see you next time from my lovely home SLOVENIA!!!
CARDARIAN