WOYWW 630 - All Piled Up

Good morning from a very sunny Pembrokeshire.  Perhaps we will be able to go out without a coat today?  It is Wednesday again and the last day of the month (where did June go?!).  If you would like to join in with this tour around crafty workspaces, click HERE.

My craft room this week is looking very different.  I finally made the decision to order the Ikea Kallax storage that I had been considering for a while (a cube storage system) and my delivery date for most of it is this Friday.  Therefore, I have emptied all of the old 'brown' bedroom furniture that I had been using for over 11 years, and my crafty stash is now piled up in the corner of the room.  The 2 heavy wardrobes are waiting for hubby (and colleagues) to take outside (my stepdaughter is going to have them in the house in Haverfordwest when she moves there in August).

The Kallax will be going up against the end wall.  I have just ordered the ones that are the right height to fit across the room below where the sloping ceiling starts.   That is 24 cubes.  I have ordered 12 white boxes and 6 denim ones (going to get some 'proper' inserts for storing papers etc when my budget allows).  I will then measure again to see how to fill in the 'sloping' top part, and order more cubes for that.  Hopefully by next Wednesday, it will all basically be up and in use.  I am sure it will take some time to get it organised in the best way.

If you wondered where the guinea pigs are, they are now in a fancy new hutch out in a stable on the yard.  It is cooler for them on a hot day (my craft room can get stuffy if the door and windows are shut all day) and the hay/bedding etc is right next to them.  Much easier for me to clean them out and no more dust/hay in my craft room.  I am missing their constant company though.

I am having a busy week partly due to the big craft room clearout.  I went to the tip with a load yesterday and have an appointment to drop lots of bags off at the charity shop this afternoon.  Also sorting out the rental house.  Most of the wallpaper has been stripped.  The greenhouse was taken away (stepdaughter didn't want to use it, and a hazard with the 2 young children).  Our decorator decided that he wouldn't be able to do the work by our deadline, but hubby/colleagues are going to do the internal work and our builder is arranging for the external painting (which will save money - more budget to spend on the kitchen!).  We are going to the kitchen and flooring supplier this week hopefully to choose the styles/colours we want.  I have already chosen Metro tiles for the walls in the kitchen/bathroom/cloakroom etc.  I think they look great - and nice to keep it simple.  If anyone wants to see progress photos, I post regularly on my Instagram @homewithchronicpain.

For those who loved our Renault Twizy, it is now being using around the farm - and we take it for its MOT on Friday.  I have had a drive and been a passenger in the back - "such fun" !!

Ali x

ps  Forgot to add that I have been trialling the HelloFresh boxes for a while, and loving the tasty recipes.  I had some free boxes to give away, and have one left (plus have a code for £20 off).  If anyone wants to try it out, just email me (aliwadedesigns1971@gmail.com).

WOYWW 629 - 'I did a thing!' - Scrapbooking has started

Happy Wednesday to all the crafters around the world who share a photo(s) of their crafty workspaces.  Click HERE if you would like to join in.

My quote in the title is in reference to my new favourite tv programme - Clarkson's Farm (on Amazon Prime).  Very funny, emotional and even I am learning things about farming.  I spent a lot of my childhood living on a farm just down the road (outside Chipping Norton) and remember riding in the fields.  A beautiful area of Oxfordshire.

I didn't blog last week.  I can't remember exactly why not now (goes to look at Google Calendar).  Ah yes.  It was our 16th Wedding Anniversary and we had a generally busy day with all sorts of stuff, so I was prevented from sitting down to type a blog post.

Our trip to Wiltshire/Oxfordshire/meeting up with Mum was fabulous.  The weather was hot and sunny, we loved our day at Castle Combe race circuit, and the Sunday lunch/woodland walk with Mum was a success.

We have collected the keys to the house we have bought in Haverfordwest, and have had meetings so far with builder, electrician and decorator.  Wallpaper stripping starts tomorrow and we are hopefully meeting with our heating/plumbing guy to get boiler checked and some gas safety work done.  The deadline for getting it all done is by the 3rd week of August, so our grandchildren can start at the local school in September.    Lots of decisions to be made, but it is a lot smaller project than the farmhouse (which took 6 months), so I keep telling myself that we can survive!

My crafty table today shows one of the scrap layouts I did with the GoGoGetaway Crop last weekend (this is their Facebook Live event).  Yes, two photos from Castle Combe and they are already scrapped!  My haul of wood ATCs is piled up there, and just some of the Serif CraftArtist digikits I bought last week.  I had over 250 in all from one lady, and now I am installing them.  (I do have a few that are not my taste, so if anyone is interested in a list, just get in touch - aliwadedesigns1971@gmail.com).  There is also a photo of the crochet rainbow hanging in our porch, which was meant to be scrapped with the 4th and final challenge of that weekend, but I ran out of time.  I am going to get that done this week.

I have already paid my deposits for two of the actual GoGoGetaway hotel weekends next year.  They sell out really quickly (I missed the 2021 dates), so now I can just look forward to weekends in a nice hotel and doing lots of layouts with new friends.

I was meant to be going to a craft workshop this afternoon, but suffering after my 2nd Covid jab yesterday (very sore arm and some mild flu symptoms), so have postponed that to another day.  On Friday morning I am going to my first scrapbooking group meeting, so all go with my crafty calendar.

Hope everyone is well.

Ali x

ps  I have come back to add a thank you to both Diane and Susan for their lovely ATCs and postcards - all received safely and now displayed in my 'display area'.

WOYWW 627 - Dachshund Pyrography ATC

Good morning from a drizzly and grey Pembrokeshire.  This was forecast, so I am not surprised or annoyed that the sunshine has gone.  My health took a turn for the worse yesterday (no clear reason why, as is often the case) and I am resting in preparation for going away this weekend, so I am going to be doing as little as possible today.  Our 16th wedding anniversary is next week, so I looked around for somewhere to go.  Castle Combe Race Circuit has its Big Race Day on Saturday, so I booked tickets for that (both me and hubby love motorsport).  Managed to get a room in one of the posh country house hotels nearby for Friday night, and then we move onto a pub near Swindon for the Saturday night (and if I have any energy left, we will go to the Designer Outlets for some shopping - we went there 2 years ago and loved it).  Meeting my mum for lunch on Sunday and then home (not seen her since July last year).

I will admit my crafty table is currently clean and empty, so I am showing a photo from a couple of days ago when I was busy getting my first wood ATC finished.  I used my pyrography tool (and inspiration from Pinterest) to 'draw' the dachshunds, and then a Posca paint pen to add the colour.  Quite simple and very satisfying.  Ordered some more ATC wood blanks - plain and fancy - to do more projects this year.

A couple of photos to show the 2 new additions to our EV (electric vehicle) family.  My BMW i3, which is utterly fantastic - very comfortable to drive.  Now I am starting to go out on trips by myself again (weekly scrapbooking classes start again next week, and fortnightly papercraft classes), I needed a smaller car of my own.  Then hubby found a Renault Twizy for use on the farm (and for local errands - I will be stealing it to go to the farm shop up the road!) and collected it from Hertfordshire last week.  It is tiny and very cute (and, yes, there are no doors!).

The sunshine will be back for the weekend and next week we will have the keys for the investment property we are buying in the local town (only taken 6 months to complete the purchase!), so all is good in this corner of West Wales.

Ali x

WOYWW 626 - all sorts of crafty goings-on

Morning from a very wet Pembrokeshire (the promised rain is here, which is good for the garden and the farm, but not so good for hubby who is out collecting a car from Hertfordshire - a 5 hour drive each way).  I have loved this warm/sunny weather over the weekend, but sort-of glad that now I can get on with stuff in my craft room and around the house.

My first IRL papercraft workshop for over a year went really well.  We had our own areas to work in, well spaced out.  It is actually in the craft shop, so surrounded by temptation!  The workshops are held when the shop is closed, so noone wandering around looking over our shoulders as they used to.  I spent the whole of the workshop with the guinea pig stamp set catching my eye.  I had to buy it!!  You can also see on my crafty table two cards I cut out with my Silhouette Cameo, and also a couple of stencils (I used the plastic file divider-thingies, which is thin plastic but works ok).  

We made these 2 cards, which I am going to use on scrapbook/journal pages.

We have had lots of lovely trips out - for walks/meals/icecreams/meeting friends/cycling.  Yesterday we went to Barry to take stepdaughter/2 of our grandchildren for an afternoon out at the National Trust Dyffryn Gardens.  Beautiful place and the kids loved the space/plants/natural play area  (lots of picking up of leaves/pine cones etc).  Definitely recommend going there if you are in that area.

Time to go and sort out some laundry/get the hoover out.

Hope everyone is well and happy.

Ali x