A bit of a cool breeze on WOYWW.

It seems that I can't escape bottoms

at the moment.

Two weeks ago 

it was my friend Angies

bottom on show

but this week it is my bottom on show

(sorry, no pictures available).

People who know me well

will know that I don't have many clothes,

this is by choice.

In my working days I had to wear a suit

and dress up all the time and

now that I have retired I just have

one pair of 3/4 pants for home

and 1 pair for going out

and yes I do wash them, I just do it strategically.

Sorry I digress,

this morning whilst cleaning out and feeding my chickens

I noticed that it was a little more

breezy than usual in the bottom area.

When I got inside I had a look in the mirror and spotted the problem straight away.

I had a dirty great tear in my pants, so big in fact

that my butt cheek was on full view

(the extra bits that stick out from my knickers anyway)

and this presented a huge problem for me, as I don't like to sew

(see this post for details of my sewing prowess).

Now a staple usually goes a long way in this situation

but of course you can see my problem if I go putting staples into 

the part of my pants that I sit on.

Frantic calls to my mother and she told me about an iron on patch

thingy that will seal the hole and save my dignity.

I will have to get out and buy one of these patches, 

just hope I remember to take my pants off before ironing it on!!

To my desk.... and  if you wish to see others around the world 

go here to the Stamping Ground for WOYWW.

 My lovely friend Angie has returned to England

and so today I sat and finished my ginger flower.

I have a confession to make,

I have been showing you my neat corner of the room and never

showing you the other side, so,

today I will reveal my mess in all its glory.

Here is the real me (sorry Tracey).

And there is still another wall

but I don't want to overload your eyes.

There are cupboards of oil and acrylic paints, plus glass paints,

all sorts of pads of drawing paper, tins of lacquer, boxes of prints,

folders full of my ideas (you now the ones, you will try it one day),

and goodness knows what else in there.

Of course I keep telling my husband that there

wouldn't be any mess if he let me take over the front lounge.

Can't understand why he won't believe me.

To finish off on a better note

here is the ginger.

After seeing it here, 

I need to tweak the bottome leaves

but it is pretty much finished.

Next week I hope to have done some 

actual art for once,

fingers crossed.

Just a little bit done for WOYWW

I haven't really done much on my desk this week

for WOYWW.

After last weeks fun with taps and

flooding bathrooms, it has been quit sedate.

I actually took my drawing table on wheels

out into the family room and 

did a little to my ginger picture.

That way I could natter to my visitor from England

and draw at the same time.

This is where I put it when I had finished for the day.

That was yesterday, 

we went shopping, 

spent too much 

and had cake today :)

Here is a scanned in copy of the still unfinished ginger, using my new printer.

This is about my twentieth attempt to scan.

I just can't get the hang of it, there are so many choices

and half of the buttons I've never heard of, so I just

pressed everything until I got a reasonable picture.

This so called easy to operate Canon printer, 

wasn't made for blondes,

that's for sure.

It goes over two pages of my journal and that is

why there is a grey blobby bit in the middle.

Plus I had my hand on it when the paint was wet 

and I splodged it across the white bit

(That's pretty standard for me, 

a natural born grot).

I have a little more to add to the saga of the bathroom taps and flooding

(see last weeks post for the first instalment).

I take my parents grocery shopping each week

and this week I took my English visitor (Angie)

with us. 

 When we took my parents home

we helped to carry the groceries up stairs and my mum

jokingly said that Angie shouldn't come up or her taps might break.

You wouldn't belive it but late that afternoon I got a call from my mum

and she had come home after going out for lunch and heard water running.

When she went to the bathroom the tap was running and wouldn't turn off.

They had to replace their taps too!

When the plumber came to fix my taps, I offered to rent Angie out

to other customers to try and drum up business for him.

I think he is seriously considering it! 

On a more sedate level, my last photo is of my 

fantastic water colour paper pad, it is huge.

I can't wait to have a play with it. I plan to cut it up into usable pieces

and maybe do the odd big picture.

My sweet Angie has to go home to England next tuesday

so I guess I will be back to drawing again

later next week.

I will miss her dearly and of course

I will miss the cake that we have been eating

constantly.

Have a great week

and I may start blogging

more after next week.

A bit wet for WOYWW

Yes, it has been a bit wet around here

and no, it wasn't rain outside.

The photo of my desk

will give you a clue.

The water was in the bathroom!

It all started when my visitor from England

(told you about her last week)

used the bathroom.

She was getting ready for a shower and decided to just wet her hair

at the sink first.  She turned on the hot tap

and when she had finished it wouldn't turn off, 

suddenly the whole tap flew off, up into the air

and luckily she caught it.

Next there was a huge burst of water coming right up to the ceiling 

and gushing everywhere.

Dressed only in a bra and knickers she screamed out for my husband

who came running but didn't know how to turn off the water, he

then screamed for me (I was upstairs at the time and oblivious to the commotion).

I came down, saw the water and ran out into the street to shut off the water.

There was poor Angie just standing there in bra and knickers, saturated in a huge puddle of water

 and hard as it was, I didn't laugh (too much). 

 My little miss gave her the first towel she could find, which happened to be a beach towel that you put over your head with a duck head on it, which she wrapped around her waist.. 

 You should have seen her with a ducks beak sticking out of her bottom!!

I found some of the parts for the tap across the bathroom in the shower and put the tap back together

but some bits must have gone down the drain and it wouldn't work.  Luckily that bathroom has it's own hot water system, so I turned the water off to that and we then had water back to the house.

I had a plumber in the next morning and he said the taps had seen better days and so to my desk.

I had to go and buy new taps today. 

 They are not what I wanted but that is all they had in stock and so that is what I've got. 

I must say, you English have a funny way of telling a person the bathroom needs a clean. 

Angie could have just asked me to clean it, rather than ripping the tap out. :)

Back to my desk,

there is something else to show you.

Angie bought me a present from England, to match the beautiful

calendar she gave me for Christmas and here they are.

On the left is a book with beautiful sayings about friends

and on the right is a purse for going out somewhere special.

They match my calendar beautifully.

As you may have noticed, no art has been done this week.

After the wetness, we have been going out for lunch and shopping.

Also, I have little misses 11 birthday party this weekend and have to get organised for that.

On this WOYWW,

I apologise if I don't get to too many people this week, or reply

to comments but I will try to get to as many as I can.

Have a great week.

What a week for WOYWW

Today I have been playing with my new printer

and good quality paper.

I am trying to make some decent cards

to sell in The Collective Store.

I am not as good as my fellow

WOYWW card makers.

You can see their 

great work here.

I have had quite a week.

The evening that I posted my last WOYWW

my eldest daughter came down with severe food poisoning

and no, it wasn't my cooking.

She is very slim and after hours of it coming out of both ends

(if you know what I mean),she became very ill.

I ended up taking her to the hospital where they gave her 2 litres of saline

and some intravenous medication to stop both ends from going.

I had to play nursemaid for a few days and now she if perfectly fine

and eating like a horse again.

Whilst all this was happening,

my mother-in-law fell down a flight of stairs

and gashed her leg so badly that it needed

surgery.

With all this happening, I didn't end up getting around

to anyone on WOYWW

and for this I apologise and would like

to thank everyone for their lovely comments last week.

As you can imagine, I didn't get much artwork done 

in the last week, but I did finish my bugs yesterday.

The best thing is that I didn't blow up the oven.

Here are my cute little fellas

and some close ups.

I had a great time destroying my old computers insides

to get the bits for the bugs.

I found it strangely therapeutic, as if I was getting it back

for all the times it drove me crazy.

Speaking of driving you crazy, how do you put up

with those cutting and folding machines for cards.

I have been going nuts!

Even though it has a ruler

I can never cut straight and when I cut it

the back gets a big lumpy bit.

When it comes to the double sided tape
that I use to put the picture on, 

I get stuck, the desk gets stuck

the wrong bit of the card gets stuck

but I never seem to stick the bit that needs it.

You needs two sets of hands to do this.

(I tried using my mouth but that made it worse)

I tell you, doing the painting is the easy bit!!

To end today, I will share some really happy news.

My girlfriend, who lives in England 

is coming here for a holiday on friday.

She is going from the freezing snow,

that many of you have over there at the moment,

to 30 degree heat, sorry to rub that in.

I may not get much art done again next week

but I know I will have fun 

and lots of cake!

Bugs and flowers on WOYWW

The rain has gone at last

but now there is the terrible humidity.

Thank heavens for airconditioners.

Seeing the blue skies again has me

in the flowers and bugs mood.

Here is a peek at my work desk

this beautiful sunny wednesday.

If you would like to see more desks

go to The Stamping Ground

and check out the other desks

around the world.

On monday I started a

ginger plant in watercolour pencil.

I am doing it in my journal

and added a little poem (by Anon)

which is perfect for the picture.

Spent half of tuesday on it to, still heaps to go.

Last night I came up with an idea

for my little polymer clay bugs,

so my experimenting
(always wanted to be a mad scientist)
started today.

I can show you my old bugs but the new

ones might explode or melt in the oven

and in the interests of safety I decided

not to share what I'm doing with you just yet.

If it doesn't work, it's back to the drawing board

and probably a new oven.

Late last year I joined in The Poppy Spree

and during the holidays I received

a beautiful present from 

Nicole at Studio Margot and

just had to share it with everyone.

 

It got a little crumpled in transit

but as soon as I get it ironed out

I will frame it and put it proudly on display.

I would like to send a huge thankyou to Nicole.

If the house is still standing and the oven
still working, I will share my
new little bugs with you next week.

Fingers crossed.