WOYWW 168

It's Wednesday once again, so here we go on our trip around the blogs of friends and fellow crafters, courtesy of Julia at Stamping Ground.

My desk has been quite busy today because I haven't done much this week, for reasons I'll explain later, but today I have been down here all afternoon, and it now tomorow, (I mean I started this on Tuesday night but it is now gone midnight so it is Wednesday. Perhps I should just go to bed!). Anyway I thought I'd just do a quick post about what I have been doing.

This morning I had post - yay! Part of it was a big plate of Chocolate Baroque Christmas stamps, so I decided to mount them up on foam and actually use them straight away, which is a first for me. So instead of making a set of matching Christmas cards this month, I am going to make one using each of the new stamps. Here you can see the first ones stamped up, and a little bit of colouring on a couple. I have out my tray of Memento ink pads because if I use these, I can add colour with my copics. They are very compatible. My pens are out at the side, along with a box of inks in the background. The colour chart is one I made for my copics, using the card/paper that I generally use for stamping, so I know what the colours will really look like. I have found it much more accurate and useful than the one I orginally printed out.

And now, for those who tried to guess what all my little cut out pieces of card were for, here is what I made! Not surprisingly, no-one got close, but not too many folk waste a week constructing a drum kit. This was part of my efforts last week to get to grips with my silhouette cameo machine. I didn't design it; I simply bought the file, and I made a whole load of mistakes in the making of it. 

The silver card was much too thick, and it had a thick plastic coating on the back, so although I got the cutting settings right on the machine, and it did cut beautifully, it was too stiff to curl and didn't want to stick! Some of you know that one of my sons is a very talented drummer who plays with a heavy metal/grunge band, and when he was around twelve, we bought him his first proper kit. It was custom made, great big things, to give the right sort of noise, and their shells had mottled green metallic surfaces. Hence my use of alcohol inks on holographic card, but again this was too thick to curl properly, even though I wound it round my glue bottle and fixed it with a rubber band over night. The whole thing was a nightmare to put together, and it is quite small (about 6" high), so it was very fiddly. But I persevered and finished it, though I doubt it will have a long and happy life. It is clinging together with a wing and a prayer! But it was a good exercise and I learned quite a lot while doing it.

My non-productive week is down to the fact that my lovely Baggins is very ill. On Saturday he had what was probably a stroke, but it could have been an accident, though we have never known him to go on the road. He usually stays in the back yard, and would never have made it over the fences and through the house in the condition he was in. There is a possibility that he was frightened by some local lads who have been playing with fire-crackers this week, causing him to fall and bang his head. I found him on our bathroom floor at bedtime, when I was hunting for him to give him his supper.  He had had a nose bleed and was only just conscious. The vet is still not sure what happened to him, but he has definitely lost his sight in one eye, and his jaw is misaligned. All Sunday he didn't move except when I syringed water into him to stop him dehydrating. He has now had two days of antibiotic and anti-inflamatory injections, and also three doses of high vitamin supplement, because he hasn't eaten since Saturday morning. But today he is much better in that he has walked around a little, and lapped water for himself. He can't eat, but I have been using a syringe to feed him with a high calorie, convalescent food, that is a powder mixed with water, so he doesn't have to chew. Tomorrow he is off to the vet again, and if he is further improved they are going to try to manipulate his jaw. It isn't broken, so they don't want to put him through an operation if it is not necessary. Today I made him comfortable back in my craft room, which is why I have been down there to work all day today. I just hope he continues to improve. He is my shadow, and constant companion, and I love him to bits. He is only about five years old, but he was in a desperate state when I took him in from the rescue centre, so he has never been robust. Here's hoping...