So...

...a photo of my workdesk is missing again this week. My excuse is simple I am just not sharing it in the state it is because the chaos is not in the least craft related. Try trip away related instead. We got back yesterday after five nights away for an off roading event. Five nights in a Shropshire valley with no internet, no phone signal, no tv reception. Plenty of amazing views though, escaping cows and of course lots of offroaders.
I did take a small slection of craft stuff with me but my total achievement was a couple of christmas cards and a bit of work on a cross stitch cushion that I have been working on for years. I do however have more layouts to share.

I was asked last week if I only take photos of cars, well no but as they form a large part of our life they also form a large part of my scrapbooks. I also have moods when it comes to scrapping and recently the vehicles have taken my fancy. I tend to select photos from the hundreds I get printed and then scrap from that selection as inspiration strikes.
That said I have been scrapping other things too
Including another photo of what himself calls the most photographed cat in the world. This is an older photo of my mum's furbaby playing in the laundry basket, thankfully while it was empty, and includes one of my handmade fabric flowers.

Yes it's another car but one that took my fancy as himself had just bought one of these for me.

I went to town on the embellishments on this one layering up old postage stamps, punched shapes, flowers etc

Back to Willow

I'm not sure what she was stalking when I took this photo but she definitely had her eye on something. All the papers, the alphas and the stickers I used to frame the photos are all from the Papermania Birdsong range.

And now for something completely different - Star Wars!

We went to the Heritage Motor Centre at Gaydon for an event and they had an exhibition of sci-fi costumes and props on, cue some perfect photo opportunities.
I chose to make a double page of these photos by reversing the colour scheme from one side to the other. I kept them simple just adding some die cut stars and foam thickers for the title.

I decided to stick to the same colour scheme for this layout from the same trip

This was definitely my favourite photo and my favourite Star Wars character so it deserved a page of its own and again I used core-dinations cardstock, die cut stars and foam thickers.

More Layouts

So I intend to post these a bit sooner but real life caught up with me. Real life and my sinuses. You see we live right on the edge of town with only a main road between us and open farm land and on monday the farmer decided to spray something very pungent on the fields. Honestly there are no words to describe the smell but it was one of those that are so bad that you can taste it, and even with all the windows shut it was still getting inside. To make matters worse it was a hot day so we had fans going in the house to try and stop us from melting, which of course moved dust and heaven only knows what around and set my blinking sinuses off again. Thankfully I was on the ball and started taking the meds straight away but today it has still made me sick - not nice.

Anyway enough about that and on to the Layouts.
These pics were taken last year after a trip to collect greenery to decorate a marque for our land rover club's summer ball. When they drove back towards us you couldn't tell that there was even a driver, the driver declined to be in the photo btw (thanks honey!)

And this was what himself did to another of our vehicles the following day.

It was relatively dry on the off road site but he still managed to find some muddy water to drive through. Once again he declined to let me take a photo of him, you can imagine the state he was in and that muck stank.

Now for a layout where I managed to catch him.

As you might have guessed himself does not like having his photo taken so I have to snap him when I can and I couldn't resist this one.

The paint under the title and on the journalling spot was inspired by the drips on the polish bottle, and the marks on the garage floor where he spilled some, and you get more of a streaky effect in real life.

Finally we have another photo of him taken at a local mini show by a club photographer and until we found it on the internet he had no idea it had been taken.

The film strip background is I will confess a result of covering up a blunder. While inking the stamp to make my journalling spot I dropped the ink pad which bounced across the worktop and off my LO leaving black marks. I was gutted because aside from the journalling it was complete then knowing I had nothing to lose I decided to try stamping the film strip randomly around the background and I have to say I like the effect and think that if I said nothing no one would ever be any the wiser.

There's no WOYWW pic todaybecause my camera battery is on charge, but there's not really anything to show on there anyway for the reasons mentioned at the top of this post. Maybe next week!

I know!

It has been a long time since I blogged. Two reasons firstly lack of time and secondly lack of inclination. However this week something has arrived that has inspired me to share some of my stuff with you again.

And that something is this
This gorgeous tag arrived from the lovely Vickie. It's a long story but this a replacement for the PIF I should have received in the WOYWW anniversary event but which went missing. Needless to say I love it very much and it has pride of place in my craft room.

And so on to a little of what I have been up to

I've actually been up to this today, this was what was on my desk before I started taking photos. A quick Layout from a trial earlier in the year.

This pile of bits and pieces is actually awaiting my attention. A local charity shop was having a sale (how cheap does that make me?) and I picked up loads of kids clothing to turn into fabric flowers and such like for 10p an item, there is about £1 worth in the photo.

This card was the result of a last minute rush after himself asked me if I'd made a card despite not having told me the bbq we were going to was for a birthday.

Considering it took all of ten minutes I'm really happy with it.

And finally a card for a new arrival

My oldest friend and her hubby welcomed a new baby boy earlier this month and this is the card I sent to welcome him. I love that patchwork elephant from craftwork cards!

I have loads more to share but that will do for today, I want to do some more crafting myself.