Rocking My World Friday... AKA Gratuitous Show & Tell!

Firstly, thank you to the lovely people who have been emailing to see if I'm still alive. I am. Still a bit poorly and looking at the PC screen makes me want to hurl so am typing very quickly and looking solely at my keyboard right now... excuse any typo's please :) I have been to the doctors and there is absolutely nothing to worry about. I just may be a bit absent for a little while till I can read my screen again. I miss you all!

I have been reading, reading, reading while I've been absent so expect a flurry of reviews when I can manage it. (Oh, don't I make myself sound so frail? I'm such a terrible person to be around when I'm ill! Just want to hibernate.)

I have been wanting to do a thank you post for ages for all the lovely birthday presents I got at the end of February - if that kind of thing makes you glaze over you might want to leave right now. Seeing as my weeks offline have been spent with me huddled under a blanket on the sofa with my books, emerging to demand water, biscuits and sustenance and then disappearing again - I thought I could post my thank you's as a Rocking Post instead.

Here we go...

Firstly, my own Devvie monster altered this matchbox for me... the grasping hands might give a clue to who is residing inside...


... a very cute zombie finger puppet, that she's hand sewn herself :D Love the brains popping out of his head!

Next, and I think we might be having an invasion, this cute little zombie arrived from Carol. He's like the Japanese Kokeshi dolls (I hope I said that right Carol!) and Carol has just started dabbling in painting them. He's sitting on top of my desk now, keeping the UFO Devvie made when she was younger company :)
Then, these gorgeous pressies arrived from Gaily. I was so surprised as she really hasn't been well lately so it was a lovely feeling that she hasd been thinking of me. I just love this skull bracelet and had been admiring them on her Facebook page. I don't wear much jewellery but do like my bracelets. The skull heart now hangs in our living room and look - Hello Kitty has been Alice-ified! She knows me so well :D

Lastly of my beautiful hand made presents was this book from Virginia. I had signed up to do a Rock CJ which she is part of but had to pull out as am falling so behind in my arty crafty commitments. I had wanted to do my CJ based on a Rock Fairy Tale. So Virginia, being the amazing person she is, took the idea and ran with it. She based this book on a Brothers Grimm story because she knows I love them :) Look here to see how she made the book. It's really a sight to behold, my pictures don't do it justice, I'm so jealous of her painting and blending skills. She makes me want to buy a Bind-it-all again (and actually use it this time!)

Then there was my book haul! Ooh lovely books!

My sister went to the recent London Comic-con. Somehow in amidst her squealing excitement that she was going to meet Stan Lee and some of her favourite artists, she had the idea to order me this in the hope of getting it signed.

Unfortunately the artist didn't make it... and my Dad had beaten her to getting me the book by a year - he got it for my last birthday! Oops! I wasn't going to tell her but she spotted it on my shelves - so I'm instructed to re-sell it and put the money towards something else. I'm sure I can manage that.

She did however spot Simon Bisley plugging his new zombie graphic novel at the convention so I got that with a lovely birthday message on the cover. Yay!

My fabulous friend Lesley raided my wishlist and got me these. Both books I've wanted to read for absolutely ages.
Along with my pocket zombie, Devvie also surprised me with this book - another I have been really, really wanting to read... she was very naughty!

And finally my Dad got me this (as well as a Kindle cover and some journalling pens) - soooo happy with this one :D

Jo was also very naughty and gave me an Amazon voucher (my favourite currency - can only be spent on goodies!) which I'll be putting with the money Craig's Mum gave me and the money from when I sell my sisters book to bump up my art supplies... or maybe get the desktop easel I've had my eye on for a while :)

That just leaves me to say a huge thank you to everyone. I feel so lucky to have family and friends that just totally get me so well. That spoil me rotten and that stick around even when I disappear for a while.

Love you all a million squillion - and I hope to be back properly and caught up with you all soon.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Rocking My World Friday...

...On Monday. Oopsie!

Click the piccie to join in :)

Well, my apologies for such a late posting. I've been a bit poorly and looking at a PC screen for to long is still making me nauseous. Thank you Virginia for your concerned email but no, I'm not off in a paint splashing delirium, more in a sickly nauseated befuddlement. Ah well. It 's not been a bad week - I just can't remember most of it as have been snoozing it away. So I guess I have to say that top of my Rocking List this week has been Craig and Devvie for taking care of house and home while I have been not exactly 'with it'.

Secondly on my Rocking list... (and really this is my favourite thing but thought I better show gratitude to my carers *g*) ... is the early birthday present Craig gifted me this week. Now, for weeks he has been hammering and sawing and generally being loud but very secretive out in the workshop. When we take tea out to him he either yelled through the door or opened it a crack demanding we leave it at the door. All very intriguing. He'd also emptied out the shed and turned that into an extension of his bird room so I just assumed he was trying to sneak more birds in without us seeing.

Anyway he comes in all excited one day asking me if I'm ready for my birthday present. Out he leads me to the workshop... and he has made me a stu-stu-studio! Can you believe it? He's halved the size of his bird room so I have a little room in between that and his office. The main door leads into my little room so I have lots of natural light and I also have a large daylight strip light above the desk!

(Ignore the dusty old hoover!) The desk is 6' long so that's how wide my little room is. I don't know if you can see down the side of the desk but he's even saved my huge bit of plywood that I rest canvasses on when I paint. I had it on the floor of my old stu-studio and am quite attached to that painty old bit of board - can't believe he saved it! We are going to tack up that bit of wire and then *gasp* I have a stu-stu-studio again! I also still have my little corner of the living room for my cleaner stuff and my PC. I love, love, love it! Can't believe how much work he's done and how thoughtful a gift it is. I officially have the best bloke in the World!

Birdy room...

Little peek the other way into Craig's office.

So, a short but perfect week for me last week. And looking ahead to this week brings a birthday cake baked by Devvie. Yum! She makes the best lemon drizzle cake you can imagine, don't care how sick I feel, I'll be having some!

Hope you've been having a good week. I'll be catching up slowly, slowly.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Drawing lab - Lesson 2

Lesson 2 - Blind contour drawing. Blind contour being - you don't look at what you are drawing but at your subject. Your pen reproduces what your eyes see as they move over your subject... supposedly...

Can you tell what it is yet?

Hmmm. Again, I think I see the point of this lesson, letting go and noticing more. I don't think I am very good at it though :D

If you want to work through the lessons in Drawing Lab with the rest of us, be sure to pop over to Paint Myself Pretty and link up each week :) Check on Cameron's sidebar for the lessons linked to so far. I promise a review of this book is coming... and a couple others. Have been reading lots but am all over the place at the moment. (Nothing new there then!)

Thanks for stopping by :)

Rocking My World Friday...

To join in, click Virginia's gorgeous art work.

Happy Friday people :) Time for that positive look back on the week. Now... my week has been very, very positive. Very. But I can't tell you about a lot of it right at this time... that's a couple of secrets I've got now. Give me a few weeks and this one will be spilt and the other will be a bit later in the year. Oh but I am the worst secret keeper in the world. I am positively having to restrain myself mightily here - you have no idea! All good stuff. Good stuff indeed! A hint maybe? No. No. Behave. Big positive for this week.

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Secondly. Focus. I am finding focus and realisation and it feels good. I am looking into ways to make things happen instead of sitting back and whinging that it isn't. 2012 is seriously the year of three point turns and crossroads and bumpy rides along untrodden tracks and any other cheesy quotes I might think of later... but all true. One is in a positive frame of mind at the moment. One is indeedy.

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Thirdly, the eldest two Monsters went to stay with their Nanna this half term week which meant we got the house tidy! Yeah! Took all of half hour after them being home to trash it again mind you. But it was nice while it lasted, my corner is still tidy and will remain that way or dire consequences shall be enforced on the person or persons responsible. Fed up of my little Empire being the family dumping ground.

While the girls were away we went for a yummy Sunday carvery with my Dad and Ruby. We also went for an all you can eat breakfast on the day of picking them up. Wasted. Absolutely wasted on me. I managed a hot breakfast of mushrooms, baked beans, veggie sausage, tomatoes and scrambled egg... and was fit to burst. Usually at these things I can eat that, then some toast and cereals, maybe some fruit and yogurt and a muffin to top it off. My eyes were saying "WOWOWOWOW! FEED ME!" My belly was saying "I think not Sunshine, doors closed! Yer name's not down, yer not coming in!" So good news was, I enjoyed it, it was yummy. Better news is, either I have discovered my 'stop' switch and know when I am full now. Or having a smaller plate at dinner times has shrunk my tummy maybe? Either way - although wistfully looking at Craig and Ruby Pacman'ning their way through mountains of grub, I was secretly pleased with myself.

And last good thing about the girls being away - no bickering! *Bliss* I missed them, I love them to bits, but blimey can they argue!

Good thing about them being back? Devvie has been in the kitchen, baking all morning! Woohoo! Her cookies are out of this world - she's going to save me one to have as a snack later!

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I've treated myself to a couple of books this week. One off Amazon (I love you Amazon *mwaaah, mwaaah* ) and one off eBay. Chuffed to bits with that one as it's £16ish on Amazon but the fella was doing a "make me an offer" thing on eBay and after a bit of haggling I got it for just over a tenner which included postage. (I still love you Amazon but am skint - so y'know, I had to cheat on you!) Both are books on illustration so am really looking forward to reading them. Plus I do like getting something for nothing. The Amazon book was purchased with vouchers from doing surveys and the eBay one through Paypal with pennies from recent magazine clear out! Win win!

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So, seeing as I can't tell you most of what made my week so good - I reckon that's a pretty good list don't you? :D How was your week? If you'd like to play along, pop along to Virginia's and link up so we can all find you :)

Thanks for stopping by!