Hello all,

Thought I'd pop by and let you know I haven't fallen off the edge of the Earth. It's been busy, busy, busy here. Some good - lots of painty, sketchy fun and lots of reading. Some not so good... we have been the house of vomit and poo for a few days. Nice. Not me thank goodness but the Little Monsters have been under the weather. My cooking was blamed when the first one went down but when they all went down I was given a reprieve. Cheek.

Anyhoo, I am also in the midst of a purge, declutter and general organisation of my little corner of the house. It literally is a corner - you'd think I wouldn't be able to accumulate so much clutter in a corner wouldn't you? Once I'm finished I'll be catching up on the blogs and doing a post or three :)

Hope you are all well and happy!

Thanks for stopping by!

Rocking My World Friday...

Good evenink Friday Rockers. I hope your week has been to your liking? Mine? Well - read on by jove, read on!

First up a couple of video's. See, just one of the many, many, many reasons I love crows...



...and secondly, Christopher Walken reading Where The Wild Things Are... seriously, I cannot tell you how much I love this!

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The Walkman my Dad got me for Christmas, am still figuring it out but at least can listen to music on it now. I forgot how different music sounds, how fabulous, how wonderful when played through earphones. It's been to long.

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Braille paper received from the amazing Gauche Alchemy girls. I love this stuff. No, really, I L.O.V.E this stuff. If I could use it on everything I would - I have a very special project in mind for this...

They sent me a nice little stash to keep me going, how fabby of them? I would share but... I don't wanna. To get your own, head over to their store here. This is mine all mine all mine all mine!

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Talking, proper talking with him I love. It''s good to talk, it really is.

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A friend on Facebook mentioning how well she was doing on a low GI health plan. It's spurred me on to get my bum in gear and get healthy. I had tried again with Slimming World but, don't know, been having a mental block there. I've ordered a couple of GI books off of Amazon and shall give it a crack. It's apparently very good for helping if you have diabetes so am assuming it would help to ward it off too.

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Amazon Recommends. My but you are a tease Amazon. Why do I visit my recommendations page every day? Why? So many books, so little cash. Am an addict... for art & craft books in particular. Blimey there's some yummy ones out and coming out. Don't you think Amazon should sweeten the recommends with a freebie now and again? I do! Silly how much pleasure I get just sitting leafing through them though and then the reviews and then back to the books. Sorting out which ones will go on the wishlist today... am I mad? Amazon, look what you've done to me!

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Lastly, just a general air of... I don't know... that I'm talking less and actually doing stuff? In every way from creating, to my health... Slowly but surely. Slowly but surely.

So, how has your week been? Good I hope. Why not drop by Virginia's and see the rest of the Rockers, maybe join in?

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This next bit is for Sam who mentioned on my last WOYWW post that she couldn't properly see my sketchbook/journal wotsit. So here it is - as I say, I doubt it classes as an art journal... portable scrapbook maybe? Visual journal... Whatever, I just stick stuff in, doodle...

The book is a handmade one, a gift from my sister - she bought it in the famous London Market...so famous I forget the name. But it was from a lady selling handmade books. I love it but was scared to use it for the longest time!

The writing on the first page is where I've copied out the quote that has inspired me so much this year. The other page is another one I really like. The feather is a gift from a crow on our bird table :)

The doodle I did ages ago and will maybe cover up, maybe add to. See how I feel. The flower was a card I received. I doodled over it, liked the shapes.

Another doodle from ages ago. Oh - I thought I took a couple more piccies. Must not have uploaded... and being a tea fiend I do now need to go get a cuppa.

Thank you as always for stopping by :)

Rocking My World Friday...

On Sunday. Sorry. Sorry. Where are the days going? Honestly! I have a teeny excuse in that I've had a weird bug for a couple of days that rendered me even more cotton wool brained than usual and full of lethargy and nausea. Feeling a lot better now but still - aren't the days just flying past?

So, am making myself sit down and do my Rocking post before I blink and it's next Friday.

First up - Herbert. Who is Herbert? Herbert is this cute little zombie...

He arrived on my doorstep during the week, sent by Carol, the ressurector of the woolly undead. Isn't he fab? He's going to sit on my bedside table for when my night-time reading gets a little to scary! Thank you Carol.

During my WOYWW wanderings last week, spotting my blog open on someone else's laptop. That someone else was Carolyn and she was mid-WOYWW-hop as she took her photo. Still it filled me with glee. Yes, these little things make me happy!

I treated myself to this. Isn't it cute? What do you mean "what is it?"

It's a little kneadable eraser. In it's own plastic box to keep it clean in your case!! In. It's. Own. Box! Shut up - I'm allowed to love it! I actually had it on my wishlist for a while before deciding maybe I'm being a bit to strict on my stash ban.

The Gauche Alchemy girlies are high on my list this week. I've been thinking for a while about resigning my post on the design team. My head has not been in the right place and I was getting behind and late on my commitments and didn't want to be forever emailing with apologies and holding them back. So I resigned my post this week and said goodbye in the newsletter. My baby. (Are you signed up? If not, why not? Do it here!) They've been amazing, I totally love all of them and Gauche Alchemy itself. They couldn't have been more understanding - or more flattering and ego boosting - always nice! I already miss them and they haven't fully locked me out of the inner workings yet. There's the part of me wondering if I've made a mistake and the part of me knowing that I need to do this spring clean of mind, body, soul etc. (Remember my resolutions?) Who knows, in a little while, maybe they'll let me go grovelling back.

Stamps. Of the postal kind. Have you seen the new Roald Dahl stamps? Now I'm not a stamp collector but I do love stamps that have art work on. I've never bought a set but have been known to steam them off when I come across them. I'd love a set of the Horror movie poster ones that were around a while ago - managed to salvage a couple of Dracula's off of some jiffy's and got a Rocky Horror one on a book a while ago... but anyway I digress... Much excitement when I saw the new set coming out. Love Quentin Blake illustrations and was chuffed to bits when, with much amusement, Craig went and got me a set.

So, the question is am I brave enough to use them in my art or my journal or do I keep them all pristine (part of me thinks that isn't likely!)

So, lets think, what else? Am grateful that I'm feeling better after that bug during the week, for doing tiny amounts of creativity here and there, for all the blogs I follow that keep me feeling inspired, for my family, for my health - as ratty as it may be, for seeing my sister excited about the upcoming comic-con in London - it's been a while since I've seen her like that and it is lovely. For my ratbag girls who in equal parts annoy the Hell out of me and make me laugh, usually all within the space of the same few minutes. For Craig's Mum and her competitive streak on Facebook games, for just being alive.

How about you? How's your week been? To play along just click here to link up with Virginia (for this was her idea) or click the big picture at the top of this post ;)

Thanks for stopping by!

WOYWW?

Greetings fellow snoopers. Bit more to show you this week. Still relatively (under duress) tidy but at least there's signs of creativity.

We have:

• A review copy of Hollow Pike (Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!)
• A cuddly zombie, a pressie from the lovely Carol (It's been a fabby snail mail day!)
• My Artists & Illustrators mag - dumped there after my bath last night. Have to say - particularly excellent issue this month - a keeper!
• A sketchbook. Not sure if this counts as an art journal, scrapbook, junk journal or what. Bit of everything in there but it's getting me doing my 10 minutes of creativity a day.
• A random tenner. Been moving round my desk all week, waiting to find it's way to my stash savings pot.
• An empty cup. Will remedy that in a mo.

Zombie eating Barbie (out of shot) is no further along but I may work on her this week :)

If you want to play along and rummage through a few desks, maybe even bare all yourself... make sure you head over to Desk Mistress Julia and link up so we can all find you.

Thanks for stopping by - y'all come back now y'here?

Rocking My World Friday...

Click the piccy to link up with Virginia and play along :)

Hello Friday Rockers how are you this fine first week of 2012?

So far... and it's Tuesday as I'm typing at the moment, the first week of 2012 has been pretty good. Positive mind set still runneth over . First grateful is of course, you lot. You done made me blub you did. Hope you are proud of yourselves. The lovely comments on my Rocking Friday yearly round up. Well. I am beginning to think that a) I'm an emotional wreck and b) You lot enjoy setting me off! Stop breaking down my walls dangnabbit! I am supposed to be the Ice Queen. Or so I like to tell myself. You are ruining my street cred! Am slowly replying to you individually but this is a mass thank you.

Talking of street cred. I had to guffaw at the amount of talk of this little group being 'the cool gang'. I can honestly say, never ever in my life have I ever been part of a cool gang. In fact so bullied was I by some people that my mantra for most of my life has been "Le freak? C'est chic!" Haha! However if we get to decide that we are the cool gang then we are! Uber cool!

Next up on my Rocking List for this week. Lurkers. Or should I say a certain lurker in particular. I got an amazing email this week from someone who has silently followed the blog for a while. She emailed me this week because she saw this You Tube footage of Alice Cooper and thought of me!



How absolutely lovely is that? Really made my day. Makes me realise that maybe more people read the blog than I realise. I don't know how to read statistics and what not so I usually just think it's mainly the few people that comment that read the blog. Thank you Sally - for your lovely words and thinking of me with the link. You gave me much food for thought.

Talking of video's - I stumbled on this one quite by accident today. Can't even remember how, one of those click a link within a link within a link type things...

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

Words fail me and for some reason it makes me quite emotional each time I watch. Isn't it beautiful?

I won this book on Twitter. Octopus were calling for people to review it and I was one of the lucky ones, all they ask is an honest review be added to Amazon, it's well worth following them as they quite often do that with books.
I'm going to follow the 2 week plan that's inside before I review it - I'm hoping it will kick-start my healthy eating again after the Christmas naughtiness.

The girls are back at school which means the house is slowly coming back into some semblance of order... during the day at least. It also means I'll be using my lunchtimes to catch up on arty things like classes and just generally try and get better. I've been doing well so far, sometimes it literally is 10 minutes of creativity a day but that's still way more than the last few months.

Watching the news this week with the high winds and rain, I'm grateful to simply have a roof over our heads... and even heating now that we are in our new house. We would have been cold last year with no central heating but I would have still been grateful for the roof - even though it was leaky.

Cooper Mad Mutt Pooper - who has literally just landed on my lap, stuck his foot in my hot cup of tea, shook it everywhere, jumped down and stalked off - looking at me disgustedly like it was somehow my fault! He's lucky I like crazy lunatics isn't he? Well I like you lot - there's proof right there! Haha!

I hope you had a good week, thank you as always for stopping by. It's lovely to see a few more people have joined in this week. If you'd like to join us in rooting out the positives each week, make sure and stop by Virginia's with a link so we can all find you.

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday

Hello WOYWWers. It's been so long since I've played along that I feel like a newbie all over again. I don't even have anything interesting to show you, I just wanted to join in the madness again. I let things get on top of me last year and stopped doing some of the stuff I enjoy the most. Silly eh?

Pretty clear. Now that my stu-stu-studio is, alas, no more, I'm back in the tiny corner of our living room. Seeing as my partner is the male version, if not worse, of Monica from Friends (that is actually his nickname) I have to try and keep it reasonably tidy or be nagged.

There's some mini alpha stamps I bought from Dunelm Mill before Christmas, the Walkman I got for Christmas... and still figuring out! On top of the PC tower there is some sketchbooks I'm trying to keep close at hand so that I can fulfill my resolution of at least 10 minutes creativity every day. You can also see my amigurami Alice Cooper angel who sits on my desk throughout the year inbetween his top of the tree duties. Made by Ewa a couple of years ago.

Oh wait - there is actually a W.I.P on top of the desk - the doll sitting on the printer is my zombie girl. She's chomping on Barbie's head. We are having issues though - she's just texture paste over a skeleton at the moment. Am thinking of covering her in clay.

I'll leave you with this scary image...

Anyone else find that as frightening as I do? I had hoped to incorporate these into a different kind of WOYWW, ran out of time. Maybe next week.

Thank you as always for stopping by.

Oops, see? So long since I played I almost forgot to say: If you'd like to play along, make sure you link up with Julia; Deskmistress Extraordinaire :)