WOYWW 86 - nearly done....

Good morning WOYWWers - Hi-de-hi!

LOL

Just a quickie from me this week as I'm rushing to get out and Lil Miss B needs dropping off at swimming before school.

Here's my desk - a bit tidier than last week and looking hopeful.  I did managed a little bit of crafting on Saturday morning - the Hookster suddenly realised he needed a load of "break a leg" cards for cast and principles.  I managed to rustle up 6 in 90 minutes, and will add the pics as soon as I get them off his camera.  My camera was still at the theatre from the previous night, so I didn't get a decent shot.  Aside from the cross-stitch I still haven't finishted, on the desk is a drawer full of my collection of Mill Hill beads....

And here, for your delight and delectation is Captain Hook.

Well, I think he's hot!

For those of you that might just be interested, the "metal" and gem plates on Hook's baldric (the slanty belt thing that holds his sword) were made with one of the Nesties labels dies, silver card, and the Cuttlebug textile embossing folder.  I then blacked the silver card up a bit to dull it down (not too twinkly under stage lights) and glued gems on.

Catch you around!

WOYWW 85..... oh no it isn't....oh yes it is!

Welcome to WOYWW!  For those that are aliens from Zog (or indeed, people who have just dropped in on a random bloghop), for more info on WOYWW, go and visit our chaperone and general desk jockey Julia here for more info!

So what IS on my work desk this Wednesday?  Well, I thought I'd be a bit different this week.  Panto is drawing ever closer - three rehearsals left (tonight, tomorrow and Friday) and then the shows begin.  Some of you (including Karen) have asked what I'm doing in the panto personally.  I mean, you already know Mr B is Captain Hook!  Well, I'm in the chorus as a random pirate for a start.  I'm also the sword fight choreographer (but they've epically failed to put that into the programme - I am so not chuffed about that) and scenery painter, and occasional prop hag.  I'm also a proud "Mum", as Lil Miss B is playing one of the Lost Boys, and a very proud partner to Mr B.  And also I'm sometimes the chauffeur, though Mr B does most of that.  Being so involved with the creation side of the panto, at present, this is my workdesk! 

To explain...

We hire some AMAZING (and some not, but that's another tale) backdrops from a fab company in Wales.  They have hundreds of different ones, but the snag is that you can't have them until the week before your show.  You can have a pic of what you're getting, to get an idea of what you need to do to the rest of your scenery to make it blend in, but as for colour matching, that has to wait until you have the backcloth under stage lighting in front of you to get the colours just right.  We have a set designer, but it's kinda my job to do a lot of the painting and direct others with what I'd like them to achieve.  I made the mistake last year, when I joined the group, of joining in with the painting and now they think I can paint.  I'd not painted a single piece of scenery before then.  In fact, my art teacher used to have to beg and cajole me to even pick up a paintbrush; I used to only work on A4 sheets with pencils!  Ulp!  I don't consider myself to be an artist - creative yes, artist, no.  I just happen to know how to make things look three-dimensional.

Thus, the entire theatre is my workdesk at the moment, and I even have little men running about in it doing my bidding.  Hmmm, maybe I should rephrase that.  Mr B might see this and he's up that ladder there....!!

Amongst this year's scenery we have a reservation scene, a beach scene, a flying scene (thankfully that's just a backdrop and some dry ice, no painting!), the nursery, and the pirate ship.  The ship backcloth is fantastic - I am SO in awe of who paints these! - but it's causing a major headache with the flats as we have to match the ship sides in.... scary stuff.  the palm trees were fun though, especially as people didn't "get " them when the trunks were bare....

and I had to reassure them that they'd be ok.  I think they're ok..... don't you?

At home, my real workdesk has even more panto on it.  Two tankards that started out as clear plastic and Mr B's hook.  It's been a bit fun trying to work out how to make it - we wanted it to be as realistic as possible, as most of the costume hooks you can buy still allow free movement of the wrist (something you are rather lacking when your hand has been eaten by a crocodile....LOL), so we've made up an arrangement that (just) fits under his costume, restricts his movement, and yet doesn't look quite so plastic.  We have to glue the hook to the armpiece, and I can assure you that it looks WAY better when he's wearing his costume.  Made from one costume hook, one boiled potato can, one coke bottle, and Ten Seconds Studio metal.  Eagle eyed folk might just be able to work out that I've used Big Daddy Mould #4.  LOL. (Picture was taken last night)



This  morning I finished off the tankards with a dry brush coat of silver to get the appearance of being pewter rather than plastic.  Fetching doncha think?

Ok, I gotta run..... Thanks to all of you who commented last week, will be commenting this week, and to whom I may not have enough time to visit.....  Catch you around on The Hop!

Oooh - and a big hello to Noreen who has just found my blog doing a search on the Panto, cos her daughter is involved with it!!!!  ROFL- welcome to WOYWW Noreen!

WOYWW 84 - the non-descript one

Good Morning all!  And how are we this fine day?  Tired?  Happy?  Bored?  Fed Up?

Likewise....

This is the worst week of January, methinks.  Only in my case it's tempered by the fact that my company pays us on the 15th - which this month will be the 14th cos the 15th is a Saturday.  Gives one something to look forward to! 

It's also a week where I feel suspended in mid air.  Coiled like a gazelle ready to spring into action.  In the distance I hear the ghostly chants of "He's behind you" and "Oh no it isn't" as we're almost at the panto.   Last night a photographer arrived from the New Forest Journal and I managed to get this somewhat humourous shot of Tink and Hook together:

The proximity to the main panto event should hopefully go some way to explaining why my desk looks like this:

Fairly bare, just a cross stitch piece on that I'm working on for the mo.  I should add at this point that I'm not just a stamper - I do loads of other crafts too (so many hobbies, so little time!) and every year I try to make an ornament for the Christmas tree.  I have three other charmed stockings on my tree, so I bit the bullet, ordered the remaining three just before Christmas, and now have some small projects to undertake before next year.  No rush!

In case you're wondering why I'm blathering on about my desk, every week there is a phenomenon, yes, truly a phenomenon (heheheh managed to get big word in twice!) known as What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday.  Go and pay Julia a visit here to find out more.

I haz to dash............. see you on the bloghop!

WOYWW 83 - A Happy New Year to everyone.....

I'd love to be able to say what a surprise it is, how fast the year has flown, but that's not strictly true.  We've spent the last year commenting on how speedily the weeks have passed, so it'd be nothing new to say here.  It would, however, be correct of me to say that Christmas shot by faster that expected, especially as I completely missed out on last week's WOYWW.  (If that series of letters leaves you feeling decidedly ? shaped, go to Julia's Stamping Ground to find out what the Desk Diva Extraordinaire is up to.

Christmas for me this year did pass by in a blur.  I would like to thank my Operations Director Sean (not my personal Ops Director cos that would be me, stoopid, I mean that of the company I work for) for coming into work the week before Crimble with man-flu and duly handing it out to the staff like the florid-faced Santa he was.  Bah humbug.  Yep, I was one of the ones that got it, and as I write this on Monday night, I'm only really just over it enough to comtemplate work tomorrow.  Oh, how I wish to put a hex on he.

Yes, I'm doing this on Monday night cos we're still in the throes of panto and I won't have time tomorrow to set this up for Wednesday a.m.  Live with it.

So, to sum Christmas up in one picture and one word....

Random. 

That was what Lil' Miss B said.  "Sometimes, Santa can be really RANDOM". We're blessed in that she still believes in Mr Claus, despite having reached double figures.  It could be that she's playing along this year, but I'm guessing next year she'll be a normal secondary school kid.  However, it meant that this year we could still have the fun of the old mince pie, milk and carrot routine, and insist she went to bed early etc.  She still did her Santa list, and he was kind enough to oblige with most of the items on it (she's not a greedy kid, luckily!) and a few she hadn't asked for, like the above Jacob's Ladder toy.

Well darn me if that hasn't been the item most played with.....

Oh what, yes.... I'm digressing!  The real reason you're here is WOYWW, isn't it?

So, what did Santa bring you, little girl?  Aside from the whopping great credit card bill, that is?  Um.  Not that much actually!  I can't really recall what I got on the main day, for the reason that it passed in a paracetamol-and-codeine-induced haze.  I recall chocolate.  I recall a scarf.  I definitely recall jewellery.  I also recall, as they're in the pic below, that I got a jeweller's vice (aka helping hands) and a pair of crimp bead pliers.  Oh, and a nice Avenged Sevenfold CD.  And a couple of Jethro Tull ones too.  We'll pretend, though, that I haven't mentioned both those bands in the same paragraph.

Happy New Year!