WOYWW #186

Hope everyone survived the Christmas day festivities and are enjoying a prolonged holiday or if you are having to return to work today I hope it isn't a stressful or taxing day for you.  For me...well I am planning on having a lay about day watching TV, eating leftovers and enjoying quality time with loved ones.  First on my agenda today is a blog hop around the world seeing what WOYWWer's remember today is Wednesday and who posts what about their holidays and desks.  What's this blog hop you say...check out Stamping Ground and Julia will tell you what to do!

Nothing new on my desk from last week except a different pile of junk that needs sorting through and put away.  I bought a new 5 in Xyron and a bag of various metal bits last week that I need to sort through.  Stamps need put away, a kit from last weeks class, a box with my gift from the Secret Santa Swap on OSWE.  Fun stuff!

Anyway that's it for me no crafting has been done this week.  Too many things to catch up on and do!  Have a great week and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

 From my family to yours!  

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope all your days will be filled with love and peace in the new year!

WOYWW #185

Busy week and I am still behind and now wishing I was back on a leisurely boat cruise!  NOT!  If you would like to see photos of the cruise check them out here!  I am glad to be home and enjoying the day!  Heather and Michael are moving into their new home and I have been a little help to them but not as much as I wish I could be.  They are concerned I will over do and end up having a flareup  so I cat wrangle to keep cats in the house and help move lighter things about.

My desk this week is no different then last week.  Haven't done a blasted thing towards making anything creative.  It has become the depository for all sorts of bits and pieces.  Latest that my mail lady brought me is a case with magnetic sheets that I am hoping to organize my Spellbinders and thinner metal dies into.  Check back later and I will show you what I have done....maybe in a couple weeks.

Here is the last project I completed on my desk before my trip.  My button fairy/Christmas angels.  I just realized they are really monochromatic but hey...I like them!  

Button Fairy Christmas Angels made using buttons, petaloo flowers, and the Tim Holtz dress form die and wings dies.

Want to see more desks that have better things to look at?  Julia's blog Stamping Ground is the springboard for all the blog snoops...

Okay that's it for me! I know I am a little later then I usually am posting but hey...better late to the dance then not at all!   I am going to go make another cup of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal and come back and look through a few blogs. 

Hope everyone has a safe and uneventful holiday.  Happy Christmas, Happy Hanukkah,  Merry Yule!
Happy Holidays!

Caribbean Cruise 2012

Heather and I had a really enjoyable time on our cruise this month and several people have been asking for pictures so here goes a picture laden blog post.  BTW thanks for asking to hear and see what we were up to.  I enjoy sharing what I do but don't want to bore the followers!

Our first day out on November 30 we drove all the way down to Baton Rouge LA and put up in a Court Yard hotel for the night and in retrospect had we looked at a map closer we probably would have just gone to New Orleans that night too.   In New Orleans we spent a fun day visiting the French Market, Bourbon Street, and I finally got to the Cafe Du Monde and had a cup of coffee and some beignets!

French Quarter with busy traffic on Dumain Street!

 We went in several shops in the Quarter but the Voodoo shops were fun.  Marie Laveau House of Voodoo a little schlocky and touristy...no I didn't expect different but I didn't plan on spending money either!  Here are a couple pics of Heather in front of some of the shops props!

 FINALLY!  Cafe Du Monde!  What's up with the Cafe Du Monde?  A lot of the historical, paranormal romance novels I read are set in New Orleans and the cafe is one of the stops.  It is also a special place where blues and jazz musicians used to hang out at night...   The coffee is a strong hickory blend and the beignets were wonderful.  Not gluten free but since I wasn't doing anything but getting on a boat the next day I ate them anyway. 

Heather laughing at me for taking pictures of my coffee and beignets!

Navy Jazz band!

A cruise ship pulling out of port heading for the Caribbean!  Did you know it is between a 4-6 hour ride down the Mississippi river from New Orleans to the Caribbean?  A lot water!! 

One of the train stops for the French Quarter and Market.

The French Market.

I am going to devote the rest of the post to pictures with short captions by the day.  Too much writing... ;-)  Our cruise was a 7 day eastern Caribbean cruise aboard the Carnival Conquest and while I had a so-so vacation due to some issues with service etc. I wouldn't recommend the Conquest as your first cruise on a Carnival ship because they aren't at all like the other ships I have been on.
Itinerary:
Day 1:  at sea
Day 2:  Key West, FL
Day 3:  at sea
Day 4:  Free Port Bahamas
Day 5:  Nassau, Bahamas
Day 6:  at sea
Day 7:  at sea

 Day One

Heather in the cabin

Pilot boat that took us down the Mississippi

life boat muster

Lido deck embark party

Good bye New Orleans see you in a week!

Heather and I goofin off in the cabin

 Second Day:  Formal dinner night and picture of our table mates.

Ray and Stephen

Me and Heather

Mark and Jeff

Bren and Susan...another mother/daughter

 Day 3:  Key West Florida

Coast Guard ship

Heather

Me

Sloppy Joe's bar a favorite haunt of Ernest Hemingway...another place I had to visit...not to mention they have awesome Margaritas!

Key West from the boat!

Day 4:  Free Port, Bahamas

Wynnward Resort.  There isn't a lot to see in this port and if you don't snorkle or dive then you hang out on a beach somewhere.  This is a protected resort and we had a blast.

Guess who?

see that little thatched umbrella to the right of the tree trunk?  That's where I sat and dozed away the morning!  It was a beautiful day but cool and then the rain came.

Beautiful pool...cool water!  Maybe 70 deg at most but the birds enjoyed their giant bird bath!

  Day 5:  Nassau, Bahamas.  There were 5 Carnival cruise ships and a Norwegian ship in port at the same time.  As you can see there isn't a lot of town and when you add about 10,000 more people to a smallish population it gets a bit crowded.  Besides the shopping is great if you have a lot of money to spend but for common travelers like us Gucci  and Prada didn't hold any alure!  So... Heather and I decided to no get off the boat today because it was raining and nasty out and neither one of us are shoppers!  Since I have problems walking the distances were a bit overwhelming too!

three Carnival ships here!

The building above and in the distance in the picture above is the resort called Atlantis...  very  posh I am told and about the best place on the island to go.   It has an amusement park, aquarium, many restaurants and shops...

The dock!

another cruise ship and more dock

and more dock!! 

This girl was feeding sea gulls french fries from the fish and chip shop on board and...

She soon had quite a following

Bridge spanning islands

 Day 6 and Day 7 were spent at sea heading back to New Orleans.  I didn't take a lot of pictures cause there was only so many water shots I wanted.  Heather and I had an after noon on day 6 at the spa having a massage and facials done because we had spent so little money on our journey and we felt we deserved it.  The rest of the time was spent seeing shows and musical events, finding desk space for reading or retreating to our room when it got too cold outside to sit out.  December in the eastern Caribbean can be a bit nippy I am told and now I have found that out for myself!

Heather reading book 3!  She is such a fast reader!

Every night the cabin steward would make animals up from towels often stealing bits of jewelry, sunglasses,  hats left laying about to adorn them with.  Tonight our towel creature was a monkey hanging from the light fixture!

View from our window the last night on board!  An oil well in the gulf way off in the distance!

WOYWW #184

I had a wonderful vacation the past couple of weeks but really missed snooping around the WOYWW desks!  My daughter and I went to New Orleans and then on a cruise to the Bahamas!  Lots of fun!  Wondering why I would miss a snoop around desks with a wonderful vacation like that?  Well go check out Stamping Ground and Julia will fill you in on all the deets!

My desk today!  Not much going on to look at.  I have been gone almost two weeks and there has been absolutely nothing going on.

I received my angels from Jozarts swap in the mail when I came home.  WOW talk about some awesome work!  Both of the angels are gorgeous and I love them!  I think I will hang them on the tree then after Christmas move them to the wall in my craft room.

Jozart sent me an angel she named Malayeka!  Love the beautiful purple colors!  

The second angel came from came from Neil and was named Celestia.  

Aren't they gorgeous!  I will be sending out my angels tomorrow to Jozart and the person I owe and angel!  The cruise caused me to put the mailing on hold as life got in the way but I promise they will be there very soon!  

Anyway that is all for me tonight and I will be up early tomorrow to do a hop around the blogs and get my fix before starting decorating my tree and getting the cards out!  Hope everyone has a great week!  

WOYWW #182

We had a great Thanksgiving this year and hope everyone reading this that celebrates the holiday did too!  Dinner was at my daughter's house and she invited some friends to come and celebrate with us that had a 12 old son and 10 year old daughter and it was a lot of fun watching the way that they enjoyed playing games and interacting with the adults!  That's what holidays are all about isn't it...celebrating friends, family, and fun!

Well today is WOYWW #182!  It seems just like yesterday that I joined WOYWW and time has really flown past quickly!  I love all the support and interaction of these weekly desk snoops and have become addicted to the Wednesday interaction!  How long have a been a WOYWW desk snooper poster?  It has been almost 100 posts ago but I really started reading WOYWW and blog hopping in sometime in the fall of 2010!  My first post was on January 12. 2011...post #84!  So do I have your attention?  Wonder what WOYWW is?  Don't do like I did and wait 6 months to make your first post head over to Julia's blog Stamping Ground and see what you have to do and dive right in!! Julia is the creator of this blog crack and has caused so many new friends in my life I can't thank her enough!!
My tea mug is empty and I feel as dry as a gourd so I will take the picture and go type up the post while making my cup of tea!
So my desk this week...

What a mess...    I am working on 3 projects at once in this mess!  No it is actually 4!!!  Two button Fairies, 2 Angels for Jo's swap, 1 Christmas ornament for a swap and the bottle caps are for the bauble ornaments for my tag canvas class!  I am currently expecting 4-6 people but they still have till tomorrow night at 6pm to sign up so maybe I will make up 8 kits!  I think large if nothing else.

In the lower left you can sort of make out the button Fairy I am making.  In the center are the bottle caps for the canvas baubles that I have just filled with a picture and Glossy Accents.  Tomorrow after they are dry I will drill holes in them and make hangers with jump rings.  I will re post the picture rather then linking...

It is a really easy and I am thinking about making a necklace or earrings using the technique!

Okay short and sweet...sort of!  Tea is ready to drink so I think I will head back in the room of stash and do another bit before linking this to WOYWW! 

WOYWW #181

It has been another busy week and I am not for sure why it has been so busy or why it passed so fast!  Happy WOYWW #181 I just stopped by for a quick visit before carrying on with my cooking plans for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday.  Luckily this year Heather (DD) is hosting it at her house then I am going to go out to visit my sister and her family later in the day!  Now that is something to be thankful for...lots of food, family and friends and not much clean up and put away after the meals done!

Here is a picture of my desk today for WOYWW!  What's WOYWW?  It is a group of snoopy crafters that get together and blog hop around the world every Wednesday to see what everyone else is up to!  Want to get in on all the fun?  Go visit with Julia at Stamping Ground+ and she will let you know what it is all about!

my desk with all sorts of fun things to look at.  Rolls of Christmas washi tape in the lower right corner.  I bought some more hooks to hang more stuff on the organizer on the right.  Christmas Muse Tokens, some new Seasonal Stains from Tim Holtz, another recipe card for another swap. 

I really enjoy making these little recipe card swaps and I think they will look cute in a books I am making.

I finally got the tag canvas finished and posted it totally done yesterday on the blog.  You can look at it here if you would like to see it all put together!

Speaking of making something good...how about some Gluten Free Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies....

These are really yummy and you can find the recipe on my Fibro blog.

Okay that's it for me today.  I am off to fix a cup of tea and eat a couple of the aforementioned cookies.  Have one...or two cause that is a big bag and enough to share with everyone!