WOYWW 130

Plenty on the go on the workdesk this fine Wednesday morning. At the back on the right are two maze books folded and glued and ready to be decorated as 2012 memory books. At the front is another along with various die cuts that I am going to use in the decoration. I recently enjoyed a workshop at the Craft Barn where we made an Advent maze book, so this is the inspiration for the ones I'm now working on. On the right is the makings of a calendar. The shape I believe is called a dodecahedron. I started it at Stamping Club, so will now get busy inking, stamping and gluing to finish it. In the middle is some Stampbord. Two pieces are inked, stamped and clear embossed ready to go on a Christmas card, and the third piece is stamped ready to be coloured with the little Versacolour pads and stamped again.

If you fancy a snoop at some more desks, pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground to collect the keys to work rooms the world over.

WOYWW 127

I'm afraid my desk is looking a bit dismal for all you WOYWW visitors. Not a lot to see at all, I'm afraid. On the top tier basket is a little exploding box that I made some years ago to contain some family photos. I searched it out to remind myself how it is made as we are doing more at our local stamping club.

However, fear not, the work space will not remain so dreary for long. That's because last night I unearthed the Christmas stuff. I've been in denial about the approach of the festive season, but if I'm to get any cards, tags, decs or crafty gifts made, I'd better get a wiggle on. It should be quite fun rediscovering the stamps and bits and bobs in these boxes.

The craft desk has been somewhat neglected these past few days as I've been busy with the autumn clearing up process in the garden, and doing creosoting and repairs to chicken sheds and runs to make sure they're sound and weatherproof for the winter.

I've been well and truly inspired in the gardening department by my latest visit to Sissinghurst. The gardens closed at the end of October, but I was lucky enough to be able to be part of a group who spent a day with the head gardener seeing the work that goes on at this time of year. A couple of gardeners were busy in the borders, cutting back, digging out, digging in compost, and in the picture below planting wallflowers and verbascum.

Another gardener was hedge cutting. The little box hedges are done, and they are now working on the yew. They work to specific measurements with spirit levels and plumb lines, and the results are stunning. The left hand side of the hedge had been done and you can see the crisp lines.

We also spent sometime with the gardener in charge of the lawns. A challenging responsibility with in excess of 185,000 visitors. You can see here that this lawn has been scarified and treated with selective herbicide. It will have new seed and fertiliser applied, so, come the new season, it should be vigorous and green.

In one of my summer visits I saw the cardiocrinum giganteum (Giant Himalayan Lily) that had flowered for the first time, and mentioned it in a WOYWW post. Here it is again in autumn with its enormous seed pods.



To visit more work desks, pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground blog. Happy Wednesday.