The Return of Stanzi!

She's back, the one and only Stanzi, aka Shming Shmong, Winzip, Zoony etc, etc!!

Firstly, here is her classic "Spooky Eyes" pose, complete with equally spooky claw marks on the banister rails...


And here she just wants to say "Hi, I'm inspecting your desk light, it seems to be in perfect working order now, what exactly was your problem with it...?"


And finally, this is pretty much what I also feel like right now - sleep, lovely sleep!!


Well, the pleurisy is very gradually loosening its grimhold (hey, I think I just made that word up but what the heck, I like it!) It's not really painful any more, just a constant dull ache and I'm still sleeping far more than usual. But then they do say sleep gives your body the best chance to recover so that must be what I need to do. I'm going to see the doc in the morning so will know more then.

Before I go, another plug for fellow Etsy seller DoubleDDesign's shop, where she's holding a sale to help her injured dog: http://www.etsy.com/shop/doubleddesign - see my previous post for details.

I've just bought some nephrite jade and some tumble chip Baltic amber from her, I know when they arrive (and when I feel up to doing anything with them) I'm going to be in bead heaven!

***For some reason, even though it looks exactly the same as the link in my previous post, the one I've put here doesn't work, so please go to said previous post if you want to "'ave a gander" at her lovely shop. (Sorry, being poorly is bringing out the Essex girl in me!)***

Please help this Etsy seller raise funds to treat her dog Pepper, the victim of appalling cruelty.

A fellow Etsy seller, doubleddesign, is having a sale in her shop to help raise funds for treatment for her dog Pepper, who was thrown from a truck by person or persons currently unknown and sustained multiple injuries. The family are making every effort to find out who did this and have had some coverage in the media which hopefully will help.

This is her shop:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/doubleddesign

She makes beautiful pottery and jewellery and also sells jewellery supplies.

The link to the forum thread from her shop announcement tells the full story - unfortunately the thread was wrongly closed down but it's still there to read. There's also a link to her blog where you can see photos of Pepper.

Animal cruelty makes my blood boil, this was such an appalling thing to happen to this family. Please have a look around her shop and help out if you can.

I'm back - again!

Well, it's high time I made a concerted effort to reverse the pattern of leaving such huge tracts of time in between blog posts and having just taken early retirement from one of my half time posts (the library one) I really have no excuse not to!

However, since I'm currently laid up with pleurisy this is going to be a very short post to just say a quick hello and post a couple of photos of the paper beads I've been having such fun making. I'm thinking of making them in bulk to sell as supplies (I currently just have a few pieces of jewellery up for sale on Etsy that incorporate them) so would be interested in any feedback please folks!

I make them by creating an image in Photoshop which I print out onto ordinary 90 gsm paper. I print a grid on the back of the paper to help guide the guillotining process and then carefully roll each bead by hand. Then I seal them with several coats of semi matt acrylic varnish, making them water resistant though not waterproof.

Pleurisy is seriously not nice, I've been in such pain though it's easing somewhat now due to a combination of antibiotics and ibuprofen. Thank goodness for chemicals! It has, however, left me feeling incredibly drained and tired, I'm sleeping 11 hours at a time and just lying around the rest of the time. The most frightening part about it was initially not knowing what on earth it was, it came on so very suddenly; happily the doctor was able to re-assure me I wasn't having a heart attack! (Hypochondria incorporated here.....)

Lots of news to come about what I'm up to but now I need to go and make my second post, about a fellow Etsyan whose dog has been the victim of appalling cruelty and who is having a sale in her shop to raise funds for his treatement.