one desk, many purposes

First off, I want to thank you all for your comments on my last post, and I know there are many more blog birthdays coming up soon, so I want to see some more celebrations.

helen's desk

This is where I work, bludge, create, procrastinate, study, you know the usual.

If you click on the photo to view it at Flickr you can see all the little notes I have added to the picture.

This desk and shelves was a present from my ex-boyfriend for Christmas 2004, it allowed me to open up my room to have more space in as I previously had a desk and the old kitchen table in my room just to give me the workspace I wanted, it was cramped to say the least.

This is one big desk it is 2.6 long and 0.9m deep, computer gear at one end, creative space down the other end and uni stuff bang in the middle.

Due to the length, I can sit at the creative end whilst Mum is using the computer or I can sit on the desk and crochet whilst dangling my legs over the side. I love my desk.

The main feature are the two units designed for 8.5×11 paper and 12×12 paper respectively, they each have shelves that can be pulled out and re-arranged as needed. Like many scrapbookers, how I store my paper is a big factor in dictating how I use the paper, storing by company has never really worked for me as it never made sense, colour on the other hand is a much more Helen friendly method.

Arrangement 1 – cardstock on a shelf by colour in the 8.5×11 unit and paper on the neighbouring shelf in the 12×12 unit, with the extra shelves housing stickers, rub-ons etc. This was nice however it was difficult to flick through the shelves and I was collecting more 12×12 cardstock, which had no where to live.

Arrangement 2 – Pull out almost all the shelves in the 8.5×11 unit and arrange the cardstock (8.5×11 and 12×12) by colour standing vertically. Since I don’t have 9″ worth of cardstock the extra space was filled with my favourite idea books. This was much better except I wasn’t using much patterned paper now.

Arrangement 3 – Need to use more patterned paper, so pull all the patterned paper off their shelves and insert beside cardstock in 8.5×11 unit, much nicer and easier to deal with. Helen is now happy, but what about that space where the 12×12 paper used to be? Now filled up the idea books from the 8.5×11 unit, binder of UM stamps, box of paper scraps, photos etc. So much more practical.

Just a little insight into a portion of the 10.8m2 space which I like to call my room.

round up, round up, round up

Another day and another birthday in the Pálsson troop 🙂

Today my third eldest brother, Hafþór Ingi turns the big 38! Out of my half-siblings, Hafþór is the only one I actually grew up around, as he moved to Australia with my parents in 1980 and moved back to Iceland in 1993 so for the first eight years of my life he was a big part of it.

This photo is of me when I was a wee little Snuffleupagus of just 4 weeks been held by the aforementioned brother who in this photo is 17! Don’t you just love the flags of the world outfit? Perhaps I was destined to be doing International Studies?

hafthor and helen
But this isn’t my birthday so bringing the attention back to the birthday boy. I don’t really have any funny moments but I am sure he does of me. There are some things that I do know, this man is a musical genius in all aspects from singing, to playing to writing, he is a wonderful father with two gorgeous kids, an incredible wealth of knowledge and an all round super cool person and big brother 🙂 Here is a more recent photo – taken last July at the family moot in Iceland, in his entire element with his guitar and perhaps it is the ever adoring younger sister in me, but I reckon he looks like Chris Martin of Coldplay and has a better voice too 🙂

hafthor-at-the-moot

Ok, that was a little longer than I planned on it been so back to the topic as the title of this post suggested – round up.

The Commonwealth Games are on at the moment and Australia of course is on fire! I always enjoy the Commonwealth Games more than the Olympics; they just seem a whole lot more friendlier, because they are the “Friendly Games” 🙂 It’s just great to see things like this, and many other countries getting their first Gold, Silver or Bronze medals, just great stuff! and Ben Lee is going to be playing at the closing ceremony, top stuff!

But to put some family spin on the Commonwealth Games, big kudos to my second cousin Nathan Eglington who is on fire in the Kookaburras (Australian Men’s Hockey team) with a hat-trick in a 5-1 win against England. Should be another Gold Medal for Australia there.

Uni is still uni, but I have now done my first piece of assessment so it really feels like the semester is underway now – it is week 4 of 13 after all.

Go check out some of the designs Tracy is pumping out at the moment, that girl is on fire I tell you.

Big Cheers for EK Success and Jacob getting engaged – so happy 🙂

The Parcel man brought me five (5) new crafty books from Amazon.co.jp the other day – will post more about them soon 🙂

I made the most yummy blueberry muffins last night – total heaven. I used this recipe – Blueberry Muffins from Elsie.com all I changed was that I used buttermilk instead of plain yoghurt and didn’t add the lemon zest because I had no lemons and WHOA total heaven, very, very nice muffins!

I think that was all I wanted to round up for the moment but I leave you with this note, something “big” and “special” is coming a few days time 😀

some more road trip layouts

These a couple of layouts I have been working on recently in breaks from study/uni, which is what I am doing at the moment – finishing off a presentation for class tomorrow on “ownership and management issues in state owned enterprises in China” which will also be the topic of my semester essay. How Fun!!
Seal Lake

Melbourne

Tarraleah

Jökull

Remember the quilt I made for one of my nephews? Well it arrived in Iceland the other day and my sister sent me a photo of Jökull with his quilt 🙂 Glacier boy now has his magic powers 🙂

Jökull and quilt

uni, a dairy fairy and japanese magazines

Well Uni started on Monday and I am in the midst of getting back into the hang of doing my readings, taking notes and trying my hardest not to fall asleep in class and trying not to strangle a certain professor and making some new friends.

Due to some staffing changes at work I am now back in the dairy and freezer where I belong playing the role of a “dairy fairy”. I was trained at my previous supermarket in the dairy but then due to a staffing change I was jolted out of the dairy and into grocery before getting a spot as a meat packer which I quite enjoyed. However when I got my job with the company I am with now, they only had night fill roles open so that is what I took and since then I have been moonlighting as a dairy fairy when they have needed me but alas I have always had to hand my “wings” back after a couple of hours but not any longer! Nothing like lifting milk-crates and filling the ice-fridge to give the arms a work-out 🙂 Yay for the Dairy.

A while ago I mentioned getting some Japanese patchwork and quilting magazines out of the quilt guild’s library, well I scanned them in the other week and uploaded them to Flickr last night so for your inspiration goodness I share with you 🙂

The first set come from a magazine called Patchwork Club. Click on any of the photos to be taken to it’s gallery where there are more scans.

pc46_11 pc46_15 pc46_01 pc46_02

The next set come from Patchwork Quilt Tsushin, again click on any of the photos to be taken to it’s gallery to see the other scans, these come from seven different editions.

PQT122_10a PQT122_12 PQT113_6 PQT113_2

Hope you enjoying looking at the pages I have selected as much as I do 🙂

More Layouts from Tasmania

Well Uni starts back on Monday and I am doing five subjects this semester instead of the usual four to gain an extra major so I won’t be creating as much. I am thinking at the moment to designate each interest a week so in that week any free time I have, I will spend doing X. That is the plan… but here are some layouts I did the other day from our trip to Tasmania. Click on the photos to be taken to a larger image and their notes. 🙂
Yacht Race Richmond Bridestowe Lavender