A new desk and a Gnome

Sorry about the lack of updates recently it's been a busy week that included a final trip to St Ives (Cambridgeshire) and a mini pub crawl in Cambridge to some awesome pubs that also included our first celeb style spot, the true master of the Universe Professor Stephen Hawking no less. We were there to see the wife and mines best friends before they bugger off back to the north making going for a quick pint a 10 hour round trip. Good luck Phil & Jen we'll try and join you as quick as we can and Phil do the right thing and say those words that Jen can't wait to hear... FOR THE EMPEROR!!!!!!

Me and Ikea are on speaking terms again not friends yet but the healing process has started, they managed to deliver my new desk last week:

Here it is in all it's glory with new daylight bulb lamp and home made painting board. It's almost all there the only other thing I think it needs is a paint rack rather than the box on the left, if anyone can recommend me a UK supplier please let me know.

All my basing guff to hand in small drawers from (Staples)

All my reading materials and reference to hand and a temporary place for my scenery.

Under the desk are the to-do drawers (again Staples), which I am not permitted to add to until I've made a serious dent in what I have.

Here's the close up of the painting board, it's an old shelf with some paint pot sized holes drilled across the top for current 'in use' paints, and some nails for jamming WIP corks onto to keep them upright. I've also added a couple of nails that I can jam scrap paper on to hopefully keep the board paint and glue free.

The only other thing that my corner needs now is somewhere to display finished mini's, and with that in mind I have my eye on one of these from Ikea with the Inserts on the right, looks like it would work quite well for the displaying of mini's.

On the Painting table at the moment are a couple of old Trish Morrison Gnomes (marked in Red below) from the tragically extinct Gnome race.

I've only finished one of them at the moment, apparently an Illusionist/thief according to the advert from the 1985 Citadel Spring Journal. I wanted to go for a bright paint scheme on this guy as I've mostly been painting muted colours and lots and lots of brown which can be a little boring after awhile. I imagine this guy to be a little bit of a character in Gnome terms very flamboyant and a little eccentric.

Lastly but by no means leastly go and check out a friend and Cambridge drinking buddies Blog:
http://jennyandthemagicfeather.blogspot.co.uk/
I must warn you that there are no mini's featured anywhere on her blog, don't hold that against her though as she's still a crafting legend. If you're in need of some blog re-designing, some felt creations or other crafty type stuff give her a shout and with Christmas coming up you can't beat a hand made one-off for yourself or significant others

Here's a couple of pics of her creations and a link to more examples:

http://jennyandthemagicfeather.blogspot.co.uk/p/makes.html