Wednesday, April 28, 2010

WOYWW- What's on your workdesk Wednesday- AGAIN!!!!!

Wednesday again!!!! Who stole the last 7 days??? Come on, own up!!!! Well, here's what's on my desk this morning- prepare yourself, it's not pretty!!!!




There are some cards I've finished and should put away before they get ruined. Bottom left is some square of wood my husband has cut for me to mount a stamp or two on, and on the right is the tub I've found to house the ink blending tools he made last week. There's also a tissue box I'm planning to alter.

In all honesty I haven't spent much time at my desk this week. I'm not feeling 100%, so I've retreated to the safe world of Promarkers and stamped images, and I've been colouring on a little table in front of the TV. I've just not felt up to anything more adventurous or taxing, and it's always helpful to have a stock of images to make cards with. So here's my temporary workdesk.


Lots of pots and tins of Promarkers (do you think I have too many???) I plan on having them all in Lyle's treacle and golden syrup pots, but we're not eating it quickly enough, so I've had to improvise with plastic tubs in the meantime. I will be able to break the colour families down more specifically, so it'll be easier to grab the pot and find the pen I need. I've got some nice images to colour.. Love the frog especially- that's one of Kay's stamps, and I must stamp him up a few more times when I visit her next! It's lovely having friends with stamp collections, it's like a huge extension of my stamps!!!!

I also thought I'd show off my finished stamp storage- apologies if I've already bored you with it, but I'm totally in love with it........


Isn't it gorgeous. Lots of room to buy more stamps, and I've managed to fit in my punches and brayers as well. The boxes all pull out and are A4 sized, so there's a LOT of stamps in there........ I'd love to have them on shelves on display, but I think I'd need all the walls in the house!!

Righto, if you fancy a nose at some more desks, head over to Julia's blog for a lovely long list of wonderful crafty desks. Bliss!

Monday, April 26, 2010

Three Goddesses, Two challenges, One image!

I've not been feeling brilliant of late, so I've spent some time quietly colouring in some images I stamped a few days ago. It's kept me busy whilst I haven't been able to dash around like I normally seem to be. Ive made a few of the images up into cards.



 This is one of the Sweet Pea stamps I won over at the Crafts and Me blog last week. This is my entry for the current challenge over there at the moment which is to Pink/Yellow/Brown. Here's a close up.


I've used Stickles and white gel pen to pop the image out a little bit. The paper and vellum in the background are from my stash and the raffia was tied round the wrapping on a present!

Then I had a go at the I <3 Promarkers blog challenge which is to use Black and White and one other colour. After seeing Vixykins gorgeous entry I was inspired to have a go at colouring an image in greyscale.


I went for flesh pink as my other colour, so I hope that counts. It's the same image again, coloured in shades of Ice Grey Promarkers. She's mounted on grey and black card and white glitter card. The ribbon is sheer black and I've used diamond black stickles. Another close up.......



Finally I had a go at her in shades of red and yellow.


This version was stamped onto a smacked acetate background, then stamped again onto white card. This was then coloured with Promarkers, the goddess was cut out and layered into the stamped background. I wanted to try a different card fold, so I went for this one. Cool eh?


The fab Stampin Up Baroque swirls are stamped in Versafine and clear heat embossed. The beautiful flower on the front section was made by my friend Kay, using a couple of HUGE flower punches she got at the NEC........and more Stickles of course!

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Gorjuss gorgeous.

OK, I'm talking to the stampers here- you know how sometimes a series or style of stamps just calls out to you? Yes? Well that's me with the Gorjuss girls. Whenever I go to make a card, they're the ones that I want to use. Hence this card......


She is coloured with Promarkers and matted onto some beautiful floral DCWV paper. The suedy flowers and button are from my stash, as is the printed vellum and brown textured paper. Sooooo, sweet!

This is my entry to the Totally Gorjuss Challenge where you had to include a Gorjuss girl on the project.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Out of my comfort zone

As I blogged a couple of post ago, I recently won a plate of Sweet Pea stamps. They arrived very promptly and it seemed churlish not to ink them up straight away..... I had a sheet of watercolour paper that I'd coloured using the smacking acetate technique, so I thought I'd use that as a background. It's a bit different from stamping onto white and colouring the image.....


It's just ATC size, and the orange and yellow background gives quite a dark finished look, but I really like how the splodgy effect shows through the colouring. I have coloured the image with Promarkers, mainly in oranges and reds, and then used my faithful white gel pen to lift it a little. I finished it with a bit of bling from orange peel and turquoise Stickles. Not my usual style of stamp at all, but I must admit I'm really chuffed with the result and I'm totally converted to being a Sweet Pea fan.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

WOYWW

I love What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday time...... a fabulous excuse to be nosy and visit lots of crafty spaces. Here's mine, taken at 7 this morning.....


Relatively tidy for me!! Aside from my usual gubbins, you will spy......

My ATC swap folder bottom left, with a few swaps left from a meet of Midlands Docraft ATCers I went to on Saturday.

Also from said meet, a lovely little goody bag and notelet set made by the smashing Frankiesue (top centre in green and lavender),one of which she gave me and the other I won in the raffle.

Immediately to the right of those goodies you'll see a little stack of ATC backgrounds cut up last night from the example sheets I made for my Smacking acetate technique demo at the meet (I made them and then forgot to take them with me, d'oh!!). Plus there's a gorgeous intact piece in the centre of the picture in red and orange.

Also in the centre- a mini chipboard album/book I'm making for my nephew's first birthday- pages all covered, just got to finalise my photo choices- and an ATC made with my latest Stampotique girly stamp.

The best thing on my desk this week is slightly hidden, but if you peek in between the green goody bag and my ink shelf, you'll spy a couple of wooden handles. My fabulous husband has made me some ink blending tools. I have a couple of Sir Tim's, but himself thought he could make them for next to nothing, and lo and behold, he was right! Clever boy. Just need to sort out something to store them in now.......

For more workdesks, pootle over to Julia's Stamping Ground.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

I won and I'm in Craft Stamper!!!

I'm soooooo chuffed to have won the first challenge on the Crafts and Me challenge blog. I'm thrilled to bits, and I get a prize of some fabulous Sweet Pea stamps. I'm doing the happy dance!!!!

Plus, I forgot to tell you all that one of my ATCs is pictured in the ATC swap section in this month's Craft Stamper magazine. I try to send at least one swap in most months, and I've had ATCs pictured several times and won Editor's Choice once, so any ATCers out there- it's worth a go!! At the very least you'll get a lovely stamped swap back..

Monday, April 5, 2010

A last minute Stampotique Easter entry

I made this for the Stampotique challenge blog last week but hadn't blogged it, so I'm doing a quick rush post to get it in before the deadline. The challenge theme is Easter, not an obvious one with most of my Stampotique stamps!!!! Here's my new kitty to wish you a Happy Easter on an ATC.....


The background is a scrap from something else- made with Glimmer mists and a punched flower mask. The cat is holding some eggs from a Studio G stamp set, and the letters are Studio G also. I drew the bunny ears on with a fineliner. The cat and flowers and coloured with Promarkers and highlighted with white gel pen.

I kinda like him!!! Happy Easter (a little late, but still......)!

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Enchanted tags


The theme for the second tag swap over on Vix's facebook tag swap group is Enchanted. Here are my offerings, about to be posted off! We had to make a set of 8.


Mine are all variations on the same theme!




I started by sticking pages from a book to my card bases and then lightly gessoing them so that the text still showed through. I made a bit of a mess don't think I'll ever be a tidy crafter!!!


I then masked off a moon and painted each tag with some watered down Claudine Hellmuth Studio semi-gloss acrylic paints in Purple Palette and Classic Teal. Next the difficult bit.....waiting for them to dry......didn't take too long. I then used a gorgeous tree stamp from Lavinia which comes as the tree stump with door in and a dinky set of leaves for you to build the tree up as you want it. I stamped the first one in brown Versafine but it was a bit light so I went for a black Versafine base with a few added leaves in the brown for the other 7 tags. Can you spot the odd brown one out?

I used Lavinia fairies and toadstools and my favourite Stampin Up set ever- Pocket Silhouettes, for extra grasses. It's such a versatile set of little stamps, I couldn't do without it! A

Add a touch of black stickles and white gel pen (what else?) a doodled border, eyelet and ribbon, and they were ready to go. Hope the ladies in the swap like them!

I'm entering these tags in the challenge at the new Crafts and Me challenge blog, where the theme is Faeries or Wings. I've got both on here!!

It's also my entry for the new Sir Stampalot Challenge blog, where the prize is an amazing one- a Cricut!!! The there there is fantasy.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Altered game waste thingy doobrey wotsit

I have no idea what to call this...... so perhaps I'll show you the before picture first.


It's the bit leftover from a game my daughter had- the holes held chipboard cards and are about an inch square. This is how it looks now......



I painted the frame with PVA glue then dabbed with alcohol inks in pesto, terracotta and raisin. Then I stamped over the inks with a stamp (Aspire to be top left square) using archival ink. I stamped something for each aperture onto separate card square and coloured them with Distress Inks in Spiced Marmalade, Peeled Paint, Scattered Straw and Mustard Seed, as well as a tiny bit of a lavender ink that was already on the card. The fairies and castle are my favourite little Lavinia stamps. A couple of the squares are covered in Glossy Accent, and most of them have some Stickles on.

I wasn't too keen on the green and orange chequerboard squares so I heated some UTEE in my Melt pot and poured it in along with some beads. I got some pockmarks on the squares by mistake, but you know what they say- there are no mistakes, so I rubbed some metallic rub on to them to highlight the bubbles.

Finally I sandwiched some orange ribbon between the front and back to make it into a hanging.

This is my challenge entry for this week's Tuesday Taggers- It's a bug's life- there's a little dragonfly on there! This week their challenge is sponsored by The Craft Barn, so I hope I win!!!!

It's also my entry for the Papertake weekly challenge which is anything goes and for the Fairytale challenge at All the cute and girly blog.