Wednesday, June 30, 2010

WOYWW

Morning all! I remembered to take my photos early this morning, so with no further ado, here goes.....


One messy desk. WE could do a Where's Wally (Waldo) on this photo! Can you find.....
my little wooden crying/praying man?
a fab fudge tin to be altered?
my pink ipod?
my newly made little red canvas?

Hee hee, I could go on for hours..... Here's a close up of the actual work on the desk.


Some wooden letters from a sale bin, which I've started to work on to put on my wall. One for each of our initials. The G and H have worked best so far- they've been Ferro'd (texture paste) and stamped into. All 4 need a lot more work! The ATCs were some I made at Kay's yesterday morning, I got chance last night to take some of the ink colour off with bleach and a paint brush, and I'm really pleased with how it's worked out. Watch this space for some more close ups once I've scanned them in.

Right, enough from me. What's on your workdesk? For more nosying opportunities, check out Julia's blog, The Stamping Ground.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

A Stamp Man canvas


I may have mentioned that I've joined the Stamp Man design team once or twice....... well I had a play with some new Aspects of Design stamps - Artistic Elements. Ooh, it's a lovely set, just my sort of designs, and lots of images on the one set, so lots of scope for use which I like.



I painted a little square canvas with red acrylic paint, then used the scrolls on the edge of the little frame stamp  in the set to stamp around the canvas in white Brilliance ink.

Canvases are impossible to stamp onto so I stamped the keys onto tissue paper in black and sponged some red Distress Ink over. I ripped the tissue paper and glued it onto the canvas using glossy accents.



The gold frame is stamped into gold friendly plastic with black Versafine, and the two phrases were stamped onto tissue paper and adhered with glossy accents again.

Got a few more ideas for these stamps, so watch this space.......

Ingredients

Stamps- The Stamp Man Aspects of Design 62- Artistic elements
Inks- Versafine Onyx Black, Distress Ink Fired brick
Paint- Claudine Hellmuth Ranger Semi-gloss acrylic paint- Dash of Red
Stash- Canvas, white tissue paper, white gel pen, Glossy Accents, gold friendly plastic

Friday, June 25, 2010

From my nephew to his Mommy



I've started to write this post and realised I can't post it yet, as the card recipient's birthday isn't for a few days! Ah well, I'll try to schedule it......


This is a card for my one year old nephew to give to his Mommy on her birthday. Jack has the most wonderful red hair, and he's a proper little lad, into everything, so I can just see him swinging on a rope swing in a few years time!



It's on cream card for a change, with lots of square cut from a DCWV Citrus card stack. He's coloured with Distress Inks swiped onto an acrylic block and picked up with a watercolour paint brush.


The branches are a combination of the branch from a Stampin Up bird punch and a Martha Stewart frond punch. I didn't want a girly, pretty card, but he's still only 1, so it had to be something quite childlike. I think the image and the bright colours have achieved that, bearing in mind it's for a lady!!!

I got the design for the card from the Allsorts challenge blog, where the challenge is a sketch.


Ingredients


Stamps- Lili of the Valley, Studio G alphabet
Inks- Brilliance Coffee Bean; Distress Inks in Tumbled Glass, Vintage Photo,Spiced Marmalade, Rusty Hinge, Peeled Paint
Papers- DCWV Citrus stack
Punches- Martha Stewart Frond, Stampin Up XL 2 step bird punch

Thursday, June 24, 2010

This is why I have so many stamps!

This made me laugh- the tag line on the Pez-a-Doodle designs blog is "she who dies with the most stamps wins". Knew there was a reason for my obsession.

:)

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

WOYWW- What's on your workdesk Wednesday

A bit late with this today, but to make up for being hopeless I have taken lots of photos. Forgive me?

Here's the wide shot



Swing left and you get......



The red drawers house things like adhesives, embossing powders, sponges, chalks, all those bits and pieces. The fluffy doggy is my daughter's (in her beloved shopping trolley, lol). Under my desk I have a couple of plastic drawer sets with card, paints, cuttlebug and lots of the children's art stuff.

OK, a right swing now...


My desk is an L shape and the left hand bit pulls out. I tend not to work on it because the main desktop has a glass top on it and is more protected. Anyway, this bit tends to hold works in progress (there's a mirror under there somewhere, half done!!), The folders are ATC folders, cos I've been having a little sort. This is my favourite one......



I doodled the cover, took AAAAGES. I love a bit of doodling/zentangling!

OK, last photo, a desk close up.



Some ATCs I painted yesterday, some black card cut into backs, embossing powder that is rubbish, it just doesn't emboss at all, a couple of new punches, a coloured image looking for a card, my latest JAM ATC swap, and................. the very corner of my first ATC as part of the StampMan DT. Not giving much away on that one though!

Right, I'm going to try to visit some other desks tonight, but I'm shattered, so apologies in advance if I don't get round everyone. If you want to check out more desks, go to Julia's Stamping Ground blog here.

Monday, June 21, 2010

I've been invited to join The StampMan Design Team!!!!

Huge excitement in my house last night when I received an email from Jill at The Stamp Man, asking me to join their Design Team. How chuffed am I???? Well, very, very, VERY chuffed!!! Cue lots of dancing and trying to explain to my OH why I was so pleased, I mean, he was happy for me, but he didn't GET it, if you know what I mean.

I've seen my name over on the Stamp Man blog with the rest of the fabulous DT members, so no one spoil my mood for a day or two OK, I want to really enjoy this!!!!!


Have a pop over  to their blog for some superb Tim Holtz blog candy, there's a link in my sidebar. Plus, the Stamp Man ATC Challenge blog has officially launched as well, with some more fab blog candy, so pop over for a look if you're an ATCer!

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Hurray, I'm a winner, woooooooo!!!!!


I won at One Stitch at a Time challenge blog. Hurray!!! It was with my Father's Day card from last week. Click here to see it.











Plus, I got a top 5 over at Craft Cardmakers. How happy am I today?? Doing the happy dance, tra la laaaaaa. I got top 5 for this.

Oh the things you do when an idea hits you!!!!

This is what I spent aaaages doing yesterday after having AN IDEA!

Stage 1 of THE IDEA- sore scissor fingers


Cutting out itty bitty Stampotique figures. I'd had AN IDEA and that was what I needed to do to make it work. Good as my scissors are, this was a bit fiddly.

Stage 2 of THE IDEA was....


Lot of punched flowers and some glue and the Flowerheads (as named by my son) were born. Awww, cute!

Stage 3 of THE IDEA...


My Flowerheads ATC. The theme at the Stampotique Designers Challenge blog is "what does summer mean to you". Well to me, it means colour and flowers and outdoors and sunshine and more daylight to craft in. AND now it means Flowerheads too.

I love the Stampotique stamps, they seem to encourage me to think outside the box a bit.

Ingredients

Stamps - Stampotique and Anita's (background leaf swirl)
Inks- Memento Tuxedo black
Cosmic Shimmer- Meadow Lush on background
Stash- lots of punched flowers

Bookmarks.... I'm not mentioning the obsession this time.....

Regular readers will already know about my bookmark obsession, so I'm not mentioning it in this post...... However, I have made a couple of new bookmarks, woohoo!! One is a gift, the other I'm not sure whether to keep or not as yet.

The challenge over at Tuesday Taggers is Vintage bookmark, so with that in mind, I came up with this.....



The background is Distress Inked and Cosmic Shimmered and then stamped with lots and lots of vintage images. I wasn't keen on it after the first round of stamping, so I just kept going until I was! There was also a bit of inking through sequin waste and dusting with Perfect Pearls in Copper.

The main image is from a Paperartsy plate, and the other images are Paperartsy and another clear vintage set of Kay's (I was at Kay's when I did the stamping!). The very slightly rude lady has a layer of brown netting totally failing to cover her modesty, lol. I finished off with some ribbon, lace and a little vintage-y charm.

Ingredients

Stamps- Paperartsy Vintage Nudes 1, Clocks 5, Mini 61; Vintage set of unknown origin
Inks- Distress Inks in Fired Brick, Barn Door, Walnut Stain; Impress inks in Fawn and Autumn Leaf
Stash- Cream ribbon, cream lace, brown netting, charm, eyelet
Cosmic Shimmer mister in Lava red



I'm entering this into-
Tuesday Taggers Vintage bookmark challenge
Challenge Up Your Life vintage challenge



My second bookmark is a much prettier affair. Believe it or not, the background was made from swooshing my blank white card on the remnants of the inks and cosmic shimmer from the vintage bookmark above! It all came out very pale pink.


I stamped the dragon fly in a soft pink ink, and the leaf stem and dragonfly definition in bundled sage Distress ink. I also inked the edges in the Distress Ink. The dragonfly is a gorgeous stamp of Kay's (I'll ask her where it's from), and I stamped it again onto green vellum and cut it out, then stamped the words (I think they're Paperartsy) onto pink vellum and ripped them out.

An eyelet and some ribbon and it's done!

Ingredients

Inks- Stazon Black, Distress Ink Bundled Sage and Fired Brick, Memories Soft Pink
Cosmic Shimmer Mist- Lava red
Stamps- Stampin Up Watercolour Vine, Paperartsy Petals 3, Lost Coast definition, Dragonfly source not known
Stash- Cream ribbon, vellum in pale green and pink

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Ice cream colours....yum

This card started with the backing paper. This is a piece I've been saving for ages just because I liked it. You know that feeling right? Keeping some piece of card, or paper or stash because you like it too much? Well I'm fighting the urge and using my stash at the moment. I've got waaaaay too much, so I have to use some before I get any more.


The flowers are punched, and I used brown to make the colour scheme a little bit less sickly, lol.

Ingredients
Stamp- Sweet Pea's Purple Woods
Promarkers- Vanilla, Ivory, Saffron, Cool Grey 1 &2,  Pastel Pink, Cocktail Pink, Antique Pink, Cocoa, Terracotta, Buttercup, Tulip Yellow
Papers, pearls and ribbon from stash

I'm entering this into:

Papertake Weekly challenge- Ice cream colours (neopolitan!!!)
Sweet Pea Stampers- Sketch
Ooh La La- Flourishes and pearls

Monday, June 14, 2010

JAM swap..... no it's not what you think......

,,,,no jam jars were exchanged, no lovely gooey sweet sticky stuff spread on toast. However, it is nearly as good......well, if you're into ATCs that is. I've set up a JAM swap over on Docrafts- this is where a group of 4 Jammers all do a quarter of an ATC each, with the theme being set by the originator and eventual owner. In the course of the swap, you make 4 teeny tiny pieces of art on 4 different themes, and you get to see what the others came up with as well. It's FAB!!

Well I recently got my first one back from Group 1 (I'm in 2 of the groups). My theme was houses and look what the lovely ladies in my group came up with for me.............


Now bear in mind that an ATC is only 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches, about the size of a credit card, so each of these quarters is very, very small and takes a bit of working out. Great, isn't it? Mine is the top left one, and the others were superbly completed by Eve Y (top right), Carol V (bottom left) and Craft a Leigh (bottom right). Thank you ladies!! Can't wait to see my finished one from Group 6 now.....

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Introducing my bestest crafting buddies- new to blogland!!!

I found out yesterday that my two crafting buddies, Kay and Michelle have both just set up crafty blogs. I'm like a proud Mother Hen, and I know that they're going to be lovely, bright, fun blogs filled with lots of scrumptious crafty things to coo over.

The three of us get together most weeks to play with our inks and stamps whilst our three little girls play beautifully together. So..... give them a warm welcome!

Here's Kay!

Here's Michelle!

Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday, rainy Sunday.......

What's it like where you are? It's cold and rainy here. Pretty miserable for a Sunday afternoon. We have nothing urgent to do and nowhere to be this afternoon, so we're having a DVD session, all cuddled up on the sofa. As it's another Disney film that the children have chosen, I'm cuddled up to them and my netbook, hee hee. We'll be playing board games after the film has finished, so I'm not feeling too guilty.

I had chance this morning to get ahead of the game with my Fathers' Day card for my lovely dad. How organised is that, with a week to go? I've bought his present too.......impressed? OK, here's his card- no Promarkers for once!


I went for a bit of a colour scheme first and picked the paper and ribbon. My Dad can be a bit difficult to make for- I usually end up with something sporty, so I wanted something a bit different this year. I love the little truck set from Stampin' Up, it comes with lots of different things to put in the back, and different people to drive it, so it's very versatile. I went for loads of love with a big boot full of hearts.

I wanted a gentler look, so I used Distress Inks and blended round the main image card, then used some more Distress Inks to watercolour both images.

The punch on the checked paper is a Stampin' Up one, and it's fab, so useful. The truck and the sentiment are raised slightly on 3D foam pads, and I added a touch of Glossy Accents to the doors, windows and hearts to make them pop out a bit.

Ingredients

Stamps- Stampin' Up Loads of Love
Ink pads- Distress Inks in Brushed Corduroy, Tumbled Grass, Barn Door, Peeled Paint, Stormy Sky.
             - Versafine in  Vintage Sepia
Other- Glossy Accents, white gel pen, Paper/ Brads/Ribbon- from stash

I'm entering this into:

Totally Gorjuss- For the boys
One Stitch at a Time- Celebrations
Stamp something- Happy somethings
My Time to Craft- Xtra special (that's my Dad!!!!)
Cards for men- Father's Day

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Fairy special

I was up at an unearthly hour this morning, and took advantage by having some alone craft time. I'd already coloured this image from Lili of the Valley with Promarkers, I just needed to make the card up! Kay, Michelle and I had a crafty session on Thursday and we spent some time punching out flowers, using some of my punches and a couple of lovely Martha Stewart punches of Michelle's. It's lovely having crafty friends, we get to share!!!!


I used some purple paper from my stash and some gold Stampin Up paper to co-ordinate with the punched flowers.Lots and lots of gems, stickles and an inked and stickled 4 (the card has a soon to be 4 year old recipient), and voila. I love using lots of flowers, you never quite know how it's going to turn out, but it's lovely just sticking on lots of blooms.


This is my entry into.....

Tuesday taggers- All that blooms
Crafts and Me- Friends and family
Lili of the Valley- Sketch
Stampalot Challenge- Punch it

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

WOYWW

No, it's not Wednesday AGAIN!!!!! Where did that week go to? Ah well, on to the matter in hand- my desk! Ladies and crafters, I give you a murky and blurry photo of my messy work space....... ta daaaaaah!



I've actually done loads this week, and my desk has suffered accordingly! You can see my first button fairy attempt- since I blogged about it here, I've changed the wire on the buttons, which meant taking the whole things apart and remaking it of course...... hence the needle nosed pliers and red DST (I love that stuff, it's soooo strong). My WOYWWAC creation hasn't been put on the wall yet, so it's still in pride of place on my desk. Plus there's a little milk carton shaped box that I was experimenting with yesterday with some scrap strawberry covered card. On the left side you can see the corner of my Miss Little Legs' latest drawing, these always end up on my desk to be filed or displayed.........There's also some ATCs in the middle of being coloured and some fab cream cards that I picked up for a song at Hobbycraft (I lurves a bargain!!!).

Right, I'm at work today, so I'll try to catch up with some desks tonight, if you want to see more, head over to our esteemed leader Julia's blog- here.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Strawberries and cream.

Summertime HAD arrived, but it seems to have gone away again. Ah well, never mind..... I've been thinking summer craft thoughts instead.


Summer = strawberries and cream, right?

Kraftin' Kimmie's Posy is coloured with Promarkers and layered up on DCWV card. The strawberries are a stamp that was free with Craft Stamper, and I've used Glossy Accents to give them a juicy 3d look.

I'm entering this into Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps blog challenge which is triangles (metal corners)
AND into the Allsorts challenge which is strawberries and cream.

The sketch for this card is from the Totally Gorjuss blog, so I'm entering it in there as well!!!

Monday, June 7, 2010

I made a top 3 and I got a little blog award!!!!

I made the top 3 over at One Stitch at a Time for my bookmark. How about that? I'm chuffed to bits!!!

Plus Zoechaos sent me a little award, which looks like fun! So, the rules are-
I have to thank Zoe for the award- thanks!!!!
Proudly display the badge- done!!!!

Tell up to six outrageous lies about myself, and at least one outrageous truth, or switch it round and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie.

Nominate seven creative writers who might be into doing this, post links to their blogs and let the blog owners know.

Here goes then- my outrageous truths and lies......

1. I am the love child of Barbara Windsor and Sid James.
2. I once tap danced on stage at Wolverhampton's Grand Theatre- as an adult!
3. I don't have anywhere near enough stamps or stash.
4. I looooove housework and cleaning.
5. I don't spend anywhere near enough time online.
6. I broke Edward Cullen's heart when I told him I didn't want to be a vampire and live with him forever (one for the Twilight fans.......)
7. As a wealthy heiress, work is an alien concept, and I spend my days having my hair and nails done and lunching with the beautiful people.

My nominations for this award are......

1. Vix, whose blog inspires me every single day!
2. Alizabethy, my DC friend whose cardmaking blog is just fab.
3. Lavinia, a new blog friend from WOYWW, whose cat looks just like mine!!!
4. Frankiesue, my Stampin' Up guru
5. Cindy, whose blog is a joy to behold
6. Lyndsey who owns my favourite craft shop
7. The Crafty Goat Girl- for having the best blog name out there!

Yay, I enjoyed that!!!!



Sunday, June 6, 2010

Think texture, think Ferro.......

The theme at Tuesday Taggers this week is to add texture. I had a play with some Ferro paste a while back, and then ran out of steam on this tag. Today I thought I'd finish it....


I stamped into the Ferro with my Old French Writing stamp from Hero Arts and a Paperartsy squiggly ink flower and swirl. Then, inspired by seeing Leandra demo at the NEC, I painted it with a darkish red acrylic paint, making sure I got into all the nooks and crannies. Once that was dry, I brushed more lightly over the top with blue and green so that the red still showed through.

I finished it off with some metallic flowers I picked up in my local craft shop for pennies, and a little frame and bulldog clip. The paper is from Cosmo Cricket. I suspect I was over thinking this one. It needed something more than just the stamping and paint, but I was trying to put too much on, rather than keeping it to a few more simple embellishments. After all, I need to let that texture speak for itself!!!!

I'm entering this into the Tuesday Taggers touchy feely texture theme challenge, and it is easy to keep stroking this one!!! They're sponsored by Tandastamps this week (thanks for the heads up Zoe) so it's well worth a look!!

There are fairies in my craft stash....button fairies!!

Having been enticed by the wonderful things in CarolV's gallery over on Docrafts, I joined her button fairy swap. I'd not made one before, but they look so sweet I couldn't wait to have a go. Here's attempt number one.....


She's a fairy with attitude! The body is a Gorjuss girl, coloured with Promarkers of course, with wings made from angelina fibres using a Papaerartsy butterfly's wings. I think I need some slightly stronger wire to thread the buttons on, as I can't get them to stay in a nice curve. Other than that, I'm quite pleased with her. There are some lovely tutorials on the web on how to make these little lovelies.

I'm entering this into the Ooh La La challenge which is to use their blog colours, which are lilacs and greens, hope this counts- her wings are more purple than blue, whatever the photo says, lol!!!

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Oh dear, it's all gone a bit weird........

Hmmmm, you know that feeling when you sit down to make one thing and end up with something else? Well it keeps happening to me today..........

This one started off as a new baby card- honestly!!!!


I got a piece of card out, decided my scrap card that I work on was ready to be cut up, cut it into ATC sized pieces and next thing you know I'm cutting out a skeleton! It's called the Duchess of Bedfordshire, as the face was cut off a box of Duchess of Bedfordshire tea!

Then I was on a roll, and the backgrounds I'd cut from my scrap card were so interesting, that I ended up with these 2....




I love the flower stamp on the first one, it's a  Penny Black one and it needs nothing more than a nice ink pad to look good. The last one is my favourite though, I love those Stampotique girlies....

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

WOYWWAC- Happy Anniversary!!!!!!

WOYWW (What's on your workdesk Wednesday) is a year old, and to celebrate Julia asked us to make something with the WOYWW initials on it and show it off on our desks this week. Can you spot mine? It's not very big.....


Can you see it??? In amongst the usual rubble on my desk? Some Paperartsy stamps out- I used some on my project and going through my PA drawer inspired me, so I got a few choice sets out to use this week. Plus a bit of tissue paper and ribbon that was on some bath bombs (ah, stop laughing, when was the last time YOU left a potential bit of stash still wrapped around something????).

OK, here's a bit of a close up......


Now can you spot it? Extreme close up in a mo. Firstly, what do you think of my new ink/Promarker storage???? An absolute bargain from Dunelm, it used to be 6 TV remote storage boxes. Turned them on their side and everything fit perfectly!!!!! OK hold on, I'm zooming in....


Here's my little canvas. The eye is watching you!!!!!! I shall hang it above my desk I think.

Huge thanks to Julia over at Stamping Ground and everyone else who lets me nose around their desks each week. I really enjoy myself each Wednesday, which would normally be a boring middle of the week sorta day. Long may it continue!!!!!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Bookmark obsession......

Did I tell you that I'm a librarian? No? Well guess, what, I'm a librarian, I love books, read loads and yet this is the first bookmark I've ever made. Plus, there's even more of an admission on it's way - I've got a bit of a bookmark collection- I know, what a geek!!!! Most of the books I own have their own bookmark. I've got them from all over the place, pretty much everywhere I've visited, and yet I've never felt the urge to make one before......how odd. Oh wow, that makes me sound soooooo weird- my friends at work already think I'm odd because I can't walk on the white lines of the pedestrian crossing on the carpark, and I have to count things in 2s........right I think I'll stop with the confessions now and show you my creation.....yes, good idea.


The background is my beloved smacking acetate technique with some swirls stamped over in pink. The image is Promarkered as usual, and it's a lovely Lili of the Valley stamp that reminded me of my Little Legs and her best friend. Hold on for the close up.....


Woo, extreme close up. Can't recommend a touch of white gel pen enough to make it pop and to cover up any mistakes (ahem, not that I ever make any....cough, cough). I stamped the quotation onto tissue paper first to get the layout right, as I was a bit tight on space, but it all fit in eventually!

Ingredients

Stamps- Lili of the Valley's Little Girls Story Time
Studio G alphabet
Basic Grey swirls

Promarkers- Apple, Meadow Green, Marsh Green, Amethyst, Pastel Pink, Vintage Pink, Vanilla, Blossom, Cool Grey 1, Cocoa, Canary, Tulip Yellow, Saffron, Orchid, Cinnamon, Spice, Terracotta

Distress Inkpads (background)- Bundled Sage, Lipstick Pink, Dusty Concord, Victorian Velvet

Inkpads- Brilliance Pearlescent Ivy, Versafine Vintage Sepia

Other- Sheer pink ribbon, eyelet

I'm entering this into

the One Stitch at a Time challenge where the challenge is to use something new (stamp)
Passion for Promarkers where the challenge is to include a book