Post Christmas WOYWW

Yesterday I emerged from my Christmas holiday mode and decided to tidy the desk where I had dumped all the stuff that I'd been using on the kitchen table to finish making some Christmas decs. However, instead of finishing the tidy, I started making some ATCs which are now all packed to send off without me having thought to take photos.

The box on the left is one I made ages ago with the Bind-it-all and is where I keep ATC books waiting to be added to. There are still a few in there which I shall do tonight. But yes, the three tiered basket is full of stuff that needs to be returned to the relevant boxes. And I am too embarrassed to photograph the neighbouring surface which is strewn with dies, embossing folders, boxes of embellishments and card. It will, however, be tidied this week so that I can start the new year as I mean to go on, organised and knowing exactly where everything is. Yeah, right.

To find out how to see more desks, the tidy and the well, erm, not so tidy, call in at Julia's blog.

Here's wishing all WOYWWers lots of happiness, good health, and arty crafty inspiration in spadefuls in 2011.

Merry Christmas !

WOYWW 81

Morning all. This week I've decamped to the kitchen table again. That's because there's been messies going on. A couple of weeks ago I spotted some Christmas decs that I liked the shape of but didn't like the colours. The photo doesn't quite do them justice, if you know what I mean !

So I decided on a makeover, and got out the gold spray. I held them over my big stone kitchen sink to do the spraying and then left them on the craft sheet to dry between sprayings. I put Diamond Stickles on the dove on the left below, and on the reindeer and at first the gold bits showed on them, and then there seemed to be some sort of chemical reaction with the paint and some parts became tinged with green - a sort of verdigris effect which I rather liked. I put some Golden Rod Stickles on the other dove and that didn't react with the paint. When they're completely dry, I'm going to attach some gold ribbon. The white wooden shapes I painted with gesso and then with white acrylic paint mixed with an iridescent medium, but there's not much shine to them, so I'm going to try covering them with Terra then doing some stamping and painting on them.

The secateurs, cones and holly berries are still left on the table after my session making seasonal wreaths for back and front doors and some indoor arrangements. I'm lucky that only a hundred yards from my back door there are firs, holly trees with loads of berries (lots left for the birds), a pine and plenty of ivy some of which has the characteristic leaves, and some that has grown in light over a wall and has glossy oval leaves and seed heads.

Well, are we going to have a white Christmas? It looks as if we might. This is a shot from the kitchen window. This is the front garden robin as opposed to Robbles - whose photo I've posted previously - the back garden robin. A bit out of focus, and I will try to do better next time. I've left the camera by the window as I'm keen to get a shot of the most beautiful but shy mistle thrush that visits.

To join all the others having a pre-Christmas snoop round the workdesks of the world, nip along to Julia's. And a very Happy Christmas to all WOYWWers.

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 24

These past couple of weeks have been pretty busy with tag making, but I couldn't miss out on the current Compendium challenge organised by Linda from her Studio L3 blog. This is the 24th challenge and we are working from page 47 using Rock Candy Distress Stickles. My collage elements were sheet music, a French dictionary page and some bits of tissue tape. The stamps are all Tim ones. You can see only a bit of the shine on this, but I did manage to get it shiny all over.

All Christmas shopping now done and cards and parcels sent. Just as well as it's too icy and snowy to go out on the roads. Ideal crafting weather !

12 Tags of Christmas - Day 12

Well, here it is. A little late. Tag number 12 and improvisation every step of the way except for the Rock Candy Crackle.

Grungeboard bauble shape. Not sure what the paper is but the white stripes are glittered. A page from an old calendar coloured with Old Paper DI. Tim's corner stamp with embossing in Bladerubber Bronze EP.

A couple of weeks ago I collected some dinky little cones from a conifer while I was walking in the woods. Can I remember where I put them? Well, when I do find them, I'll put them with my crafting stuff for future use. I ended up rummaging in a pot pourri hoping to find some, but instead found some little roundish seed heads that had been dyed red. No little sprig of conifer handy, so I used a piece of tinsel. I gave it a quick blast with the heat gun which changes the texture and tones down the shine and makes it look a bit more like the texture of the real thing.

So that's the 12 tags for this year. It's been such fun working through them all.

Visit Artyjen's blog to see 500 plus tags that people round the world have produced, and Tim's to see where we got the ideas. Great stuff.

12 Tags of Christmas - Tag 11

Well, I'm getting there. Tag 11. I don't have the pines die, but I do have the embossing folder, so I ran it through the Big Shot with a piece of grungeboard and then cut out three of the trees. I decided I wanted to use ink and embossing powder on the trunks too. I used Walnut Stain DI and as I only have one brown Distress EP the choice of Tea Dye was made for me. I mixed some White Opal Liquid Pearls with some fine white glitter and painted it on as snow on the branches. Unfortunately the DIs bled into my mixture and we had green snow, so I ended up painting it over with white acrylic paint. Otherwise the rest of the tag is more or less what Lord Tim prescribed.

12 Tags of Christmas - Day 10

Loved making this tag. Don't have the snowman die but had a grungeboard snowman still in a pack of shapes. He's not quite the same but he fits on the tag. I only have a few dabbers, but I do have a range of acrylic paints so can mix them to get a range of colours. I made the holly sprig by stamping a Paper Artsy stamp on grungepaper, cutting it out and colouring it. Didn't have the embossing folder either, but I do have another snowflake one which I used here. I chose to use the big white brads as I thought they suggested snowballs. The tartan of the scarf is MacDonald !

12 Tags of Christmas - Day 9

Still trying to catch up. It's Day 12 and I'm still on Day 9. I managed to make this one much as per the description except for the stamps, embellishments and letters.

My set of alphabet dies is in a less chunky font. I think I sanded them a bit more than on Tim's version. Instead of the long fasteners, I used little gold embellishments called Dewdrops. I raided the button box to get something to put with the piece of net. The 'ribbon' is some white cotton tape coloured with Brushed Corduroy and Heirloom Gold. Stamps are Bladerubber and Crafty Individuals.

Another tag that's been lots of fun to do. To see hundreds of tags made by people from all over, go to Artyjen's blog.

12 Tags of Christmas - Day 8

Not much of this one is like Tim's original. I'd used the mask set for Hallowe'en, so it was good to use it again for Christmas, and I loved the intensity of the Fired Brick colour. Stamps were Bladerubber, Crafty Individuals, and Tim. I do have some of these metal corners, but wanted to save them for a bigger project, so I used Tim's corner stamp. Didn't have any of the stuff for embellishments so decided to add a few bits of my own and keep it simple.

12 Tags of Christmas - Day 7

I have certainly well and truly fallen behind with these tags. All the extra things we have to do pre-Christmas have got in the way. However, here is Tag number 7. I must confess that initially this didn't enthuse me too much as I have been rather put off poinsettias by seeing them by the hundreds in supermarkets - each plant factory-reared in conditions that no one could replicate at home, and destined to drop their leaves within days.

However, I soon got absorbed in the tag-creating process and thoroughly enjoyed making this one. The woodgrain background technique is fab. I do love Rock Candy Stickles. They should sell it in pint bottles ! Didn't have the Sizzix leaves, so instead used the Paper Artsy leaf die. It doesn't cut through grungepaper, but it embosses an impression which looks good, and you can cut out the shape. I only have two Adirondack Colour Wash sprays, and one of these happens to be Lettuce, so I used that with Shabby Shutters re-inker and Honeydew Glimmer Mist for the leaves; and Fired Brick and Barn Door re-inkers with Lava Red Cosmic Shimmer Mist for the flower. At the centre of the flower is a shirt button which I've painted with gold acrylic.

I had a rummage around among my remaining grungeboard letters but couldn't find the right ones to spell out an appropriate word, so scrabbled (!) in my box of chipboard letters and found four festive letters that would fit along the bottom of the tag. These are painted with white acrylic, coloured with Cranberry and Red Pepper alcohol inks and stamped upon with a Crafty Individuals stamp.

I found some toning green velvet ribbon which is flecked and edged with gold tinsel, and some gold twine and little bells to finish off the tag. And I have to say, I am so glad I did this tag. It was such fun.

WOYWW 79

Last Wednesday we had five inches of snow. As the week wore on I found the snow up over my wellies. The thaw came at the weekend, but for some reason the rail company still couldn't manage to run a train service, so I missed out on my planned trip to London. Since then it' s been freezing, and this morning we had the most stunning hoar frost the likes of which I have not seen for a long time. The trees, bushes, fields .... everything was covered in a magical frosting until well into the afternoon. I'm kicking myself now that too many distractions meant I didn't get any photos.

Anyway. It's Wednesday. The early hours of. And I'm still trying to catch up, and have a busy day ahead tomorrow. So here's my desk. There will be a full explanation at Julia's Stamping Ground blog as to why I am showing my work space.

There's lots of stuff on the shelves , on the table and in the baskets. Much of this relates to my attempts at the 12 Tags of Christmas, the annual Tim Holtz project. My card making is being neglected while I do the tags. However, I will use some of the tags as gift tags. One of the benefits of taking part in the project is getting the opportunity to try out new ideas. For me this leads to a lot of improvisation on the materials front, and I have been rooting in every cupboard, drawer and box, and, another benefit, finding stuff I didn't even remember I had, and using it.

As I've been doing the tags, I've been debating with myself on why and how I'm taking part. If I do something that is a copy, I feel a certain dissatisfaction. My instinct would be to produce whatever I am moved to produce. Then I reason that if I'm following someone else's directions, it is because I am learning from that person - about materials, about techniques. Yet when I am following someone else's ideas, I often end up producing something I'm not really happy with. So my conclusion? Just keep inking and painting and whatever. Seeing what others do can be inspirational, and from that inspiration I can produce something that is me.

Other stuff I am doing? I am using the gold spray on some Christmas decs which are hanging up to dry in the kitchen at the moment. Hope to post the finished items before too long.

12 Tags of Christmas - Day 6

Tag number six already ! Improvisation as usual. I started off this one using a grungeboard reindeer shape and mixing turquoise and white acrylic paints to get a soft colour, but otherwise keeping pretty much to the instructions. I really liked the combination of the DI and acrylic colours, and decided I didn't want to introduce the Christmassy green and red, so the rest of the decor is white, gold, soft turquoise, crystal and pearl.

12 Tags of Christmas - Day 5

This tag I absolutely loved doing. Managed quite well for materials too, but had to improvise in the absence of numerals, white UTEE, Fired Brick EP, metal foliage and sparkly fluff in my stock of goodies. I used Tim's Santa stamp, an Elusive Images holly stamp and a Bladerubber greeting stamp. I do have little silver bells somewhere, but needless to say, couldn't find them when they were needed, so used ribbons, fibres and a silver star instead. Santa has had a sprinking of white glitter on his white bits. The photo doesn't really show the textures, Stickles or glitter to best effect.

This next photo shows where most of the improvisation was done. For the numbers I used grungeboard shapes, and I mixed Bladerubber white EP with clear UTEE. For the flower and foliage I used little hand punches on the silver side of black Ten Seconds Studio metal to cut the shapes. The leaves are holly at the bottom and a fern-like leaf to the right. The larger base part of the flower is done with one of these sets where you have a punch that cuts and one that embosses. I used metal tools to shape the smaller part of the flower. I couldn't use the embossing ink pad as I would have squashed the shaped flowers, so I squeezed a little embossing pad re-inker on my craft sheet and painted the flowers, leaves and a round metal brad with the re-inker and sprinkled Peeled Paint EP on the leaves and Ranger Chinese Red on the flowers and brad. When I heated the powder, the places where I hadn't painted the re-inker remained silver.

To see more Christmas tags, visit Artyjen. Bring on Tag No 6 !

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 23

We have now reached Challenge No 23 set from the Compendium by Linda at Studio L3. This time it's the Double Distress technique on page 40. I used a holly embossing folder and Tim's trees, and dark colours to reflect the dark nights of winter, but with some Stickles highlights to bring in a little Christmas cheer.

12 Tags of Christmas - Day 4

One of the key features of Tim's Day 4 tag was the facet with the snowflake design on it. Not having any facets, I decided to try fragments, and inked up a circle and an oval, and stamped and blotted as per instructions. It didn't work at all, so I cleaned the fragments off with blending solution, washed them in soapy water and dried them. I tried again and this time it worked. I decided to make holes in them with the Cropodile. Did the circle first. No problem. Did the oval next and managed to split it into two pieces ! Then I decided the circle was too big for this piece, so it was back to the drawing board, and I managed to produce the small oval that you see below. Success at last ! The only reason I can think of for the fragments not working first time may be that I used the heat gun on the AIs, and I didn't with the ones that turned out OK.

I didn't have any Christmassy paper, so I opted to have another go at the background I created for Tag One. I'm quite partial to a bit of glitz at Christmas time, so I rummaged in the bling boxes and then had a tug-of-war with kitty over the ribbony bits. At the bottom there are three rows of silver balls. Over the card there are five glittery star/flower shapes. At the top there is silver ribbon, plain and curly, a length of faceted silver balls, three shiny blue cut glass beads, and that fragment. Now that I am writing this, I have realised that the 'Dream' adage ticket that I inked with Faded Jeans, smothered in Rock Candy and set aside to try is missing from my picture ! Will add it tomorrow when it is dry ! The finished tag is really glittery. More so than the impression the photo gives.

To see lots more tags that people have created visit Artyjen.

12 Tags of Christmas - Day 3

I loved making the background on this tag. The colours of the inks blended so well, so I shall be using this combo again. I also loved the effect of the droplets of water and of Tim's script stamp. The branch stamp is Artemio, and the bird is made as Tim made his, with tissue tape, grungeboard and Rock Candy Stickles. The nest is ribbon and fibres stuck with Glossy Accents. I would have been quite happy to leave it at that with a bit of lace, tinsel and ribbon as embellishments, but decided to try to complete the exercise and add the picture and flower too.

I was a bit stuck about what to use for the little picture, but while searching for the tinsel, I decided to tidy up the drawer where I keep my gift wrapping stuff. Of course this was paradise to a one year old cat, and she found the tinsel for me, and all the other strings, tapes and ribbons, and pandemonium ensued. Anyway I found some little old fashioned gift tags, and have used the picture from one here. I didn't want to use up all my tissue tape making the flower, so instead I used the two smallest flower dies, cut several of each from sheets of music, and coloured them with the green DIs.

Twelve Tags of Christmas - Day 2

For the second tag in Tim Holtz' Twelve Tags of Christmas I had none of the felt stuff. I thought of just putting the distress colours on with paintbrushes, but decided to experiment with some felt which has a synthetic content and is what I use on my alcohol ink applicator. I placed the felt on my craft mat which sits on top of a sheet of foam that I use when stamping. At first I used a bit too much ink and had to blot it with kitchen towel. However, the end result isn't too bad. I've put the felt in a plastic bag as Tim suggests in the hope that I can use it again. If it turns out that I can't use it, then it won't have been a very economical use of the inks, and I will just put it down to experience.

'Nollaig Chridheil' is 'Merry Christmas' in Scots Gaelic. The little tree is made of dark green glass. The 'baubles' are wooden beads painted gold and attached with eye pins to a jump ring. The inks are the same colours Tim used, and the tag looks bluer in real life than it does in the photo. Don't know what make the robin stamp is, but the other stamps are Crafty Individuals, Heritage Scotland and Tim.

First Tag of Christmas

Yesterday Tim Holtz started his 12 Tags of Christmas for 2010. For me it was a case of improvisation to have a go at Tag No 1 as I have neither the dies nor some of the materials that he used.

I used a Crafty Individuals chipboard house as a template to cut the shape from a piece of grey board (the back of an old paper pad) and ran this through the brickwork embossing folder. Thought the chipboard looked a bit brittle to survive the Big Shot. Used a CI picket fence shape as a template to make a longer stretch of picket fence out of the grey board which is more bendy than the chipboard. Have all the paints and inks, so no problem there, and I substituted Pearl Glimmer Mist for the Perfect Pearls spray. Under normal circumstances I would have had a rummage in the garden or hedgerows to find some twiggy bits for the tree embellishment, but as it's all under a foot of snow at the moment, I had to pass on that and I used some sparkly flowers I found in my box of tricks. Had to make my own version of the ticket. Surprise finds among my stash were the ribbon which was actually lying on the table and looks remarkably like the stuff Tim used, and I didn't know I had; and the little star which I also didn't know I had ! Have tried several times without success to get a decent photo to show colours and textures.

I've mentioned in a previous post my little friend, Robbles who turns up every morning when I am feeding the chickens, and helps himself to a few layers' pellets from my bucket. Since the snow has arrived he has appeared every time I'm in the garden and of course he gets something to eat each time. I've grown really fond of him so can never resist trying to get a few pictures.

Keep warm everyone. Get those woolly jumpers out.

First WOYWW of December

I'm up late having lost track of time trying to do a few more Christmas cards. As I'm at the stage of waiting for Stickles to dry, and it is the very early hours of Wednesday, and my desk will still look the same when I wake further into Wednesday, I decided to post now. So here's the desk with what I've been doing with a Kaleidacolor pad, Crafty Individuals stamps and Stickles. They don't look much at the moment, but I'm hoping that when they're dry, they will look good. I've already made some ATCs with a similar design.

I'm still loving the tiered basket I showed you last week. You just lob stuff into it. How do you like my puss cat on the top shelf?

He's heavy and clunky and made of metal bits and springs.

Speaking of felines, Charlie is tucked up in bed after having spent quite a lot of time outside in the cold and snow. He's quite an old boy now and has a dicky ticker, so was very brave to be out. He's had a lovely snooze all evening long.

You may have noticed some puncture marks and a tear in the bed. These were caused by Daisby (posh name Daisybelle), Charlie's housemate, who routinely transports said bed up and down stairs. Daisby has another habit which, I confess, I do find very touching. When she wants to play, she brings me her toy of choice. Now I do have to say that on the two occasions when I have found her standing over me, toy in mouth, at 4 am, I haven't been terribly touched. Nor am I particularly happy when some object clatters on to the dinner table just as I'm about to take a mouthful of food. However, it is now a matter of routine, morning and evening, that the little princess brings to me her current favourite toy to instigate some play. When it's the squeaky mouse or the miniature teddy bear, I oblige by throwing it across the room and Daisby retrieves. It is quite satisfying as she places the toy in front of me, and there's none of the fighting for it that you get with a dog. However, her recent favourite toys have been creatures attached to elastic attached to sticks, and these you have to swing and swish and swirl while she leaps and pounces. I'm sure you will appreciate that it is not something you really want to be doing while rubber stamping. However, I have now contrived to do this by hurling the whole kit and caboodle - toy, elastic and stick. Of course, she dutifully retrieves, but it gives me just that bit longer to do the next stage of my inking and painting. Here's her latest favourite toy - with a festive theme and with glittery paws, and bells on. I had to buy Rudolph Reindeer only last week, as its predecessor, Skinny Cat, fell apart through excessive use.

And here young Daisby is, rushing to bring me the retrieved toy. I do apologise for the poor quality of the photo, but this is the best of the bunch. She's so fast that either she doesn't appear in it at all or she's just a blur.

Well, I mentioned snow at some point and we'd been promised it for the past week. It finally started last night. Now it's still autumn. You can see that from the beautiful colours of the leaves on the trees outside my front window. We expect snowy wintery photos to show leafless trees.

It has snowed steadily all day, but very lightly, so it's not horrendously deep. More snow is forecast, and I'm all stocked up with logs and provisions, and Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas is about to start, so bring it on. Happy Wednesday all. I'll look out my window over the fields while I ink and paint and stamp and stick.

All these ramblings and the mention of WOYWW mean that you need to connect with Julia's blog to find out what it's all about, and have a good old snoop around other peoples' work spaces.

WOYWW 77

Push back and pile high is a technique many of us use to reclaim a bit of desk surface to work on. Well, how's about this for a way of being able to cram more on. For some time I'd fancied having one of those tiered wire basket sets, and now I've got one, it's just brilliant for chucking stuff into. It can be stuff I'm currently using or stuff I need to put away. Of course, we all know what could happen. The whole lot could collapse under the weight of accumulated stash. For the moment it lets you see a bit of bare table and what I'm currently doing.

On the left is box with a drawer in it. I made it at our stamping club last week from card covered with paper, and I did some stamping on the top. It is now waiting for further embellishment and to have some ribbon attached as a handle for the drawer. I've also been playing with dies, making frames and rosettes. The frames are for photos in my yearbook, and I'm hoping to incorporate rosettes into some of my Christmas cards and gift tags.

For the opportunity to have a nosey round a multitude of crafters' desks, zip on over to Julia's Stamping Ground blog. Happy Wednesday.

CCC 22 - Alcohol Ink Splatter (in autumn !)

I love this technique on page 52 of the Compendium of Curiosities. I first tried it when I found a can of air on special offer at a local stationers, and am hoping to use it again to make some Christmas cards, though I fear there may not be much more air left in the can ! CCC is my favourite challenge, and I am hoping that when we have got through all the techniques, Linda at Studio L3 will have devised a way of letting us do it all again, or Tim will have produced another book !

I wanted to make a snowy icy Christmassy page using blues and pearl and silver mixative. However, when I got to the stamping stage, you will see that I'd been a bit heavy handed with the silver mixative in places where I wanted to stamp.

So back to the drawing board, and time to try a design for a Christmas card with different colours and this time some gold used more sparingly.

As we're well into November now, and even though I am still enjoying the autumn colours, I have let myself start to think about Christmas and got my box of festive stamps out ready to start on cards. We've had lots of disgustingly wet and windy days, but these have been interspersed with beautifully clear dry sunny ones.

On one recent walk to enjoy the autumn colours, when I climbed over the wall at the top of my garden, three sheep were staring at me, but two decided to make off.

Then the third turned her back on me and strode out across the field which is strewn with fallen oak leaves.

Here there are oak, hawthorn and holly trees. A couple of frosts towards the end of October started the turn of the leaves on the deciduous trees. Some oaks have lost their leaves, which I think have mostly ended up in my garden !

On some the leaves are brown and look golden in the sunlight.

On others they are still mostly green and clinging on to life.

There are plenty of holly berries at the moment, but by the time I want some for Christmas decs, the birdies will have devoured most of them.

We lost many of our old oak trees in the Great Storm of 1987 when they blocked our road for two days while local people worked with a chainsaw to remove them. The devastation was indeed a sad sight. But there are lots of young oaks growing.

When I first saw this young oak uprooted, I felt very sad.

Then I took a closer look, and realised that it still had roots in the ground and was very much alive.

What were limbs now appear to consider themselves trunks and are reaching for the sky. An amazing sight. What will happen? Presumably at some point their weight may prove too much for the root system, but I guess if it does succumb, it may not be in my lifetime !

Another tree common in this area is the silver birch. The sunlight in this one drew my attention and admiration. A real metallic look: the silver bark and the golden leaves.

From the field there is a fine view of mixed woodland where it is so peaceful to walk.

More autumn scenes.