WOYWW

I was fascinated to see other people's working spaces, so decided to photograph mine with the surface semi-tidy and join in for the first time with Julia's WOYWW.

My space doesn't lend itself to tidiness as it is far too small for all the stuff I have accumulated, but I may not be alone in this situation ! It's basically a small table, and spaces left on shelves after the books have claimed most of the surface. As long as I've got my stamping mat and craft mat, I'm happy.

On the desk at the moment are grungepaper flowers coloured with distress inks and stamped and pegged together till the Glossy Accents sets.

They're back

For many years I enjoyed looking out of my front windows in Spring and, over the early months of the year, following the progress of a fieldful of ewes and lambs. Watching the lambs at play made me smile and I often found myself laughing out loud at their antics; to see this vibrant new young life was one of the pleasures of Spring. However, about three years ago the field remained empty when Spring arrived, and although there is still a big flock behind my house, I missed the usual sights and sounds greeting me when I opened my bedroom curtains. It turned out that the land at the front had been sold. Much to my delight last year a small herd of beautiful Sussex cattle were moved into the field. I hadn't seen them for a bit, and was missing them until lo and behold, they appeared again this week with babies.

There they were grazing in the pouring rain with the little ones huddling under the trees for shelter.

All lying down. Hope this doesn't mean it's going to rain again.

Tried a fun way of making a set of ATCs. Read about it in an article in Craft Stamper by Jo Firth-Young. You stick ATCs together in a strip with masking tape on the back, then on the front you decorate said strip. I followed the suggested methods of decoration: clear embossing some text on each as a resist to the ink used to colour the card, and then stamping and embellishing. A quick and easy way to produce a set where each is different but clearly part of the set.

Printed Matter

There's been plenty of action at the craft table these past ten days, but no camera to record it. It's not so long since the manufacturers repaired my camera free of charge to rectify a recognised fault, and it is now suffering from what appears to be yet another recognised fault. Grrrrr .......... So I have resorted to working with an unfamiliar camera, and despite trying lots of different settings, I can't quite capture how things look in real life.

Anyway, my latest enthusiasm is using old printed materials, and the idea came from this month's meeting of our local stamping club. The brief, in preparation for our club evening, was to gather old books, maps, anything printed, from charity shops, car boot sales, jumble sales, etc. Some members asked charity shops for any old books in too poor a condition to sell, and offered a donation for them. It's interesting how most people have huge guilt about cutting up books, so I think it kind of salves the conscience to use ones that are already damaged and would only be thrown away anyway. My 'book' was the remnants of a 1900 edition of "The Story of Florence."

There were lots of beautiful cards made using these kinds of materials. One effective technique used shapes produced by using punches, but my favourite was resist embossing. I used tags as the base, distress inks for the colour and archival for the stamping. I decorated both sides, but with my camera troubles, I decided to attempt capturing only the front of each.

There's smearings of stickles on these, and the clear embossing to create the resist gives a shine. I love the two pussycats stamp from Cherry Pie. It reminds me of Charlie Poppins, my ginger tom, and his partner-in-crime, the sweet little Daisy Tortoiseshell who was run over last year. They were bestest friends and I actually have a photo of them with tails entwined. I liked the suggestion from the text that the two on the tag might be called Dante and Boccaccio.

This next one is more resist, plus stamping, plus gold embossing, and painting with distress inks. The base card is textured.

And this one has the addition of Perfect Pearls. Not that the dratted camera picks up the PPs.

More Fun !!

First of all, Sunday was fun. Our local craft shop owner organised a coach trip to the Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show in London at Alexandra Palace - or Ally Pally as it is affectionately known. The weather was gloriously sunny for our journey, and London is already quite leafy, and Spring blossom bedecks many trees.

Ally Pally as a venue is excellent, even if it was a trifle overheated on Sunday. On the outside there are extensive fascinating views over the city, and many famous landmarks can be identified.

On the inside it would be good if the organisers gave their exhibitors a bit more space on their stands, as we often had to abandon trying to see a stand or a demo because it was too crowded, and go back later.

The show was packed with goodies - including lots of the new products. I found the stamps that were on my shopping list, and a few more ! Found a bargain swirly floral border die for my Big Shot, and that gorgeous new Tim Holtz hearts, wings and crown die. Whoopee !

As usual a highlight was Lin's demos at the LB Crafts stand. More new Viva products beckon, and have gone on my shopping list for next month. Was so engrossed in the demos that I didn't get round to taking any photos of them and the finished works of art.

Meanwhile back at the craft table I've had these acrylic dabbers out again and have been merrily spritzing them with water and slamming them down on black card which I used as a background for some ATCs. We have a swap at our monthly stamping club, and this month's theme is Male.

Fun !!!

Found myself passing my craft desk when the urge came to try out a technique I had read about on Monday on Jo's Jozart blog and from where I followed the link to Patti Behan's pages and videos. Thank you both for your inspiration. Anyway, I just had to sit down and have a go. This is the Acrylic Dabber Splatter technique, and I found it so much fun that I was giggling and squealing like a two-year-old.

Jo and Patti are right about it being messy. That's what makes it so much fun ! I managed to get my tee-shirt sprayed, but as a certain little lady had only five minutes before left dirty pawprints on it when she emerged from the fireplace and hurled herself into my arms, it was about to go in the wash anyway. However, the paint can travel quite a distance when you're in full splatter mode, so it's advisable to cover up everything in the vicinity.

This particular example uses Lettuce, Eggplant and Stream acrylic dabbers, black archival ink, some Paper Artsy stamps and the Lost Coast rabbit.

Spring chickens

Spring seems very reluctant to visit us this year. We've had fair quantities of snow in December, January and February, and in this neck of the woods, it's unusual to have more than one small sprinkling each winter. March has been cold and dull. The result of all this is that the landscapes are still bleak and bare. Generally by this time the daffodils are fading, but this year they are still shy buds. However, the hedgerows have cheerful patches of sunny primroses to brighten our days, and from my garden comes a plentiful supply of eggs of all colours.

The other day I stopped off to purchase some card, and just by chance there happened to be a big bargain box of rubber stamps in the shop. I couldn't resist the rooster one, and back at the craft table out came the inks to produce some ATCs.

Am loving these new distress ink colours.

ATC books

Fifteen ATC books now put together and ready to go in the post. You make a book with an ATC on the cover for a specific person and enough space in the book for four contributors each to add an ATC. The fourth participant passes it on to the intended recipient.

Some books I've made with folded card and ribbon, with ATCs done with distress and archival inks ....

Inside these, to hold the ATCs, I made some little envelopes which I stuck together to form a strip.

Some books are made with the bind-it-all.

Distress and archival inks again with a bit of embossing.

And distress ink resist on white embossing with frosted lace stickles.