Wednesday

Morning all. It's the day when Julia over at Stamping Ground calls upon us to reveal all about our work desks with her What's on your Workdesk Wednesday, and we all get the chance to have a good old snoop.

Well, mine has evidence of bits and pieces of crafting, but not much in the way of finished articles. I did some embossing on metal, grunged it up a bit and put filler on the back, but I haven't decided what to do with it yet. Then there are the card backgrounds using distress re-inkers and the salt technique, and the assorted grungepaper die cuts, and a couple of cards.

The cards started out as rather bright pink shiny card but I covered them with Versamagic. The swirly one is finished but the Stampington one needs a bit more work.

I've got my crafting bags out ready to pack for our club evening tomorrow. We all go laden with supplies, but there are always mutterings round the table about what we've forgotten to bring or should have brought.

And lastly a shufti at another area of the shelves.

Have a happy Wednesday !

Blossom Time

I've got four apple trees in the garden - three eaters and a wonderful Bramley which provides the ingredient for delicious pies, crumbles and wines. They're all laden with blossom this year. I love the veins that pattern the petals.

And in contrast, a couple of Stampotique girls with distress inks, Perfect Pearls and embossing on a tag.

What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday

Time for another post to take part in Julia's WOYWW at her Stamping Ground blog.

This week I haven't got round to wiping up the paint I was using to colour an embellishment, nor to putting away all of my weekend purchases. Plenty of naked wood and board to keep me busy.

I did actually get a bit more stuff which I have secreted in various nooks and crannies. Some new colours of acrylic paint, a couple of DI re-inkers and Tim's birdcage die.

The next photo is a bit more of the bookcase area. The little wooden case contains my acrylic paints, and I aim to decorate the case at some point.

Enjoy the nose around, and have a happy week.

Sshhhhhh....... It's a secret ........

Well, I'm back from my travels to the Artsycrafts Weekend. As there's another one in a couple of weeks time, we're sworn to secrecy about what we did, so as not to spoil things for the new participants. All I can say is that they are in for a fantastic weekend.

Five minutes into my journey I found myself sitting for 15 minutes in traffic.
However, the sun was shining, and I was listening to the post-election programmes on the radio. With slow traffic on the M25 and M1, the journey took 45 minutes longer than it should have, but there were two treats at the end of it: a browse and one or two purchases (well, yes, a few more than a two - but my birthday is coming up) at Lin's shop; and, as they say in Scotland, a fish supper.

We inked, painted, stamped, embossed, cut, snipped, sanded, smooshed and skootched from 8.30 am till after 9 pm on the Saturday, and from 8.30 till 5 on the Sunday. We renewed acquaintances from previous weekends, and met more new people from all parts of the UK and beyond. What a luxury to be able to do all this for a whole weekend without having to worry about all the other things that would normally compete for our creative time. And to sit down to meals without having had to do any cooking.

In the final session I decide to introduce a little red into my project, and ended up with hands looking as if I had just butchered a rabbit. As I drove home I looked down on these hands, still stained blood red, fingers of various hues, and nails with blotches of paint and specks of other art products on and under them. When I stopped for petrol, it crossed my mind that if any crimes of violence had been committed in the area, I would be reported as the number one suspect.

A good drive back, listening to favourite music, until four miles from home I find a level crossing closed for the weekend, and I have to do a 12 mile detour. Sweet to be home after a great weekend.

Luckily I had kept today free, but was up bright and early, sticking the final embellishments on my projects before going to collect my furbabies. Charlie P had done a lot of snoozing, and a fair amount of tutting at 'Young Cats Today,' while the Young Cat had disgraced herself by performing Wall of Death routines on the walls and ceiling of their run, and escaping three times from the run into the wider precinct of the cattery.

So no arty crafty pics today, as they would be ones from the weekend, or ones inspired by the weekend. However, I can guarantee there will be some of my shopping on my desk to ogle come Wednesday.

Thursday 6 May 2010

On the way to the polling station this evening I paused to look at the ewes and lambs. They were grazing peacefully. I expect the little dears were almost worn out after a day's gambolling, and the ewes from watching them.

You always know when you have reached the polling station.

These wild rhoddies get everywhere.

Must be a very relaxed day for the officials here. Each time I've voted there has never been another soul in sight, but this time I saw someone leave just as I was approaching. Obviously rush hour in our village.

Normally I'd sit up into the wee small hours watching the election results programmes on TV, but I need to get my sleep tonight as I've a drive ahead of me tomorrow to get to the Artsy Craftsy Weekend. I am now rubbing my hands with glee. Soon to be inkier and paintier than on a normal weekend. We know that the theme is Flights of Fancy, so we'll be working on birds and cages and dragonflies. Favourite themes of mine, so I'll be in crafting heaven.

More ATCs required for a swap, so I've done a few one-offs.

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.