WOYWW 123

Another Wednesday morning. A cloudy sky, but enough sunshine and warmth to make it a pleasant day. Time to pop over to Julia's to collect the keys to a whole load of work rooms across the world.

This week sees my table remarkably clear. That's 'cos I had a tidy up after putting the finishing touches to the desk tidy which was the project at Neil Walker's most enjoyable Sunday workshop at the Craft Barn. I'm either going to have to have a bit of shuffle round to be able to accommodate it on my postage stamp desk top, or place it on the adjacent surface. Attached on the right hand side of the tidy is a little notebook with a new cover to fit in with the general look.

On the other side the flower and cat embellishments are made from clay cut with cookie cutters and coloured with Butternut Fresco paint. The cat's stripes are stamped with Venetian Orange archival ink.

The little clay cat is to remind me of my lovely Charlie who is missed so much. It's just over two weeks since it became clear that his medication was no longer dealing with his health problems. I always get so attached to these furry friends, so to lose one is very upsetting. Here he is in the garden where he loved to snooze in the sun, or stalk mice and shrews. A shy but very affectionate boy. I think his fifteen years were really happy ones.

WOYWW

The things at the front of the workdesk this morning were deposited there yesterday when I had a tidy up of the kitchen table. Periodically I set up there when I think I am going to be messier than usual. In this instance I was playing with various new goodies from the recent Ally Pally Big Stamp show, and having a go at a technique shown by Lin Brown of LB Crafts involving Viva Terra, the potentially messy bit. Love watching Lin's demos. Always so inspirational for me.

My favourite Ally Pally purchase was some Pan Pastels. Now I already have pastels in stick form in my Box of Colours, so I told myself I didn't need more, but these Pan ones seemed different, so I decided to dip my toe in the water with four colours. Trying out what Lin had shown us was lots of fun and I loved the effects achieved. The stick pastels in my box don't work for these techniques, but it did make me experiment with my neglected palettes of chalks which also produce some pleasing effects. And of course, as you can see I have added some new colours to my Pan Pastel stock.



For the chance to peek at workdesks across the world, call in at Julia's. Happy Wednesday.

WOYWW & SSSS

Who said it was allowed to be Wednesday again so quickly? However, it does mean that over at Julia's Stamping Ground you can grab the chance to have a good old unashamed snoop at other people's workspaces.

Later this week is our local stamping club meeting, so I have been working on my double page spread in a circle journal with an inchies and twinchies theme - trying not to leave it to absolutely the last moment.

One way or another, the pages have been embossed within an inch of their lives, so it certainly fits this week's challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show where the theme is embossing.

The background of the left hand page is last week's Grungy Monday theme - clear embossing on distress ink with more DI applied on top - in this case Tumbled Glass and Walnut Stain. The swirl is embossed with a Ranger gold powder, and the Stampbord pieces are clear embossed on top of Tumbled Glass and Coffee Archival stamping with Magenta and Inkadinkado stamps.

The right hand page has brown metal inchies embossed first in the Big Shot and then with hand tools, and then sanded and coloured with Stream alcohol ink, and another set of inchies made from card, stamped and clear embossed. There's a metal embossed bird and another two birds and a cage all treated with EPs, and the background is stamped with a Tim flourish embossed in Cosmic Shimmer Lapis Black Aurora.

Grungy Monday 15

This week Linda at Studio L3 has directed us to one of Tim's Holtz' 12 Tags techniques for the Grungy Monday challenge. You can find instructions here on Tim's blog.

I decided to go along with Tim's choice of background colours - Shabby Shutters and Vintage Photo. I used these same colours on the fragment of torn card. Can't remember where I got the stamp. In the little square I again used these colours plus Walnut Stain to stamp with a Paperbag Studios stamp, and then I coloured with Tea Dye DI. The cage and bird are of course cut from Tim's dies. I used the background technique again on the card that I cut the bird from, and its eye is a clear sparkly crystal coloured with Rust AI. The cage was painted with gold dabber, then embossed with Tea Dye Distress EP and rubbed with Vintage Photo DI. The rose is made from white card coloured with Tea Dye and Walnut Stain.

This week's vase of flowers from the garden. Generally speaking when choosing roses for my garden, I went for beautifully perfumed repeating roses. However, at one point I rescued some 50p roses from the waifs and strays section in a garden centre. They may not have a perfume, but they certainly are prolific and have sweet little flowers which last extremely well in a vase.

And also in the garden some of the babies who are now six weeks old. They are feathered up, except for their backs, and could leave mum, but she doesn't seem to have got tired of them yet. At this age the feathers on their hocks and feet are a bit out of proportion to the rest of their bodies, but they will grow into them eventually !

Tag It On 86: The Age of Chivalry

I loved the theme of the Dragon's Dream Tag It On challenge this week: The Age of Chivalry. It set me thinking of illuminated manuscripts, French medieval literature and courtly love. I have to confess though that only one stamp sprang to mind for use on this theme and that was the background manuscript one from Elusive Images; so I had to trawl through my boxes and draw up a short list. The ones that made it on to the card were the Crafty Individuals border one, the Elusive Images unicorn and the Cherry Pie Belle Ferronniere.

I die cut the tag from manila cardstock and clear embossed the manuscript stamp. Then I applied Antique Linen, Tea Dye and Walnut Stain DIs with a blending tool. The rest of the stamping is in Coffee Archival, and the colouring in DIs and Inktense pencils.

I really wanted to use the little Elusive Images silhouette castle, but it didn't fit in, so I ended up putting it behind a facet. My plan is eventually to put all my tags in an album instead of just having them pile up on a shelf. So the facet can go in the album along with the little rose I made from card coloured with Tea Dye and Walnut Stain.

Sunday Stamper and Simon Says

This week Simon Says Stamp and Show a Flourish, and the Hels' Sunday Stamper theme is Writing, so I decided to use these themes in a birthday card that I have just been out to post. The Tim background stamp is one of my favourites, and is appropriate here as my friend is French. So it's a clear EP resist against Dusty Concord, Weathered Wood, Broken China and Spun Sugar Distress Stains, spritzed with Pearl Glimmer Mist. The flourish is cut with a Sizzix die from Coredinations card and painted with silver dabber so that the texture of the card still shows through. The metal flower is from one of those useful pieces of Primark bling that you can take to pieces and have lots of bits to use as embellishments. The glass was a die-cut from silver holographic card, and has been in my bits and pieces box for years. It looks much better coloured with silver dabber, and has a textured finish.

Grungy Monday 14

Well, one way or another it has been quite a Grungy Monday. The day started with a large flock of sheep taking a wrong turning. I guess the adventure began with just one or two of the little woolly creatures taking a diversion, and the rest followed like a load of ........ well, sheep. Anyway, they left the road, came all the way down our little lane and took a left into my garden trampling my seedlings in the process. The farmer and his dozy collie took some time to catch up with them, during which time my old cat was looking very grumpy and irritable having had his snooze in the sun interrupted, and having to put up with a huge chorus of loud baa-ing and bleating. Looking on the bright side, they did leave quite a number of little gifts which I shall collect tomorrow and put in a pail of water to use as liquid fertiliser at a later date. It's good stuff. My old neighbour used to swear by it when replanting her cyclamen corms, and each year would send her hubby down the fields with a large bucket.

The rest of the grunginess was indoors and involved me following Tim Holtz' directions to create a resist for a Distress Ink and Perfect Pearls cocktail in order to join in with Linda's Studio L3 challenge. My first attempt was using Black Soot/Pewter, Pumice Stone/Pearl and Fired Brick/Gold. I had a feeling that things weren't going to work out. These colours did make a gorgeous background, but as they were so dark, I had to do my stamping in White Adirondack, and I just didn't like it on the tag which is now consigned to my scraps box. However, I will use the rest of these mixes on a book cover.

My next attempt involved Victorian Velvet/Blush, Faded Jeans/Gold and Worn Lipstick/Pearl. There were also a few squirts of Dusty Concord added to the mix. The background text stamping doesn't show up very well in the photo. The rest of the stamping is in Faded Jeans, Stormy Sky and black Archival, and stamps used are Tim, Paperbag Studios and Wendy Vecchi. The flower is a Tattered Floral stamped with a WV checked design stamp and spritzed with the Victorian Velvet mix, and the ribbon is coloured with V Velvet too.