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 !