WOYWW 108

"What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday?" asks Julia at Stamping Ground for the 108th time. Well, see what's on mine.

The alcohol inks are left over from my work on Tuesday on the Grungy Monday challenge. The assorted die-cuts I have fished out a of bits-and-pieces box in the hope that some might be part of a journal page collage. The glue gun I had plugged in yesterday morning to use to attach some flowers to a tag. Only I got distracted (not unusual) and some minutes later ended up with a large blob of molten glue on the craft sheet. Speaking of craft sheets, have you noticed how clean mine is? That's because this is a new one, and a jumbo one at that. Covers the whole table. The old one was horribly stained, or should I say beautifully stained, and had bits snipped out of its edges where I'd got a bit reckless with the scissors. I've kept it for use when crafting on the move. In the middle in front of the wire basket is a tag which is a new attempt at last week's GM challenge, the one using clear EP as a resist to acrylic paint on Tim papers. Still to be finished. Oh, and the two white porcelain containers sitting one inside the other are always to hand. Originally I thought I would use them as water pots when painting, but they now have a different and important purpose. I keep a baby wipe in the bottom one. I often find that when I've used a wipe, it's not messy enough to throw away, so I pop it into one little bowl and put the other bowl on top. The wipe stays moist ready for use another day. Waste not, want not !

Happy Wednesday, folks.

Grungy Monday 13

This week's challenge at Linda's Studio L3 is to use alcohol inks as demoed by Tim in this five minute video on the Ranger website. And how about this, it's only Tuesday and I've completed this Grungy Monday piece. Am off to polish my halo.

I've long been a fan of AIs, and I use them quite a lot. For this challenge I decided to have a rummage through all my inks, and play around with the ones I had perhaps used less. As it turned out, I realised that I don't use the range of lights as much as I could. So today I chose Cool Peri, Willow and Pink Sherbet to colour the background, the roses and the ribbon. The edges are coloured with Black Soot DI and the stamps are Stampfrancisco and Tanda in Black Archival. I don't know where the quote came from: it's just one of those stamps in my Words & Phrases box without a label !

I was quite pleased with how this had turned out as I was planning for it to be a friend's birthday gift tag. The colours look good on the glossy card background. Just a shame my photography doesn't capture the effect. However, I'm not alone in this. Recently I saw a display of artwork which also appears on a blog, and was so glad to have been able to see it in real life to appreciate the textures and colours and dimensional effects that the camera had not captured.

Grungy Monday 12

A bit behind again with my Grungy Monday challenge over at Linda's Studio L3, but better late, as they say....

This week we're visiting Tim's Technique Challenge dating back to April 2008. For this I chose some of the blue paper from Tim's Vintage Shabby pad, raw umber acrylic paint and a Lost Coast stamp. Couldn't get card to go through my Dymo, so ended up using the black tape that was already in there, covering it with acrylic paint and then sanding the paint off. Wish I could have got a better picture of it.

I know I'm going to be trying this technique again. I want to try with paper that has several colours on it as Tim did, and I want to experiment with getting some kind of card to go through my Dymo. Thanks, Linda, for another fun challenge.

WOYWW 107

Another Wednesday and time to slip over to Stamping Ground, the HQ of Julia, Inspector-in-Chief of Desks.

I have a mini-mess this week. Mostly stamps I've been playing with and haven't put away, because I'm going to play some more. Or at least, that's my excuse. There's also a couple of die-cut butterflies that I've embossed with UTEE and plan to stamp and embellish. There's also a die-cut jalopy that I'm painting, and a background I've embossed and coloured with AIs. The plan is that the jalopy and background should be part of a birthday card.

As I've inflicted a mess on you, I'll make amends by showing you some pics from my visit to the gardens at Sissinghurst yesterday. The White Garden was looking beautiful as usual. Didn't take any views of it this time - only snaps of individual plants.

Delphinium.

Eryngium, a favourite with the bees.

Foxgloves.

And in another part of the garden a plant that I'd never seen before. A cardiocrinum giganteum or Giant Himalayan Lily. Apparently they've waited years for it to flower, and there was great excitement among the gardeners as they saw it was about to bloom. I understand that they die after flowering leaving behind some offsets which then take three to five years to flower. Patience definitely required with this lady.

Happy Wednesday all.

Grungy Monday 11

All the details of the batik technique in this week's challenge from Linda at Studio L3 can be found here at Tim Holtz' blog. Many thanks, Linda, for another fun challenge.

For my piece I've used Scattered Straw, Wild Honey, Rusty Hinge, Brushed Corduroy and Walnut Stain DIs, and Lost Coast and Crafty Individuals stamps.

In my vase this week are Aloha, Shropshire Lad, Albertine and Madame Isaac Pereire, and the winner in the perfume stakes is the lovely Bourbon rose Mme Pereire, the vivid pink Rosa on the right. However, I do love Albertine too. Her blooms are loose and blowsy, very characteristic in shape, but she is a vicious minx ! The fallen petals from last week's vase of roses are now in a basket in the living room still giving off their rich scent.

Distress Inks, Tags and What's New in the Garden

This week Linda at Studio L3 has set us a challenge to use Distress Ink. No problem for me then, because if I were cast away on a desert island and was allowed to have only one kind of colouring medium with me, it would be my DIs ! As always, in this challenge we take our inspiration from the one and only Tim Holtz.

When I'm wrapping a gift I usually like to finish it off with a handmade tag, luggage label size, and find that these end up being kept by friends and used as bookmarks. I have a birthday present all wrapped ready to deliver tonight, so have made a tag which also fits in with this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show a Tag challenge.

The tag was cut with the Tim die and coloured both sides with Faded Jeans using a blending tool. I ran it through the Big Shot with damask effect, buttons and zigzag stitching embossing folders and then coloured the raised parts with a Fired Brick pad. The roses are made with papers from Tim's Vintage Shabby pad, some smeared with Fired Brick and others left as is. The dress form and butterfly are covered with UTEE. The white satin ribbon has been coloured with Fired Brick.

In the garden this morning I was delighted to find the first of the lilies in flower, and these are one of my all-time favourites, the Regale, so I'm looking forward to going out there in the cool of the evening when their perfume will fill the air.

Another attraction in the garden these days is mum and one-week-old chicks. So difficult to get a decent photo as, when they're not hiding under mum to keep warm, they're darting about while she fusses, and each photo attempt ends up spoilt with at least one fluffy blur.

Here she has just found a tasty morsel and has excitedly called her little ones, so all we can see is bottoms as they search for those yummy crumbs.

Grungy Monday 9

The latest challenge from our much loved Grungy Monday guru, Linda at Studio L3 is Tim's Shabby Chic technique which he shows us here on his blog in one of his Christmas tag tutorials.

Yesterday I was at the Craft Barn Extravaganza enjoying seeing techniques and products used by 24 demonstrators, and I am sure that no one will be surprised to hear that I dropped by the shop afterwards and succumbed to temptation. One of my purchases was a couple of bottles of Americana acrylic paint. I hadn't tried that brand before, but liked the rusty effect achieved on a bisque box in one of the demos. So I used the Burnt Umber as my background colour for my GM piece. It doesn't have such a creamy consistency as some acrylics, but worked fine here. The stamps are all Tim's, and the other acrylics are Kaisercolour - Antique White and Sea Breeze. The tissue tape is coloured with Ginger alcohol ink.

Today has been one of these lovely Sundays. The sort where I listen to the radio and have a leisurely bacon and egg breakfast in the morning, (forget about the bit of hoovering and cleaning I had to do) followed by an inky afternoon. And something that made the day extra special, you will see in the next photo.

The rose is gorgeous of course, but it's what's on her that made me so happy. Yes, rain. In many, many weeks, we've only had two showers of rain, and these were in the night. We've had a lot of dry, warm, even hot weather for so many weeks I've lost count. Wonderful, but not for the farms and the gardens. So I took great delight in walking around in my garden enjoying that beautiful fresh just-rained smell. This rose is one of my favourites, Golden Celebration, and she just loved her shower.

As for Constance Spry, she has scrambled up a magnolia tree, and I managed to catch her peeping down at me. I made the mistake of not cutting her back last year, so she has climbed higher than I would like. Naughty girl. However, you can still catch her intoxiating perfume as you pass. She's another of my favourites, and I can even forgive her not being a repeater, because when she is in bloom, she has a strong scent like no other.

More favourites. The rose is Magenta, and she is the colour of squashed strawberry. She is a medium sized bloom, but appears dwarfed here by the two clemmies. My mind has gone a complete blank on their names. There are also a few sweet little pink Cecile Brunner buds putting in an appearance.

And of course I had to bring a little of the beauty indoors. More favourites: roses left to right - Graham Thomas, Abraham Darby and Golden Celebration, all glorious David Austin English shrub roses, now in a vase on my kitchen table with me sticking my nose among them and breathing in deeply every five minutes. The clemmie is Etoile Violette which I love so much that I have three of them in various parts of the garden, all scrambling up trees. This poor little flower got whipped off by a gust of wind.

And a few more Etoile Violette blooms to enjoy.

Now as I write I have the door open and am enjoying the sound of more rain, and the sweet smell of nature refreshed, and am about to tuck into my roast chicken dinner.