WOYWW 424

Welcome back... as I write this (Tuesday evening) it's getting dark.. but not dark from being late.. dark as it in might rain... we are forecast heavy thunderstorms... hope they're wrong!  It's very humid..

Anyhow, it is time to assemble for Julia's weekly WOYWW  (What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday)  and the first thing I am going to do is send you away.. if you want to of course - THIS is the link for the post about my day at Wimbledon last Saturday for the Ladies Final...  I know a lot of you have already been and seen, so thank you.
In case you don't have time to check out the post (there were a lot of photos!) this photo proves I was there...

at the last minute I found a new dress to wear... well, it was a posh hospitality package, we had to dress up!














Anyhows, onto my deak...

 this is actually a cheat, as it's from Saturday night when I got home - my souvenirs from the tennis - the towel (see below) in it's own clear holdall with a carrying strap, very useful (always good to know where your towel is, as every HitchHiker should know...)  - the ticket, the programme, the lanyard and the Karen Millen voucher (read the post for full details!)





I had to open the towel to check it out... not sure I will be using it, it's too good a souvenir to actually use!








I also had happy mail last week, in the form of.....

the new Distress Oxides - all at once, all together, all earlier than I expected.... and yes I gave the same place I got them from last time, another chance to deliver - which they did!




Once I'd recovered from Saturday . I had to have a little play...

these are the Oxides, applied over a gesso'd journal page, direct to paper and then smooshed around with a wet paintbrush.  Dried, and then threw some droplets of water at them...

just realised there should be another colour on there, the Black Soot... which I have used... sit tight a sec....

I stencilled Black Soot onto the background.

Obviously since then, the journal has sat on the craft mat waiting for something else to happen to it....  soon, journal, soon!

Ok, I've kept you long enough... off to the next desk!  Thanks for visiting.

WOYWW 423 - a WIP at last!

Welcome to another Wednesday desk-fest.  Julia's back from holiday and her desk count is back on track, we should all be numbered week 423 today...  you'll find the link here

I didn't have much time at the weekend (Hampton Court Flower Show was gorgeous, if too hot to enjoy fully - many many photos here if you've not seen) but I did start a new journal page (in my big A4 journal)

I'll do a full blog post about the page when it's finished (probably not till after the weekend, or at least after Saturday) so no close ups yet, but I've used gelatos for the colour on the page itself and the pens you can see on the left, for the colouring.  The stamps I've used (hidden in the background) the text stamps by Alison Bomber and the main images Jo Firth-Young, for Paperartsy.

Saturday this week is extra special.  Wimbledon beckons - Ladies Final day!!  Courtesy of my boss, of course; once again she is treating us big style!   In a big swanky corporate area right by the Royal Box (so may add a tv appearance to go with my radio one the other week!....)

I spent Monday trying desperately to find a new dress to wear, but failed, so will be wearing an old favourite... not 100% sure WHICH old favourite yet!!

So there will be photos from Wimbledon between now and next week's desk, hopefully!  Watch out for the link on social media, and I'll include it here next Wednesday.

Have a great week - I will!!

WOYWW 422

Welcome to another Wednesday (and July, by crikey!) At the rate this year is zipping along it'll be You Know What soon... Anyway, we are reporting for duty at Julia's once more...

Temperatures are set to soar again in the southern part of the UK and the Wimbledon tennis championships are now on, so my new stamps are largely un-inked still...
There "may" be some more new stamps since last week...

 some beautiful quotes by a new designer to the Paperartsy stable, the wonderful Alison Bomber of Words and Pictures (if you don't know her check out her blog; she creates such beauty!)

and some more "monsters" from Elenazinksi (which a bit like Stampotique characters, people either love or hate)


There also "may" be some more on order - Seth Apter has brought out another two sets for Paperartsy and they are just gorgeous...





I finished the journal ... it's full -  very full, look! I think you could say it's bulging!

this is the very last page (it's sister which you've seen in stages of "done-ness")  is here  or in the post beneath this one if you prefer!


I had an exhausting but fun day last Saturday, not only did I go to Kew I then also went up to London, mainly to see the new extension and entrance at the Victoria and Albert Museum... walked for miles, and took a photo or 400....
I know several of you have been kind enough to see them already.



This coming Saturday I am off to the Hampton Court Flower Show, I didn't go last year, so I am looking forward to going again.
So there'll be more flowers, but in a different setting!!

Looking forward to seeing what you've been up to this week.

The final pages in my journal

Over the last few weeks I've been faffing on the last couple of pages in my journal (really looking forward to opening a new one!) and I think they're just about finished now.

This first is the penultimate page, the journal has got very bulky now so it's more or less impossible to stamp direct on the page so I went down a different route

I had the starting point - mop up paint, some shiny washi tape - already in there...

and there is sat for a few weeks.



As luck (!) would have it, a piece of dried baby wipe fell out of the scraps box, and it was all blues and greens...

the green is actually darker in real life, I can't get it to photograph accurately




I have as you may have seen (!) been splurging on new Paperartsy stamps over the last couple of weeks

so it was time to put ink to some of them - these are two of Sara Naumann's latest release, and they seemed to fit the colours of the baby wipe.

I was surprised (given that the baby wipe was quite hard and crumpled with paint) how well the stamped image worked on the surface.

I cut them loosely and stuck to the page (although as you can see, the glue hasn't grabbed everywhere)


I then found a scrap of paper and stamped one of the sentiments  and inked it with Distress Oxide (cracked pistachio) and edged it with Leaf Green archival ink.

so that's page one.

the final page (back inside cover of the journal) was painted a bluey green as well

when I saw the Tracy Scott stamps for Paperartsy, I thought these big stars looked reminiscent of comic book illustrations... so went with it (a great alphabet set sitting next to my craft mat had just the right sort of type face- I have no idea who it's by though)

I coloured the stars and flowers with my new Ecoline brush markers, keeping to a fairly limited colour palette -  and stamped some of the little shapes from the Tracy set, in the background.

So, that's another journal actually full - not all of the pages are "finished" and I may come back and do something on the cover one day...




Thanks for looking - happy Sunday!  I'm not doing much today after my mammoth day out yesterday.

WOYWW 421 - what a difference a week makes

Welcome deskers, time for another desk hopping extravaganza.   Luckily the heatwave finished and now of course we're having rain... I know the gardens need it, but does it have to!

Anyway, time for another link up with the holidaying Julia here.   I think I forgot to go back and check the late entries last week, oops me!

so, as nothing really changes here, there are new stamps and goodies to share with you! (and more on order, wow me!)  some new Paperartsy stamps designed by the lovely and talented JoFY - loving those and looking forward to inking them up... and the brush pens, by Ecoline, that I bought on Saturday when I stopped in Kingston on the way home from Kew (story about that here)  (still can't believe that what happened, happened!)       Well, Cass Art were having a sale, so.....
(I bet you're amazed I only got the pens!)

 It was my birthday on Monday and I received some gifts from the folk at work - flowers (and some cash) from my boss Monica
gorgeous, aren't they?

and some other lovely gifts from the rest.  the bracelet sitting on bottom of the photo just about in shot, is really pretty

I will try not to kill the potted Gerbera too quickly....!











the gerbera came wrapped in a cardboard sleeve.. which was gorgeous.. so of course it gets saved .. look

how could you get rid of this!

I'll leave you with a bunch of fading Allium seed heads from Saturday. (and if you want to know the story you'll need to read the post, though lots of you have!)

WOYWW 420 the hot one

Welcome deskers to a very hot WOYWW .  Julia is away on her holibobs but hopefully leaving a linky to our weekly desk gathering here

England is in the grips of a heatwave (I don't like heat but am determined not to moan too much....!)  but it is as much as I can do to drag myself to work and back (no air conditioning in my office, I am not in the posh new one!) so no crafting has been done again..

I have managed to shop though!

Paperartsy are releasing some new stamps by some of their designers this week and so far I've ordered 3 lots (the two that have arrived here and a third in progress!)

hopefully you can make out the images in the two sets at the top, which are by Sara Naumann and will be great for journalling but all kinds of other things too. The bottom two are by Tracy Scott and are fab!
The big star on the set on the right, made me think of comics and the "wham" "pow" explosion type speech bubbles that they use in comics - although it could be that I saw them at the time that Batman (Adam West) died... or is it just the heat doing weird things to me?!

The cable is from my fan which is attempting to keep me cool (but really is just wafting warm air about)

I went to Kew again last Saturday, and took a gazillion photos of poppies (amongst other things) - I know several of you saw the link on Facebook but if you missed it, they can be seen here 
Neet, in answer to your suggestion, yes I do intend to make them into calendars one year!

Not sure when I'll be able to visit, depends on the heat - Wednesday today  is meant to be unbearable again! (I am writing this in advance on Tuesday night) I may have to wait till later in the week when it cools down.

WOYWW 419

Another week has flown by with nothing done craft-wise in between desk posts. But once again it is time to share my desk today with the lovely Julia

On Saturday I got home from the hairdresser's to find a box on the doorstep.. well tucked by the step and the wheelie bin..

it was a very little box (I know you can't get the sense of scale from the photo) - I was expecting something, but was a bit surprised at the small-ness of the box!

 some Jane Davenport washi tape.. the flat packet is described as "sheets" of tape and although they didn't break the bank, I was kind of expecting them to be bigger...
the rolls of tape, 7 different ones, all with faces, and different widths, had also appealed to me!

This brand is only newly available in the UK and I know that it is quite a pricey one anyway..
Time will tell if I get anything else from the range..

 I really really missed going to Kew last weekend (not that I'd have been able to go anyway had I not had the hair appointment, due to weekend engineering works on the train) ... I think the lack of a long walk in the fresh air contributed to me being bored on Sunday and couldn't settle to anything crafty.

I did get round to putting together the top 2 boxes in this tower of boxes...
they have big poppers (that you can possibly see on the front), so fit together quite easily... They come from The Works... two for £10

These 4 boxes hold my Paperartsy stamps - there were previously in just the bottom 2, but I have spread them out a bit as they were getting a bit crushed and some of the stamps were getting damaged... so now they have room to breathe (and I have ready made space for new ones... which are being released this week.... guess who's already been shopping!)

no progress has been made on the journal page from last time; even though I still don't think it's finished.

I did put some washi tape (no idea where this one came from!) on the last page in the book... and there it has sat, again...

So that's me for this week... will be hopping along to your desks soon.

Happy WOYWW!

I will be going to Kew this weekend (weather permitting) so stand by for more photos!