Tissue trade...

My buddy Chris suggested a tissue trade a little while ago, based on something she'd seen in a magazine. (I won;t link to her blog cos I think she's only blogged once since she started it, ha ha!!)

Anyhow, 5 of us signed up although sadly Emma's sheets got lost in the post - dratted Royal Mail!....
These are the sheets I made - the "rules" were to use at least 2 Paperartsy stamps, in repeating patterns.

 I used Paperartsy white tissue, 12x12 and brayered Frescos over the sheets... I did two pinky ones,


added text background stamp in Snowflake,

 then my main image, repeatedly (used the large and small version of this stamp

used the same stamps on the next two -
two greeny ones

and the fifth one was a red one.

I had great fun with this, and now they've all been swapped, we need to think of something "creative" to do with the resulting sheets...


Here are the fabulous sheets I received back...

 you'll have to forgive the poor photograph, it's really dark this evening - sun was shining brightly through one window but all the others look as if it's about to pour with rain!

I don't know whose are whose, as they are all anonymous, but as Chris has put hers on FB, I know hers is the one top left... If I had to stab a guess,I'd say they then go, Lin, top right, Linda bottom left and Lucy bottom right, but I could be way off!

so, now I am going to try and come up with something creative for Chris's second part of the challenge... don't hold your breath though!

WOYWW 321

Welcome to another WOYWW .. don't they come round fast?!
I seem to be going through a phase of lack of crafting energy lately, despite the Crazy Bird dies... it took me 3 days to get round to cutting them...
some of you saw the journal page that resulted but in case not ...

I've recently taken part in a "tissue swap" where a group of us decorated a sheet of tissue and swapped them.

these are mine, now I just need to think of something clever to do with them!!


got some new pens too, Fude Ball pens, we used them at the James Sharp weekend I went on recently and tracked some down (good old Amazon!) they arrived last week but I forgot to tell you... they write really well, if you're interested!!

Anyone off to the Stamperama show in Stevenage on Sunday?  I'm really looking forward to it..
no doubt there'll be shopping to share next week.. if not sooner!
Happy desk hopping, catch you all soon!

Crazy Birds!

So, as you may have seen on Wednesday, I was expecting the Crazy Bird die set to arrive... and it did.  lots of little pieces, beaks and eyes and wings.. as well as the actual bird shapes... So on Friday I eventually sorted them out and matched them up.. and cut them...

It's a fair bit fiddly lining up the die with the stamped image (and keeping it in place when you put the top plate down on top, so you get them cut properly (legs, especially)... I think I'll treat myself to the magnetic platform for the Big Shot which apparently helps lots ( this may be a cunning sales ploy, but I somehow think it will help!)

This is what I used them for first time out.

 some white bits showing between the legs as you see... used my Inktense pencils to colour them in some crazy colours...

used bits of 3d foam pads to add the wings and beaks and eyes to the bodies.... ( swore quite a lot at this stage!)

 decided on a double page spread, painted with gesso first, then Dolphin, a Deco Art Satin paint.. not used this before, was surprised how thin it seems when it comes out of the bottle..

gave it a good shake though, and it seems to cover quite well.

Stencilled Prawn Fresco through the Finnabair circles stencil, just round the edge.
Left the stencil in place and stamped in Watering Can, the large text-y background from HP1501

laid out the birds... made sure they were "grounded" either on a circle, or another bird...
did some background stamping with the honeycomb from JOFY30 also in Watering Can, just extending a little into the journal

 stamped Dina's sentiment in black archival, then glued the birds down

wanted a few more circles to match in with the stencilling, so inked the single text-y circle from HP1504 in Watering Can , and the row of circles in Prawn Fresco, over the stencilled areas.

had fun with this, not sure I'll be doing much layering with some of the beaks/eyes as they are so small and you need a teeny tiny bit of foam pad to fix them to the body... but I like them!!

Dragons Dream -Tag It On

Welcome to another challenge from the Dragons Dream team - this time, my talented teamie Elizabeth has chosen Eight.  Just use eight, the number, or eight of something, on your tag, and don't forget to use at least one real stamp.

I decided to use 8 flowers on my tag (which is a size ten, sorry!)

 I started by dropping a little Sage Fresco on the tag, and brushed it over the tag, leaving a few gaps and wiping some away with a baby wipe.

I added Butternut to fill the gaps and overlap a little.

Then took the criss-cross stamp from JoFY36 and stamped it in the leftover Butternut, and inked part of one of the large collage script backgrounds from HP1501  (hmmm no pic of this stage!) in olive Memento ink

my flowers are by Prima and are all orangey-pale green
I die cut one of the Tim thinlet dies from a piece of spare Paperartsy paper for the bottom corner, and laid out my flowers

 the central text is from HP1507 and is stamped on a piece of spare tag from something else, coloured with the same paints as the background, as is the 8, from HXT06





a few more 8's in the olive green I used for the script background to fill some gaps on the tag

some green ribbon from my stash finishes it off.

Hope you'll check out the pieces of eight (lol) from my team mates and we'd love to see you join in - you have 2 weeks.

WOYWW 320

Wow, Wednesday again already, where did that week go to?  I had a great week off work and ended up having a few days out and a few days at home... Gazillions of photos on the other blog, one post for each trip out if you have a spare while...  but you're here for WOYWW the desk sharing brainchild of Julia

Meantime, a different view for you today... nothing much happening on the floor

 taken standing by the door

this one makes the room look very full!! (ok, it is I know!)








Arriving just too late to make their appearance on this week's floor are the Crazy Bird dies... thanks to Shaz for the tip off, I managed to get some from Country View Crafts. They should be here tomorrow!
Might get a bit more time to visit a few more of you this week, once again last week was a big fat failure, sorry!

Time... for Paperartsy

The new theme at Paperartsy is "Time" and I have had the week off work on holiday - been out a couple of days as you may have seen, but today was a recover and rest (i.e. laze about) at home day...

I decided to have a play in my journal, with one of the new Paperartsy Hot Pick plates, that just happens to have a clock face in the collage.

I really liked Keren's use of pastels in her clean and simple card, and whilst this is nothing like that, I did use my portfoleo pastels to colour my images!

I stamped the large collage image from HP1507 on the journal page, over the smudged background (the results of the cleaning of some cut and dry foam previously)

the eagle eyed of you might spot some scissor lines..
I cut round the edges of the image, and stamped it again on the page below, allowing just part of it to show behind the top one.

 on the spare piece of paper, I stamped the tulip again and cut it out, to layer it behind the top one before sticking the two pages together; once I'd coloured the images with my portfoleo pastels.

I added a few swipes of paint on a dry piece of cut and dry foam, round the edge of the "bottom" page to bring this into the top page.


for the words, I used the text from Lin's ELB22 "every day is a blessing, every hour is a dream, every minute is a possibility"

Entering this to the Paperartsy Time challenge, here 

WOYWW? 319

I had to scroll back in my posts to check what week we're up to... anyhow, it's time for another What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday... Mrs Dunnit's weekly ploy to make us buy stuff to show you... well that's one way of looking at it..anything to oblige then!

I failed to visit very many desks last week at all, after a very late night at the tennis, and then a weekend away (see previous post) crafting - there wasn't time... I am off work this week so will try harder this time!

 If you saw the previous post about my trip to the Peak District you may have seen the style of art journalling we were doing, and we had the opportunity to buy some Teesha Moore designs (no longer available in stamp form) so it had to be done..

the three bottom right, were a gift from James Sharp who ran the weekend course.

I've taken them off the wooden blocks and remounted them on EZ mount now..  I know I like wooden mounted stamps, but they were hand mounted and not very firmly affixed so I feel they'd have come off soon anyway!

here is my journal from the weekend to which I've added a bit more today, on my "desk", with the remounted stamps on a piece of acetate. I stamped the images directly to the acetate as an index (and so I know how they fit back onto it!)

er... more shopping... these new Paperartsy stamps "fell" into a virtual shopping basked just before I went away for the weekend and were on the doormat waiting for me when I got home.
Looking forward to having a play with these very soon.













I am heading to Kew Gardens one morning this week, to take advantage of a special Friends early morning entrance- they're opening at 8 (2 hours early) on weekdays during the summer.

The early light is so good for photographs, it is worth getting up at work time to visit so early... just not sure which day I'll go yet. (if I'm late linking it may well be today!)
*Edit.  in view of the devastating news on Julia's blog about Eliza, whose desk I visited every time she linked, I am seizing the day and heading to Kew today, life is too short. God Speed,Eliza, you will be much missed by your family and friends, and Yoda of course, but also by us, the Deskers, who knew you on a Wednesday and loved your tales of life.

James Sharp Art Journalling Weekend

I just got home from a great weekend with my great crafting pals, Emma, Sam, Lin S, Lin R and Chris from the Peak District, where we attended a James Sharp art journalling weekend (check his website here for details of what he offers..)  If you've got a car with good suspension and don't mind narrow winding roads (or live in the States where he spends a lot of time too) I highly recommend attending. The workshops here in the UK are held in the middle of nowhere (well just outside Buxton)  in Combs, in  the Peak District.

So Lin S and I took the train up to Stockport where we were staying in a hotel with Sam and Emma and they drove us to James's.

first things first, tea/coffee coffee... the workshops are held outside in the garden under gazebos, on Saturday we didn't need the sides down as it was reasonably sunny all day, and warmer than the forecast said...
Emma, Lin and Sam..

We were each given a paper journal to work in.

time to get started... the morning was spent stamping lots and lots of images on a variety of surfaces, we were told to choose one face stamp from a selection and during the day to stamp at least 50 of it, for what we would be told later.. some of us (Lin R) were less successful at this than others...

Sam and Chris standing to stamp, James on tea and coffee duty again behind Chris, and Lin R is sitting.
As we stamped on our various surfaces (different types of paper, prepared backgrounds with paints and sprays and all sorts,  and fabrics - we had been very keen to work on textiles) we were told to cut one image out of each surface and stick it to the first page of our journals.

the green gazebo doesn't do much for the colour contrasts, and I can't work out how to adjust it..

just look at the view of James' garden behind us!  (all round us, actually)

more stamping... James was quite amazed how many of us stamped standing up at the table... and no, I didn't work on the floor, it was dampish concrete slabs...

some of my fabric printing.

time for lunch, Emma catching the rays (sorry about the face full Emma...)


After lunch, time to cut out all those stamped images...

so, all those 50 images... we'd been told to cut them out and apply them, Andy Warhol style, to one of our double pages.  this is Sam's, looking fabulous.

this is mine.

and Chris's

another of my double spreads.  this one, we had to do with an irregular border with some of our images

everyone hard at work

and this one, a regular border all round  and some more of the images, collaged together, and some journalling (more to follow, pages aren't finished yet!)

another one of my pages, with some spraying through found objects for stencils (this diamond pattern was gorgeous) - we used metallic sprays, and then punched some of our patterned pieces and fixed them to the page, with added fibres.  This is a style Lynne Perrella uses, and then makes prints from.

another double page spread, starting with old football or cricket team photos and then adding extra images to blend into the teams.. I haven't got one of the finished effect yet.

Lin deep in thought..

James demonstrating the next page - on to Teesha Moore style now, with collages magazine images and journalling
Although I'd seen some of her work before, it was new to me, so took me a while to get into the swing of this part, but I shall be doing more now I know what I'm meant to be doing...

Lin R and Chris hard at work... we won't mention the secret supplies of her own that Chris brought to incorporate, will we, Chris??

Sam, writing in her journal

once the journals were in a semblance of finished, James bound them all for us, Chris is just applying some pressure with a brayer to help the glue stick fast.

time for another wander around the garden...

and a team photo...
it was a fabulous weekend, thanks to Chris and Lin R who sorted it out and to the usual gang for your excellent company.

I've borrowed this one that James took, from his blog



I will share the journal fully when it's all finished, hopefully later this week!

Now, hop over to photosbyh for the scenic shots I know you want... Lin R and Chris knew I'd want to see some of the surrounding countryside, and they were right!!