WOYWW 391 - post crop and nearly December!

Morning deskers... Some of us were lucky enough to meet up last Saturday at the WOYWW crop - thanks as ever to Julia and Jan and all the men who helped... reports here (mine) and here (Jan's) and many others...  it was lovely to meet Erika and Margaret who were new to the crop.
There are one or two pics that didn't make my report...

my desk Friday morning pre-packing....!

and once home and everything was away.... here is my deskonthefloor now!
 I collected some stamps that Julia had put aside for me from clearing her Mama's stash...

and some atc's and tree decoration from Mary-Anne from the crop - I am ashamed to say the thought didn't even cross my mind this time!

thanks to Christine, Mary-Anne, Dolores, Erika and Margaret.


and in between making Christmas cards (mostly the grumpy penguins - happy enabling) I did finish the journal page that so many of you thought was finished as it was... well it could have been finished... but I felt it was crying out for a Paperartsy monster - talking to PearshapedChris at the crop, she said she'd cut one out and crossed his legs.... the idea was born.

I had a JoFY Paperartsy Christmas set with me... a bit of tweeking with the inking of the word and....

ha!!  couldn't resist!   NOW it's finished!!

I had to nick this picture that Jan took of me and Chris at crop, just before I left...

love it.  you can just see my fave over the knee suede boots too!

See you at a desk near here very soon!   head to Julia for the link
oh, and I seem to have come down with a cold since the weekend... if any of you from Saturday end up with one too - I am really sorry!!

WOYWW - the Crop

I know I should save this for Wednesday, but there will be too many photos so I am doing it now...
I spent a lovely day with some WOYWW friends new and old - lovely to see some newbies coming, Erika and Margaret, it was fantastic to meet you.

Of course, there was cake, chatting and crafting.. then some more cake... and that was before Jan's gorgeous lunch.

 my desk with my case full of my Christmas card making supplies... thanks Diane for photobombing the photo!  in the background, Doug, Shaz and Mary-Anne

 first cuppa of the day,and already hard at work.

a new crafter??? Hamish came too... he was so good, laid quietly all day.

 Erika and Shaz

  Fiona, Chris, Chris's hubby Tony at the back, Christine's husband

 Christine with her gorgeous, unmistakeable hair!  Margaret, Julia and with her back to me, Kathy

 Dolores and Mary-Anne

 Hamish...

 Diane her hubby David and daughter Livvie,

 Kyla,

 Fiona and Chris

 Erika and Shaz

 following Lauren's post for Paperartsy yesterday,I was so take with her idea of making a scarf for the monster, I had to have a go one one of my Christmas cards - great idea, Lauren, it's perfect.

 group shot, thanks to Gordon for taking this, Jan will have more on Wednesday...

 and I think for the first time ever, Jan had time to sit and do some crafting!!









so, it was a great day, full of fun and laughter and not a little cake, all of them were gorgeous!












I was gifted some atcs (I didn't even think about making/taking atcs this time...) but I will photograph those for Wednesday.
Thanks as always to Jan and Julia for organising such a fun day, to Gordon for the lift from the station this morning and Erika for the lift back tonight...

WOYWW 390 - enabler alert...

Hey, deskers, how are things?  Cannot believe it's nearly the end of November already, where the flippety flip has this year gone?
But, Wednesday it is and time to meet up with the lovely Julia and gang at the Stamping Ground for another WOYWW.  

 on to my workspace quickly.... and that enabler alert!

my open journal, not much happened to that, bit of a stencil thing going on over the mop up from last week's "oops" moment (glad I made you all laugh!)

Other than that, not much else has been done to it.
a pile of penguins stamped for some more card assembly (top left on the box) - will be bringing them with me on Saturday

close up for you of the enabler alert stamps - new stamps by Tracy Scott for Paperartsy, and the fourth in this year's Wanderlust sets also by Paperartsy.  Was dithering about getting them, then when I saw Tracy's new ones, and that CountryView Crafts had all of them in stock... easy decision!

Looking forward to using the hearts and the feather especially!


When I should have been making Christmas cards all day Saturday, I was at Kew - some of you have seen the post (here if you are interested or missed it)
It was a beautiful crisp sunny day (very different to what was to follow in the next few days) and I had a grand time - these are some of my favourite ever photos I have taken there, I think, so I am sharing a couple here for you in case you don't have time to wade through all the others.  I am really proud of these.

aren't the reflections amazing?

Now, I need to get some supplies ready for the crop on Saturday (hopefully there won't be any issues with the trains after all the rain this week) - am really looking forward to it and seeing some of you there.

WOYWW 389 - well under way.. and an oops moment..

Morning (afternoon/evening -delete as appropriate)  and welcome back for another WOYWW with Julia...  the crop will be here before we know it!
The weekend just gone was very wet (Saturday anyway) and I was determined to spend as much of it as possible making Christmas cards..about time too!

 this is the floor on  Tuesday evening...
the result of the weekend's labours...
Mostly penguins (a gorgeous stamp from Katzelkraft) and based on a video I saw linked on Facebook from Marta  (Maremi's Small Art) hopefully this link will work...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WQuDmN6MF0

(you may need to copy and paste it into your browser)


which I watched on Saturday morning before going out in the rain to do my shopping.
Instantly inspired to use the idea as a starting point for some Christmas cards.


Now.  I mentioned an oops moment... some of you saw what happened on Facebook/twitter.. I was colouring the texture paste on the penguin cards. Put the bottle of Prima ColourBloom Spray (Cobalt, if you're interested!) down on the craft mat, using the end of the spray to add some drips to the card...
Cue slow motion bottle falling over, ink flowing out onto the scrap paper on top of the craft mat, and slowly (but quick enough) onto the edge of the rug and carpet ...

oops indeed.   You know in cartoons when things slow down and you can't move?

It was seconds before the thought "that's going all over the rug" permeated my subconscious enough to "pick the bloody bottle up"

Once I'd mopped up as much as I could and cleaned my hands I took some pictures.. tweeted them  and posted to facebook, as you do in this modern age... someone later asked if I'd grabbed my journal to produce a background.  No, I hadn't I said... the paper towel in the bin was still quite wet... so grabbed it out and pressed it onto the journal page... nice!  the left side I smooshed around a bit to get solid colour, the right side  I left with the impression of the kitchen towel - two backgrounds... And yes, I have now saved the kitchen towel, now dried and a lovely blue... surely something can be done with that too!

At some stage I will wash the colour out of the rug, it is water based ink after all... but for now, it's staying .  a reminder to my (laziness) carelessness (the craft sheet is wider than the cutting mat underneath it, so of course I chose that bit to put the bottle down, causing it to tip... )

You will also see from the first picture some more cards in progress - the yellowy ones are from one of my masterboard backgrounds, and there are some stamped images waiting colouring and matting and layering onto card bases.
 Have a great week everyone.

WOYWW 388

Wednesday again... time for another WOYWW with Julia and the gang.
Still no finished cards to share.. not made any progress with them at all..

I have done a little more fiddling in the journal - with some of the cute new Paperartsy monster stamps by their new designer Elena Zinski - it still needs some more faffing!  As you can see, nothing has happened to the blue, bubbles page... still deliberating about that one.

Can't believe there is nothing else happening here!  Have a great week - maybe, there will be more to show next time! Till then, head for Julia's the Stamping Ground and the link up

WOYWW 387.. I've started; finally

..Christmas cards that is... kind of.    I decided on Sunday that with November rapidly approaching I had better get going...
First though, it's Wednesday, time for another desk hop with Julia at the Stamping Ground for WOYWW  -   no new toys this week.
But, as I was saying, I have finally started working on Christmas cards.. I got some masterboards started, which are always a fun thing to do, and a speedy way of getting several cards done (started anyway!) at once..

it''s only a little bit staged (I spread out the masterboards so you see a bit better) - I have used 12x12 sheets of tissue, so they remain light enough to stick to card blanks later on, and several colour combinations of Fresco paints, a red based one, a blue one and a greeny one.   Something else will happen to them soon!

The journal is my Wanderlust book that I have been using this year... way way behind on all the lessons but I loved last week's lesson from France Papillon so much I set too almost immediately.. Heavy white gesso and some texture stencilled on (no that you can make it out, as it is also white)  It's a pastel lesson so will be adding some layers of colours of pastels soon... (you get the idea, everything is happening "soon"!)

Not much else has happened to the soft cover journal either... although the pink page has gone through a bit of a change since you saw it last time; I didn't like what I'd done (or at least couldn't think what to do with what I'd done next) so painted over it... It also has some texture paste stencilled on, left over from the Wanderlust page!
That's it for me today, will be catching your desks later...  have a great week.