WOYWW 576 all change

Welcome to another desk share day - this week really has whizzed along!  Time to gather at Julia's for
  WOYWW...

 the change bit refers to my desk -  back in the office. socially distancing from colleagues - not in my usual office as I share that normally but for now in a room on my own, as is anyone else working physically in the office.  (I have been getting a lift to and from - with masks - so I don'thae to get the bus yet)


It is good to be back seeing people daily though!




I had to stage the next picture though, as I forced a bit of crafting on Tuesday evening, I couldn't bear the thought of another week with nothing to show!

so I took a bit of leftover masterboard and stamped a couple of the Paperartsy chickens.


kept the colouring simple to not clash too much with the background.

I think they were quite pleased to see me back in the office as my boss gave me some flowers

I couldn't find a decently shaped vase to suit them, so they are a bit "plonked" rather than arranged.






There were also some gorgeous clouds on Tuesday night which I will leave you with

I really liked how the tips of the clouds over the buildings appear to have been highlighted.




I have just realised I didn't swap to the new blogger to try this post,  as I said I would...

ah well,  next time maybe!

Now that I am back in the office, visiting will have to wait largely till I get home - see you then!

WOYWW 575

Hello fellow deskers... another week has come and gone... time once more to meet up with Julia and the gang at the Stamping-Ground for our regular weekly desk share....

thank you all for your kind words last week - the bruises on my face have nearly gone now and the stitches from my arm were removed last week, have a nice neat scar which is healing well!   No more dizzy spells and I am trying to take gentle exercise (walking up and down the road daily) 

I haven't done any crafting (of course!)  yet so there isn't really  a desk to share...
but I did take some close ups of the flowers I got as they were looking (and still are)  beautiful and you now how I love my flower photos...

the lilies are opening now and smell wonderful (I know not everyone likes the fragrance of lilies, but I do)

 I had a second bunch delivered as well last week, from another crafting friend, which are also gorgeous

You may remember (especially if you follow me on Facebook) that some neighbours at the end of the road took some photos of as many of the residents as they could on the VE day weekend, and on Sunday they dropped round with a copy of our individual photos for everyone and a montage of all of us

They are sending some digital copies to me but for now I photographed the photos...

 me on my doorstep! 

they seem a really lovely young couple (they have 2 small boys)  and it was a very touching thing to do - certainly a plus to the lockdown
is bringing neighbours together

As I said to them when they delivered the photo it is as well it was before not after, my mis-hap!!

I'd better leave it here - happy WOYWW!

a small gift for RAK week

I didn't know RAK (random act of kindness) week even existed, till a friend mentioned it.  But I am in a small private chat group on FB with my friends and we decided to take part, amongst ourselves.

Names were drawn and we each had to make a piece of art for one person.  Until then, we weren't to say who was making for whom...
My gift has been received so I am sharing it here with a few pictures in progress

 I started with a square shallow canvas (the Works) and covered it in pieces of paper from a Prima pad  (Epiphany)
the idea for this sprang from a you-tube video by the lovely Maremi Small Art (Marta Lapkowska)
This is the link (hopefully) to her you-tube channel which is full of fun..  Of course I can't find the link to the right video.....but you'll have fun looking

I added stencilled layers of texture paste through a couple of stencils

 then I sprayed with Colour Bloom sprays (including the infamous Cobalt that fell all over my rug a few months ago)....

I always forget how sticky these dry, so I tried to seal it with some clear gesso... lots of smooshing of the blue colours... but I quite liked it so carried on..




time to add some stamping (Lin Brown for Paperartsy from ELB33) in blue archival ink

 adding layers of texture - an mdf heart got painted and coated with DecoArt  crackle paste
and some paper flowers got the spray treatment, plus a few dabs of paint on the petal edges..
I left some smaller flowers white

 some metal embellishments

 close up of the flowers

 some metal leaf embellishments too

and the final piece.  This was loads of fun to do!!

(edit.. no prizes for guessing Sam wasn't my swap partner, it's covered in flowers!)

(2nd edit.. just realised I made a big boo-boo.  the video I saw on you tube was one of Vicky Papaioannou's    )   sorry to both her and Marta for getting confused!  they are both super talented you won't be sorry if you check out their channels!)

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.

Finished canvas from the Lin Brown Weekend - Live life be happy!

I was determined to put the finishing touches to the canvas before too much time went by...

 so, as I showed in the post about the weekend, it started as a canvas which we covered with patterned papers.

I don't have many pictures of the metal work in progress, as I was having too much fun

 but this is probably my favourite, the stamp by Donna Downey.

I used Stazon to stamp it onto the metal, then outlined over the stamped lines with a teflon tool, on a foam block, to create the outlines

 used the brass brush on the background of the metal piece, and a dotty wheel on the reverse of the leaves, on the acrylic block, to add some texture to the petals.

t

the paint goes on! (see the post here for further details

so this was as far as I got at Lin's - the metal pieces stuck  down.  It's not quite as dark as it looks in this picture, as you will see...

 I constructed the metal flower (using Lin's technique ) - nowhere near as good as Lin does them...
I used DecoArt Turquoise shimmer for the bottom and top layers of the flower, and left the middle petals plain silver

 the letters hanging from the dowel at the bottom

 close ups

 the whole thing..

now for some more close ups






Drew a large L and a large ball and cup to create the look of the rivets.  Filled the space round it with a mold. The rest of the word live, are some die cut letters stuck to the background and covered with self adhesive metal.

 A selection of paper flowers (mostly Prima) and some metal embellishments, I added some Treasure Gold in Silver and Sapphire to the plain white flowers and to the metal leaf

and some more flowers at the bottom of the canvas (much tweeting and discussions this morning of the placements of these!)








And here it is,. hanging on the wall in my hallway.

Thanks so much for the class, Lin, it was brilliant and I am really pleased with how this came out..