WOYWW? 190

Well, here we are - covered in snow for large parts of the UK. It started on Friday and is still here!

This was my poor little rose struggling on, on Monday!

And a bit of an arty shot through my Escallonia (it's pretty in spring/summer!)  We have had a partial thaw since then, so the rose is now bare again!


But, you came for my desk....this is meant to be What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday, after all!

This is a reject tag background for a Paperartsy challenge - it was all right till I stamped on it!!!

This was me on Tuesday afternoon (got home early, before dark and the snow came back!!) - tweeting as usual!

So, I hope you are all ok in the snow if you have it - it always causes havoc in the UK because we don't cope - not having much regularly, there is no real money put aside to plan for it and everything seems to grind to a halt!  Anyhow, I hope you are safe! Enjoy desk hopping instead...

(Come back later for a new Dragons Dream Tag it On challenge!)

Inspired by Linda Cain

This week's Guest Designer at Paperartsy is the uber-talented Linda Cain who has been blending her Fresco paints to good effect!  I have followed Linda's blog almost since I discovered the world of blogs and was delighted when I saw that she was to work with the Paperartsy team.

Today she shows us how to blend Fresco paints with cut and dry foam and I had to have another play!

I had decorated a small frame during Michelle's week on the blog but not found anything to go inside it, until today. (as this isn't the piece that was inspired by Linda I hope I'm allowed to use it!

I took a piece of black card - yes, this is done on black card - I've not used my Fresco's on black card before - but what fabulous coverage you get!!

I used a mixture of Nougat, Mermaid, Beach Hut (my new favourite!) and Baltic Blue to achieve this
(oops, my knee's in the way...



And then I took the female figure from what I think must be one of their oldest plates "One Penny"  (she's since been re-sized on a Vintage plate, but this was perfect for the whole in the frame!

From memory, the frame was painted with more or less the same colours, knocking back with baby wipes and sanding etc,! The leafy vine (stencil) was applied using Little Black Dress Fresco.

Hope you like it, and get time to play along - Leandra has prizes on offer again!!!

Crafty Boots - "NEW"

Welcome back for another Crafty Boots challenge. It's my first choice of theme for the team this fortnight and because it's still relatively new in the year, my choice is for "new" - it could be something new you've had for Christmas, new stamps, inks, a new technique - or something for a 'new' arrival or house for instance - the world is your oyster!

I had a bumper selection of new crafty things at Christmas and have used some of them here - a new alphabet mask (Creative Expressions if you're interested) and a new stamp set (Prima 'build a swirl').  I used my (still fairly new) Dylusions journal.

I started by laying the mask (it fills the page) on the journal (having misted with water) and spraying with the Dylusion sprays in Vibrant Turquoise and Pure Sunshine.  Blotted the mask with the other page before removing and drying. I left it deliberately 'misty' rather than solid colour.  (I'l do something with the other page sometime...)

Stamped some of the swirls and other images from the stamp set, then took a paint brush and 'painted' the stamped designs, to block out the colour. Hope you can see what I mean from the top photo!

It's still snowing so....

....I'm still playing!

I wanted to do something with the textured tag from the other day, rather than just put it on the pile of other tags I do nothing with...so I made a matching (though without the texture) tag and incorporated them into a journal page...

I used Claret on the journal pages, and a smidgeon of Snowflake on a dry brush, and the same script stamp from the tag, on the background.

As there is no texture on the second tag I outlined part of the stencilled vine with a white gel pen. I used black ink on this one rather than blue.

Craft Barn Alpha Challenge - C

The second letter in the Craft Barn Alpha challenge, is C.

I was going to use 'circle' but the page from my dictionary has already been torn out (I am using one I bought cheaply to use for torn book pages!!) so I decided for 'Clock'.

I painted the page with Limelight Fresco paint and die cut the Weathered Clock (Tim Holtz) from a piece of 7 Gypsies paper (decorated with clocks but I decided to paint it black so it stood out more on the dictionary page, so the pattern has been obliterated!)

I stamped the weathered clock image (I have this in various sizes!) randomly over the page and the "time is a companion" which is also by Tim Holtz on a spare piece of paper, coloured with bundled sage distress ink.

Looking forward to seeing how many different C words are used this fortnight! I may even dream up another one...

Texture on a tag

Good afternoon - tis mighty chilly still everywhere and I am not going out till I have to! So I have been playing on a tag (it's a small one, size 5 I think), and of course, Paperartsy Fresco paints...

 I started by painting the tag with Mermaid, and then applied some Ferro paste through the leafy vine stencil (also available from Paperartsy) with a palette knife.  By the time I had cleaned off the stencil, the Ferro was more or less dry, just a quick zap with the heat gun.

Then time to play with more Fresco's - all sorts blended here, but Beach Hut, Snowflake, Guacamole and Claret.  I used a brush for the tag but cut and dry to apply Claret over the stencilled area so I could control it more, just hitting the high spots.  I did however blend a little claret to the edges for a bit of contrast.

I used a Mini script stamp (can't have too many of these) in Faded Jeans distress ink, but additional brushing has softened that a bit, so have also used some blue archival ink too.

The finishing touch was some yarn - last time I went to craft club, my sister in law had bought some balls of knitting wool (not that I could imagine knitting with this, it's a bit bobbly!) to cut up into lengths and I grabbed one! You can't really see from the photo due to the appalling light, meaning I have had to use flash, but it does have bluey tones to some of it, so it does match the tag!

This was great fun...off to play some more now!  It is high time I did something productive with my day!

Snow Day = Play Day

So with the 'Big Freeze' being widely forecast for today and into the weekend, I was told I could stay home from work today...time to play!

I would have loved to take a trip to Kew Gardens as I have always wanted to capture it in the snow, but took advice from the train operators (who seem to grind to a halt at the merest flake of snow) and didn't... instead I played a little in my new journal - the small one from Secret Santa, not the large Dylusions one (so far anyway!)

Both of these pages I had been faffing about with for a few days...

The opening page had a bit of bumping...

Background is Beach Hut Fresco mixed with a little Mermaid.  Bubbles (stencil) are Autumn Fire mixed with Smoked Paprika Bumping is done with Snowflake.

 Laid the stencil back over the page, added some splatters (paperartsy mini 72 ) and script (mini 75) and the long row of numbers on the background (from ID08) in black.

the sentiment is by Wendy Vecchi.

These next two pages used the leftover paint from the bumping, today I added some more stencilling (nougat and french roast for the numbers, claret for the harlequin)

and some stamping - script, mini dots and the wings.  All Paperartsy. I have sanded this several times so I don't know why it looks so shiny...I definitely haven't used any glaze! It's not only the flash bouncing off the paint, it is shiny anyway...




It started snowing this morning when I was out buying some bread, around 8.30 and it's just about stopped now. Despite that, there isn't a huge amount that's settled - but plenty!

 This is from my window of a tree at the end of the road.

and my neighbour's garden.

Back to the journal now...!