WOYWW 284 - a little bit of this and that

Welcome along for another What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday... I'll start, this day after Armistice Day, with a closer look at the photo of my Dad that was sitting on the workmat the other week,

together with one of my Mum - that's her, sitting on the top of the Spitfire - she served in the Wrens, as an Air Mechanic, working on the Spitfire. This would have been taken some time after 1944 as that's when her service record shows she was enlisted. Hopefully you can enlarge it to see it a bit closer - I look very like her, though Julia thought I looked like Dad. (I can see lots of my middle nephew in him, the more I look at this photo now)
Dad served both in the Army and Navy. This picture was taken at Christmas 1942, as it is noted on the back, when he was in the Navy.
On my desk proper - well actually not, it's the kitchen counter - some flowers I received at work on Monday, from a grateful client whose mortgage application I had helped process to a happy conclusion. It's so nice to be appreciated and to receive a thank you!  And yes, of course I saved the bow! I nearly saved the pretty cellophane, but had to tear it too much removing it!

 

 the "desk" proper on the floor - my normal place of work, as most of you know (and as is stated in my blog header) - and some more new stamps (yes, Mary Anne, MORE!) I took advantage of a post on Facebook from the Stamp Attic announcing further clearance offers, and - erm - snapped up 5 more sets!! Well, it would have been rude to have ignored such bargains!


Finally, another photo from the Tower of London on Saturday

the stunning poppy installation to commemorate the First World War and the 888,246 British and Colonial servicemen who lost their lives. Several of you have visited the post I published on Saturday  and I make no apology for the number of photos I shared on it!!
This weekend I need to crack on with some more Christmas cards as after my spurt the week before last, I've not done any since!  In the meantime, I will get to as many of your desks as I can.

heads up - poppies are about

Just a quick post to point you in the direction of "photosbyh" today for LOTS of poppy pics from the Tower

Dragons Dream - U and Quotation

We are nearly at the end of our alphabet challenge at DragonsDream - how fast has that gone?!  This fortnight, the gorgeous Gabrielle has chosen U, and to use a quotation - don't forget you must use a tag and at least one real (non digital) stamp.

I went for my old favourite, Tim Holtz's Umbrella Man...

 I painted my tag with a mix of Elephant and Chalk Fresco to get a slightly lighter gray than the Elephant is (could have just used Concrete of course!)














Stamped the raindrops (Designs by Ryn) - new, yum!! in Watering Can archival and filled the raindrops with Glossy Accents and set aside to dry.

Umbrella Man was die cut from a piece of paper from Finnabair's Sunrise Sunset pad and the quotation on a piece of the leftover paper.

I have to say, I am very impressed with the Ryn stamps, they stamp beautifully, even unmounted - I have run out of EZ mount! - this is a perfect stamping, just by inking them and stamping the rubber onto the tag.  It is really thick rubber, so I maybe won't need to mount them at all (result!)

Edged the quote and the die cut, with Old Paper distress to match the edge of the paper and used foam pads to mount them to the tag.

Hope you'll join in with us again, we love to see what you create.  We're already dreaming up the next set of challenges, hope you'll like them....

WOYWW 283

Here we are, ready for another Wednesday Workdesk hop? Just in case you don't know the info and Mr Linky can be found here  at Julia's Stamping Ground

Once again there isn't much on my desk today... a bit of a wide angle shot...you can tell it's turned colder, slippers are out! the only reason they're not on my feet is so I could move back further to get the shot in!

the open journal is a bit in limbo, Fresco paint background, bit of messing/dripping with Brushos - and no chance of carrying on with it tonight (I am writing this on Tuesday night) as I am watching football (soccer if you prefer) on TV.

I have however, as you may have seen from the previous couple of posts, started my Christmas cards, and got a huge chunk of them done (33) at the weekend... which is a big relief! (here's a sneak of some of them )

I'll be along as soon as I can to see what you've been up to - Happy WOYWW.
Oh! I had new stash to show too.. bargains - Tim stamps on clearance from the Stamp Attic (think they're mostly all gone now!)

Craft Barn Q&L - 22 - Moon/Sensation

Afternoon, welcome back!  Been a bit of a crafting flurry here the last couple of days, finally got started on the Christmas cards! (scroll back to the previous two posts) and I have some more to share today. First, though, it's the Craft Barn Q&L challenge - Moon and/or Sensation

My first thought was "Moon River" from Breakfast at Tiffany's... then I googled for some quotes, and came across "Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star" attributed to W Clement Stone - and in various similarly worded versions, to several other people too.  I liked that, so decided to switch tacks.

After another masterboard's worth of Christmas cards, I settled down with my Brushos - well I had to play with new toys, right?!

 I worked on a piece of Paperartsy's Smoothy card, and used Ultramarine, Leaf Green and Emerald Brushos - a mixture of sprinkling the Brushos onto dry card and spritzing, and then more spritzing the page in the dry parts and dropped more Brushos into the water.  This is my first play with them (apart from a short play at Lin Brown's when some friends and I went for a workshop in August)

A long search ensued for a moon stamp - I still think I have a different one, but couldn't find it... this is part of a stamp that depicts "twinkle twinkle little star) but I just cut the moon out. Hence you can see the face under the Pewter paint (no silver!) (Fresco)

For the stars, I stencilled Pewter paint  through a stencil and cut out 3 stars










I wrote the quote on a spare scrap of card, and stuck it to the page.

Decided it needed somebody or someone to be aiming for the moon, so stamped the little people (Stampscapes) on another scrap of card and trimmed them and glued them to the foot of the page.

Quite pleased how this came out, entering the Craft Barn challenge here 

Oh, and the third masterboard Christmas cards? These are they!

 just used Cherry Red and Chalk Frescos, the tree is by Woodware and is just repeatedly stamped in Library Green archival, first and second generation stamping.

So that's another 12 from another sheet of paper, I'm well on the way now.

Masterboard 2 - getting in the groove!

So, whilst I was waiting for some Glossy Accents to dry on my tag for next week's TIO (what do you mean, last minute?!) I started another masterboard for some more Christmas cards...

I used more non traditional colours, Limelight and Turquoise again, with Chalk to tone it down, and some Prima Colour Bloom spray (glistening waves) - I used some Pressed Petal on the last lot but forgot to tell you)

stamps are from the Lin Brown Christmas set for Paperartsy
I cut these up smaller, so even more from the A3 sheet - got 12 in all
and yes, it won't rotate again - it's the right way round in the file on the computer!!

 finished  cards

close up.

Christmas cards - Masterboard Style!

Well, at long last, my card making for 2014 is kicking and screaming into being.... I decided I'd try some on a masterboard style, for speed of backgrounds.  Quite by chance my latest Craft Stamper arrived as I was mid-paint and Helen Chilton is doing a similar thing, although hers are very different in look.

Anyhow, I have some A3 copier/printer paper, which I decided to use to save even more time, even though it's quite thin. It also takes up most of my available space...

 I didn't work with it this way round, just can't persuade the photo to rotate back!  Used Plum, Turquoise and Chalk Frescos, directly dropping little blobs (not little enough in some spots) onto the paper, and brayering away.

 then took the 'eye chart' Merry Christmas from the new Paperartsy Hot Pick HPXM05, and stamped using Plum and Aquamarine archival inks, over the paper...

  cut it up to fit my card blanks (I used Craftwork Cards, the ones that are almost 6x6 inch) and as you can see, got 6 from my sheet of paper.

stamped the Tim Holtz deer (please don't ask why I didn't use the die, I only remembered about it when I had cut the 4th one out....) on Smoothy white card, in black archival; and the sentiment, which is from the same Paperartsy stamp plate.

Fought with the double sided tape to stick the backgrounds to the cards, and used a glue stick for everything else.