WOYWW 149 and Sorry, A Grouse; and Smile, Blog Candy Above and Anyone Want to Meet Up?

Oh dear I hate being Mrs Grump but I would love you to leave your number along with your comment (bet nobody comments now - serve me right) as it takes me ages to find you if you don't.  I know sometimes the numbers change but it is only a couple or so either way and I can find you so easily.  If not I have to click on your name on the comment and sometimes you have more than one blog and I always end up with the right one at the very end.

Please can you leave a number (sad face from me) so I can WOYWW you quickly.

PLEASE READ:  Would anyone like to meet up in Manchester on Wednesday, 2nd May for a spot of lunch and a chat?  I am meeting up with one other WOYWW member and it would be lovely to see a couple of others of you - we could all wear our badges!  I've met one or two of you at Harrogate when I have been working but this is a golden opportunity for us to talk as a small group.  My email addie is in my sidebar if you are interested in coming along.

Before I show you my desk this week there's a blog candy post above here, lot's of unmounted stamps could be wending their way to you.

Here's my desk:

I'm making flowers, or I was over the weekend, but my neck hurt so bad that I had to abandon and now I am putting the components together.

It was Vicky Stampers on Saturday where the workshop was taken by the wonderful talented Paul who had us make a beautiful book card (posted mine yesterday) and then showed us some of his delightful flowers.  You must visit his blog here to see some great tutorials for great flowers.

Right, short and sweet this week, nothing for over a week on my blog as I tried doing a video and it took soooo long; and I ended up ditching it anyway.  Maybe I will try again but there is too much 'Blue Peter' to prepare by trying to avoid stops.  Perhaps we will just have stops!

Let's get snooping!

Where in the World ...

... is your Vagabond.  That is the question that Sizzix put out ages ago and which I did not bother with at the time but seeing it is still open for us to show our Vaggies this is where mine resides at home.

on a trolley

My room is only small and it is so full of crafting stuff that there is nowhere for my Vagabond to sit other than on a trolley so that it can be wheeled from hallway to room when I am crafting (or when visitors come LOL).

My big problem was where to store those big dies?  Then my friend in America gave me some Senseo boxes that her coffee pods come in and I brought two of them home.  I'll be after another two next year Mary!  They sit side by side on the lower shelf of the trolley and I have every intention of decorating them at some time but not just yet.  Underneath the black canvas cd case houses all of my Spellbinder dies and the little black card one has my embossing folders in.  So you see, my trolley is rather a special one.

The trolley is out because I have just finished decorating a little book/box I started at Vicky Stampers on Saturday, when Paul was tutoring.  Here it is - and I just love those letters I used (upon a time) on the inside.

This is the front cover

the inside front cover

the concertina box part

Now I have to tell you that I had seen one of these on Oyster Stamps stand when I was working for them at Leigh.  Pam had made it (check out her cards in their gallery) and I coveted that project so much that I bought some of the dies.  She does some beautiful cards and things.  It is not like Pams, hers is just beautiful beyond words, but it is similar.

I had taken a brown Distress Ink and Wild Honey with me and used the Wild Honey - I will be using that again and again.  The stamp of the bird was one of the dollar ones I got in America, the sun is probably from South Africa and the 'bitty' flowers are from Non Sequitur.  All the dies except the Tim Holtz one are Memory Box available from Oyster Stamps apart from the Labels one which is a Spellbinders (also available from Oyster Stamps).

WOYWW 148

Well, after last weeks little revelation - ie a look around my stamping area with lots of photos this week is somewhat different.  There is nothing to show but an empty desk.

So Ms Julia and all the WOYWW'ers out there look at this.  A clean area and no dirty green mat!  So what happened?  Well, I cleared it all off and did a bit of videoing to show folks my birthday cards (see here if you want to look).  That was a few days ago.  I have put most things back now but decided to do a bit of polymer clay work as I haven't done any for such a long time and teaching it the other week was not really me making anything.

Haven't got around to it yet as my line up of pasta machines show.

Why Three?

I knew you would want to know.  Well, I got so fed up with continually having to clean my machine, and clean it so thoroughly when I wanted to use white pc that I got myself another machine.  Then there was a problem with the transluscent so I got a third.  Now one is for each.  I've nowhere to store them so they are fixed to my workbench down the bottom end.  Easy to move up and use when I get around to it.

I do spread a bit all over the house.  Those of you who visited last week thought I had lots of room but I have a dedicated cupboard in the utility room, a "stolen" cupboard in there too (one of the wall ones) and a small chest of drawers in the sitting room - I also spread out into the hallway with my trolley (die cutting stuff) and my big bag for Vicky Stampers.  That's not to mention the two bags (those on wheels) behind the settee.

Ah well, we all do it - don't we!  Now I have shared my secret stash with you and shown you my tidy workdesk why not pop over to the stamping ground and see what other WOYWW'ers have to share.  I can guarantee you some eye candy and maybe one or two giggles.

Adios!

ps the dirty green mat is on the floor - forgot to get a replacement today when I went into town - sorry yesterday, it's 12.15 now Wednesday morning and I got up because I had twitchy legs - you know when you can't sleep .........

Out of a Hat

or should it be "Out of My Room"?

Friends over at Out of a Hat Creations have got "boxes" for their challenge.  I was quite busy so didn't have time to make a box from scratch so a hasty peek around my craft room and I spied a plastic box with a flip top lid.  Ideal size for ATC's and not decorated at all - pristine (well not quite, a bit mucky) and containing Chas' business cards, or what is left over from them.  I had intentions, when he ditched them all, of using them as centres on ATC's but never got around to it.

Anyway, first of all I coloured it all over with Alcohol Inks and then used my new Steampunk Background Stamps, from Dot, as - well, as the background.  Just the usual, three colours on felt and dab dab dab. The three I have used are Butterscotch, Caramel and Ginger.

Then I got out my other Steampunk Images and chose the ones I wanted, stamped them on some cardstock that I had coloured with Tea Dye and Brushed Corduroy Distress Inks and tore around them, inking the edges, and a bit further, with Walnut Stain.  It's surprising how much difference that little bit makes to an image.  These were then stuck on with Glossy Accents.

A bit of depth was needed and so I got my tiny drawers out and had a rummage in my cogs and wheels and chose what I wanted to go on and this is the result.  Sorry I cannot remember whose the stamps are, but I think it is the company that closed down, sadly.  The pointy hand is a Stampers Anonymous one and the metal is Ideology.

the hand on the spine is pointing to the flip bit that I wrote "Open" on with a Sharpie pen

Hope you like my Steampunk ATC box, I can now take it with me to Vicky Stampers and I won't worry about where I have put my ATC for that month (crikey, better get one done as we have a meeting on Saturday) but in the meantime I am uploading it to Out of a Hat Creations - the blog challenge run by four fabulous ladies - why don't you decorate one - you have a couple of days yet!

Apologies for the quality of the photos - could not get them right - cue a new camera???

I Should Have Had a Clapper Board

Because this is TAKE NUMBER TEN.

When I decided to finally get around to videoing my birthday cards ("It's easier than scanning them all in" -I thought - doh!) I did not realise that I would eventually end up with "Take Ten".  I could not stop laughing when the ninth one did not take, Chas was so upset for me that he was the one stomping around.

The first one chopped the bottoms off, the second the tops went and this was repeated so many times - until the seventh take; when I had not switched on properly and I only recorded three seconds.  Take Nine ran out of time - so much for videoing!  But, not one to be daunted by set backs I tried TAKE TEN and this is it.  Worms, bugs, and all - you have got it as it is now.  No more tries.

So sit back, enjoy your cuppa and feast your eyes on the lovely hand-made cards I got this year (have included the commercial ones as I don't want people to feel left out).

A Big Thank You to all the lovely friends who sent me a birthday card!  Love you!


Special thanks to my other half who ended up tying his computer up downloading the video to You Tube to begin with - and for his patience with me.


ps - it took two tries to load this up to You Tube before it actually did it.  That was over EIGHT HOURS of loading.  This video was not meant to be - but we beat all the odds in the end.

The Artful Times - A Brand New Blog

Well, here it is at last - a new Challenge Blog is born.  We are all so excited and here in "the Editors' Office" Sam, Von and myself are all eagerly awaiting the stroke of six tonight when our own blogs for today and our baby, the "Artful Times" will go out to the world.  So yes, this is a scheduled post that you are reading at the moment.

It is just about a month ago that  another challenge blog  I was involved with decided to close its doors and I was left with an empty feeling, so, together with Sam and Von, the decision was made to begin yet another.  You would never believe the discussion that has gone on behind the scenes, it took us almost this long to come up with a name and we do hope you like the idea of this being the challenge blog you open, just like you would a broadsheet, on your way home from work on a Friday evening.

We didn't want to overwhelm you with things in our first publication so I won't go spilling any beans but hope you have time to look around our "Times" and seen all the "help sheets" that Sam has produced to make life easier for those of you who are not as familiar at entering challenges as some others are. Yes, we have rules, not hard school type rules but rules to help make your lives and ours much easier.  We hope you will take time to read them and familiarise yourself with what we are asking and enjoy producing something on your blog and linking it to the 'Artful Times'.

Our first challenge is to make a tag - simple!  No restrictions but please read what we have asked of you and then let us know a little bit about how you made it, what you used etc.  It just makes it that little bit more interesting to us and others to know what techniques you have used and often what stamps you have employed.

Right, without further ado here is my tag for this first publication and it is a sandwich board man (sorry cannot remember the name of the stamp manufacturer) announcing the new blog to you all.

The tag was a Manilla one and I used Tea Dye, Vintage Photo and a little Mahogany Distress Ink around the edges to colour it with.  A bit of torn dictionary page was added for interest and to break the background up, and this was aged with Tea Dye as before.  The man was stamped with Black Archival Ink, cut out and mounted on the tag - the newsprint was taken and shrunk from an image on the web and the title was produced on the computer along with the headlines.

I just wanted to shout from the rooftops that the "Artful Times" was out with issue no 1 today.

Hope you join us over the next couple of weeks with your tags - look forward to seeing you!

Only Five Minutes to Go

What on earth am I on about?  Click this link to find out in five minutes time.