WOYWW 218

Well, as I mentioned last week I am not at home but celebrating my dear OH's 60th birthday in Northumberland.  Bless him!  Had a birthday meal at home with our Andy and his partner Samantha on Sunday and as a result left my craft room in a terrible state.
As you no doubt realise this is a scheduled post but this is honestly as my desk stands this lovely Wednesday morning.

Remnants of things used for the up and coming Retreat next week - oh em gee - will only be home for four days and then off with my friend to Northampton.  And still not put to bed my workshop - well half of it is done - just want another sample which is nearly finished. In the meantime

a peek at a couple of ice resin pieces I will be taking with me as samples of what you can do

and sample flowers (hope I am not giving too much away).  Fingers crossed I will have time to upload pictures of my samples over the weekend when they have been seen on the Retreat.  Do pop by and see what I have been doing.

BUT ... I got two lovely posts (as in mail received) - complete surprises - one from Patsy inthe Phillipines because I had won her atc - thank you so much Patsy, it is lovely.  The other was from Eliza and Yoda and was this delightful collaged postcard.  Look at the envelope it came in - that is a keeper along with the postcard.  Thank you Eliza and Yoda.  Was I lucky this week or what?

Love your handwriting Eliza

Hope you are all well and that you are ready for the marathon trek into 'desk world', courtesy of Ms Julia our esteemed founder.  Grab a cuppa, draw up a chair and feast your eyes on WOYWW Wonderland.

A Beautiful Baby Boy

One of my friends became a Great Grandmother for the very first time the other week.  Her grand-daughter gave birth to a healthy 8 lb 11 oz baby boy!  It was so funny when we were on the 'phone.  She mentioned that someone had sent the father's mother a "Congrats Grandparents" card and said she had never heard of that (she is a card maker) and how silly it was.  I sat there, not knowing whether to laugh or own up - I had made one for her. It was with the Birth Congratulations card and she would be getting it the following day.

How we laughed about it when she eventually plucked up courage to ring me and thank me.  Here are the two cards - I did not know what to do and got a bit tired of my usual baby cards so used a teddy bear on this one.

and for my friend

'another boy' card (they have lots of boys in the family)

Both using Spellbinders gorgeous frames (obtainable from Oyster Stamps) and painted with Twinkling H2o's.

Artful Times - Ribbing

No, we are not "ribbing" one another, we are using ribbed/corrugated card over on Artful Times.  I know this stuff is a big favourite of Sam's and I must admit she is getting me hooked on it too.  You must pop over to the Artful Times Challenge blog and see what Sam and Cathryn have done - fabulous!  Then join in with our challenge - you might win a voucher (sadly you left it too late to win Cathryn's beautiful tag the other week plus other goodies - congratulations Marina - lucky you!)

I made a hanger with mine

I think I was needing a bit of solitude when I made this as I was thinking how tranquil it would be to have a house on a hill.  In some ways our bungalow is on a bit of a steep rise and when there used to be flooding down the road near the river I was always glad to see how the torrential rainstorms ran down our drive stopping us from ever having the problem.  I felt so sorry for those folks down the hill (the problem of the river flooding has now been rectified thank goodness).

I tore bits of corrugated card from a box into these triangular shapes and using packing underneath built them up and out so that they stand proud from one another.  Used my Distress Stains to colour and cut my houses out with a TH die.

Now when things get too much I can look at this and imagine I am away from it all - tranquility on the top of a hill.

WOYWW 217

I cannot believe I have not posted since last Wednesday, nor can I believe a week has gone by - flown in fact!!!  (And the weather has changed up here in the north west.  Rain - just seen that Walsden was flooded last night/this morning - those poor people.)

Got a good excuse - busy!  I am prepping samples for the Oyster Retreat - so worried that those attending will not like my style as it is so very different to that of the other tutors.  That is why you don't get a full view of my working area - not because I am worried - because I am prepping.

This is a view to the left - my two towers of mounted stamps, remember me saying I had got rid of one last week?  So annoyed with myself that I threw the wooden blocks away - could have made good use of them at the Retreat!  Bah!

You can see my new Tim Holtz stamps which arrived this morning courtesy of my friend Ali who popped them in the post for me.  My white "Felix" box (no time to decorate at the moment), a shoe box and a wooden wine box all containing workshop stuff.  That's not counting what is to the right of the picture for the Retreat.  The black box on the right holds my TH collection of stamps and the tiny tower behind is full of TH type ephemera.  (The red thing on top is a lollipop brought back from my American friend, Mary G's, workshop when I was over in January.)

This is further along going towards my work area - see how I have taken over the cleared area I had last week.  Still it is for work in progress and at least I can die cut there.

Want a sneak peek? Of my workshop?  Go on then.

Watch out in the next few days - there could be more.

Now pop over to see what others have when they linked up to Boss Lady J's WOYWW (she is lovely, not bossy but she is the brainchild behind all of this). If you haven't joined in yet you don't know what you are missing - best way I know to make friends.

ps I will be playing catch up again on comments as I am going to see Marti Pellow in Evita at The Lowry tonight.  How I loved "Wet Wet Wet" - and still love to play my tapes.

Next week I will have to do a scheduled post as we will be away for Chas's 60th Birthday.  Hope I manage to get his birthday card finished as I am only halfway through my workshop prep at the moment.  If you come on here and I am not linked will someone please link me.  Pretty please,  just in case WiFi does not work where I am.

WOYWW 216

Here is a photo of my desk, as is, for all you WOYWW'ers out there. Morning' Julia!

I now have some workspace to the left of where I sit in front of the window.  Yes, I got rid of a tower of stamps.  Some I am selling and some I am giving away.  Some of my mounted stamps have been ripped off the wooden blocks to make storage easier and are now condensed into two tower blocks instead of three.

I just got so fed up of having all that worktop covered in boxes and am trying to think how I can get even more space as I still seem to have clutter taking up too much room.  Watch this space!

Am mega busy trying to get a project done for the Oyster Retreat - is anyone going to it?  So this was my work desk outside.  It is so rare I get to craft outdoors I just had to show you photos from the other day.

I used the Bistro Table - and chairs (didn't want to put too much weight on the glass table shown still with it's cover on below - those steel dies don't half weigh and I have two boxes of them) - can you see my two flowering yuccas - top left?

It was lovely to do some die cutting outdoors.

We have been taking advantage of the sunshine and actually had the French Window open most days for this, the first real summer we have had in ages (read "years").

This is the other side of the patio - the decking area

Hope we get some more of this lovely weather throughout August and September.

Went on a Workshop

The other week I went on a workshop with my friend Lorraine to Art from the Heart where we did an album with Dyan.  Forgot all about posting it so here you are - lots of pictures.

cover with two mini canvas attached

the pages differ in size (front cover on left)

and some have "foldy" bits

back page and cover

cut edge on the green page

"foldy" one on the red

Here you can see "foldy" ones clearer

I had better leave it there or you will get 'so bored' if I go through all the pages.  Hope you enjoyed looking as much as I did making!

Masking - Artful Times Challenge

The new challenge at Artful Times is Masking.  I love to use the technique of masking in my stamping - there is something fulfilling about getting it right - although it is easy to get it wrong with a little bit of overlap of images if enough care is not taken.

I don't seem to have used an Asian stamp in ages so decided to get three of them out for this challenge.  I started off by looking to see what colours I should use to do with China and then realised afterwards that the image really is Japanese.  Phew!  No offence in my choice of colour.

Red - Life (also anger and danger but we won't think of that)
Yellow - Courage, Aristocracy, Cheerfulness, Beauty and Refinement
Green - Eternal Life, Youthfulness, Freshness
Blue - Everyday Life
Purple - Privilege Wealth
White - the white carnation symbolises death (ooh)
Black - Mystery and the Night

If you want to know about other cultures and colour click here.

Right now to get to my Scrapling - remember, the bit left over when you have made a square card - 2.5" x 11" folded in half!  Here is how I made it - step by step masking.

First stamp your main image (the one you want at the front) on your cardstock and again on a Post It Note making sure you have stamped so that as much as possible has the 'sticky' on the back.  Cut out the Post It Note image just on the inside of the black outline.  This is now your "Mask".

Lay the Mask over the image on your card and stamp other image(s) over the top.  These should hit the mask so that it does not show through on your card.

Your image should now look like this with no overlapping images, just the appearance of them in the background.

I then coloured my cherry blossom with my Distress ink Pads by pressing them down on a small acrylic mount, using a larger one to spritz a little water on to make the ink thinner when I used my brush in it.

I did use my Twinkling H2o's for the dress though 
as I wanted it to look sparkly as befits a lovely Japanese lady.

Hope you give Masking a try!

In the meantime why not see what Cathryn has done with this technique and look at Sam's modern twist on the idea.