WOYWW 697

 We are creeping nearer and nearer to that 700th edition of WOYWW.  We may have shrunk a little in numbers but it is one of the best ways I know of making friends who really do care about one another.  Why don't you join us and show us your desk - no need to be embarrassed if it is a mess, the messier the better.

My little table today shows what I have been up to.  A workshop with Jo Rice and Lavinia stamps was enjoyed by me and others via the internet on Sunday.  I was not 100% happy with my finished product and so I am in the throes of doing another one.  It will be an MDF piece which will stand on a radiator shelf when completed.  At the moment it is in my new Black Journal (which I have had for years and not used - this is now my first page).

This is my desk

and my counter behind me

This last photo shows how I work when I am doing a workshop.  I have all the things I need (or think I need) set out on the counter behind me and a clear(ish) table to work on in front of me.  Here you can see the MDF board, bottom left, that the card is going to be stuck on when completed.  I just hope my next one is good enough to go on the board - I will show you another time.

It shows how much I enjoyed this workshop as I want to do it again but at my own pace.  Not that Jo went too fast or anything but I can spend more time practising the little things that I want, like getting the blending right.  I am fairly new to Lavinia type stamping and love to see what others can do and I want to do "everything" so with a teacher like Jo it is possible.  I just cannot get enough of the Lavinia workshops at the moment and I watch them on You Tube whenever possible.

We were at the caravan last week and it was a complete wash out.  Talk about rain - and one night the winds were a bit scary, especially as we are surrounded on two sides by woodland.  So I got my calendar finished that was a class at Vicky Stampers with Jo Rice - but more of that another week, there's 12 pages.  In the meantime here are a couple of photos from Sizergh Castle the time before when we were there - see it can be sunny.

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Jeudi Journal - Subscription

 The quote chosen this week from Tim Holtz and his Snarky Quotes - "Please cancel my subscription to your issues".  So, working with that and Elle's lovely theme at Art Journal Journey "Fairytales, Folklore and Fables" I wondered what to do.  Elle gave some fantastic prompts as well as explaining her title excellently so if you pop along to Art Journal Journey I am sure you will want to join in.

This is my page today and my story will follow:

"Christine is a singer in a local amateur operatic society, always the understudy for the main role and never the principal character, that is until one day ...  when she is kidnapped by a masked man called Erik.  He has heard her singing and is enthralled by her beautiful voice and cannot understand why she is never given the main role in the various productions.

Erik keeps Christine locked up for himself and in an attempt to escape she tears off his mask and discovers he has the head of a skeleton.  Horrified but trying not to show it Christine agrees that if he let her go she will wear his ring as a sign she is faithful to him and him alone.

Going back home she meets her childhood friend, Raoul, and tells him all about Erik.  They decide to run away together to somewhere that Erik will never find her.  Unknown to them Erik has overheard their conversation and once again, he abducts Christine.  

This time he forces her to marry him but just before she does she lifts her veil and kisses him.  This is the first time Erik has ever been kissed and he begins to cry, Christine is reduced to tears herself and he decides to let her go from his life.  As she leaves she turns and says "Please cancel my subscription to your issues" and escapes through the door of the cellar where he had her locked away."

Alright, this is not sticking to the true story of the Phantom of the Opera but it is my version for Elle at Art Journal Journey - maybe it will become a West End hit in its time if they change the names of the characters.  I hope the final sentence of the story made you smile.

WOYWW 696

 Gosh next month WOYWW'ers will reach 700 posts - well some will, I joined in the early days but not the first posting.  Last Saturday we met up, not all of us but some, and it was lovely to see one another after so long (Pandemic stopped us) but it seemed as if it was yesterday we had been with the sisters and Julia who did the organising.  It was a lovely day and we had a toast to past members, in particular to our Shaz who had touched everyone's lives in so many ways.  Must mention that we did miss Lunch Lady Jan who was busy in Edinburgh celebrating with her husband, Gordon, their Ruby Wedding Anniversary. 

I sat with Cindy who I was meeting in person for the first time, and I got on with my Wonky Book.  I had it cut out ready so just had to decorate it, and chose to do so with some of my Janet Klein figures.  The background was done simply with some of Abs' stencils and I still have to put some stamping on, despite having already stuck the figures on.  I decorated the cover when I got home as I had not done the cut outs previously - here it is and one of the pages:

Monday we went out for the day as we wanted to pick something up from the Lakeland Store and decided to go for a little walk along the edge of the lake.  We came across two tree stumps that people had been putting coins into and it led us to a lovely little 'beach' area.

We both agreed we would come back here in the summer and maybe bring a little picnic with us.  What's the betting there are lots of others with the same thoughts.  So glad we didn't leave it until yesterday as it was so wet and windy - the perfect day for staying in.  Showery again this morning.

As it is so wet and cool I think it is a perfect day to carry on with some crafting.  So I weill leave it there and get on, perhaps a bit of Lavinia and some fairies.

Art Journal Journey - It's a Twofer

It's the last day of my theme over at Art Journal Journey and I would like to thank Elizabeth and the other moderators for inviting me to be a guest host.  Also, big thanks to everyone who has entered - without you it would not have been so enjoyable.

I got a little carried away with making my 9" x 6" pages and binding them together with my Rollabind.  Great to be able to add and remove pages as I went along.  So today I have two for you.  I got lost with my scheduling and ended up with one page over so here they are - twofer ...

This was created on a peice of grey card and put through my die cutting machine with 'Rivets' to emboss the background.  I then went lightly over it with Black Soot Distress Oxides to show the embossing.  The bird on the left is by Stampendous and is a clockwork one but does have feathers on its head (and rulers on its tail).

The bird on the right is one of Tracy Evans' creations from Aall & Create, and he is left black and white but his top hat has a touch of green to stand out against the bright sun that I made on a separate piece of card and stuck on.  This was from a class I took with Tracy a long time ago and I loved the effect.  At the top are the words "Fly Free" again by Tracy.

My second one is one I first called "Serengeti" but then I could not find the stamp and so it had to be renamed "Africa".

This was made using Distress Oxides to create a suitable background and then spattered with water for a bit more interest and to break up the solid colour.  I simply stamped the giraffe on the right and put some trees and birds alongside.  Finally the word "Africa".

Giraffes have short dense fur with a unique pattern of dark patches that range from beige to chestnut brown.  Did you know, no two giraffe skin patterns are exactly the same but some regional patterns are so common and distinct that zoologists have identified a number of species based on the patterns.

So this really is my final posting for this theme - Fur and/or Feathers.  There's still time for you to do another one.  I hope you have enjoyed the inspiration I've tried to show you during September - and once again a BIG THANK YOU to all who have entered and made it a super month for me.

I wonder what the next theme will be?  Pop over to Art Journal Journey tomorrow to see.  See you there!

Jeudi Journal - Silence

To begin with I used three colours of Distress Ink on an acrylic block and then spritzed it with water and swiped it over the page.  I repeated this util the page was mostly covered.  I don't mind any uninked bits.  Next, and using Cracked Pistachio again I stamped some of the stars in a semi circle where the main image was going to be.  (These are to depict pain).  

Then I chose my figures.  A head who could be seen to be holding her ears and four little characters from the mini range of Dylusion figures and some tiny birds from Aall & Create Janet Klein's range.  All were coloured in using my Promarkers.  finally I drew a line around the whole page, and thickened it in parts to represent some kind of border - unfortunately the scanner did not pick it all up and one side is hardly showing.

'Alice was feeling very much like her namesake - Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland - as her head was spinning and she was supposed to be studying for her final nurse's examination.  She had been along to the local library and done some studying there.  It was good as they had computers available so she was able to do research as well as use the notes she had taken in class.  However, it was a lovely summer's day and she longed for the outside so had taken her leave of the library and made her way to the far end of the park.  It was lovely to get some fresh air but oh, what a mistake!

On an ordinary summer day it would have been lovely to have the birdsong around her but trying to study she found it most distracting.  The little birds were happily flying here and there and although she loved them dearly, today was not the day for birdsong.  She wondered if it was tension that was making her feel like she was, but now she had the birdsong in her head and she could not shut it out as how she tried.

However, it was much better than the constant chatter of people who were walking past her.  Children ran, laughing and shrieking as they played tag and threw a ball to one another.   And one young woman had had the audacity to sit by her on the bench opposite.  Luckily she was reading too.  Alice breathed a sigh of relief.  All too soon a pretty young woman walked by and sat on the bench opposite with the other young woman.  They appeared to know one another.  Oh no, they obviously did as they began chattering.

It was all yakkity yak around Alice and she decided that enough was enough.  Closing her book she allowed her eyelids to droop and was soon dreaming about the holiday she and some other nursing students were planning to a little island off the mainland of Greece.  The sun was lovely and warm and she felt she had been transported on holiday where she and her friends could practise their sparse knowledge of the language of Greece.  

In her dream she was wearing the new sundress she had bought especially for going out in the evenings and a handsome young man came and touched her on the arm and spoke to her in broken English. Just as she was about to reply she woke up and realised she was at home, in the local park, and there was a lot of noise around her,  "I wish more people were fluent in silence" she said to herself as she got up and set off home.

Because I have included some birds I can enter this into the Art Journal Journey Challenge - Fur and/or Feathers.  See you there - there's just one more day to enter?

Art Journal Journey - Puffin

 The background for this page was made using Blueprint Sketch and Wilted Violet Distress Oxides smooched on an acrylic block and then with an image from Aall & Create (Numerator) stamped over the top and embossed in white ep.  The fact that the image is not fully stamped is intentional, a partial image often looks much better, especially when used as a background, than a complete one in my opinion.  I assure you it was no mistake.

Next I drew three circles with my White Posca Pen and then went over them with a Blue Gel Pen.  I stamped Reckoner Digits and a script stamp in various places over the background but not too much on the plain uninked part.  This was reserved for the man himself - the Puffin.

The idea for this came from something Tracy Evans of Aall & Create had done but as I do not have her puffins (I have no idea why) but I did have a puffin from another company and so I used that one, stamped, coloured in with Polychromos, fussy cut and then adhered to the page.

You will notice there are some small black and white circles at the base of the page - these are from a piece of Aall & Create washi tape which I used to ground the puffin and kind of finish the page off.  I am entering this into Fur and/or Feathers at Art Journal Journey.

WOYWW

Well, Saturday draws near and it's almost that time of the year for a lot of WOYWW members to meet up.  What a lovely way to meet one another it is too.  There will be some old faces and hopefully some new ones too.  Sadly LLJ will not be with us as she is off celebrating her Ruby Wedding Anniversary - have a lovely time J & G.   Luckily we will have our glorious leader, Julia, and the two sisters, Annie & Jo, who are responsible for booking us in at the lovely hall.  Thanks ladies for all the work you do behind the scenes.

Here I am, back home and missing being on the edge of The Lakes.  Had to come home for our Covid jabs, his on Sunday and mine on Monday.  I did say he was a softy for complaining that his arms ached on Sunday, but now I have had mine done I daren't moan and mine both hurt (flu and covid) and he is fine.  Typical!

Last week saw me away and having a sulk at myself for leaving my stencil brushes on the worktop - yes, that's where they were when I got home.  However, I did manage to finish a workshop I started at Victoria Stampers last month.  It was a folio that Carol, our Programme Officer, did for us - such a lot of die cutting for her so big thanks went to her for all the work she had put into the class.

Here are some photos of it, I still need some words to put on some of the pockets and haven't finalised what all the pockets will hold - but saying that I cannot wait to make another one.  Hence my desk - full of cutting out.  Found out that my friend had this die and she has loaned it to me.

and today's desk

At the back my Lavinia stamps and the brushes followed by my folio.  Back to the left we have some white card waiting for colouring and a couple of rulers and some pens.  Behind that the glue and the cut out folio.  In front of that my trusty scalpel and the bits of card off cuts.  The labels on my stamp pad are for my Distress Oxides, just need colouring and sticking on - a job I keep putting off - must get on with it.  Must order another of those stands for the DO's too as all my browns are sat on a shelf and I am bound to buy more.  The usual stuff is at the back, rarely changes.

Better go and get cracking.  See some of you soon.