WOYWW 753

 Another Wednesday and now we are into November and that means Christmas is on the horizon.  I hope most of you are a step nearer than I am.  Oh, I did do the Christmas cake last week and you saw I had made a start on my Christmas cards - done a few more since then but mostly in the same design.  Bought a few stocking fillers (chocolates) for my other half in the hope that he will have forgotten all about them by Christmas time as he was with me when I bought them.

We are away at the moment, home later today as I need to source a consultant.  Got a cutaneous horn on my right cheek and the nhs appointment has come through for the 3rd May next year - can't live like this until then so dipping into my savings.  Read the bios of the consultants at our local private hospital but still no idea which to choose.  Do I go off who looks the kindest?  The one who looks to be softest with me?  The one with most letters behind his name?  Help!!!!  I'll let you know how I go on.

So my desk this week has to be either the dining table or the coffee table.  Then there are some things on the dressing table in the bedroom and, of course ... I have filled one bed in the spare room with crafting goodies.  Here is the coffee table with my stash of what I seem to be using:

Left to right back row - stamps, dotty bag with pens in, tissues, glue, Stickles, waterpot, ink pad.  Next row cutter, towel on top (for wiping stamps) more stamps in boxes, pens, Inktense pencils, scrap paper on a foam mat.  In the fruit bowl I have balanced my stencil brush and my ink pad.

Nothing on the dining table as we will be eating shortly but on the mantle-piece are my cards to date.  The ones from last week have grown in number to eight

I must have done the owl ones earlier and I have lots of hats aif I want to do more.   But now am doing some longer ones similar to last weeks. The two on the right are just the images waiting to be finished and dressed before they go on to a card base.  I don't know what to do about the tree at the back?  Do I add colour to it or just leave it?  It does have coloured baubles on it.

Thursday we went to Sizergh to see the trees in their autumnal dresses and found we were too late for the Acers.  Most had dropped all of their leaves.  However it was a lovely day out as always.

Just look at all the different coloured leaves on that one tree.  Shame that red barrier was there and I cannot photoshop it out ) 'cos I don't know how to).

On Saturday I went to a workshop with my lovely friend from Ulverston.  We made a pretty and useful  birthday book but it isn't finished yet as I want to do a lot more to it but Christmas is encroaching on my time.  I hope to show it to you later.  Maybe after Christmas (lol) just in time for the new year to start off with a list of birthdays.

Will leave it there for this week.  Now to see what Ms Julia has been up to and see what the other members of the WOYWW Gang have been doing.

Jeudi Journal - Coffee?

Today the quote is "Coffee has given me unrealistic expectations of productivity" and Art Journal Journey's theme is by the lovely Jo and is all about Nature so in order to marry the two together for my Jeudi Journal post I looked up where coffee comes from and found this interesting fact - I quote:

"The question of "where did coffee originate" is one of legends and folklore.  The most common story is that of the ancient coffee forests on the Ethiopian plateau, where a goat herder named Kaldi first ate  berries from a peculiar looking tree.    The berries gave him a jittery, wide-awake feeling, that he had never experienced before.  From there, the power of coffee spread like wildfire.  Today coffee beans are one of the worlds most important agricultural commodities with millions of coffee plants cultivated in over seventy plus countries around the globe."

I had no idea that "coffee comes from a woody plant that can grow up to 10 metres tall, the beans developing inside a 'cherry' that grows from these plants and the coffee bean we know is actually a seed inside this cherry",  and so my page today is all about coffee which is at the centre of my story.

"Penny had always been a hard worker.  As what task she had to perform it was always done with 110%.  Take for example when she was at school, all her friends did their study as and when they wanted, they still had lots of time to go out and enjoy hanging about with one another and going dancing and to the cinema.  But not Penny.  Penny was not to be seen when study was needed in order to pass those vital exams.  She was only seen through her bedroom window studying hard, cramming as much as she could and coming away with lots of A's, some A*'s and a smattering of B's.  Her parents were so proud of her.

It came as no surprise to anyone when she was the one who secured an apprenticeship at the local Accountants, she flew through the interview with flying colours, and, of course, those amazing exam results.  She was a Trainee Accounting Technician at an early age and wanted to carry on with her studies to become an Assistant Accountant.

The thing was, Penny lived on coffee.  She rarely had a cup of coffee out of her hands.  It was coffee that had allowed her to stay up into the small hours of the night carrying on with her studying.  And so the day of her final examinations came ... and went ... and she didn't make the grade.  She failed her exams.

Penny was devastated and could see no reason at all why she had not passed as she had done in the early years.  And so she had to find someone to blame.  It wasn't her fault.  It must have been the coffee!  

"Coffee has given me unrealistic expectations of productivity" she said out loud to herself.  "I really believed if I could only stay awake in the wee small hours and study I would make it."  She took a long hard look at herself in the mirror.  There was only one thing she could do.  So armed with her shopping bag she set off for the local supermarket to buy herself several packets of tea.  "If coffee was my downfall I will try tea" she said to herself, and off she went to try a different drink and see if that worked any better at helping her and her expectations."

I really did find it difficult to marry the two challenges together and to begin with I did a little research on coffee and so I printed out some pictures of the bush that coffee comes from.  These were used to decorate my page to fit in with Jo's 'Nature' theme at AJJ.  Rather than cut the sprigs out I used them in a border down the side of the page like the tea cards we used to do in challenges when I first began stamping.  I hope Jo feels my page qualifies for her challenge ande I look forward to thinking about next week's page which I might find has an easier quote.

I have been meaning to show Valerie my latest t-shirt as I am sure she will love it but I kept forgetting all during October.  Now it fits in here perfectly with my page.  So just for Valerie I give you my winter t-shirt:

It really is pale blue, looks grey?

WOYWW 752

Hip Hip Hooray, I have started my Christmas cards.  Any more of you WOYWW'ers been Christmas card making?  Bet some of you have finished them not just started them.

Went down to Ruthin on Saturday to the Hallaganza at Lavinia and saw lots of lovely ideas and spent lots of lovely lolly.  Yes, had to buy those new stamps and this Christmas my cards will maybe have a fairy on them.  In fact on Monday I did three cards featuring the two fairies that have just come out.  I fell in love with them.  The fairies, not my cards.

To be honest I didn't need to go down to get inspired, the design team had been working hard and putting lots of their ideas on the net.  It was one of Tracey's videos that inspired me to use the fairies and so I stamped them up and added a bit of other stuff, a bit of colour, some holographic stuff and I had them done.  They are the ones that will go abroad.

So here is my craftroom counter in all its mess:

and my little table

Hopefully by next week I will have lots more Christmas cards done.  The one I really wanted to try I didn't realise I needed some small snowflakes to make it and I don't have any suitable in my stash.  Ah well, next year ...

In the meantime here is a catch up on some of my journal pages - I'll just show you the Lavinia inspired ones.  I don't know who inspired me with this lady (Zia) in her top hat but Jo was responsible for the inspiration behind the mousey clockwork one.

this one below is purely mine

This was intended for a challenge called 'animals gather' but I was too late (didn't read the rules) so I added some gears later and used it in my 'in gear' theme.

I've been Lavinia all the way recently as I did some 3" x 3" squares for a challenge Jo put up but I will show those to you next week in case I don't get any Christmas cards done for you to see.

In the meantime stay safe and well and hopefully we will meet up here again next Wednesday with all the other WOYWW gang.

End of the Month - Art Journal Journey

 Well, October is over and my planned post did not come to fruition.  I copied some "gear" quotes for you and they all came with a heavy white line across them.  Even when I deleted them one by one and retyped them myself I still had the heavy line.  So I give you the link instead: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/gears-quotes.

Talk about everything going wrong.   I decided to do a picture using pumpkins for Halloween but then I got carried away and so I ended up with my pumpkin houses but no gears.  So I decided the only thing to do was to attach some like falling leaves (substitute gears for leaves) for Pippin to be looking up at.

Here is my amended picture for my final contribution

May I thank all who entered a page in their journal for my theme at Art Journal Journey and a big thank you to Elizabeth for inviting me to be a guest host.  It has been a pleasure seeing what you all came up with and I thank you for it.  Tomorrow brings a new month and a new theme so it is exciting.  See you there!

Art Journal Journey -Two for One

Here we are, almost the end of October and time to bring my theme to an end at Art Journal Journey.  I still have three pages I previously made to show you so will show you two today and just one tomorrow.

These are not for my square journal but will still go in my Lavinia one if I decide to put them there as they are all Lavinia stamps I used.

The top one was simply a piece of cardstock on which I used Distress Inks in various greens and yellows and then the stencil, Lavinia, was used.  I often wonder when using this stencil have I got it upside down or the right way up?

It just had a selection of Lavinia cogs, wheels and words stamped on it and then some clocks, a compass and some more gears to give it prominence for my theme at AJJ.

The bottom one was where I had made a card and then stamped some images, again from Lavinia, on it but I had smudged the card.  So in order to save it from the bin and not add to the landfill problem I cut the two hearts out using a Spellbinders die.  I decorated a piece of cardstock with purple and pink DI's and stamped time words all over randomly.  This then had the two hearts cut from its face and I slotted the previous hearts behind it.

I hope this gives you another idea on what you might do if you too spoil a card with a silly smudge or something similar.

Art Journal Journey - Zia

 Just in case you are all wondering who or what Zia is, she is the Steampunk Lady from Lavinia Stamps.  Now I obviously got this idea from one of the design team but I cannot remember who, maybe it was Emma Jo?  I do remember on the original she had the mask on her eyes, I just put goggles on her.

To colour my page I used my stencil brushes which had left over ink on them, most likely Elements inks as those are what I use with these brushes.  So it was a mixture of pink, blue and purple.

The first stamping I did was Zia but with the top of her head wiped of ink so that the top hat would fit there.  This was with Versafine Clair Nocturne ink.  Then I stamped the Top Hat and finally the Goggles.  I used the Angel Wings, first of all with Nocturne, and then the ones behind with Memento London Fog.  The cogs and the words down the right hand side were both stamped with Nocturne but the words were second generation stamping.

The final thing was to give Zia some red lips and lilac shiny laces on her hat (gel pens).

Although she will most likely go in my Lavinia Journal which is roughly 9.5" x 8" she was produced on a smaller piece of cardstock (7" x 7").  When I put her in my journal she will have some work done on the page, as will all of my pieces, to tie her into the actual page.

It is nearing the end of the month of October, oh dear, one more month and we will be into Christmas with a vengeance, so there are not many more pages to show you for my theme at Art Journal Journey.  I have so enjoyed making these pages and now will enjoy adding them and extending them to include the whole of the page.  I think I will probably start with this one, it's the smallest so neds most work.

Just realised there are still two more days in October, the month has 31 days, not 30 so hopefully I can show you another two pages before my guest host stint ends.  That means there is still time for you to join in at Art Journal Journey if you so wish.  Would love to see you there.

Art Journal Journey - Tik Tok

Another page inspired by my lovely friend, Jo Rice,  who is head of the Design Team at lavinia Stamps, and again featuring the playful little mice.  I think Jo has a soft spot for them as I do. They work for so many of the Lavinia designs that the team put out on social media for us all to see.  Many of them also do tutorials so you can join in with them.  (The Design Team not the mice)

Again I have used the top hat as well as the mice for my page and as it is for the theme at Art Journal Journey you will find there are some gears on it.  They make fabulous wheels for things and therefore provide some humorous pictures for cards and journal pages alike.

For this journal page (in my 8" x 8" journal) I first of all stamped the clock in the bottom left corner, just a tiny bit off the page.  Then I carefully stamped the compass on top of it, balancing the "S" for south as closely as I could to the edge of the clock.

Next came an assortment of cogs and wheels in the opposite corner.  Some of these are quite tiny and as there are three sets I have them all mounted on one piece of acrylic.  As you can imagine they are quite easy to lose so it is better to stamp, clean, and return to the carrier sheet straight away.

Then came the mice.  Tilly is the one on the left balancing on the "N" for north on the compass which in turn is balancing on Tick, the clock stamp.  Her friend, Minni, is doing her best to keep upright whilst balancing on two cogs which are in turn balancing on more cogs and wheels.  Oh what fun those two are having.  Somehow I think they are both 'in gear' today.  Apart from the mice who were stamped in Versafine Clair Nocturne everything else was stamped in Pinecone.

I just used Elements Lime Punch ink brushed lightly around the edge of my page, leaving the centre white where I  included the two sets of words (words of steam) stamped on cardstock and lightly brushed with Elements Truffle ink.

I hopw you have enjoyed seeing the little mice again. They are too cute not to include in my theme for Art Journal Journey.  If you would like to join in please be sure to read the dreaded rules here first of all.