WOYWW 268 Action!

Quite a few of you agreed with me last week that we should start demanding use by dates on products we buy in our crafting.  No good just me writing - we need to be a BIG voice.  Is it better for us to write singly or to have some kind of petition to be signed (and if so how do we go about it).  Anyone with me and if so any suggestions please?

Right, business over, but before I show you my desk I will run a couple more of the Heartfelt Creations cards by you that I made with the delightful Emma Lou who was over from Indiana and working alongside Oyster Stamps:

This was one of my favourites

I think it is the colours I like and I love the blue and yellow on the flower.  The card front kind of stands proud of the side panels.  Lots of possibilities with this one.

I love windows

On holiday, especially in Europe, I love taking photographs of doors and windows so that is probably why this particular card draws me to it.  I just had to have this stamp.

I guess all of you WOYWW'ers are getting a little frustrated with me by now - ok, so you came on here to see my desk.  Here it is - nothing special - it's been too hot!

To keep a bit cooler I spent some of my time making labels and cutting them out to the different sizes for my sets of drawers.  These are the last few waiting to be cut to size - it was so hot today I gave up. You can also see I am still cutting out stamped images from Sarah's collection.  The index file has my supplies written down in pencil on the cards so I know where everything is (laugh) (I often forget to amend when I change things around).

 some of my supplies with their new labels

I'll not show them all to you - I will save some for next Wednesday and maybe then I will have them all nicely labelled with printed words instead of some of them having handwritten scribbled words on them.  These are just on the one side.  As you can see, the colour scheme the TV Programme did my room in has somewhat changed with the addition of, first grey cupboards and then (when they didn't have any) a cream one.

Pop over to see Ms Julia now please and link in to lots more desks.  I am sure most of you are on the list these days but if not it is a great way of making friends.

Now to sit in the bedroom with the big fan on for a while.  Phew!

Challenge - A Tag

Over at Artful Times we have our new challenge - make a TAG.  We have been rather low on the entries this last few times so we are hoping that we get a few more for this challenge.

No theme, no colour restrictions, no size stipulated - just read the rules, stick to them to be in for the prize on offer and do your entry.  Here's what I did

Both have Distress Inks as background colour.  The top one using the reds and oranges with a little bit of white pen for interest.  The figure of Frieda was stamped in Black Archival Ink and then had embossing powder over it.  I used a mask to try to keep the background ink from the image.

My second one features a Steampunk Lady from "Deep Red" which I have had for quite a while and not used until now.  This time I used the blues and greens from the Distress Inks  and I used my Twinkling H2o's to add a bit of colour to the embossed image.

I do hope you pop over to Artful Times to see what Wendy has done with her tags - quite different and very beautiful.

Thanks for looking.

WOYWW 267, a Grumble, a Mess, Lovely ATC's and a couple of Cards

Wow, that's a mouthful of a header isn't it this morning.

Grumble first - went on Julia's blog earlier and she was saying that her pens had not been used in 18 months and some had dried up. Sorry, but I think we stampers/artists sit back and do not complain when really we should be doing.

I opened some paints the other week which I had not used - dried up to a sponge like consistency - fit only for maybe 'trowelling' on plant pots where texture could be a feature.  These were the last in a long line of products I have used and found to be unusable any more - yet my hard earned money had paid for these.  I think we should be demanding that 'sell by dates' be put on the products - how long have they sat in a warehouse, how long on the shop shelf etc etc.  At the prices I paid for these paints, and others before them, and more before them, I expect them to last.  Others do so why can't these?  My Lumieres I have had since I first began stamping and I have had my old Silks for about three years - they are fine.

Rant over.

Unexpectedly went away for the weekend with Oyster Stamps and Heartfelt Creations and made more cards with the delightful Emma Lou.  Here are a couple of them - don't want to give you overload so will spread them out over a few days.

and 

Came home from Broughton to be greeted by the Police who wanted to know if we had seen anything relating to a car that was close to our house.  "No" was our answer and apparently it was the dumped getaway car from an armed robbery in the area.  Ooer!

Monday I had to put all my goodies away - yes, I bought loads whilst on the weekend, well I have to make these flowers now, I am hooked!  So my craft room had a bit of a reorganise.  Gone is the printer to another room and I have moved some things to give me more stamping space where I sit.  Spent all day on it and as you can see below I now have to clear away some stuff to make my area nice and empty ready for flower making, journalling and whatever other projects I have up my sleeve.  Will someone extend the day by another 12 hours please!!

You can see the blank area of worktop, that's my new extension bit

and here is what used to be around that area in it's new home.

Now I have a huge apology to make - for the last couple of Wednesdays I have uploaded and published and then realised I had not shown my latest atc's so here they are:

Starting left and moving clockwise - Nan G, Dolores, Peggy (2) and last but certainly not least Darnell. Don't know how I got two from Peggy but I am certainly not grumbling.  Thank you ladies for adding to my beautiful 2014 collection.

Ok I have talked enough, pop along to see Julia, find out what she has been up to and then go and look at what others are doing.   

Continuing with Emma Lou

My final orange bloom card is here.  We were given sentiments to put on each one and this would have had the sentiment just inside the opening gate but I decided to wait and see what I used my card for before adding a sentiment.

After the morning session where we had made all five of the cards I have now shown you we had a lovely buffet lunch, sitting outside in the hotel gardens, and then came in to begin making different flowers using the Arianna Blooms set.  

Here's one of the cards

I just love the spidery stamens that you cut out with this one.  Oops, looks as if the bottom one got squashed a bit in transporting.  Not to worry, I have straightened it out now.  Want to see more?  

That cute parasol bows out and I can put some tissue underneath when posting out

The last two I added jewel centres to when I got home.  What do you think about the black?

If any of you are thinking about any of the Oyster Stamps Retreats let me just say, we did not need to take a thing.  Everything was laid out for us to use, fine nozzled glue, cutting mats to work on, ink pads, dabbers, water spritzers and on and on I could go.  And let's not forget the inner man - food abundant.  Forget slimming, just enjoy a day or a weekend of friendship and fun (and come away with makes like this).

A BIG Thank You to the Oyster Gang and to Heartfelt Creations for a wonderful day ... and more to come.

Continuing the Oyster Stamps Day

Here are another two of the cards we made at the Oyster Stamps Day in Chirk.  Hope you enjoyed yesterday's and you enjoy todays.  Will upload two more tomorrow

Again, yet two more flowers using the same die.  These, yesterdays and tomorrows cards all use the Majestic Blooms die.  Aren't they different?

Hope you enjoyed seeing them.  Want to have a go - just go to Oyster Stamps and buy those dies and stamps before they sell out!

Went on a Workshop with Emma Lou

Yesterday I went with my lovely friend Lorraine to a workshop in Chirk that Oyster Stamps had arranged.  The delightful Emma Lou from Heartfelt Creations is over here with her equally delightful husband Richard and they are doing a series of workshops for Oyster Stamps which Lorraine had suggested we might go to.

Now I know you all know I demonstrate for Oyster but I wanted it to be a surprise and for Tracey and Graham, and it really was.  It was lovely to see the big smile on Tracey's face when she saw me - obviously we had to have big cuddles.  The day just went better and better as an old friend, Chris was there on her own so she sat with us on our table and then I saw Isobel who I work with at the Leigh Shows.  I am not missing Ellie, dear loveable Ellie, out who was stood with Tracey outside and had a lovely big grin on her face when she saw me.  We first met on an Oyster Retreat and we get on really well.

Anyway, enough of this waffling, but it was good to see so many lovely friends, and then be introduced to the delightful Emma Lou and Richard.

Everything was stamped and cut out for us so all we had to do was colour and assemble our cards.  The whole aim of the workshop was for us to learn how to shape the die cuts into flowers.  In order to get through eight, yes EIGHT, cards in the day - all the hard work of cutting and stamping had been done - it was all about shaping the flowers.  How to get different looks from one diecut!  Fabulous.  Now we can make totally different cards having bought just one stamp and one die.

Here are two of my cards - I am going to space them out over the next few days and upload two (without the waffle) each day over the weekend.  Hope you enjoy!

Not sure if the bottom one should have been photographed as a portrait style card, but hey ho, you can decide which way it looks best yourself.  Can you see the centre of the second one is different?  Now what will I show you tomorrow?

WOYWW 266 - The Tag Saga!!!

Went to a fab workshop on Saturday tutored by the delightful Sarah Anderson who is one of the best tutors around (IMO) when we did some journalling.  Ever since, I have been journalling crazy, although only done one page in my journal which you can see on the post below.  I have been working on my little booklet which we began with Sarah (using her fab stamps) and also on my lettering.  She inspired me so much and I have now started a separate journal, well I had loads spare, where I am going to do nothing but lettering.  It was lovely sat in the sun yesterday afternoon just doodling at my letters - until the big blobs of rain came down - at the back of the "bungie" - but not at the front!!

Here's my desk for all you Julia followers - if you want to tarry a while you can read on but the tag is another tale altogether.

You can't see my lettering as my pencil case is obscuring the page, some cut out images are next moving clockwise, then some stamps, and old journal page, and the little book is on my green mat. NB Jo's desk tidy is proving useful.

Those of you who were with me last Wednesday will remember I could not find a stamp.  Well I finally found it in the 'drawer with no name'. Yep, the blank drawer which I was sure contained (ahem)  'other than ...'  I finally got it stamped and made a mess of the painting (only a red cross) so I decided to redo it.

During my search for that stamp (the view of Tower Bridge in London), I had come across one of Queen Elizabeth I and so I decided to include her on the new tag.  Ahem, I could not remember where I had seen it.  Finally tracked her down in one of the 'miscellaneous' boxes the next day.  Duly re-stamped the whole tag (embossing the Queens) only to find that Tower Bridge did not look like Tower Bridge because of the three images.

Did I start again?  No, I gave myself the onerous task of cutting some red cardstock to fit over the messy painting.  This meant stamping part of the images of Elizabeth II and Victoria so it would fit up to their faces.  Oh dear, the punch hole end was a bit out of alignment - sod it!  I have almost lost the will to live!!

Next I typed "England, My England" the title of a collection by D H Lawrence (inspiration for the tag?) on a piece of paper, cut it out and stuck it on the end of the tag.  Cut out a red letter "E" and suddenly realised I had to leave a half inch gap for binding - so the E went into 'Elizabeth'!  Then I realised it was the unpunched end that had to have half an inch left for binding.

Retyped the words, run them off, stuck them on the punched side. Happy?  No!  But a solution and that is how it went to Vicky Stampers.  Now the recipient can choose to bind this at either end without losing the reason for 'Queens' being on a tag marked "E".

nothing special at the end of all that!!