WOYWW 598

It's another Wednesday and another week nearer to Christmas and I have at last started on my Christmas Cards.  Done the front of one!  Well, started it, stamped the images and coloured them in but that is as far as I got.  It's a start but I can't see me doing that many.  I just don't seem to be able to get motivated.  Doesn't help when your bff tells you she has done them all, written them and they are ready stamped for posting on the 1st December.

So here we are ready to share our desks and our latest makes in some cases with fellow WOYWW'ers.  Well, I have one latest make, a card I made for my friend who likes the Janet Klein figures, only trouble is I have another friend who is rather partial to them so I will have to make her one - for straight after Christmas too.  Here it is:

Not easy to take a photograph of to show all of it.

Can you see her dog is there on the way to her party on the large page.  Couldn't miss Jett off.

Now that I have distracted you from the making of "C" cards I will show you my desk and a couple of bits that are on the walls of my craftroom.

My box of Promarkers - I start off by using some other means of colouring and then turn back to them for speed.  They are depleting fast as I have had them quite some while and have not replaced all the ones that have run out.  There is the new green oxide and a stamp set of Tracy's that I am using on this particular card.  The white cards to the left are just some odd bits that I am using to stamp on, they will have the images on and then be mounted on some Christmassy colour before going on the card base.  Far left are the stamps I will be using for my next Tracy Evans workshop which I thought was this weekend but it is the one after so I have more time for the "C" cards.  Now some of my canvasses on the wall as promised weeks ago

Sorry they are so dark

Well, that is it for this week.  See you all next week with a bit of luck.

Jeudi Journal - Skipping

This week the quote is "You can't skip and be unhappy at the same time" and so I decided to illustrate it I would have someone skipping.  Not easy with Dyan's figures to find someone but I did find a figure with her hands in such a position that they could have been holding onto a skipping rope.  Hurrah!

To begin with I swished some Peeled Paint Distress Ink on my craft mat, spritzed it with water and then dabbed my page on top of it - it actually looks more yellow than green.  Then I dried it off and added some more ink to the craft mat, spritzed again and dabbed it off once more to get some patches.  

Next I took my 'Lotza Trianglz' stencil and put some random splodges of triangles in Scattered Straw about the page to make a background.  Then it was time to think about the figures and I decided to put three of the smaller ones on.  As I want to enter it into Art Journal Journey I had to include some birds somewhere for Wendy's challenge so I once more took some of Janet Klein's little ones, coloured them and included one looking at the skipping and one balancing on the rope - impossible I know but in the land of make believe anything is possible.

And now to the story:

"Little Sue had broken up with her boyfriend and was very unhappy,  She had been confiding in her bff, Janice and they had spent some considerable time talking, crying and laughing together as good friends do.  Janice had made her smile and eventually made her laugh with some of the stories about the ex boyfriend's rather large nose and ears which hadn't mattered at all to Sue when she had been in love with him but now she could laugh and call him names, all the silly names that Janice came up with.  It had been fine for a while but after Janice had left and gone home the tears had come again.  Something we all remember from our younger days.

Later that afternoon, Janice, being the good friend she was, had recruited Linda, another close friend to go and see little Sue to see if she wanted to go to the bowling alley with them, anything to take her mind off the ex boyfriend.  As they rounded the corner where Sue lived there she was, stood in the back yard skipping of all things.  Janice did not understand one bit and she turned to Linda and said "You can't skip and be unhappy at the same time" but Sue seemed to be proving her wrong as she counted and sang whilst she got on with skipping."

Maybe there is something, afterall, in the belief that the way to heal anything to do with the mind is exercise!  Just off for a jog around the block, see you later.

WOYWW 597

Another week gone - one of lockdown or lockup or whatever you want to call it.  It's also one week nearer to our WOYWW Virtual Crop and, dare I say it, to Christmas.  It's also a fairly good week in which I have put both books together but the Janet `Klein one is not really finished as yet as I have to put a title on it (yes, I am calling it "Guys & Dolls" or something).  I haven't had the time to video either as yet I can show you. the pages in my book that I did with Tracy Evans - the one I showed you the cover of last week.

This is my "Book of Two Halves" - each page you see below is the left and right hand page of the book ie each page is in two halves - the first page, below, is, in fact, the front and the back of the book:

The last four pages are what I added after the class had finished.

Last week I asked you what the yellow thing was on my desk.  I was surprised that nobody knew, I imagined there were some stampers out there who had had one at some time. gosh I must be the grandmother of WOYWW at this rate.  Well, it's a punch.  Anyway, here it is - it is hand held and you squeeze the handle to punch out the shape.  When you pull the yellow bit at the bottom out pops the shape you wanted to punch and you insert one of the others.  I rarely use it these days but it comes in handy now and then for something.

The second photo shows the yellow flap down so the (die?) is ejected ready to take out and replace.  Sorry about the glare from the camera on the craft mat but I think you can just about see it.

Well, you came here to see my desk but it is empty as I have been doing a bit on my trolley and the little table my bff gave to me as she was getting rid of it.  So that is my desk today:

On the left is the start of a birthday card for a friend and then that is my Janet Klein book and some glues all lined up like little soldiers.  A couple of the glues were blocked up and I needed to get glueing quickly so I had to bring in a couple of new ones.  Think it is about time I bought some more glue as I go through such a lot with these books.

See you next week - hopefully with my Janet Klein book on video.

Jeudi Journal - Cats

 This week I thought I would take the easy way out and use Distress Inks for the background instead of using paint.  At least I have more control over inks and so I began with a covering of Shaded Lilac and then I used Broken China at the top through my stencil (it's one I got from Germany a few years ago and I haven't a clue who makes it) and ended up with Spun Sugar at the base.

I used one of my tiny figures at the top of the page and two of my middle figures lower down with a Tim Holtz Crazy Cat for company.  These were stamped, all figures had new heads on and one had a new hat and legs.  I just love swapping these figures by Dylusions around as it creates more figures to play with.

As usual there has to be a story with my page.  Something I started quite a while ago now and even though I struggle at times I quite enjoy creating the stories.  So what is today all about

 

"Patsy and Edwina, two friends, had been chatting about all of their other friends and especially the ones who annoyed them for one thing or another.  There was Ramona who never shared anything but had everything so she was the sole topic of conversation for about five minutes.  Then it moved on to Louise, who always hung back when it came time for her to chip in with paying for something.  

(Of course we all have one of those friends who lets us ring them time and time again but somehow never thinks to pick the phone up and ring you first.)  Edwina had been thinking about her friend Trixie whilst they had been chatting and she came around to saying that Trixie, was rather like a cat and she never ever thinks to make a phone call, adding that if cats had phones they wouldn't call you back which rather goes to prove her point.  Afterall, hadn't Trixie got the cattiest eyes ever!  She thinks she is the prettiest of them all but really - those eyes of hers ....."

As I wanted to enter my journal page into Art Journal Journey where there was the new topic of birds chosen for the challenge by Wendy K I had to add a bird or two.  I had recently got some of Janet Klein's little figures and one of them had some birds on the sheet so I put two of them in the sky and one on the tail of Edwina's cat.  He looks quite perturbed to have a bird balancing on his tail.

WOYWW 596

Blinking Heck!  I think there is more than one Wednesday in a week, they come around too quickly.  It only seems a couple of days ago that I was taking a photo of my desk to put on here and I am at it again.  Of course I don't mind because I get to see all my friends and what they have been up to but Thursday follows Wednesday and I have to do a Journal page for then and I am always last minute with it!

Anyhow, here is my desk I have been working on a book with Tracy again (virtual workshop) and this time it was over three mornings and there was a lot to do.  | don't get much done in the actual workshops because of my back but I do finish off in the following days.  At the moment I have all my pages done (20 of them because I did extra) but it now wants putting together as a book.  I am hoping to do a video of it when it is completed but I might give you a sneak peek of the cover today.

The Janet Klein book is ready to be bound as well, I was just awaiting some extra stamps coming - I have over spent this month on AALL & Create stamps, I just couldn't help myself.  When that one is done I might get around to some "C cards but I do have three birthday cards and a workshop card to make first.

Here is my desk

left over images with the cover on the left

I had a Dickens of a time stamping on the painted surface so I ended up with several of those butterflies as you can see.  The cover is on the left on top of the other pages.  How many of you recognise the yellow instrument at the top right?  Those of you who don't have one, do you know what it is?  At the back you can see a pile of cards on my heat gun stand - well those are my Janet Klein pages waiting to be put into an album.

Because of lockdown we made a last minute trip to The Lakes and I took this photograph of some fungi that appeared quite quickly over the old tree trunk.  It has also covered a fence post as well.  I love things like this.  Fascinating patterns.

I find this fungi fascinating

Nearly forgot - my cover

More of my book next week.  Now to visit the other desks of the WOYWW'ers and see what my friends have been up to.  Pop on over to Julia's blog and follow the links - you will have a great time and get some ideas maybe of "C" cards you can do.  Am sure some ladies will be doing them.  Toodle Pip!

Jeudi Journal - Forget

Almost another month has gone by in a tick.  Time for the end of October and what used to be 'trick or treat' but because of Covid I expect it will vanish.  Will put a lit pumpkin in the window although the house is off the beaten track so i doubt any passers by will see it.  Still time to put in another entry for Chris' "Hold the Line" challenge over on Art Journal Journey.

This week the prompt was "I'll never forget the first time we met but I'll keep trying".  I used Lemon paint first of all which was covering the whole of the page and then I went in with Tangerine over the top and a hard brush which resulted in the page having the appearance of lines for the background.  Just to make sure I fulfilled the criteria for the challenge I added some scratchy lines in Ruby with a credit card.  I must confess the colours were ones I had been using in an online workshop so they were already on my desk.  Finally U went around the whole page with my white pen and did a double scribbly line (which looks as if it has taken on the orange of the paint underneath).

The two figures were chosen because both of them had lots of lines on the clothing they were wearing and I wanted a figure to depict both male and female.  I also wanted to show that she had "an air about her" and so I thought her stance with the arms as they were would be good for this particular quote.

"Mathilda was rather a large young lady, tall and well built but certainly with an enviable hour-glass figure.  She was very popular amongst the young set she hung around with and was never short of friends of either sex.  Boris had always been very fond of Mathilda and had a tendency to follow her around like a little lap dog.  This suited Mathilda down to the ground, she liked all the attention.  That was until the day he declared his love for her.  It was all due to the fact that he caught her at a bad time (with her hair full of rollers instead of cascading onto her shoulders in bouncy curls as she always liked to be seen) that her mood turned a very dark grey, almost black.  So after Boris had told her how he felt and asked her to accompany him to the disco that evening she rather scathingly told him "No".  Quickly followed by "I'll never forget the first time we met, but I'll keep trying".

WOYWW 595

 Well, the colours on the trees are certainly showing us it's autumn at the moment and I made a card for an Autumn  Mingle on a stamping group I am on.  Wanted to think outside the box a bit and so I used the Unity stamp I have had for years and never used.  Coloured the image in autumnal colours (they don't show very well here) and then diecut some leaves and coloured them with Distress Inks and scattered them about on the card underneath the image.

It did look better in real life

I love autumn for its colours and so enjoy going for a ride in the car and seeing all the reds, yellows and oranges contrasting against the browns and greens.  We have a whole row of yellow leaves on some kind of bushes in our garden.  I just wish I had the Japanese Acer somewhere nearer with its dark red leaves.  I feel like going for a walk in woodland right now just to see all the contrasting colours and maybe listen to the rustle of the fallen leaves under my feet.  Nothing nicer than being wrapped up nice and warm with a hat, gloves and scarf and a paid of boots on a crisp autumnal morning is there.

Well, after waxing lyrical about autumn I had better show you my desk because I want to link up with WOYWW which is probably the longest running blog in blogland.    What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday was an idea thought up by the Queen of Deskers, Julia herself.  We usually have an annual crop but we missed out this last summer on account of Covid 19 but to celebrate the 600th edition we are hoping to hold a virtual crop.  How exciting is that!!

So if you fancy coming along why not pop over to Julia's blog, here, right now and join in today, or next week if I am giving you too short a notice and then you can come and play with us in just over a month's time.  

As you can see I have been playing with Janet Klein's figures yet again.  I have so many pages for this book I am making I am beginning to doubt it will hold together with so many pages.  The pages are at an end now, no more figures to make so perhaps in a week or two I will have it finished.  OK so I have been saying this for a month now - will happen this time.  So there is a box at the back with my stamps in and next to it some AALL & Create stencils plus some Cut N'Dry then my pencil case (Shaz & Doug, you would love this - sorry it caught the light, it's one of those 3D pictures) and in the front my Inktense pencils and my little figures.  you can just see one of my pages peeking out.

Right, it's time to call this a day.  See you next week.

 ps am annoyed again - it will not fully justify after the first paragraph then also after I have put a photograph in it centres writing - so now I have a mis-mash of styles and I do NOT like it.  I am a bit of a fuss pot when it comes to displaying my blog and I like straight edges with photos in the centre.  Grrrr.......

Revisited - still will not fully justify but at least it has done left hand justification