WOYWW - 19 October 2011

Another early early morning WOYWW from me again this week as I've got to be up early in the (proper) morning to get DD1 up and dressed and fed and out of the house in time for her appointment to have her new shoes fitted. Ah, the glamorous, whirlwind life of the stay-at-home mum! :lol:

So here's what my workdesk looked like at around 1:30am today (and will still look like until probably about 8:30pm, if I'm lucky!):

Gracing the desk today is a quick card for I threw together to give to DD1's retiring physiotherpist at her appointment today, several in-progress ATCs of varying designs, and the usual clutter of scraps , tools, bits and bobs and stamps needing cleaning. Oh and also my Panasonic Lumix compact camera which has served me well these past four years but which now seems to have died a (hopefully temporary) death. It just won't switch on. :( Am hoping it's a battery issue and have put the battery on to charge (despite only having charged it at the weekend). I had to snag DH's digital SLR to take these photos!

Also gracing the teetering pile beside the desk (it was on the desk but got moved aside briefly to allow for cardmaking) is an in-progress scrapbook page:

I did take another photo, while I was snapping away.... I took a photo from the doorway, recording the craft pit in all it's chaotic "glory". But I don't think I'm brave enough to share it with you! :lol: Maybe next week... after I've tidied... a bit... ;)

Thanks for stopping by my desk on your WOYWW journey. Please do leave a message to say hi. :)

Digi-Scrapping Frenzy

I've been having a go at a few of the scrapbooking challenges over at at UKScrappers lately. I've not had a huge amount of time to spend on scrapbooking of late so I've ended up going digi for these challenges... the fab thing about digi is that I can do my scrapping while chilling out on a comfy sofa with the fire on and the TV on in the background. :)

I've done the October Week 1 challenge (3 lots of 3 items, use blue but not pink, use an everyday item):

And the October Week 2 challenge (LO about a mum, use 3 different shapes, journalling, glitter):

And the monthly challenge (following a sketch and using the colour orange):

Happy (gothy) Birthday!

With any luck, this card will now have reached its recipient so I am safe to share it (Helen, if you're reading this and Nor's card hasn't arrived yet, then hit the back button now! :lol:).

It was my neice's birthday earlier this week (yes, the card is late - sorry, Nor!!) and she's a little bit goth and a lot into manga, so I thought Sugar Nellie's Manga Girl stamp was the perfect image to use for a birthday card! :)

I went with a goth-y colour scheme of black and purple and added in some funky black and silver holographic card for a bit of bling! The image was coloured in with ProMarkers and cut out and layered onto a square of card that I'd stamped and heat embossed with a funky text stamp.

I followed the sketch for the current challenge over at the Sugar Bowl challenge blog and I'm entering this card into the challenge.

It was a fun card to make so I hope Nor likes it! :)

Keep it in the family

The first of my guest designer projects is now up over at the Scrap Revolution blog.

Here's a sneak peek:

You can check out the full project here.

I had lots of fun on this one, playing with some scrummy Kaisercraft papers and with Distress Inks. :)

WOYWW - 12 October 2011

Yes, my friends, another Wednesday is upon us... already! Where does the time go to? How can it be October already?! It barely seems like a couple of months since Mia was born and yet here I am having to start thinking about what the heck to get her for her first birthday... and how to separate her christmas eve birthday from the big day itself!

But enough of all that... for Wednesday is no ordinary day for us crafters, no siree, for it's the day when we share a peek at what's going on on our desks and follow the links over at Julia's Stamping Ground blog to take a traipse around the world, one desk at a time. :)

My desk features a recent make and my Stampin' Scrub as I had reached the point where all my acrylic blocks had dirty acrylic stamps stuck to them so I had to have a bit of a stamp cleaning blitz! All cleaned and nicely put away now.

And while I was in the cleaning/tidying mood, I also blitzed the constantly growing heap of paper scraps that had swallowed the computer area of my desk:

Look, you can actually see the keyboard! I might now actually be able to fire up the computer without having to gingerly lift a teetering pile of paper to try and stab out my password to login! :lol:

Of course, it's very likely that by next Wednesday the keyboard will be buried again. But still.. a girl can dream. :)

Thanks for stopping by on your trip around the WOYWW desks - please do leave a comment to say hi. :)

A Rather Goth-y Tag

Here's a little tag I made for a couple of challenges. It came out rather goth-y! :)

My original idea was altering the microscope slide by stamping the Ching Chou Kuik (from Sweet Pea Stamps) image onto it. I heat embossed the image and coloured it in using ProMarkers. I then painted gesso over a torn-out dictionary page and used that to back the slide - you can faintly see the text through the image in this close-up:

 

I decided to mount the slide onto a tag - I used black card and clear embossed it with a Crafty Individuals flourish stamp before spritzing with Lava Red Cosmic Shimmer ink and splattering Hot Pink Mica Dylusions across it. I attached the altered slide and, to finish, added a ruffled flower made with black lace (originally a scrap of cream lace which I recoloured with a black inkpad!) and a pink Prima felt flower, and more black lace, along with some black fibres, at the top.

I'm entering this tag into the following challenges:

Passion for ProMarkers - Alter something not square

Sweet Pea Stampers - Embossing

In a Sweet Pea Dream - Anything Goes

Childhood Memories

Looking through childhood photos for a circle journal recently put me in a melancholy mood... so I decided to journal it:

The background is done with paint dabbers - I wasn't very happy with the result as it didn't blend well so I painted a layer of gesso over it to mute things and blend the overall look. I then stamped here and there all over the background with a text stamp and with some bubblewrap using London Fog Memento ink.

I overstamped a Tim Holtz clock face first in London Fog and then in Black Versafine here and there and then filled in around the edges of the page with a Tim Holtz flourish stamp and added some Tim Holtz flying birds here and there. The paper strips and flowers are hand-drawn and cut from a torn-out  dictionary page which I'd painted with gesso and I used the same paper to hand-write and cut out my journalling strips. The dancing children are an Indigo Blu stamp which I stamped onto white tissue paper and cut out.

WOYWW - 5 October 2011

Jeepers. October already. Where the heck has this year gone?!!
September has been a pretty crazy busy time for me, culminating in a long weekend away in London last weekend, getting photos and autographs with various celebs at the Entertainment Media Show. All of which means the craft pit still hasn't been tided and the hallway is still piled with boxes of stash that I've yet to unpack from the Green Buttons Retreat of the weekend previous!

However... today's WOYWW photo does find me in mid-create:

Hope to get this little project finished over the next day or so, so feel free to check back shortly and see how it turns out! :lol:

Thanks for stopping by on your perusal of this week's WOYWW desks, please do leave me a comment to say hi. :)

Isn't this gorgeous?!

I just had a very busy - and extremely hot!! - but fun weekend in London at the Entertainment Media Show at Earl's Court where I had my photo taken with Arthur Darvill (Rory from Doctor Who), John Hurt, Joe Flanigan (Col. Sheppard in Stargate: Atlantis) and.... David Tennant!!... and got an autograph from Armin Shimmerman (Quark in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Principal Snyder in Buffy the Vampire Slayer). I also spent a very enjoyable time chatting with two Marvel artists, John McCrea and Lee Bradley and watching them create some incredible drawings.

And I also bought this:

Isn't it just gorgeous? It's by a company called Phoenix Copper Art and he hand-makes these beautiful journals with burnished copper covers. He had loads for sale with all sorts of fabulous designs on the covers but you can also design your own cover and he will make it for you. They are also filled with good quality 200GSM paper - or you can choose to have it filled with lined paper if you prefer. They can also be refilled.

I think these are *fantastic* for art journals! I knew I had to have one but I was dithering for a long while between buying one of the designs he had ready for sale or getting him to do an original design cover for me. In the end I plumped for this one with the Stargate design cover but I think I will have to have a think about a cover design and perhaps order another one with an original design cover. :)