WOYWW 169

Argh, It's Wednesday again. And yes, I forgot again! Gah. My routine is out the window atm - DH was home for 5 days over the bank holiday weekend, DD1 has finished nursery and starts pre-school next week, mum has been here visiting, we've had a power cut and been woken in the early hours by a random (probably wrong number) phone call... in short, my head's all over the place!

I'm also without my beloved laptop as, as mentioned in my last blog post, DH has had to borrow it while his laptop is sent away for repairs. The good news is that there's been a slight reprieve and I am not actually internet-less during the day as DH has dug out my old netbook and I am able to use it in the playroom etc. It's ridiculously small and fiddly - and slow!! - compared to my lovely laptop but it's better than using my phone for browsing. The bad news is that I'm an idiot and I forgot to remove the SD card for my camera from the laptop (I'd been downloading photos from the card) before handing it over to DH last night so the card is now in London with DH. Aaarrrgggghhhh!!!

Which is why I've had to take this photo with my phone:

So this is my desk this morning. I did start doing a bit of crafting last night and coloured in the image you can see sitting on my desk. It's going to be turned into a card but I got far too tired last night and had to give in and go to bed! :)

That's it for me today. I'd like to think I'll have my laptop back by next Wednesday but somehow I doubt it. *sniffles*

See You Around...

I may not be around as much as usual online over the next few days/weeks. :(

 

DH's laptop has developed a hardware fault and need to be sent off for repair. But he needs to have a laptop for his work. So... he's borrowing mine. *sobs*

 

So come tomorrow night my beloved lappy will be heading off to London with DH, leaving me with only my desktop... and I can only really use that in the evenings once the kids are in bed. I can check emails and Facebook and surf the web a bit on my phone during the day but commenting is a pain and I can't do anything fancy like upload to my blog etc.

 

So before I go, metaphorically speaking, I thought I'd post a quick card that I made this evening:

 

 

 

 

The image is The Octopode Factory's Rapunzel and she's coloured in with my Promarkers. I felt like doodling tonight so I've done away with patterned papers or stamps or the like and doodled to decorate my card... I thought the doodly style went quite well with the quirky Octopode Factory image. :)

 

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Passion for Promarkers - Monochrome image with unusual hair colour

The Octopode Factory Friday Challenge - Circles

 

See you around folks... keep your fingers crossed for me that DH's laptop gets fixed and returned ASAP! :lol:

Use a Digi

That's the new challenge over at One Stitch At A Time. Easy-peasy to enter, just make a project, any project, using a digi stamp. Doesn't have to be a Stitchy Bear digi stamp but if you do use a Stitchy Bear product, you will be entered into the draw to win the mini-collab of images used by the OSAAT design team this week. If you enter with a non Stitchy Bear image, you will be entered into the draw to win a $3 voucher to spend in the Stitchy Bear store. :)

 

For this week's challenge I chose this gorgeous Klimt inspired image from Hope Jacare Doodles, called Lady Klimt Esq:

I wanted to colour this image with really bright, jewel-like colours so I used Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Drawing Inks to colour her in and matted the image onto gold mirri card and used a black card blank for lots of nice contrast. I also dabbed some Stewart Gill Byzantium metallic paint through a stencil onto the card blank to add a bit more shimmer and shine and finished things off with some flowers and a few gold-coloured gemstones.

 

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Craft Your Days Away - Anything Goes

Anabelle Stamps - Spots, Dots and Anything Round

ATCs and Cards with Attitude - Anything Goes

Inspire Me Fridays - Anything Goes

QKR Stampede - Anything Goes

Totally Papercrafts - Zesty Summer Colours

Cute Card Thursday - Bling

 

Oooh look what I've got!

I've been working on an arty project lately and had come more and more to the conclusion that being able to draw straight onto the computer would be really useful for this project... I spoke to DH about it the other night and he went online to look at graphic pen and tablet tools.... and look what arrived today:

Doesn't it look fab? I can't wait to unpack it all and get it installed and have a play with it! :D

WOYWW 168

Another Wednesday, another peek at crafty desks the world over. Yes, I'm a bit more prepared this week and actually managed to remember what day of the week it is! :lol:

I've been doing a wee bit of crafting tonight so the view of my desk right now (technically it is Wednesday morning) is the usual chaos of untidied crafting bits and bobs and the card that I've just finished making:

Unforunately, it's one of those cards that we all hate to make. Sadly, one of my lovely DT colleagues has suffered a bereavement so this is a card to send to her to let her know I'm thinking of her.

I had a go at monochome colouring for the first time on this card (using a digi stamp from Stitchy Bear Stamps) and am quite pleased with the results. I think the overall effect is quite subtle and vintagey and fits well with the muted colours of the papers.

The big pile of digi stamps from last is still awaiting colouring in... in fact, the pile has grown since last week! I just keep finding more pretty digi stamps that I have to have! I suspect I may be addicted... ;)

That's all I have to share for this week so thanks for stopping by and I hope your enjoy your jaunt around the WOYWW desks this week.

Summer Fun

The August mini kit has gone live today over at the Creative Craft World challenge blog. The new kit is full of delicious, bright, summery colours and I had a lot of fun making these projects with it:

I made this fun surf-themed stepper card using the yellow Bazzill cardstock and the fab wave-patterned paper. I drew my own surfboard shapes and cut them from patterned paper and cardstock. :)

I thought these fun photos of my girls having fun in the sun in the back garden were perfect for this bright, summer layout. I played with a flower punch and my corner rounder for a retro look that I thought went perfectly with the bright colours and patterns.

And finally I covered a card blank with this gorgeous, bright paper and coloured a Mo Manning digi stamp to match... my DD1 finishes at her private nursery next week, prior to starting pre-school classes at the local primary school, so I thought this would make a fun and cheerful thank you card for her key worker.

You can win yourself one of Creative Craft World's fab mini kits by entering the mini kit challenge on the challenge blog... all you have to do is create a project smaller than 12x12, and link it on the challenge blog. Good luck! :)

Back to school?

Yes, indeed, the start of the new school year is shortly upon us... and this year my DD1 will be starting pre-school for three hours a day, five days a week. Even though it's only pre-school, she has a little school uniform to wear and she looks so grown up... Where on earth have the last 3 years gone?!

One Stitch at a Time are marking the occasion too, with a "Back to School" challenge this week. :)

I decided to do something a bit different for this challenge. DD1 loves drawing and colouring so I found this funky metal pencil case full of colouring pencils:

And used this cute little monster image by Hope Jacare Doodles to jazz it up a bit:

I printed the image in various sizes (love being able to do that with digi stamps! :D) and coloured them with Promarkers before cutting them out and gluging onto the case. DD1 was very pleased with it... especially the pencils inside! :lol:

The OSAAT challenge goes live today and if you enter using a Stitchy Bear product, you are in with a chance of winning a £10 gift coupon to spend at sponsor Joanna Sheen's website or you can enter with a non-Stitchy Bear product and go into the draw to win a $3 voucher for the Stitchy Bear Stamps store.

So why not give it a go? :)

I'm also entering this project into the following challenges:

All Sorts - Heavy Metal

Craft Your Days Away - Anything Goes

My Sheri Crafts - Back to School

Bloggers - Back to School

Card Makin' Mamas - Try Something New

Patti's Creations - Anything But a Card

Raise the Bar - Back to School

Simply Create Too - Back to School

Shaped Cards? Hai!

The challenge at Passion for Promarkers this week is to make a shaped card - basically anything that's not a rectangle/square! I liked this challenge cos I must admit I do get a bit lazy occasionally and keep on using the same old square card blanks for my creations. So it was good to think outside of the box a bit.

I had a gorgeous geisha digi stamp that I picked up recently from A Day For Daisies that I was dying to play with and I had the idea of wanting to put a kind of "rising sun" image behind her. And that led to this:

I coloured the geisha with my Promarkers and cut her out and then I made a stepper card base. I cut a piece of card with a rounded top to fit on the back section of the stepper and then cut gold mirror card and patterned paper into sunrays to fit onto it. I matted more patterned paper onto mirror card to fit on the front section of the card and attached the geisha image over it.

Am entering this card into the following challenges:

Passion for Promarkers - Shaped Cards
Inspire Me Fridays - Anything Goes
Stampin With The Dragon - Anything but a Square or Rectangle
Moving Along With The Times - Shape Up - Anything But Square
Colour Me Creative - Use Blacks/Dark Greys

WOYWTHDMIWAW!

Otherwise known as... What's On Your What The Heck D'you Mean It's Wednesday Already Workdesk?!!

Aka... yup, I completely forgot it was Wednesday! :lol:

And by the time I realised, I had to pop out to pick up a friend who was coming over for a bit. So this is the first chance I've had to snap a quick photo and upload it!

So here's what's on my desk today:

Lots of crafting debris but no actual crafting in progress. I actually took a night off from crafting last night... i.e. I couldn't manage to drag myself off the sofa! :lol:

I've got lots and lots of things I want to be working on though, including this pile of digi stamps:

I love love love digi stamps, not least because they are instant gratification stash shopping! :lol: And there are sooooo many pretty ones out there. And I've gotten into the habit recently of, when I need to print a stamp, filling an A4 page with them and printing it, to save messing about with scraps of card.

But that does mean I end up with a pile of digi stamps waiting to be coloured and created with! :)

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your Wednesday... hope it's a bit more organised than mine! :lol:

Pretty in pink...

...and not a mermaid, for once! :lol:

This week's challenge at Dilly Bean's challenge blog is Worn, Torn and Distressed so I dug out the paper distresser and the Victorian Velvet Distress Ink for this card:

The yummy papers were freebies with a magazine and I coloured this lovely image with my Promarkers to match with the papers. I added some highlights with a white gel pen and some Stickles.

I inked and distressed the edges of my papers and also punched a large flower from patterned paper, wetted it, scrunched it up and dried it out again before inking the edges/creases. I used a Memory Box die, snipped in to, for the floral flourishes and added accents with Perlen Pens and more Stickles.

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Dilly Beans Challenge - Worn, Torn and Distressed

Crafts and Me - Use a Digi

Avadares - Anything Goes

Mermaids everywhere!!

They do seem to be something of a recurring theme in my crafting atm... this is, what, my third mermaid card in just over 2 weeks? :lol:

However, I'm blaming this one squarely on Julie. I loved her DT card for this weeks "At the Beach" challenge at Passion for Promarkers so much that I had to head over to her blog for a closer look... and then I had to go and have a look at where she got the cute mermaid in a jar image from... and that was me falling in love with and buying a bunch of A Day For Daisies digi stamps then! Including the one I used on this card:

I coloured her with Promarkers and added some Stickles highlights and even a bit of real sand ("borrowed" from my daughters' sandpit! :D). I used scrummy paper from the Crafty Individuals "The Seaside" 6x6 paper pad and some pearlescent cardstock for matting. I added a ruffle of turquoise chiffon ribbon and, for a real seaside touch, a couple of pieces of real Scottish sea glass, sent to me by my good friend Lisa. :)

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Passion for Promarkers - At the Beach

Inky Impressions - Ribbon
Crafts and Me - Use a Digi
Emerald Fairies - Bling
Avadares - Anything Goes

Paint and glitter

Is there anything more fun? :)

I wanted to have a play with paint because of the fun "Paint It Up" challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show this week. But I also desperately wanted to have a play with my new summer colours Distress Inks... ever since I saw them used in this project by Sarah Engels-Greer, I just *loved* the colours and decided I had to have them! And they arrived this week. :)

So this is what I made:

Aren't the colours just lush?

I cut a piece of card and used Tim Holtz's Wrinkle Free Distress Technique (from the fab Chemistry 101 online class I did earlier this year) to make the background and then stamped some abstract foliage around the bottom using Jo Capper-Sandon's Splatter Long stamp from Stampotique and then stamped and embossed the sentiment (another Stampotique stamp).

I also used the Distess Inks to paint in the stamped dragonfly and added a layer of magenta Stickles over the top before cutting it out.

I added paint into the mix by dabbing little "flowers" of Paper Artsy Fresco paint across the foliage, adding dots of more Stickles on top.

I used the same paint to paint a larger piece of card and then stamped the edges using a Tim Holtz foilage stamp, and added some more Stickles. Both pieces of card were then matted onto black card.

To finish off, I added a piece of ribbon, mounted the whole piece onto a card blank and added a couple of metal pen nibs which I'd painted with Vintaj Patinas (curse you, Craft Stamper magazine, you keep making me buy new stash! :lol:). Et voila!

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp and Show - Paint It Up

Stampotique Designers Challenge - Sketch

Inky Impressions - Ribbon

The Stamp Man - Metals

Christmas? Already?!

Nope... but a christmas card, nonetheless! :)

Today the new challenge goes live at One Stitch At A Time and it's my first as one of the design team. :)

The challenge is Anything Goes and I was given this adorable "Lucy Goes Skating" image from Reece's Scrap Pieces to work with:

Isn't she cute? But undeniably christmassy. I am not normally the kind of crafter who makes my christmas cards months in advance (please take note Create and Craft et al!!) but I just couldn't resist doing something christmassy with this little lady.

I used some pretty 6x6 papers that were freebies with a magazine and coloured Lucy in matching colours using my Promarkers. I also did a lot of fiddly measuring and cutting to make this a "pop up" card. An Indigo Blu sentiment stamp, a Memory Box die border and a snowflake punch added the finishing touches.

The sponsor for this week's challenge is Creative Craft World and you can win yourself 3 Promarkers of your choice (if you enter using a Stitchy Bear Stamps image) or you can enter with a non-Stitchy Bear image and be in with a chance of winning a $3 coupon to spend in the Stitchy Bear Stamps store. :)

There's also a new collab set available at the Stitchy Bear Stamps store... until 19 August if you spend at least $7, you will also get all these stamps for free:

Bargain! So why not head on over to the store, grab yourself some fab digi stamps (and freebies!), make a project and enter it into the OSAAT challenge!

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Dream Valley Challenges - Die Cuts and Punches

Order of the Opus Gluei - Seasons

Daisy Doodles Creative Challenges - Outdoors

Divas By Design - For a Female

Paper Crafting Journey - Anything Goes

Simply Create Too - Anything Goes

Stamping With The Dragon - Christmas in August

WOYWW 166

Wednesday already? Again? Eeep, time seems to be flying by atm.

Wednesday is of course the day where crafters the world over share a peek at what's going on on their workdesks/crafty spaces. So here's what's on mine:

No active crafting going on atm. I had every intention of getting in the craft room tonight but DD2 had other ideas... our schedule was a bit all over the place today and she ended up having a late afternoon nap... which meant, despite me delaying bedtime, she apparently decided sleeping was not on the agenda and pitched a fit instead. So she didn't go successfully to bed until gone 9pm!

But anyhooo... on the main desk this morning is a recently-completed card, together with the usual detritus of the crafting process.

And on the "spare" desk....

Well, would ya look at that? The desk that I lovingly cleared only a week ago is now covered in stuff again. And d'ya know what? It's actually not my fault! Most of the stuff on there was dumped there last weekend by DH on one of his occasional "tidying" sessions... you know, the ones where he "tidies" the rest of the house by basically clearing everything off every surface and dumping it in my craft room instead! Grrrrr.

The one positive thing in this picture is the in-progress art journal CJ entry on the desk.

And that's it from me. Short and sweet. We've got a busy day tomorrow with a couple of appointments and a shopping trip to buy school uniform for DD1 for when she starts pre-school hours at the local primary/junior school in September! Eeep!