WOYWW 208 - Happy 4th Anniversary!

Yes it is four whole years since Julie invited us to use her blog as a launching pad to visit other folks work-spaces, world-wide. And what a happy family of crafters we have grown into. I try to join in the fun every week, but when other issues get in the way, I really miss it. Now, after a very hectic month, I am finally back and I even have some craft going on, which makes a change.

At the start of April I treated myself to some of the lovely Heartfelt Creations dies and stamps from the Bella Rose range, and I have been waiting for the opportunity to put them through their paces. I have a sister who will be 85 at the end of the month, and I thought they would be ideal for a card for her.

So here on my desk you can see the dies and stamps, all my copic pens with the colour chart I made to help me choose my colours, a couple of my snippets boxes, a selection of memento ink pads - chosen because they work so well with copic markers - and my box of ink dusters, sponges etc.

Swinging round to the left a bit you can see my little green bug, a pot of gesso and my stickles storage tower, my box of white paper offcuts, and, of course, the ever present Arwen keeping her eye on the proceedings.

I was very impressed with the largest collage stamp. I never have much success with stamps of this size, but I used the recently purchased large rocker-block, and I got a perfect print every time. Whether this is due to the rocker-block or the quality of the stamp I don't know, but it was a good result either way. You will have to wait to see the finished card as it is just possible that my sister may see this blog, so I will wait until after her birthday to show it.

Before I go I will just share a few of my holiday photos with those who are interested. I mentioned in an earlier post that I returned from my week in Seville and Cordoba with almost 1,500 photos so I have been trying to sort them out. This little slide show is just some of the wonderful art and craft inspiration that I saw. As an ex-maths teacher, I love pattern and order, so all the tiles were a delight. Many will end up as BP overlays, stencils or embellishment cutting files. So here are a few of the floor patterns I saw, followed by some motifs that I spotted on shop signs, paper place mats etc. Then there are tile patterns from ceilings and walls (many of these could be printed as backing papers just as they are), a lovely piece of wrought-iron scroll work and finally a great piece of 'grafiti'/wall art that we passed each time we went to our hotel. To view them, just click on this link and then on the first photo and the slideshow button above it.

We are, of course, having a little bit of fun to celebrate our anniversary, but you will have to follow me over to Julia's blog, Stamping ground, to find out all about it.