WOYWW 134

Well my workdesk today is so boringly empty that I am only posting a tiny photo of it. Last night I cleared away everything I had used to make a birthday card for my grandson who will be 17 at the end of January. I can't show the card here as some of his family follow my blog. So instead I will pan around a bit to my computer desk that sits at right angles to my craft desk. I have had to rearrange it because for Christmas, my lovely husband bought me a silhouette cameo machine to replace my defunct craft-robo. It is a much bigger machine as it has the capacity to cut 12" x 12" papers which will be great when I start my next scrapbook. To make sufficient room for it to work with the larger carrier mat I needed to move my second screen. I started using a monitor at the side when my PC was changed for a laptop which had such a small screen that I had difficulty seeing it. I now have a much newer lap-top with a larger screen but I have got used to being able to slide pages from one monitor to the other, and have several open at the same time, so I wanted to keep it. I tried moving it across to the other side to make the space needed for the silhouette but that didn't work either, and it conflicted with the out tray on my printer. Then, this week I helped Chris to raise his second monitor up above his main one and I realised that might be the solution for me too. So I now have two screens stacked one above the other and I can still slide pages between them. If I fold the lap-top down a bit you can see that the monitor is sitting on two large bricks wrapped in brown paper like a parcel. (They are hollow cell bricks and I didn't want any bugs crawling into the cells to nest!). So now I am all set to get to grips with my new machine. Incidentally, my current photo that I am using as a wallpaper on my screens is a scene from the amazing Angkor Wat temples at Seam Reap in Cambodia. It is a daily reminder of the wonderful time I had there back in 2008.

Well, better late than never I have managed a blog post today, so now I am off to Julia's blog to see what everyone else is getting up to now the Christmas festivities are over.
Happy New year to you all. I'll see you again in 1012!

Christmas Greetings

There hasn't been much going on in my craft room for the past couple of weeks as I have been busy fulfilling all my orders for mince-pies, and singing with my choir. You can read all about that on my diary blog Kate's Adventures. I have made five New Year cards which I don't usually do, but I can't show them here as some of the recipients follow this blog. Instead I will leave you with this image of my 'White Mary and Joseph'. This is not a new project; I made them about ten years ago, after watching a very inspiring lady demonstrating at the craft show in NEC Birmingham. Each one is built around a wine bottle, I think with a wire and paper head, and then covered with strips of cotton fabric dipped in runny poly-filler which dries white. I remember scouring all the local charity shops to find a pure cotton sheet to tear into strips. Polyester-cotton doesn't hold the poly filler the same. It was a messy job but well worth it, and the resulting figures are very stable and robust. Many of my new friends in Spain have asked me to do a class to show them how to make some but I will have to do some research first to remind myself, and also try to find an equivalent Spanish filler that dries white.
I had the notion to make a whole nativity scene but I do not have sufficient space to display them. These two sit on my hall table where they are the first thing visitors to the house see, and for me they are the embodiment of what Christmas is all about.

So may I wish all my loyal followers a Very Happy Christmas and I hope 2012 is for each of you, a year full of Love, Hope and Peace.

Kate x

For two sisters.

Actually the two birthday cards I needed this week were one for my sister and one for my sister-in-law. One is in her late seventies and one in her eighties, and I know they are both very fond of flowers so that's what I went with. My sister in particular is forever linked by the family to pansies, presumably because they were her favourite as a little girl and it just stuck. So I used my Joanna Sheen Fabulous Flowers CD to print out a few copies of a pretty lilac pansy and decoupaged it. I used a DL lilac card, a backing paper I found in my stash, (I had printed it but I can't remember it's origin), and two Marianne dies for the foliage. A cuttlebug ribbon slider for the greeting, some lilac organza ribbon and some matching gems finished it off. (It looks very blue in the photo but it is lilac!)

For the second card I again chose a DL blank, this time in white, and an off-cut of pink paisley paper which again is one I printed off too long ago to remember it's origin. I found some blue card to match the blue on the backing paper and softened it with silver glimmer mist, painted on because none of my sprays want to work these days. I used the same Marianne die as before for the side foliage, plus a Spellbinders lace border and nesties labels for the frame. The sentiment is a Chocolate Baroque stamp. The flower is one I made when I had a couple if friends over so that I could show them how it is done. It was made using the wet paper technique which is my favourite method of making flowers, and although they are quite chunky, they are also very robust, and I know they will survive going through the post. There is an excellent tutorial for making these flowers on Carole Claxton's blog . While mine are still wet I rub an ink pad onto a white tile, spritz it with water and wipe the flower through it, as many times as necessary to reach the colour I want. I finished this card with a butterfly made using my new Framelet set of Sissix dies with Hero Art stamps, which I can see being very well used in the future. The set contained three sizes of the butterfly and two flowers.

I am entering this card in:
The Craft Room Challenge: Make your own flowers;
and both cards in Make it Monday linky party 65: Anything goes.

Christmas Flower Fairies

About five years ago at the Hobbycraft Show in the NEC, Birmingham, I was wow-ed by the Pinflair stall where they were covering small chipboard squares with printed fabric to go on cards. I spent far too much money buying some, used them that year and then stashed them away, never to see light of day again. Well not never actually, because when Bah! Humbug! challenged us to use fabric on a card, I went straight to that box.

I did have some lovely old musical instruments on one piece of fabric but I seem to have used most of that, so instead I got out the piece featuring Christmas flower fairies. I probably bought this because I am an avid collecter of all authentic Cicely Mary Barker Flower Fairies items, but on closer inspection, the fabric is very badly printed and doesn't do her artwork justice at all. But undaunted I cut out one each of the four images and used them to cover the chipboard pieces, still stored with the fabric -amazing! I then jazzed them up a bit with red, green and clear stickles. I dug out a length of pretty green and red metalic mesh (I think Jean and I bought this between us on my recent visit, but goodness me - if I can't remember clearly what I bought a couple of months ago, it's no wonder I don't know where half of my stash came from!). Using this in various ways, together with papers from my Christmas off-cuts box, I managed to put together four aceptable Christmas cards, which I am entering in these challenges:-

Bah! Humbug! Challenge 46: Use Fabric.
Everybody Art Challenge: A Christmas card.
Scrapbook Sisters Card Challenge 61: Christmas Time.
Little Red Wagon Challenge 108: Christmas Theme.

WOYWW129

Hi folks. I am rather late posting today as I was out all morning and have spent half the afternoon chatting to my youngest son via a video call on Skype. He is coming out to visit us in just over a week, and we are so looking forward to it. Also he is going to take something back for me that I have to finish off, so that is all that is on my work desk today.

Followers of my blog will know that I finished a scrapbook for my second youngest son just in time to take over ot UK when I visited in September. He was so thrilled with it but he asked me if I could add an extra page. Because of the way it works, this actually means two extra pages, so I put an extra slipcover in his book so all he has to do is slip these pages in to it when he gets them. The first one (that he actually asked for) is to highlight all the posters and fliers that have adorned the streets of Brighton, advertising gigs for his various bands - he is a drummer in a heavy metal band. He is well aware that I don't really go for his style of music, though I love to see his energy and enjoyment as he plays, and I am also not bowled over by the art work on many of his posters, but I understand the 'thrill' he says he gets to see his name (or the name of his band) in print, and they do deserve a space in his book. So I printed them out onto plain matt-finish paper and divided them into the four bands he has played in. I tied one to a lampost, put two behind acetate in a 'window', stuck most of them randomly on a notice board, and the most current ones onto a blackboard. That page is on my desk here.

For the other page I suggested he gave me his favourite photos of the bands in action, performing, practising, and just enjoying being together. And he did - some 35 of them! So the rest of my desk is covered with draft copies of all of them and I am experimenting with ways of displaying all of them on a 12" x 12" page! I think I am going for two cascades, one of the live performance pictures and one of the rest of them. These will just fit and I will have a tiny corner left to do a snippet of journalling. Best get on with it then....

I also just wanted to say a big 'Thank you' to everyone who gave me help and advice on the storage of copics, promarkers etc. It was very, very helpful, and I am grateful that you took the time to share your experiences.

Now I will just link this to Julia's blog and see what some of you are getting up to. I am sorry I can't get round to everyone, but I'll try to visit most of you in the next couple of days.

Hark the herald angels sing

My order for some LOTV stamps arrived last week so I was all set to make my last run of cards with them when Hazel's latest challenge popped up and they fitted the bill nicely. The challenge is to incorporate some music and my stamps are all angels playing various instruments.I stamped an image and scanned it into my computer so I could flip it and have two angels looking towards one another. I added a touch of copics to their dresses and the clouds, and a bit more colour to their hair. I used a pastel blue promarker for the sky. I then cut the two images out vaguely echoing the shape of wings. I typed a verse of a well known carol and made sure it would fit inside a nesties die, and cut it out, distressed its edges with blue ink and matted it onto gold. (Originally I typed in my favourite carol, "It came upon a midnight clear" which includes the line "..from angels bending near the earth to touch their harps of gold", but I realised that I had used the wrong image. Another of my new stamps is an angel playing a harp! So I quickly changed the carol and I will make more cards later with the harpist.) . The background is cut from a rather lovely gold embossed scrapbook paper (make unknown). I used a Debbie Moore stamp to print music across the lower half of the card, and then assembled it all as in the photo. Then I added some sparkle with gold stickles on the stars and crystal stickles on the angel's wings.

I am entering this in:
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge 47: Music.
Wags'n'Whiskers Challenge 67: Christmas themed.
Creatalicious Challenge 28: Christmas, Make sure it sparkles.
Stampin Sisters in Christ: Use a music stamp.

WOYWW128

I wasn't in the right frame of mind for my usual Wednesday morning sewing group, so I was around at home for a while. The first thing I did was try to take one photo that showed all twenty-three of the little (10cm square) Christmas cards I had been making. I finished them last night so my desk was completly clear. I needed to make a tiered stand so my big Spanish/English dictionary came in very handy. This was layered up with a couple of craft books, some storage boxes, some long acrylic stamp blocks and my mini easel. I got the photo I wanted (See my previous post), so I thought I'd show you the back view! Just next to that, in front of my printer with the coloured cloth over it, is my canvas bag of basic art materials that I keep packed to take to the art group in the village on Monday afternoons. I am fishing in it all the time to use the things, but if I am running late on a Monday, which is nearly always, I know I can grab the bag and run, and there will be something in there to keep me busy for a couple of hours.

Above that is a small basket containing my xyron sticker making, cocktail sticks, a pot for small stray items that I find all over the place, and loads of other bits and pieces. I keep this covered to stop the cats playing with it all.

Round a bit further, just to the left of where I sit, is a plastic shoe-box containing all my sticky stuff from glossy accents to PVA to silicone glue, glue dots and double sided tape. It is useful to keep it all within reach. In front of that is a water mister and two bottles of 90% alcohol, bought off the shelf in most Spanish supermarkets. It cleans up almost anything, from permanent markers to sticky scissors, and I regular wipe some over my green mats as I am a messy worker, and they always have something on them that shouldn't be there. And in front of that again is my box of copic markers - I have one set of 72 colours and I need to get the other set, but while I have been saving up for them, they have brought out another 45 colours. How tough is that! In the meantime, I supplement my range of colours with a handful of promarkers, (in the square pot) that I bought several years ago when they were introduced at the NEC show, and a set of flexmarkers bought recently in UK.

A question for all users of alcohol ink pens. - How do you store yours? I read somewhere that upright is better than horizontal, and the storage containers available for them all suggest this. But - I have encountered two problems. One of my copic markers appears to have dried out already. It is not one I use that often, but it is quite dry. None of the others bought at the same time are dry at all. I will buy a reinker for it, but I am wondering whether it has a faulty cap and I should be thinking of replacing the whole pen instead of refilling this one. Also the Flexmarkers that I bought last month are very, very pale colours. When I use them they almost make the paper just look wet, and you have to wait for them to dry to see the colour. I thought one of them didn't actually have any colour in it, but I have since discovered that the chisel tip makes the paper pastel pink, while the brush end leaves it colourless! Has anyone else experienced this? If I didn't live overseas I would probably send it back, but from here, it may not be worth the hassel. I have tried shaking it, and storing it with the brush tip downwards but it has not made a difference. That one certainly isn't dry, just without colour. I just love using these pens, but they are too expensive to buy faulty ones. What are your feelings about them? I'd appreciate your comments. Thanks.

Now it's time to link this to Julia's blog and see what my crafting friends are getting up to this week.

A Special One, and then Some..

I was a bit non-plussed when Bah! Humbug! challenged us this week to make a card for 'Baby's First Christmas', as I had made the one I needed for my new great-grandson for Hazel's challenge to make a card for Someone Special, a couple of weeks ago. (You can see it here). But I decided to use the same MoManning digistamp as I used then, but a totally different layout and colour scheme, as I have a couple of friends with new baby girls in their families, so one of them may be able to use it. So here is the card I made this time.

It made a change for me, as our family is very weighted on the male side, and I don't get to do girly cards very often. The image is coloured with copics, the papers are all from a magazine freebie booklet from several years ago, the flowers and leaves are all made with Marianne dies, and the teddy is an old, much loved, PSX stamp. The bauble is clear embossed to make it shine.

And then some more of my little cards. I made a set of sixteen of these a while back and really enjoyed the challenge of making a small space look interesting. I sorted through my collection of Christmas cards this week, and although I have some 80 or so ready to go, I realised that I need about another forty so I thought I'd better get stuck in. I started by using Publisher to compile a page of Christmas digistamps, and here it is. The baby picture, Henry's little lamb and the cherub on a bauble, are all MoManning designs, the cute deer images and chicks are from pink cat studio, and the adorable Baby Jesus and the sentiment, is a pink gem design. Having printed this I removed the baby image and replaced it with more repeats of the others, and printed it out a couple more times. (Note to self; Spread them out a bit more next time. It was difficult cutting between some of them!) I had one arm in a sling for the weekend but fortunately it was my left arm so I was still able to use my pens, and I spent my time adding colour to all the images mainly with copic markers. Hiding away in my pre-cut cards I found a set of pale green ones with matching envelopes and a couple of red ones with green envelopes, so I made use of those and cut the rest from heavy white card. I can cut three of these from one A4 sheet, and this time I made sure they would all fit into the 9.9cm envelopes that I recently bought a pack of. Then it was a case of raiding my off-cuts box and using a variety of Nesties, Nellie Snellen and Marianne dies, to turn each image into a card, adding a variety of peel-offs, gems, and ribbons as needed. I tried not to make too many the same, and as I was using up oddments, this was easy. This morning I counted them up and was pleased to find I had made twenty three cards, so I arranged them as best I could, and managed to get them all into this picture. Quite a satisfying few days work. Now I just have to do it all over again and I will have enough!!

I am entering the first card in:
Bah! Humbug! Challenge 44: Baby's First Christmas.

Papertake Weekly Challenge: First Christmas.

And linking the whole collection to :
Make it Monday 63: Anything Goes.
Inspire me Friday 32: Anything Goes.
Digital Tuesday Challenge 137: Christmas time.
and to Shirley-Anne's blog, where I am sure I must have reached my target of fifty cards by 1st December.