WOYWW #285

Still doing great - 2 WOYWW weeks in a row! Yay! If you want to know more about WOYWW (What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday) go on over to Julia's blog and see what all the fuss is! Today we woke up to sun! What a nice change! Although we are supposed to get snow later on today.

Here is what I saw when I woke up this morning:

I really hated my journal page until I put those strips of paper on it!
Those 3x5 cards come in handy almost every day!

 Close up of the hated page
But wait - what did hubby bring home for me last night??

What I guy! I'm liking this page more now!


This is directly to my left. I finally have a permanent spot for Ms. Big Shot. Don't know why I didn't think of this before!

Finally got around to labeling my spice bottles. . .

 But what the heck are these called? Anyone know?

 And now for a peek at my latest journal pages:

Oct 15- Just started going through my paper stash. . .

Then I went through my ephemera savings and found these two flower postcards, the sticker tag, and the license plates. I also used Dimensional paint on the dragonfly wings - first time!

Wanted to use my new bird stamp on a page, then found this awesome lace - great dimensional addition!

This time I looked through my stash of pre-stamped images for inspiration and found this "ART" piece. I love the blue-red-yellow color scheme! Quite accidental of course!

And that's that. I'm sure today's page will show up in a weeks time on the next WOYWW!

That's it for today! Thank you for your wonderful comments!

PIMI Part 2

I did try another PIMI card with same original, and then did some experimenting, and this is what I came up with:

 This one I did pop the middle up, and it worked well. What I really need is more green cardstock of the same colour!

Then I started experimenting with the embossing, and found how to emboss a piece of paper leaving part of the paper un-embossed. I found it here but I didn't have the frame folder they used, so I just cut a rectangle out of cardboard. After a few failed tries, and running up and down the stairs to keep checking (I have a new router that will now hopefully reach my stamping room!) I managed to get an effect not as sharp as in the video, but still nice:

This was my first one

And my second one (my fav)

The embossing didn't show up when I straight scanned the cards, so I had to get an angle to get it to show. As you can see, the edges of the openings are soft, not hard lines, which I liked on these 2 cards!

Tips that I learned the hard way for this technique: 
1-the bumpy part of your embossing folder should be on the bottom - feel! 
2-it's the FRAME you need, not the cut out piece!

So that was fun, from one PIMI I got 4 new cards!

Thank you for visiting, and remember,  I love your comments!

PIMI #1

PIMI -Pin It Make It! No I didn't think of this all by myself, I saw it as a challenge somewhere, and thought I would try it. I can get lost for hours pinning and pinning, so what about doing something with those pins? I usually just make recipes, but I thought I would start using the card pins that I've made as well! Here is my first one. This is the card I pinned: 

Beautiful card from Lynn

Here is mine:

Not quite as beautiful, but I like it. Next one I make I have to pop up the wreath. Thank you Lynn for the inspiration!

WOYWW #284

I've missed so many WOYWW (see paisley button on sidebar for more info) since my accident in August, but I'm happy to say I'm back! I've been working hard on Christmas cards all October and November, something I've NEVER done before! I usually start Christmas cards a few days before Christmas! Now I'm all ready to send them - that will be the test - will they really actually make it to the mailbox?

Here was my uncommonly clean desk this morning:

You can see my new bird stamp I got at Micheal's at a 2 for 1 sale on stamps - who can pass that up! Below are my Christmas Cards,

I was greatly influenced by Hermine who really got my card making Mojo going!

Here is the card I made with my new HA stamp:

I also discovered (during the last few months) a new way to store my Distress Inks- in a single layer in a plastic 3-D frame (I used to have my stamps in these). I have 4 of these full of Distress Inks. On the back of each is a distress pad, one for each color, velcroed to the bottom, and the distress ink tool is velcroed to the shelf for easy use. I got this idea from an art journalist called Aaron (watch his You Tube videos called Imperfect Impulse), who in turn got it from someone else.

Well, that's all for now! If you want to see my last journal pages for Journal #12, go back one post! Thanks for looking!

I'm Back!!

I've been away a long time, I know, and I'm sorry. At the end of July I had a fall, and hurt my arm, quite badly as it turned out, as even now I'm still on pain meds and in pain a lot of the time. I've only JUST started to get back to driving.

It took me awhile to get back to making art, it's amazing how much I use my left arm when I am right handed! I didn't think it would hurt that much! But now, finally, I can create without a lot of pain.
Here are a few journal pages from a few months ago.

The week of my fall, left side, right side

 with some new stamps I picked up at Joanne's in NF New York. New store for me!

The following week - I had many of these backgrounds already made before my trip to Niagara Falls

 

And the final pages for August and for my journal!

The background on the page with the license plates came from an ad in the Niagara Falls newspaper. I couldn't pass it up!

The end of Journal 12. On to Journal Number 13!

Thank you for being so patient with me!

WOYWW # 263

Back again, another Wednesday, another WOYWW! (See sidebar for more info!). My desk is REALLY messy today, as I was fooling around with sprays, mostly Dylusions, and some Distress Stains as well. I don't think the paper in this moleskin like either one of these products!

Hidden in this photo is the WOYWW 5th Anniversary ATC that I am supposed to send, but she never got back to me with her address! Now I have to figure out who it was!

Here are my latest 2 journal pages:

Playing with Dylusions, just couldn't get the effect Dyan does - I think it's the paper. The butterflies are 7G rub-ons, the stars and "embrace..." are Wendy Vecci. The ticket is Tim Holtz. Lots of stenciling in the background. For this next one, the turquoise was already on the page, and I thought black Washi Tape would be a good contrast.

The cat stamp is from Viva Las Vegas. The quote was from a "Quote-Stack" booklet. I tried to fool around with distress stains and paint in between the washi tape lines, but it looked horrible. But I like it now! Got a start on the next journal page with some scraps of paper:

 And last but not least, my WOYWW ATC from Kirsten Corby! This is so much prettier in "real life" - I tried several photos and this was the best one. Looks like fireworks!

Thank you Kirsten!

See you next time! Thanks for visiting!

WOYWW #261

I am (again) trying to make sure I hit this room AT LEAST once a day, even if it's just to tidy up! So today is Wednesday, time to share with other WOYWW's (see sidebar for more info!), and here is my desk this morning, at 9:20am:

I worked on my journal this week, and finished last weeks page as well. We went to a friend's farm on the weekend, and she used these napkins:

OK, how awesome is this napkin? Of course I asked for one to take home. . .(as we all do - don't we?)  And first thing Sunday night, I glued it to my next journal page as the background. What did it make me think of? India, so I chose this cool henna pattern stamp:

And went to work. Here is the journal page:

Complete with bling!

Last week I had a page that at first I hated:

 

I had just kind of thrown things together, and I really didn't like it

Then I fixed it!

What did I fix, you ask? Well, I changed her hat from "always" to "Music", because I had dreamt of music the night before, and I found the meaning of dreaming about music:"To dream of harmonious music is an OMEN of pleasure and prosperity." I can live with that! So, still not my fav page, but much better!

That's it for today, see you soon! 

WOYWW - on Thursday #260

Had such a busy day yesterday, I wasn't able to get my What's On Your Workspace Wednesday post up! But here I am today, pretending it is yesterday. If you are wondering what WOYWW is, just go to the beautiful new 5 year WOYWW button on my sidebar, and all will be revealed! This is the 260th week - 5 years for WOYWW, and so I got to choose a button for my site!

I had been away from my workspace for a week, then made sure I was working again this week, even if only for 30 minutes. Boy, other things can sure push me away from what I really want to do!
So here is my workspace:

 As you can see I was working on my journal. This page is an interesting one for me. I went on a House Tour last weekend (where you get to snoop in people's beautiful houses) and one house was owned by an artist named Barb Carr who made awesome canvases of just colored squares - using only one predominant color. Here is one of her pieces:

Barb Carr

 I loved it and wanted to try it myself, but, of course, it's never as easy as it looks! I came up with this page for my journal:

Now, you can see a gold moose and a small gold deer - those were inspired by another canvas in another house - a large white background with a single gold moose in the center.  So this journal page was inspird by 2 different artists! I love gold, so everything is edged with gold as well.

Thanks for peeking! See you next week!

Lighthouse Tag

Finally made into my Stamping Room this week! Yay! I made this lighthouse tag for a challenge at Tag Along, and it also fits the challenge at Rhedd and Rosie's (Rhedd and Rosie's) Challenge blog - NO flowers. Anywhere!
Here it is:

This tag was made with inspiration from Dee Dee Catron's tag, here. I was at a garage sale last week, and this guy had hundreds of very old books for sale. I found one in bad shape (good!) no cover, for 2.00. if was from the 1800's. It was called United States Lifesaving Services, and there is an awesome had written page inside, where someone was practicing their writing. The guy I bought it from thought I was crazy. "You sure you want this one? Look, there's marks and everything all over it!" Oh yes. I'll use it for sure! So that blob you see near the compass rose - probably made a hundred years ago! Anyway, I love how it turned out, hope you do too!

WOYWW #258

I missed last week, but here I am today. If you are wondering what WOYWW means, just pop on over here, and all will be revealed! I've been so busy with work, I haven't really been able to spend much time here, but I did get my Mother's Day card made in time! I don't have a picture of the card - just the mess!

I had pulled out a bunch of ATCs, thinking I might find one for her card. I ended up using one from last week, but I did find this gem:

an ATC I made a few years ago!

I went "garage sailing" last weekend, and I found these!

Perfect for all my eyes, snaps and brads! They wanted 10$ for them (the wife wanted 10$ each!) and I got them for $4.00 for both! It certainly pays to haggle!

Ta ta for now, lovely Peeps! Hopefully will have something more to show you next week!