WOYWW #353

It's What's On Your Workspace Wednesday again! If you want to know what this is, just click on the icon to the right.

Here is my desk for today (actually taken on Monday) It's getting a bit tight - ready for another clean-up!:



I haven't been in my craft room a lot lately, kind of in a funk, so I thought I would watch Aaron on Imperfectimpulses, and just copied his page. He used Lumiere paints - mine were all dried up, so I did my best with adding water to the jars. His little pieces of paper were very small, I didn't have the patience for that! He used pan pastels to color his pieces of paper, I don't have any so I used oil pastels. I also added some butterflies and a scribble that my friend Marg gave to me - it's on a piece of acrylic film, and just sticks to the page. Here is the video:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i192kbT6jn8

and my page:



I don't usually copy pages, but I just needed to get going again. This page obviously isn't my style, but it did get me in my craft room! 

Then I went to my friend Marg's for a playdate and made this page:



Much better - more my style! I loved her two new stamps - I've been wanting these guys for a long time! The rest of the stamps are Dylusions. The background is Distress Inks, and the left side has been wiped with gesso because it was too bright.




These guys are from Stampotique





The next day I did this page. It started with gesso. Dylusions spray and Distress Inks do NOT work well on gesso! So after wiping a lot of it off,  I used craft paint. I got my inspiration from some paper that I had - I used it for the border around the edges.



and some close ups:



I thought the limitations quote was good because I was limited by the gesso!

My most recent page was done on Monday, I was happy because it was a beautiful warm spring day and the birds were chirping away!




Dylusions sprays, Distress Inks, Tim Holtz music mask, and various stencils.



Well that's it for this week, things are looking up, the weather is getting warmer, we "spring ahead" this Sunday, and hopefully I can keep journaling!

PS-I apologise for the graphic content of my last post, I have changed it. Thank you to those of you who sent your condolences. It was a really difficult time, and your support helped..

WOYWW #350

Welcome back to What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday! If you don't know what this is, please click on the WOYWW icon in my sidebar!

It has been a rough week for our family. My brother-in-law passed away, and my niece was injured.  

Here is what my desk looked like this morning:



I did make a few cards this week, one a Valentines card for hubby. I wasn't sure he would be up to celebrating anything, but he's a trooper, and we went out for a lovely fancy Valentines dinner. He wasn't able to get out to get me anything, but when we got home I kept finding little valentines around the house (kids valentines left over from years gone by). Sweet.


 My first gatefold card. I use the "amour" stamp on every Valentines Day card I make for him.

I also made a Thank you card



which will go to the friend who is putting us up during the funeral, and a Birthday Card for my Mom, who turned 81 on the 12th.



Well, I hope that is the worst 2016 has for us, and everything from here on is smooth sailing. Thanks for peeking at my desk, and now I will go peek at yours!

Eleven Years!

February 5th marks the 11th year of this blog!  It is fun going back and seeing how my art has changed, morphed and grown over the past 11 years! I invite you to look back as well!





Many thanks to all of you who follow my blog - I know it hasn't been consistent, so if you are reading his - YAY! Thanks for hanging on! I will try to do better in the future!

Here's to another 11 years!


And I have my blog!

WOYWW #348

Welcome back to What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday! If you don't know what this is, please click on the WOYWW icon in my sidebar!

I have good news and bad news. Bad news first - I lost my job of 5 months - no warning, no reason, just pack up your stuff and leave. I was devastated.  More bad news - I switched to Windows 10. BIG mistake. Nothing works right anymore, I have to reboot regularly, wish I never did it. Things I was doing before, with ease, either gone or much more difficult.

OK, now for the good news! LOTS more time to spend in my craft room! Not sure if I will look for a new job or not. It really bit into my stamping time, actually practically killed it, I was so tired all the time. Thinking of giving classes, maybe at Michael's? Any advice, personal stories around teaching stamping, is welcome!

And MORE good news - This blog will be ELEVEN years old on Friday! Amazing!!!!

Here is my desk today - actually room to work this time!

I've been taking an online class called Radiant Stamping Techniques from  Craftsy, a fun class, re-learning things I already know, with extra tips I didn't know! So I have made 5 new cards using some of the techniques:

1-background stamps, embossing, and metallic pigment ink




2- Smooshing 2 colors of Distress Ink  The trees were a BDay present from DD - Tim Holtz if you can believe it!






3- Distress Ink - 3 colors, die cut center, with stamps inside. It was tricky lining up the butterflies to match the holes, second try was on the orange panel, which I like better anyway!




4- Same technique as above, but I cut out the butterfly and popped it a bit




5- Tim Holtz birds! My DD gave them to me for my Birthday (OK- I asked for them!) I have very few "cute" stamps, a couple of House Mouse stamps, and now these (aside from my VLV grab bag stamps!) The words came from VLV. The technique is the same as Card 1




Two more cards (WOW! I'm on a roll!)

This one was for my Step-Father's Birthday. . .I used TH paper for this one, and his booklet of words





And this one for my DD and her BF, made with the stamps he gave me for Christmas. . . TH stamps, some background paper from Michael's, and TH words




That's all for today! Don't forget to leave me comments about any advice to give regarding giving stamping lessons - I'm open to ideas! Thank for visiting!

WOYWW #343

Wow. It's been quite awhile since I had time to sit and write on my blog! I have a new job at Lee Valley Tools (which sells much more than tools!) and we got crazy long hours over the few weeks before Christmas. Of course, now that that is over, I'm sick, and resting up at home. Hopefully will be able to go back tomorrow, but that means I can catch up today! 

First, my Christmas tree. We had it up since the end of November, which was great, since I don't know if I would have had time after that. The lights can be colored or white, the colored shows up best in photos!





Here is my desk today, the last thing I did here was madly put tags on my presents to go under the tree.


Just a tiny spot to work on right now!




The mess to the right. . . 
and to the left. . .




3 of my 4 boxes of Christmas stamps sit on the floor for me to trip over, and there is a box of unmounted Christmas stamps as well!





So that's my craft room for today - hopefully next week my desk will be all cleaned up for the New Year!




Bye for now - thanks for visiting!

WOYWW #337

Another week has flown by! Time to see what everyone has been working on! If you don't know what WOYWW is, just click on the paisley square on my sidebar!

Here is my desk this morning:

I was making Christmas cards yesterday (finally!) and needed to weigh one down to dry, which is the stack of stamps and gesso you see!

Here is the card:

You can't see it in the photo, but the white background part of this photo is embossed Swiss Dots, so it needed the night of drying for the image to stick to all the tiny dots!

Here are my cards so far. Sometimes I choose one to mass produce, so I don't have to make a different card for every person. Which one would you choose? (click on the photo to enlarge)

Here is my finished journal page for this week, such a sad ending to the week.

I have detailed the Paris attack under the flap. In the circles I have put a Dalai Lama quote:"Don't pray for the people of Paris, pray for peace in the world" In other words, focus our energy on the positive (peace) and not on the negative (ISIS). But our hearts still go out to the people of Paris who had to suffer through this terrible attack. Pray for Peace.



Here is my new journal page, ready for writing on.

I love this little detail stamp!

I find it very interesting how when I make these journal pages at least a week ahead of time, they seem to be just the page I need on that particular week, For example, when I made the flap on my last journal page I had no idea what I was going to put there. But then Paris happened, and that was the obvious place to journal that horrible night.  

Thanks for looking, I appreciate any and all comments! Don't forget to vote for you favorite card! I will need to choose one to mass produce! Thank you!

WOYWW #336

Another Wednesday! I have the day off today, wonderful that I can catch up on bloggy things! To find out more about WOYWW just click on the paisley button on the the sidebar!

This is my desk this morning - just working on my journal, writing my daily "stuff" - very boring! But my cat Inky likes to come and sit right on top of it! I think she's trying to send me a message. . .

I finished my next background page for my journal - started writing on it today

It has a flap for secret writing! Not that I have any secrets to write at the moment - we'll see how I use it! I used a cloth doily as a stencil in another journal, ripped it out and used it on this page!

Next I need to start on my Christmas cards - you heard right - start!! None done so far!

Must get back to life, thanks for looking! Remember - comments make my day! I appreciate each and every one!

WOYW #335

I've been away for quite awhile - I got a new job! It has been a bit of a juggle with new job which has crazy hours, my online business, keeping house, and making art. For some reason art seems to come as a reward for doing all those other things! I'm winding down my online business, but hat housework keeps on going! Work is fun and challenging, and I'm getting lots of exercise, and it doesn't come home with me like owning my own business did! So I want to get MORE involved with my art.

Here is my desk today - I actually got a bit of a shock when I went to photograph it today! It's very rarely this clean!

I was keeping my journal up until my crazy hours happened, then I picked it up again just last Monday. I did have lots of morning "zen" time to do zentangles, but no more, so my journaling will change. But here are the last of the zen pages:

I also just finished a commitment to an online Yahoo group I am on. More on that next time!

Thanks for looking! I appreciate all your lovely comments!