WOYWW 358

Hi all, I'm back from a lovely holiday in Scotland and first of all I need to say 'Thank you' to all of you who visited my page last week and made some lovely comments, knowing full well that I would be unlikely to make return visits. I did say internet access might be rubbish in Scotland and I was right. I wrote the post before we left home on Monday and published it on Tuesday evening in the pub where we had supper. Then Wednesday morning saw me standing outside the pub hoping I could log back into their internet to upload to The Lady Julia's Stamping ground. It seemed to take ages, and then it started to rain, but I checked it was successful then dashed back to the caravan for breakfast and that was the last time I had any internet access.

So my desk this morning, or actually last night before I went out. You can see the few bits of crafting materials and tools I took away with me. There is my Spellbinders Sapphire, a storage folder of dies, my Pan Pastels, some cotton wool, craft knife and craft mat.
I didn't actually use them in the caravan but one of the friends we went to see took me to her local craft club and I did a little bit of playing with the Pan Pastels. Unfortunately I discovered that the Sapphire doesn't take embossing folders very satisfactorily so spent ages trying to sort the sandwich which left very little time to do much with the pastels.

This is what I did manage to do, the one bit of embossing that was vaguely satisfactory, it says Thank you, and then I cut out some flowers and coloured them with the pastels.









And just to prove I went to Scotland, this is the river Dee near Braemar, looks a nice well behaved river there, but in December it escaped its bed in Ballater, where our friend lives, and caused the worst flooding in living memory. She wasn't flooded, but she was very busy helping all those who were.




I'll leave you with this lovely picture of a Miss Indigo primula that we saw at Thrieve gardens, near Castle Douglas. So bright and cheerful on a chilly spring day, and the gardens are really worth a visit if you are in that area.

Apart from sorting the inevitable pile of washing we brought back from the trip, I have nothing to do today, so will definitely return visits and do lots of desk visiting as I missed seeing all your desks last week.
Bless you all
Chris

WOYWW 357

Good morning lovely people, this is my worktop today, or it was when we left it on Monday morning, and no one else has been in the house since, so it should still be as clean and sterile. (Don't worry about me telling the world that we are not there, see that blue car on the opposite side of the road, if the owner saw anyone approaching our house he would have the police out very quickly, very very quickly, he has done in the past, nothing gets past him)

But we are away camping in Scotland, enjoying ourselves, currently in the Aboyne area.
However, last week I showed you the fun I had with  a play day with Margaret and showed you some of the stuff and said that some of it I probably wouldn't use. and this was one of them.

Neet suggested that I keep them and cut into them, so I thought, 'Well that card for my daughter needed a leaf on it and maybe that brown/green one would provide the right colour leaf.' So I cut into it, and there they were, three brilliant leaves and the two brown ones worked perfectly on my daughter's card.

And so they do.
Now I have a big problem, I daren't throw away anything now, and my cupboards are going to be overwhelmed with all those scraps that really will work as something.

So I have shared my stuff with you, courtesy of that lovely lady, Mrs Julia Dunnit so if you pop over to her Stamping Ground you too can share your crafty bits.
Thank you for visiting my page,I'm not sure whether I will be able to respond to your kind comments while we are away, my internet is a bit limited, but I will read them all and try to get back to you when we return home.
Bless you all
Chris

WOYWW 356

Fantastic play day

Yesterday I went to Margaret (Glitterandglue) for a play day, we had a wonderful time, getting very messy, and I'm sorry this post is rather picture heavy.

First we did some playing with shaving foam and and alcohol inks and acrylic paints, made lots of backgrounds, but at the end, neither of us was very excited, I can't see either of us repeating the exercise any time soon.

Here are all our creations drying on her bedroom floor, on wax paper, 

and here are mine on my work surface. I will probably only use two or three of these efforts.

Then we had a go on my homemade Gelli plate, I've had it for about three years and never used it before, again, not really enamored and probably won't ever use it again. Don't think the end result was worth the effort, I might use the blue one but not the other one.

 Next we played with Margaret's Brushos and made a fabulous mess, that's when my hands got so mucky, we had a wonderful time, and I am seriously thinking of buying some of those. 

They are fabulous to use, here are the results of that play and I will probably use all of these creations in some way or other.

So, now as this blog heading is What's on my worktop Wednesday, kindly hosted by the fabulous Julia, and we are supposed to be baring our worktops at the Stamping Ground,   I'd better show you my worktop.

At the far end are all my creations from yesterday, and on the glass mat is a card I am making for daughter, with the Pollyanna Pickering DVD A Walk in the Wild, and in between, my trusty tool box.

Well it is time I finished this or you, dear kind visitor, will never get to read it. 

Thank you for dropping by and wading through my drivel, and if you make a comment I will certainly return the favour.

Bless you

Chris

WOYWW 355

Morning all.
Many visitors to my page have commented on the size of the space I have for working, and it is a large space 13'6" long and nearly 2' wide, however the danger of such a large space is that it can be hijacked for purposes other than craft. Over the weekend and on Monday I had a major sort out of stuff, lots of unwanted papers, embellishments etc, which I send to the play therapists at the local hospital for the children's wards. so once I had done that, I cleared and started thinking about the 40th birthday card I had to make and a 'Sorry you're leaving' card. However having cleared away all the unwanted stuff the surface was more or less clear, I vacuumed the floor and went down to lunch. Pottered around and then went back upstairs to find OH looking at the vacant space. "You were going to sort the Christmas decorations weren't you", he said and "Let's get the stuff out of the cupboard, on to here and sort it all before it goes back into the cupboard" And this is why my work top looked like this yesterday afternoon when I took the picture.

So the only evidence of any craft ever happening on there are the scissors and rulers a bits on the window sill, so nothing really crafty there except just seen it peeping out of the left hand corner is the Pergamano Christmas tree that Margaret made for us. I hung some really glittery earrings on it to decorate it.

So just to get the craft into this page, I'll show you a card I made before OH took over the work surface.  A week or so ago Margaret and i had a play day with masks and glitter paste, and i was really taken with her tree mask. Then when I was asked for a bereavement card for a gentleman, this seemed to fit the bill.       

Well  that's all for now, so come with me kind reader to The Stamping Ground to visit our wonderful host Julia, and look at all the fabulous desks shared by other desker.

Bless you for visiting.

Chris

WOYWW 354

So it's Wednesday again and here we are sharing our work spaces with anyone who chooses to look, and that is courtesy of the wonderful Julia at her special stamping-ground.

Well last week I was gently castigated for not showing my messy desk, so today you have got the full disaster. (in reality it was taken Tuesday evening before the light went.)
Actually looking at from this angle, I stood on a stool to give you a good view, the working area isn't too bad, it is just the other 8 feet of it that is 'disorganized', beyond the BigShot there is another 24"  or thereabouts.
So working backwards from the BigShot, you can almost see my Woodware Fingerguard cutter, a red box of assorted papers that I take to Craft club on Thursday, alongside that is a Xyron label maker, fabulous for sticking on die cut sentiments, scissors, knife, glue, bits of paper, a congratulations card, and evidence that I did start tidying the mess. Those bits of blue paper I found when I was putting away some other blue paper and thought 'Oh they look good together, I could make ...... with them' so they are on the desk for the next project.

I thought I would give you a clearer view of what is on the mat, a half made box card,  a double twisted easel card, an embossing folder, a piece of ribbon saying 'celebrate' and a piece of card with leave on, done through a mask, the day Margaret and I had a play date.






 

And just a couple more cards to show you how busy I have been, this was made because I saw the tutorial and thought 'I have got to have a go at that', really fun, and of course I soon found a use for it.

And this was for a club swap, using the other bit of the Celebrate ribbon on the desk.









Well I'm off to get dressed, have breakfast and then look at loads of other desks, Thank you for visiting and I will get back to you if you make a comments.
Bless you
Chris

WOYWW 353

Good morning all you lovely people, I'm running late today.
First of all I am not going to show you my desk this morning, because as usual it is just a mess of scraps of paper which need putting away before I start on another project, instead I will just show you three cards I have finished over the past few days.
However if you want to peruse some really interesting desks, go to Julia's wonderful Stamping ground, where you can look at lots.

Suddenly all my friends daughters are getting engaged so a demand for Engagement cards made me realise that I have no 'Engagement' die so had to find a way of getting Congratulations and Engagement in two different ways.

So this is the first one,




 

 And the second, unfortunately trying to take a picture of holographic mirror card with a mobile phone was not very successful.

And this is a birthday card I made using Sizzix Framelits Die  Triple Fancy Frame Flip-its. Again the mirror card making it hard to take a good picture.
I bought the die set, because the information stated 'Design Dimensions 6 1/4" x 5 1/2"' which I assumed referred to finished card, and was very disappointed to find that that was the size of the card from which the design is cut and the final card is rather smaller, So having made this card for a friend, I then fiddled around with my existing dies to create the Engagement card. It is certainly easier and quicker using the set, but still quite fiddly.

So now I'm going to visit some more interesting desks and maybe tidy mine so that I can actually do another Engagement card.
Thanks for dropping by and I will try to get back to all those who leave a comment.
Bless you
Chris

WOYWW 351

Happy Wednesday everyone.

I haven't managed to blog since before Christmas so today I will make time to post today and show you what is on my worktop this week. And guess what, at tea time on Tuesday it looks very similar to what you have seen on my desk in many of my previous posts on WOYWW hosted by the wonderful Julia. To see other more appealing desks to go over to her website at The Stamping Ground

Just as messy and chaotic as ever, in fact I could probably use an old picture and you would never known.
On the mat is a card I am making for a swap, but I can't show you it in detail as the lady who will, hopefully, receive it on Thursday morning sometimes posts her desk on here, and it would be unfair if she sees on here before having it in her hand. If I manage to blog next week I will show you the finished article.
Instead I will show you a couple of recent makes, the first a Silver wedding card for my sister.

I don't think the picture does it justice, all the silver reflects the light and makes it hard to see some details.

And this one I did for a neighbour's 60th.
 It was fun to do this one, once I had mastered the technique of getting the cascade card working and threw away the bit I prepared beautifully then messed up because I didn't concentrate on what I was doing.
















Well that is all for me, I will try to visit lots of desks and I will certainly visit if you leave a comment.
Thank you so much for popping by
Chris