WOYWW #128

Happy Wednesday everyone! Time to saunter off to the Wonderful Miss Dunnits, for the regular Wednesday Wander.
         Pictures this week are of the set of boxes I won in Craftywombles draw. They are gorgeous, with so much attention to detail, and in my favourite colour, as well.:)
On top of the smallest box, you can see the Tornado, rainbow & bridge.

Each side has wonderful vintage images of the Oz story, featuring all the characters. At this point, I have to admit that I have never seen the Movie, The Wizard of Oz. I have read the book,as a child, and remember enjoying it hugely. I also remember that the images were very similar to the ones on the boxes!  Trouble is, the film is a musical, and I really do not like musicals! I have never seen The sound of Music, either- and fully intend to live out the remainder of my life not having seen it! The only exception to my 'No Musicals' rule, was recently watching Sweeney Todd- but I could forgive Johnny Depp pretty much anything! And actually, it really wasn't bad. Anyway, a huge thank you to  Craftywomble, this really is a very special piece I am very pleased to have won. I shall be using them to store some very special treasures, I think.
  Just thinking about how old the Wizard of Oz film is, what's the likelihood that someone will think its time for a full bells & whistles remake? With current CGI, I think it could actually be pretty spectacular.
Last thing on my desk this week, are some really pretty little Slide Buckles, for my Wedding Stationery samples.

I pictured them on white card, then tried them on black, as I wasn't sure which one would show up best. I really like the round ones in the top right corner, they are a pearl & rhinestone mix. Well, that me done for this week, I shall post early, and visit tonight, so have a great day everyone.

WOYWW #127

OK, I think its time for whoever is stealing all the days between Wednesdays to own up. And the person stealing all the weeks until Christmas for that matter. Where are they all going? Do we have a black hole somewhere they are all dropping into? Or is someone secretly stashing them away to get themselves some extra time? I think its time they 'fessed up!  But seriously, here we are again at the weekly wander round the worlds workdesks- presided over by non other than the Wonderful Miss Dunnit at The Stamping Ground.
 After my visit to the NEC, and my goody stash (here) all put away,and yes, Julia, that is definitely a years worth, Lol, I got down to a few tags. Some are in the previous post, but these two were inspired by some display cards on the Inkylicious stand. I liked their samples so much, I bought the stamps- that reminds me of an old advert!

I liked these stamps because they reminded me of a cat we used to be owned by- she was forever hiding amongst the garden plants to catch butterflies, gently carrying them indoors then letting them go. She was very fond of doing the same thing with mice too- and worms when it had been raining! Ick! There is little worse than treading on a worm in bare feet in the dark, honestly.Makes me shudder to think of it.
  The cat & butterflies are one stamp set, which has a sitting cat in it as well, the willow branches is a separate one. The flock of birds is yet another set, and it has a lot of single birds and flying birds in it. Really useful little set. This one doesn't seem to be on their site yet, so I couldn't link to it. The tree is from a Crafty Individuals Crafty Elements sheet, CI 209. The tag on the right has an assortment of small grasses and flowers,mainly from Chocolate Baroque,Autumn Hedgerow, the hanging leaves are from Lavinia Stamps,Leaf Trail, and one of the little birds sitting on a branch.

For anyone who likes small metal embellishments to add to tags/cards etc,like these:

 go look at the post about the NEC, there is a link there to the company I got them from, Riverside Beads, and they are SO, SO cheap!

 Final thing for this week, an e-bay purchase- lots of watch workings. The one thing I really have been short of is this sort of stuff to add to tags etc. 

 As Marg posted, we went to see our Granddaughter Merlin in a little concert for the Grandparents- they were wonderful. As were the cheese scones that we had back at Margs. I can most definitely vouch for the scrumptiousness of them- they have to be eaten to be believed! If you haven't made any yet & tasted them, you do not know what you are missing. Trust me on this, you will be totally unable to eat just one. Unless its the last one, and the next batch are still in the oven.

 On the subject of the box I was looking for, I discovered two things: One, My Beloved Hubby reads ALL my blog posts, lol! I assumed he just looked at the pictures and read the comments- WRONG!

  The second thing I discovered was I should have Googled for them- I found somewhere via Amazon- and they do them in all sorts of sizes, from 2 compartments up to 12, I think.  They are called Coins Accessorise, and they have all sorts of  wooden items besides, like jewellery boxes, tags,hanging shapes, wine bottle boxes, coasters,and some fantastic little sets of drawers, and they are really cheap! Perfect for decorating/altering. Here's a picture of one of the drawer sets-£8.69.
Had to share this place- its the sort of thing we are always looking for, isn't it? I see lots of Birthday pressies for next year here. So my little box has arrived, and although Beloved Hubby knows about it now,( he thought it was a great idea, phew), he doesn't know what it will look like when he gets it. I also just realised you have a picture of my penguin cursor on the drawers- his name is Nux. :). Well I hope everyone has a great Wednesday, and I shall be seeing you later on.

Lest we Forget.......

This tag came about because I was reorganising some stamps and spotted an unmounted poppy, which was a free stamp with Craft Stamper, a few years ago now, when Jane Pinder of The Stamp Bug was the editor.


This is the stamp, and I thought it would lend itself nicely to layering.


 
   I stamped two images onto a handmade paper, and then four more onto Mulberry paper.

I used one of the Handmade paper poppies for the base, then cut up the four mulberry paper ones into sections, then scrunched them up. Opened them all out again, and began to layer them onto the Poppy base with a little silicone glue.


This is the Poppy all layered up, and with a large Black brad in the centre, which also help to ruffle the petals a little.

Added a leaf, from dark green mulberry paper, embossed with clear powder, and the edges cut with a pair of fancy edged scissors.

For the tag, I used a white index card, which I just
sponged in greens, using a torn piece of paper for a mask, and added blues for the sky.The stem is part of another stamp- a Lavinia stamps dandelion head. You can see a bit of a black smudge where I caught the edge of the flower head with the inkpad, but the Poppy head will cover it,lol.
 

 
 Now I matted it onto Red then Black cardstock. I don't have a stamp for Remember, but I do have one that says Remembering, so I just masked off the unwanted letters with lowtack tape, inked the rest, then peeled off the tape before stamping.

The Poppy head is stuck in place with some more silicone glue.

 To finish it off, I added a few dots after Remember with a Promarker, Punched a hole in the top and added some black & red fibres.

Hobbycrafts at the NEC.

Well, I did go to have a look-see, and yes, I did buy some more stuff! I was very good though, and returned home without a single Christmas themed item! Having looked through all my stash recently, I came to the conclusion that I could make Christmas cards from now till the end of time, and probably still not use all the Christmas stamps I have- and don't get me started on Christmas paper pads, please.

So, I mainly bought stamps, and embellishments- something I don't really seem to have much of. I have tried to remember where I bought everything, and link either to the retailer, or someone who has the product if I couldn't think who it was.

Some u/m Stampscapes stamps, definitely one of my weaknesses, I prefer u/m's, and not many places seem to carry them, so these were a distinct bonus.I have wanted the Oak Branch and Spooky Branch for a while, but the u/m sheet the Oak is on also contains stamps I  already have as woodmounts. I got these from BJCrafts. 

These clear stamps from Inkylicious were very reasonable,and I thought the multiple types of birds will be very useful. The Face caught my eye too, I have a similar one but smaller.


I liked this when I saw pictures of it a few months ago- nicely dark & gothic. I can't remember who I got it from, but it is available at Cheddar Stamper.


These two packs from Kaisercraft have lots of useful words and phrases, and were a very reasonable £2.99 each, which I thought was fabulous value. Bought from Ali-craft.

 A Paperartsy set, Clocks 5, and Crafty Individuals CI 305. I love the cogs stamp on the Paperartsy, and the CI stamp has good male/collage images. I bought both from The Artist Trading Post.







These two u/m sets by Papermania really surprised me. Called Urban, they have really nice, usable images for me, not what I would normally associate with their name. Usually, they are too 'cutesy' for my tastes. These came from Hotshot Craft- there are 4 available. These two are Bird Print  and Botanical print. The other two are Type print & Travel print.

 These are three u/m plates, two are textures & patterns and one is faces. They were an amazing £2.50 each- hows that for great value. The irritating thing is that a really can't remember who I got them from, sorry. At the bottom right are three tiny Lavinia Stamps images, small toadstools, a bee and a flying dragon, all £1 each.



Last stamp I bought, Tim  Holtz/Stampers Anonymous Postcard images. I have had my eye on these for a while now, and finally gave in to temptation.

Moving on from stamps, I wanted some metal embellishments for my cards/tags. I found this great company, Riverside Beads, as you can guess from the name, they specialise in beads for jewellery making. However, they have chain, metal charms etc , in a variety of finishes, ideal for adding to your tags and other projects.
You can see one or two price labels there- they are a really good buy- you can have a lot of different embellishments for very little money. For instance, the bag of coins you can see at the top, contains 6 coins- the brass colour cost me £1.20, and the antiqued silver ones £1.35. I think this place was my best find of the day- it shows what you can discover by a visit to a craft show, I doubt I would ever have found them otherwise.

I've pictured them against a ruler so you can get an idea of their size.This is just a small selection of what they have, by the way.

 
Paperartsy pen nibs, and some really neat penny farthing bicycles, by Route 52, which I got from The Artist Trading Post.



 Some Tim Holtz game spinners, chains and 7 gypsies cogs.




     
You can see I also bought a Tim Holtz paper pad, the Winter Distress Inks Limited edition, and also Stormy Sky.


4 new embossing folders, a Cuttlebug one featuring cogs & gears, and three generic ones. One of them has what I think will make a good background for Oriental designs.

At the top of this picture is the clear stamp set that came free with Debbie Moores new Stamping Inspirations magazine- a nice set that are all going to be usable. Some black & white spotted organza ribbon, mica flakes, 3new (to me) Stickles a bottle of Black Cosmic Shimmer Pearls, I assume this is like the Liquid Pearls, and a Karantha mould of a face.









Almost at the end, some spray mini-misters.







Two Tim Holtz
dies, Tickets and Rosettes.




Two great storage containers, A4 size, filled with smaller ATC size boxes. These came from Samuel Taylor.





And finally, some Klingon for those u/m's, and on top of that a selection of acrylic hearts/circles etc from a place called Add Some Sparkle- sold as a pick & mix, you fill the little pot you can see with your selection, for £2! They do this pick'n'mix online too. Not just these stones I bought, they have loads of other styles/colours/designs too.This place was another great find.

WOYWW #126

Hi all, first off I must apologise for Blogger last week, I know a number of people struggled to post comments, and I had a bit of trouble with one or two blogs- you'd really think they'd have it fixed by now! Well, todays the day we  unveil our desks to the world, courtesy of the incomparable Julia Dunnit, at The Stamping Ground.  I spent quite a few hours playing with tags & masks- the posts below are about how I made my own masks with my Silhouette & Transparency film, as well as  tag or two. Mainly though, I played with my Tim stamps, and I will show you those tags in a moment. However, this is Workdesk Wednesday, so here are two pictures- Before I stared playing, and then what it looked like when it came to clear up time!

I managed to get from this:

to this, with absolutely no help whatsoever- all my own mess work! :)







 I started  off with a bunch of tags I had sponged in the past.....


Made myself a Post-it note mask of the man with the umbrella....

 On this one I added some sponging through sequin waste, a couple of odd ampersand  & dot stamps and just the man with umbrella & phrase.   I kept this one quite simple too, back to the sequin waste, but this time I just inked up one word at a time on the phrase, and moved them around the image.

Here things were coming together nicely...... as you can see I work on top of an A4 pad of plain paper- the sort you can get for a couple of quid from The Works- I can test out the colours, make sure my image is inked, or stamp off first, and sometimes you end up with something you can cut up and use as a background piece! Double Bonus!!!










With this one I overstamped the tag with the clock face in Distress Faded Denim, then stamped the man with umbrella over them. I picked the words We Must Dream The Impossible out of the long phrase- To be all that is possible we must attempt the impossible,To be all that we can be we must dream of being more.  I did this by masking with a post-it note, and colouring the individual words with a marker.









   I added some clock hands, cut from a dingbat font with the Silhouette, then embossed with black detail embossing powder, and a small pocket watch that was clear embossed. I don't think they are truly finished yet, but I have really enjoyed doing these- maybe the next project is going to be a tag book of some sort to keep them in.

                                  Here they all are, along with the Halloween tag posted below.

Last thing to show you, is a product that is totally indispensable, and absolutely fantastic at what it does.The aerosol in the middle is the first one I bought, and I was running out. I don't really like aerosols, not only on the environmental level, but the propellants in them always make me sneeze! But I was looking for some more, and found its available in a liquid form, and also now in a gel. Beloved husband wanted the gel, as its useful for awkward places, or somewhere upright, where a liquid would run. Even he was impressed with this stuff when he tried it, and it takes a lot to impress him with a product. It just dissolves the sticky stuff left behind when you peel off labels, or those sticky tabs you hang air freshners with for instance- you can literally just wipe it off with a piece of kitchen roll. Has a nice citrus smell to it as well. I found it in Lakeland, and they have it online too, as does Amazon.
    Finally, a question that I hope someone can help me with. I remember a while ago, seeing a small wooden box with compartments in, for holding t-bags. Typically, I now can't remember where I saw it. My Beloved Husband really likes fruit teas (ick), and has them at work during the day. But he only takes in one box at a time, as they take up too much space in his toolbox-(I have the coffee in mine:) ). I thought about getting one of these boxes that he could keep a small assortment of teas in, and altering it as a Christmas present. So if anyone has seen them, or knows where I could get such a thing, I would be eternally grateful to you.
 I am considering going to the NEC this weekend for the Hobbycrafts show, as I haven't been for a couple of years now, and its nice to just look around and see whats new, and what people are doing. So I may have a (few) absolutely had-to-have impulse buys to show you next week, lol.
 
Oh, oh oh, I almost forgot about this: a couple of weeks ago, I emailed Kevin Nakagawa, (the guy who designed/developed the Stampscapes line of stamps), with the link to my page showing how I built up my scenes, to see what he thought.  This man is so talented, if you get a chance, go to his website & look at some of his work in the galleries. It will truly blow you away.  Anyway, I was stunned to get an e-mail back, saying he had linked my tutorial page to his Lessons page on the website! I was/am amazed/delighted/gobsmacked/honoured- his, and the other artists lessons on there are amazing, I can't believe he thought mine good enough to include. If I never achieve anything else, this is truly a high point for me.
Hope everyone has a great day, I shall as always post this before work, and start visiting when I get home.