WOYWW #249

Well where did that week go? Or the weekend, for that matter? So here we all are again, meeting up in Julia's virtual front room, The Stamping Ground, for our much-loved WOYWW. My weekend plans were to visit IKEA (check), try out Julia's glorious Brilliance backgrounds, (check), and play with my new stamps from Visible Image (epic fail). The VI stamps were mainly the result of being picked as a winner for the Feb contest- £20 to spend on their stamps.

The ones on the right were the ones I picked as my prize, the two on the left just fell into my basket, the feathers because its so gloriously gothic, and the Molly Rules set, as that will be perfect for my Granddaughter Merlins birthday in July.
So, IKEA. Whats not to like? I had heard that the Expedit series was being discontinued, along with the drawers and cupboard with door fittings. The actual truth is that Expedit has been re-designed, the outer framing is a little thinner. Inner dimensions are the same though. I do hear that the big 5x5 unit is being discontinued, along with the desk attachment for the 4x2. Glad I got mine when I did.  I believe the bit about the drawers is correct too, and I did want another couple. So they are now in place in my 5x5.

It used to just have the two bottom pairs of drawers.

On to Julia's Brilliance backgrounds, and I love this.  Lovely pearly sheen to the sheets. Bit of trial and error for how much to mist, and whether to use glossy card or not, which didn't seem to make any difference as far as I could tell.

Last thing I was doing on Sunday was some brayered sheets. I bought a mylar mat, like the Splodge Away, at the NEC about 12 months ago- mainly use it for general inking techniques, but thought I would give the brayering a go, as everyone seems to like how it works. Usually I work on a scrap pad, to roll off the ink, and brayer onto the card from, which for me works just fine. And that is what I will be sticking with- I did not like the mylar mat method.  The three brown sheets on the top left were done off the mat, and for me, there is too much wet ink on the mat- when you start to brayer on, ink from the roller goes onto the mat, which I kept picking up on the brayer, when I wanted the ink to be fading out, it kept getting 'refreshed'. If that makes sense. I ended up with three almost one colour sheets. So I returned to my normal method of rolling off onto the scrap pad, then working up onto the card, and that gave me much better gradual fades/blends. Thats just my four pen'north, as they say. Each to their own, no doubt its just a knack, but the funny thing was, I had MORE trouble with the dreaded 'lines' with the mat than I do with the paper method. Whatever, I never said I was normal, thats just a vicious rumour put out by people who don't know me :).