WOYWW #461

Well I hope everyone had a good Easter, and at least here in the Midlands we didn't get the forecast snow! Back again at The Stamping Ground, where our illustrious leader, Julia, attempts to keep us in order. For anyone new here, there is a page at the top of Julias blog with all the details about this years crop in September, at Llandudno again.  If you've never been, do see if you can make it, it's a fab day of meeting bloggers, eating cake, a bit of crafting, eating cake, lots of chatting, and did I mention the cake? There's a pic in my banner from one of the crops- surprisingly, we all look like normal folk. 😎😎
 Anyway, the workdesk.

Bit of a mess, so nothing new there. Black box at the front holds my Card-io/Majestix stamps. Next to that my stamp scrubber- cost a whole £1 from one of the pound stores, just a paint pad. Works a treat. Scissors, post-its being used for those Retiform pieces I did last week. I've actually stamped them up, and started layering-go me!
The spray bottle with the orange stuff in is homemade stamp cleaner. All that is, is some baby bath, water, and a few drops of glycerine.  Again, dirt cheap and works like a charm.

This is as far as I'd got, not entirely sure about the brown one, maybe I've used too many colours? It looks a bit busy at the moment, but I'll see what it looks like when I've matted it. I think I may try this again, using less 'boxes' next time. I'll blog them when I've finished them off.

The two I've matted up so far.

This is definitely a good way to use those small 'filler' stamps that most sets seem to have.



There are some Christmas cards again in the post below, but something I discovered while doing them may be of use to anyone else with Cosmic Shimmer Gilding wax pots.

When I embossed the back tag, I decided I'd try and help the embossing pop by rubbing on some Gilding wax. I have a whole load of colours in them, gifted to me by the friend giving up cardmaking, and I'm pretty sure none of them have been opened yet! So I found out a pale blue one, only to discover on opening it that it was totally solid. Checking a couple of others, they all seem to be the same. So, I did a bit of Googling to see if there was any way of salvaging them. It appears this problem of them drying out in the pots became apparent a while after they'd been launched, and Creative Expressions, who make them, introduced a product called Gilding Wax Blending solution. Googled that, and it's not available anywhere that I could find.
 EDIT: Just done another search, as I wanted to find out how they tell you to use it, as my bottle has no instructions- and actually discovered now a whole list of places came up that have it in stock, so it's not unavailable at all, my mistake. On the CE site, it says to mix a little wax with the blending solution to create a paint, which isn't what I wanted at all, so I will try a few drops in a pot and report next week!

So, I had a think, and wondered if the Low Odour Thinners I have ( Daler-Rowney) would be any help,as it's intended for blending wax pencils amongst other things. So, I decided I had nothing to lose, and added a couple of ml- I have some small syringes for glue- to the pale blue. Put the lid on and left it overnight. Went back to it the next day, and it had indeed started to soften it up, so I gave it a good mixing with a plastic palette knife, and I think it's as good as new. If you can't tolerate chemical smells- although I really can't smell this one- there is another brand available from Amazon called Zest-it, which as the name suggests, has a citrus smell to it. I'm also guessing Gamsol, which is just a brand name, would do the same thing.
 Funniest part of all this, I was looking for my bottle of stamp cleaner- I'm not exactly much of a cleaner of stamps,- and what did I find but a bottle of that Blending solution for the waxes, so she must have bought it with the waxes, and gifted me that too. I'll try it on a pot and see if it's any different to the thinners.

 
And look who we have here!   LLJ and her lovely Hubby Gordon were up in Worcester at the weekend, so we drove over- it's only about half an hour from us- and we had a lovely Carvery lunch. Was lovely to see them both, it's been ages, especially as we didn't make it to the September crop last year. My hair is a bit redder than that picture makes it look, lol, I don't do pink! And just a few hundred yards away was a Garden Centre, so yes, plants were bought!


And finally....................

 Next weeks desk will no doubt feature craft stash, as this weekend we are off down to London to go to Ally Pally on Saturday. First time visit for this show, we're trying to go to some different ones around the country, as we can't get to Happy Stampers in May,  it clashes with a friends wedding, and definitely not doing the NEC anymore, as it's just ridiculously expensive, and for me, doesn't have enough paper crafting. I shall be meeting up with Helen, (Stamping by H), Erika Philpot, and a lady from the Christmas Card Club, called Sylvie, who flies over with a friend from Gibralter! Anyone else going, drop me a message, and we'll meet!