WOYWW #252

Almost lost track of the days this week. We had a long weekend, booking last Thursday and Monday off work, and I've only just realised its Tuesday!We had a night out on Friday, to the O2 Academy in Birmingham, to see 5 Finger Death Punch- they were AWESOME!!!!
I do my post up on Tuesday afternoon, and schedule it, because we work nights, and getting in at 6.30ish on Wednesday morning, I'm just about capable of linking in with our head Desker, Julia, at The Stamping Ground, typing up a post would be beyond me, lol. And my desk won't change overnight, unless the fairies get to it.

So this is what it looks like- the ink palette and blender pen arrived, the palette now filled with alcohol inks, and the blender pen with blending solution on the left.More on that in a minute. Just had to order a second palette, as I have more inks than I had spaces for. Some trial stamping with Gothic Fragments stamps beneath that.A tub of stylus tools with some ink pads on top. Bits of waste from dst, and a lone stamp on its block. Nothing very exciting.
Speaking of ordering stuff, I have a few times complained that I could not find refills for my Adirondack pads in this country. You can order them from the USA, but the shipping (and what you would probably get charged for Import duty) is ridiculous. That happened to Beloved Hubby last week. He wanted a rugged case for his new phone, not available over here, only from USA. Card off the post office through the door- Import Duty of almost £3, which wasn't bad, BUT, the Post Office also charged £8 for ' Handling Costs' related to the Import Tax! Total cost £11- how can they justify that? So I try not to order too much from the USA cost wise, just because of that Handling Charge. Anyway, back to what I was about to say-the site I found my palette and pen on, Country View Crafts, well, I was browsing, as you do, and what did I find? Adirondack pad refills! She must be the only place in the country that carries them. And, best of all, she has free shipping, with no minimum spend, which is always good, its quick too, my order turned up in a couple of days. So I shall be gradually getting refills for all my pads, some of them I've had for a few years now, and could do with a refresh.Final pic, and I had to put it at the bottom, so the pic doesn't show on FB, with RSS feed, is a Wedding Card for some friends getting married in a weeks time.

The embossed background is the Couture Creations Tied Together folder- love that one, its probably my most used. Little half pearls were added to the joins in the embossed design.The stamp is At the Altar, by Stampendous,stamped a second time onto a red vellum, and just the overdress cut out and added on top with Pinflair glue.Its a useful way of bringing the wedding colours into the card, I find. The message was printed on my pc, onto white pearl card. I chose the Ultra Glossy Photopaper setting in the printer, and the ink was wet enough for me to be able to sprinkle with Silver Detail embossing powder and heat set.

Wedding & Anniversary Cards

 Two cards made this week, the front Easel card for a Ruby Wedding Anniversary, and the Silver & White at the back for a Wedding Acceptance. Not something I've been asked to make before.
 The Wedding Acceptance uses the Memory Box dies La Rue heart, and the matching Grand Heart for the backing. I die cut the Grand Heart from white pearl card, and the La Rue overlay from a silvery paper. A few silver & white flowers were made using the Tim Holtz strip die, Tattered Flower Garland. I used a mix of silver, white & vellum for those and filled the centres with seed beads.The Bride & Groom are the Stampendous stamp, At the Altar, stamped once onto black card for the groom, then onto white pearl card for the bride, and finally onto vellum to cut out the overdress. I added a little Diamond Stickles to give her dress a bit of sparkle.
The Lattice background is a Quickutz folder, Diamonds & Dots.

 The Easel Anniversary card uses the same folder, and hearts. The flowers on here are a mix of Tims Tattered Florals Movers & Shapers, and Tattered Florals Bigz die. I like that you can mix all these flower dies together and get an endless variety of flower shapes & sizes. Dark Red ribbon was wrapped around the Lattice before matting onto dark red card, and the sentiment was computer printed and cut out with Nesties Labels 4. I had one set of these, the large, but ended up eventually getting the small set too, which gives less of a margin between the layers. Sometimes I felt the gap was too big between the layers on the single set.

WOYWW #120

Following on from last weeks tidyfest, I thought I should 'fess up & show what my desk usually looks like when I am working, lol. In the middle of making some wedding stationary samples, and a wedding card. Already had a look at Julias post, and I see we favour the same heat gun. The ever- present Really Useful Box, this time full of UTEE, another one full of sticky back gems/pearls. The chopping board I use when I'm heat embossing, so I don't damage my cutting mat.

Next up is one of this weeks purchases- Tim Holtz Texture Fades folders. Got these for a brilliant price from Craft Superstore- 12 folders for £19.99.





 I've also been scouting e-bay for stamps this week-there are always great bargains to be found.





Got a great selection of stamps, all for next to nothing-can you believe I paid 99p for the Paper Artsy sheet, and its never even been opened!







Final thing on my desk last night, is this wedding card. 

 The Bride & Groom stamp is called At the Altar, by Stampendous. What I usually do is stamp it once onto card, then stamp it again onto coloured vellum, which I cut the overdress of the brides outfit from, and attach with a few blobs of silicone glue.

Occasionally, when cutting out the image, especially when its stamped &heat embossed on vellum, the embossing flakes off in places, or cracks. I either reheat it with the heat gun to fuse it again, or add a little embossing ink with the embossing pen you can see above, sprinkle with a little powder & reheat- good as new again.
The triple embossed hearts were a real delight- I'd not used this particular tub of embossing powder before, although I have had it for quite a while. Its by Heat It Up, and is called Blue Glass. As you can guess, I was trying to get them a similar colour to the vellum. The powder doesn't look overly exciting in the tub, but when I sprinkled on a layer on top of the UTEE and heated it, I got this gorgeous  blue glasslike finish..

This picture doesn't really do it justice, I will make some more & get a better picture for you next week.These look really opaque in the picture, but they actually had a lovely semi-transparent look to them. Hope everyone has a great Wednesday, looking forward to seeing some great desks as always.

At the Altar 2

This one uses blue vellum border punched with a Fiskars Rope Border punch, rhen a length of ribbon added over the top. At the Altar stamped in silver onto white pearl card and blue vellum. Blue organza ribbon tied in a bow and added to the top. Spray of blue flowers addedin a curve shape, with a heart charm.

Landscape wedding

This one used a stamp called At the Altar, by Stampendous(R102). Stamped and embossed in silver first onto white pearl card, then onto Burgundy vellum. I cut out just the overdress from the vellum and attached to the main image with silicone glue.The dry embossing was from the Emboss to impress board by the Glitter Girls, then flatback acrylic gems added. Heart border peeloff is by Craft Creations. I coloured the bouquet with H2o's.Nestability scalloped oval cut & embossed, and a slot cot either end. Burgundy organza ribbon knotted through. and Names added with peeloff letters.