WOYWW #594- The Christmas Stocking Edition.

 

Here we are again, back at The Stamping Ground, with our much loved leader, Julia, for another Wednesday desk hop.

Long shot of the desk, covered in half made cards, stamps, inkpads and assorted other odds and ends.

The sheet of clear stamps are all HoneyDoo Christmas stamps, used for the cards you can see. The pack of fancy card at the front was bought last time we went to the NEC, sort of oil on water finish to it. I'd used some for the bells, and some baubles I'd also stamped. Like an idiot, I stamped in Versafine, which totally will not dry on shiny/coated surfaces. So I redid the bells, and haven't got round to the baubles yet.

Here are the Christmas stockings, cut down to fit on a square card base, and matted ready.

The Holly & bells, I stamped the bells again onto gold paper, with gold pigment ink, and heat set with gold EP. Matted onto gold card.

Also discovered, via a bit of You Tube searching, why I was having so much trouble colouring & shading. I'd been working from light to dark, which to me seemed logical, when in fact you're supposed to work dark to light, and going over the previous section with the next shade. So, you learn something new every day,lol.

These stamps on the left Julia are the ones I was telling you about. I also added a Birthday background stamp- lots of words and phrases for birthdays. Saw a sample done with it stamped in black onto an ink blended background, and thought it would make some quick birthday cards, just add a die cut sentiment. Or you could stamp in Versamark, heat set with white EP, then ink blend over that, so a few options.

Speaking of sentiments, I picked this up in The Range. I have a few friends who don't celebrate Christmas as such, so thought this will be useful. I think it was about £3.50.

So thats my desk for this week, and my regular enabling provided- you're welcome,😀.

Which brings us round to ..........And Finally.............

Christmas Card Club #18- Use mainly Red

This fortnights theme was set by Lorraine, who wanted us to use mainly red. A real challenge, and took some thinking about! I'd finally decided I was going to emboss some red card with a  Christmas words folder, when I recalled I had a Tim Holtz pad of embossed card, and I was sure there was a red Christmas one, so in the spirit of trying to use stuff I've had forever, I dug it out with fingers crossed. And indeed there was a red, as well as a green, for Christmas. The whole pad is embossed with various holidays/special days, not all applicable to anyone outside the US, lol. Have no idea what I'll do with those.

I cut 2 6" square pieces of the card, then die cut a couple of bauble shapes from each. The die set is from Spellbinders- Heirloom Ornaments 2010. Most likely retired long ago. I backed this with some cream paper marbled with gold, bought at the NEC Christmas show more years ago than I like to recall.  The string for the baubles is some sparkly peel off lines, and then I added a peel off sentiment, again using stuff I've had far too long.I matted this onto some gold glitter card for a bit of sparkle. I decided the baubles didn't look 'finished ' enough, so found some red ribbon to make a bow at the top of each, which looked better. Looking at them now, I think I may go back to these and add a few acrylic gems in a pattern on the baubles, as they look a little plain, I feel. Or maybe some liquid pearls in dots to follow the swirls of the marbling. Don't know, will have to give it some thought. So thats my offering for this challenge, for the first time in ages, I'm on time, lol.

Christmas Card Club Challenge #10- Door/Window

Well, I'm here, a week late, but my monitor giving up the ghost basically turned my PC into a giant paperweight! So, Margaret chose this theme, and she'd like to see Doors or Windows featuring on our cards. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and also that I didn't have any door/window dies, but I did have cutting files for my Silhouette. Which was when my monitor decided it had had enough.
When my new one arrived, I cut out the Gothic Arch window, and the Glowing Candles Memory Box die. I also realised the 'stained glass window' effect I wanted was going to show through the candles, so I grabbed all the waste off my cutting table to stick back in place.
 To back the windows, I used some sheets created long ago, using the 'Caught in Crystal' technique. I've linked to my original blog post about their creation, in case you don't know the technique.
I had to wait for them to stick and flatten, as you can see some had gotten a bit curled over time.

 These were ready for attaching to the window cut outs.

And this is after they stuck and flattened out.

 Stuck them down onto 6" card bases, after matting the card front- I changed the green one later, as I didn't like the narrow border, and also realised I'd not kept track of which window went on which card, as the one I used on it had no green in it at all!

 Next stage was to add the candles in front of the window, and some yellow Liquid Pearls for the candle flame.







Final addition was a sentiment peel off.

This one shows a little of the glitter added to the window background.

WOYWW #555-The ' There was a sale on' Edition

Yes, there was, at Amelias. And although I visited, I was very, very restrained. As was Beloved Hubby, for a change. 😁

These are all my purchases-possibly because I had everything else! Hubbys choice was the Unicorn stamp, I spotted an old Lavinia Stamp I didn't have, a pot of Silver stencil paste- no harm in having a spare-and a pot of Sweet Poppy glitter in a lovely navy blue.
As I'd had to buy an Engagement die recently, I grabbed this Phill Martin set that was half price, as it has another larger Engagement in it, plus the Retirement one, and a small Crafters Companion Engagement too. And that was my lot. Possibly just as well, as I've been keeping up to date with new stuff being Demoed at Creativation, and there are some must haves for my wishlist. I'll mention a few, in case they appeal to you too.

Top of my list are Tims new Embossing Glazes. These are embossing powders, but unlike the usual ones which are opaque, these are translucent, so you can see the colour/image below them. These are the first colours to be released.


I'm loving the look of these, as I have a very old pot of something similar, a blue one that gives the appearance of blue glass. This is it here, used on a heart embellishment.
There's a link HERE to one of his videos, showing them off, and what you can do with them.
 There are also Alcohol Ink Alloys, which are different in the way they behave to the AI Mixatives.
A useful tool I think will be the Alcohol Blower. You may recall the 'puffer' gadget he brought out? This one is bigger, and I think will be useful to me, as I currently use a straw to blow the ink around, but have a tendency to run out of puff if I'm making a few backgrounds.💨
 The final item to grab my attention I think will be of interest to anyone who is interested in foiling.
 DecoArt make a Transfer Gel, which works great with foil, but needs to be heat activated. They have just brought out Deco-Foil Duo, which can be heat set, but can also be applied without heat by running through your die cutting machine. So that looks to have numerous possibilities.
 Not sure if they'll go on my wishlist, but there is also a storage tin for the regular size of Distress Inks. And they store on their edge!

Made some Christmas cards last week, in the post below, and also finished off these cards, using a smaller cover die than the one I did the Engagement card with. Again, left blank until needed. I ran some white card through various embossing folders as a background. The cards are A5 folded. I was MIA last week, as I caught a cold, which inevitably started to become a chest infection, and although I wasn't having difficulty breathing, I was getting short of breath far sooner than normal, so it took a few days before I felt like doing anything. But all good again now. I'll be adding my link over at Julias place, The Stamping Ground, and visiting later on. Which, at last, brings us round to.....................And Finally...................

WOYWW #548- The Getting Tidier Edition.

Exhibit A- the desk where my die cutting is done. As you can see, my Big Shot is barely visible below all the stuff thats got dumped on there. So clearing this was the start.

 

   Not perfect yet, but much better!
And I have a plan for making it better- thanks to Hobbycrafts Black Friday deals.  I'd considered getting another rolling cart to put all my dies in, thus clearing two boxes off the surface. Only real issue was it was a bit too tall to go under the desk, which was what my plan was. But decided to go with it anyway, I could always roll it to one side, over by the big unit.



 
 So I went online and ordered one. Great deal, they were £15, instead of £30. Still available till midnight tonight! 
The larger ones are £25.


Big surprise when it arrived, it wasn't the same as the one I already had- it was smaller! Result. Now it will go under the desk.Still plenty big enough to take all my dies, main ones at the top, alphas in the middle and Christmas stuff in the bottom. For once, pleased something turned out smaller than I expected.😁








OK, let the Black Friday Enabling commence!

Some Honey Doo stamps to start with.

This Christmas die from the Paper Edgers line. Should help with some fast Christmas Cards.

These word die & stamp sets from Crafters Companion.







And finally some stamps from Visible Image, including the fab Erikas Maple.

And that's about it. Still plodding along slowly, I recall last time this happened it took me weeks to fully get back to normal, so it's slow but sure. Little bit of tidying and sorting each day at the moment.


  Which just leaves us with .........And Finally.........

Ain't that the truth!

WOYWW #540- The New Stuff Edition

Back again then, as usual our regular wander round the desks of the world, seeing what everyone has been up to. Leaving our blog link along at Julias place, The Stamping Ground- feel free to come join us, we're very friendly! As always from me, there *may* be some enabling.











And here we go with the first. I have seen so many people with the IKEA Raskog carts, but they're a bit pricey I thought, although they have just dropped the price by a tenner, ( to £40) I also had a look at the Hobbycrafts one, which was a very sensible £25, and as they had a promo running of 20% off online orders, means I got it for £20. And I was very pleasantly surprised when I unpacked it. You have to put it together, but that literally took me all of 5 minutes. It is a very good size, neither ridiculously large, nor uselessly small. Trays measure 15½ " x 11½"(40x29cm), and stands 31" (77cm) tall.  Also, very sturdy. Comes in a few colours, I went with the grey. I think the others are mint, rose gold, and white. It has two lockable wheels. Love how much stuff I've now been able to remove from my desk, but still keep handy. The baskets are really strong and deep, and there is plenty of access room between them. I've been able to remove my two boxes of UFO's from the desk, and they all fit in the bottom tray.
So, very happy with it.

I'm waiting on some stamps arriving from Lavinia, as they just put out some more new ones. They're not here yet, so I'll share them next week.
I've also bought myself a new toy I'm waiting to arrive, so I'll do an unboxing and some testing when that turns up.

These did arrive, I'm so far behind on Christmas cards this year, and thought these are going to help make a supply pretty quick. I reckon some foil/glitter card behind those baubles will look ace.

 But it's desk shots you want to see, and this actually doesn't look as bad as I thought it did. It would look better if I got my act together and concentrated on one thing at a time.  Like the 10th Wedding Anniversary card I need to get done for Thursday!
As well as tidying stuff into the cart, I got distracted by something in a video from WOW! embossing powders I watched. She'd made little circular swatches that she'd stuck onto the lids of her pots so she could see what they'd look like embossed. Which is something that I thought was brilliant, as it's not always easy to know what some powders will look like. So I got sidetracked. Some pots have split swatches on, as some, like sparkle EP's, or these 'two-tone' ones, look different on light or dark cardstock, so I punched out a bunch of circles, and then cut some in halves to match up on the lids.

This is the 'craftermath' on the desk behind the desk, the Christmas glittered images I'm gradually matching with background stamped pieces, more embossing powders than any sensible person needs, and generally anything I'm trying to find a new home for.



Received a fab card from our lovely ShazinOz the other day, thanks Shaz, it is so appreciated.

And so I'm almost done. Two more Chemo treatments to go, and I shall be able to stop hiding away from people with germs, like the hermit I've been for the last few weeks. Missed 3 gigs last week, as because of the treatment break I had, they now fell in the week my immune system was at it lowest, so the risk was too much.They were all in small halls where you're really crowded together. However, we are off the the Birmingham Arena on Friday to see Alice Cooper!

Which just leaves......And Finally.....

I think this pretty much sums up the state of my craft room this week!

WOYWW #525- The Holiday Edition!

Yep, next week we'll be MIA, as tomorrow we are off to Kos for 10 days. So I'll get around to as many people as possible who have joined in at The Stamping Ground, all kept organised by our lovely leader, Julia,before we go in the morning.

On my desk for this week is a card made to send to Ian, Condolences for Erika.  The stamp set is new this week- I'll show them further down- from her beloved Visible Image,  it was the words that went with this set that made me feel they were perfect for this. And it had to be colourful, as that was Erika too. The image was heat embossed, and I used an Encore Metallic pad that has 4 colours across it- pink, purple, blue & green.












Also on the desk some ATC's for a swap in one of the Lavina Stamps pages on Facebook. The backgrounds are as far as I've got for now, so they'll get finished when we get back.








 

And now for my regular Enabler part of the post 😀😇😉.

First are 4 new Visible Image stamp sets, there are more in this release, but these were the ones that got my attention.





Popped into The Works earlier in the week, and got these two dies.

I have one like the circle Happy Birthday, but it doesn't have stars in it. The other says Wedding Day. Also from The Works, this paper pad. Suitable size for smaller cards, notecard size, and the sort of colours that will work fine for masculine cards. And I think thats pretty much it from me, apart from wishing Helen (StampingbyH) a very Happy Birthday today.  Which just brings us round to......And Finally.......................................

Made me think of Debbie Rock (TatteredRocks) when I saw this.

WOYWW #521- The Nearly Crop Time Edition

Yep, just a few days now,and many of us will be meeting up for the Birthday Crop,meanwhile we're linking up at The Stamping Ground, to show our desks to the world.  Need to get my butt in gear and sort out what I'm taking.
 Some ATC's have arrived from folks, thank you ladies.





I must show the the envelope that Diana's came in.

The front..............................

 The back...................................

 and a little envelope with die cuts in.
But how amazing is that envelope?

Goodies from Zsuzsa too,








And a card from Cindy.

These are the ones I made, some have been sent but most will be swapped at the Crop. If anyone still wants to swap, let me know.

Made some cards over the weekend, and discovered the one thing I don't have is a New Home die! So I made some die cuts on my Silhouette, which is fine, but if I wanted to use glitter card, that won't cut it. So, I popped over town and had a look in The Range. And look what I found!

These mini word dies at £1 each- what a bargain.They have masses of dies at this price, all sorts including things like fantasy (unicorns & stuff), and Beach. Loads more word ones too.Well worth a look if you have one near you.



 They are pretty much an inch high, which is perfect.(25mm)
Notice I'm keeping the enabling to a sensible level, whilst maintaining my reputation?😎

They'll all be in my dies box at the crop, so if anyone wants some sentiment die cuts, that'll be your chance.


And so, I'm almost done here.



 This pic I'm showing for Zsuzsa, after her cat Oreo walked all over her work last week. It's clearly a cat thing, Zsuzsa.

And that just leaves.......................................And Finally.............................................