WOYWW #233

Well our Mistress of the Desks has been redecorating- a nice shiny new blog over at The Stamping Ground, although you may need your sunnies this dreary November morning, lol.
Not a huge amount going on on the desk, so you have 2 shots for the price of one visit today. My usual working desk:

Odds & ends abound- a dead babywipe scrunched up, a piece of kitchen roll (can you tell I didn't tidy for the photo?) a couple of acrylic blocks. Some stamps and a Versafine pad. A try-out for some scene building on scrap paper, seeing if I could mix Stampscapes & a Lavinia stamps cat. I've got a bit of a cats theme on the go this week.( Post below for glittered cats)- no not poor Ambrose, he escaped the glitter storm this time. The two black photo albums at the back hold brass stencils, 5x7, they hold larger ones easily, and I just stapled down the middle of pages to hold thinner/tall ones.



Cheap storage solution, and stops them getting bent.





The 'desk behind the desk'- the long table thats behind me, something I wanted when I put my room together, somewhere to put stamp folders when I got them out, put stuff to dry etc.

Of course, its got all sorts of other stuff on there too- glittered cats, bottom right,  easel,  Indigo Blu Christmas cards from earlier post, Distress Markers, a tub of cotton wool balls, and those little sets of plastic drawers, full of 'stuff' thats too small to store anywhere else, without losing it forever. Underneath are some 4 drawer storage ( from B&Q/Instore), they come with wheels, but I didn't put them on, that have all sorts of stuff (do you notice I have a lot of 'stuff'') I wanted close to where I work in the hope that would mean a) less searching for it and
b) it might actually get used!
 So thats all for this week folks, I'm back on my much loved night shift, so I'll be seeing you all later in the day.

WOYWW #214

Two desk shots this week, this one looking over from my PC desk, to a view of a desk liberally littered with crafting stuff. Underneath the sheet of paper you can see the packaging of a Corner Chomper, unopened as yet. Tub of inking tools, RUB's with sponges & the pieces for the inking tools on top.The easel has the card on from the last post, theres a tub of tags to the right, an Ikea cutlery holder that is home to my rulers.

Front shot with some recently acquired goodies:A metal shim for intricate metal dies- seen a lot of people raving about how good & easy a cut you get with this-An intricate metal die- well I have to test it out, don't I?, some mini sponge daubers, a bottle of Glamour Dust and a new stamp. Actually, its a second version of a stamp I already have, The Raven, Stampendous. The stamp is built around the Poem by Edgar Allen Poe (one of my favourite authors)  The Raven.

Here it is a bit closer, with a piece from the other version stamped onto Stampbord. The other Version is a portrait one, this one is landscape and will work better for what I have in mind, a card for my eldest sons birthday,and a fellow Poe fan, with part of the image on Stampbord, so I can turn it into a removable fridge magnet. With the portrait version, the main quote' Quoth the Raven, Nevermore', is split between the top & bottom of the stamp, so I can't get it all on one piece of Stampbord. The landscape version has all the quote together, alongside the Raven, so it will look better. And it is only slightly larger than the Stampbord ATC sized piece. So thats my Show-and-Tell for this week, join in at The Stamping Ground, where our much-moved hostess, Julia, attempts to keep us all in line- not saying that she succeeds, but she does try, bless her little cotton socks.

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.

Easel Birthdays

All three of these were for the same person, so it was hard work making them all as different as possible! Two feature the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals,and I love the fact that they will cut pretty much any material- I've been using up a lot of fancy papers that I have collected, and some of the flowers I really love- the green & gold in the bottom card is a particular favourite. That one also has a four panel image of the Penny Black stamp 'Aspire', matted onto gold & wrapped with a narrow gold organza ribbon. Nesties Labels 7 was used for the sentiment here.

 The top left card features a Chocolate Baroque stamp, Harlequin Rose, which is part of an A4 sheet.The image was stamped in black, mica powders smudged onto the background and chalks & micas used to colour the Rose & leaves.The background is an embossing folder, Creative Expressions' Lattice'. Wrapped with silver & black ribbon and embellished with Black & White Tattered Florals. I have to say that Black & White really is my favourite go-to theme. Nesties Labels 4 was used on this one.
 Top right, the background is another sheet of fancy paper, a vellum panel punched with Doily Dots and some Tim Holtz Rosettes, cut from black & white vellum. The Butterfly panel was made with Fusible Fibres, and I cut out a second set of butterflies to mount on top with silicone glue. the stamp itself is available from two places, Tanda Stamps, Far East Set 1, either as a plate along with other oriental themed stamps, or individually. It is also available from  De Stempelwinkel, as a Non Sequiteur Plate, Samurai Plate. The sentiment is on Nesties Petite Scalloped Ovals Large. On all the cards, the foil printed background paper on the bottom is from Craft Creations.