WOYWW #498- The Almost Christmas Edition

Well, just a few days away now, so to all my blogging friends, a very Merry Christmas. We both send you all lots of love, and wishes for a peaceful Christmas with your loved ones. As always, linking up with Julia over at  Santas Grotto, The Stamping Ground, for the last before Christmas blog hop.

 Not much happening desk wise to be honest. Mainly been used for present wrapping the last few days.

Just some of them wrapped and bagged ready for delivering to family.

 After that, my desk got it's - probably annual,lol- clean up.

The blue mat is some of that rubber non slip liner- from Poundland- that stops my craft mat sliding all over the place.

Then it was returning all the important stuff back onto it. I must say, I love those revolving caddy things. Not something I would have bought at one time, but the white one I was gifted, and I was amazed at how useful it was. So amazed, I bought myself a second.In black.😀
 My laminator stood on top of a block of wooden storage boxes there too.

All ready for action again.

I did buy myself a couple of new Gelli plates, both off Amazon, and way cheaper than I found them in crafting stores.

    Bought a round one, and a 5x7 one. The one I have is a 6" square, and I really enjoyed playing with it, so looking forward to some creating time with these.  Again, it was only because I was gifted the square one that I tried it out, unlikely I'd have bought one myself, to be honest.





THIS LINK, is to a video that was on Facebook, making Christmas ornaments from glitter foam. They are absolutely fab, and well worth a look.

A huge thank you from us both to everyone for the wonderful selection of Christmas Cards that have been dropping through the letterbox.


 And so, thats me done for another week, and indeed almost another year.


Just leaves.....And Finally.......

WOYWW #370

Don't know about you, but I really can't get my head around how fast this year is zipping by. Into July already, some summer about now would be nice.Big hugs and lots of love to our recovering Head Desker, Julia, and more love & big Hugs, to our Deputy Head Desker for a while,LLJ.

On my desk this week, loads of images stamped onto OHP film. I got a bargain a couple of years ago when we made a trip to Staples, and they had some boxes of OHP film  reduced to clear. I like it for lots of things, one of them being this- I stamp the images so that I can use them as an aid to placement. I've done lots with my Stampscapes stamps, for scene building, and I thought it would be really helpful with all those stencilled backgrounds I've done lately. Doing it by eye always results in something being adrift or skewed, which irritates me.

This sort of thing is what I mean, using Cardio stamps and one of the Clarity Stencil backgrounds.

  I've made a couple of cards with them, and I'll post them over the next few days.
Because they are on film, I had to use Staz-on ink, and from some research on the net, it appears the ink doesn't harm clear stamps, it's the Staz-on cleaner that does.
So, it's fine if you don't mind stained stamps, and I don't.
 Two tips I've come across doing this- first, if you don't want Staz-on staining your stamps, then if you apply Versamark first, then Staz-on, the Staz-on will wipe straight off your stamps afterwards, but as I was doing this on film, I'm guessing that would not have dried, so defeating the object.
Second- what if you get Staz-on onto your acrylic blocks? The cleaner definitely ruins them, I ruined a few before I found out about the cleaner. Turns them cloudy, with loads of fine cracks appearing. Well, apparently, Antibacterial hand sanitiser gel will clean them up. Sounds mad, doesn't it? But, nothing to lose by trying it.
Here was one very mucky acrylic block.
















                                                                                          

 
I squirted a small amount on,spread it over with my fingers, wiped off with a paper towel, and hey Presto! It works! Literally, wiped over with my fingers, and it came straight off. No rubbing or scrubbing.

That was definitely a wow! moment. I really wasn't sure it would work. But it does, perfectly.
So, something useful there.

Finally, I though these may amuse you. It does prove that dying your hair in a variety of colours clearly runs in the family.
Top picture is my eldest son, Ant, with his green beard, and opposite, my youngest son, Mike, with his two tone one. Amazing, that as Mike ages, he looks more & more like his brother.
 As they say, madness does not run in our family, it just wanders around, having a good time in the process.

WOYWW #369

Well Hello everyone. Here we go again, with another meet-up at LLJ's place, whilst Julia carries on her recovery. Sending lots of love and huge hugs to both of you.The desk, then, as thats what you're here for.

A longer shot this week,as you can see, some blended backgrounds and blending through stencils again.
 If you like using brushes for this sort of thing, please go have a look at the previous post. There are some great bargains to be had in brushes at The Works right now, and they work brilliantly as 'colour duster' type brushes.

These are the brushes, and at 2 for £3, a real bargain compared to most 'crafters' brushes.

You can see in the previous post how well they worked, and here's another example:







The eagle eyed may well spot a Gelli plate, front left. I'd said I would never buy one, as it wasn't really my thing, but this was amongst all the craft stuff I was gifted a while back. I watched a few YouTube videos, by Barbara Gray of Clarity Stamps- where would we be without YouTube now?- and gave it a go. The result was some very nice backgrounds through stencils, using ink rather than paint. I think it was the fact most people were using paint on them at first that put me off. These two below were done with a brayer, rather than brushes, the ones on the right are with the Brushes from The Works.

I have plans for these with some small stamps- I have some Clarity Wee Folk, some Lavinia stamps,and a load of Cardio that should work nicely. I may even see if I can get a Christmas card or two out of this technique.
Reasonably short, and hopefully sweet, this week.
Quick update, saw the Registrar from the Oncology team last Friday for the results of my CT scan. Sort of ok, there is something they wanted a better picture of, so wanted an MRI. I told him my own GP was already sending me for one, due to the sciatica, and got him to refer me back to our local hospital's Oncology team.Travelling to Birmingham and back is a bit of a nightmare for the traffic, it can easily take an hour each way, and a lot more at rush hour. Local hospital is 10 minutes away.
So, I have the MRI date, it's the 13th of July, and will be a couple of weeks after that that I get any results. Hopefully it's nothing, he said it may well just be how the bone is healing.

WOYWW #368

Another week been and gone, and here in the Northern Hemisphere, Midsummers Day is now past, which means the nights gradually get longer from now on. So welcome one and all, and a big Thank You to our lovely Jan, and much love, for once again hosting the WOYWW group,whilst dealing with the sadness of her Dads death. And massive hugs and get well wishes going out to Julia, as she potters along this recovery road!
 Not all that much happening on the desk, as the weather was nice at the weekend much of it was spent in the garden, and we also had to go visit my Mum, as last Wednesday was her birthday.
 I have received another two ATC's, and I imagine that we've all had & sent out this years by now.

My ATC's this week, from Kyla on the left, and from LisaD on the right. A very appropriate sentiment on Lisa's for us British, lol.
After watching a few videos this week, I decided to pull out a couple of stencils I bought at last years NEC Hobbycrafts. Both by Clarity, the one on the left is called Jo's Bubbles, the other is Abstract #3.





 I used these two with Inkylicious Blending Brushes at first.

This one used Salty Ocean and Wilted Violet DI.

  These two used a variety of colours, and the stencil on the right is a third Clarity stencil, called Abstract Squares 2.


I'll do a post with these a little later in the week, as well as some others I made, finally making some use of the Gelli plate I was gifted.
So, works in progress at the moment, and this is the stack of backgrounds I've accumulated so far.