WOYWW #602- The Almost Christmas Edition

 I'm afraid its a bit more enabling this week- first is a set of Christmas stamps and stencils that were free with Creative Stamping magazine. I rarely buy magazines these days,but liked all the small stamps in this set. I can use them on smaller cards, and inside bauble shapes, which is what caught my eye. It also comes with a tree and stags head stencil, and also you get the mask shapes too.

Lots of images, so was worth the cost. Normally thats why I don't buy them, the cost is too high for the use I'd get from them.

 Had lots of Christmas cards arrive, thank you all, I'll try and remember to take pictures for next week!

More stencils, this time from Lavinia Stamps, I'm very keen on stencils for adding some extra interest to backgrounds, and these are quite different from the heaven alone knows how many others I have!

I mentioned this book to Zsuzsa last week, and said I'd post about it. I bought it a couple of years ago from Amazon, and it's one of the best books I've ever bought. Some amazing ways to not only make projects, but the different ways you can treat paper/cardstock to get some spectacular results. And at the moment, a real bargain, as Amazon has it used- mine was bought used too- for less than a fiver including shipping.

On Amazon, here.

EDIT: link here  to the blog post I did about it a couple or more years ago, showing some of the projects inside.

Hopefully there will be a few more crafting posts done, as having just finished a two week antibiotic course, I'm feeling much better. One of my Consultants from the hospital is also putting me on a longer course of low-dose antibiotics, so that should really help to keep on top of the problem. 

Just to make clear from last week, the Pineapple is claimed to be a great help in avoiding/getting rid of oral thrush, which is always a risk when you've been taking a lot of antibiotics, and I've had a stupid amount! 

 Regarding things to drink to help avoid UTI's, Cranberry juice isn't recommended any more, not sure why, but my Moms practice nurse recommended her to drink a glass of Robinsons Lemon Barley Water every day. Mom had a few UTI's a couple of years ago, and since she's been drinking this, she's not had one, so I'm trying that out too. It has to be that specific drink, apparently, the other Barley Waters, or lemon squashes don't work.

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

WOYWW #590- The Finished Cards Edition

And another Wednesday rolls round- more like flies round!- so time to link up again over at Julias place, The Stamping Ground, for our weekly desk shennanigans.

Continuing on from last weeks cards, the one thing that I dislike about Distress Oxides, is trying to stamp over the top of them. I think the fresh wet ink must activate something in them, and you get some of the Oxides design showing through. So I decided to do a few more, this time using my trusty Adirondacks. Clear case of full set syndrome here, lol. But I do love them, they apply easily, blend nicely, and so many colours, from palest barely there, to dark shades.

 

These were the half dozen I did with them, I forgot to take a pic till after I'd stamped the first one. My pad by the side with the stencil name & ink colours used can be seen to the right.

The stamped one is a Visible Image stamp, as are three in the next picture. The Buddha stamp is from Inkylicious.

These were some of the Oxides ones, now stamped up, and I'll warn those of a nervous disposition to look away, as the Visible Image word stamp I used on the Indigo Blu motorcycle card wouldn't fit, so I took my scissors to it and separated the three phrases. The words were too close together for masking with tape, so scissors it was.

It was so perfect for the motorcycle card, I had to use it.

Back to a touch of enabling, another new stencil from Sweet Poppy, Abstract Backplate.

On the subject of this new Blogger, I discovered today that if you click on your photo, you get the little squares appear that let you adjust the size of the image by pulling at the sides or corners. I'm probably late to the party, but thought I'd mention it. I've also discovered I can get my pictures where I want them by using the 'indent' icons, so I'm getting happier with the new stuff!

Now, some help from everyone please, for one of my visitors/commenters, Magic Maggie. Maggie doesn't blog, but she visits me, and last week in her comment she asked for recommendations on a reliable white pen. Now, I've tested out the ones I have, and will give my results in a minute. I've tried all sorts of storage- lay flat, point down, I've tried writing on my hand to get them started, and most of the well known brands fail miserably. Maybe if you are using them every day, they're ok, but I always find they fail within a few days if I haven't used them. So here are the ones I have, and how they worked.

 Top of the fail list are the Inkessentials pens- don't ask how many I've bought- they all fail. A Signo white pen, also fail. I have a Pentel Hybrid, which also wouldn't work, and finally my Dylusions White paint pen also is dead.

Now for the goodies. First off- and I wasn't overly surprised, as I've seen lots of good comments about these on the various Lavinia pages on Facebook- is a POSCA Paint Pen. Wrote perfectly straight away. They come in a variety of nib sizes I believe, and the one I have is a fineliner, 0.7mm. This would definitely be my top recommendation. Next, a Sakura Gelly Roll  Med white pen, again, worked straight away no problem. I *think* it says #50 on the barrel- white writing on a clear, white filled tube isn't the best idea, lol. But definitely another I'd recommend. I have a Pilot white pen- the sort with a nib you have to pump first- works fine, but is a bit of a broad line drawn with it. And finally one called Artline Multi pen, probably picked up at a local art shop. Rather like the Pilot pen, works fine, but a bit of a broad line. All of these pens have been unused for the same length of time and all stored the same. 

If anyone has any preferences for white pens, any advice on getting them to work again, or any other helpful advice for Maggie, could you leave it in your comment, where Maggie will be able to find it? Thanks folks.

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

WOYWW #589- The Inking & Stamping Edition.

Well here we are again, another Wednesday has arrived. Another weekly link up over at Julias place, The Stamping Ground, to bare our desks to the world.

Two shots of my desk this week, this one a long shot, as I can't actually get far enough back- the desk behind the desk is in the way- to get a close shot.

This is a bit more of a close up on what I'm working on. I wanted to do some masculine/teen cards, and I'm getting there. The partial stencil on the card is another Eileen Godwin technique- if you've not seen her stuff, look her up on Facebook or she now has a You Tube channel of videos. She does amazing work, she really does.

The card with the drum kit at the back had to be coloured as it was a simple line stamp, a magazine freebie. I couldn't find the one I wanted- found it now, lol. You can see the VI stamp on the left of a drummer & drum kit.

These were the partially stencilled cards, using Oxide inks. I'll list all the stencils & colours when I do a blog post for them.

I think I've been very restrained during this lockdown, my crafting purchases have been few and far between. So, before I forget, here are my two most recent purchases. The Lines stamp set is by HoneyDoo, and a Christmas Bauble from Sweet Poppy. I think there are going to be a huge number of people getting Christmas Cards with this bauble on- anyone on Facebook will have seen a lot of fabulous cards made, and Lucy at Sweet Poppy has been really struggling to meet the demand for it. I think it's back on pre-order again, for the end of the month.

MIA  last week, you may recall I mentioned the kidney stent looked to be blocked on my last CT scan, and that most probably ties in with the UTI. The Urology team said they'd get me in in the next few weeks to change it early, as it's not actually due it's 12 month change till December. Anyway, the Friday after the last WOYWW I did, I had a phone call to say they'd had a cancellation in the theatre list for last Tuesday, and could I take up a short notice appointment. No problem for me, so of course took it. I did have to go and have a Covid test first, and that came back negative, so clearly what we are doing to shield ourselves is working. Anyhow, stent changed, so hopefully that'll put a stop to any uti's.

Which just leaves .........And Finally............( apologies to anyone who doesn't get it, it's a song by AC/DC, a band I desperately want to see live).

Christmas Card Club #17- A Winter Scene

 

Hello Ladies, sincere apologies for having missed two challenges, I'll explain at the end!

I hope these are suitable for Mrs.A's choice of a Winter Scene. The stencil is from Sweet Poppy, called North Pole. The top 3 were done in glitter paste- made by mixing my own glitter into various pastes. Having seen the price of tiny pots of ready made glitter paste, I had a go at making my own a while back, and it works absolutely fine. Plus the bonus is that as the glitter is mixed into the paste, there's no shedding!

The bottom three were done with plain white stencil paste- again from Sweet Poppy Stencils, and I added a little Diamond Stickles to give the snow a little sparkle. I managed to use up some off cuts of Christmas papers to cover the front of the cards, but don't really have space for a greeting on these.

 So, it feels like I've just stumbled from one medical issue to another lately. You may recall I had some real pain from my right shoulder, and being right handed that was not good. I thought it was down to my old injury when I snapped off the part of my shoulder blade where the rotator cuff joined, and it's not the first time I've had trouble from it. However, as it was taking forever to heal, and I'd noticed that some days I had no trouble, then would get up and be in pain again, I did what you shouldn't and Googled it. Turned out the most likely cause was actually a trapped/pinched nerve in my neck, and the fact I could wake up with it made me think maybe it had something to do with how I was sleeping. Added a second pillow,and within days it had gone! Next came a UTI, and thats taken 4 weeks to get on top of- at least I hope we're on top of it. Had a weeks antibiotics, and they helped, but two days after finishing the course it was back. So, I got given different antibiotics, and a sample was sent for testing. Well, these antibiotics did absolutely nothing, and I got worse every day till they got the results back. I was literally getting up in the morning, and laying down on the sofa, having naps, reading, wanting to go to bed about 9, then repeat every day. Once they got the results back, I was given a new antibiotic, and so far, that seems to have done the trick. In this time I also had a CT scan, which shows the nodule from the cancer isn't doing much, but also showed that the stent I have between my kidney and bladder seems to be blocked, which is probably whats causing the UTI, and will mean being admitted in the next 2 or 3 weeks to have it changed. Finally, not to be indelicate, but for the last few weeks, it's felt like when I sit down, I'm sitting on very bruised buttocks. So bad, that mainly I've been lying on the sofa again, trying to take the pressure off. Literally could not sit for more than 5 minutes. Anyway, my GP looked at the CT scan,and said she can see thickened scar tissue going into my buttocks, and is most likely from the bowel surgery when they took muscle & flesh from my abdomen to cover the area removed on my bottom! So, painkillers and painkiller gel, and trying not to sit on it for too long, and that does seem to be working, as it's nowhere near as bad as it was. Funny thing was I couldn't for the life of me figure out why it should have started causing problems, then last night I had a light bulb moment. The one thing that HAS gone my was lately has been losing some weight- I've lost a little over a stone, and ideally want to lose another half, to get to where I'd like to be. Suddenly realised I was probably feeling that pain as I'd lost some of the natural padding in that area I'd accumulated, lol. But, it seems much better, I'm still spending as much time as I can not directly sitting down, and that and the gel seem to be doing the trick.

I will be doing my best to keep up with the challenges, and am going to pop round and look at everyones from last week. Hugs to everyone.

Christmas Card Club #6- Wreaths/Garlands

Well, a day late, but finally here. Silly thing is, I looked at the list I have pinned up a few days ago, and thought 'That's OK, I've got a week yet!' So where my lost week went, I have no idea. Lorraine chose our theme this time, which is for Wreaths or Garlands, and fortunately, I have some wreaths amongst my UFO's/Left overs, so catching up was a bit easier than it might have been!

 I managed 5 cards,the top three using a Sweet Poppy stencil and stencil paste, from my UFO's.

I cut them out, added to card fronts with some foam pads, then added a few acrylic gems to each one. The backing papers are all from my off-cuts folder, and the peel off sentiments also helping to stash bust.


These next two use an Imagination Crafts Poinsettia stencil as the background,from my UFO's, and the wreath is a Penny Black stamp, called Adornment, from my left overs. Stamped in silver and heat embossed with glitter EP, then a few small acrylic gems added and a small silver ribbon, which is hard to see in the photo, to finish off.

 I'd made a batch of the Poinsettia backgrounds back last year, some just using plain stencil paste, some with glitter.
 I had a couple of small pots of Glitter stencil paste from amongst some craft stuff I was gifted, but they are really small pots, and for their size, I thought them expensive. For mine I used some Translucent Sweet Poppy stencil paste, and mixed in some glitter. It works really well, and is a much cheaper way of doing this. Once dry, the glitter is totally non shed. You don't have to use translucent paste, you can mix Gold glitter into Gold paste, and so on.

This was the Wreath stencil before I cut them out, it's called Bubble Wreath. The two multi colour ones were done by adding small blobs of two or three colours of paste to one side of the stencil, then just pulling it across with the spreader. You can get the paste in various colours, or you can add reinker to either translucent or white paste. Both pastes will make the colours slightly lighter, so if you do this, pick a slightly darker colour ink to mix in, as you don't want to have to add too much ink and make the paste runny.

WOYWW #560- The Inking & Stamping Edition

 A desk with crafting happening too, for this weeks WOYWW over at The Stamping Ground, as always overseen by our much loved Hostess, Julia.
 I used one of those stencils from last week to make a batch of backgrounds, to CASE some cards.

These were all done with Distress Inks, and the 'make up style' brushes.
 They really are rather good for softer blending, although you can make them darker by adding more ink of course.


I have a couple of sets, bought from Amazon, around £10 a set, compared to £50ish for the branded 'craft' version. This is a set of assorted sizes, you can also get sets of 5 of just the larger ones for about £8.
 Just search for Toothbrush Style Make up Brushes. And the beauty is, you don't need a huge number of them, as you can just scrub the brush onto a Micro Fibre cloth and it will remove all the ink, without needing to wash or change to a different brush between colours.

 

The yellow one was done after the purple ones, as you can see no ink contamination.

The mixed size sets are really good, as you can use the smaller ones to add colour to smaller areas, which I did with the darker colour at the edges.

I've started stamping on some using lights & baubles from Cardio,and the Memento Dew Drop pads. Just have to draw in the strings, then I'm going to add some Glossy Accents over them.

These are the Cardio sets I'll be mainly using stamps from.



I also forget to mention last week that you don't necessarily need a digital cutter to make your own mylar stencils, you can die cut from them too, so you can create any shape stencil you like from your dies.

And thats my desk for this week. Which just leaves.....And Finally......

WOYWW #559- The Return to Normal Service Edition.

And of course, by that I mean a bit of enabling to share on this weeks desk sharing link up, hosted as always by our beloved Julia, over at The Stamping Ground.
 But the first thing on my desk this week is some home cut stencils/masks.

Cut on my Silhouette, using Mylar stencil sheets.I buy them off E-Bay, and they are a great price. I buy the 125 micron as that seems fine for my uses, which are mainly to ink through. I'd possibly say you may want the thicker 190 micron (also available on E-Bay) if you wanted them to put paint or stencil paste through.






I used  deckle edged cutting files for these, just for a bit of a change. I'm intending to do some more Christmas cards (and probably others) with these, based on a design I saw posted on FB, and the maker very kindly said it was fine to CASE them.

Last week being Valentines day, and here is Hubbys card. Also inspired by something similar I saw on Fb. That one used punched hearts, in 3 rows. I made some hearts using cardstock & UTEE. some of which had glitter sprinkled in, a couple have stamping on the cardstock, and one had the impression from a crackle stamp in silver impressed in it.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for.....drum roll....the Enabling!

 A couple of new stamp sets from VI, there are more but these two were the ones that grabbed me.

And a 3-D embossing folder from Tim Holtz,called Mechanics. Gives a great impression of riveted metal pieces. Be cool for masculine type cards.

A bunch of Christmas cards made, based around the star one from a couple of weeks ago. I found a pad of vellum in with my Christmas stuff , have no idea how many years ago I bought it,but I'm trying to get stuff thats been here years used up! I just used bauble die cuts instead of stars. Post is below this one.



So thats me done, just leaves room for.....And Finally......

WOYWW #534- The Here be Dragons Edition.

I'm back, wasn't ill or anything last week, just had literally nothing on my desk worth showing! This week I do have a few enablings items to show you though.😉
Lots of lovely dragons from Lavinia stamps, along with a flock of bats and a new Fairy.



Also, a couple of new stamp sets from Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous, along with a couple of stencils, all via Art from the Heart.

Love the skeleton leaves, and the toadstools are great,like the illustrations you used to see in botany books.

The stencils are called Decayed, on the left, and Hocus Pocus on the right. I think the Decayed one would make a great fake crackled background.

Hopefully this afternoon I'll be getting these finished off and made up into cards. I want to add a patch of grass and sky behind the images, and I'm going to see if I can make a footpath to the doors, I know I have a Lavinia stamp of a cobbled path, and at least one footpath in my Stampscapes stamps, so it's just whether the scale will work or not.

Speaking of Stampscapes, that reminds me. If anyone is a fan of the Colorbox stylus tools for applying ink- I use them all the time for adding ink to Stampscapes scenes- the company (Clearsnap) is closing/has closed down, so if you do use them, grab them if you see them anywhere. They're not widely stocked in the UK, although I found some on E-Bay & Amazon, and at least a couple of other places I did find them had sold out, so it's unlikely they'll get more.
 Been trying to do a little reorganising, as I got Doug to replace a narrow shelf behind my main desk for a wider one. This is the current mess on the desk behind the desk!




Leaving my link with Julia at The Stamping Ground as always, and thats me done.



Which just leaves......And Finally..................................
I'd be substituting a G&T (or maybe a Long Island Ice Tea, or a Mojito)  for wine, but they all work just as well😂🍸😂🍸.

WOYWW #518-The Pre- Happy Stampers Edition.

Yes, and next week will be the Post Happy Stampers Edition, lol. We have our tickets ready for Saturday, and they are now all sold out. Looking forward to a catch up with Sarah, Neet & Heather, who are also going, as well as a bit of shopping. Then when we get back, I really need to get started on my ATC's. As always on a Wednesday, we are linking up at Julia's place, The Stamping Ground, for our regular desk tour.
 My time is being split a little between crafting and DIY. Not huge jobs, but stuff that needs doing, as it looks like Hubby will be redundant in a few weeks, and as he's been saying we needed to start thinking about moving to a house with just one flight of stairs, rather than two, we're looking on this as the time to start seriously looking at this.  It will free us up to move to wherever he finds another job, so we will put this up for sale, and move into a private rental while we let everything pan out.

 We also had Bank Holiday Monday down London, for a Gig on Monday night, so not too much time spent crafting at all.
I did do a post below this, reviewing a budget set of colouring pencils, if  anyone is interested.

 The black card is finished, the red one almost. The tray of pencils is one from the budget set.

This blue one I finished off trying out the pencils for the first time.



And that, believe it or not, is it from me this week.
It just leaves us with ......And Finally.....this week theres two, as they go together so perfectly!

This is totally what laundry looks like here- I even buy Surf Washing Liquid for Black clothes far more than one for whites/colours!

And this is also true- I have at least this many pairs!

WOYWW#517-The Getting there slowly Edition

Yep, slowly but surely, those stencil backgrounds from last week are getting there. Time, as always on a Wednesday to reveal our desks in all their glory via Julia over at The Stamping Ground.

 Dang, can you believe we're at the start of the fifth month? Already! Just where is the time going?

I've started off with Florals again, then switched to Butterflies, Dragonflies and other suitable stamps.

I did have some difficulties, many of my butterfly & dragonfly stamps are either too big or too small for this, which is why I went looking for other suitable stamps.

 

The blue squares uses a set of stamps from Inkwell Stamps called Pebble People.


The cats on the green one are also from them, and the cats on the brown squares are from Hobby Art.
An assortment of Lavinia Stamps in the purple squares.




Flowers are much easier to do, as using a stamp platform, I just had to position the stamp in the first spot in a corner, then just rotate the card. Move it to a centre spot, then rotate again. Doesn't matter that the flower gets stamped in different orientations. However, that makes a huge difference with all the other stamps, so they were either placed in a new spot each time, or I did them by hand on a block.



The green one with the cats is pretty much finished, as I had a bit of a disaster that I had to fix.
As you can see, bottom left, the stamp slipped on the stencil, as I'd put it back in place so the images stayed within the coloured spot. Going to cut a circle from some copy paper for next time!
 Fortunately, I had two sheets with green circles, so I just stamped 4 cats again, die cut the circles, added some fun foam circles to the back, and covered the four corners.

 
 These are all the flowers, butterflies and dragonflies cut out to add to the stamped bases.

Doug bought some stuff from Amazon the other day, and had a look at the Daily Deals while he was at it. I spotted a Yupo pad, A4 size, at a really good price, and Doug pointed out a set of make up brushes, also really cheap. They are lovely soft brushes, and will work well I think for ink blending.

The reason for the Yupo- I had some fun the other day with my neglected Alcohol inks and some Yupo, and adding foil to them.

Not sure if the pics will show it, but basically where the ink creates an edge as it dries, that edge stays tacky longer than the background itself, and foil will adhere to it. It's not a precise thing, in that you can't control how much, or how little attaches, but you may get an idea from these two below.
 You just have to give it a minute or so for the main part to dry, otherwise you get far too much sticking to it.

 This one was a disaster, as I didn't let it dry enough.


Way too much foil got attached.










This one though came out really well. I used a holographic foil, and it sparkles like tiny crystals.







Well thats me done, just leaves us with......And Finally........

I reckon most of you are with me, right?




Last thing- I will be swapping in the Birthday ATC swap, if you'd like to swap with me, let me know in the comments, and we'll swap addys.