WOYWW #522- The After the Crop Edition.

Yes, indeed, here we are again, this week with the after the cake crop edition. As always brought to us by our Queen Julia, First of her name, Mother of Desks,Forger of Friendships- and she has the Tiara to prove it! GoT references end there.😄

 You will surely have seen a huge number of photos of the day by now, I know LLJ and Helen both did a blog post with loads of fab pics.
So I'm not going to flood you with pics, just some of the memorable ones for me.

A pair of strange ladies in the photo booth.

Followed by a pair of strange men!

Much laughter was shared, as you can see, wish I could remember what was so funny!

Our leader, and her deputy, along with our two lovely hostesses for the day, Jo & Annie.

We had an amazing day, full of love, fun & cake, as a good crop should be. I got to meet some crafters for real for the first time- Zsuzsa, Caro & Catriona, And catch up with some others I'd not seen for a while, Anne, (Copperbeech), and Dolores, (Cardarian), to name but two.

Many ATC's were exchanged- top row PearshapedChris, Zsuzsa,Margaret( Glitter&Glue),Dolores, next row
 LLJ, then below that,Neet,Christine( Bishopsmate), Anne (Copperbeech),Caro, a bookmark and badge as well.Below them A lovely little hanging atc from Heather, and then Dolores again!( Should be in Debbies pile.)

The tag is from Sarah, the one next to it should be in Debbies pile too, lol, then Stamping byH,a PTC from Maggie, (Silvercrafter) , next row Heather, Mrs D, Jo and finally Elizabeth.

Little gifts from lots of people- Catriona in the silver bag, Annie (Wipso) made coasters, a notebook and biccies from Julia, mini purse from Jan, and Debbies ATC which was a really chunky one made from a stone type of material.

Finally, had two arrive in the post- Robyn on the left, and my PIF, Kyla on the right.





And so I'm done, very little crafting has been managed, I'm working on a Wedding Card for a work friend, so can't show that yet, and it's not finished, and I forgot to take photos of the cards I made at the crop- all two of them!




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

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.............................................

Cards using Clarity stencils & HoneyDoo Stamps

A few weeks ago now, I spent some time creating these panels.
  I used two different Clarity stencils, Framework Circles, and Framework Squares. Both are 7" square, and they come with the cut-outs too, so you can mask off areas easily. These cards are just from the circles ones.

  The cardstock is Clarity too, they make a 7" square cardstock pack, which fits the stencils perfectly.

All the backgrounds were created using a light, mid and darker ink, blended using brushes.

By adding each of the two darker colours over smaller portions of the shape, it helps to create a  more 3D look to them.







If you use a dry baby wipe to bring in the colour left on the stencil around the shape before you lift it off,  it does help to define the shape nicely. I picked up that tip from Barbara Gray.
 Most of these have now been turned into cards, and I'll share a few here, and do another post for the others, as there's quite a lot!

These first two use one of the flowers from a HoneyDoo set called Cherry Blossom. The sentiment is a Crealies die, and was cut three times and stacked up. 

These three also use a Honey Doo stamp, this time called Flower Power. In both cases the set comes with 3 sizes of flower, and a stem, or leaves to build up your image.

For all of them I restamped the image onto coloured vellum, then added those to some of the flowers with Glossy Accents, and either Stickles or Glass flatbacks to the centres.

They are all matted onto toning cardstock, then onto an 8" card blank.

In some cases, I lightly stamped a script stamp into the circles, using second generation stamping, and the darkest colour of ink used.

The final three in this post used butterflies, in exactly the same way. No idea what brand the stamp is,  I've had it years, and it's just a random one.

The Best Wishes die is from Crealies, and the Thinking of You is a Sue Wilson Mini Expressions die.

The cardstock used for matting is from a pack by Papermania- Capsule Collection Textured Cardstock.

 It comes is a variety of sizes, A4-which this is-A5 and 12x12. The A4 pack I get from The Range, and they seem to be the cheapest place to buy it, at £9.99. You get 75 sheets of cardstock, one of each colour, so you get quite a lot of shades of each colour, making matting a breeze.

WOYWW #520- The Birthday Edition!!!!!

Indeed we are! What an amazing achievement, and all due to our much loved hostess with mostest, Julia, over at The Stamping Ground, home of WOYWW. Keeping us organised, and letting us link with all the friends we have made over the years, all over the globe.
 Just over a week till the Birthday Crop, hosted this year by the lovely Annie and Jo, known to us all as Wipso & Twiglet. Details about the Crop can be found HERE.
We'd love to see you, whether you are a long time WOYWWer, or a brand new one. 

 I will be bringing my cutting dies, and Big Shot, so if you want to do any die cuts, bring your cardstock!
There are a lot of Bigz dies as well as the thin ones.


 I'll also be swapping ATC's at the crop, so we can all save on the postage. If anyone else wants to swap, leave me a message in the comments, and we'll swap addys.




So, the reason we are here- desks!


Main item on mine this week is my ATC's. I've made quite a pile, as not sure how many I'd need, lol.





















This weeks shopping- some of the new Alcohol Ink Pearls. I've enjoyed playing with my AI's on Yupo, and having seen these demoed, rather liked the look of them. There are a few more colours besides these, but they'll be for another day.
I think I might bring my AI's and Yupo to the crop, as my crafting for the day.



And that, ladies, is it for me today.Very short and sweet.


It just leaves us with.......And Finally.......

I can relate to that!

WOYWW #319- The After Happy Stampers Edition (and the Almost Birthday Edition.)

Back from our Happy Stampers trip,and meeting up with some fellow WOYWWers as usual. 😀
You'll probably see almost identical pictures on a few other posts today, as we'll all be linking up at Julias Place, The Stamping Ground, to bare our desks to the world!

Sarah, and Chris (pear shaped crafting)

Neet, who happily managed to get there.

Neet and Heather.

And we'll all be meeting up again at Crop10.






So what came home with me?
Well the first pic is one of the two main items I wanted to get...

 Sweet Poppy are mainly known for their stencils, but they have started branching out into dies for some of the stencils, and stamps. This Dragon stamp set was a must have when I saw it on FB back last week.

And these from Lavinia stamps were my second reason. Crows and wolves, just awesome.

  A couple of Christmas stamps from Honey Doo, and some gorgeous stamps from Crafty Individuals.

 Three more Clair inkpads- like I need more inkpads- a tub of clear dew drop gems, and a few stamps from Inkylicious. I have the larger version of the distressed circle stamp, and thought this one would be great for smaller cards.

 Some stamps from Chocolate Baroque- a new line, and there is also a big Tag stamp that the tall images fit into, forgot to photograph that one.

Showing you those, as what's actually happening on my desk this week is ATC's- I finally have an idea, lol.






And that's it from me, which brings us round to.........And Finally.....