WOYWW 190

I know this post is headed as Sunday - how did that happen?
taken yesterday afternoon, Tuesday and scheduled for this morning but something went wrong. trie to amend it but i think i altered the date as well - oops.

Loads of brushes on my desk last week so what goes with brushes?  Paints of course - lots, and lots of paints.

I saw the 'suitcase' biscuit tin on Hettie's desk a couple of weeks ago and had to have it for my Distress inks.  It's now full (of inks) and empty (of biscuits).  No, I haven't eaten them all, even though they are scrummy, but decanted them so I can do a bit of organising.  Once the DIs were stored I had room to put all my various paints in two containers.  Only realised how many I had once I got them all out.  Combination of Lumieres, Dabbers, Freso Finish, DecoArt, fabric paints etc, etc and I still have a few tubes of artist's acrylics in the drawer with my coloured pencils, watercolours, pastels and chalks. Can you tell I'm a pigment-olic?

On the productive part of my table are two green journal pages for a monthly swap and two cards, a 'Winter' one for a challenge and a 'just-because' one - just because I could.

Ive shown you mine, so now show me your's and join in the fun over at Julia's Stamping Ground blog - the best place to spend your Wednesday.

WOYWW 188

Another day, another journal page (but a new journal), that's what's on my desk this week.

Thank kind elderly gent who visits around the end of December gave me some money (well someone did) and I have been very careful in spending it.  I bought a moleskin sketch book and some new acrylics and have already done my first page following the techniques used by Kate Crane in the DVD I also got from Santa.  The colour is truer on the close-up here.

Bit more peach than apricot, or is it the other way around - I'm not a fan of squidgy fruit nor of any that has hair on (peaches - yuk).  Middle is blank for some journalling - yes, I'm actually going to write in this one.

Not being happy unless I have more that one thing on the go I started cutting out the greyboard to make a case for my iPad (yet another Santa gift, but from me - to me this time).  The idea, comes from Laura Dennison of Following The Papertrail and I had to watch a good few hours of her videos to get all the measurements and instructions.  I've dug out some papers and fun foam for the cushioning and now need to get hold of some clear sticky-backed plastic so that I can start but can't find any :-(
Am scheduling this post for Wednesday morning as I'm planning a lie-in as I had a bad night Monday (cold/flu bugs!!!) but I will catch up later.

Hope everyone had a good break and can't wait to see what you all got from Santa.  Trying to get round a few more desks this week - see you over at Julia's place for the starting line.

Whats on Your Workspace Wednesday - 146

Wednesday again and I have a  good week with lots of little (and not so little) parcels dropping through my letterbox (swaps and buys), a few crafty days and a bit of sunshine - can't be bad.

First of all, thanks to Paula of Ephemera's Attic I 'won' and EBay auction for a stamp I really 'needed' which was a thrill as I don't do these often not having nerves of steel needed when your 'winning bid' gets wiped out in the last 3 seconds.  Then yesterday had a crafty few hours with a friend, making cards and faux porcelain roses before getting down to finishing of the niche in my AB.

The niche is covered in some gorgeous strokeable washi paper - a present that I have been saving for the right project - and in it is my altered dragonfly.  Dragonflies on the left-hand side as well, stamped on the same washi and adhered to yet another sheet of washi from my stash seen above.

The blue folder contains all the bits and pieces I have collected for my book and I managed to pick up a couple of leaflets from a local farm shop yesterday that have little bees on to match my 'wings' theme.

The knitted fish at the top is a present from Japan, made by a survivor of last year's Tsunami (see previous post for details) and the little card on the right is the swinging easel card made at a recent stamp club workshop taught by Jo of Jozart.

I am going to put all my lesson three AB photos in a separate post later so that I can add a link to Elizabeth's (Altered Book Lover) blog.

Have a great WOYWW and pop over to Julia's place to see what everyone else is up to.

Whats On Your Workspace? Wednesday 124- Steam Punk Day

Welcome to my desk for this week's WOYWWs hosted by the fantastic Julia at Stamping Ground.
Bit of a mixture today as I've just finished my Steam Punk box from the Paper Artsy weekend and am getting ready for my next playtime.

So we have some watch-parts, cogs, pen nibs, some gorgeous lace I bought on Sunday, bottles for altering (some time), some cotton reels, a beautiful owl charm, a couple of plastic, and very realistic looking bugs and Neet's spindle challenge.  Have sorted out what I'm going to do on this one thank goodness so 'all' I have to do is make it - not telling which of the above bits I am going to use on it.

Very pleased with the way my steam punk box has turned out, especially as I have not done anything like this before.  My nature is to be neat and tidy not at all grungy but I enjoyed doing this, especially the little touches at the end of the project so I may be converted now.

I know there is another set of workshops this weekend but as the sample photos are up on the Paper Artsy shop website, and have been for some time, I'm not giving away any secrets by showing you what I did. so here is the full piece (apart from thebrass knob at the very top which for some reason I cropped off the photo).
The boxes are from one of Tim's large configuration boxes, re-jigged in shape and stuck together before painting and beautifying (which is what my Dad used to call painting and decorating).  Most of the boxes are filled following the Paper Artsy example at the class as I couldn't have kept up if I had gone my own way - takes me an hour or so to chose stamps for a card sometimes so would have had no chance with this.
I did chose and mix my own colours and added a few touches of my own though and more at home yesterday when I was finishing it off.

This is a side view with my addition of a watch part for the face of this stamped metal.

Also added the coiled watch spring to the hanging key, the netting wrapped 'thingy' to the right of the stamped man (who appears to have developed a few chicken pox scars on his face from my poky-tool), and a few cogs here and there.  My favourite bit of the whole thing is the brass watch part pinned to the front as the engraving is so beautiful and the shape (thistle?) so pretty so when I found it it had to go in right at the front.

A few more close-ups for you: -

....and finally...

The back, covered in Ferro paste - cool heh?   The whole shape reminds me of a factory building which is quite appropriate given that the theme is grungy industrial.

Gosh what a lot of photos, hope you managed to make it to the end of the blog this week.  I'm off to tour the world on Julia's massive blog hop now  - cup of tea and a biscuit ready.