Crafty Individuals October Challenge - Wings

I missed last month's challenge - time runs so fast. especially when you are my age ha ha - so I was determined to have a go this month where the theme is 'Winged things'.   Had lots of ideas for this but finally settled on angels and made a hanging.

Not a lot of stamping on this one apart from the sentiment which a friend gave me last week - untouched.  It isn't a CI stamp but one designed by the now defunct Katy's Corner, however most of the rest of the piece are CI products.

The frame (CI) was coloured with acrylic Dabbers in a combination of Sail Boat Blue, Raspberry and Pearl.  I over-stamped the frame with one of the flourishes from CI plate 235 but this doesn't show up very well in the photo - Brilliance silver.  German scrap round the frame and the wings were gold but Lumieres soon fixed that.  The sentiment is stamped on a piece from the CI Christmas paper book and the angel's face in the bottletop is punched from the Christmas image book.

Another enjoyable piece to work on - and all done this afternoon which for me (little Miss Prevarication) is amazing.  There is some beautiful work on the Crafty Individuals' blog - why don't  you pop over and have browse.

Whats on Your Workspace Wednesday 122

Bit of a change weather-wise from last week's beautiful warm, sunny days.  Toyed with the idea of turning on the central heating last night but they make them tough here in Lancashire and were my brother still with us he would say I was nesh, mardy, or a bit soft.  I had two brothers, both sadly deceased and much missed, not least because they both spoke with a broad Lancashire accent with lots of dialect words - Mr B who is a Mancunian, couldn't understand half of what they said when he first met them..  How many of you out there in blog-land know what I mean by clempt, brasting, nowt, mizzle?  Sad that so many of the local dialects are no longer to be heard.

Anyway, enough of me rabbiting on, you didn't come here for a linguistics lecture, you came for a look at my work-desk this week and here it is.

Not much actual work going on but lots of things to join my 'to do' list.  As you can see I had a bit (?) of a spend at the weekend.  Went to a craft show with firm intentions not to spend a lot but I can't resist a bargain. The tissue tape was a bargain at £6.90 and the Distress stains were a bargain (sense a theme here?) so I gave in to temptation and bought a few.  Couldn't resist the Graphic 45 steampunk book, not a bargain but I loved the colours - yet some more paper to add to my growing pile of strokeables.

I also got a couple of inkpads (bargain), a few packets of charms/frames - must be a bargain as there are 8 in each pack for £1.45.  The pretty dragonfly one wasn't that much of a bargain as you only got one but I had to have it.

My favourite purchase, and the pride of my desk, a lovely old printers tray.  Nearly didn't get it, in fact I left the craft fair without it as I couldn't make up my mind, got home, decided I wanted it and rang a friend who was still there to ask her to buy it for me.  Now 'all' I have to do is decided what on earth I'm going to do with it.

Same goes for the long wooden pointy thing you can see resting on the printers tray.  It is a spindle given to me by Neet (Hickeydorums) on Saturday as a challenge - well it's certainly that.  I have to alter it for the next workshop in November but first I have to pull some ideas together.  I'm reluctant to alter it too much as it is a poignant reminder of the now defunct Lancashire cotton industry and as both my father and grandfather were cotton spinners it has sentimental links for me.

What else is on my desk -  another house-blank just like the one I did on Saturday, a few bits of lace and bottom of the picture the blue pincushion Jozart showed us how to make, only mine looks more like an atomic mushroom billowing out of it's base.  Will have to trim it down and have another go - but another of Jozart's brilliant ideas.

Lastly I just had to share these leaves - also leftover from my house.  They are quite big and were a plain beige until I attacked them with the Alcohol inks.  Surprisingly they didn't crumble under my manic pounding and turned out OK, just have to find the right project for them - house number 2???

So that's my desk today and now I'm flying over the bloggersphere to Julia's blog to see what the other WOYWWers are up to this week - why don't you join me?

Supersnooks13 - blogcandy

If you want to be in with a chance of winning some superb blog candy then pop over to Supersnooks13 blog.

 Not only a lovely handmade fabric folder (see picture in my sidebar) but lots of other interesting and equally lovely bits and pieces to go with it.  On second thoughts I think I am making a mistake encouraging you to leave a comment there - less chance for me to win - and I really want that beautiful candy.....


No crafting today as I'm all crafted out after a busy weekend so I thought I would share some photos from our walk this morning.  We are lucky to live near a lot of open space, woods and country parks and Sorrel loves her morning jaunts.  It was Leigh Flash Country Park today (a flash for anyone who doesn't know is a stretch of open water).

This is a view of one of the smaller flashes -there are four or five in total -doesn't compare with New England Fall but isn't that red shrub beautiful?

The biggest flash.

Not a very good photo as these sunflowers are almost over but I love the idea of planting them for the birds.

We had a good 40 minutes walk round this morning, well I had, Sorrel covers twice the distance at a running pace then flops in the back of the car for the 10 minute journey home.  She will be out for a woodland walk  this afternoon - don't know why 'it's a dog's life' is seen as a bad thing, seems ideal to me.

Going to photograph my table now ready for tomorrow's WOYWW as it is full of stuff I bought on Saturday that I'm going to get on with next.

Autumn House

Had a very productive Saturday at Vicky Stampers in Padgate, Warrington where this month's workshop was an altered wooden house led by the lovely talented Neet

My house had a distinct seasonal theme as I had collected woodland bits and bobs and decided on a washed/old/shabby house.

The house is painted with a mixture of acrylics in brown and teal and then swiped with the new seasonal Distress Ink - Gathered Twigs.  Wasn't sure I 'needed' another brown but I quite like this one.

The poppy heads came out of my garden and I glitzed them up a bit with various mica sprays and a bit of copper alcohol ink.  Afraid I also sprayed some of the sycamore seeds as well - talk about gilding the lily!

The seeds came in useful as well to fill these little bottles although most of them were scattered in my garden to provide a few more next year.  The poppies themselves were a bit of a surprise this year as I have always had pink poppies but this year I got two enormous, beautiful, double red ones as well - fingers crossed  they come back next year.

The 'tree' is a broken from a hebe plant and sprayed with glimmer mist with shrink plastic 'word' leaves then  stuck into a cotton reel - should have distressed the owl charm though but 'too late was the cry' as he is super-glued in.

I haven't finished it yet, still have a dragonfly to add somewhere and the other side of the roof needs finishing - need to colour some more strips of paper for punching to represent the tiles.

I always enjoy my craft club sessions, good company and such generosity with people eager to share their craft stash and inspiration, for instance this time Jozart showed us how to make tiny pincushions for a haberdashery house.  Haven't finished mine yet but when I do it will make a great addition to the Configurations box I did a few of weeks ago.

I rounded the weekend of with a visit to the Sincerely Yours craft show in Leigh (my home town) and spent a few pennies (again) with some 'sale' bargains.  I gave in and bought some Distress stains as they were a bargain plus lots of other bits even though I promised myself 'no more spending' - obviously not that good at keeping promises.

Watch out for this weeks' WOYWW to find out what else I bought.

British Tree Week

According to today's paper it is British tree week so here's a photo of a notebook I made.  Well I didn't really make it, just bought one, removed the covers and replaced them with ones I had stamped.

It was for a swap on Katy's Corner UK Yahoo group and you had to incorporate Stampboard in your swap, which I love using.

This is the front cover, stamped with versamark resist, over-stamped with autumn colours and then gold.

...and this is the back.

I had a lovely surprise on Thursday when the Postman brought me a prize - yippee!
I had entered the Craft Stamper magazine 'Give-away' a couple of months ago and I won!  The prize was two stamp plates from Crafty Individuals - only one slight issue, one of them was the plate I chose as my prize from the Crafty Individuals blog challenge so now I have two the same.  Sure it will come in handy - maybe I should save it and use it as part of a blog candy for the future.

Just For Fun

This week's theme on Just for Fun is 'Anything but a card'.  Well I didn't think they wanted to see a photo of me doing my cleaning (well it is Friday you know) so I ditched the duster and dug out this frame I made a while ago.

It's bits of Friendly Plastic layered over a chipboard frame so lots of colour and 'inclusions' which is a posh way of saying I pushed a few more left-over bits and bobs into the hot plastic.

It has been sitting in my 'to do' pile for a while so this morning I stamped the background and butterfly.  Not sure it works - just a tad too much (i.e. a lot) colour but hey ho, the sun is shining and I'm in a good mood.

Just back from a great walk with Sorrel with lots of interesting smells (for Sorrel) as the walk is through woods and we see lots of squirrels.  Well I say 'we' but she misses most of them and only picks up the scent when she is almost sitting on top of them then decides there is nothing more interesting in the world than a squirrel chase.

Off to the vets this afternoon as she has a sore eye so that's another £30+ she cost me - think I'll get a budgie next time.

Whats on Your Workdesk Wednesday - 112

Just as I was getting ready for autumn, with woolies at the ready, the weather turns topsy-turvy and we are back in high summer and I've had to dig out the cotton trousers and T-shirts.  Not that I'm complaining as we didn't get much of a summer here so have to be grateful for anything we can get now.

It may be summer outside but my craft space this week has a decided autumnal theme as I get my stuff ready for the Vicky Stampers workshop on Saturday.  Neet is doing this month's project which is a wooden house and I've been looking forward to this for a couple of months - couldn't attend last month's meeting so am chaffing at the bit now and eager to get going on what looks like a great project.

I think a lot of the girls will be doing a sewing based theme but as I did this for my configuration box a couple of months ago I wanted to do something different and seasonal so it's going to be a woody/autumn/nature theme.

Sorrel has been helping me find leaves and autumn fruits as we walk the local woods and I have been foraging in my garden for other bits and pieces.  I got the sprays out yesterday to add a bit more colour - I like brown but don't want it to totally overwhelm the mini house so have added a bit of patina and gold to the poppy seed heads.

Rooting about in my (many) craft drawers I found a bag of Fimo jewellery bits that I made a couple of years ago when helping my niece get a project together for her degree so hope to incorporate these as well.

The last picture shows the piece of scrap card that was on my desk when I was working with the paints and sprays and I think it is quite beautiful.

This is one piece of scrap that wont be going in the bin.

Hope you have enjoyed a look at my desk this morning.  If you are not one of Julia's world-wide team of craft WOYWWers then have a look at her wonderful blog - Stamping-ground and it may just tempt you to join in.