WOYWW 161

One of these Wednesdays I will show you a photo of my desk bathed in sunshine, but not today unfortunately.  No sunshine but lots of sunny colours.

Mess at the top is a pile of fabric, most of it the antique kimono silk I have been saving for the right project.  Think I may have found it - going to make a cushion cover using an idea I found on the web which uses scraps of material to form the leaves and trunk of a tree.  Bought some fabric for the cover although I have found it very hard to cut it straight and worry that like my card layers it will get trimmed and trimmed until it is a 1inch square.
At the front are the deco pages that I finished and blogged earlier this week.  Should have been on their way yesterday but I needed to make a card to go with them and after entertaining family on Sunday I was well and truly knac....tired on Monday.
An empty Orchid food spray bottle is my water spritzer, didn't cost much, produces beautiful flowers and is a brilliant spritzer - beat that Mr Holtz, two paper cutters as I like the guillotine best but it isn't big enough so I use the Cricut for larger pieces of card, and for scoring - no wonder I never have enough room.

Busy week this week, hairdressers and highlights for me, groomers and claw-cutting for Sorrel - best not get those two mixed up, then I have to ring the washing machine repair man as mine's gone on strike, big Sis to the rescue again.

Enough rabbiting on from me, I'm off to visit Julia to join in this weeks desk hop, I may be some time.

Oops, almost forgot about the little doll nestling amidst the fabric, waiting for me to give her some hair and a face.

Flutter by, butterfly (don't look Hazel)and a win.

Yippee! I won a challenge.  Don't have time to enter as many as I would like but I had a go at the Artful Times Challenge last month as the theme was 'men', and I won!!!!!

Here is the link to the site if you would like to have a look at the deco pages that won.  The prize is a £10 voucher to spend at Oyster Stamps so I'm going to have a good browse round tomorrow to see what I can spend my pennies on - just like looking in a sweetshop window.  Can't promise I won't buy anything else as Oyster Stamps have very good prices (the best I could find for TH distress inks the other week).

Had a craft day yesterday and managed to finish two pages for a deco swap I'm in.  The theme was butterflies and although I have quite a few (well a lot if I'm honest) butterfly stamps it took me a while to get started.  Here are the finished pages.........


Moved down the page a bit.......



To stop Hazel peeping.....

TH distress inks (summer), tissue tape, and a variety of stamps.  The big one is one vellum, coloured on the back with Le Plume markers and raised on sticky squares.

A different approach on this page as I used the Puccini's Muse stamp and added a wooden butterfly (colour altered with DIs) to the stamped vellum strip on the left.
That's my last set of deco pages done so next on the 'to do' list is to try and catch up with Elizabeth's altered book course.

WOYWW 160

If you think my desk looks a little different this week that's because it is.  Moved into the conservatory because the light is better and I need all the help I can get when it comes the threading a needle these days.

Managed to finish the stuffed owl I started last week and here he sits, precariously, on my table.  Not surprised as his feet look like they belong to a duck rather than an owl but I have told you before I can't draw and this was the best I could do at a drafting a pattern.
Sewing seems (no pun intended) to be my current addiction and I have another pile of fat quarters in the Really Useful Box on the left ready to start another Kindle cover for my sister.

Not a lot more done this week as Sorrel hurt her back on Friday (probably ran into something in the house when I was trying to amuse her during the wettest day for weeks here in the north-west.  Vet gave her painkillers and she is back to her normal, mad, excitable self today but it took all my time at the weekend trying to keep her 'quiet' - and no, I'm not letting her anywhere near my owl.

Short and sweet this week so that all you WOWWYers can get round the multitude of desks that make up this weekly bloghop, courtesy of the lovely Julia of The Stamping Ground - why not pop over and have a snoop.

The owl went to sea - no pussycat though

Sewing day yesterday as I started on my doorstop owl.  I got a pattern from a website but it was too small and not quite what I wanted so I made it bigger, then made it fatter, changed the wings entirely, did the same with the face and beak so it looks more like what I wanted.
Here he is looking very odd at present as it seems he has one eye closed.  The material I'm using is at the top and the gold colour is for his eye area.

Think he is a little too fat as present but when he is stuffed that will round him out.  Have to work out how to cut a flat base for him to site on.  Tried yesterday to draw a pattern and failed to get my head round it so hope inspiration strikes me soon.  The other fabric in rich reds and golds is some I bought on Wednesday on the way back from a trip to Delamere Forest in Cheshire.  There is a great quilting shop just outside Frodsham so we diverted on the way home and I was spoiled for choice.

So that's the owl, what about the sea?  Well, earlier in the week I had the inks out as I'm in a journal page swap (2 pages per month to the next person on the list).  Posted on Tuesday and now they have arrived I can share them.

Backgrounds made with some Starburst Stains (remember them?), had them for years and keep forgetting about them.  Edged with Pan Pastels and overstamps with CI stamps.  The fish ones are a favourite by Fred Mullet.  I threw some salt over the wet ink but there must have been too much ink as it didn't draw the moisture as much as I wanted - still gave a lovely texture to the card though.

No dog walk this morning, it's not stopped raining since we got up and Sorrel refuses to go out in the wet so we are going to get out her favourite toys and have a bit of a play before I get the sewing machine out again.

Hope the weekend is better.

WOYWW 159

Almost halfway through the year and still the great Wednesday blog hop grows and grows.  If any crafty person doesn't know about this - where have you been hiding?  Pop over to Julia at the Stamping Ground to join in, or just for a snoop.

A full-on mess today (or yesterday afternoon when I took the photo) as the postman delivered my summer distress inks, the ones I swore I would not buy, yes those.  I'm a sucker, but a happy one as I love the bright colours, just what I need now the sun has decided to poke out it's face and remind us that it doesn't rain all the time - that's put the kybosh on it now.

The ink pads are hiding a couple of journal pages, the card is one I made (and blogged) yesterday as soon as I could rip the packaging from the pads and get going - love that salty ocean blue, especially when it's mixed with the spring peacock feathers (yes I bought that set as well, double sucker).

As it's summer(?) the summer stamps are also out, beach, sun, sand and fishes. I have my autumn ones in reserve for next week when the English summer is over.

What else?  Fabric and pattern as I want to make an owl doorstop, some beautiful hand marbled paper that I'm saving up for a special project, and have been since I bought it in Florence 5 years ago, empty paper bag, pink glue gun, oh, and some new stamps in the centre, yes, more new stamps.

Some of you may know that the England Football team (I use the term loosely) are involved in a tournament, or were yesterday as I wrote this.  Today they are probably licking their wounds, complaining about the ref and making excuses for once again being bundled out of the Euros early....on the other hand?????.... we live in hope.

(EDIT: Well they actually won and it wasn't us who were complaining about the ref, the Ukraines were.  Still it's only a game, isn't it?)

Happy Wednesday all you WOWWyers

Fish in distress

No, not my goldfish, although at aged 9 (or 10) he is looking a bit shabby these days.

This is the fish I'm talking about, on a card coloured with Distress Inks.
After saying I wasn't going to buy any more inkpads, I mean how many shades of blue are there in the world?, I gave in on the Spring colours because I wanted the peacock feathers one.  Repeated my 'vow' again when the summer ones came out but after seeing the bright colours, including a fab pink my resolve crumbled and I splashed the cash.

Parcel arrived today (thanks Oyster Stamps - and a double thanks for an unbeatable price) and as I already had the fish stamps out it just had to be a seascape.  Blended peacock feathers and the salty ocean from the summer set and stamped a bubbles stamp in water before wiping off to create the blotchy effect. The words stamp is from a Crafty Individuals sheet.

I added some Glossy Accents bubbles but these are still wet - what's the betting I forget and put something down on top before they dry, been there, seen that, read the book.

Spring DIs - birthday card

Don't know where June has gone, almost the longest day and hardly any summer to talk about so I thought I would cheer myself up yesterday, put away the sewing for a day and make a summer themed card.
Being a complete scatterbrain I forgot a forum friend's birthday so this needed to be done pretty sharpish.

Glossy card smooshed with Spring Distress Inks and stamped with Crafty Individuals stamps.  The 'sea-foam' at the bottom is made by melting wonderweb on the card until it goes into holes before adding and melting white embossing powder.  I do like the effect it gives.

Speaking of Distress Inks I swore that I wouldn't fall for the 'limited issue, get yours now' publicity but afraid I weakened when I saw the summer ones and ordered them yesterday.  The colours looked so vibrant on the video so I hope they live up to their looks when they eventually arrive - will let you know what I think.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend - looks like a brighter dryer week ahead thank goodness, maybe summer is on the way at last.