WOYWW #95

My goodness, it's Wednesday again already!! And that means its time for What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday over at the Stamping Ground.


First off, I want to say a big thank you to the lovely ladies that left me comments last week when my mojo had abandoned me; they really made me smile. And I took Julia's advice and put crafting aside for a while and focused on other things (namely getting excited about the fact that filming has started on The Hobbit - cue girlie squeal and clapping.... yes I am a geek at heart!)


Anyway, this week.... look! I've started making things (mostly a mess!!) again.

On my cutting mat you can see a couple of little bookmarks I've been working on; a great experiment with using different colours together for me, and I love playing with my little spray bottle - it belonged to my hubby but once it was empty I liberated it. It gives a really fine mist.


To the right and in the clear CD case at the back are stamps that I've played with on the bookmarks.


And over to the left is a WIP. One of my friends is having an engagement party in a few weeks time and thankfully she told me the decorations and cake are going to be in her chosen wedding colours; of course I had to ask what those colours were in order to make a special card that matches lol. She has chosen white and aqua.... making me realise I have nothing aqua!!! So far I have these panels done (you can see the masks I made to make the bouquet) and coloured the roses with a 'kingfisher blue' watercolour pencil - hopefully it'll be close enough to her chosen colour. Just need to find some backing paper to layer the main panel onto, though I think silver would compliment it too.


Thanks for stopping by. I will definitely stop by a few more desks this afternoon now I'm back in the flow.
Take care and happy crafting,
Charli x


EDIT: Oh my goodness, I do appologise for the state of my cutting mat! I never realised it was so filthy lol!! Think I'd better give it a clean before next week!!

WOYWW #94

Well, as you will see in the picture... not alot!


Over the past week my mojo seems to have fled and my motivation has vanished; I've sat at my desk and stared at things, but just haven't managed to do anything. I'd even lost the urge to blog-hop!! I know, I know, I've just not been feeling myself! 

Resting behind my cutting mat is the one card I managed to do this week for my little cousin's birthday; she's mad on Hello Kitty so I traced the picture out of one of my daughter's colouring books lol. And the doorhanger from last week has that side finished, though at some point I want to do the back too.


And on the far left there, the card with the decoupage daffodils, is a card my daughter made and its waiting for me to sort out a pic and upload it to her blog later.


If you hop on over to Julia's blog the Stamping Ground, I'm sure you'll see some much more interesting desks than mine!


I really hope my urge to craft comes back pretty sharpish, and hope you've all had a much more creative week than me!
Take care and happy crafting,
Charli x

WOYWW #93

Okay, seriously who is stealing my days?? I can't believe its Wednesday again already!!!


And in answer to the lovely Julia's question; what's on my workdesk (this) Wednesday? A big mess that's what!! Which is quite an achievement considering its not a very big space to begin with. I'm afraid once again I have neglected putting things away and have resorted to the "push-back" technique (as in, just pushing everything back a bit to make a small space in which to work)!! Really must tidy it up... later... after I've finished the current WIP.

The work-in-progress this week is a doorhanger that I shall hang from the shelf above my desk that will read: Warning! Creative Mind at Work! lol So scattered around the immediate area are bits and pieces (and odds and ends) that I've been using or will be using - like my adorable lil skull and crossbones stamp. Only a true crafter could go to a pirate experience (you know where people dress up and everything is fairly authentic, including random swordfights going on around you) and pick up a rubber stamp... like I did last year!


Also you can see the finished tag that was sitting naked on my desk last week, and beneath that my lil notebook where I keep track of current challenges I take part in regularly.


Thanks for stopping by, I will try to get around a few desks today, but will have more time tomorrow evening when hubby is on overtime.
Take care and happy crafting,
Charli x

Sweet and Girly

And this card certainly is! 


A friend of ours always asks me to make the 'special' birthday cards that he sends, which is a win-win situation as I always have spares and as he pays for them I can buy new stash lol!


Fab 'n Funky are wanting to see girly this week, and as I needed to make a birthday card for my daughter (from our friend - I've not done one from us yet as her birthday is a month away) and she is one of the girliest little girls I know it seemed fitting.


As you can probably tell, she LOVES pink lol!!

I also made this card to fit in with the clever little challenge over at Raise the Bar - you must use the acronym GREEN, but the letters can stand for anything you like. After having a rough idea of what I wanted to do it came quite easily:
G - girly
R - ribbon
E - embossing
E - embellishment
N - new (to me) image


The image itself is rather lovely and is a free digi from a very talented lady called Beccy; she produces lots of cute images that are FREE, check out her work on her blog Beccy's Place.


I coloured the image with watercolour pencils and cut out, sticking onto a pre-cut cream oval that I had stamped with the flower in Victorian Velvet Distress ink and edged with the same colour.


The background is pale pink pearlescent card, once again run through that lovely embossing folder with the 'Bug. I love how the pearlescent card shows up the deep embossing so beautifully.


I stamped out the flower 3 more times onto white card with VV and blended more ink onto them. I cut them out and shaped them, layering them together with a pink pearl brad that I've had forever!


I cut a little tag from cream card and handwrote the greeting with black marker. This was edged with VV and added to the card under the flower.


Finally a strip of irredescent white organza ribbon to finish it off.


Phew, 3 posts from me today!
Take care and happy crafting,
Charli x

Time Flies

And it certainly does! I've had the base of this tag sitting on my desk since Tuesday (it made an appearance on my desk this last Wednesday!) and I just wasn't sure what to do with it.

It's an ordinary manilla tag, run through my lovely 'Bug with a beautiful embossing folder that came with it. I inked over it with Tea Dye DI to bring out the embossing even more and then edged it with Walnut Stain.

Then on Friday the back issues of Craft Stamper magazine that I had ordered arrived and with the February issue was this rather fetching little pocket watch and 'Tempus Fugit' script. So I tore a piece of card and inked with my fave combo of DI's; Antique Linen, Tea Dye and Walnut Stain. I flicked a bit of water at it and once dry the script was stamped in black StazOn and the watch in WS. And then that was it again for a couple of days.


Anywho, over the weekend I finally finished it! I wrapped the panel with a bit of twine and layered on foampads. The watch was stamped again, this time in black, onto white card and inked (AL and TD). the little inner dial and the hands were glazed with a Sakura glaze pen.


I cut some wings out, using a template, from a grey-ish board for a different colour and inked and stamped with TD and WS.


The letters were torn ransom stylee from the freebie newspaper we get here and aged with those same inks.


As this weeks theme over with the lovely Hels at the Sunday Stamper is brown I thought this was a very apt project.


And also, there is not a flower in sight so I will also enter this into the Creative Card Crew's 'no flowers' challenge.


Charli x

I am Woman

Try It On Tuesday asked for a tag this time around, on a womanly theme to celebrate Woman's Day last Tuesday.

Having seen the other entries, which are all beautiful I'm now not sure whether my humourous take on it is suitable afterall, but hey ho, here it is anyway.

I am woman, watch me shop indeed! Not that I get much chance for shopping sprees, but a few crafty goodies now and then is enough to raise anyone's spirits.


The images of the shopper and the bag were from a little free set of digi's called 'Shop 'til You Drop', I just wish I could remember where they came from!!


Just a bit of fun I think in an unusual combination for me of pink and yellow, but I think it works quite well.


Charli x

Never-ending Nature

Phew, I am just in time to enter the Sunday Stamper's challenge, which this week has been 'nature'.

Also the Take a Word prompt was 'birdlife'. So with those two ideas in mind this project was born:

Last year for Mother's Day I made my Mum and MIL never-ending-cards and my Grandad was thoroughly fascinated by Mum's; kept playing with it and thought it was really complicated (of course I didn't let on how simple they actually were lol!!). So I decided that for his birthday this year I would make him his own to play with.

I chose to use my gorgeous bird stamps (from 7 Gypsies) -I've had them for a good while now and I still reach for them all the time! And chose to go with neutral colours for a masculine look and a natural feel.

The base and panels were made from white card, inked up with DI's (Antique Linen, Tea Dye and Walnut Stain). All stamping was done with black StazOn and the two darker DI's. The panels were layered onto black card and it was all stuck together using a combo of DST and gluestick. It took quite a while to do - 14 rectangular panels and 24 squares, plus the layers argh!!

Well I think all that work was worth it as I love the outcome. Just need to sort out some wording for it now, but as his birthday isn't until June I've got plenty of time to find something appropriate!!


This is also being entered into Simon Says Stamp Challenge, which this time around is Anything Goes!


Thanks for looking, I now have to try to remove the Walnut Stain Distress Ink from my fingers....


Take care and happy crafting,
Charli x

WOYWW....already?!

Where on earth has the past week disappeared to?! It only seems like a day or two ago that I was blogging my desk last week.


It was so nice to get up this morning at half past six and *not* have to put the light on!! A sure sign that spring is coming.... if you ignore the weather presenter that is!!


Anyhoo, here is my desk today, a real mix of this and that that I've been playing around with.

And of course, having received my new toy last Thursday I have been playing alot! Here is my gorgeous Cuttlebug V2, next to my handbag because I just can't get over how compact it is! Its so lovely (and all the better for not being completely green!)

And here is where it lives when its not being played with on the lounge floor! This shelf is just along from my desk, which you can see on the far right. The drawers hold paper (plain and patterned), card and Xmas stuff in the bottom drawer. The black and white basket hold finished projects. Just please ignore the ancient state of my computer lol, its only the casing thats old I assure you - the insides are all fairly new.

Happy desk-hopping everyone. I will be heading over to the lovely Julia's blog to have a nosey myself after work.


Take care and happy crafting,
Charli x

Purrfectly Masculine

I often struggle with cards for men, that's one reason I love Distress Inks so much as I find the right colours offer a good masculine look.

This time I was a little lost when trying to think of a design I could use for a male cat-lover.... then I saw the challenge for the Secret Crafter this week is a patchwork background, and that seemed to ignite a spark of inspiration.

Also I'm entering this card into Sarah Hurley's challenge of four-legged friends!

I took a plain white A6 card blank and drew a diagonal grid of one and a half inch squares using a brown Indian ink pen. I then lined the squares with faux stitching (I just hope the 'imitation patchwork' still counts for the challenge lol).


The rows of blue squares were coloured with Weathered Wood and Faded Jeans, and just Faded Jeans. The green columns are Tea Dye and Forest Moss, and Forest Moss and Walnut Stain. I inked the squares by masking them one at a time with sticky notes.


The panel was made in the same technique; a square of white card split into 9 one-inch squares using the same pen, then little crosses added to the joins to represent stitches.


This time, the 5 paler squares were masked and coloured with Antique Linen and Tea Dye with the stamping of the little cats and sentiment done with Walnut Stain. The other squares were WW and FJ, overstamped with FJ; and TD and FM, overstamped with FM.


The finishing touch was to add the trim twice around (its really thin!) and knot it.


In my opinion a purrfectly masculine card!


Happy crafting,
Charli x

Mother's Day

Yes, I know its still a good few weeks away, but I'm trying to be super-organised this year. Plus its the current challenge at C.R.A.F.T.

This card is also eligible for the Alphabet Challenge - R for ribbons.

And it was supposed to be entered into last week's Tuesday Throwdown, whose challenge was tags, but I forgot to upload it yesterday... ooops!

The card is a trifold a little smaller than DL, and I cut 3 panels and 3 pockets; some were run through my new Cuttlebug V2 (love, love, LOVE my new 'Bug!!) and inked up. The other panels were inked and stamped. 'Happy Mother's Day' was stamped in black StazOn and everything else was done using Distress Inks (Milled Lavender, Victorian Velvet and Dusty Concord).

The tags are chipboard flower fairy ones that I've had lurking for a while; they were a craft mag freebie. They were layered onto silver mirri and threaded with white shiny organza ribbon.

Then I added some little sentiments onto the backs.

And here is the card for my MIL; my first 'double twisted easel' -catchy huh?!
I really like how this one turned out.

Pale pink pearlescent card run through the 'Bug. White card layers inked up. Flowers were stamped and cut out, the pink ones were inked and over-stamped, the lilac ones were put through the 'Bug too (can't you tell its new?!) and then inked. 
Sentiment was stamped in StazOn, roughly masked off and over stamped with a floral journalling panel.
Obviously all inking was done with DI's, this time it was Milled Lavender, Victorian Velvet and Worn Lipstick.


Charli x

Under the Sea

That's the new challenge over at Crafts and Me.
Now if I think of under the sea, I think of mermaids; my fave image of the moment is this gorgeous flippered gal from ching-chou kuik. Speaking of favourite stamps, that just so happens to be the theme for Sweet Pea Stampers!


And what colours say 'underwater'? Blue and green of course. Guess what? Yup another challenge, this time Crafty Creations are asking for a feminine birthday card in just those colours (and the perfect way to move on from all that pink yesterday).

And to finish off, Simon Says Stamp Challenge has a recipe of 1 image (the mermaid -check), 2 papers (the dotty one and the stamped/inked one -check), and 3 types of embellishments (shaped beads, gems and string -check!)


Image stamped in black StazOn and coloured with DI's using the watercolour technique (Faded Jeans, Weathered Wood, Forest Moss, Tea Dye and Walnut Stain); plus fleshtone watercolour pencil; cut out and layered onto foampads.
Strip of torn white paper inked with Weathered Wood and scalloped border stamped in Faded Jeans to look like scales.
Torn strip of green dotty paper, edged in Forest Moss.
Torn piece of white card stamped with sentiment, coloured WW and edged in FJ; wrapped with strand of string and adhered with foampads.
Beads threaded onto knotted string double strand.


Take care and happy crafting,
Charli x

WOYWW

Well, there I was "Little Miss Organised" this morning. As soon as I came home from taking little one to school, I took a picture of what was left on my desk from last night. But....


I couldn't transfer the photo onto my computer d'oh! Had to wait until this evening to get hubby to find the other SD card, the one I usually use and works fine in my PC, then retake the pic so my desk is slightly different from this morning (namely the WIP from last night is now complete)


And finally, here is What's On My Workdesk (this) Wednesday:

As you can see, its all very pink, but for good reason. That has become the banner/header for the blog I set up for my daughter. (There is a link at the top left of my blog - only one project uploaded so far though).

Not too much of a mess, but really need to clear some space to work on something thats not pink!!

Join in the fun over at the Stamping Ground and show off your workdesk!

Take care and happy crafting,

Charli x