What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday #230

Good morning, happy WOYWW, and if you are new to my blog and wonder what I'm talking about visit Julia's blog to find out what's going on, and if you are not a new visitor, welcome back.

I thought for this week I would give you a different view of my desk

And the other side:



Its very messy at the moment, you can see my cuppa and a big pile of gelli prints on top of the printer waiting to be made into cards, and also my new Sheena stamps are peeping out. If you are wondering where the U2 book on the window sill comes into my crafting - its used to flatten stuff after its been inked and is a bit warped.

The finished card on the desk, looks a bit like this:

The base of this is from some bits I made a while ago, the picture looks a bit blurred but it because the image is raised on acetate so the blurry bit is just the shadow. The flower was made using Tim Holtz tattered floral die and the card has been coloured with distress inks.

Thanks for looking, I'm off for a nosey around the other desks

Bye for now

Donna x

All that glitters is not gold

Well not really...I've been having a bit of a play with my gilding flakes and my stencils, now I didn't really think this would work - using IndigoBlu flitter glue through a stencil, but it worked! and after a bit of matting a layering I managed to make these:

Sorry but the quality of the photos isn't very good, because I took them this evening, I didn't get chance to take the pictures earlier in the day as we had visitors most of the day - my mom and her new puppy!

Here she is with my dog Jess:

Not sure who's the boss here

Any way I think my crafty mojo may be on its way back, lets hope so...

Anyway must go, doing a craft fair tomorrow down the local pub, bit of a strange location, we'll see how it goes.

Bye for now

Donna x

What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday #229

Morning, still on my "crafty block" at the moment, so not a lot to show you this morning, just a few bits "in progress", the tree scene I created on Saturday during the "crafty day" with sisters, mom and friends, I wasn't very happy with the first attempt as I had a bit of a void whilst stamping the trees, although there were lots of suggestions on how to save it, I eventually gave up and tried again. I'll perhaps make it up into a card later.

The flowery pieces are from a stencil. I was just having a bit of a play with these, the one on the black card is gilded the middle one (close up below) is a gelli print and then I've also embossed on acetate using the stencil as well

Love this gelli print (although the picture isn't the best), I'm going to make a card up by adding the acetate piece over the top...we'll see how it turns out

Off to Julias blog to go and look at everyone else's desk.

Have a good week

Donna x

Rain, rain go away...

What a miserable Sunday afternoon, the weather may be rubbish but at least I have an excuse to stop indoors and make cards, however, I'm not really I the mood today, but I do have some cards to show you that I made last week, so all is not lost...

This is one of the messy backgrounds I made a while ago, with IndigoBlu poppy stamp embossed over the top in gold on acetate and coloured from behind with promarkers.

This one uses a similar background, a Sheena stamp embossed on acetate, but this time I have cut out double sided sticky stuff, added to the back of the acetate and then added gilding flakes, bit fiddly, but worked out OK.

These ones are inked and stamped and use a few masking techniques.

Its still raining, and I'm still not in the mood for making cards. Maybe I "craft overloaded" yesterday as I had my sisters, mom, and friends around for a craft day, mom also bought the latest member of the family with her, little Molly, here she is with my dog Jess.

Now Jess is only a small dog, but she looks huge compared to Molly! But Molly wasn't worried about the size of Jess and was quite happy to jump all over her, and Jess was very tolerant of her, although she was quite annoyed when Molly went for a nap and wouldn't play with her anymore.

Thanks for looking

Bye for now

Donna x

Whats on Your Workdesk? Wednesday #228

Another week already, I've had a really busy week cardmaking, mainly because I have decided to try and sell a few of my creations at a local craft fair (see pevious post), so I've been busy making stuff for that. For WOYWW this week I have cheated a bit as I took the photo at the weekend, mainly because - 1) the desk looked good with all my messy background on and 2) as the days are getting shorter I am finding it more and more difficult to take good piccies of the desk (roll on summer..), so maybe this post should be called "whats on your workdesk, weekend", anyway this "weeks" post looks like this:

These backgrounds were made using distress inks and then adding twinkling H2Os, the photos don't really show up the "twinkly" bits, but they are there. I then made them into cards:

This is a Sheena stamp and was painted behind the acetate in acrylic paints

This one was coloured from behind using promarkers, again another Sheena stamp - you can see the twinkly bits on this photo

This one uses Inkylicious stamps, stamped directly on the background and then again on acetate

Thanks for looking, I'm off to Julias blog to go and look around a few more desks.

Bye

Donna x

A crafty weekend

Had a great day on Saturday, attended a local craft fair (or is it fayre?) to sell a few of my cards, it was a bit of a last minute thing as I had enquired about it ages ago but they were full up, anyway after a phone call earlier in the week informing me of a cancellation and a lot of frantic card making - well not really frantic, but a few late nights, I managed to make enough cards to fill a stall

Didn't sell a huge amount but had a nice day and met some nice people, including a lovely lady called Judy who was also selling cards (totally different style to mine though) we had a good old natter and compared notes on local craft shops and craft telly!

Some of these cards you may have seen on earlier blog posts, here's a close up of some of those that you haven't:

Background from a Gelli print and acetate with IndigoBlu stamp embossed on top

Background made with distress inks and stamped, acetate over the top and embossed in white

More Gelli plate background with acetate

Gelli plate background made using a stencil, then used the same stencil on acetate with versamark and embossing powder

Loving this technique at the moment (make fancy backgrounds and add image onto acetate), didn't think the stencil would work with versamark and embossing, but it did, now the possibilities are endless....

The only problem is... not easy to take pictures of acetate. They look better "in the flesh", honest...

Spent Sunday making more cards (on a roll at the moment), was watching the grand prix at the same time, but gave up after Hamilton was out (watching the GP, not card making), and that Vettel bloke won, again.... I'll show those cards at a later date.

Thanks for looking

Donna x

Going Oriental

Finally they have arrived! What am I talking about? My Sheena "A little bit oriental" stamps! So of course I had to have a "play" with them as soon as I could. This is what I made:

All three cards have been made the same way, they have a messy distress ink and twinkling H2O background (sorry but piccies done at night and you can't really see the sparkly backgrounds), stamps stamped onto acetate and embossed, the fish were also painted from behind in acrylic. Love this style at the moment so there may be more.

Bye for now

Donna x

What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday #227

Can't believe another week has gone by already, doesn't time fly. Didn't get much crafting done over the weekend except for a challenge on Less is More, I had loads of ideas but only managed to make one card, I did make a few "bits" but they didn't quite turn out as I expected so they are in the bin (before you shout in protest - they really were rubbish!).

Anyway for this week I have been getting messy with my Gelli plate and have made a few backgrounds, only showing you a few of them as they wouldn't all fit on my desk  (plus some were a bit rubbish, but they aren't in the bin - yet!).

 I'm really pleased with some of these (and some not so). To make them into cards I simply cut them out and added acetate over the top which had been stamped and embossed and mounted. Here are a few of the finished pieces:

this is my favourite background and was the "second" print off the Gelli plate - the first one wasn't so good

Hope you like them, off for a look around the other desks over on Julias blog. Have a good week.

Bye for now

Donna x

Less is More Challenge - White on White

For this week, the challenge is a simple card with the colour theme white, with the added challenge of making a Christmas card (panicking now, this is the first Christmas card I have made this year! -  must get started soon), more details of the challenge can be found here.

I added a touch of gilding wax to give it a bit of a shimmer:

I had lots of ideas for this challenge, so may post more later

Thanks for looking

Donna x

Never mind, there's always next time...

I mentioned on my blog a while ago that I had entered some projects for a Design Team call (the butterfly that keeps appearing on my desk in WOYWW is a left over from one of the projects). Well I got an email,.....its wasn't good news......I didn't make it in :( 

I'm a bit disappointed but to be honest although I won't mention the company I may have been a bit ambitious for my first design team. I need to aim a bit smaller. Anyway, the good news is I can now share my designs with you guys.....

The first piece had to be based on AUTUMN. This is my entry:

and a closer look:

This has been done with acetate, alcohol inks and gilding, the outer "frame" has been made using perfect pearls.

My other entries didn't have to have a theme, apart from they should contain stamping (oops, is that a bit of a giveaway?)

This entry was very simple but took a while, as it involved a lot of masking:

Next I had a go at a tag, and although I used stamps, instead of using just ink I stamped with acrylic paint in the background. The flower is metal and was stamped in Stazon and cut out, the heart was painted in acrylic, embossed in clear a few times and then stamped into while still hot.

and a bit of a closer look:

And for my final piece I had a go at a canvas:

so now you know where the butterfly came from.............

Thanks for looking

Donna x

 

 







Don't panic!

Had a bit of a panic earlier, couldn't get on 'net, it (meaning the laptop) kept telling me that that I wasn't connected to a network, disaster I thought, whatever should I do?? Well what I eventually did was do what every IT person at all the companies I have ever worked at always asks "have you tried switching it off and rebooting?" (which is really annoying!) and success, I am back connected to the world wide web! Anyway, now the drama is over, here is a card for you. I made this a week ago but couldn't show you as the recipient would have seen it, as I know she reads this blog (yes you Weeze!)

This is almost a one layer card - the purple card was stamped using a Creative Expressions heart all over in versamark, the panel was masked off and gilded and then the big heart was stamped half over the panel and half over the purple card in versamark again and embossed using some of the two tone Stampendous Frantage embossing powder. Here is a closer look at the heart

Now I know this card is purple (again) but it is the recipients favourite colour too, so I think its allowed.

That's all for now.

Donna x

Whats on Your Workdesk? Wednesday #226

Well, I'm doing pretty well this is now my fourth WOYWW and this week I have some experiments to share with you. I tried various different techniques and combinations but basically they all consisted of distress inks on my stamp, spritz with water, stamp onto centura pearl card which was either spritz with water before or after stamping or both and some were stamped twice. These are the results;

This one was created the opposite way round, coloured a piece of card then stamped in water to remove the colour

They look a bit of a mess but after a bit of work they have been transformed into these:

The backgrounds were simply stamped in versafine over the top, I think I prefer the second version, but both have turned out OK for an experiment.

As you can see the butterfly from last week is still on my desk, I'll try and make something with it soon, it moves around from time to time but hasn't found a home yet.

Bye for now

Donna x