WOYWW #469

Happy WOYWW! WOYWW? You ask?  It is the What’s on Your Workdesk Wednesday blog hop hosted by the lovely Julia at The Stamping Ground where we open our craft room doors to show what our work desks look like on Wednesday.  And to show what fun crafty items everyone is working on. 

First; for all the overseas deskers, of which there are 10 of you that I sent ATC cards to: I am an idiot! Knowing our Global postage stamp is round, I grabbed my Solar Eclipse stamps thinking I was good to go.  Nope!  They are square stamps with a round image…not the same thing, and a few have already come back. They are being sent back out with proper postage as I get them.  But, as a neat note…hold your thumb over the dark image and see what happens when it warms up!! 

Second: Sarah Brennan!!! Every week I mean to do this: Thank you for all your visits and comments! I do get to visit your blog but from my phone only, and then for some reason I have a 50/50 shot at leaving a comment back.  So thank you again…and I am lurking! LOL!

And Finally…my desk, as it was Sunday, and today.   Ever since my first class with Dyan Reaveley I’ve had a bug in my head to do what she did, and fill the Tim Holtz water brushes with her spray ink for coloring.  Great idea when you work for Ranger and can get those brushes at a huge discount.  And you know me—and the name of my Blog; I can’t make do with just 5-6 brushes…Nope: Need 29 of them (talked myself out of the white one! Whew!)   So, finally JoAnn’s had a 50% sale, and Bam…they were mine!  Ummm…now to label and fill them.  Notice I got 3 done! Notice the labels aren’t sticking?

 Of course, that was after I spent 4 hours of precious time trying to find my Muse (who must have gone off with my Husband on his Brewing “Research” jaunt with his friend, leaving me a whole day to play, and not a wisp of inspiration. Grr.) The stencils, paints (new Fresco’s under the stencil, and Art Alchemy to the right) where all used to disastrous results, and since this turned out to be quite the project, I decided it was not my day—went downstairs, did some strawberry mojito “research” and watched sappy movies until the Mr. came home.  For the record, I think his research was more intensive than mine. 

So, there you have it.  Now jump back to Julia’s and see some more creative spaces. Stay Crafty!! 

Happy 9th Anniversary, WOYWW! #468

Happy WOYWW! And not just any WOYWW…but the 9^th Anniversary of this wonderful blog hop 

hosted by the lovely Julia at The Stamping Ground where we open our craft room doors to show what our work desks look like on Wednesday.  And to show what fun crafty items everyone is working on. 

Nine years; remarkable longevity for anything these days—especially something so intangible as a virtual community.  This alone should be proof that creativity, common interest and mutual respect can save the world.  Unfortunately sending art journals and finger paints to every hostile region probably is a bit too simplistic.  Ah well, at least we have our Wednesday’s to touch base with our own tribe!  Thank you Julia. 

 So, on to our main purpose; and ironically based on another virtual community—is my workdesk.  I saw a video on face book; the one with the woman showing string pull art.  So Cool!  So I had to try it!

There was a bit of trial and error.  I used a beading cord, thinking it would be more durable. Yes, but it isn’t very “bendy” so it was hard to get a good number of loops, swirls etc. Nor was it that absorbent…I found Dylusions spray inks worked best, but another friend used Bakers Twine, and could use regular paint and ink, so I’ll try that next.  

Here are some more images...cause I think they are so cool! LOL!

And here is a little ATC Book Box I made to hold the ATC swaps we received at the Back to Back retreat. I used Dina Wakley’s Media paints and stamped on her collage tissue paper. The box is by Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts, and I’ve ordered a few more to hold all my WOYWW swaps from over the years. 

So, there you have it.  Now jump back to Julia’s and see some more creative spaces.  And here’s to another crafty year!

WOYWW #466

Happy WOYWW! What is this? Why, it is the blog hop hosted by the lovely Julia at The Stamping Ground where we open our craft room doors to show what our work desks look like on Wednesday.  And to show what fun crafty items everyone is working on. 

Those faint of heart may want to sit down…you may never see the likes of this again…

My journaling table.  Non-cluttered.  Well, a little cluttered, since I made a Mother’s Day card, but for my usual state, pristine.  I had my friend Julie over on Sunday for some catch-up and crafting time.  Which meant I needed to make room, put away all the paints/inks/mediums that had been piled up, finally organize and put away all the stencils, and basically put stuff where it belonged. 

This is after our play date, where we practiced our Dina Wakley flower painting skills for cards, and then delved into general craftiness.  What is left are boxes of card backs,  the Dina Scribble Sticks (Really starting to love them!), and general scattered supplies. The water glass is supposed to flattening a sheet of practice flowers. The 3-D embossing folders just arrived from the craft marathon on Home Shopping Network. There are three of them, which my husband sorta guilted me into getting…since he was the one who was channel surfing and stopped there, while I (yup, I) was completely oblivious on which channel he stopped on.  The tulip painting was my first take on the card, but I liked the geraniums better-hopefully Mom will too!

Here is that card, using Dina Media paints and some stencils for texture. 

  

So, there you have it.  Now jump back to Julia’s and see some more creative spaces.  Stay Crafty, my Friends.

WOYWW #464

Happy WOYWW! What is this? Why, it is the fantabulous blog hop hosted by the lovely Julia at The Stamping Ground where we open our craft room doors to show what our work desks look like on Wednesday.  And to show what fun crafty items everyone is working on. 

It has been a whirl-wind two weeks!  I just can’t believe May is just a few days away, even if our snow has finally disappeared!  The main cause of the whirl/wind?  My friend Julie and I wend down to Florida to attend the Back to Back Art Journaling Retreat with Dyan Reaveley and Dina Wakley! Three crazy days of art!!   And I don’t want to lose the momentum, so I’m trying really hard to finish up the signatures on the books we made from Dina’s watercolor paper.  We also made books from Dyan’s large journal paper; I never thought I’d ever do that!   

 

So my desk is an ever-loving mess!  There is no room to think!  You see tags that will get tipped in to the journal, some with collage work with Dina’s tissue paper, all with lots of stencils and her glorious paint.  The ultimate goal was to put the journaling back into art journaling, so I still have that to do—the hardest part in my mind!  The scraps top left I’m thinking of weaving somehow to go onto one of the other sets. 

The flowers are for one of the Wanderlust Online Classes with Kasia Avery. As she said, the lesson is a good excuse to buy flowers!  We were to paint flowers with shadows and highlights with early morning light…she did roses, which I thought was safe.  No, my painted roses look nothing like the real ones…I was mostly trying to look into the petals.  Hopefully they will last a few more days so I can get some practice in.  Disregard the paper towel on the floor—LOL!

So, there you have it—my desk in its shameful messy state.  It will have to get tidied if I want to get anything else accomplished.  Now jump back to Julia’s and see some more creative spaces.  Stay Crafty, my Friends.

WOYWW #462

Happy WOYWW! What is this? Why, it is the fantabulous blog hop hosted by the lovely Julia at The Stamping Ground where we open our craft room doors to show what our work desks look like on Wednesday.  And to show what fun crafty items everyone is working on. 

I have no idea where the time has gone!! I just realized it has been 5 weeks since I last visited WOYWW! 

Maybe all the snow storms have tricked my mind into thinking it’s still February and not April (and another 1-3 inch one is predicted tonight). 

But all this forced indoor time has left me with much crafty time, working on the Wanderlust class projects and then working on ATC swaps for—get ready—a Back to Back Art Journaling Retreat in Florida with Dyan Reaveley and Dina Wakley!! We (going with my BFF Julie) fly out tomorrow and come back Monday.  I am so excited I just can’t stand it!!!

So my desk is the pieces/parts for the ATC’s-I don’t want to show the finished ones, since there is a good chance they will be similar to the Anniversary swap.  Lots of little Tim Holtz Flower Pot die cuts…what on earth was I thinking???  I do have the coordinating stamp set,  but it was too detailed/dark, and quite overwhelming to stamp and the match the dies to over 90 of them.  Just a touch of pen seemed much better.  There is also a practice sheet of some watercolor exercises.  I bought a book "30 Days of Water Coloring"--because I have so much free crafting time??  That was Day 4.  Stay tuned!

Other projects: my Brothers Birthday Card, using Distress Oxides.  The stamp is from Northwoods.

(And I actually used a piece of my Washi stash!!! LOL)

Wanderlust Class with Jaime Avery working on sunrises using just one color of paint plus white and black. This is a Cape Cod Sunrise over the sand bars.  This was fun--I need to practice more!

Another Wanderlust Class with Marlene Meijer-van Niekerk using water colors and negative painting. The technique was a blast--now I need to try again using watercolor paper, and my own subject matter.  

So, there you have it. Now jump back to Julia’s and see some more creative spaces.  Stay Crafty, my Friends.

WOYWW #457

Happy WOYWW! What is this? Why, it is the fantabulous blog hop hosted by the lovely Julia at The Stamping Ground where we open our craft room doors to show what our work desks look like on Wednesday.  And to show what fun crafty items everyone is working on. 

 

So last week was a nightmare; Monday flew into Friday, which brought with it over three feet of snow.  The weekend was a blur of shoveling out and just a bit of crafting.  So last night I managed a few moments to see what this week’s Wanderlust lesson was about.  And since it was about pencils; a no muss/fuss/clean-up medium, I managed to play a bit while dinner was cooking. 

Aside from experimenting with pencils, it was also all about basic figure drawing.  Normally I’d be all “No way—not interested…I can’t draw”, but again, it was easy pencils, and I had 40 minutes; so here are my first ever attempts at figures. (I'm sorry they are so light)  And aside from the long guy looking a bit alien-like, I don’t think they suck.  And, because of all the giggling I was doing while drawing said Long Guy, I’m even going to keep practicing! 

And here are shots of some coasters I made for our friends Brewery Tap room, with the new Tim Holtz Beer stamps (the first set I made has had wonderful comments!)  

And then there is our back deck, at the peak of the storm.  The railing is 40 inches high, and this is not drifting, as our deck is protected by the house, and 5 feet off the ground.  Luckily we got most of the snow off, as with today’s storm expected to bring in another 3 feet, I‘d be afraid my deck would collapse!

So, there you have it. Now jump back to Julia’s and see some more creative spaces.  Stay Crafty, my Friends.

WOYWW #455

Happy WOYWW! What is this? Why, it is the fabulous blog hop hosted by the lovely Julia at The Stamping Ground where we open our craft room doors to show what our work desks look like on Wednesday.  And to show what fun crafty items everyone is working on. 

This will be real quick for me today; working through my lunch hour! This was my desk as of last night; in a desperate attempt to finish my Wanderlust lesson; which seemed so straightforward, until I opened my jar of gel medium…and saw it was mostly, umm, paste, as in thick paste, almost unspreadable.  And then there was the missing word sticker booklet from Tim Holtz, which I was going to use since my stencil words are huge…still can’t find them.  

So what you see, my gelato drawer with a few rolls of washi tape, which is flattening out my “walls could talk” page while the thick gel is drying.  I have stencils shrewn about, a small basket of my Deco Media paints, which I didn’t even use for this still hanging out, some sprays paint tubes, a few wood stamps, the trimmer, which is hiding other stencils, print outs and at least two journals.  And water bottles…I see 3, I know 2 got knocked to the floor (glad I always tighten caps!) and I’m pretty sure there is one further to the right of the trimmer. At least you can see my effort in drinking more water!

  

And for those who followed last week, I did get all the birthday cards done the next night…but only after I lit some incense, dumped everything non-essential in a pile on the floor, and then just let what happen may.  And while I forgot to take pictures, I was pleased with the results. 

So, there you have it. Now jump back to Julia’s and see some more creative spaces.  Stay Crafty, my Friends.