WOYWW 127

First of all, thank you everyone who commented on my blog last week – I so enjoy and appreciate all the comments I receive – they are so lovely and encouraging! I feel as if I’m getting to know some of you a bit better now, and making new friends. A big thank you too to our lovely Julia who organises this voyeuristic jamboree around our desks in their various states of tidiness (or otherwise!!) – heaven for all nosy artists and crafters out there! (Click on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar for more info.)

I haven’t been on my blog since this time last week. It’s been a busy week – I was invited to do some Bible teaching at an awesome local group on Thursday and it was a totally brilliant experience! They seemed to like what I did because they are clamouring for me to go back! I am going next week, and after that I’ll probably limit it to once a month because much as I enjoyed it, it did take a lot out of me and I had to rest for a few days.

This meant, of course, that I was away from my ARTHaven – not a state of affairs I particularly enjoy!! Anyway, I have managed to make good progress on the birthday cards I’m making for my mum for Christmas. Here’s my main work desk:

On my desk you can see that I’m using a doily as a stencil, inking it with Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink using an Ink Duster. I’m doing it on some printed scrapbooking paper which has an overall pattern in one colour. Beside it you can see an experimental scrap piece on top of one of my cards, inked with a variety of distress inks using ink dusters – I love this effect and use it a lot.

The next picture shows it with the doily removed. I’m quite pleased with this – I deliberately decreased the intensity of the ink as I moved down the paper, but I’d have preferred it not so centrally placed. I may cut this piece up.

After using my distress inks, to clean up, I spritz the craft sheet with water, and when I remember, soak it up with small pieces of card to use as backgrounds later – much better than just wasting it on a bit of kitchen roll! You can build up with different colours and no two ever come out the same – once dry they make fabulous backgrounds! Here are some I’ve made recently.

This is what’s on the brown table this week – piles of different papers so I can choose what to use to make my various cards. I’ve been busy matting and layering, and I think I’m finally getting the hang of this and not getting them crooked all the time!!!

On the right you can see my smooshed backgrounds on top of a pile of scrapbooking papers which have some interesting colours and fairly random backgrounds in single colours, which are quite useful (can’t remember where they came from – Ebay, I think!). In the centre are my Core’dinations stacks in various sizes and colours, on top of some Tim Holtz and other papers.

Finally, here are the cards I’ve done so far, in various stages of completion.

You will see that I have done some Cuttlebug embossing on Core’dinations paper (I’m really getting to like this now, after rather a rocky start with it), and I’ve also made some paper flowers from stamped images that I’ve painted with distress inks, layered and added some Stickles for a bit of sparkle. I’ve added some of my hibiscus flowers to a sprig I drew with water-based marker pens, and I’ve cut an oval with my 5-in-1 shaper punch, and I’ve done lots of ink blending with my Ink Dusters. I’ve added ribbon to some of them. Most of them still need work – I’ve got to cut some “Happy Birthday” sentiments on Jiminy Cricut and maybe use some peel-offs too, and most of them still need a sentiment inside, and some need embellishing further, but I think you can see I’m making reasonable progress.

I may keep some of these cards for myself and not give them all to my mum – I am going to try and build up my stash while I’m at it, and as nearly all our family and friends’ birthdays come in the first part of the year, it would be nice to be organised before Christmas with this – I always find myself focusing on Christmas and then when that’s over and I’m exhausted with it all, suddenly remember all the birthdays crowding in and demanding attention! So Shoshi’s going to try and be organised this year!!

Sorry I didn’t manage to get round many desks this past week. It’s been very busy and I’ve been too tired in between to do much. Now there are so many of us, it’s virtually impossible to do a proper job with it!

Hope you all have a great WOYWW and hope to see a few more this week.