WOYWW - 28/07/2010

Hello WOYWW-ers, hope you are all doing ok, I've missed the past couple of weeks as things have been a bit hectic! No workdesk today as I forgot to take a picture (what a doofus!) instead I have a picture of my home made clip it up.

I had been bugging Mr Paper for a couple of years about buying me a clip it up and the silly, silly man, instead of parting with the cash said "why buy when I can make you one", of course I bugged him for weeks and weeks to make it and it never materialised, eventually I was resigned to the fact that I would never get one and would have to continue raking through a large cardboard box to find my supplies.

One day, many months later, he came home from work and placed a large object wrapped in a bin bag on the table with a heavy 'thunk', imagine my delight when I saw what he had made! I am lucky that he works in a manufacturing plant where he has access to lots of tools, metal, paint and such like. The only change I made was to spray it white. I bought lots of clips and hooks from Ikea and now have my very own rotating, albeit and bit heavy, clip it up!

So, here is the card I made today on the workdesk I forgot to photograph!

If you haven't seen it yet, have a little look at the post below which has a tutorial on how to make a rolled spiral flower wreath.

Have a great week!

WOYWW - 23/06/10

As it does for everyone it started with an idea. I had recently downloaded some digital stamps from Hero Arts, I have never thought of using digi stamps before but they were a bargain compared to their woodgrain cousins and I thought what the heck. I have also recently started acquiring a number of promarkers and as stamps such as Magnolias aren't quite my cup of tea I have been looking for images more suited to me to color, hence the digi download. It started off well, they printed perfectly and I had no trouble colouring in the images.

I then had the braniac idea to make double images and layer them to add a bit of dimension, cutting out 4 sets of gerberas were a little taxing, the rounder flowers slightly easier, but I also decided to use glossy accents on them. A job I anticipated would take about a day (I can be a very slow cardmaker) took about 3 days stretched out between running errands and going to work and setting up a summer tea party seen two blog posts down.

I am pleased with the final result, I promise they look better in person, I had to take them in the evening and I still haven't learnt how to correct the colours in my photo program so they look a bit better! I hope you like them!

If you are new and wondering what WOYWW is all about, hop over to the lovely Julia Dunnit's Blog Stamping Ground to join in the fun!

Have a wonderful week and thank you so much for the kind comments you leave :)

WOYWW 16/06/10 - Buttons!

Good morning WOYWW-ers. Most people can attest that I am very anal retentive when it comes to tidiness, hence why my workdesk always looks like organised mess, which in a way it is. I admire people that can work in, how do i put it delicately, creative chaos! I look at lots of WOYWW bloggers and see their desks and I am envious, I wish I could craft that way, it seems so much more freeing and, well creative than mine and I wonder if my neatness hampers my creativity.

What seems to be a clever idea at the time, in hindsight can prove to be an unwise decision. I had lots of little jars with all my buttons separated by colour, except it was such a pain dragging them out of my storage unit I didn't use them very much so I decided on a whim to empty them all into a kilner jar. I could not believe how many buttons I had, although I have now discovered I am woefully short on purple buttons which I guess gives me a good reason to go stash shopping!

It did cross my mind briefly that when I next wanted to make a project that required a specifc colour it would be a pain in the posterior to find the right one, this was also backed up by Mr Paper, who, when I proudly showed him my new jar, said 'good luck with that, I know you and you'll wish you hadn't done that'. Meh, was my response to this and I sat there all superior thinking it would inspire me to use them more and it was so pretty to look at and didn't think it would be that much of a problem, until today.

I am joining in with the Monday challenge on the Fiskarettes blog and I decided I needed buttons for the centre of some stars I was decorating, I sifted through the jar and each time came up with a button either too big or not the right shade. 'Damn, it would be so much easier if these were separated by colour' but alas, I had already had that bright idea and thought I knew better! I promptly dumped 2/3 of the jar on the table and sat for a good 15 minutes picking through them to find the right ones. Next time I have a clever idea like that somebody stop me!

Here's the card

If you have stuck with me till the end, thank you, I didn't know I had so much to write about buttons! Have a great week :)

WOYWW - 09/06/2010

Hello! If you visited last week you will know that Mr Paper took a bit of time out to create a scrapbook page for our album as there were no pages just about me, I was so proud of of him, snapped a pic of him and the page and duly posted it for WOYWW. In the words of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman...

"Big Mistake, Huge"

When he came home from work I got him to read the post and he was quite touched about what I wrote, but then, then he started to read the comments. Ladies, I appreciate every last comment left on this here blog but oh my goodness what did I unleash? He sat and read every last one and lapped it up, he sat at the computer with a smile like the proverbial cheshire cat, every few moments asking me 'have you read this, have you?' he loved it, a bit too much methinks, loudly proclaiming that he had won himself 'husband points' for being so romantic as he isn't one for romance usually (I did tell him that it wasn't something to be too proud of!) however, he did say that it wasn't something he was planning on doing often, but with so many kind, sweet comments he may be inclined to do it again in a few months, although I suspect that has more to do with you ladies than me, so, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, as does Mr Paper.

So, on to this week, here's what's on my desk as of midnight last night:

A little sneak peek at a Cratfy Templates DT project i'm working on involving promarkers and shrink plastic, however I am not holding my breath with this one, it may be destined for the bin as shrink plastic and a drill bit do not seem to be friends which really ruins the whole thing!

Here's a card I made this week, trying to go victorian vintage, it feels like something is missing though, my head seems to be all in a muddle this week, I am on call for 1 week out of 5 and this is my week, 7.00am-11.00pm and it really deprives me of my much needed creativity sleep!

I was so pleased to visit 95% of WOYWW posted on the Stamping Ground last week and hope to manage every last one of you this week! It is just so much fun :) Have a great week and I 'll hopefully see you here next week :)

WOYWW - 02/06/10

I was so excited to have so many visitors last week, it's so much fun receiving comments and visiting everyone elses blog to see what's going on in your space. I didn't managed to get to everyone but I did visit a fair portion and saw some beautiful spaces and some lovely work on desks.

A strange occurence happened in my room this week, as I walked down the stairs I could hear rustling, banging and an anguished cry, almost animal like, my heart raced and my pace quickened, wondering what on earth could be in my room. Did I shut in a cat and it was tearing my precious paper to shreds? Had a rogue tortoise snuck in in the night and was rooting through my ribbon drawer? or was it a hired ferret assassin that was making light work of my acrylic stamps?

As I flung open the door I was faced with this incomprehensible sight.........

It was the lesser spotted Mr Paper! 'What on earth are you doing?' I asked and was met with the rather forlorn, yet lengthy reply 'You've been asking me for a long time to scrapbook with you, and as I was looking at our album I noticed there were no pages about you, so I thought I would surprise you and make you a page'. I was overcome with emotion (ok, that's a bit dramatic) but thought it was such a sweet idea, followed by the following thoughts, what paper did he cut into? I hope he didn't use that embellishment that I have been saving for yonks.

I had to stop myself and appreciate the moment, Mr Paper likes to comment on what I am making and I will often ask him, what do you think is missing? have I over-egged it a bit? and he will usually give me a thoughtful and constructive reply, but papercrafting is definitely not his cup of tea, far preferring xbox games to anything remotely crafty

I promptly sat on the floor next to him and created a page about him and how wonderful he is to me, it was a really nice way to spend a couple of hours and by the time he was finished I was very impressed, and maybe a tad jealous, how did he get to make such a nice page on his first attempt? So here is the page, the reason it is so momentous is I detest having my picture taken and this is the first picture of me that he has taken in a number of years which I think prompted his decision to make a page.

Et Voila!

The title actually swings out to reveal hidden journalling. Hidden journalling I tells ya, I guess my constant chatter about crafting really paid off! Here is the page I created about him, god bless him!

I'm a lucky gal, and appreciate that he is mine every single day. I hope you have all had a good week :)

WOYWW - 26/05/10

Howdy! I hope you have all had a good week and are looking forward to a lovely bank holiday weekend? I'm really getting into the spirit of WOYWW and find it gives me something crafty to look forward to in the middle of, what can sometimes be, a pretty mediocre week! Onwards to the desk..

So what can we see today? Lots of Cosmo Cricket Delovely, I fell in love with the bright cheery colours and had to get stuck right in. On the left you can see my pink ribbon and lace jars, a Disneyland bag that is almost 20 years old that contains lace from when I used to make crafty things as a teenager, I think that counts as being vintage doesn't it?

Last week a lovely commenter asked to see a close up picture of my storage drawers:

The unit is a Quickutz Magpie unit, I purchased mine from Home Sense for the bargain price of £9.99, so good in fact that I went back and picked up a second. One set has six of the magpie nesting tins (it's been a pain to try and find another set of 3 to complete the unit) and the other is perfect for storing my promarkers. I have been told that they can be stored upright but I prefer to store mine horizontally, I simply added some white dot stickers coloured with the pen to make it a bit easier when choosing my colours. At some point I would like to paint the units white, they look a bit hefty in black!

I picked this photo frame up from a charity shop this week, it was a murky dark red and black colour when I bought it, I primed the frame, painted a few layers of fuschia pink paint then overlaid this with white acrylic paint. When it was dry I sanded it in some areas and bashed it a little to distress then painted on more of the pink paint and wiped the excess off with a baby wipe. I was so pleased that it came out how I intended. I then added some Cosmo Cricket paper, lace and ribbon, the perfect accompanying gift to the card..

I think that this will be a gift for my niece when she and her family return from living in Canada. I just can't wait for them to arrive, they have been gone for 3 years and I have missed them all so much, hopefully not too long to go now!

Have a great week and a lovely bank holiday weekend!

WOYWW - 19/05/10

I have been hankering for ages after a metal drawer unit my mum has had laying unused at her house and finally she allowed me to whisk it home and fill it with all my bits and bobs! I love it, it holds so much.

I also got straight to work with my label maker so I know what's in each drawer. Here is a peek at my two favourite drawers right now, my inks and my flowers.

Mmmm, I just keep opening the drawers to look at them!

So, on to WOYWDW (Which in my case should be WOYWDT as I had to clear it all away to start a new project tonight) This is a photo of the calm before the storm!

Then this is what it looked like during....

You can see that I managed to pick up a second set of Magpie storage drawers from Home Bargains so I can now use one for promarkers and the others for my nesting tins. I am using a pad of MME glittered paper for my project this week, along with my beloved corner chomper and little bags of bargain flat back pearls.

And this is the result. A set of little thank you cards for my mum to give to her students at the end of their year. I love the pretty mint green against the pink and I love paisley so I am sold! Hope you have all had a great week and I am looking forward to blog hopping to see all the other workspaces out there!

WOYWDW - 13/05/10

I love looking at all the different work desks on WOYWDW (what's on your work desk wednesday) created by the fabby Julia Dunnitt, I have always wanted to join in, however I have a little problem, I either don't create on a wednesday, I forget to take a photo or I tidy up then realise I should have taken a picture!

This week however I remembered and decided to join in! So what can you see? My lovely new Magpie storage I mentioned a few weeks ago filled with my new collection of Promarkers, it's just perfect! My vintage button jar with all the scrummy buttons that I want to use but prefer to just look at and finally what's actually on m desk. Lots and lots of Carolyn Gavin for K&Co Greenhouse line. I purchased it all when I went to Florida last year and I just love the bold patterns and cute shapes, I managed to pull it all out just to make one card then neatly tidy it away again straight after, I'm a bit of a neat freak.

I have since started another project and there is twice as much mess and I am finding it very hard not to tidy as I go but I am trying to relax and go with the flow! So what's on your work desk?