WOYWW #225 (Updated)

Hello and welcome to another Wednesday at Moonshine Manor.

First, a confession: my photos for this week's What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday were taken on Tuesday - but I do have a good excuse Julia honest!

(If you're wondering what all this is about go here to find out!)

Today (that's today Wednesday not today Tuesday) I am spending the morning delivering part 2 of a "workshop" to a friend who wants to learn how to get more out of her stamps and ink pads. So my desk is set up ready for inky fun and games.

We are hopefully going to finish a Tim Holtz inspired tag we started last week and then, if time allows, have a play at altering some dominoes using the tissue paper and floor polish technique. (Below are samples I made a while back when I first came across the technique).

So that's what's happening here today, looking forward to catching up with what's on your workdesk this week later on. Have a fun day.

We HAVE had a fun morning and I thought you might like to see the "after" shots...

We played nice at wrinkle free distress, heat emboss resist, watercolouring with DIs and yes, we did have time to play dominoes too. LOVE playing dominoes. This is the YouTube tutorial I watched. Check out some more of Racho113's stuff whilst you're there - she's AMAZING!

G is for... Guirlande

As I'm sure you can tell from the title, it is time for another entry for The Craft Barn's Dictionary Challenge. This time it is letter G with no twist.

As you know I am using a French-English dictionary and so I have chosen the word Guirlande which means garland or wreath.

Quite a simple page this time with not too much dimension. It is getting quite difficult to work on the pages in the book now as the pages are no longer lying flat. All the elements for this design were made off-page using die cuts (Memory Box Grapevine Wreath for the wreath and Tim Holtz's Tattered Flower Garland for the flowers). See how considered this page was? - "Wreath" and "garland" dies - all totally deliberate! ;0)

The cardstock is all core'dinations and the red flowers were embossed with a text embossing folder.

The gems are from Kaisercraft but have been toned down a little with some Butterscotch Alcohol Ink.

Thanks for looking, hope to catch up with you soon.

WOYWW #224

Hello fellow Deskers

I almost didn't post today as I had a dental appointment (boo hiss) this morning, but I've managed to get some crafting done in between a longer than expected appointment and the crazy school runs. So, what is on my workdesk today?

I'm working on my G entry for The Craft Barn's altered dictionary challenge - any guesses what my entry is going to be? (My dictionary is a French/English one but the word is similar in both languages.)

If you look quarter of the way down the left hand side of the photo (above) you can see a felt owl hanging from the lamp stand... I thought it would be fun to take an "owl's eye" view of my desk - so here it is...

Hmm, have you picked up that I quite like owls?

I must say a big THANK YOU to you all for your support last week when I was having a Tim Tag meltdown. I haven't thrown away my "failed" tags and will get round to re-loving them at some point but I thought you might like to see how my tag turned out..

It came good in the end (after I'd switched to Dylusions rather than DS!) 

And finally... C (aka Hammers) here are pics of my two bird house pincushions as promised...

(The spider's webs are a throw back to my school days - I used to doodle webs and spiders on everything - weird because I HATE spiders!)

Thanks for visiting and thanks to Julia for hosting (if you're not already a desker you're missing out - seriously!)

Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2013 - September

Once upon a time (30 or so years ago) I was a Girl Guide. I'm not ashamed to admit it, it's a big part of what has made me the independent and practical person I am today. 

When I was a Girl Guide we had a District Commissioner called Mrs Armstrong a lovely (very posh) lady for whom we all had affection and a great deal of respect. Mrs Armstrong was the lady who, apart from her role as Commissioner, tested us for our Camping Badge and the Commonwealth Badge for those few of us who became Queen's Guides. As such she was a stickler for things to be done - just so. Mrs Armstrong was  a "tough cookie" but she was also an inspirational leader whose words have stayed with me to this day. In a difficult situation she would always exhort, "Stick-ability girls! You must have stick-ability!" What she meant, of course, was that however difficult or frustrating a task is, you must keep at it until you've completed it, that you never give up.

Why am I telling you this? Because my September Tag has been an exercise in stick-ability. My completed tag is my fourth attempt at what should have been a pretty straight forward layered stencil technique (you can see Tim's Tag here). I really don't know why I had such a nightmare with this tag, but the problem came not with the layered stencils but with THE most basic step - Distress Staining my tag!

In the end I did admit defeat (I was running out of tags) and switched from DS to Dylusions spray inks and was MUCH happier with the results - I'm wondering if the root of the problem lay in the fact that I don't have a full arsenal of Distress Stains and the colours I do have just weren't working for me - who knows?

Anyway, I hope this explains the sentiment I've used on my tag, and you might notice the brass tag attached to the ribbon - a lucky find from my stash of random stuff!

I really like the effect of the honeycomb stencil on the seam binding.

I used a That Special Touch mica mask (swirls) inked with Gathered Twigs DI in place of Tim's Rays, I really like the effect of the subtle darker shade over the vibrant Dylusions. (Cherry Pie, Lemon Zest and Squeezed Orange)

Love that Cherry Pie ink, it looks great with the black stamping.

I'm pleased with the final result, so sticking at it definitely paid off!

Thank you for looking, please leave me a comment so I know you came and I'll try and visit you too.

WOYWW #223

Good morning Deskers and welcome to another Wednesday at Moonshine Manor. (Confused head over to The Stamping Ground for the WOYWW low down)

What's on my desk today?  A BLOOMIN' NIGHTMARE that's what!

I am trying to do my Tim Tag for September and I have had three attempts so far - all of which have gone disastrously wrong and are going in the bin. You know the saying "there are no mistakes in art"? Pah!

I can't figure out why it is going so wrong! And I'm falling at what you'd think would be the easiest hurdle - Distress Staining my tag for goodness sake - I've tried it DS straight to misted tag as per Tim's instructions - don't think my tag was damp enough so my colours haven't blended. Tried it again with a damper tag - still hideous and then I've tried the old wrinkle free smoosh the craft mat technique and ended up with mud. So today I am not a happy bunny!

For what it's worth here is what's on my desk (Grump!)

Hope your day is going better than mine!

WOYWW #222

Hello and welcome back - sorry I couldn't play last week, our router failed and we were internet-less for nearly a week. Tell you something Peeps - you don't realise how much you rely on it until you can't get it!

Anyhoo, the reason you're here is to see what is on my workdesk this "Back to School" Wednesday...

Here is a shot taken from my chair - I don't think I've taken one from here before so it gives a slightly different perspective...

So what can we see today?

My Ikea cubbies which contain, top left to right, my stereo system - can't be without music while I'm creating, a cupboard full of paperwork for work, a plethora of tiny Really Useful Boxes full of beads and you can see in the corner (click on the photo for a closer look) a blue tikki birdhouse pincushion which I made for a WI competition, the far right cubby has yet more beads. Second row, two cubbies of craft books and behind the sewing machine my Molly Blooms stamps and finally a big box of flowers.

To the right of the owls is a handy TKMaxx shelf unit with my collection of Douwe Egberts coffee jars,  I mean, buttons, and below the owls is my Craft Robo and a felt bowl with yet more buttons in (bit of a thing for buttons - can you tell?)

Left to right on my desk are my buckets of pens, tools, glue and stuff, assorted pincushions and my jug for washing paint brushes, on my craft mat is my Dylusions art journal - more on that later, and in front of the iron is the dictionary I am altering for The Craft Barn's Dictionary Challenge. I've been asked a couple of times if I can still close the book - well now you can see - yes I can - at the moment - but by the end of the challenge? Who knows!

The strange looking pack of fluff with a pink and green ball (front right) is another early birthday prezzie from my lovely Mum and is a pincushion kit which looks soooo cute!

See what I mean!

I don't know when I'm going to find time to do sewing for pleasure rather than work  - but I promise I'll post pics when it's finished.

If you're in a WOYWW hurry that's all I've got for this week so thanks for popping in and I hope to catch up with you later, but if you're interested in the Julie Nutting Doll project more pics follow...


You may remember a couple of weeks ago I was playing with a Julie Nutting Doll stamp and having a go at an (un-tutored) She Art style layout in my AJ. Well here is the page so far - I can't say that it is finished because I'm not totally happy with it - but I've hit a block so I'm letting it "rest" until inspiration strikes again.

Stamping the flourishes over the girl helped to ground her on the page, whilst the doodle edging gives her some definition.

This is actually the second incarnation of this page which started off looking a lot like this...

The first attempt was gesso-ed over and then begun again with layers of  ink or acrylic paint through at least four stencils, bubble wrap acrylic paint stamping and at least 17 different stamped images.  As I said, I'm not entirely happy with her yet, whether the page is too blue, whether she's too small on the A4 page - I'm not sure - but I'll come back to her and hope for the best.

Thank you for visiting, please do leave a comment so that I know you came and I can reciprocate.

Z is for ... Zingaro

How quickly these fortnights come round!

It's time for another entry for The Craft Barn's Dictionary Challenge. The latest challenge letter is Z, with no twist. Another easy choice for me as there were very few words to choose from. If you remember I am using an old French-English dictionary so I have gone for the romantic sounding Zingaro meaning Gypsy.

Another outing for the sweet Molly Blooms gypsy stamp (MB-0226I), but rather than colouring her with my usual Copics I have stamped her on watercolour paper and coloured her with Caran D'ache Neocolor IIs, in an attempt to try and get a more vintage feel to a not very vintage image.

I have kept to my usual colour palette and re-introduced some washi tape to ground the image, a smattering of Lavinia Stamps toadstools adds to the gypsy feel.

Thank you for looking.