WOYWW 614 And Another Video (hopefully)

Here is my desk, all ready for WOYWW,  in all its glory - quite tidy as I haven't been up to much apart from painting and drooling over some of Tracy Scott's artwork.  I love her faces and am ready to sign up for another one before this one is finished.  Holding off for my birthday money to come from the other half but then there are two workshops I have my eye on.

It is all set for me to get going again on my Geisha Girl.  Paints, brushes and pencils but before I do I have to repair that little photo in the middle of the desk which my other half (Mr Clumsy) knocked off the cupboard and broke.  To say I have had this for over 30 years, if not 40 is no exaggeration - and now he breaks it.  Men!

Sadly no Geisha Girl as I had to take the middle lesson out and so have not had chance to catch up yet. Loved watching it and some people have had great results, not sure mine will be up to the standard of some of them. But I do have my first pencil sketch to show you - decided not to use this one as I thought she looked too young and I have not got the eyes right. It was only a practice piece which I cut out from the copy paper and stuck on the background to see how close I was to getting the size right - not used to working so big - it's on A3. The actual one is drawn directly on that background.

Made a tag for the group I am in (virtually at the moment) which is a bit tongue in cheek.  Discussing it with the friend who chooses the themes she asked if I thought "Spring" would be ok and I immediately started laughing - this is what I did.  Don't know if you can see it but it is a Dylusion figure with the head cut off and re-attached with a spring behind it.  So it wobbles when you touch it.  Well, it is a Spring!

Forgot to show you this card the other week, which actually spurred me on to do the garden scene in last week's book - the house.

This is another of my Miranda Books.  I call them that because I so wanted this die and my lovely friend in the Netherlands, Miranda Van den Bosch, sent it to me because I could not get it over here.  To me they will always be my Miranda Books.

WOYWW 561

Another day, another week, another WOYWW post!  What am I on about?  Go here to find out.

Well I had a good morning on Monday and managed to get into my craft room and do a bit of Distress Oxide Inking.  Now I am ready to start playing with some fairy stamps that my friend Mo loaned to me because I don't have that many and wanted to make another of those little books with fairies in this time.  Certainly don't have any background stamps that are suitable.  This will form another sample for my class at our stamping club in July when I get around to stamping the figures on it.

To the very left is my drawer where I keep all my Oxides and there on my worktop are the ones I was using, followed by three of those round applicators and finally some of my pages with different techniques on them.  The little circle and aperture at the front are what I used for my "moon" but I don't know where I put the pages when I took the photo.  Because the colours looked strong I decided to do some pages using brushes so I had to use my Duster Brushes but I was not happy with the results - will have to try again when I get the brushes I ordered (thanks Shaz B).

I noticed on some of my cards, as I was doing them, that they had bits stuck to them.  These did not always pick off but my Oxide pads seem to be shedding!  Has anyone else had this happen and does anyone know what it is?  I did wonder if it was my cardstock but it is what I always use and it doesn't happen with the Distress Inks, only the Oxides.  Here's a photo of one of my inkpads to show you:

If you click on it you will see the bits on the actual pad

Well, not being entirely happy with the Distress Oxides I decided to do some with my Pan Pastels.  Mainly because I had received a beautiful card from Margaret Rose in a Mingle swap I had been in.  The background is gorgeous (as is the card) and when I asked what she used she said "Pastels".  Mine are not as lovely as hers but I can do them sat in my chair (yes, my back went Tuesday after lunch).  I'll show you her card rather than my backgrounds.

I did watch the re-run of of Hochanda simply because I saw that Di from Tando was on.  Shame I didn't see the actual show.  I would have loved those templates for the pages for books - she did an amazing job and to say it was a sell-out is an under statement - I think they had about three, if not four, extended dates on the templates and extended dates on other things too.  Wonder if any of you got them?  Would love to see what you make with them, I just love handmade books.  It's got me thinking of making another journal/folio type book myself so I am hoping to have a good day or two so I can get cutting.  There's so much I want to do.

WOYWW 559 and a Video

It's Wednesday and that means it is time to join Julia and her merry band of deskers in their weekly update of the state of their desks here - and I am one of them.  I have been promising my WOYWW'er friends a video of my little book for a couple of weeks now - and now you get two for the price of one.  Yay!  I have video'd it at last and another one as a bonus surprise.

Here they are on my desk:

As you can see there are little hearts here and there in my book so I am linking it to Elizabeth's challenge at Art Journal Journey.  You will notice in the video, below, they appear in more than one page.

You really don't want to see the rest of my desk!  Chas had some friends around for lunch yesterday (yes, men that lunch - that's a new one on me) and one of them brought me some gorgeous M&S Truffles and the other some rhubarb he had picked fresh that morning from his allotment.  Of course that got me talking about my Rhubarb Gin so we had to try one.  I am beginning to sound like a boozer but in all honesty I rarely touch the stuff but must admit I am enjoying this Rhubarb Gin with a bit of tonic.  Derek tried a tiny bit of each of them (he likes his gin too) and preferred the Slingsby's one, declaring it smoother and a little bit drier.  Poor Sandy had to abstain as he was designated driver.

That big patch of green is my Cutterpillar (love it, my best cutter ever), then my E-bosser and my journal with card fronts on top of hidden page (for tomorrow, Thursday).  My G&T is there for the keen eyed amongst you, and you can see my chocolates on my journal just in front of my drink.  The little green character is my Cricut guy from CHA years ago and next to him is my bunny felted for me by my lovely friend Cindee in America.  My cup, which Chas broke and now holds pens and things as I liked it so much and cannot part with it as yet, sits atop my heat gun stand made by a dear friend who passed long time ago.  There's my carousel (won at CHA once) and my Distress Ink Pads sitting in the window with all manner of little companions on top - several of which remind me so much of dear Shaz in Oz.  Think that is enough about my desk so ...

Here's my video:

(You would not believe the messing about we have done to get this video uploaded.  It's Tuesday night and I still don't know if it is uploaded)

Health Update:

Suffered like crazy with my back until yesterday.  Was worried how I would be with the visitors but hey ho - apart from a morning episode I was fine for the rest of the day.  Maybe it needed a week after chiropractic to get working.

WOYWW 557

Another Wednesday, another visit to Julia and her Merry Band here on WOYWW.

My desk - well for once, it has been a hive of industry.  I have actually made something in the last few days.  Yonks ago I saw a book that Miranda (Miranda van den Bosch - on Pinterest and Facebook - see her work, fabulous - and check her drawing out too) had made and I fell in love with it.  I bought the stamps I thought necessary for it (PaperArtsy) and then on one of our trips to Nijerk in The Netherlands bought the die to cut the pages.  Everything was done ready for it to be decorated but could I work out how to do the book, how to put it together, could I heck!  So I messaged Miranda and bless her, she answered me and told me how to do it and even said if mine was a copy of hers she would not mind.

Well it isn't, the first page more or less is but it still needs words adding to it before I video the whole thing to show you.  In the meantime here are a couple of pages showing the little flaps that happen between each full page.

As well as that I have been slowly but surely starting to sort my room out on my better days.  Some have turned to bad days because of sorting but I am very slowly getting things done.  Yesterday and Monday was spent looking at all the 12 x 12 papers I have and whilst I still put them back, well most of them, I have put a couple out for the bin.  I had to leave it last night as my back was hurting with all the moving about so this is my desk as it stands.

As the Chinese New Year celebrations end this coming Saturday here is my Chinese Unicorn, bought in LA a couple of years ago.  Gong Hei Fat Choi!