What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday ~ 230

Woosh, here we are again back round to Wednesday/Tuesday to paraphrase Darnell.  Thanks for all the knitty love last week, the mitts have been pressed into use at my desk this week in the mornings, and one pair of the socks have been worn.  It’s hard getting used to typing with mitts on though!  The first green sock is now finished and I’ve started the second one already, this is the fastest I’ve ever knit a pair, I’m really enjoying the pattern.

Anyway, I have a desk this week for What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday, but it’s a tad boring tbh.

I had made a card for a DT post so I can’t show you that until this Friday, and then I made one other Christmas card.  Bits from that one are still on the desk; the Fiskars sentiment stamps are there and at the back is the House Mouse stamp I’d used.  There’s a few little tools and that’s about it!  I took the pic on Sunday afternoon which explains why it’s still light, although our clocks don’t go back here until the coming Sunday morning.

And because I’ve got nothing remotely interesting to show you, here’s the HM card that I had made:

 

I know some of you have seen this already, but  A) I like it and B) Eliza said it reminded her of Yoda!  Chin, chin peeps.

Kitty Snuggle

Hi de hi campers!  I was looking through my (growing) collection of stamps and realised with a bit of a jolt that I haven’t made a card using my House Mouse stamps since January!  I was quite stunned at that, and couldn’t think of a reason why I’d passed them over, so I put back the Penny Black that I had picked up out of the cabinet, and had a look through the House Mouse ones instead.  I also found a few I hadn’t yet used, so I picked one of them, if you haven’t guessed yet, this one is called Kitty Snuggle.

I was using the sketch at Sketch Saturday and wasn’t convinced I had the right style stamp for the sketch but as it happens, I love how it turned out.

I coloured my image with my Prisma pencils and added Glossy Accents to the two Christmas lights.  Before they were dry I dropped in a little Martha Stewart glitter.  The DP is from a DCWV mat stack from the other autumn, so not even Christmas paper.  The lovely Memory Box die cut was sent to my recently by Sarn (thanks sweetie!).  I’ve struggled to obtain this particular die in America, it’s been so popular, but a few weeks ago my local craft store finally had it so I snapped one up….. only to return home and have it taken off me so it can be a stocking filler for Christmas!!

The DP and die cut were stuck directly on to the card blank, then the image panel was popped up on foam tape, everything was edged with Distress Ink.  The sentiment is from Fiskars and I thought it rather apt as kittys and mice are not supposed to be bestest buds!  The poinsettia is a Marianne die but it was pre cut for a different project and then not used.  I added a few little gems, some bakers twine and a charm from my local craft store.

Card Recipe:

• Card: Blank from Michaels ~ GinaK Pure Luxury White ~ The Paper Company
• DP: DCWV
• Stamps: Stampabilities Kitty Snuggle ~ Fiskars Season’s Greetings
• Ink: Memento Rhubarb Stalk ~ Distress Ink Festive Berries
• Embellies: Prisma Pencils ~ Glossy Accents ~ Martha Stewart Fine Glitter ~ American Crafts Baker’s Twine ~ Charm from LCS ~ Gold pearls from Michaels ~ Memory Box die cut ~ Marianne Poinsettia die cut

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Challenges:

Sketch Saturday ~ Current Sketch

House Mouse and Friends ~ Anything Goes With Twine

Jingle Belles ~ Not A Creature Was Stirring

Winter Wonderland ~ Check It Out

Christmas Stampin’ All Year Long ~ Use non Christmas specific DP

Crafty Hazel’s Crafty Extra Challenge ~ Anything Goes

Pixies Snippets Playground ~ Use Up Your Scraps (Poinsettia & sentiment card)

Sister Act Card Challenge  ~ Anything Goes

ABC Christmas Challenge ~ “U” for Under The tree

Aud’s Sentiment Challenge ~ Christmas Sentiments

Crafty Little Fairies ~ Anything Goes

Sweet Stampin ~ Wood , Trees or Leaves (Pine fronds and a Christmas tree charm)

Papertake Weekly ~ Oh Christmas Tree

Joel The Reindeer

I love this cute little stamp, why I haven’t used him before is beyond me!  Every time I dig in my Christmas box for a stamp I pull him out and say to myself how stinkin’ cute he is and then I put him back!!  Not this time though, today was his day to shine!

See, told you he was cute!  He’s by Toodles and Binks.  I stamped him on a scrap of kraft card and coloured him with Prisma pencils, he’s a bit more colourful in real life but the photo booth lights are bleaching him out a bit.  He was cut out with a Spellbinders die and then I stamped around the edges with a Tapestry Peg Stamp set.  I added a bit of white flock to the ground and the pine fronds, and when that was dry popped some Crystal Stickles on top.  The card blank is also a piece of kraft and I used up some little snippets of DCWV Christmas papers.  The sentiment is a really old rub on and the felt poinsettia is from Hero Arts.

Card Recipe:

• Card: The Paper Company
• DP: DCWV
• Stamps: Toodles & Binks Joel The Reindeer ~ Tapestry Peg Stamps
• Ink: ColorBox Wicked Black ~ Memento Brilliance Cottage Ivy & Rich Cocoa
• Embellies: Prisma Pencils ~ Martha Stewart White Swan Flock ~ Stickles Crystal & Frosted White ~ Rub ons from an old card kit ~ Felt Poinsettia from Hero Arts ~ American Crafts Glittered Brad ~ Tsukineko Black Pen
• Tools: Cuttlebug ~ Spellbinders Curvy Rectangles

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Challenges:

Stamping For Pleasure ~ Rudolph Day

Christmas At Sweet Stampin ~ Cards For Men

Crafty Hazel’s Christmas Extra ~ Anything Goes

Sister Act Card Challenge ~ Anything Goes

Pixies Snippets Playground ~ Use Up Your Scraps (The papers are all from the scrap box)

Crafty Little Fairies ~ Anything Goes

Polkadoodles ~ Christmas Is Coming

What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday ~ The Hands And Feet Edition

Hello all – no desk from me this week, our temperatures took a nose dive, the heating went on and the knitting gene kicked back in!  So I finished and wove in the ends of two pairs of socks, started a cabled sock and seamed a pair of fingerless gloves finished in April but put away because I didn’t need them in the summer.  So I’m doing a bit of show and tell this week as I managed to finish three projects that had been hanging around for way too long, and got going on another one, which gave me an inordinate amount of pleasure… so I’m passing that along to you!

One plain pair on the left knitted with self patterning wool; one patterned pair on the right knitted with stretchy plain wool!  Both sitting in the sock drawer now awaiting their turn.

And these are the new socks on the needles:

And now for the hands, a pair of fingerless gloves for work as I sit next to a window and it’s turned quite chilly in the morning until the place fully warms up.

I think a hat for me might be next, especially as they’ve used the word “snow” in our weather forecast this week!  Or a cowl perhaps, either way, it’s time for knitting season again, especially as it’s now dropped to the wrong side of freezing here at night!!

Head on over to see Julia to join in with her weekly deskhop of crafty places around the world.

Trees, Glorious Trees

Just a few more amazing photos from our trip kayaking the other weekend.  This seems to have been our last really lovely weekend weather wise, well, at least warm weather wise!  This week we have overnight lows just managing to dip below freezing for the first time this autumn, and the heating is well and truly on now!

 

 

 

 

This is the tree I showed you a close up of last Wednesday, the one that almost had Darnell packing her bags to move to Michigan!

 

 

I neglected to mention that the forecast for later this week also has the word “snow” in it….. they better be wrong!

 

 

Pink For Christmas

The lovely ladies at Jingle Belles have a Pink For Christmas theme and in support of the Susan G Komen Cancer Research Fund, they will donate $2 each, per card, entered into their challenge.  They also encourage you to enter as many times as you like too, to boost the final donation to the charity.  This is something they unselfishly do every year.  Thank you Lauren and Stef.

So my card is pink to support the Jingle Belles, and pink because I like the colour.

My stamp is from Penny Black, called Warm & Merry, coloured with Prisma pencils.  The paper is from a really old DCWV Christmas Stack and the backing card is from The Paper Company.  The sentiment is Lili of the Valley and I added a couple of gems from Michael’s.  Very quick, very frugal (all the paper and card is from the scrap box) and very simple.

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Challenges:

Jingle Belles ~ Pink for Christmas

Winter Wonderland ~ Carol Singers

Crafty Snippets Playground ~ Use Up Your Scraps

Crafty Hazel’s Christmas Extra Challenge ~ Anything Goes

Stampin’ For The Weekend ~ Anything Goes

Polkadoodles ~ Christmas Is Coming

Simon Says Stamp ~ Christmas/Happy Holiday

C.R.A.F.T. ~ Christmas

Moving Along With The Times ~ Christmas Cuties

Crafty Little Fairies ~ Christmas In October

Sister Act Card Challenge ~ Anything Goes

What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday ~ 228

Wednesday, the middle of the week.  Time for our world wide crafty desk hop hanging on to the coat tails of Julia from the Stamping Ground blog.  I’m a bit more untidy than I was last week, you all thought my desk was way too tidy, don’t think you can level that accusation at me this week!

The card I was working on last week was finished and posted here, but I haven’t cleared anything up yet so a lot of the clear stamps over at the top left are from that.  The mat has some left overs from a Halloween card I made (that was posted earlier today), so there’s stamps, paper, twine and ink lying about from that.  The pile of Christmas cards from last week is still there, I did manage to print out the inserts for them but need to stick them inside.  You might spot two odd looking spherical things that look a bit like large salt and pepper pots!  I was in Michael’s last week (buying trimmer blades so nothing exciting) when I spotted two pots of decoupage glue/sealer on clearance, so at half the price of a bottle of mod podge, I snapped them up.  I’m hoping they’ll be just the ticket for sealing the carousel I showed you last week.  It’s now had three coats of paint and is ready for the next stage, I need to decide what papers to use with it.

We had a stunning Autumn weekend here and I’m going to share with you just one of the many tree photos I took at a local park last Saturday as it’s so beautiful.

I’ll bid you adieu on that note!  Enjoy your desk hopping.

Sparkles Monthly Challenge ~ Halloween or Halloween Colours

Hello Everyone – It’s time for another challenge at Sparkles Monthly Challenges.  The winner and top three from our last challenge have already been posted, so pop over to see if it was you.

As it’s the Spooky month we’d like to see all your lovely Halloween projects, or if you’re not into Halloween, then just make something that includes the traditional Halloween colours of orange, purple and black.

We’re sponsored this month by the wonderful Di’s Digi’s who are offering a generous $10 to spend in their fantastic store.

And for my project I went with a Halloween card as I have a new Penny Black stamp that I wanted to use called Pumpkin Soup.

I started by punching a circle to act as a mask for the moon and then used Distress Inks to create the background.  The witch is from a clear set  by Inkadinkado and was stamped with ColorBox Wicked Black (appropriately enough!).  I then mixed some Shabby White Frantage with some Black DIamond sparkly embossing powder and heat set if from beneath.   The two little pieces of DP are both digital, they were torn and edged in DI Black Soot.  The spider is from the same Inkadinkado set and it was embossed with more of the Black Diamond EP.

The little bats are a Memory Box die.  The scrap created by this die would make a fantastic bat stencil too, I was going to use it on the moon, but decided to put the witch there instead.  The text says Boo!, not Baa!!!  They’re individual rub on letters from American Crafts…. and anyone spotted the deliberate mistake??  Yes, my exclamation point is upside down, lol!  I coloured my image with Prisma pencils, adding some Stickles to the hat and pumpkin.  He’s popped up on foam tape for a little dimension.  I do wish I’d stamped him on the card first, then I could have missed off his whiskers when cutting him out.  He looks like he’s sporting a set of wings with that white card sticking out from each side!  The final touch was a bit of black and white bakers twine.  I had a lot of fun making this but I would definitely do one or two things differently if I did it again.

Please pop over to the main Sparkles blog to see how my talented teamies interpreted this theme.

Card Recipe:

• Card: Blank from Michaels ~ GinaK Pure Luxury White
• DP: Digital download from Raspberry Road
• Stamp: Inkadinkado All Hallows Eve ~ Penny Black Pumpkin Soup
• Ink: ColorBox Wicked Black ~ Distress Ink Dried Marigold,  Spiced Marmalade, Milled Lavender, Dusty Concord & Black Soot
• Embellies: Stampendous Shabby White Frantage embossing powder ~ Judikins Black Diamond embossing powder ~ The Ribbon Girl bakers twine ~ Stickles Starry Night and Fruit Punch ~ American Crafts Rub Ons
• Tools: Heat gun ~ Memory Box die A Bunch of Bats ~ Marvy Uchida Circle punch

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Challenges:

Penny Black Saturday Challenge ~ Spooky

Penny Black & More At Allsorts ~ Anything Goes (Third and final entry)

Pixies Snippets Playground ~ Use Up Your Scraps (the stamping card, both pieces of DP and the bakers twine)

Crafty Calendar Challenge ~ Halloween

Sweet Stampin’ ~ Halloween

Polkadoodles ~ Halloween

Moving Along With The Times ~ Spooktastic Times

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge ~ Use A Clear or Rubber Stamp

Stamp and Create ~ Fall or Halloween

Papertake Weekly ~ Happy Halloween Hues

Stampendous Challenge ~ Halloween (I used Stampendous Frantage EP)

The Case of the Curious Cranes

Where: Kent Lake, Kensington Metro Park, Milford, Michigan

When: Saturday, 12 October 2013, a little after noon. Temperature 26C/75F

The Cast of Characters: Two rather curious Sandhill Cranes; two rather curious humans in petit bateau’s enjoying a few hours on the lake in glorious sunshine.

 

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‘Ere, Edna.  What do you reckon those things  are then?  What things Fred?  Those floaty things in the water coming towards us with those odd looking things sitting inside them Edna.  I think they might be what’s called humans Fred, the things sitting inside the floaty things, not the floaty things.  Don’t know what the floaty things are called.

 

 

Don’t like the look of this Edna I can tell you, I’m outta here!  Fred, FRED!  Get back here, where’re you going?  Don’t just leave me here, what are you  man or mouse?  Well actually Edna, I’m neither, I’m a bird!  And while we’re on the subject, I told you we should have left last week when Bill and Pearl went to Florida.

 

Well if you think I’m going to spend yet another Winter with your Mother Fred, you’re badly mistaken.  Pfft, men!  (Fred, off in the wings) I heard that!  

 

Look, just keep your head down OK?  Pretend like we’re not even interested and they’ll take those floaty things somewhere else.

 

See, they’re more interested in those big white birds than they are in us, so you can get back in the water you big wuss!

Look Fred, they’re back on dry land again.  Silly humans don’t like getting their feet wet do they?  Why are they so interested in that tree Edna, it’s just a tree.  Haven’t a clue Fred, but I saw them looking at other trees too, I think there might be other humans that they want to show these trees to.  Well as long as the other humans don’t get in the water and come and stare at us too Edna, otherwise I’m leaving for Florida.

To be continued….

A White Christmas

I haven’t joined in with Simply Less Is More for ages, and as they want ed Christmas card this week I couldn’t pass that up now could I!!  Their theme is White on White Christmas, which is actually harder than it sounds as there are so many shades of white available.  But using the sketch at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown for inspiration, I came up with this:

Interestingly, with the exception of the card blank and the glitter heart, all the other cardstock used is exactly the same, GinaK Pure Luxury White, yet they all look like different shades of white!  I started by placing as many different snowflake stamps on a large block as I could, stamping with Versamark and then heat embossing with TH Holographic Clear embossing powder to make the large backing piece which was then edged in silver ink.  Four squares were punched out and then embossed in different folders, edged in the silver ink again and mounted on foam tape.  The heart is a Provocraft die and was cut from white glitter card.  The sentiment is from a Recollections set and was embossed with Recollections Sparkly EP before being cut out with a Spellbinders die from the Ribbon Trio pack.  A bit of clear white, sparkly edged ribbon was added before wrapping it around the main panel and then popping on to the card blank.

Card Recipe:

• Card: Blank & Glitter card from Recollections ~ All other card from GinaK
• Stamps: Inkadinkado ~ Hot off the Press ~ Recollections ~ Papermania
• Ink: Versamark ~ ColorBox Platinum Silver
• Embellies ~ Tim Holtz Holographic Clear Embossing Powder ~ Recollections Clear Sparkly Embossing Powder ~ Provocraft Embossing Folders ~ Boofle Embossing Folder ~ Ribbon from JoAnns
• Tools: Cuttlebug ~ Heat Gun ~ Provocraft Nested Heart Die ~ Spellbinders Ribbon Trio Dies

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Challenges:

Simply Less Is More ~ White on White Christmas

52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown ~ Sketch

Hazel’s Christmas Extra Challenge ~ Anything Goes

Ribbon Girl ~ Make It Sparkly

Crafting Musketeers Challenge ~ Christmas In October