Tuesday 26 April 2011

Car Boot Finds!

At our local car boot on Easter Monday I was lucky to find these things!
The Lotto is a complete set and was only 50p!
The tin is packed with wooden cotton reels, ribbon, buttons, cord, lace and a whole reel of white egg shell ribbon (which does the same as Tims ribbon ie takes ink and stays crinkled).
The round things are drawer/door handles (about 25 for £1).
And the book is beautiful! It is about the hand drawn/painted postcards/letters a grandad (Sir Henry Thornhill) has sent to his grandchildren from 1914 -1923, it has so many lovely pics in it, a bargain at £1!
Just need to make something with them now!
I'm not going to cut up the book by the way! (I had such a telling off from my 7yr old grandson when he saw what I had done to the othe book! (allthough he did say he liked what I had done, I had to make a pinky promise I would NOT cut this one up!) So I wouldn't dare, not that I was going to anyway!!!

Tuesday 19 April 2011

WOYWW Wk 98 & A Car Boot Find.

Last Saturday I braved the local car boot and found this book for a quid! Mmm I thought I could do something with that!
It took me 'til Tuesday to wrestle with my conscience (I love books and I have got this book tucked away in a cupboard!) because what I had in mind was to 'gut' most of the pages and paint and 'play' about with the ones that I left in. I got my knife and ruler out quite a few time and then put them away again before I finally plucked up the courage to take out all but 24 pages!
Then I set about changing the cover! I had seen a Utube video earlier that I really liked the look of, using pieces of metal tape pieced together over a surface (with letters under) and then TSS wheels and other tools to decorate around the seams (I had done a similar technique with TSS metal on a mirror a while back).
Here is what it looked like.

And here is my desk for this week with the book on it after I had worked on it a bit more!
I went over the whole book with black gesso and wiped over it 'til I had taken most of it off, then when that was dry I added some Viva Inca gold in green.


The tag is an image transfer of a stone angel (the one my hubby took) (a photo of, not the whole thing!)


And a closer shot of the cover not sure if it is finished yet I may add a bit more paint/ ink and other stuff yet!

So whats on your desk today!

If you want to have a look at some more click HERE and you will find yourself at Julia's the home of WOYWW!







Friday 15 April 2011

How very weird!!!!

I have just noticed that all my WOYWW posts have a Tuesday date! How very weird! Come to think of it the time is always wrong at the end of my posts too. Most of them look like I post stuff during the night which I don't ever do. So how do you change the time/date on here, I wonder? Mmmm I am somewhat a techno phob so do I just leave it or do I risk messing everything up trying to sort it?

Tuesday 12 April 2011

WOYWW Wk 97

Why is there a big space (big for me) on my desk? Have a read of yesterdays post and you will find out!

A closer view of my configuration box, I have added butterflies to the fairy compartment and a little birdie in her flower nest, still lots to do though!

To have a look at some more desks pop over to Julia's blog by clicking HERE!

Thanks for looking and have a great WOYWW!!!



An Angel and A Tale of Woe!

I know it's only Tuesday and I am showing a photo of my desk (but it is not the desk I am going to tell you about, but the box on the right) As you can see I have a box of metal flakes on my desk which is where my tale of woe starts. Yesterday afternoon I took the box out of drawer and placed on my desk as I was waiting for the glue to go tacky on the tag (the one on the top of the pile) I was making, I opened the box, with the tag in my hand I was about to place it in the box to cover the tacky area and.......................I knocked the WHOLE box off the desk, hitting my lap before it landed upside down on the floor! After the big cloud of flakes had settled and I could see again, I found there was I a big pile of metal flakes in my lap. And I'm thinking how on earth am I going to get all that back in the box (which I couldn't reach without leaning into the huge pile on my lap?) Well I won't bore you with all the details but it did take quite a while! Most of it is now safely back in the box but I think I shall be finding it for evermore!!! So just a word of warning for those of you who like me work in the smallest space possible, CLEAR SOME SPACE before you use metal flakes or embossing powder or pearl-ex or water! Oh yes I had done it all and have I learnt my lesson, probably not!!! Here is the Angel part. The background is a 4x6 board, gessoed, painted and spritzed then stamped (La Blanche) in black archival. The angel is a photo my other half took, just printed on paper (I applied some matt medium over it so it didn't smudge), the peddestal she is standing on is a stamp inked with white ink (the dewdrop ones) which I pressed into sculpty, cut out and baked. The wings are Sizzix (I fell in love with these) diecut then put through the Bigshot again in a Tim embossing folder then I rubbed over pearl dabber. So guess what I should be doing this afternoon? Tidying my desk! But I bet I get distracted as usual when I find something I haven't seen for a while oh well there's always tomorrow!!!!

Monday 11 April 2011

Just a Few Tags!

Over the last week or so I have made quite a few tags, all of them different, using lots of different themes, none that really 'go' together. Do you make 'collections' of tags, atcs etc or are you quite random? The first tag is the new Tim Holtz glassine paper, stamped, screwed up, then ironed. Tims roses were added to the bottom and a ribbon bow at the top. This one is a tag covered in printed paper a small ripped piece at the bottom and one of my birdies coloured in Aqua tones. And a little stamped crown.
This one is a brought tag coloured with distress stains, script stamp and the corner stamp (Tims) was stamped with distress stain. The Paper Artsy stamp at the botton was stamped onto tissue and applied to tag with modge podge. The house is encased inbetween two pieces of microscope glass, the edges were dipped into black molton ultra thick embossing enamal (in the melting pot). The words I found in an old book (not sure if you can see them clearly, they say 'Reaching the open door, she slammed it shut. As the door was closing she yelled out.')
This background is gessoed over using an old credit card, then a layer of distress inks (squidged onto craft mat and spritzed). One of my most favourite stamps is this dragonfly one which I stamped in black Archival. All I then added was some mica and some staples to hold it on.
I can't remember the last time I went to the beach! I think I must be missing it!

This tag I made yesterday while sitting in my garden with the sun beating down!

The background was gessoed in white, then spritzed with red, purple and bronze sprays (sorry I don't know make and real colours, I just grabbed a few mini misters that already had some colours decanted in them!) Everything dried really quickly (even for someone as impatient as me!) so no need for a heat gun! A couple of bits of old book were added.

The stamps used are from Crafty Individuals, the 'beach' flags are raised up with bits of 3d foam.

Well thats it for now, still haven't quite finished my configuration box, thank goodness I chose a small on to do, I am having trouble deciding what to put in the 5 little cubbie holes, lord knows how long it would take if I had chosen a larger one!

Tuesday 5 April 2011

WOYWW Wk 96

Where has the week gone? It's Wednesday again! So as you can see the desk is pretty clear! only cos I need the space for the configurations box I am working on ! Remember the pinky/lilac 'thing' that was on my desk last week? No? Well I'll tell you about it anyway! It is the blobby thing to the right of the pic, some pour and mold. Last week it was on the top of some glass. I was taking a mold of the glass knob which is on the top of one of my many storage jars/pots. If you look at the top of the configurations box you will see what it looks like! (at one point I didn't think it would release from the mold but as you can see it did!) I hope to be carrying one with the box today so hopefully it will be finished soon! Here it is a bit closer. If you want to join in and see more desks click HERE to go to Julia's place! Thanks for looking!

Another Birdie Page!

I had a lot of messy fun making this page! The pages in my journal are quite thin so I always gesso before I do anything. When dry (I heat dry, I am not patient enough to wait!) I added pieces of book pages and a peice of invoice paper from 1938, such lovely thin paper! I then spritzed with some orange, yellow and red and copper sprays (sorry I don't know what make or colour, they were ones I decanted into mini misters ages ago and thought I had better just use them up!) I held the page up so they would run down. Heat dry again! Along the bottom is a stencil (well actually it is the backing to some sticky ribbon I had used way back) I used rusty hinge distress ink. Then I rummaged through my basket of bits and found some scraps of background paper I had made from papers I didn't really like! I drew flatened circles onto it and cut out so you can see the black line. The trunks are made in the same way. These were stuck to the background using a glue stick as was the birdie the words are stickers. Oh and the little tab on the right side is a piece of Tims ribbon which I coloured with the same red spray as I used on the background. (it was then I discovered this red was an Adirondack colour wash spray and it is permenant, I still have a hint of red on all my fingertips inspite of scrubbing with my big boys stuff which gets their hands clean after a hard days graft and doing all last night washing up and this mornings breakfast things!) Oh well I had fun and thats all that matters!