Reindeer and woyww

My desk is completely empty today, so thought I'd show you what I've been working on

Some of you may remember the broken reindeer cookies debacle last year, when I tried out my brand spanking new cookie cutters and ended up with road kill like this....

Well this year I decided my reindeer would be more elegant (and in one piece lol!!) So I bought an MDF decoration from Inky Doodles - which starts life like this....

And this is the finished version....

Tried taking photos in different light to show the twinkly embossing in silver and blue

Twinkles do not play well with cameras! Trust me, the embossing is super twinkly and festive!

My masterpiece is currently feeling very lonely, as the rest of the decorations are still in hibernation. Will probably be a couple of weeks before they see the light. In the meantime, my reindeer make me smile :-)

Linking this to Woyww where you can travel the world one desk at a time. Apologies to anyone who visited me last woyww as I did not make it round everyone - will do better this week, but it will be a few days!

Thanks for stopping by

Debs

Cold enough for Christmas!

It's still freezing here, so making Christmas cards seems totally right! Just had time to play before I have to nip off to the  torture chamber hairdresser ! I hate going to the hairdresser, so I tend to wait until I look like the Dulux dog before I give in and submit, and it's that time of the year again [sigh]

This card was inspired by Crafty hazelnuts challenge where the theme is '1 word is sufficient'

The Stamp is an old but much loved Personal impressions wooden stamp - think its called 'Hilltop Village'. Stamped & heat embossed with WOW black sparkle, then coloured with pro markers. Double mounted on white & black card.
The main image is Mounted on silver mirror card embossed with Cuttlebug Snowflakes folder then mounted on plain white card. The Peace star is from an old kit, mounted on black card to match the rest of the card

Also entered in:
Rudolph Day Challenge
Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Extra

Thanks for stopping by!

Debs x

Finished sign!

So the sign is finally finished - here's a close up. I painted this with Pebeo acrylic paint, then stamped with Versamark using an old Elusive Images set, and embossed with WOW Pearl gold sparkle and Metallic Copper Sparkle - these are the most beautiful glitter embossing powders! I then added a few Kanban die cut butterflies I've been saving, they inspired the colour scheme of blue & copper :-)

A few people have mentioned that they have MDF projects so here's my tips from getting it wrong and then learning to do it right lol ! -

• Sand the MDF before you start - pay particular attention to edges to get a smooth surface. Please make sure you sand in a well ventilated place, preferably outside, and wear a mask as MDF dust is toxic!
• Seal the sanded MDF by painting with a 50/50 mix of PVA Glue & water - leave to dry
• Paint with several thin coats of acrylic paint until you achieve the required depth of colour

And it's finally in pride of place on my door :-)

So I have a few chores to finish this morning, then I have the rest of the day to myself - crafty heaven :-)

Thanks for stopping by

Debs

It's Friday, it's 5 to 5 , and time for.........................

Anyone remember this???? I used to love Crackerjack, and always wanted to win a Crackerjack Pen LoL!  This popped into my head as I was listening to the radio and the presenter said 'it's Friday and it's 5 to5' but I think he was too young to remember the rest :-)

There's a 'guess the year' programme on our local radio station in the mornings, and it's fun with all the memories the old songs generate, but so many of them have been used in ads, I now end up singing the ad jingle instead of the actual lyrics - those ad men must have been good at their jobs lol!

OK, so it IS Friday and I'm about to pack up crafting for the day and have a well deserved cuppa so I thougI would share some recent projects and a sneaky peek of a DT project I finished today!

This is a wedding card using pearl embossing powders and a brocade background stamp, so pretty to work with. Even embossed the background card behind the panel cos I got carried away with the lovely pearl effects!

These two are cute boxes I made recently, and all 3 projects will be on show at the NEC next week on the WOW embossing stand

Finally, the sneaky peek...............

These are easel drawer cards, and they are so much fun to make (showed some stamped versions in an old post). You can really go to town on the decoration, and there is a little drawer in the base that you can fit yummy chocs in (or something more boring if you are so inclined!). I got a bit carried away with decorating these two, feathers, leaves, flowers, butterflies - a cornucopia of embellishments!

OK, that's it for today, my feet are freezing so I'm off to put the heating on and hit the biccies!

Have a fab weekend, thanks for stopping by

Debs x

WOYWW 145 and cogs

This is my desk today, not too messy, just a little project in the middle half finished. On the left you can see the lead to my heat gun, a finished tag project, and my trusty digital radio. At the back we have my ice cream tub of acrylic blocks and a pot of brushes - must find new ways to store the blocks lol!! A jiffy bag full of new stamps as part of my WOW! Embossing Powder DT goodies, and a set of large oval dies.  Not too messy at all for me - you can see both table top AND craft mat!

Much easier to keep everything relatively tidy now everything has a home on a shelf behind me.  Although I still leave stuff out at the end of the day if I know I'm coming back to work on it again.

Last pic today is my cogs all ready to go! now I'm off to link this blog to Julia's at the Stamping Ground, and I will try to get round more desks than last week!

This is a close up of my die cut cogs - all embossed and ready to use on my next project - got some great old metal effects with a mix of Earth Tones and Verdigris embossing powders!

WOYWW 144 - and frustration with sticky stuff!

Happy WOYWW everyone, if you aren't sure what that means then click here to visit Julia's Stamping Ground for a peek into craft desks across the world!

I missed WOYWW last week, cos I was rather busy (see yesterday's post!) and didn't visit anyone, so will try to do better this week :-)

This is my desk - in my lovely new craft room [happy sigh]

I have everything I need in one place (on the shelves behind me that you can see in yesterday's post!), electrical sockets for my heat gun/glue gun etc, and s-p-a-c-e!! Of course, Deb's law of crafting states that 'you will expand to fill all available space' lol!

The frustration in the title of my post comes from the pile of dies you can see on the kitchen roll on my chair. I bought some lovely new cogs dies at Farnborough, and this is my first opportunity to try them out. They were stuck to the inside of the packaging with something akin to super glue, and the residue was stuck all over the dies, causing them in turn to stick to my Cuttlebug C plate. I had to use my craft knife to pry them off!  So they have been liberally bathed in Stick away, and rinsed in the sink, so that I can actually use the blasted things again!  Grrr......rant over!

And this is Barney investigating my new crafting space.....just cos he can!

Sorry for the cat butt in shot - he's not the best trained moggy and tends to flash everyone, witness his shameless sunbathing in the unseasonably warm weather this week.......and yes, he is fast asleep lol!!

Looking forward to seeing some of the goodies created by you lovely WOYWW'ers, probably take me a few days, but I will visit as many as I can before next week.

Also, if anyone is planning a visit to the NEC on Friday 23/3, come and say hi, I will be demo'ing on the WOW embossing stand all afternoon from 1pm and would love to meet some WOYWW'ers.

Thanks for stopping  by

Debs x

Craft Room at last!

I've been a bit absent from the blog for the past week or so, partly cos I've been busy with deadlines, and partly cos I've been converting one of my bedrooms into a Craft Room!  Yippee! :-)

I've worked from home for a long time, and had a bedroom as an office for years, but my crafting was always done in the dining room/kitchen/living room/floor etc etc! (As many of you will know from past pics on the blog :-)  I decided to tidy (ahem - use that word loosely) my office and get rid of all unnecessary paperwork/reference material etc. Vast quantities of shredding and about 6 wheelie bins of recycling later............................ ta daaaah!!!

I now have all of my crafting supplies in one room - huge improvement! And a dedicated desk where I can leave 'work in progress' and shut the door, no more working out how we are going to eat at the same table lol!  In the second pic you can just see the top shelf is full of files - 11 files of unmounted stamps to be precise [gulp!} and that doesn't include the 2 baskets of wooden stamps, the box of sentiment stamps, the box of Christmas stamps.....
But now my Cuttlebug is accessible without removing 3 layers of other stuff to get to it - hurrah! 

And this is the first project I made at my new desk using some of my new goodies.....

The card front is covered in dark red paper which is overstamped with dragonflies in dark orange ink - nice subtle effect. I clear embossed (WOW! clear gloss powder - of course!) the grasses and flowers (Artemio clear stamp set) at the bottom of the card, then used my gorgeous Inkylicious ink dusters with Big and Juicy 'Soothing Sunset', Distress Inks Wild Honey and Brushed Corduroy to shade the background.

I overstamped the grasses with the different shades of ink that I used on the backgound, and then used my new Inkylicious script stamp all over the background (it's only a small stamp, but you can repeat it over and over to create a whole page of script and it looks like a continuous stamp - magic!)

Finished the background by stamping a few dragonflies, then used a Marianne die to cut out a lacey frame, coloured the die with the same colours using my brushes, then stamped the verse on the die cut to finish, and mounted on the front of the card.  I haven't made anything 'just cos I wanted to' for a little while, and this gave me so much pleasure! Hope you like it, and sorry if I've rambled on a bit ;-)

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Butterfly stepper card

This is my DT project for the WOW! Feb colour challenge using fluorescent colours.  I wasn't too sure about the colours when I saw them in their jars - a bit brighter than my usual choices, but they are lovely when embossed, and I am a convert! also found I was able to emboss small panels and then punch shapes out of them without any cracking or flaking - brilliant! 

Went to Make it show at Farnborough last Friday, and spent way too much! Had a lot of fun though, and already started experimenting with my new stash. Strangely for me, didn't buy many stamps this time, but tons of card and paper, plus Flitter Glue (not tried that yet) embossing paste, punches and some fabulous dies.

Off now to get ready for this afternoons class

thanks for stopping by. Happy crafting!

Debs x

WOYWW 141 and the Craft Room Workout!

It has been a really busy week, and I couldn't believe it when I realised that the last time I blogged was a whole week ago! And here I am again, wondering where that week went lol!!  I think I've learned my lesson about scheduling classes so close together.  I have run 4 classes in the last week, and what with packing kits, sorting the toolkits after each one ready for the next, and finishing my samples for the NEC trade show, I am pooped! 


So, I thought I would share with you what I've spent the last 45 mins doing................

 BEFORE...... this is the Cuttlebug work station, aka the kitchen counter (can you tell???? lol!) 


and you can just see at the bottom right of the pic, a big carrier bag full of......... loo rolls.


I needed to flatten these, and a pile of kitchen roll tubes, ready for a future class where we will be making TP mini albums. For those who have never seen them, these are cute little mini scrapbooks/brag albums made from.............you guessed it..... loo roll inner tubes!


Now for the AFTER............

A whole carrier bag full reduced to a few square inches! All neat and ready to go. 


Now for that workout bit, it took 45 mins of manual labour on the Cuttlebug to achieve this, and it was hot work! Who needs Zumba classes when you have a Cuttlebug and a bag full of loo rolls???  Doesn't sound that great, does it!!!??

An now for something completely different.........................  this is the men's Valentine's card I made for the WOW! Embossing Powders design team blog. Random hearts and sentiments stamped all over the inner pop out section and embossed in Platinum, and the sparkly heart dangling in the aperture is embossed in 2 different colours, one on each side of the heart so you get a really cool effect as it rotates.

OK,  I am off to load up the car for tonight's class, and when I get back, or possibly tomorrow morning, I will scoot round as many desks as I can in the weekly snoopathon hosted over at the Stamping Ground


Thanks for stopping by


debs x

WOYWW 140 - where did that week go??

 Where on earth did the past week go ? the last few days have just flown by, and there just aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done!

This is my desk/dining room table today, stacked with leftover matchbox easel cards from last week, my Pro Marker colour chart, as yesterday I was working on samples for Saturday's class. The pile of samples for the class being buried under the big roll of paper on the right of the desk.  Said roll having been used as backdrop to try to improve my photos for my DT samples - I am definitely no David Bailey!

The eagle-eyed amongst you might spot the tester pot of paint sitting in a little white box in the middle of the table - I am in the process of painting a papier mache box ready for decorating, only had to move it from the kitchen cos it was in the way of that important work aid - the kettle!!

Oh, did I mention that whopping great box on the left??? Full of other boxes hopefully awaiting altering and decorating - otherwise known as the place boxes in our house get dumped lovingly placed awaiting a makeover!

I thought I would share with you some of my DT work for the WOW! Embossing team, on the theme of Valentine's Day, as it's so close!  These 2 were made using WOW! stamps and Embossing powders, and are gloriously girlie in red and pink :-)  There is a men's Valentine's card too, but I will save that for another day :-)

  

Happy WOYWW everyone, and if you're not sure what I'm blathering about,hop on over to the wonderful Julia's blog, where you can snoop into lots of crafty desks around the world

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Woyww 137 - The West Wing!

 Ok, so this is the current workdesk pic - chaos as always! I am in awe of those crafters who can stay tidy. I think I'm doing well if i can see any table top at all!!

Working clockwise from centre front, on my craft mat is a concertina'd paper strip ready to turn into a rosette, going left my rubbish pile - usually put this in a box lid as I go, but the box lid was full of other crap lol!!

Left of that a set of Sizzix alpha dies I was going to use on my project but changed my mind, and precariously balanced on that my I-phone!

then one of the cards from my DT project - using Papermania Portobello Rd kit to make some patriotic British cards!Then my pile of stash, various sticky things, a 2nd card for the project partially finished.

and finally...............the West Wing of the crafting mansion!! 

Formerly known as the kitchen, and now in use as a stamping, embossing and die cutting station.  And......I have hit on a great way of saving on the heating bills!

I put my washing in the washer/dryer on the drying cycle when I am working in the kitchen - keeps me toasty!  In fact, if I'm using the heat gun, can get positively tropical lol!!

For those of you who are wondering why on earth I would post pics of such a disaster zone, pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground, where she hosts a weekly blog hop of crafters desks and works in progress from around the world. Great fun, hugely addictive, and I only managed to visit bout 25 blogs last week, so will try to see more this week, but not all today!! Got a class tonight and I still have some work to do - yikes!

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

WOW! Embossing January Challenge!

So the first of our monthly Challenges is up and running! To be in with a chance of winning any 6 WOW! Embossing powders of your choice in a handy carry case, you need to check out the challenge details on the main WOW! blog here. 

The challenge is to create a project based on the theme of LOVE (well it is Valentine's Day in a few weeks lol!) and/or using the Colours above as your inspiration. You must use WOW! products on your project, post it on your blog, and then list it on Mr Linky's Magical Widget on the main WOW! blog. The Challenge closes on Jan 31, so jump on in! Do leave us a comment letting us know what you think of the Challenge, and the DT projects.

More DT projects coming soon, and I can't wait to see what ideas you crafty lot come up with!

Happy Crafting

Debs x

Love is in the air!

Beautiful sunny day here in the South of England, and I wanted to share my DT project for this week - a Valentine's card.

Yup, Easter eggs are being advertised on tv and it's Valentines day a month from today! Any ladies thinking of proposing, it's also a Leap year, so brush up on your proposal etiquette lol!

The card was made using WOW! stamp sets - With Love, Build a Butterly (so cute!), and Flowers background stamp and WOW! embossing powders in red glitz and pale gold.  You can see the rest of the DT's projects here

The ribbon band across the centre of the card was an experiment, I tried embossing on mirror card and it worked a treat! My advice would be use an anti-static pad on the mirror card before stamping.  WOW powders are all treated to be anti-static but mirror card holds finger prints etc so it is better to be safe than sorry (the voice of experience!!)

Thanks for stopping by

Debs xx

WOW! Design Team

Some of you will already know that I am on the DT for WOW Embossing Powders, and that I made a bunch of samples for the NEC show in November.  The DT is now up and running, and the blog will be updated soon and introduce you to the team and their designs during the course of this week.

Look out for some amazing inspiration, challenges and giveaways and check out the blogs of the rest of the DT from the side panel!

this is one of my designs exhibited at the NEC.............. more to follow!

 

thanks for stopping by!

Debs x

NEC visit, traffic jams and guilt!

If you read my earlier posts, you will know that I was not planning to go to the NEC, although I had some samples that were going to be on display.  I had a freebie pass, but not a free day.  Well, I had a last minute cancellation of a meeting on Friday morning, and had the whole day free, so thought to myself 'a-ha, serendipity! Off to the NEC for me!'

You would think that this would be a nice day out, free pass, goodies to drool over etc. I left home at 10.45, expecting to be there by 1.00 (usually 2 hours door to door) but actually parked up at the NEC at 3.30. Yep, nearly 5 hours in the car!  Teeth gnashing and wailing to no avail, there was a crash on the M42 and they closed the road for the air ambulance - and when I heard this after nearly 2 hours sat in the jam, I immediately felt bad that some poor soul had been so badly injured and all I was doing was 'off on a jolly'. Then the 'it could have been me if I was half an hour earlier' syndrome kicked in, and then guilt that I could be so selfish. Then later that night when I saw the terrible crash on the M5, I was so grateful that all that had happened to me was a traffic jam.

So, had about an hour and a half to rush round the NEC, indluding a stop at the WOW embossing powders stand, where my DT samples were displayed and here are some pics of my creations...

(still gives me a thrill to see my creations on display or in print :-)  Met some lovely people, didn't spend much (makes a change!) and got soaked in a torrential downpour - all in all a good day!


Thanks to the lovely people who have asked how Barney the kitty is doing, he's happy and healthy and the vet gave him a week off for good behaviour!  Back to the vet next week for a check up when hopefully he'll get the all clear.

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Poor kitty :-(

Not much crafting going on in the Willis household at the mo.  Poor kitty is still really sick, and has been at the pet hospital since Thurs.   Thursday afternoon was awful, as I went to take him to the vet for his daily check up and couldn't wake him up - nearly had a heart attack on the spot.  After 4 continuous days of vets visits they admitted him and found he had a blood clot in his bladder, poor thing.  He is recovering now and I hope they will let him come home in next day or two.

Had a demo at Hobbycraft on Sunday, but that's pretty much been it for past few days - too busy going to  and fro to vets, or worrying about my baby :-(

For those of you who asked about my samples at the NEC, I won't actually be going, but my samples should be on the WOW Embossing Powders stand. 

Here's a pic of me setting up for my Hobbycraft heat embossing demo, and on the front left of the pic you will see a sneaky peek of the twin of a tissue box that should be on the stand at the NEC - that's if my parcel of samples arrives in time! With all the vet visits, and my poor brother in law in hospital, it's been a pretty stressful week, and the samples only made it to the post on Friday - fingers crossed they make it in time!!

Hope you are all having a good week, and to paraphrase Bruce Forsyth....."Keeeeeeep Crafting!"

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

Bella Crafts - Distress Inks workshop Sat 17/9

We had a lovely time on Saturday morning, getting inky with Distress Inks! We scrunched, embossed, blended, bleached, masked, stamped and painted - whew!

We started with background paper techniques, these are some Christmassy ones (I couldn't resist!) The bottom sheet is taking the inkpad direct to paper to create a harlequin effect (seen in an earlier post) and the top sheet is scrunched, opened out then the inkpad lightly dragged across the surface, scrunched again and lightly drag a Versamark embossing pad over the new creases, then sprinkle with metallic powder and emboss - looks fab!

These two examples were made using masks, first dabbing the ink thru the mask, then inking the rest of the card, placing the mask over and spritzing, then lifting the water off with kitchen towel.

This makes a great background for overstamping, I particularly like the one on the bottom, the colours and masked areas work really well together.


OK, that's it for tonight, more crafty fun soon!

Embossed cards

 So I've been playing with ideas for embossing - and had fun with this one using a brayer and a Big n Juicy ink pad. the background is stamped with leaves using the Big n Juicy pad, and the main panel is glossy card stock stamped and embossed and then brayered.  I stamped & embossed a few extra leaves and cut them out to use as embellishments.



The 2 Christmas cards are an attempt to combine my love of distress inks with embossing! I think they turned out pretty good. I used Walnut stain and embossed the images with clear embossing powder, then shaded the edges with distress ink, and coloured Santa's hat with a red pro-marker for a spot of colour - what do you think?

  

happy crafting!

Deb x

Distress Inks Techniques class 310811

We had a full house for the class this week - everyone is back from holidays and raring to go!  We covered so much ground we ended up running over time but no-one wanted to go home, as everyone wanted to finish up their projects.

These are some of the papers and images we created. At the top of the pic is a scrunched, inked & embossed background paper. Below that we have 2 variations on stamped backgrounds, 1 using the Distress pads direct to paper to create a harlequin effect and the other stamped in 2 colours.

You might recognise the bleached snowman stamp from an earlier post! And finally, bottom right, we finished up with how to blend and use different layers to create depth and perspective in a scene.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the class, and went away with lots of new ideas ready to try them at home. We just ran out of time as I still had a couple of other techniques to show!  Always the way!

Today the sun is shining, and I am working on a project using heat embossing - why is it I always end up using heat on hot days????

Also, got some lovely craft pressies for my birthday last week - Hubby bought me some amazing Stampscapes stamps that I have been lusting after for some time :-) If you've never seen these stamps, check out the website Stampscapes - hopefully I will get a chance to play with them soon and then I will post some pics.

OK, off to emboss! Thanks for dropping by.

Deb x

WOYWW - 31/08/11

I don't know where this month has gone! I know that I was away for a few weeks, but it's September tomorrow - how did that happen??

It seems like my feet haven't touched ground since we got back, between demo's and design work, and so the blog has been a little quiet the past week or two.  Time to investigate some challenges!

IN the meantime, wanted to join back in with the WOYWW posts, and had a quick sneaky peek at some of the other posts at WOYWW HQ - some people have such tidy craft desks!  mine is my dining room table - which is pretty obvious cos I haven't cleared the place mats away yet!

I started sorting the kit for tonight's class - Distress inks - and on the left you can see my first attempt at one-stroke painting (or paint fusion, only I didn't use any stamps - decided to jump in with both feet and try it freehand)  Must say, the demo's I've seen made it look easier than I found it! Maybe I need better brushes or different paper/card!

Top of the pic is a set of water brushes ready to be filled with bleach, and then boxes of distress inks. To the right are some of the samples I will be taking with me.  And underneath all that are the place mats that give away the true purpose of my crafting space!!

Off to finish my sorting for tonight's class x Deb