It's Wednesday!

Well this is what my dining room table looks like this morning!

Those black keys are big heavy metal ones - a bargain at £2.99 from Homebase and yes you spy a new sizzix alpha, tissue tape, tiny attacher and Magnolia magazine there (thought I deserved a little treat!).  The orange box now houses all my distress inks - I made it yesterday - the piece on the top will actually be attached on like a lid so that I can transport them easily to and from a crop etc as they kept falling out of my Whittards tea box!  At the back you can spy the Bind It All (used to make the aforementioned box), a bag of Christmas cards I am working on (all the same design as the ones I am making in my November workshops) and the little PaperArtsy house which I am hoping to work on a bit more today.  Morag came round to scrap for while last night hence me playing at the table and leaving it like this just in case I do get chance to play today! but as both children are going to my Mom and Dads and OH is working from home I might just cave in and do some housework!!  We shall see!!

So who is going to Hobbycrafts at the NEC next week then?  I am very excited (as always!) to be going to shop on the Thursday but I found out yesterday that I will also be helping out on the Crafty Devils stand demonstrating the Big Shot so if you are visiting on the Saturday and/or Sunday come along and say hello!  Hopefully I might get to meet a few of you at last!

I managed to get around to 103 desks last week - here's hoping that I do at least the same amount this week too!  Have a fab week everyone.

Thanks for looking and if you want to join in with the noseying around of workspaces pop over to Julias.

Pumpkin's Done!

edited to add the random number generated for my blog candy was 9 who is Morti - congratulations!!!! 
Finally......

This has been weeks in the making!  First painted bright orange, then colour washed, then glimmered, then stamped with spider/halloween stamps.  I took this to the crop on Sunday to finish off as I had precut, embossed and inked all of the leaves (using a new Nestability Leaf die set!) but then remembered that I had a Tim Holtz mask of a spiders web so, of course, that then had to be used, so home it came still unfinished!  When I opened the mask I realised that you are meant to spray black (or whatever colour you want) through the mask to create a cobweb the colour of your paper, with the black being the background to the cobweb.  This meant that using it on the pumpkin would make it an orange cobweb with a black splodge surrounding it which clearly wouldn't work, so as I couldn't be doing with using the mask negative (far too many small fiddly pieces) I just held the main web mask in place (it wouldn't stick to the pumpkin) and lightly put on a slighter darker orange outline, giving me a pumpkin orange cobweb (hope this all makes sense as, after all this faffing, you can't really see the masked webs on the photo!).  Pumpkin is then just finished off with a tag (stamps borrowed from Morag so not sure of the make), painted green stem, the teeth were painted with a Pearl dabber and then I added two white cobwebs (these were a pain as I had to sew three pieces of the netting together).  This is then finished off with two Quickutz spiders with bling for eyes.

Here is a close up of the small cobweb:

Am not sure whether I like those tendrilly bits or not so these havent been stuck down just carefully placed!  Sorry for poor quality of photos but my desk sheet is smaller than the pumpkin!  The pumpkin will now have pride of place in my porch.

Thanks for looking :)

WOYWW 72

Sorry I didn't join in the fun and games last week - knew I would be too busy to visit desks so took a week off - but I so did miss you guys!  Hopefully this week I can get around to most of you - here's hoping!

Still not much happening on my desk as I have been scrapping either at my crop or dining room table and also sewing - as you can see from the picture I have finished the fabulous Witches Britches bag!!

Have retaken this picture so that you can actually see the proper colours of the bag!  If you want to join in the fun pop over to Julias.  Also I am giving away some blog candy on the post below - please pop a comment on that post (the comments are at the top of the post) if you would like a chance to win it.  Will be round to visit you soon....

Thanks for looking :)

Blog Candy

First of all a big thank you to Gez and Lena for following me - welcome aboard!  Not much to show for myself this week as I have been busy working on some projects but they are all still works in progress - so just to show that I am still here (as I haven't joined in WOYWW this week either as I know I won't have time to pop by many desks and my desk is - erm - well just covered in the same WIP's that it has been for the past couple of weeks!) - so I thought I would give away some blog candy.

If you would like to win this - it's a pack of Prima Papillon Butterflies (#543839) then please leave me a comment at the top of this post - I will then randomly pick the winner on Friday 22nd October.

Thanks for looking :)

WOYWW 70

Hello everyone!  I am here again to show off my desk for the WOYWW travels - if you want to join in the fun pop over to Julia's and play along with us (I must warn you though it's very addictive!).  I managed about 70 desks last week - thought I would manage more but then I did spend two full days at Artisan - had a fabulous time (see piccy below) and would just like to say another big hello to everyone I met there on the day.  I did seven classes and enjoyed every single one of them - I came home all inspired but then we threw a little party for Benjamin on the evening (he is 6 next week) so couldn't get crafting until Sunday - when it poured down so I just had to stay in really didn't I!  I did manage a bit of crafting - mainly painting (see other picture below) but I was also reading a really good book so spent a few hours finishing that off too.  All in all a rather fun packed weekend!

Here are the goodies I treated myself to at Artisan (I so wasn't going to spend any money but then we all knew that that wouldn't last really didn't we!!)

Those three packs of stamps at the front only cost £3.55 each!  bargain - just had to have them, got some more metal and the tools, some purple texture paint, some inca gold paint and some precious metal colour from Paperartsy - not used the precious metal colour yet but Morag has some so I thought I ought to get some too - don't want to miss out do I!  That little birdcage is just the cutest little thing - can't wait to make it up and I also got some Deko Ice and a metallic alcohol ink from the Altered Element.  Mushroom and Sewing stamps just couldn't be walked passed without a squeal of delight and a quick purchase - the only thing I have used out of all this at the moment is the purple paint (got up a 5.15am on Sunday morning to play with that!) and the inca gold - fabulous stuff.

And here is what is on my proper workdesk this fine day:

The pirate ship has been repainted as I didnt like it's original colour, the suitcases have finally been painted too!!  obviously they haven't been finished but you can't have everything!  will be changing the straps on the blue one it's just all a bit experimental at the moment but the inca gold paint is on the black case and I think that that will go on the blue one too - just need to tone down the blue first.  Those cute little witches boots have just been sewn up this morning (today being Tuesday), they are made out of calico and I am just waiting for them to dry and then will put another coat on them and then tomorrow (being Wednesday) should hopefully finish the cutest little handbag you have ever seen!  Will post pictures later this week but this is going to be my "October" bag all ready for Halloween.

Thanks for looking - am off to spy on every else's desks now!  Oh and I am no further forward with the house or the mail box just yet but then you didn't really think that I would be did you???

I've won an award

Thank you so much Ohhh Snap for this One Lovely Blog award



The conditions of me receiving this is to pass the award onto 15 other lovely blogs.  At first I thought this would be a real challenge as most of the blogs I follow I don't really know the authors personally, however, last Thursday morning, I had been visiting a lot of blogs via Julia's WOYWW and have realised that since following this for about 12 weeks now I have made lots of new friends.  These are people who I haven't yet met but feel that I know (in an online way), and not only that but I also have a wealth of fabulous blogs to choose from - as it came to crunch time and typing up this list I found that I actually had far more than 15 (in fact nearer double!!!).  So, without further ado, here are a few of the people who not only inspire me with their lovely blogs but are people that I now consider my friends (albeit virtual ones!) and I would like to pass this award onto them - the same conditions apply though and to accept the award you need to pass it on to 15 other lovely blogs too!

So, in no particular order:

Chrissie - check out the tutorials and her wonderful stepper cards
Elizabeth - fabulous tutorials - check out the rusting technique one
Gez - brilliant art journals here
Helen - check out her fabulous tags
Helen S - go see her altered items
Joey - check out her cards
Linda - great tags and she's met Tim too you know!
Mary Anne - lots of yummy projects here
Mummylade - lovely cards
Neet - check out her domino book!
Pam - look for the cupcakes!
Sarah - fabulous bling and glittered creations
Sarah - lots of lovely ATCs
She - Great grunge
Spyder - check out her fabulous free digi's

I have just spent the last two days having a wonderful time at Artisan - did loads of classes (seven in all) and am very inspired and have a refound love for my paints now, hopefully today I will spend some time in my craftroom as the weather is rubbish here - will post more on Artisan later.  Thanks for looking :)