WOYWW 130

Here we are again with yet another week gone!  That means it's only one more week to DS1's birthday and 3 weeks (just over) to Christmas!

Here is my desk as of yesterday afternoon:

I had a little flurry of activity on Sunday and have finally started some Christmas cards!  All very simple at the moment and everything I used was done last year and are leftovers in my Christmas box - very useful when you are busy!  There are some new distress stains by my inks and some new stamps there on the left which I treated myself to from AFTH on black Friday (facing the wrong way sorry!) and the inka gold paint is there for me to make a decision about whether to email a complaint to them as its gone mouldy (went mouldy about 4 months ago but I keep forgetting about it) - other than that its all much of a muchness this week as I haven't had much time for crafting.

If you want to know why I am sharing my desk with the world then pop over to Julia's and join in the fun - be warned though it's very addictive and you will lose a few hours visiting other desks!

Thanks for looking - Worn out from Solihull

A new arrival

My DS1's headmaster's wife gave birth to a little boy on Monday - I already knew that they were expecting a boy so here is the card I made for them last week:

I havent got a baby boy stamp but I thought little Hamish with tractor would suffice and this card actually fits in with my challenge from last week (Time is the Tim tag which I will circle with 21st Nov as this was the date he was born, I - it's well inked!, M - two of bits of metal there and E - the handmade embellishment is this tag:

- as  you can see the baby's name is William!).

I had also got out my knitting needles and made him this:

haven't ever knitted grey for a baby before but this wool was just so lovely and also Mr C (the headteacher) has a thing for wearing pink ties so I thought they would coordinate nicely!  Didn't want to post the pictures earlier in the week as I have only gotten around to delivering them this morning!

Another exciting thing to happen this week is this:

yes its a first tooth! - finally!  Sorry for the poor quality of the picture I have tried to fiddle with it in Windows Photo Gallery but its not as good as Photoshop and I havent had time for that yet!  and just to prove that it was his tooth here is little envelope to the Tooth Fairy:

how cute is that!

Thanks for looking - Glad its Friday from Solihull!

WOYWW 129

It seems strange posting this picture as I took it yesterday afternoon and what I am working on is actually now finished and on the blog post below!  Oh well - at least the photo was taken in daylight and you get a gist of what I am/was doing:

today I will probably start my Christmas cards if I get time.  This is actually a very tidy desk for me and its even tidier now that my advent calendar is already proudly on display in my lounge (there is a really big reason for that which I am very excited about!) although I do now need to fill it with goodies - might just go for the easy option of chocolate as lego mini figures would be a tad expensive!

If you want to join in the fun and have a lovely peek around the world of desks out there in big wide world then pop over to Julias and join in all the fun!

Thanks for looking and have a great week :)

You know when....

you get an idea and it just has to be done regardless of other things going on around you?  Well I looked at Tim's blog last week and he had a link on there to thegentlemancrafter and I looked at the lovely robot on there and suddenly had the inspiration to use some of my configuration boxes into a snowman (how I got to a snowman from a robot I will never know - but get there I did) - so for the past 5 days whenever I have had a few spare minutes to sit in my craft room I been working on this:

this is the front of the advent - have made the brush from a paintbrush and raffia, the lantern is made from three of Tim's birdcages - honestly it was a lot trickier than it looks! the buttons and eyes are made from Tim's rosette dies and buttons (with stickles around the edges of the button rosettes), the mouth is made up from Tim's metal lock and spinners and the nose is an old metal disc with the word Wonderful on it.  The scarf was some fabulous crocheted material given to me by Chris at my crop and the robins I caved in and bought.

So, where is the advent calendar? I hear you ask, well if you turn the whole thing around you get this:

The Snowmen are from a sizzix long die and coloured with promarkers, I have doodled around the edges to define them and added pom poms here and there and used bling for their eyes and buttons.  The numbers are made from Tim's Upon a Time die and covered with glossy accents so they are nice and shiny.  The other bits decorating the boxes are from Tim's Festive Greenery die with some bits finished off with pearls and bling.  All the boxes, except the hat one, are painted white and inked with iced spruce - the hat is just painted black with one of Tim's Vintage Laces around the edge which is inked with Tea Dye.

Hope you like him! Now just need to go shopping and get all the bits and pieces to go in him!

Thanks for looking :) Oh and I won't be setting a fortnightly challenge today - sorry but too much going on at the moment! thanks for understanding.

Inspired!

Well so much for me putting out the papers on my desk this morning in order to spend some time this afternoon on a layout - I spent the morning look at 70 or so desks with WOYWW when I came across Tuire's blog and you see the little face with wings on the desk there?  Well it inspired me to make this:

what a lovely way to spend an hour!  Am really rather pleased with myself - now need to tidy up the table as DS2 has a friend over for tea - oh well it was great while it lasted!

Thanks for looking :)

WOYWW 128

Morning everyone - here is my desk on this very cold and dark morning:

think I might go back to photographing my desk on an Tuesday afternoon next time!  Promarkers are out as I have made a baby boy card to fit in with my fortnightly challenge - details here if you are interested in joining in!
Papers are out to hopefully inspire me to do another quick and simple layout - although these papers do all the work for you they are quite hard to use though - I am definately a sheet of plain cardstock and ink/paint it up girl at heart really!  Other than that its much the same as normal with my other new seasonal inks there (yes I caved in and treated myself to both sets - decided that I actually use my inks more than anything else so as I had spare money left over from my trip to Hobbycrafts at the NEC I thought I would spend it wisely on something useful!).  Have had a busy week mainly sewing and knitting and the only papercrafting I have done is the card you can just see peeking out on the right - will blog that when baby is born and I can complete the tag with the name!

If you would like to join in with the addictive Wednesday fun of showing your desk off to the world and then going and peeking at lots of others then pop over to Julias and join in the fun.  Not sure how many desks I can get round to this week as my Nan is in hospital but I am hoping to catch up with a few of you.

Thanks for looking :)

Lots going on

I am still here but have actually been too busy crafting to stop and blog! Bought some lovely wool on Friday night from Hobbycraft so I am busy knitting a lovely grey baby cardigan for an imminent arrival at school, my quilt is coming on well so there will pictures of that soon too and then at my art class I learnt how to do a portrait:

Am really pleased with this as its my first attempt at drawing a face.

Thanks for looking :)

Lets Think Creatively challenge no 9

It's Tuesday so,

My Grandma died 30 years ago today which has made me think about Time as it seems like just yesterday but also such a long time ago. 

So the challenge this fortnight (I am going to back to my old style of complicated challenges - I find I am much more creative then than when I set a simple challenge) is TIME with each letter being used to give me the theme - so we need to make a layout, card and/or tag that includes some kind of reference to time (T) on it, must use Ink (I), include some Metal (M) and have a handmade embellishment (E) on it.  If you fancy using an extra twist the item you create must be made in 30 minutes or less (bit difficult for me with the layout as they take me hours so I might skip that part then!).

I hope you will join in with me on my creative journey, if you do please leave me a link so I can come and have a look at your creations:



I have managed to get a quick tag done this morning to fit in with the last challenge (housework) - I wouldn't mind but I went to my weight watchers meeting (have lost 3lb! whoo hoo) and caught up with the housework so had some spare time so I got out the craft table and then got stuck despite having lots of ideas spinning around in my head! how annoying is that!  Anyway yesterday I put together some backgrounds on some tags using my new Autumn inks (Gathered Twigs, Ripe Persimmon and Seedless Preserves) and then stamped on them using bleach (it was a housework challenge remember!), so I already had one of these to base my tag on (I used salt on the last one on the right rather than bleach):

excuse the darkness I took the picture in my lounge which is quite dark!  and then I got out a couple of baskets in which I house a few bits of pieces of things I make but don't use immediately, bits of ribbon, die cuts, flowers - you get the picture!  so I decided to use only items from these baskets and made this:

the two brown birds and leaves are Prima Resistant Canvas pieces, the rest were just already prepared and just needed a touch of ink to tie in with the tag.

Thanks for looking :)

Busy Weekend

Spent the day yesterday (after DS1's tennis lesson) sorting out bedrooms and generally tidying up and clearing clutter, so today we are a little bit tidier and a little bit less cluttered! bin is full though!  Have had a lovely day today catching up with my Mandy Shaw quilt and organising the bindings and background squares - involved lots of ironing (could use this for my challenge couldn't I!), lots of cutting and getting busy on my sewing machine.  There is still a long way to go on the quilt but three of the applique squares are now completely finished and five just need a bit of tweeking - buttons and extra embroidery will all be done when the quilt is all put together - will be doing a bit more of this this week I think - it's been very relaxing!

Had a great day last Thursday at the NEC - bought a few bits and pieces but nothing major and actually came home with some pennies left over! A trip to Hobbycraft or Bramble Patch is on the cards I think!

Also did a fair bit of scrapping/crafting last week too - here I have two more items for my challenge, firstly the layout:

not much housework inspiration on there I hear you say but on the tag that is tucked away I crumpled and ironed it:

not very creative considering this is the same technique that I used on my tutorial but time wasn't really on my side last week!

Then I haven't managed to get a tag completed yet (still a day to go though!) but I have done these:

please excuse the background I don't know why I didn't put them on a sheet of paper first!  but they are little envelopes for when my children lose a tooth, we find it easier to put the tooth in an envelope and then the fairy finds it no problem!  These have again been crumpled, inked and ironed then I used some lovely Lavinia stamps and the two larger fairies are by Personal Impressions.  Also on all of these I put a cobweb - see I knew I would be able to get dusting in there somewhere!  And you see the little boy fairy on the first envelope well those little mushrooms either side of the big mushroom are actually my all time favourite stamp and I used to use it all the time - then I lost it!  can you imagine the disappointment - I never caved in and bought another one as it was actually £4 for such a tiny stamp - anyway it was lost for over a year and then we moved study/DS2's bedroom around last week I found it! Right there under the desk (I blame OH for knocking it off and not noticing!) - so then I put it in a safe place in DS2's bedroom as now all my stamps are housed downstairs and when I went to get it to use it - it was gone again! Honestly talk about having a life of it's own!  I didn't panic I just assumed I had moved it previously (as it was too high up for DS2 to interfere!), had it in my hand and then did another job (our work is never done is it!) and put it down somewhere - anyway yesterday I looked in a little basket full of some goodies I had put in to bring down to the craftroom (aka dining room) and it was in there! such a relief again - it is now in it's right place along with all my other Lavinia's.

Anyway enough of me waffling - I will finish here to give you all a breather!  A big hello to Susan - thanks for following me - hope I haven't waffled too much!

Thanks for looking and don't forget that there is still time to join in with my challenge of using housework as your inspiration - details are here.

Bye and thanks for looking!

Today

I am off to Hobbycrafts at the NEC - whoo hooo!