WOYWW 164-What happened to the sunshine??

Morning lovely crafters and dear WOYWW friends. As predicted it's a whistle stop tour today. I very nearly didn't share my desk but changed my mind at the last minute as it'll be the last time I can join in for a few weeks. If you want to share your desk with the World then pop over to see the desk Headmistress, Julia. HERE. She does an amazing job of keeping us all in order. Thank you, Julia.

Be warned though, it's not a very exciting desk this morning.

Told you!!!! My toothbrush charging, a pile of Teacher thank you cards left over from the the mass production. DD has now finished Primary School and there were no tears or dramas at all. It was all a bit of an anti climax really. I think they are all just excited about big school, which is a huge relief. The rest is just stuff waiting to be put away.

My craft room is beginning to be taken over for holiday preparations. It's our only spare room so once I start getting things for holidays they end up in here and gradually take over. You can see we already have the most important things, sweets, coffee and sugar cubes, just need to find my kettle!!! DD is also getting her holiday reading sorted. Don't ask me what that toilet roll is doing there though. We definitely don't need that where we're going!! At least I hope not!!!

I'd just like to say a big thank you to Shoshi for this beautiful ATC Zentangle work of art she very kindly sent me last week. I love it. You are a true artist, Shoshi.

Before I go I just wanted to say, if you live anywhere south of Yorkshire in the UK, I really hope you make the most of the beautiful sunshine you have. I gnash my teeth every time I see the news with that fabulous blue sky in London. This is what we've had all week. It's very warm but also very cloudy so no sunbathing for us.

Enjoy the Olympics, it's getting exciting now. I'm looking forward to the Opening Ceremony and will no doubt end up watching all sorts of obscure sports I've never seen before, but that's what it's all about. London is looking amazing. We should be very proud.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week. Thank you so much for all your wonderful comments. I really do appreciate them and I'm sorry if I didn't manage to get round too many desk last week, time just ran out on me. I'll try to do better this week.

Stamping with H20's

Afternoon lovely crafters from another soggy Craft Garden. So much for Summer arriving today but it looks promising for the weekend, fingers crossed.

As promised, I’ve put together a tutorial for stamping with your little sparkly pots of H20’s. I know when I first bought these all I did was use them for colouring images but now I’ve had a chance to revisit them and play properly there is so much more you can do.

Stamping gives a lovely soft watercolour effect but with the mica shine. If you use solid stamps then all you need to do is stamp and go... easy. But if you want to play more, as the paints are water based you can use an outline stamp and then pull the colour in as you would with distress inks. You can also stamp with the paints, dry and then spray with water to get a background for over stamping with another medium. I will try to cover it all.

 

First of all you need to spray the paints liberally with water and then go off and make a cuppa while they activate. A good 5 minutes is about right.

Paint your stamp with a paintbrush. If the paint is still a bit dry add a tiny bit of water to your brush. You’ll see when you stamp it whether you’ve got it right. Don’t panic if you’re not happy.  Just reapply and re stamp. A layered look is what you want.  

You can spray your painted stamp with water to get a more watery image but make sure you spray holding the stamp upright so as not to over wet. You’ll be amazed how many impressions you can get from one paint application.

For the Wisteria flower I allowed the green leaves to dry and then repeated the above process with the purple paint.

Why not try adding more than one colour to a stamp, that looks lovely.

Alternatively, paint up a stamp and randomly stamp all over a large piece of card, spraying with water if the stamp starts to dry. Then spray the card with more water to allow the stamping to run. Dry and you have a background. If you use the colours on  your main project  you have instant matching backing paper.

Lastly.  try an outline stamp.

Once it’s dry you can pull the colour in with a fine detail brush and some water.

Again, don’t waste the paint on your stamp, just stamp onto some spare card and keep spraying the stamp with water. I covered a whole piece of A4.

I hope you’ve found this helpful. Just have a play. You’ll always end up with something different. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend. 

Happy Crafting.

WOYWW 163

Morning lovely Crafters and dear WOYWW friends. Another Wednesday rolls by and it'll be the last opportunity to sit here with a leisurely cuppa and have a potter around the desks on a Wednesday morning for a while since the schools break up this week here in Yorkshire. Next week, it'll be a mad posting and a quick whizz round the desks late into the night as demands on my time will be made by a practicing teenager!!!!

I'm really going to make the most of this week so here's my desk this morning.

As it had to be totally cleared and cleaned in honour of a cake last week I thought I'd take the opportunity to have a really good sort out and tidy up but it's taken longer than I thought and there is still lots to do.

The view the other way.

I found a box of cards I made many moons ago and have binned many of them to avoid future embarrassment but the pile in the front there have a chance of being revamped when I've got time.

I think I need to find some better ribbon storage too.

They are beginning to take over!!!!

If you want to share the delights of your desk with the world then you need to pop over to see the Desk Headmistress, Julia, HERE.

And lastly, I know you've been patient, so here it is. That Cake!!!!!!

The bottom two tiers are chocolate sponge covered in chocolate buttercream, a nightmare to work with, it gets everywhere and you have to clean up every last crumb. The top two are styrofoam, what a dream to cover. The tiers have alternate pink and orange piping around the base of each and the flowers are all fabric but I loved those huge pink gerbras.

So what do you think?  I liked it in the end but am still not sure about the lime green ribbon. If it'd been mine and I wanted that colour I'd have wrapped it around the base of each cake above the piping. Still my lady was very happy with it and said it was exactly what she had envisaged so that's what counts.

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely Wednesday whatever you are up to. I'll be back later in the week with the H20 stamping tutorial. Thank you to all those who asked for one.

Another Sheena Sneaky Peek

Morning lovely crafters on yet another wet morning. I have heard that we are promised a sunny and warm Friday though, so at least that's something to look forward too. I will clear my diary in readiness!!!!

I thought I'd just pop by this morning to share a couple more of the samples I've made using Sheena's new stamps. The first was another from the grasses plate stamped with H20's again. I've been asked how you do this on a few occasions so if you'd like me to do a tutorial just leave me a comment and I'll see what I can come up with. It's a very easy but really effective technique and a great use for those poor neglected pots we all have.

This second one is from the Deer plate and I love the tree branches and owl. The background is sprayed distressed inks and the stamps have been black embossed.

It's been a hectic weekend in The Craft Garden as we approach the last week of DD's Primary school life. There are parties, a talent show, a drama production, a leavers assembly and a presentation of their Northumberland week to look forward too and I'm expecting many tears!!!

It's the party tonight so I've been making buns using up all that bright icing left from the Wedding cake last week and helping to make a fancy dress costume. She wanted to be the Olympic mascot, Wenlock. I have to admit having to google it but here's what we came up with!!

Thanks for stopping by and have a good week. I'll be back on Wednesday with some pics of that Wedding cake!!

  

A Sneaky Peek of Sheena's New Silhouette Stamps

Afternoon lovely crafters.  After two days of lovely sunshine we have returned to our usual wet Friday. What is it about Fridays that the weather doesn't like??

It's all go in the Craft Garden today. One very bright cake has gone off with a happy and delighted bride to be, phew!!!!!! It's always nerve wracking on the day that it is collected. I always have fears of them hating it or dropping it on the way to the car!!!! Thankfully, it left here all in one piece.

I am also busy busy with DT work playing with Sheena's new silhouette stamps. The last set sold out in record time and I have a feeling these are going to be as popular.

If you want to catch them they are being launched on Wednesday 18th July at 8am on Create and Craft and then 12 Noon on Ideal World.

To wet your appetite here is one of the cards I've finished.

The background was some card I'd used to mop up all the over spray on my craft mat after using some Radiant Rains. Just goes to show you shouldn't waste a drop. There are lots of lovely grasses on this set along with some gorgeous quotes and I just black embossed them and kept it simple.

Right, must get back to it so thanks for stopping by and have a lovely weekend whatever you are up to.

WOYWW 162

Morning lovely Crafters and dear WOYWW friends. Another Wednesday whizzes round which means it's my favourite time of the week. All the fun of the desks and meeting lots of new friends, can't get much better than that. If you want to join in then pop over to see the Desk Headmistress, Julia. HERE.

I took this photo of my desk yesterday morning.

Yes I know that's cheating but it's completely clear, washed and disinfected this morning and totally boring in readiness for my marathon cake decorating session which I'm going to start as soon as I've posted here and you don't want to see just an expanse of greyness, there's enough of that just looking out of the window.

So yesterday's desk is what you get!!!! I was asked to make a Golden Wedding card last week and the design was left completely up to me so I made one with a big golden flower but then decided I'd better make another so my friend had a choice. What I like is not always what someone else might like so this is what I'm doing.

You might be able to spot a pussy cat peeping out from my mess, which actually belongs to an old worktop glass protector.  Having been treated to a posh crafty glass mat last Christmas which I love and which spends it life on my dining table, I've discovered that this old mat works really well in my craft room.

So here's the finished card I was working on

and the original one.

I wonder which she'll choose.

Right, I'd better not spends ages chatting on here, I've a Wedding cake to decorate and mountains of white sugar paste to turn bright pink and bright orange. Bet you won't want to see the state of my hands after that, so forgive me if I don't visit today but I will catch up later in the week and I promise I'll share some pics of the cake with you next Wednesday.

Thanks for stopping by and for all the lovely comments you leave, I so appreciate them.

Have a great Crafty Wednesday.

Rain Rain Go Away

Evening lovely Crafters. I hope you are all staying dry in this monsoon weather. I think I grew webbed feet yesterday, they never seemed to get dry!!! On a serious note I do hope none of you are suffering flooding. I can't imagine what it must be like to watch water run through your house, the pictures on the news in the South West are awful. My thoughts are with you all.

Yesterday morning I had a real thrill when Sir Steve Redgrave visited DD's Primary school (he could've rowed there is was so wet) and the Parents were invited along to the assembly he gave. What a nice man he is and was genuinely interested in answering the children's questions. They all got a signed class photo of him although most of them had to google him prior to his visit to find out who he was. I think the adults were definitely the most impressed!!

On a crafty note, I'm busy with DT work and making birthday presents...and wedding cakes... at the minute so don't have a lot to share but I know I didn't show you many of my last lot of samples for Sheena and those stamps were a real delight to work with so I thought I'd share a couple more.

These are both stamped with twinkling H20's and I used the beautiful Wisteria stamp.

I glittered this one when the paint had dried.

And the background for this was made with other stamps from the same plate just randomly stamped to make a collage.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a lovely Sunday whatever you are up too. We shall be sharing the TV, firstly for the Grand Prix and then to cheer on one Mr Murray!!!!

WOYWW 161

Morning lovely Crafters and dear WOYWW friends. Here we are again on another wet Wednesday during a typical British Summer. What I can't understand is why, when it's wet and dismal, should my hayfever be worse than ever this year, it doesn't seem right somehow.

Anyway, in between sneezes and itchy eyes it's time for another lovely snoop at everyone's desk again. If you want to join in all the fun of WOYWW then pop over to see our Desk Headmistress, Julia, HERE.

I took these photos of my desk yesterday afternoon as I knew it wouldn't change before today.

I'm in the middle of creating a flower arrangement for a Wedding cake I'm making next week. The flowers asked for are so large I've had to buy artificial ones this time, no sugarpaste cutters would be big enough. The colour scheme is pink and tangerine with lime green ribbon!!! The first shot is when I'm wiring up my flowers to match a picture of one the table decorations.

And this was was when I suddenly remembered she'd asked for white feathers to to included, good job I remembered. This cake has changed so many times over it's creation I'm just keeping everything crossed that my lady likes it and it's what she's envisaged. I have no picture to work from, which is how I normal work, just lots of scribbled notes as her ideas changed so it's a bit nerve wracking.

On a calmer note, I nipped outside yesterday in a brief burst of sunshine and took some photos of my soggy garden and thought you might like to share one.

I'm going out to lunch with a dear blogging friend today who I haven't seen for a few months. We have lots of crafty chat to catch up with, so but I'm off to do a bit of desk hopping before I go.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Crafting.