What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 463

Morning Everyone,

Missed last Wednesday - life and all that - so just had to join in with WOYWW this week even though my desk has seen precious little crafting. The postie has been though so here's a shot of what he brought.

After months of being very, very good - not spending a penny on stash but using up what I already have amassed over the last twenty or so years - I've broken down and been very, very bad! This little order from Craftelier is just the tip of a spending mountain. I think I'm in recovery now and that will be the last for another few months. It all started with me needing a new date stamp. The old one you can see top left stops at 2016 - you can tell I don't use one very often on my layouts! Well, of course, I ended up getting not just one but two new ones and then the stamp sets just fell into my basket and it would have been rude not to order them too.

And look what was enclosed with the order - so sweet!

It's my sister's 64th birthday today so, of course, I'm off to visit her to help her celebrate. That means I won't be around for a couple of hours but I will be back later to visit and comment on as many WOYWWers as possible.

Happy Crafting,

Sunday Snippets - Sharing a Guest Designer Make

Morning Everyone

I'm delighted to have been asked to guest on the Design Team over at Pixie's Crafty Workshop where our lovely playground head, Di, hosts a fortnightly challenge to us to use our snippets - of which, I have a mountain! If you popped over from there, thank you, and here's the card I made for this week.

This card was made using the Make A Splash die, stencil and stamp set that came free with this month’s Papercraft Essentials magazine, Issue 158. This design is loosely based on card that also appears in the magazine ... I've adapted it to use up some of the many snippets of spotty paper in my stash. I got a bit carried away so there's several more pairs of Wellies waiting to make a few more cards.

I used the following supplies to make it:

- one white card blanks, 5.25" x 4" used tent style

- the Wellingtons boots were stamped with a Memento Tuxedo Black ink pad on three different coloured spotty paper snippets and then they were fussy cut out.

- the three puddles and the raindrops were die-cut from snippets of aqua cardstock ... there’s a tiny die for the raindrops – great for the teensiest weensiest snippets.

- the greeting was stamped, again with the black ink pad, on a scrap of white cardstock, then trimmed down to size.

- the topper base is white cardstock trimmed to measure ¼" smaller all round than the card blank

- to assemble the topper I started by positioning and gluing the middle puddle and the green and pink boots to the topper. Next the left and right puddles were positioned in such a way that they just overlapped with the central puddle. The blue boots and the greeting were then attached with sticky fixers to give a bit of added dimension. Finally, I used some wet glue to position the raindrops fairly randomly.

- finally, the topper was adhered with sticky fixers to the card front.

Here's another card I made to use up a few more pairs of Wellies.

Here's what I used to make it:

- a 5" square card blank made from black cardstock cut to 10" x 5" and folded in half.

- a scrap of white cardstock trimmed to measure 4¾" x 4¼".

- Ranger's distress inks - Weathered Wood and Storm Sky - and Memento Tuxedo Black and London Fog ink pads

- as well as the Make a Splash set I used Designs By Ryn's Water Droplets (CM-T3) stamp.

- the background to the topper was made by brushing the piece of white cardstock with the two distress inks then stamping it with the Water Droplet in London Fog.

- two puddles and raindrops were die cut from a snippet of black card and the two greetings were stamped, using Tuxedo Black, on a scrap of white card.

- to assemble the topper I glued the two puddles at the bottom of the inked/stamped card. Next, the black polka dotted boots and the pink striped ones were glued down on top of the puddles. The red Wellies were then adhered using stick fixers, again to give a bit of dimension. The topper was then attached to the upper front of the card blank, leaving a ¼" margin around three sides and approximately ¾" at the bottom.

- finally the two greetings were trimmed to size, layered on to some leftover red polka dotted paper and then adhered to the card using sticky fixers.

The polka dot papers are leftovers from two fairly old 6" x 6" packs, Crafts Too Dots and Stripes Designer Pack and dated 2012 Raspberry Road Summer Goodness (the red one). The pink stripe is from a sheet of 12" x 12" Echo Park Dots & Stripes Bubblegum Large Dots. 

Here's a shot of the snippets I pulled out to use for these cards.

Needless to say, I've only used a fraction of them even though both cards are almost entirely made of scraps. I don't think there's much chance of me bottoming the scrap mountain any time soon!

Blue Skies above the Chimney Tops

Morning Everyone

I'm off out in a wee while - off to the Cake and Craft Club in Prestwick - but I thought I'd share what it's like outside here in Ayr today.

After all the snow and rain and general misery of yesterday this is such a welcome sight. How blue is that sky!!  Also, those chimneys tops are getting to be a rare sight in our neighbourhood. With open fires becoming less fashionable chimneys became redundant so they've been removed. Not there at the moment but these particular rooftops often have a flock of pigeons resting on them. Right now the flock is doing it's flypast - too fast, I'm afraid, for my camera to catch them but it is a spectacular sight too.

Hope you are all having as lovely a day wherever you are.

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday - Week 461

Afternoon WOYWWers and All,

It's snowing, fairly heavily actually, so what better day could I have to join in with Julia at the Stamping Ground and share what's on my desk today.

There's the beginnings of the first scrap page following our weekend away. Hope you all had a lovely time by the way - over-indulging on Easter eggs perhaps. Showing more self-discipline than is the norm, no chocolate passed my lips though I did have some rather delicious Pavlova for dessert on Sunday. Back to the desk - I've shoved the page out of the way to get to my keyboard ... would be impossible to write this post otherwise. It's now lying on top of that pile of patterned paper and other goodies - all very Disney themed - which I've opted to use for the second part of the Clear the Desk class I'm still working on.

One of the bonus's of driving halfway across the country on a weekend is there's plenty time to listen to audio books. Three to be exact.

First up was yet another Peter May.

This is the third in the Lewis Trilogy. I've still to read the first - got that well wrong! It was another good read and I enjoyed the mystery as it unfolded but I also enjoyed the descriptions of the islands of Lewis and Harris - very atmospheric.

This Is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay, a former hospital doctor, 'provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the NHS front line. Hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking by turns, these diaries are everything you wanted to know - and more than a few things you didn't - about life on and off the hospital ward. And yes, it may leave a scar.' As a one-time hospital medical secretary Dr Kay reminded me of why I eventually left to go to university ... the pressures of working in the NHS can never be exaggerated. 

This is the one I'm currently listening to and so far it's had me chuckling at the measures the staff of the Huddersfield Station Office employed to persuade their manager that what the station needed was a cat. They determined that a cat would be essential and have a vital job as 'Senior Pest Controller' . However, Felix is more than just an employee of TransPennine Express, she, yes Felix is female, has 'changed her colleagues' lives' for the better.

Only one funny today, but it's an apt one.

We returned from our trip to find the washing machine wasn't happy to start on our weekend laundry. It was just fine before we left so, as you can imagine, this came as a shock. Happily an engineer arrived early this morning and soon found the source of the problem - the pump. He replaced the faulty one, read disgustingly dirty for faulty, and gave us some advice on cleaning our machine ... we've only been using the wrong tablets for four years - and off he went leaving us with a fully functional machine once again. Sighing happily!

That's all from me today. I'm off to make a cuppa and a bit of lunch before settling down to check out what's on everyone's desks this week.

Have a lovely WOYWW and a wonderful week ahead.