WOYWW - Wk 200

Hello Everyone,

This post for What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday, of necessity, will have to short, sharp and to the point - because I am sooooooooooo late!!! And I won't even pretend that this is what my desk looks like now ...

... no, that's what it looked like late last night. But, you can be assured it hasn't improved much since. I was in the middle of altering that little heart-shaped box (smallest one of three - an Ikea find) to something pretty.

What you see are supplies used in the project. There's also a couple of painted canvases - well, I mixed up too much paint, it would have been a shame to waste it.

This morning, I persevered and here's the finished box:

After painting the box inside and out, I cut heart shapes from a dark blue Core'dinations cardstock and a Kanban embossed card in blue and silver and adhered these to the lid - see the first photo. The sides of the box have been stamped with VersaMark and embossed with Heat It Up silver powder. The turquoise rose trim (from stash)  has been attached using a hot glue gun - as has the flower and ribbon embellishment on the lid. The ribbon - which has been lingering in my stash for many months, is one of those that has a cord threaded through it - you pull the cord and, hey presto! ... you have a many-looped bow!

I feel and explanation for my tardiness is due, especially to Julia, our noted Head of Workdesks over on Stamping Ground. Well, I almost decided not to participate at all today. You see, it's just possible I may not be around for the next few days ... I've been called for Jury Service! Of course, it's just as possible that I may turn up at the court tomorrow morning and they might decide they don't need my services after all ... we shall see. However, it does mean that blog-hopping time may be severely limited so apologies in advance.

And apology follows apology. I'm sorry if I did not get around to visiting you last week ... family visits over Easter got in the way. I hope to make up for all this neglect over the next few weeks ... as soon as I get this jury thing out of the way :)

Happy WOYWW and happy crafting,

Altered Papier Mache Letter - A for Arihanna

Evening All,

I've been running around town trying to do a dozen administrative tasks today ... when our dear old friend, Roy, died suddenly just before Christmas, I found that as executor I had a ton of jobs to do and the paperwork is still ongoing. So after trailing round the banks and the post office, form filling and more form filling, with a wee trip to the Waterstones and Costa Coffee for a much needed latte, I am exhausted, stressed out and needing some restorative crafting time. But, before I do get down to the next project, I thought I'd show you what was hidden under the DP on my desk in yesterday's post.

I've finished decorating the papier mache letter for my grand-niece's nursery and, of course, it's pink! I distressed the letter by painting with coats of white gesso, fuchsia acrylic paint, smearing with petroleum jelly and a final coat of white paint which, after drying, was rubbed down with kitchen paper to reveal some of the pink undercoat.

There's a lot of silver embossing too. Because the letter is hollow it was not possible to get a good impression with stamps so I drew the flourish by hand with a VersaMark pen before heat embossing with silver powder. By being selective about which spots I chose to stamp I did manage to have bees randomly flying around the sides and among the tiny roses.

There's also a sprinkling of pink gems decorating the sides. The wooden letters were painted pink and then heat embossed with a couple of coats of clear embossing powder then one of pink glitter embossing powder.  Pearls, flowers and a butterfly complete the decoration.

I can't remember where I got this butterfly but it is rather gorgeous.

It's another very girly project and I do hope my niece likes it ... too early to tell whether little Arihanna likes it or not :))

Right, the EM has just called up to say Pointless is on so I'm off to watch it before starting my next project.

Hope you are all surviving the wind and the weather.

Happy Crafting,

Altered Canvas for a Birthday Girl

Evening All,

Back again, like I said I would be, with the canvas I made for my great-granddaughter's nursery, which is ... you've guessed ... pink!!!

This time I allowed myself to use some gems and pearls in the embellishing, reasoning that if it is going to be hanging on a wall, Rhian won't be able to chew it so the embellishments should be pretty safe. As you can see, I've used my favourite photograph again. I tried out my relatively new sewing-machine - I've only had it for about a year! - on paper for the first time ... with some practise I might get the stitching straight!!! The pink trim along the bottom was cut by hand out of some MME patterned paper.

After giving the canvas a couple of coats of white gesso, I rubbed around the edges with a pink ink pad. The flowers are either sprayed with glimmer mist, edged with stickles or VersaMark and pink glittery embossing powder. Similarly, the letters and the photo mat are edged with stickles - loadsa bling for a wee girl.

And pink!!! What is it with all this pink??? I think this grandma is going to have to introduce my granddaughter and great-granddaughter, not to mention my new grand-niece, to the rest of the rainbow someday soon :))

Materials used:
Base: 5" x 6.5" canvas & white gesso from The Works
Cardstock: Papermania Textured card, deep pink
DP: Pink Petticoat Vintage Rose Collection; MME Quite Contrary Summer Papers
Stamp: Penny Black, Birthday Girl - from Handy Hippo
Letters: Kraft Kits Stickers, Pink Alpha
Flowers: Prima; Wild Orchid Crafts; The Works
Glitters: Stickles, Fruit Punch; Cosmic Shimmer Mist, Angel Mist; WOW Sheena Embossing Powder, Magenta Twinkle
Tools: heat gun; hot glue gun; adhesives
Embellishments: pink heart-shaped gems and flat-backed pearls in two sizes, 3mm & 5mm from The Works; ribbon from stash

I'd like to say that I was moving on to something that was not pink next but it isn't to be ... I'm still finishing off the large letter A for Arihanna and, yes, her nursery is pink too!

Well, would you believe it, it's time for a cuppa again :) I had intended to watch the much publicised drama starring Anna Friel, scheduled for 9pm this evening, but disappointingly it's been postponed so I'll be back in the craft space after the tea-break ... I have a lot more embossing and glittering to do.

Happy Crafting everyone,

Altered Storage Drawers ... Suitable for Storing Brads

Hi Everyone,

Another horrible, rainy, blowy day here in the West of Scotland - in fact the weekend weather has been pretty poor ... just the kind of weather to keep me holed up in the craft space.  So what to do on ... I was looking for something to do with the piece of gorgeous paper left over from Jovial Poinsettia card - posted here - when I remembered this sad looking little storage drawer set.

It's a remnant from my working days and now that I'm retired it no longer has to look so utilitarian, especially as the little drawers are just the ideal size for storing brads in. I'd been meaning to do something with it since I'd seen a similar makeover in issue 53 of the Scrapbook Magazine which took my fancy. Here's the end result.

My favourite colours are green and red, my all time favourite flowers are poppies ... and this makeover has all of these in spades. I didn't cover the drawer fronts because the EM, always so practical, pointed out that I wouldn't see the contents so would have to label them anyway ... and that would mean I couldn't change the contents at a future date. How can you argue with such good logic :)

For those of you who would like to know how I went about transforming this wee drawer set into what I think is a thing of beauty here is what I did in photos.

Left photo shows the box and some of the materials I intended using, the remains of the Basic Grey Jovial Shopkeeper paper (there's a 6" square chunk missing, not seen because it's hidden under the box), some gorgeous new Marianne vintage lace from Handy Hippo ... note to Jules: you're to blame, girl :) ... and my much treasured MS edge punch.

Centre photo shows the paper, measured and cut to size - the two larger ones for top and bottom and the two smaller for the sides.  The two pieces to the front, edge punched, are the corner pieces. I inked all the paper edges, with that muddy green colour from the Noel Adirondack pad I have now grown attached to, and left them to dry before adhering them to the box.

Right photo shows the box after the paper had been adhered to the sides and left to set.

Left photo illustrates that I scored the edge pieces on so that I had a nice crisp edge.

Centre photo shows the inked pieces drying out.

Right photo shows the corner - I chose to use the reverse side of the paper uppermost here. Almost done :)

Here is the box with all the embellishments in place. A poinsettia & leaves left over from Friday's Christmas card - some WOC poppies left over from a Remembrance tag made last year, and a couple of roses made with the smallest Marianne die and the last of the paper, the lace trim, some green leaf trim and satin ribbon, again leftovers from other projects.

The EM is feeling a bit off-colour today but when he is up and about again he is going to attach the box to the craft space wall - it has wee slots ready to slot down onto screws - and it will be off the workdesk, thus leaving more space to work in, but within easy reach. In the meantime it is sitting here on the table, in front of the computer, for me to enjoy - just love those flowers :) I should have taken a piccie of the minuscule scraps of paper that are all that's left from that gorgeous sheet of DP - I'm not sure I'll be able to squeeze a snippet make out of them but you never know ;)

I'm now casting my beady eye around looking for the next thing I can alter in some way - I think I've caught the bug.

Hope you are all having a rather better day weatherwise than we are here and that your weekend is proving to be a pleasant one whatever you've been doing.

Happy crafting to all,