WOYWW-another week past!

How did Wednesday come around so fast lol. As I sit at my glorious window in my bedroom/work area the sun is shining, yesterday was monsoon weather, although nothing compared to these poor people awaiting Issac!

This picture wasn't taken today, but looks similar at the moment....well until the next torrential shower comes along!

I've been sorting out my craft stuff over last few weeks and got these brilliant shallow drawers, a four drawer and two threes, I managed to sort out most of my stamps in these now instead of being crammed into large plastic boxes on a large storage unit. I think I need more :)

At the moment I'm doodling a lot in my art journal, this is only work in progress and there are areas I'm not happy with, also I've discovered that the journal I'm using is not great for any work with alcohol pens as they bleed right through to page before and after, so I have to watch that.

I have actually loaded this upside down but it doesn't matter. :)

Thanks for looking, I'll try and get around as many blots as I can. Happy WOYWW all. X

TIO - its art for art sake!!!

Another great recipe over at Dragons Dream blog we had to design a tag this week with the following: a handmade background, interesting character(s) and a quirky twist, this was SO. Up my street, although I have to say most of the stamped tag challenges are, I love this blog and the lovely ladies alway have fab, quirky ideas.

Anyway...this is my entry this week and I have to say I really like it.

Usual staring point of Dylusions, stamped around the edge with Indiogblu cogs stamp, I used various Paperartsy stamps and a clock stamp and mixed it up.

Thanks for looking, and don't forget to pop over to my lovely friends at the house of bears for mother great challenge, literacy based, great fun. Press the furry button on the sidebar to join the fun.

Doodleoodleoodling!

I LOVED to doodle years ago, but never really thought anything off it, I just sat while chatting on the phone or watching tv and doodled, all of it ended up in the fire, as it was just doodling!

Now I tried to get back into it on several occasions, and it just didn't happen as freely as it used to, so I went onto Amazon and downloaded to my kindle and kindle app on Playbook Doodles Unleashed by Traci Bautista, she gave me hints and tips, jump words etc to get going again and this is what I produced, actually it's the third doodle I did the other two were on scrap paper I shall save for another project.

Anyway, black fine. Gel pen, black calligraphy pen and a red watercolour pencil were used to create hhis, I actually remembered to stop and take photos along the way.!

Thank you for looking and all your lovely comments, it means a lot. Xx
Cath

The bears 2nd challenge

This is my entry for the Bears 2nd challenge, the recipe was: Freedom (the lavender fields), Music (the flying images) and celebrate, the quote 'Enjoy the Moments that make you smile '

Loving these challenges, thank you bears.

Well this started off well, I decided to make a background of green grass, blue sky and yellow shimmering sun, then I created the lavender fields with the edge of an old plastic card, and dipping the end of a paintbrush in the grape ink.

I then added the musical stamps and masked them and stamped with wings (still going well), then I cut out a die cut of music and added stamped wings, edged with purple marker. THEN I stamped a phrase on bottom and DISASTER!  It went squint! Aggggg.

Never mind, not much I can do now.

Thank you for looking.

WOYWW. 22nd August

Well, I am cheating slightly, as it is only Tuesday as I write this, but i think I may not be around much tomorrow. My work desk this week has a tag I'm working on for my friends at The House of Bears challenge, pop over and have a look, they have one challenge a month, and is literary based, very good fun.

http://stamping-ground.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/whats-on-your-workdesk-wednesday-168.html  Hmmm not sure what happened to my link, but anyway, pop over to Julias blog for a spot of workdesk snooping, see what other people are working on at the moment and what scrummy stash they have. Very addictive though, be warned!

In the top corner is the latest page entries in my journal and a tin of hairspray (which also doubles as a sealer for my chalks!)...we'll my desk doubles as a dressing table on work days :). Top right has lots of cut outs from magazines, words and pictures for future use, the box in the middle is a stunning bracelet my lovely hubby bought me as a suprise pressie today, gorgeous free stamps from a magazine than a special friend bought me, a glove that I always forget to wear until after my fingers covered ink ink and paint and wire snippets :)

I'm very nearly done the tag, with the lavender fields, but shall post that in a separate post. 

Very varied desk today, thanks for looking :) please pop by again x

Flower power

I adore purple and pink, so obviously this page is going to be one of my favourites. I tried very hard NOT to write anything on this Page, or having any words at all. Was a very tricky thing to do, I feel the need to write something or include some sort of word/words in most work I do.

This is it at just the background stage, using Dylusions ink, MM stamps for ghosting and inking. Jelly roll pens for doodling bits.

I stamped flowers onto an old book and cut out. I drew leaves on book too and cut out. Coloured flowers using Pro markers.

The finished pages...look!  No words! :)

Thanks for looking.

How to make a stunning make up model angry!

You cut her up and stick her back together all wonky! I did another double pages today and I hate it! The background I did a week or so back and I really liked it, one side is fine the other is hideous so I will start again! I look at other blots, flicker etc and think wow that's stunning, then I produce something I'm not happy with. I think I need to sit back and do my challenge tag over at The House Bears where the challenge is based on books,so I think the thinking cap will be well and truly on!
Here is the offending Page...

I have since altered this slightly, not much, but happier with it now. Will need to wait until tomorrow to photograph it again though. 

Ok, so it doesn't look that different in the photo but it does actually look better in real life.

I am back at work now after having the summer off (I can't complain at that ) , so blogging and crafting will, yet again, become sporadic.

Here's hoping tomorrow is a more creatively successful day.

Olympic blues!

Well, that's it over then. Suffering serious Olympic blues now, feels weird to have watched it for so long (as in from when we got up until we went to bed every day) we didn't want to miss a thing, and now....nothing. Had looked at getting Paralympic tickets, which were reasonable, but I'm afraid staying so far up north that the travel would bankrupt us before we left, so alas we will make do with it on the tv. I do hope they get good coverage for that too.

Anyway, yet another tag :) I made last night while waiting on the closing ceremony to begin. Nothing startling, but just my wee bit of Olympic patriotism.

Thanks for looking.

A Nightmare...

Well, I can't say this is my favorite tag ever lol but I gave it a go. This is for this week's challenge over at Dragons Dream, the theme this week was A Nightmare and the recipe was: a murder of crows, a blue moon and a chill wind.

Panic to start with as I have nothing crow related at all, and how the heck do you create a chill wind, in this department I failed miserably! Anyway, I got ink for my printer  and printed off a few images and ended up with this. I went very literally with 'the murder of crows' (I've just go to hope I'm not offending anyone) as you can see, blue moon, well that speaks for itself doesn't it, although I had planned doing something with the song but had no idea what, so dropped that idea, I only wish it was as easy to drop the song from my head! The chill wind? A bit of a cop out with small orange clouds drifting across the sky.

 NOW! I didn't think his through too well! I start back to work in the school tomorrow after a glorious five weeks off...but my fingers now look like this! Ooops!

Thank you for taking the time to stop by my blog, it is very much appreciated. X

WOYWW 8th August

Well I've had quite a week, got a new delivery of Dylusions inks and after seeing how organised  everyone is over at Stamping-ground blog, showing 'whats on your workdesk wednesday ' I decided to try and organise myself more. I retrieved this unit that I was puting to charity shop but decided to hang onto it for a bit just in case. I am glad I did as it has now lifted all the inks and small amount of ink pads off my workspaces onto the wall.

So now I have a slightly easier to access workstation. I've been busy on my art journal, producing pages that I love and pages that I'm not so keen on, but then that's art for ya!

Spent the afternoon blog browsing and WOW craft work area envy on so many of the blots on WOYWW. Loving looking, but don't think I have time to get round them all. Just plucking a name outta the air and look, drool over the stash, envy the work area and swoon over the work. Such fun seeing what everyone else is working on each week.

Art Journal - I couldn't aspire...

A journal entry about people who don't imitate anything, produce nothing, the lhs is a representation of someone not so glamorous trying to imitate Marylin Monroe, and giving it a dammed good shot, the rhs is the quote from Salvador Dali.

Turquoise and white paint, Dylusions bubblegum pink ink, old book Page, music notes and base clef dies stencilled through. Cut outs from magazines.

Thanks for looking.

I hate my own writing, but think, most probably most people do.

Art Journal, 'Dont worry?

I created the background to this yesterday having no idea whatsoever what I was going to do with it... Then I decided on the safe option and produced this. Love the background, but the actual pages I feel, are a let down. I seen a Page somewhere about the person worrying...I think that should be one of my next pages as I worry for Britain! LOL at THIS quote telling me not to worry!!

At the same time I did this tag for The Stampman Challenge Celebrations.

Dylusions dies, handmade stencil, nestabilities, Marianne Design leaves and English roses dies, swirl stamp, lady stamp.

Creating my own stencils

Having spent all my money on new inks I couldn't afford to splash out on stencils too, well most of the ones I liked we out of stock anyway! So I decided to make my own. I took some plain, write on transparency and a sharpie pen, and copied the design from my small cutting mat, I put a line through each square I had to cut out so I'd not cut the wrong one.

I did it quite roughly as I like the uneven messy look.

Then I sprayed it and used the positive and negative image. Remember to cut on the INSIDE of the lines so it doesn't all fall apart. This was just a trial, so I'm hoping to do several more that I can mess about with.

This one I made with my MM hole punch.

Thanks for looking :)

Creating my art journal.

Since I started this yesterday, I haven't been able to stop playing with it, adding bits hear and there, more doodles, extra ink and was even keeping me awake last night thinking about it lol. The cover is the same(ish) as in my first post, but since then I've done a couple of double pages inside. First off is the inside pages, painted pages of an old book in a yellow then orange, then sprayed my tabby new Dylusions inks in cut grass and postbox red. Inked a 'time' background stamp in London fog and stamped lightly (I know, you can hardly see it). Then I drew a heart on another Page, sprayed it red and cut it out stamping 'adore' and drawing the 'J'. Then couple of rub ons and doodling.

Again here its inks, Dylusions and alcohol inks around outside, stamped in black are cogs from Indiogblu, and various stamps I've had for years (paperartsy I think but not sure) , more doodling and glossy accents with micro beads follow the Page through.

Thanks for looking.

WOYWW

Well first time entering this. I am always shocked at how bad my desk actually is, I have no idea how I work in this, sometimes I have no room whatsoever to actually work on. I was however heartened to see many desks like my own :)

I have been working on several things, a challenge from my friends over at The House of Bears, the dragon-dragonsdream.blogspot Alice challenge and today I am starting my journey in Art Journalling.

Here's what's on my work desk.

Art Journalling.

Thanks to my friends over at The House of Bears , I have been inspired to start Art Journalling. Having been a fan of circle journals for a long time, I have boxes full of them and couldn't see why art Journalling would be so different, but having almost filled my room with decorated tags, I decided it would definitely be easier to do my work in a journal.

I am, as I type, waiting on the post to arrive with the hope that my new Dylusions inks will be delivered, so I spent the morning decorating the front of my new Art Journal. Onwards and upwards!

Thanks for looking.