WOYWW 147 and Pro Markers

I've been absent from blogland for past couple of weeks - phenomenally busy and with new job taking up all my time, so not much crafting done in the Willis house :-(  Really missed my WOYWW fix last week, so will do my best to visit lots of crafty boltholes this week, spread over the next few days. If you want to see what other crafters are up to visit Julia's Stamping Ground and join in the blog hopping fun!

But I have the day off today and this is my desk today, batch stamping lots of images for a Pro Marker workshop this Saturday. Got to get it done today cos I'm working tomorrow and Friday, so today's my last chance!  Took a few mins to colour one of my favourite images, the little row of mice from Penny Black 'Micey Nice Day' - they are so cute I love these meeces!

Aren't they sweet? If we have enough time on Saturday this will be the 'challenge' image at the end of the class (which is focused on skin tones, hair and fur) to make each little mouse a different colour using only a few pens.

Well, that's me for today, hopefully I will get a bit more time soon, as I am missing my crafty play time

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x

It's Friday, it's 5 to 5 , and time for.........................

Anyone remember this???? I used to love Crackerjack, and always wanted to win a Crackerjack Pen LoL!  This popped into my head as I was listening to the radio and the presenter said 'it's Friday and it's 5 to5' but I think he was too young to remember the rest :-)

There's a 'guess the year' programme on our local radio station in the mornings, and it's fun with all the memories the old songs generate, but so many of them have been used in ads, I now end up singing the ad jingle instead of the actual lyrics - those ad men must have been good at their jobs lol!

OK, so it IS Friday and I'm about to pack up crafting for the day and have a well deserved cuppa so I thougI would share some recent projects and a sneaky peek of a DT project I finished today!

This is a wedding card using pearl embossing powders and a brocade background stamp, so pretty to work with. Even embossed the background card behind the panel cos I got carried away with the lovely pearl effects!

These two are cute boxes I made recently, and all 3 projects will be on show at the NEC next week on the WOW embossing stand

Finally, the sneaky peek...............

These are easel drawer cards, and they are so much fun to make (showed some stamped versions in an old post). You can really go to town on the decoration, and there is a little drawer in the base that you can fit yummy chocs in (or something more boring if you are so inclined!). I got a bit carried away with decorating these two, feathers, leaves, flowers, butterflies - a cornucopia of embellishments!

OK, that's it for today, my feet are freezing so I'm off to put the heating on and hit the biccies!

Have a fab weekend, thanks for stopping by

Debs x

WOYWW 145 and cogs

This is my desk today, not too messy, just a little project in the middle half finished. On the left you can see the lead to my heat gun, a finished tag project, and my trusty digital radio. At the back we have my ice cream tub of acrylic blocks and a pot of brushes - must find new ways to store the blocks lol!! A jiffy bag full of new stamps as part of my WOW! Embossing Powder DT goodies, and a set of large oval dies.  Not too messy at all for me - you can see both table top AND craft mat!

Much easier to keep everything relatively tidy now everything has a home on a shelf behind me.  Although I still leave stuff out at the end of the day if I know I'm coming back to work on it again.

Last pic today is my cogs all ready to go! now I'm off to link this blog to Julia's at the Stamping Ground, and I will try to get round more desks than last week!

This is a close up of my die cut cogs - all embossed and ready to use on my next project - got some great old metal effects with a mix of Earth Tones and Verdigris embossing powders!

Inspiration Tag

Hi everyone, thought I would share with you my latest DT project for WOW! Embossing Powders - I had so much fun making this tag, and was so pleased with the results - love the colour scheme and the elegance of the design (I do like elegant projects, but elegant is not the real me at all, I'm a jeans and hoodie girl - lol!!)

The month of March is all about pastels, and I chose 'Inspiration' as my theme for this tag, as so much of my inspiration comes from nature, and I had a ball making this project!

For full details and a 'step by step' how to guide, click here to visit the WOW! blog

If you decide to give it a try, I hope you have as much fun making this tag as I did!

Debs xx

WOYWW 144 - and frustration with sticky stuff!

Happy WOYWW everyone, if you aren't sure what that means then click here to visit Julia's Stamping Ground for a peek into craft desks across the world!

I missed WOYWW last week, cos I was rather busy (see yesterday's post!) and didn't visit anyone, so will try to do better this week :-)

This is my desk - in my lovely new craft room [happy sigh]

I have everything I need in one place (on the shelves behind me that you can see in yesterday's post!), electrical sockets for my heat gun/glue gun etc, and s-p-a-c-e!! Of course, Deb's law of crafting states that 'you will expand to fill all available space' lol!

The frustration in the title of my post comes from the pile of dies you can see on the kitchen roll on my chair. I bought some lovely new cogs dies at Farnborough, and this is my first opportunity to try them out. They were stuck to the inside of the packaging with something akin to super glue, and the residue was stuck all over the dies, causing them in turn to stick to my Cuttlebug C plate. I had to use my craft knife to pry them off!  So they have been liberally bathed in Stick away, and rinsed in the sink, so that I can actually use the blasted things again!  Grrr......rant over!

And this is Barney investigating my new crafting space.....just cos he can!

Sorry for the cat butt in shot - he's not the best trained moggy and tends to flash everyone, witness his shameless sunbathing in the unseasonably warm weather this week.......and yes, he is fast asleep lol!!

Looking forward to seeing some of the goodies created by you lovely WOYWW'ers, probably take me a few days, but I will visit as many as I can before next week.

Also, if anyone is planning a visit to the NEC on Friday 23/3, come and say hi, I will be demo'ing on the WOW embossing stand all afternoon from 1pm and would love to meet some WOYWW'ers.

Thanks for stopping  by

Debs x

Craft Room at last!

I've been a bit absent from the blog for the past week or so, partly cos I've been busy with deadlines, and partly cos I've been converting one of my bedrooms into a Craft Room!  Yippee! :-)

I've worked from home for a long time, and had a bedroom as an office for years, but my crafting was always done in the dining room/kitchen/living room/floor etc etc! (As many of you will know from past pics on the blog :-)  I decided to tidy (ahem - use that word loosely) my office and get rid of all unnecessary paperwork/reference material etc. Vast quantities of shredding and about 6 wheelie bins of recycling later............................ ta daaaah!!!

I now have all of my crafting supplies in one room - huge improvement! And a dedicated desk where I can leave 'work in progress' and shut the door, no more working out how we are going to eat at the same table lol!  In the second pic you can just see the top shelf is full of files - 11 files of unmounted stamps to be precise [gulp!} and that doesn't include the 2 baskets of wooden stamps, the box of sentiment stamps, the box of Christmas stamps.....
But now my Cuttlebug is accessible without removing 3 layers of other stuff to get to it - hurrah! 

And this is the first project I made at my new desk using some of my new goodies.....

The card front is covered in dark red paper which is overstamped with dragonflies in dark orange ink - nice subtle effect. I clear embossed (WOW! clear gloss powder - of course!) the grasses and flowers (Artemio clear stamp set) at the bottom of the card, then used my gorgeous Inkylicious ink dusters with Big and Juicy 'Soothing Sunset', Distress Inks Wild Honey and Brushed Corduroy to shade the background.

I overstamped the grasses with the different shades of ink that I used on the backgound, and then used my new Inkylicious script stamp all over the background (it's only a small stamp, but you can repeat it over and over to create a whole page of script and it looks like a continuous stamp - magic!)

Finished the background by stamping a few dragonflies, then used a Marianne die to cut out a lacey frame, coloured the die with the same colours using my brushes, then stamped the verse on the die cut to finish, and mounted on the front of the card.  I haven't made anything 'just cos I wanted to' for a little while, and this gave me so much pleasure! Hope you like it, and sorry if I've rambled on a bit ;-)

Thanks for stopping by

Debs x