Wednesday 24 October 2012

What's on my workdesk Wednesday 177? Tim's tag

Hello fellow Wednesday desk hoppers from Julia's Stamping Ground.

Here is my desk after finishing Tim's October tag for 2012...
I  invested in the pink drawer units directly above my workspace as it fits the containers I use for all my fiddly bits.

To the right of it is a set of 4 new drawer stacks (bought at the same time as the pink ones) that now house my stamps in categories and my punches.  This has made life so much easier, I can't tell you. I got them at the beginning of the month, but in my headlong rush into opening my store, I forgot to show you.  Now that that has calmed down, it is sort of life back to normal, such as what is normal anyway?

Now I am off to see what I can see on your desk!

Thanks for the visit

Bella

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Tim's 12 tags of 2012 - October

Tim's tag is all about Halloween, now we don't really celebrate it here in South Africa so I have opted to use my newest die in my collection...Umbrella Man and stuck to Tim's Techniques, only I added my own one of putting Glossy Accents in rain drop shapes on the background and let them dry before I added my Distress Stain.  This way it makes the rain drops pop as I added a darker blue than I had used in paint dabber.  I also used the Glossy Accents on the word RAIN on my ticket which I created on my computer.

My glitter was not as shiny as the Rock Candy he used, but it has a nice effect none the less and it was such fun to watch it change colour when I added the alcohol ink.

I can't believe it is only a week till the next one!  How exciting!

Thanks for the visit

Bella






Sunday 21 October 2012

MIA due to store opening



Hi guys

Sorry if I have been MIA, but the store opening has taken up so much of my time both day and night!  I am still running my art studio where I teach 6 classes a week and now I will be at our store most Saturdays when I am not teaching at the Scrapbook Factory Store in Salt River.

It has been the most rewarding and exciting thing to participate in and an absolute dream come true.  When Alison asked me to be her partner I really struggled to answer as it seems impossible and yet it has all worked out so well.

Our store opened this past Friday 19 October in the pouring rain and yet people still came to find us and that is also proving to be a bit of a thing to sort out...  We are apparently hard to find...the Garmen sends you to the wrong place if you put Southfield in and we are not really Plumstead...Though the GPS thinks we are!  I am going to have to paint the name on the side of the building too...not just the back wall of the inside of our store as you see me here the night before we opened...
 This was the Tim Holtz stand before I put up the sample tags in the frames.
 Here is the Christmas stand which will change as the seasons do...
This is our sign which went up on Thursday morning.
Here is our store full of our first customers on Friday at our opening.


We even had colour co-ordnated cup cakes on offer for tea!
 I got in on the act and found some turqoise accesories!
 Finally, this is the latest sample piece I have made to inspire our customers!
Thanks for sticking out this photo heavy post.  There was just so much to share.

Bella

Wednesday 17 October 2012

What's on my Workdesk Wednesday 176? Stock!

Hi there fellow Wednesday Desk hoppers and snoopers!

For those of you who don't follow me on Facebook or Twitter, I have anounced that I have been invited to be a partner in a Scrapbooking store called the Craft and Scrapbook Centre!

I am so excited I could just POP!  It has not really hit home yet, but the lack of sleep while trying to price stock and make samples and displays has! LOL!

So that is the state of my desk above with my file of things to do and price lists together with my trusty 15 year old guillotine which has been working overtime as I make business cards and labels etc!

The box below was labelled and sent to the store on Monday...

Here you see 2 more boxes of stock labelled and ready to go to the store and my pile of samples etc. 

Then this is the board I have made to put free instruction leaflets in for peeps who need them.

That's it from me today.  I hope to get to your desk, but if I don't, please understand that I am buried in a box armed with a yellow pricing gun...should surface again next week!

Bella

Sunday 7 October 2012

Winter Distress Inks

I think this is a record! 3 posts in one day!

Here is my Winter Seasonal Distress Ink entry to Ranger's Contest on their blog.  I Can't do the Autumn one, cos I don't have that set...waiting in anticipation for our shops to get it now they have announced that the Seasonal range will become a permanent fixture of the Distress Inks!

I used Iced Spruce on the base of the tag.  Covered that with Clear embossing powder. Did a Kaz technique on it where I went out to the lawn and dropped it face down on it to remove some of the powder, heated it and then used Evergreen Bough over the top to ink the spaces that were in the embossing powder.  I then used Black soot on the edges of the tag.

Using my sticky backed silver foil on card stock, I die cut a rosette and a tattered ribbon from it.  Then I decorated my tag using Salvage Stickers from Tim's Seasonal Idea-ology range and a Wish tag too.  Then I used some of Tim's Binding ribbon (covered in Festive Berries, spritzed and dried) sent to me by my very good friend Jennifer, who kindly shared some of her stash with me!

Thats all for now

Bella

Spring Distress Inks

OK, So I got carried away with this Ranger contest!  I just love my Seasonal Distress inks and after I finished with Summer in the last post, I got out my Spring set of Squeezed Lemonade, Shaded Lilac and Peacock Feathers!

A while back, one of my students Laura did a clean out and gave me some fabric to play with...I die cut a tag from it and covered it with the Spring inks.  Then I used the left over paper from Tim's Word Play Alphabet (I had cut for something else) as a stencil and added the numbers with Black Soot Distress ink.  Did the Spritz and flick technique to see if it would work on fabric and it did!  I then covered the Chipboard lazer cut cogs with each colour and added glossy accents to them to make them extra rich in colour.  I finished the tag off with the clock to link up the numbers and the circles of the cogs.

I feel a Winter tag coming on...watch this space.

Bella

Summer Distress Inks

Over on the Ranger blog there is a fantastic announcement to say that they are going to be introducing the seasonal range of Distress inks into the normal collection of colours!  I am so happy as this means I can now get hold of the Autumn range which I never got when it came out.  Then I will have a full set of seasonal colours!

They are also running a contest where you can enter a project made with one of the seasonal colours and you could stand a chance to win a grab bag of Ranger goodness! How cool is that?

So here is my entry using the Summer set of colours.

I swiped my Picked Raspberry on my craft sheet, sprayed some water on that and dragged my flower layers through it, layered them all up and joined them with a brad.  Scrunched them and hey presto, a pretty pink flower!
My background to this tag was the 3 colours from the Summer range: Picked Raspberry, Salty Ocean and Mowed Lawn.  I added perfect pearls to my craft sheet with water and dabbed my tag into it to add another dimension to it and then did the spritz and flick with water on top.  I stamped with Cobalt Archival ink and lastly added my metal embellies with my flower and ribbon.

Thanks for the visit

Bella

Wednesday 3 October 2012

WOYWW 174? Christmas cards

Howdy fellow Wednesday Desk Hoppers and Snoopers!

This week I am flat out into Christmas.  I bought myself the Card fancy frame flip-its die by Sizzix last week and I made the one you see at the back of my desk in blue with a Happy Birthday stamp on it.  Then I got to thinking about other shapes I could use and designed some in Corel Draw which is my program of choice and sent them to my eCutter.  So now I have a circle, square and tree flip it set of cards.

You can also see the two clear boxes of Christmas embellies ready to decorate the ones I have cut along with a whole lot of other stuff on my desk that were left over from last years Christmas season.

Thanks for taking a peek at my desk in Cape Town, South Africa, now I am off to look at your desk if you have joined Julia over at Stamping Ground
Bella

Monday 1 October 2012

Getting ready for Christmas early!

For my next class at The Scrapbook Factory Shop, I was wracking my brain about what to make that could be both a Christmas project for those who celebrate it and not for those who don't...Well, I started with the little boxes along the line of the Sizzix Die for the Sweet box and piled them all together as an Advent Calendar  then I realized they could be individual gift boxes for people to decorate with a Thank You or Birthday theme instead....


So here we have my Advent Calendar and some of the gift boxes...and just in time for the latest CC101 Face book Group challenge too!