What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday 121

As promised on Monday, I said I would be back with my desk today, and yes, it is still covered in all the things I used to make my Artist Trading Card (ATC) for Simon Says Stamp and Show: Men Only!  I use a soccer trading card folder to keep all my ATCs in as they are the same size, I just took the soccer page out of the cover.  Now I have a great way to keep all my cards together and they are easy to browse through.

Simon Says Stamp really made my day yesterday as they chose me for their Random Act of Kindness (RAK) and I am going to be the proud owner of a set of stamps called Turtle Buddies!  I tweeted them the ATC I made for their challenge early yesterday morning and got their tweet that I had won the RAK last night!  I know we are in different time zones, so not sure what time of day it was for them, but it was a fantastic end to my day.



Here is the link to Julia's desk over at Stamping Ground where she graciously hosts a giant desk hop.  Come join in if you haven't already.  I have made some amazing friends from all over the world just by taking a peek at their desk!

Happy WOYWW 121

Bella

Simon Says Stamp and Show: Men ONLY

Over at Simon Says Stamp and Show the theme for this week is MEN ONLY!

Lucky me! I just received my "umbrella man" stamp set by Tim Holtz just in time.

Only this time he is not sporting his umbrella, but a flower. I carefully did not ink the umbrella as it did not really fit on my ATC and took one flower that was in a vase and inked just the flower and added it to the man in question. He is quite a versatile chap. The sentiment says:

experience

is not what

happens

to you

it's what

you do

with what

happens

to you.

Now I am wondering what experience this man has had that he is off somewhere with his flower...perhaps to visit a lover, give it as a piece offering or just a nice surprise for his wife? We will never know...

See you again on Wednesday for the world wide desk hop!

What's on your workdesk Wednesday? 120

Yes its Ground Hog day again, in other words, Wednesday has zoomed up to meet us at a rate of knots and it is time to show off your desk for Whats On Your Workdesk Wednesday over at Julia's place called Stamping Ground.

I have been inspired to make an art journal from the various blogs I follow. I think it is a great way to keep all my samples and experiments all in one place and I can make notes so that when I look back, I can remember what I did and in what order for when I want to teach or demo a technique. It is also a fun way to try out things and see how far I can push products and my creative boundaries.

I ordered the Christmas and Umbrella man sets of stamps with the Distress Stain "Picket Fence" from Simon Says Stamp and they have arrived last week. I found the Sentiments set in a shop and bought them, but also arriving on the week-end was my stamp swap from my friend Jennifer in JHB. I am so excited to be the proud owner of the Papillion stamp set from Stampers anon, another one I have been coveting. So I have gone from owning just 2 Tim stamp sets to 5 in the space of a few days! I then spent the week-end demonstrating his yummy products at a convention in the shop, so have not had much time to play with my new toys. Hence the first page in my Art Journal is done with Jennifer's Papillion set.

Also used on my first page as a mask was the new idea I got from the lady from Sizzix who showed me how to fold a piece of paper into a triangle 3 times and you get a circle die cut if you put the triangle on a die but don't let the paper go quite to the edge on either side and you get a circular paper chain. Much like Tim once did with his gingerbread man die last Christmas - only he made a straight one. You can see the rest of the ideas I tried out in the photo below.

Right, now I have waffled on long enough, I am off to peruse the other desks on offer over at Julia's...

Finished Christmas page and used those Ear Rings!

Hi peeps!

Thought I would pop a pic up of the finished page I had on my desk on Wednesday.

Christmas has started early (or late - depends on your point of view...) in my scrap room as I am 3 years behind on the photos, so I am making up for lost time and trying to do cards and layouts.

I also posted a pic of the ear rings during this past week that I found at a bargain price and used them on the page because they look just like tree decorations.

I went to visit my friends and collect a gift sent by Jenny from JHB at the SA Scrapbook convention at Spier that I did not attend this year because I bought a Vagabond machine by Sizzix instead. I am not sorry cos I use it every day and there is another convention in April which I will start saving for. BUT, I got invited to demo Tim's products and the Sizzix machines in the shop at the convention today so I went and spent the day playing and getting inky and hopefully inspiring people. I love seeing the "light bulb" moment when the technique all makes sense and people go rushing off to the shelves to see what colours the products come in!

Now I must go off and get my head round being back in the real world instead of the one of inks, paints, paper and colour!

Have a great week ahead.

Bella

Look what I found!

I went to my wholesaler to get some artists canvasses for work and came upon a basket of these earrings going for just R5 each which is about 50 UK pence or 70US cents! I am going to take them off the hook and alcohol ink them and add them to my projects, tags or cards!

Oh how I love a bargain!

Bella

What's on your workdesk Wednesday? 119

Wednesday is now my benchmark day! The rest of the week seems to disappear in a blur and I find myself back on Wednesday again!

Well I have handed over all the canvasses and the tags with their instructions, so that is done and dusted which was quite fun and I am almost sorry it is over for now. But my next thing is to work on samples for a demo I am doing on the 24 September at a local shop which is very exciting.

In the mean time, I am playing catch up on years of ignoring Christmas! I went through my scrapbook files the other day and found 3 years of Christmas photos and stash that I have collected and done nothing with. It is for this reason that you might be forgiven for looking at my photo today and thinking you have done a time warp and lost 3 months and landed in December! Here I am about to stamp the title with a sheet music stamp and the the plain green background with my favorite Tim Holtz flourish. Where to from there is anybody's guess, but I am sure more inspiration will hit shortly... Hopefully it will jump out at me from this pile of stash which sits to the left of the photo above!

Thanks for looking at my desk today, If you haven't found me by coming from Stamping Ground, then I suggest you pop on over to Julia's desk where she valiantly hosts the worlds biggest desk snoop.

PS: I still don't have my car back as it invented a steering lock sensor problem on the day the clutch was fixed and the part should have arrived yesterday....hold thumbs please as I am a bit tired of this scheduling thing to get the family here there and everywhere using friends, family and neighbors! Not to mention the cost! I can see me car hunting in the near future...

Now I am off to peruse your desk!

Bella

What's on your workdesk Wednesday? 118

Hello there and welcome to a few new faces on my followers list, always lovely to make new friends.

Being Wednesday again, it is desk hop day! (feeling a bit like the guy in the Ground Hog movie where he wakes up and does the same thing each day as I am sure it was Wednesday just yesterday! where does the time go?)

For those of you who might remember, my car's clutch broke last week just before I sat down to do this post and I have been without my car for 7 days so far. Friends and family have been fantastic, helping out with lifts, kids and cars etc. Hopefully it will be back today, but my entire years budget for crafting and then some is about to be blown on the repair!

My desk has been a hive of activity as I am getting those canvasses done for samples. Being stranded at home does help this project as it means I can't go anywhere or get too distracted elsewhere... so far I have finished 3 of the 6 canvasses and done the base product for the other 3. All of them still need their sides painted black. I also had to make 6 tags for display and those are made, (well I got carried away and made 12 over the week-end so the next batch is also made...) they just need to have their instructions typed up. That is the not so creative part and the bit I tend to drag my feet on...rather make more tags....

Yesterday, my friend dropped off some Ranger products I did not have in my stash for me to try out, test and play with. For those of you who know my addiction to all things Tim, even I was surprised to find there were some things missing in my arsenal! Can you believe I don't own an Airondack ink pad? How have I survived? Well with Distress inks and Archival I guess...

Enough rambling on by me, it is time to go check out all the other desks put up for scrutiny at Julia's place called Stamping Ground where she is the gracious hostess of What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday!

See you soon and thanks for all your comments and well wishes last week on my car, I really appreciated having your support.

Bella

Christmas Already!

Hi there bloggers and welcome to my new followers.

Since Julia over at Stamping Ground posted some Christmas cards for a class she was either teaching or taking, I thought it a good idea to get going on some Christmas stuff, especially as it gets a bit manic closer to that time of the year!

Today I have made 3 tags and one card. The card image is courtesy of Faith from Designed2Delight where she gives away one free digi stamp a month. I must say that I am really enjoying combining the two stamp processes.

The tags were covered in a good dose of color wash off my craft mat and then decorated with various stamps using either pearl paint dabber or Archival Ink, smooch, liquid pearls and some yummy velvet Holly leaves from Making Memories.

Hope you are having a great crafting week-end too.

Bella