Happy New Year!

Yesterday I was floating down a river on a sunny afternoon after a hike down a gorge in the mountains...Today I am at a Braai/BBQ and tomorrow I will be doing nothing...for as long as I can any way!  It's a tough life in Africa!

As for What's On My Workdesk Wednesday...There is a project...but I will post it next week when I have given it to my friend for her house warming gift!

Hope that next year brings you lots of creativeness, love and happiness.

Merry Christmas!

Hello fellow Blogger

This is to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas.



My Mom and Aunt made this yummy pudding using my Gran's recipe and it sits on a plate I painted in 2003!  Good thing I wrote the date underneath the plate or I would never have guessed I made it that long ago!

Thanks for all your lovely comments throughout the year.

What's on My Workdesk Wednesday 288? Tim Holtz tags of 2014...Christmas version!

Hello fellow Desker from Julia's place.  Welcome to my desk where Christmas has finally arrived.

I got all my Christmas stash out in November already with the idea of Taking Tim's 12 Tags of 2014 and using the same techniques to create a tag a day for the 12 days of Christmas....here we are on Day 10 and I have finished 3 tags and have a few more in the making.  Oh the plans of mice and men!

I have not even put up my tree or the decorations which usually go up on the 1st!  Life has just gotten in the way.

Schools break up today for our summer holiday for 5 weeks.

Off to see what is on your desk today!

What's On My Workdesk Wednesday 287? Box cards

Hello fellow desker from Julia's place over at Stamping Ground.  Welcome to my desk in a WINDY Cape Town.  (Ali H...you know what I mean...but double it!)

Here is what I am busy with at the moment.  Just playing and having fun.  I am no longer doing bespoke cards for orders as it took all the fun out of creating, but rather making what takes my fancy and if someone wants to buy them and personalize them then that's great.  If not, then I can use them myself for friends.

Yes, I am posting this on Tuesday night as nothing will have changed on my desk by the morning as I will be in a meeting with my son's teacher at 7:45am!  See you all at your desks as soon as I am back at mine!

What's On My Workdesk Wednesday 286? 2015 year planner and Happy Mail!

Welcome fellow Desker to my Happy Mail!  We have had a postal strike for just over 2 months...  Ali H posted me this mag, hand written letter (what a treat) ATC and stamp on 29 September and I got it yesterday, the strike is finally over!  Thank goodness, I was beginning to get a bit worried that I would never see it!  The postage alone cost her a fortune and so it would have been really sad if it did not arrive.

Then on the left of the shot you can see my current and 2015 year planner together with the workbooks from the free on line course (it was free then, but there are others for free right now on other topics, by other lecturers)  by April Bowles Owlin for creatives I did 2 weeks ago as well as my Edit your life for Beginners by Sage Grayson who I found while watching April's course!  These courses have been brilliant for me to try and get my creative life on track for next year.

Here is a double page I worked on during the week for a local competition.  We don't have snow here, so I don't have appropriate photos...  We were given a bag of stuff including the ready cut title and had to make a double page layout using only what we were given, though we could use punches...which I did to make the snowflakes as well as Tim's on the edge die for the snowflakes.

Planning 2015!

I have just purchased my A4 year planner for 2015.  It lives in my handbag (yes my bag is huge and doubles as my roving office)!  Don't lift it if you have back problems. (this health and safety warning should be printed on the outside)...

Due to the fact that Alison is closing the Craft and Scrapbook Centre at the end of this year, I will now be teaching my mixed media, card and scrap classes from my art Studio in Bergvliet as from 2015.

I am also looking at running on line classes and wondered what people would like me to cover.  If you have any requests then please let me know in the comments below.

The other thing I have been contemplating is teaching in other towns within South Africa or flying overseas and teaching in other Countries for that matter!  This has been a dream of mine for quite some time.  So, if you are looking for teachers for next year...lets chat!

What's on my Workdesk Wednesday 285? Demo tags

Hello fellow Desker from Julia's place.

Welcome to the chaos that abounds on my desk as I prep for my class on Saturday.  I am doing a demo class of Tim Holtz techniques.

I have just finished the sample tags and now have to put all the required inks, dabbers, applicators and bits into the plastic container in the top right hand corner of this pic.  Some of it is already there, I just have to die cut the keyholes and I am done!

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

Mixed Media Canvas Class

Here is the finished canvas sample for the mixed media class I taught today to 8 lovely ladies!

It started with me making the flowers and the doilies out of plastic in molds which are actually meant for icing!  I used Smooth Cast to mold them and it sets in 10 min which suits my personality!  I hate having to wait for things! LOL!

This is how I designed it:

I set about cutting up a piece of Pinkpaisly Butterfly Garden paper and re-organising it on my canvas so the dark print was on the inside.

Then I layed out the embellishments and glued them down before adding gesso round the edges of the canvas to soften the pattern.

Here you can see my students starting to add the distress paint to the edges and archival ink through the stencil.

These are 6 of the 8 finished canvases where you can see how they changed things up a bit to suit themselves!

October Tag for Tim's 12 Tags of 2014

This is my take on Tim's October tag for 2014.  However...it is not a tag!  For two reasons:

1)  We are now at the end of Spring!  So fall leaves are not appropriate, but bright colours and spring insects are what are happening in my half of the world.

2)  I don't have the leaf die and embossing folder, but I do have this delicious dragonfly!  However, he does not fit on a tag, not even remotely...I know Tim trimmed his leaf, but I would have lost too much of the wings to make this a tag.  So it is now a canvas!

 Here is a size 10 tag with my distress paint embossed as per Tim's instructions.  Seemed a pity to hide all this yummy marbled paint, so I die cut a smaller dragonfly out of the extra bits.

 Here is my desk when I had finished...Serious shrinkage from 24"x24" down to 6"x6"!  How does that happen?

 I have sticky embossing powder, but I did not have silver foil, only gold so I opted to use the new Distress stain spray in brushed pewter.

 The leaves are off a cheap set of ear rings and I rubbed some blue distress on them to tone down their brightness.

 A close up of the dragonfly so you can see the silver splatters.

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What's on My Workdesk Wednesday 283? Molds and test runs!

Hello Fellow Desker from Julia's place over at Stamping Ground.  Welcome to my desk on this Wednesday!

Here you see me in the throws of testing a new product I came across at the same Hobby expo where I found the leather you saw on my desk last week.

I went to their factory yesterday and spoke to the most helpful lady behind the counter.

I am wanting to make my own molds from old cogs from my printer and other interesting keys etc for my canvas classes.

While at the Hoby expo, I also found lovely silicone molds, made for icing in a baking stand...my mind did flick flax and I could see the possibilities of making items for mixed media and canvas art.  The question was with what medium...

The lady at AMT explained their various products and we came to the conclusion as to which one I needed and I spent some time yesterday afternoon playing with the Smooth Cast.  It works like a dream and sets in 10 minutes...so my impatient side is very happy!

I have not had a chance to play with the mold making stuff yet...it takes 6 hours to cure, so I thought I would give that a try this morning and leave it on my desk to set while I am at work!

What's on my Workdesk Wednesday 282? Coffee!

Hello fellow Desker from Julia's place, welcome to my rather uninteresting desk today!  I have cleaned and tidied and am ready for my next project...whatever takes my fancy!

I have been very busy with entries to challenges and along the way I experimented with some leather off-cuts I bought at a hobby Xpo recently with the aim of trying them out through my dies.  Then I had a brain wave and tried the die cut pieces through my embossing folders.  It works like a treat!

 The front and back of the embossed leather wings I used for the dress form above which I entered into the latest CC3 challenge.

 This is a couture Creation folder which fits Tims pocket watch die perfectly!

 So that's my desk this week...off to see what I can see on yours!

Steampunk Dressform

I have been busy with this perfume bottle for a while now.  She was started as my entry into Sandee & Amelie's Challenge where the theme is Steampunk Couture and is due at the end of the month.

This morning, Linda loaded challenge 14 for the Compendium of Curiosities 3 series and so I decided to combine them both!

This is how she came out of her box...a cheap China Town find a few months ago...purchased with altering in mind!

 This is how far she had gotten by last week-end, cos then I got distracted by my worn cover and so the poor thing has been sitting in her undergarments all week!

 When I went to a hobby xpo recently, I purchased some leather off cuts in various colours to try and die cut.

 I discovered the leather cut beautifully with the steel rule dies and then I decided to push things a little further and ran the dragonfly through its embossing folder!

 Here you can see her after I have applied the technique from page 53 of Tim's book, Compendium of Curiosities 3 to her bodice.  I can't tell you how I did this bit as those are the rules over at Linda's place where the whole point of the challenge is to work from your own copy of the book.

I used alcohol ink on the base of the stand as it was just too solid gold.

 I dressed her in a leather cog collar, leather dragonfly wings, seam binding tied with an idea-ology cog and pin as her waist (more like her hips...) band and couture lace for her skirt.

 I softened the harsh look of the alcohol ink on the base with some distress paint to give it  more of a marble look.

 Then just to push the Steampunk boundaries a little further, I took her perfume lid off and added a light bulb!

 I love how the leather embossed so well, It is such a pleasure to work with and smells so good!

So this is my entry to SanDee and Amelie's Couture challenge whose prize sponsor is Tando as well as Linda's challenge where the Curiosity Crew's Choice gets a prize sponsored by Tim and Mario and there is a lucky draw sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique as they sponsor the even numbered challenges!

CC3 Challenge 13 part 2: Worn cover inside

As part of my CC3 Challenge 4 prize sponsored by Tim and Mario, I received these cool glassine pockets/envelopes.  They are just the right side for a size 8 tag and fit perfectly top to bottom in the cover too!  The only problem with adding them to the inside of my worn cover was if I punched them, they would get holes right where the tag would go inside...

Q brainwave!

I have this die called "tiny tabs and tags"

 I die cut 12 of the circle tabs.

 Then I punched holes in them once I had folded them all.

 Placed them on the ring binder, added glossy accents inside them, then slotted the glassine pocket into them and squished them down!

 Once I had one done, I could take it out the binder and place the next one on top and copy the spacing.

 I added some clear pockets to the front for now...they might be moved to between the pockets so the pockets can act as "dividers".

This is how they look inside the cover...now to decide what to store in here and decorate them accordingly!

I have already added the cover to the challenge over at Linda's place, but now I am adding part two for fun, even though the next challenge is up!