What's on My Workdesk Wednesday No325? Art journal and Periscope

Good morning fellow Desker from Julia's place over at Stamping Ground.

Here you see me experimenting in my art journal wile listening to a Periscope on my iPad by the Crafty Cutie in America.  I have really enjoyed getting to know her and her hubby Josh in these live scopes.  They are 9 hours behind me, so while I am off to start my day they are off to bed!

This cyber world is quite amazing in its ability to connect all us creative ones in some form or another.  It truly makes for a small world!

What's On My Workdesk Wednesday324? Art Journal

Hello Fellow Desker from Julia's Place over at Stamping Ground.

Welcome to organised chaos.  Here you can see 3 things going on.

I purchased the latest available set of distress colours released by Tim called blueprint sketch and tested the various products on a random piece of paper which you can see abandoned behind my coffee mug.

Then on the left of my desk are my flower stamps by Tim lying on top of 100 packets...  This is my latest idea as to how to store my stamps.  I find that with traveling to classes with my stuff, some of the stamps come off their backing sheet and could get lost.  So now I will put each one into a cellophane bags as the folders I had them in are a bit bulky for my drawers.

Front and center you can see me testing colours by Tim (Squeezed lemon and Peacock feathers Distress stain spray) for a background for a journal page.  This is ready for me to demonstrate a technique on at this Saturdays Journal class.

You might be able to tell from this post that I have a slight Tim addiction! LOL!

Lastly, I was sad to see that Janet from Fairy Thoughts has died.  Her last post was May as she had been ill and didn't feel up to blogging.  I wish I lived closer so I could attend her service next Thursday the 27th, but I will be there in mind if not in body.  Blogland is a special place where us creatives have gathered and become friends the world over and the most central of the creative meeting places is at Julia's Stamping Ground where she hosts What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday every week.  I have met such lovely people here in cyberspace and feel devastated every time our band of merry Deskers becomes one less due to illness or death.  May Janet's family know she was loved by many all over the world because of her kind and thoughtful comments she left on our posts.

Another Steampunk Hat Tutorial with a Mad Hatter theme!

Hello there

I had a rather exciting thing happen this week.  A lady called Liesl contacted me about buying one of my hats she had seen on Pinterest.  The only problem was that the one I had in storage must have landed under something heavy... which left me with the only other option which was to make her a bespoke hat!

I started by covering the hat with gel medium and adding the crunched tissue paper, both on top and underneath the hat

Once the hat is dry, I cut the excess paper out the hole with a blade.

While the hat was drying, I got out all my embellishments to see what I wanted to add to the hat.  The theme was Mad hatter steampunk style.  Liesl had sent me some photos of hats she liked and I took elements from each of them and combined them into one.

Below you can see the acrylic paint base going on to help create a faux leather look.

This is the base layer before I added anything.

Then I added some distress paints and sprayed them with water.

Followed by some Wendi Vecchi black Embossing paste through Tim's stencil in random places on the hat to mimic the paper she had seen on a hat.  It almost looks like velvet in real life.

When this was dry I added the rivets with Glossy Accents.

And went to town with some embellishments and die cuts as well as another pair of distressed giant swimming goggles....the shop where I purchase them a few at a time must think I am a swimming instructor or something... little do they know!

This is the finished hat from all angles:

The photos above have come out a lightish yellow, but in real life it looked more brown like the photo below where you can see the the time stuck on 6pm as it did in the story of Alice in Wonderland.

This is the chaos on my desk as I frantically created her hat in a mad two evenings after work!

What's On My Workdesk Wednesday 322? Fall out!

Hello Fellow Desker from Julia's place over at Stamping Ground.

Here you see my desk in all it's chaotic glory...

Working from the bottom of the pile upwards...

Sticking out is my art journal page which I will be teaching at a store on the 22 August.  "Take time to focus on the little things in life".  I made the stamp of the camera by die cutting art/fun foam and sticking it onto acetate from packaging. (as seen at the back of my desk)  I did the same with Tim's block  talk alpha die and made word stamps.  Useful for teaching large groups where individual letter stamps could get lost in the chaos.  Not to mention that the letter "T" was needed 7 times in this title alone!

Piled on top of it are the bits and bobs I used to create the page as well as two sets of "Nail Art" pots of micro beads.  Much cheaper to buy them like this and great for classes as they are already in cute little round containers for easy kitting...

Then there is my pile of stamps on the left in their pink and blue folders under which are my new alphabet set of stamps still in their packaging.  I nearly made the mistake of only purchasing half the alphabet!  Luckily a fellow shopper spotted my mistake and brought me the other packet...  How silly of them to be packaged it like that!  Who needs only the first or last half of an alphabet?  I thought them a great size for Art journal titles.

I have just noticed my archival ink and Timmy clock stencil perched precariously on the edge of an abyss!

Time to tidy up and pack away so I can start again another day!

Double page from Scrapbook Studio Event at Heldefontein

I recently flew to Johannesburg to attend an event run by Scrapbook Studio.  Day one was all about Frank Garcia...Day two was all about Jowilna Nolte and Carina Basson's double layouts...

This was Jowilna Nolte's page...

It should have looked something like her sample below:

The photos of my son at the Dinosaur exhibition that I took with me had the right colours, but just didn't work so I used other photos I had packed (just in case) and had to change papers and therefore dive into my new stash of embossing folders and although I followed the techniques she taught on the day, I did not have the ink colours I needed with me, so I finished it at home.

I added the Together Forever lazer cut and the You and Me white vinyl sticker sponsored by Celebr8 for good measure.

It was so lovely to be on the receiving end of teaching for a change.  I lapped it up, every delicious moment and can't believe this all went down a week ago and as I type, I was on a plane almost home again!

I am changing Carina's double page into a mini album...  It will be a while before I get that together... Have printed the photos from the event and want to use them in the album as she used G45 Travel paper.