Whats on (and under) my Workdesk Wednesday 128!

Not much going on ON my desk, lots of piles of stuff and stash and kits and bargains under and next to and around my workspace...Time to FESS UP!  I have seen such elegant scrap rooms on line and would dearly love the cupboard space to hide all my stuff in, but I fear that is a pipe dream.  For the mean time, this works for me!

This week I have been helping a lady create an altered book for her sisters 40th, she will be back tomorrow so the decks are pretty clear from yesterdays session and in anticipation of the fact that my friend is coming to work on her wedding album again tonight...lets see how many double spreads we can knock out in a few hours.

As for the "FALL OUT" I had on my desk last week, (it is now in a white plastic bag under my desk on the left, awaiting distribution into my system) I have decided on a swap out with my friend as she is one of my official art students at my studio where I teach acrylics daily.  She is now the happy recipient of 3 free classes and so we are quits!  I liked Hels idea of making her some cards too, so when I get a gap (ja right, in which lifetime?) I will make her a few!

I have opted for a panoramic view of my workroom, taken in sections so you can see all the chaos...yes I am 6ft tall so I can reach that stuff on top of everything...

In the large brown box at my feet is my stash of cheap picture frames and some old chalk boards I am slowly renovating and decorating.

A view of my computer station where I do my blogging...

Below is my Birthday stash from my Hubby.  My friends have given me cash, so I must still go peruse the local Scrapbook shop shelves to see what I can get from them.  AAAH the anticipation....I have spent and re-spent the money in my head many times, lets see what I come home with...

 

Now I am off to Julia's place to link to the Host page for Whats On Your Workdesk Wednesday 128 and go see what the rest of you have been up to this past week.

Bella

Grungy Monday27 and SSS&S Women

I am a bit short of time this week and wanted to participate in the Grungy Monday and Simon Says Stamp challenges, so I have combined them.

I followed the instructions (sort of) on Tim's blog from the link on Linda's page to do the base of the tag, then I stamped with Cobalt Archival Ink on top and used pearl paint dabber round the edge.

Simon says stamp and show some Women only.  Now this had me going through all my stamps and I have quite a few...to find an image of a woman!  This little cameo is the only thing I could lay my inky paws on and I am glad I did a rummage through my stamps, cos I don't know about you, but I had forgotten about a few of them and now have them in the fore front of my mind for future projects.

FALL OUT! is Whats on your Workdesk Wednesday 127

Fall out!  Yes you are looking at the stuff I have been given from a friend who has done a clean out and is done with scrapping...she did two albums for her kids while she lived in the UK and now she is back in SA and does not have the space for the stuff, she has handed them over to me.  I have to put a price to the this pile and make her an offer....HELP please!  I have no idea what to suggest short of going on line to see what this all costs, but that is time consuming, and I don't have the time to do what I should be doing, let alone this!

The other thing that is now under my desk is the finished canvas with the descriptions of the various Ranger Products I use during my demos.  I think this will help a lot for people who are new to these products and can't remember all the details after 2 hours of my yacking on in the front of the room....

I am now off to peruse other desks at Julia's place where she has now moved her desk project to the floor...come and join in the fun of seeing all sorts of creative desks - messy, neat, busy, arty, sewing, knitting, you name it, you will find it over at Julia's Stamping Ground!

Make n Take morning

What a wonderful bunch of ladies came to my make n take today.  I had 17 people in the end which was a bit of a relief as 25 to 30 as they were predicting would have been manic in such a little store!

I first demonstrated each technique at each station and then divided the ladies up into groups to go and try it out for themselves.  There were 5 stations in total with about 8 basic techniques.  I had a printed sheet of instructions at each station, in case anyone got confused or forgot what they were supposed to do...

None of these ladies had ever been to one of Tim's conventions here in SA, but seemed to fall in love with his stuff.

I supplied the products to do the basics which could be used on a card or scrapbook page later.

We made a Christmas tag, one flower, an embossed foil square with alcohol inks and an embossed strip with distress ink and clear embossing powder and finally a square with color wash and Archival ink.

Here is what I have done with the pieces to make cards.

UPDATE:  Congratulations to Matilda Smith who won the R100 voucher in the lucky draw of people who purchased products this morning after the Make n Take.

Whats on your workdesk Wednesday 126?

Wasn't I just writing to you about my desk yesterday?  Well here I am again.  A lot has happened on this desk in a week I can assure you!  Doesn't look like it right now, but I can show you the fruits of my labor so to speak...

My friend came to visit again on Friday and we managed to put 3 double spreads together for her wedding album, so maybe it won't take us a lifetime to do after all.  Unfortunately I did not take any pics of the pages we did before she whisked them off home to show her hubby who was returning from a long business trip this past week-end.

Here is the box of stuff all ready for the Make n Take I am running this coming Friday at my local Scrapbook shop.  I am teaching about 25-30 people from 10am - 12pm all about Tim and Ranger's products and they are going to get a hands on chance to create with paint dabbers, distress inks, distress stains, color washes and alcohol inks.  I am also going to be using Archival inks, Adirondack inks and some distress powders as well as some clear embossing powders.  So quite a lot to get through in one 2 hour session...

Also on the Vagabond is the tag die and next to it are the packets of 12 cut tags and the piles on top of card stock ready to go through to make a total of 20 packs for the 12 Tags of Christmas I am teaching in JHB on the 17 December.

So as you can see lots of prepping and not much creating going on here.  I hope to get this all done and dusted then I can go back to doing something for my scrapbooks!

It was my sons 7th Birthday on Monday so the week-end was dedicated to his party and family time.  He asked for cash from his friends so he could go shopping for what he really wanted which was a Mario Galaxy game for the Wii and an electric train track.  So far we have the Mario game...  Not much crafting was done by me... Something to be remedied this week-end I hope!

Now it is time to do the great desk tango and hop all over the world starting at Julia's desk where she kindly hosts us all each and every week...except I see that Mrs Dunnit must have overslept, cos her desk is not up for viewing yet!

What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday 125

Well hello fellow Wednesday desk hoppers!  Glad to see you back again...and for those of you who have never visited my South African desk, WELCOME!


On my desk this week is the canvas I am busy with to use during my demonstrations of Tim and Rangers products at the various Scrapbook shops and outlets here in my home town.  I am finding that there is so much to tell people about each product that I thought it a good idea to make this canvas using each product to create its name and then (and this is still to be decided how) I will put all the attributes and applications of each product written under it...or next to it...or some flip up flaps...or something!

Then on my craft sheet is the first finished scrapbook page of my good friends wedding photos which I took of her in July.  I took over 1000 photos and now to put them together in an album is quite daunting, but at least we have a start...at one page an evening every 2 weeks or so, this is going to take us a lifetime!



Thanks to all of you who wished me well for my big demo, it went well and I had about 25 people sitting and some standing for 2 hours while I tried to cram in as much about each product as I could.  I was very humbled that so many people came and wanted to learn about Rangers products.  This photo was taken by my friend Sarina from RS&E who import Tim and Rangers products to our country.  I was so engrossed in my demo, that I clean forgot to ask someone to take photos for me!  Here I am about to use the Color Washes on an apron over some masks and stencils.

Our Desk hop host - Julia (of Stamping Ground) is showing off her beautiful sewing skills this week over in her craft room, not much of her desk to be seen as her daughter is modeling the costume Julia made her that she is going to use in some or other production, I can't remember what...(Pokemon?) but hop on over there and join in the desk hop of world wide proportions!

Don't know what happened last week, but I know there were issues on my blog when people wanted to comment, hope I have fixed that problem this week...'cos I love to hear from you!

So that's my desk this week, now I am off to peruse yours!

Bella

Demo and tag

Hello fellow bloggers!

This morning I did a demo for the big Scrapbook shop in Bellville and I was staggered at how many people came to see it! (plus minus 25, some seated and then others standing too)  I am humbled that people want to come watch me play and get inky, but so pleased that so many people are interested in the products and took 2 hours out of their day to come sit and watch and ask questions.

I realised that there is just so much to tell about each product as they are all so versatile and that 2 hours is not long enough.  Perhaps I will have to break the products down into smaller groups and do more specific demos...

There are no photos of today as I got so carried away with the demo and chatting that I clean forgot to ask someone to get a shot of the group and the display.  Someone did take on her phone and she might email it to me on Monday...

When I got home and unpacked my stuff, I got all inky all over again and created a few tags, though I have only taken photos of the one.

Although I was there to dem, I took a few min at the end to see what was new and came across these well priced stamps and bought a Santa face that has the banner at the bottom that I used in this tag and the stunning pine branches.

I used Distress Powder "peeled paint" on the pine branches over the top of Airondack "Meadow" and it worked so beautifully.  After heating this I used "faded jeans" Distress ink to cover the tag.  I then stamped the two balls with Archival "Vermillion" on scrap paper and coloured them in with Distress ink "barn door" ,covered the whole lot with clear embossing powder and heated it from below and cut the balls out and stuck them on using foam tape.  I punched holes in the tag and the ball and threaded the gold string through and tied a bow.  My hubby does not like the bows...cant tell me why...

I just inked the banner for the sentiment on the Santa stamp and then added gold smooch to the ends for some bling!

Then I took the silver angel charm and put gold alcohol ink mixative on it to change its colour and tied it to the ribbon.

That"s all for now folks!

Whats on your Workdesk Wednesday 124

I have been very busy planning and prepping and peering into the distance (wishing I had a crystal ball) over the past week as I try to imagine what my mentor and creative genius man Tim Holtz is going to conjure up for his 12 tags of Christmas this year.  The reason for my dilmma is that I am going to Johannesburg to teach them on the 17 December this year, just a mere 5 days after he will have finished them and so I need to get hold of all his new stuff that he released at CHA this year like Picket Fence Distress Stain and Snow Cap alcohol inks as well as his new dies for Sizzix and Stampers Anonomous stamps because I can only imagine that these are going to appear somewhere on his tags...we all know what we are like with new toys on our desks, I can't imagine that he is any different...  They will be the first things he reaches for.  I could be wildly wrong, but at least I will be prepared!

I have now put an extra page with a tab at the top of my blog page called Demo/Class Schedule so you can see where, when and what I am teaching till the end of December.  As I get booked by various shops and venues, I will add them to the list.

On to my desk...

Here you can see the beginnings of my preparation, 50 sheets of cardstock ready to be run through my trusty Vagabond to create all the tags for 20 people in the class.  I will get a small glimpse into Mario's world where he kits up for all of Tims classes, at least I don't have to do the huge quantities he does though!  I really admire him for all his patience and organisational skills.

You will also see that I have found 3 packs of My Minds Eye tinsel ribbon, just in case he uses it on his tags, and even if he doesn't I will!


Underneath my desk you can see the tool box I created from my Vagabonds box so I can transport all my inks and sprays etc to my demos and classes and work straight from the box at home too so I don't have to keep packing and unpacking my stuff!

OK, enough about my desk!  Go on over to Julia's desk at Stamping Ground where you can join in (or not) and look at all the other creative desks on offer for your perusal!

Whats on Your Workdesk Wednesday 123

Still on my workdesk, but on its way to the Scrapbook Shop in Durbanville this afternoon, is this sample board I have made to advertise the fact that I will be going to do a Demo there in just over a weeks time.

It has taken me a week to make all 4 of these pages, each one using different products and techniques to show how versatile the Tim Holtz and Ranger products are.  The shop owner is thrilled with it and I hope it draws lots of her customers into the shop next Saturday.

Over the next week I have to work on a wedding photo book for a friend that is to be professionally printed so there will be tons of PC time and no ink work for me, though I think I will have to find a tag or two to play with or I will start to have withdrawals!

Here they are in close up if you want to see them in more detail!  If you scroll back in my posts, you will also find more info on how I created them.

Have a great day further and if you have some time on your hands, pop on over to Julia's desk at Stamping Ground where you will find a lot more people who are sharing their workspace today for you to peruse!

Bella

Final piece of the puzzle

I have been very busy over the past week creating a set of 4 scrapbook pages that could showcase the different products from Tim Holtz and Ranger.  I will be doing 2 demos in scrapbook shops in the next few weeks and needed to get people interested in what I was going to be doing so that they would pop in and come see.

I thought I would go orange for the last one...

I used Sticky backed canvas for the lettering which I rubbed with Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink and sprayed with Perfect Pearl Mist - Heirloom Gold.

My base is a white pices of Bazzil card stock which I sprayed with Color Washes in Butterscotch and Sunset Orange.  I then placed a Prima plastic mask over this and overs-prayed with Red Pepper Color Wash.

I let this all dry and put a band of tissue tape across the top of the page to place my title on and then created the flowers with correlated cardboard which I gave a hefty dose of course sand paper and then inked with Spiced Marmalade and Walnut Stain Distress inks.  The leaves are silk ones that I have taken off some fake sunflower sprigs I bought at the Crazy Store.

The poppies I stamped from an ancient PSX stamp and painted the poppies in using a brush and Colour Washes

I layered the whole page up and there you have it!