May tag of 12 tags of 2015

Talk about getting in just under the wire!  Here is my version of Tim's May Tag  it is not a tag at all, but rather a burlap panel which I have chosen to do rather than a tag as this photo is very dear to me and I wanted a more permanent way to display it.

In this photo, my gran is the girl on the far left at the age of 4.  She lived to be 99 and 3/4!  Gran ran a bed and breakfast establishment and used to proudly show her guests this photo every breakfast.  There were another 2 children born after this photo was taken as she was one of 7 children.

Now it has pride of place together with my other two panels done last year when Tim and Paula came to South Africa.

What's on My Workdesk Wednesday 312? Pink Party!

Hello fellow Desker from Julia's place called Stamping Ground.

Happy 6th Anniversary!  Can you believe that Julia has been hosting us from all around the globe for 6 years?

She is the queen of desk hops and snoops!  Way to go Julia, thanks for being the glue between us all every week.  I have not been able to participate nearly as much as I would like to this year due to commitments and "real life" getting in the way.  But I would not miss this party for anything!

So much so, to celebrate...my desk has a new mat (or two cos they don't make pink ones in giant A1 size) just in time for this week's show and tell blogland party.

Here are the before photos...

 The general chaos which ensues on a daily basis...as seen above!

 Then the horror when I lifted the large A1 mat and it stuck to my desk as a few years ago I had tried to spray paint the back white to make it look pretty on my desk and it stayed sticky and never really dried...so I turned it back to green and forgot about that "studio make over" disaster!  Had to scrape the stuck paint off with a blade...

 Above is the organised chaos to the left of me and below is the not so organised chaos to the right of me!

 I need to make another distress ink tower as Tim is coming out with an ink a month...these ones are homeless!

That's it for me.  I will try get round to as many desks as possible today.

What's On My Workdesk Wednesday 310? Nothing!

This is an all or nothing desk at the moment!  So here is an unusual view for you...

I cleaned up after making my mom a card for Mothers day on Sunday and as it is my DHs birthday today, I had to pretend that I hadn't made anything recently...but I secretly made him a box card too!

He is a golfer and I got him a set of lessons for his gift, so made him a golf card...

Butterfly box card

Hello there

I made this card for my Mother to celebrate Mother's day today.  As usual, my desk looked like a bomb site after I had finished, though it is all nicely packed away again, it never ceases to amaze me how I land up working in the tiniest of spaces on an A1 size desk...and how hard these cards are to photograph!

 I used the Tonic dies for the flaps, BoBunny butterfly and trellis dies, Martha Stewart punch for the small butterflies and tonic punch for the middle butterfly which I glued on the trellis.

What's on My Workdesk Wednesday No 309? Fallout!

Hi there Fellow Desker from Julia's place.

This is the aftermath of quickly doing a journal page for an online Journaling challenge.  I had an hour between cooking supper and going to book club to get it done!  I work on Tuesday nights so nothing happened last night and this is how my desk has looked since Monday!  The next challenge is set for tomorrow!  I am loving it.

Added to the chaos on my desk is a new die set (purchased yesterday) by Tonic and a book I have been lent to read as well as the cotton reels which are left out after fixing a hole in a cushion inner which was spewing foam chunks everywhere!  The tower of ink aplicators has moved onto my desk so I could get to the drawer which is still hanging open with the cotton in...order will resume tonight!

This is how my page started and how it finished off...

Sew Like a Pro

Hello there

One of our local Scrapbook Stores Scrapbook Studio in J Bay is running a competition till the 8 May.  I decided to do the Sew Like a Pro challenge and have loved every minute!

I lost my best friend Claire on 8 Dec 2013 to breast cancer and to honour her I decided to dye my hair pink for a year.  I have continued past the year mark, but realised that I had not documented my pink hair.  So I organised a photo shoot in February and finally made this page thanks to the challenge!

I have not done much scrapping recently as I have been distracted by mixed media, Art Journalling and Steampunk!

I used Dylusions Bubblegum Pink spray over my gauze onto my white Bazzil  card stock which I then cut my title Pink out of and punched my hearts.  I also dyed my cotton with the spray to match! The Bubblegum pink is the exact colour of my hair and I even use it to touch up when it fades! LOL!

This is how I started my page...The word pink is from old Basic Grey lettering that I keep to trace round as stencils.

I have stamped on my photos and on the cardstock and added some stencilling for good measure.

What's on my Workdesk Wednesday 307? Steampunk stuff

Servus gentle Wednesday Desker!

Welcome to my steampunk desk.  Here you see a pair of welding goggles which has been dis assembled and sprayed and is now ready for steampunking.  The large hat on the right is a mens hat and will get suitably painted and decorated to go with the goggles and the pile of 3 ladies hats on the left are waiting their turn.

So that is me on my mission this week.

Start each day with a Grateful Heart Journal page

This is a journal page which I made recently.  I also tried my hand at shooting a video for the first time and editing one hours worth of time into half an hour.  I have since found another app to be able to speed things up a bit and shorten the time more...but for now, here is my adventure into the world of filming...

Whats on My Workdesk Wednesday? Cogs, cogs and more Cogs...oh and a cat! 306

Hello there fellow Desker from Julia's Place.  Here you see my desk from far to show off the contraption myself and DH invented and built to hold my iPad so I can shoot video footage of my desk.  I have hung my Steampunk hat and goggles on its ends to stop me banging my head on them!  They are just at eyelevel and being silver...hard to see even with the day glow orange stickers on them!

Then an up close of the pile of cogs I came across at one of my suppliers...I pounced on them with such glee that another shopper came over to see what I was so excited about!  This will last me a while and I can use them in my classes.

There are 50 of the larger cogs per packet and 100 of the tiny ones per packet...that is an average of 1200 cogs on my desk right now!  Steampunk Heaven! I found a mini cookie jar to store them in as I got 2 bags of most of the cogs, now to go and get another 11 jars...one good thing always leads to another!

Then just as I was about to type this up, I looked back at my desk and there was Marmalade under his personal sun...My 100W day light bulb!

Thats me for today.  I hope that I can get to a few desks this morning before work if Mr Linky is there this week.  Just my luck that the week I last participaed in, he was AWOL, but it was 1 April!

Steampunk Goggles

So, I was at the hardware store...my favourite place to be...other than an art shop of course!

I needed some gutter parts for another project and came across these cool things...who knows what they are supposed to do in the real world...I saw them and thought... STEAMPUNK GOGGLES!  Wouldn't you?

The extra bit that looks like it is supposed to go round a pipe, got unseramoniously cut off with a hack saw and the rubber ring popped out and the top prized off.

They then got a goodly dose of copper spray paint.

When they were back on my desk, it amused me that I had managed to find a right and a left by complete flook in the basket that I took them from...how appropriate for goggles! 

I then measured how much leather I would need to cover up the moulded writing in the plastic.

Having cut my leather to shape, I then painted the edges black with black soot distress paint.

and drilled holes for the brads to go through later.

I made a nose piece by folding and gluing the leather over some florest wire and punched holes in each side for the brads.

Having assembled the goggles, I then added some chain to hide the edge of the leather.

Here are some shots of the final piece once I had added the strap and studs for good steampunk measure.

I used acetate packaging for the glass which I aged with alcohol inks.

The foam was cut and added to the back of the goggles so they sit properly on your face, otherwise you just get a partial sideways view and see a bit like what a Chamelion must do on a daily basis!