WOYWW : Floral Frenzy !

This Wednesday my desk is having a bit of a floral frenzy !

I have my Garden Journal poised for action - at the end of each month I am cutting up the lovely calendar Mum bought me for Christmas, adding photos that I have taken of my garden through the month & I have a Journal card stamped up ready for each month - as the month progresses I make notes about what's happening in my garden - new plants in flower & my veggies ripening are the main June news !

I have the Daisy Daisy scrapbook page I'm working on - I have loved the swathes of daisies cloaking the roadsides this month - and managed to get Rich to stop for me to take some photos to scrap ! I am gathering daisy themed bits - made a metal embellishment, stamped out some images & rollagraph stamped strips -as part of my mission to use something I have in my stash each week !!

Tucked on the end of my desk is my art journal with a page I'm going to work on about what writing means to me - I have used the lovely "Writing Set" stamps (by Julie van Oosten for Stampington) I bought at Blade Rubber in London.

Metal for Sunday Stampers Challenge

The days are rushing past so fast that if I don't post a picture of my metal panels soon I shall run out of week !! So glimpse amongst the debris on my desk yesterday - but today a close up !

Hoping to get them stuck onto my tissue box over the weekend !!

The panels are Ten Seconds Studios metal cut with a Nestabilities die into panels then run through my trusty Cuttlebug. Then painted with white acrylic, wiped back, and coloured up with Distress Inks, Viva Inkagold paints and Glimmer Mists. The bird, butterfly & moth are Paperartsy dies cut & then run through the Bug.

Next step will be to layer them up and get them on the Tissue Box ... watch this space !

WOYWW - 1st Time Desk Revelations !

I've found this sharing project out here in Blog-land .. what's on your workdesk this Wednesday .. so I decided to share the cluttered mess that is my desk today !

I have the metal panels underway for the Sunday Stamper challenge .. all the bits left over from my playday with my Cuttlebug last Sunday ... a folder that I have bought to alter with all great intentions of it being my Recipe Book (instead of piles of clippings that I currently have tucked in assorted random place !!) .. my pink mini binder with my "craft reminders" in that I take to shows to make sure I don't buy the same stuff twice .. a stack of Distress Inks - Oh and the normal detrius that seems to gather round the edge of my desk like a vortex ring of space debris being drawn into a black hole !!

Finally Summer Arrived !

At last we have had a lovely summer's day !

Clear blue skies, warm breeze instead of a chill wind & a pleasure to be in the garden !

After swimming I spent the afternoon in the garden - first wading through months of old craft & scrapbooking magazines ripping out all the bits I wanted before tossing the rest into the trusty blue Carmarthenshire CC recyling bags ! Then I had a play session with my Cuttlebug - trying all my new Paperatsy Dies, new Bug folders & plus Nestibilities dies - cutting out a stash of shapes - ready for upcoming projects ! I cut & cuttled some metal to get ready for the Sunday Stamper challenge this week which is - you guessed it -metal!

I'm going to create 4 panels for my tissue box which has been painted but looking at me plaintively for some decoration for months !! Rich did the biggest crafting task of the day - a coat of Barleywood piant onto the new work surface for my potting shed to waterproof it !

Supper in the garden at 6pm before the sun dipped below the trees in the wood behind the garden rounded off a lazy summer day !

Sunday Stamp Challenge - Numbers

Hi - this is the first time I have entered a challenge !

I found Hels blog a couple of weeks ago & have lurked about without commenting or anything. I did make things with the wings & a letters themes of the past couple of weeks but not in time to take part !

This weekend I got my act together to make a stamped piece with the theme of Numbers. I used as outsized (8" long) chipboard tag, decorated with paints & inks. Then stamped with the PaperArtsy Clocks numbers stamps & coloured them in. Then some Viva Inkagold smudged over to highlight. I cut the No. 1 out of a grungeboard sample, used gesso & distress inks to colour & mounted it on burgandy card as it all merged in a bit too much without it ! I stamped the U R My No. 1 with HOTP alphabet stamps. Then added a fabric flower rosette with a hand made embellishment (mica cover baked fimo with a charm set in it!)

So my first completed entry for the Sunday Stamper Challenge !

Sanctuary Screen

Despite a night over in Cheltenham to see Calendar Girls (great fun - funny & sad too !) , I have got a bit of crafting done - project 1 was decorating the 3 panel screen I bought at the Artsy Crafty weekend. I used the new Hot Picks stanps and mixed them up with some of the others in the series.

I was worried about stamping the detailed stamp directly onto the painted wood - so used the sticky back smooth canvass for that part & the moths & butterfly panel. Think it has worked quite well with a fair amount of inking it in to cover the joins !

More on project 2 tomorrow !

Cooking & Crafting !

Just to prove that women are SO capable of multi-tasking, today has been a blend of cooking & crafting - oh and swimming 60 lengths, doing the washing & planting out lettuces !

I tried a new chicken recipe - chicken thighs with pineapple & chipotle chilli. It was supposed to be mango but I'm not fond - so pineapple it was !

I made the marinade this morning & left it to seep into the meat in the fridge all day.

It came out really quite tasty & I would make it again but maybe would crisp off the skin a bit.

Then I had decided to make Chutney to try to use up the Rhubarb that is going mad in the garden - I found a recipe in my new Preserves book which suggested adding shredded tangerine skin - have you ever tried to de-pith a tangerine ? - well the tangerine may have been orange but the air was blue !!

I decide to go with a 50/50 mix of dark brown & golden caster sugars to get a nice balance of sweetness & a deeper colour. Oh & I thought that spicy would be good - so added a couple of chopped red chillies & a couple of inches of fresh chopped ginger.

So it's now made & successfully bottled - Lakeland's Jam Funnel's are the real deal !!

Now I just have to wait 3 months to see how it matures up - so come back in September !!

Whilst the chutney was cooking, I was nipping back & forward to my craft desk to make up the perpetual calender & wooden bird I had bought at the Artsy Crafty weekend.

I had decided to base the colour scheme on the Wisteria & Pistachio Kaiser paints, added in a bit of Distress Inking, a spray of the new Crafty Notions matte white paint spray (a little goes a long way - all over the desk & everything on it from a couple of tiny squirts !!)

Then I used the Ding Dong Paperartsy stamps to get the Time theme & numbers - Pro-markers proved very effective to colour things in !

I also got to finish my Scrap Club challenge.

We each had to draw a template on the theme of "A Day in the Life" which had 1) 5 photos, or more, 2) 3 different papers, 3) a pocket & 4) a fabric flower .

Then we swopped all the designs & were given someone elses to make up as a page.

I decided to do the Day as the Saturday from my Artsycrafty weekend - I took photos on the day, asked a couple of the other girls to take some of me & then used a lot of the scraps & leftovers from the weekend to make the page - plus a new stamp and a grunge flower adaptation !

All in all I am quite pleased how it turned out !

Crafting but not Blogging !

Poor sad neglected blog ! One minute it was March - then up crept Easter, a fantastic spring holiday in sunny Ras Al Khaimah in the Emirates & somehow May rushed past and still I hadn't blogged !

Happily I have been crafting ! A full album scrapbooked about our holiday and a wonderful inspiring time at the Artsy Crafty weekend - as usual we tried lots of great new products, fun inky & painty messy techniques in lots of brilliantly put together colour combinations !

Here's some work in progress !