cause it is WOYWW day but not yet Good as Hell! Still possibly a few hours to wait so my page in still awaiting completion. Once the inauguration has gone off without a hitch (oh please, PLEASE let it be so) then I can FINALLY finish it, and with it, the journal. Thus, my desk is ready, and so am I.
Just at the top right you can see the page from yesterday – I still love it – it’s still awaiting the date stamp, so on my otherwise clean (yes, AGAIN) desk to remind me.
and the unearthed piece of art from my box labelled Vintage is there too, for my next page after the GAH page. This is a closer look at it:
And while I am not much for haul videos I did get this set of brushes from Amazon. I have been keen to try the ink blending brushes and this set has not only the “normal” size ones but a big, fat one and a bunch of tiny little ones. I am keen to see what they might offer. The set was cheap so worth experimenting with:
It’ll be fun – I have some ideas, we’ll see if they work out! My last two (I think) can’t comment folk are Julie F and Kathryn Frantz , both on Instagram. I’m not. I think I joined once about 10 years ago and then for some reson deleted my account. I have since read that if you do that you can never join with that email again. Oh well, sucks for me. I have a running list and will have to check back as I might have missed someone out!
Have a great WOYWW trip round the desks and I hope you all feel Good as Hell at the end of it!
Happy WOYWW y’all! What a week it has been. I’ll say no more.
I decided another shot of a really clean desk would be far too boring so I’ll start with my desk last night:
I mentioned I would make sure to get my birthday book finished so I could share it, and once I found the stamp I wanted I can now do so! Here is my morning desk after an evening tidy-up:
And a close up of the book:
There is a line that says BREATHE at the bottom of the stamp, but luckily the little chit-chat words fit perfectly to block that – maybe so because the first thing I did when I got the booklet was to scan the full pages. Now I print them out and use those instead of peeling off the original stickers – you can see that in the top messy desk photo. It just means that I can now snip out individual words, if I like, and build whatever phrase I want. I scanned at 300 dpi so even the white writing on black prints really well. And I now have an endless supply, which is nice. The phrases on the book are slightly cobbled together from phrases in the pad.
I did take a final shot without the bulldog clip so I might as well add it:
I am coming to the end of my can’t comment links! Two old crop buddies this week – PearshapedChris and Cardarian! I spent a couple of lovely WOYWW crops chatting to them and hope one day we might meet up again. And, let’s refer back to my list…Oh yes! Annie C had a fab Demelza doll on her blog, a week or so ago. Love it!
That’s it for me this week. Next week in the week of the 20th of January. I am counting the hours….
Happy WOYWW once again! Is your desk a mess? Be sure to check out the link to the organizer I just discovered, you may be inspired!
Yeah well you know how it goes. I was getting ready to work on Phase 2 of my painted papers and this is what I was faced with:
The area behind my primary work surface has not been working for quite some time. There are too many things in the way of where most of my surface colour items are – my spray inks, my Brusho pots, my Gelato knock-offs, etc. AND the little drawers on the sides have stuff I go to all the time like adhesives and small punches – remember I cut all those letters a post or so back when I had the perfect punch to do it neatly and quickly? Yep. Buried in that open drawer you see – and then three drawers of crap that has just always lived there but doesn’t have to. And about six little pots or pen holders that house stuff like all my blades, all my black and white pens and fat Posca and Posca-like pens. I needed to tidy up before I could move on!
So I did. As of this morning … won’t last, I’m sure.
The thing is, I was doing my treadmill walk and watched a handful of videos by someone called The Crafty Organizer. And she had some great tips. But the funny thing was that while I was watching (and I can’t recall which video it was or what he idea was, but I THINK it was something to do with making paper storage from foam core) within my eyeline on the treadmill was an old CD storage unit. And I had an idea. Hard to see but the “shelves” that divide the cabinet up are old empty CD cases with a bit of washi tape along the front edge to make them look a little decorative! Look how much stuff I crammed in there. MOST of the shelves have shallow containers on them so I don’t have to riffle thru the entire shelf to find something, I can slide all the stuff out and then pick what I need. And I sorted out the drawers too, so I had just what I really need in there. All the little pots of things are no longer in front of the stuff I need access too and over all I have a ton more room to work! Yippie Skippy!
I will be getting back to my painted papers tutorial tomorrow, now I am not working in chaos.
I have my usual couple of can’t-comment people to praise – Ohhh Snap! had the most gorgeous shawl, week before last I think it was. Just stunning. And I have to mention Angela, cause my painted papers idea, or maybe just the method for making them, had it’s seed in Masterboards, and I often see them on her WOYWW post. Love the idea. Just had to jump in to add I love her folded booklet instructions from this week – I have an idea already!! Lastly, I cannot, for some reason, bring up Ali Wade’s blog at all. I am desperate to sort it out. I get these little dancing dots and….nothing. I have tried three different browsers and they are all the same. Then I tried adding the https:// in front and get:
Warning: Potential Security Risk Ahead
Firefox detected a potential security threat and did not continue to craftingwithali.com. If you visit this site,attackers could try to steal information like your passwords, emails, or credit card details.
Is it just me? Why?
So that’s it for this week. Another lockdown, and frankly I am happy as can be. Let’s hope I am as happy after the final call on the Georgia Senate race from yesterday and the electoral college vote today!
Happy WOYWW to all – and creeping closer to the final days of 2020. They cannot come soon enough for me.
I finished an art journal page that I quite like. It is what is on my desk today:
Yes, careful watchers will note that I now own a set of Janet Klein images. I have commented for many weeks on WOYWW how tempted I have been by them. Mostly I have seen the little people with flower eyes, which I like well enough, but when I saw these, I just couldn’t resist.
Ignore the rubbish stamping – it was more for demonstration purposes than for use in the final page above! I almost passed them by, because of the head-toppers. I have been wanting images that will work as collage-y figures in my art journal but oh my, that fruit bowl! Anyway, once I got them in my hands, a little knife work and they were transformed. I ended up using them exactly as I intended when they fell into my basket.
A few posts back I mentioned I was on a mission to find supplies that could be used in different ways, to make standard issue items more unique to me. There are three things on that page that have been altered or used in a different way. I wonder if you can spot them all? I have a few step-by-step sort of photos to take but I will be sharing probably tomorrow.
Hope you all had the best socially-distanced Christmas that you could – we are still working our way thru family Zooms, cause if Thanksgiving taught us anything it was that massive multi-houshold Zooms are rarely satisfying. I prefer smaller groups, so that means many more Zooms!
I have not made it thru the list from last week, as of today as I type, but expect to do so by the time WOYWW posts tomorrow. Here are a few more can’t comment links that I like to add to let people know that I visit even if I can’t leave a comment to prove it! ~Stacey had a great idea for using monogram letters as gift tags! I will totally do this next year. Dorlene is another who often posts scrapbook layouts that I love seeing and can never say so.
Ha. I did say it was shocking, but in a different way than you might have expected. Happy Clean Desk WOYWW, y’all! I even managed to scrub all the gunk off my pink self-healing mat. The X you can see in on a clear mask, cut to match a Dina Wakely chipboard shape. I keep losing track of it, being clear and all. The little journal that I made from a Roben Marie class is there, and it is going to become a very specific journal for 20201. More on that in the future. Oh and the Fude Ball black pen. Love it cause it writes on ANYTHING, but wish it were permanent.
And it isn’t just this desk.
Even my computer desk is mighty tidy. On the left you can see The Moth – I was hunting up one of my favourite stories, Lego Crimes, to listen to while I cleaned. It’s not long and it makes me smile. I can get lost in that site, listening to the stories, some funny, some sad, some uplifting, some tragic – all true, told by the people who lived them. I also listened to the most haunting story, so tragic, so unbelievable I won’t link it. I will tell you it is called It Wasn’t Enough by Charlene Strong, and it resulted in a change to the laws (this was before marriage equality) and a documentary. It made me cry.
Back to desks – my gel printing desk, and to the side where you can’t see (above and below) my Cricut cutting desk, both are also very neat. I have a die cut that I am experimenting with, maybe to stick into my journal as a see thru lace page. I’m not yet convinced I want to cut into a page that is sewn in, which is why I’m playing with a tape-in-between option. I am contemplating doing something with the circle layout to the right as well, as another lace page idea, if I get over my hesitation.
Over where I do my die cutting and embossing is a standing desk. It has been completely taken over by gift wrapping stuff.
So that is me this week. Nothing really exciting, maybe just what you would expect this close to Christmas. And speaking of,
Have a wonderful and Merry Christmas!
(DOH! Completely forgot to add my shout-outs to those I can’t comment on! Lillian B. has fab cards almost every week and Wipso and Twiglet are inspiring if needle arts are your thing. )
Happy WOYWW! Not too many left in 2020. Cannot WAIT for this year to be DONE! My desk is, as ever, a massive chaotic mess, but front and centre is the page that I have been inching towards this week. While the Electoral College vote on Monday might well have been my signal to move on to adding the Good As Hell words and finishing up that damned page, I think I really have to wait for the first day of a new administration. But I will not mention it again unless (God Forbid!) things take a turn away from where it is heading now, towards a much anticipated and very welcome Biden/Harris inauguration.
So if you read back to my musings of yesterday, on classes and doing the obvious thing, then you will see I kinda went a different way here. In the class, the focal point was a circle placed according to the rule of thirds (well-remembered from my scrapbooking days) and was specific – add an image, like an animal, and a word for moving forward. I fought the temptation to use a circle as the main focal point (for all the reasons I mentioned yesterday) which was easy when my eye landed on this stamp. I used the bee to make the phrase Be Positive as my 2021 focus, and added a secondary focal point along a diagonal. I think it works and I am really quite happy with it. The small pointing finger and the scattering of dates stamped around the edges all reinforce to forward motion I hope for in 2021. Overall, there was a lot more thought that went into the composition of this page than is usual for me. I am way more a fling it all on the page and make it ALL stick kinda gal. But as I work thru the class maybe, just maybe, I can learn to slow down and savor the process.
In that vein I will move slower thru the desks this week! And I made a few notes from LAST week. Chrissie made me smile cause she got her Christmas tree in Alexandria – not far from where I lived in the States and in the year I graduated high school. She was once a NoVa gal! Nice. Elizabeth always has lovely scrapbooking layouts on WOYWW week and I always want to comment, but not enough to give Google another way to collect my data. I know, I am annoyingly pedantic. And lastly Sylvia – I loved paging back to her challenge winning mini-book, something I also love making. Looking forward to seeing what she does with the scraps from her hubby’s destruction of the cot…
I managed to pop in for quite a while to the AM session, and to pop in briefly to the evening session, and it was WONDERFUL to see all the people who I know only thru their art and their blog-voices. I enjoyed the discussion on how you pronounce WOYWW (I don’t care how it is spelled, to me it is, and will ever be, WOWWEE!)
After seeing so many last week and a few on the Zoom, I thought I would begin with our tree.
and the front of the house. Looks weird, I know, but the people we bought from joined a pair of Victorian semis into a singe house. Both doors are us!
Desk is less attractive, maybe.
A couple of things. Still inching closer to completing my journal page. And I had to make an odd card. Card first. My son’s girlfriend is Jewish, born in Israel, and celebrates Hanukkah. We celebrate Christmas. I have nothing stamp-wise or embellishment-wise that could be for Hanukkah, as this is the first year they have been together for the holidays. I decided to combine the two holidays on a single card. I often see blue & white or silver on Hanukkah cards so I went with that and snowflakes. They live in LA so it is likely to be the only snow they see!
And now the journal page…
A few additions since the last glimpse. I decided it is less about ME feeling good as hell and more about the entire PLANET feeling a massive sense of relief once we can finally say BYE, DON. The fact he has raised something like $200 million from mostly small donors (who can least afford it and who he puts at risk EVERY DAY with his the virus is a hoax claptrap) makes my blood boil. The fact it is in essence his own private slush fund makes me even madder. January 20th simply cannot come soon enough but I won’t finish this page till that psycho either concedes or is replaced in the White House.
And I can’t wait to never have to mention him here again…
As ever I vow to VISIT every desk and COMMENT on every blog that allows open ID. I’m going to shout out to a couple of blogs where I can’t comment but enjoy week after week – Sarah Brennan, I love every one of your pen and ink drawings and look forward to seeing them every week. Diana@Velvet Moth Studio, your art is stunning. There have been so many things I have seen that pushed me right to the edge of commenting when signed in to Google! But my resolve is firm. Just know I pop round every week to have a look….
Too too exciting! 600 weeks of WOYWW. The best way to nosy around other people’s desks and let them nosy around yours, with no one getting peeved at the snooping. Who could have thought 600 weeks ago, Julia’s idea would still be a thing even now? WOYWW Deskers have become a lovely little community and it is a haven of sanity and crafty camaraderie in these crazy times. Not to mention a ton of enabling posts full of interesting goodies to covet…or maybe let slip into whatever shopping basket you have open on the day.
My desk this week is inching closer and closer to finishing my Feelin’ GOOD AS HELL art journal page. I am part way thru, but am holding off in finishing it till either the concession or the inauguration. I just don’t want to jinx it. It looks a hot mess right NOW but I have a vision for it.
I am enjoying the few neon paints I have, as you can maybe see from the glare. Here’s a close-up:
I indulged myself on Black Friday and grabbed a bundle of stencils from Amazon. Surprise, surprise, they are the same price today. They are decent quality, any rubbish stenciling is down to me, not them!
Only a few that I am not keen on, most of them, if they aren’t usable (for me) in whole, they have bits within that I like. Not bad for under 20p apiece!
I have also been busy with UKScrappers. I spent a lot of time feeling pretty unwell, as some deskers will know, but now I am feeling better (temporary or not) I have taken it in hand with my two best mates over there, ScrapDolly and Miniowner (AKA Karen and Sue) They have worked really hard sorting the Facebook group, setting up new challenge Teams on the forum and preparing the challenges for the year. It is shaping up to be a lot of fun in 2021. If you still scrapbook, make cards, or need help with your Silhouette Cameo, drop by. You might find some inspiration there – and for the Silhouette, you will find a 15% off coupon code!
So my lovely WOYWWers – have a fab week and all being well I might see you on Zoom on Saturday!
We are very close to the WOYWW 600th week crop. Very exciting. Of course I have been fighting with my computer all day – can’t tell if it is the new USB hub (birthday gift – hubby is SUCH a romantic…) or a cable or a power cord or something else, but my poor Cricut will not connect to my computer. Annoying. So I went off to try something else. I saw a video, years ago, about making texture plates for the Gelli plate, using spackle, basically. I had to order some to fix a hole so I got more than I needed LOL!
The stencil is one I cut from transparency film and even so, it seems to have worked pretty well. Still drying (or at least it was when I snapped the photo) so I’ll test it out maybe tomorrow. Oh, excited! Looks like I figured out how to embed a video using the new WordPress block editor. Hope it works for you…. this is the one I think I saw back in the day. Seems familiar.
Or maybe not. Off to the hospital for a follow-up appointment so it’ll depend on how that all goes before I know if I have time. Might make me a little late for my visits, but I’ll get around to all at some point.
Have a wonderful WOYWW day! I am, indeed, feeling Good As Heck today, and expect I might feel Good as Hell surely by mid-December (I hope, I hope) but if not I have to believe January 21st 2021, the first full day of a Biden/Harris presidency and the turning over of the official POTUS Twitter account will finally, finally make me sing… What I have been trying to cut are some joyful silhouettes, like so:
Happy WOYWW y’all! STILL not Good as Hell but creeping closer every day….
Today I have a tiny little tag book on my desk, destined as a gift. There is a photo I will hide but I won’t hide some shockingly old throwback supplies there:
When was the last time you used Silkies or Smooch pearlized paints? I am using them on my Gelli plate and they work very well. Here’s the close-up:
The poem is by my favourite poet, E.E. Cummings and is called [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] . Yep. Weird, I know. You can click the link and read the whole thing if you like. Your should check out r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r as well. You have to read it carefully:
and when you do:
grasshopper who as we look up now gathering into the grasshopper leaps arriving grasshopper to become rearrangingly grasshopper.
Another throwback – remember when circle journals were a massive thing? One of my first spreads in a circle journal was of this poem. I wish I had a copy of it to share but I cast it into the wild and have no idea where it might be. Ah well….
Have a wonderful arty day, and I’ll be popping round to yours any minute now…
