WOYWW 318

Good morning fellow Deskers, and for once it is still morning, it's usually after lunch when I blog but yesterday the temperatures were so high, 10.45am and already 35C on the way home from our walk, so we have suspended our walks, it was up to 44.8C in our conservatory yesterday!! it's promising us lower temperatures after next week, apparently a cool 28-30C!! I hope so as our family are coming over on 27th from San Francisco and they would hate this extreme heat.

Anyway on to my desk, I took this photo Monday afternoon, good job as I didn't do anything yesterday apart from tidy for ten minutes before giving up.

Still playing with my Brushos, had another craftstamper mag download and part 2 master class, so the one that caught my eye was using cling film, I must say I enjoyed it and you can see the pieces, some in purple and some red and green. Steve did give me a funny look when he saw me taking the cling film upstairs, he didn't ask, probably didn't want me to go into great detail and ruin his watching of the Tour de France.
Anyway you crinkle the cling film and then lay it out, spray with water or as in the pieces here I used watered down Mica powders and then sprinkle the Brushos, lay the card on the top and then fold the cling film around the card, turn over and rub your hands over the cling film to spread the paint, making sure there's creases and leave to dry. 

A close up of said pieces, I did cut them in half as I had a germ of an idea to use the purple for the BG on a birthday card but heat stopped play. The piece on the right I made using photo paper, which is quite effective. The Mica powders give a shimmer to it all, a bit hard to see here.

Thanks for all the lovely comments from last week, pleased to know I'm not the only one being challenged by Brushos but if anyone has any other ways to use it I'd be very interested to hear about it.
Until next week, Happy WOYWW from a slightly melted Desker, off to have a swim.

Jan x

WOYWW317

Finally made it, we've had a stressful morning, Steve had to be at the surgery at 8am for a set of bloods ready for his Cardiologists appointment and an ECG afterwards, unfortunately the nurse saw a problem so we had to wait two hours before the doctor could see him, now I'm even more stressed, Steve being Steve says he feels fine and not to worry! 
So we've just had breakfast as he wasn't allowed even water before the blood test!!

My desk this week, I took this photo yesterday before I tidied up. This is me being carried away with stamps and embossing powders, have you ever stepped on embossing powder? Its not a good feeling, especially when its glittery, I did have lovely pink and lemon soles though as well as a piece of glittery BG card made using a brayer with embossing ink and embossing powders.

I downloaded the craftstamper mag on my ipad as I noticed they had a few articles on Brushos, you may remember I had been tempted into buying a set, they had some beautiful pieces and they really made it look simple, LOL, well many attempts later and I'm still wondering why I'm really not finding it so easy! They showed how to stamp and emboss the flowers then sprinkle a tiny amount of powder inside the flower head and spritz, so far so good, mine bled into the BG but I think the problem is that my nozzle is too big and its spraying too wide so later I'll try another mister, hopefully by next week I might be able to show you a finished card.

The other side of the room, Julia asked it I stood up to craft or where did I put my legs when sitting, well I do stand most of the time but you can see on the first photo the desk has a lip where I can pull up my stool, that also has a secondary role as a place for ironing waiting to be done so not much sitting gets done.

So the Flowers are out as I was looking for a colour match to make a Shabby chic card for a challenge, not my thing so that's as far as I've got with it. The Roses are Buttonholes from the Wedding I've just bought upstairs to put away, paint brushes etc are left there from my Brushos experience and a piece of blue curled up paper that is supposed to be crackled, I bought some crackle paste but much prefer the crackle glaze, maybe I'm just not doing it right but it never seems to crackle enough, if you know what I mean.

Before I go, this is our American Grand-dog Splodgey, he was 15 yesterday and posing with the birthday card I sent him,  unfortunately he couldn't go out partying due to his age and being quite poorly, he even takes more meds than his Grandad does but he still had a birthday cupcake to celebrate complete with candles blown out by Joey and Charlie.

Well I think its time to say goodbye and cool off with a swim, temperatures have been brutal this week, over 45c yesterday so I'll head over to Julia's place and hope to see some cooler places from around the world.

Thanks for all your lovely comments on my last visit, they were much appreciated, I'm still trying to work out how to post thanks near the comments box, I'm sure I'll work it out eventually.

Jan x

WOYWW 315

My desk this week, well one part of it, doesn't look as if much is going on but I have finished three projects. I really should take the photo before cleaning up, at one point  I had so much paper out I couldn't find my paper trimmer.

I had a little play with my Brusho paints, after getting ideas from you tube I stabbed a hole in the top of the pots, which makes sense after I took the lid off and ended up using far too much paint, you might just see on the top piece of card. I decided to use one of my new stamps, PaperArtsy Mini flower, to stamp on top of the blue, cut them out and make flowers with them, I actually only finished the one, I think you can just see it, but I quite like it.

This is for our eldest son, his birthday isn't until next month but I wanted to get it finished while I had the idea in my head. Its actually a similar colour to his wedding suit, not sure the shirt collar is the right size for the jacket but after making a few that was the best of the bunch, I even had to make an envelope, as usual I just started the card without any thought of not having an envelope big enough! 

I even managed to finish Katie's card, our Grandsons friend, the balloons I've had for years but they did match the Birthday paper quite well I thought.

And just to show I haven't been slacking this week, my Scraplift page. This was our day out with Joey in San Francisco last year, to take him on the Muni, Tram and Cable car. 

I've started using my Smash book as a Journal of our holidays and special events.

Well that's me for this week, hope you have a great weekend, thanks to all who popped over last week and left lovely comments.

Jan x

WOYWW 313

Looks like you all had a great time last week with the ATC swop, I was quite pleased with myself as I managed to do a scheduled post which Julia linked up for me, I hope the ATC arrived Julia!
Whilst all the desk hopping was going on we were en route to Bydgoszcz in Poland for our eldest sons wedding. Everything went to plan, we all managed to meet at the hotel as planned before flying out the following day.

 My room looks the same as last week, almost, with the addition of a pile of ironing which I'm sure you really don't want to see so here's a few piccies instead.

Bydgoszcz is a very pretty town with lovely riverside walks and plenty of restaurants and coffee shops selling an amazing assortment of cakes, I did have to partake, just once, honestly, a blueberry cheesecake which was absolutely delicious.

The bride and groom arriving at the wedding reception, a novel way to arrive, sipping champers while the guests wait on the balcony. Magdalena was quite concerned about it beforehand as we all joked it would be a rowing boat, Steve actually thought the whole wedding party would be joining them!

Bring on the Wedding cake, Polish style, we were amazed it didn't melt with the heat.

We had already had the main course, Chicken, rolled beef, pork knuckle and all the trimmings, after an hour or so of dancing the waiter wheeled out a roast pig lit up with fireworks! I was so amazed I totally forgot to take a photo.

We left just after 1am so missed the soup that was served at 2am!! Apparently some guests were still partying at 4am. 

We had a lovely four days, the last day spent at the summer house near the lake with the family, sadly we all had to say goodbye, we all flew back to Stansted together, bride and groom home to London, youngest son to San Francisco and we stayed in the hotel another night as we had a 6am flight back to Alicante.

Just off for a swim so until next week, Happy WOYWW

Jan x

WOYWW 312

Hi all, Happy WOYWW, hope all goes well with the grand ATC swop.

My very, very tidy craft room, no work going on here, but greetings from Poland, by the time you are reading this we will all be meeting up and getting ready for the wedding on Friday so hopefully I'll have a few photos to show next week.

The front of the card I made, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out in the end and I even managed a few flowers too.

Also the inside, I put the sentiment on the back as there wasn't enough room on the inside panels, hopefully it will have survived the journey!!.

Have a great weekend.

Jan x

WOYWW 311

Well here we are again, another week gone by, I'm pleased to say my wedding card is finished and in its box, pictures next week.
Thanks to all who stopped by for a visit last week and thanks for your kind comments, if you thought my desk was tidy last week, well it's even tidier this week.

Actually I took this after I had tidied up, I had sheets of card all over, I managed to ruin four sheets of the pink card, the card was so thick I had to stick it to the cricut mat, it kept sliding off the mat while it was cutting, very annoying and a  shame as it was pearl shimmer but then again it has been hiding in the drawer for the past few years.
 The card is for Joey`s friends sister, Katie, it's not finished just laid out while I ponder how to attach the back and front, the white being the back, I haven't trimmed it to size yet until I decide what to do. I now have a pile of five's, all various sizes that didn't match up!
Oh and the envelope is my ATC all ready to post. 

All tidy on this side too, I have two scrap pages going on for the Scraplift Challenge over at SCS, one is my smash book on the left, that page is our day out with Joey last year in San Francisco. The other page is Joey's birthday from last year but I realised I had some photos missing so I need to ask our DIL to re send them but she's not feeling too well at the moment so it will have to wait.
I guess that's it for this week, so I'll just mosey or should that be nosy over to check out what you've all been up to, have a great week.
Jan x

WOYWW 310

Hi fellow Deskers, a lovely morning here in sunny Spain, we've had our morning constitutional, breakfast at the Marina, shopped and tried unsuccessfully to take Steve's suit to the dry cleaners, apparently they don't do clothes!!! Well that's a first, I wonder what they actually dry clean, anyway here's my desk for what it's worth.

It's not very exciting or colourful I'm afraid, I had a tidy up to make myself a space to make the box for the wedding card, you can see one lid with flowers and bits in it, that was my first attempt which was too big, I did say it usually takes me a few goes, anyway I managed to make one in the end and have attached silver ribbon around the edge and now I'm playing around with flowers etc trying to work out how to decorate it.

I haven't really worked on much else apart from card inners, I have three in the next couple of weeks so I have them all ready to post when we get home from the wedding, how organised it that!!

The other side of the room, I'm making another start on the scrap book I bought when Joey was born, he's seven this year, I had the idea to use it for birthdays but after doing two pages I lost enthusiasm for it, I've now joined the scrap challenge over on SCS and with encouragement from Sharon, Foxy Stamping so I've started another page, Joey's sixth birthday from last year, I will just have to work backwards and of course now there's Charlie too, he's three this year so I've a few to catch up on!! I'm hoping to do as much as possible so I can show them when they come over in July.

I have been working on my ATC but that's hidden under the blue card, I just have to make the back now and I think I'm done.

Thanks once again for all your comments last week, just off to see what everyone else has been up to. Take Care

Jan x