WOYWW - A mess!

What a mess my desk is this week! I have been playing with different techniques as part of the Gina K challenge. I really love her stamps! Only problem is, I was having so much fun, cleaning was the furthest thing from my mind.Hence the mess I am showing this week on WOYWW.



 And here are the results of my creative frenzy, first a card playing with inks and embossing.

 Next a shaped card, and of course you knew I just had to use my beloved Copics somewhere!

Then some tags. Prototypes for the good luck tags we are going to need at school. Now to make 400 of those :)

 

Last, but my personal favourite, a card made with hand stamped background paper.

I have to run, I am on granny duty this morning, dropping off grandies at school before I go to school, So I will see you all late afternoon for a visit, until then, have fun and have an amazing week everyone!

WOYWW - Happy mail from my Secret Santa!

Good afternoon to all my wonderful friends at WOYWW. Today saw the start of the new school year here in South Africa, so for me it was up early and off to school. I just stumbled into the house, dead tired. On the way home I decided to make one more stop at the Post Office in the hope that my parcel from my secret Santa has finally arrived. And it did!!!! Wonderful timing, I needed a lift after a very long day. All the way from Finland, came this wonderful parcel from Siina Klytseroff.

 

 It took every ounce of willpower not to rip it open right there in the Post Office and wait till I got home to take pictures. I belong to a Facebook group for the Make it Crafty stamp company and the lovely owner hosted a Secret Santa group where you were given the name of another member and had to send a card featuring one of her stamps and some goodies if you wanted to. My Secret Santa was very generous, but I thought I was going to cray when I opened the parcel to find she had lovingly and beautifully wrapped several other presents.

Here is the beautiful card I got. Trust me, it is SOOO much more gorgeous in real life! 

And here is the photo of all the wonderful gifts that she sent, I can not begin to thank her enough! So many nice things there, you can expect to see some of it on my cards real soon, 

That's it for me, I have some gorgeous stash to go and play with! See you next week, hopefully with some of my own craftiness.

 

WOYWW - a lot, but not a desk.

Its the last week of the school holiday and DH's leave and suddenly he is trying to finish all the jobs he had a month to do. That means that I get called every 5 seconds to come and hold this, paint this, look at this etc. So, no use for me to try and work at my craft desk. LOL

I have made myself at home at the dining room table and I am doing some preparation for next week. New textbooks are being covered and first sections are read. New readers have been read, even yesterday's local paper has been read. I collected the ingredients for making my own texture paste. The recipe came from Michelle van Wyk. We shall see if it works.

 

 If you look closely, you will see some grey paint, I had to use that for one of those 'come paint this quickly trips to DH's garage and there is a roll of dark grey vinyl. DD wants me to cut her a phrase for her wall with my wonderful Silhouette.

And here you see my other workplace, DH is busy sanding and repainting our bedroom furniture. I had to do the aging on the edges. He 'can't' - I think he just gets lonely in there and wants somebody to talk to.
Have a great week everybody and don't forget to visit Julia for the list of WOYWW desk to visit.

Playing with Gina K stamps

 

Its the last week of my December holiday! School starts on Monday for us and on Wednesday for the kids. I can not believe how quickly the time has gone.

I LOVE Gina K stamps. I have learnt so much from watching Gina's video's on Stamp TV. It is my go to place whenever I need to know something.

 I decided to try the challenges Gina is posting for Guest Designers on their site. Luckily nobody was at home when I did the silly happy dance when I found out that they decided to open the challenges to non Americans too.  I used the technique 'Colour on colour emboss resist' that Gina demonstrates in this video. I love how it turned out.

The stamps are all from Gina K, the inks are a combination of GinaK and Ranger as well as Versamark. The ribbon and lace came from my stash. I decided to stamp the sentiment on the inside of the card and used the little butterfly in the colours that I used on the front. The card really is more beautiful in real life.

WOYWW - Slow down!

Hallo 2014 and hallo to all of the wonderful people at WOYWW. I can not tell you how relieved I am to see the last of 2013. It was not a year that will be remembered for anything in particular in my life, but it just was not a nice year at all. I feel like I have been hit by a freight train at full speed.

I have spent the last few weeks of 2013 with my family and just relaxing, I needed that and feel my Mojo returning as we speak, It took me about a week to clean my craft room and sort out everything that just got dumped there in the last few months.

 

 Here you have it, my clean (well, sort of clean) desk For those of you with eagle eyes, did you spot the sewing machine covered in plastic? It was given to me by my Brother in Law. It used to belong to his mother. Its an ols Singer machine and was made in 1947. We had it serviced and it still works!! My DH is busy restoring the cabinet, hence the machine resting on my desk.

DH has been on leave too and he and his friend made this ribbon storage for me. I LOVE it! They made the one on the right a few years ago and DH then said that even I could never fill it! LOL That sounded like a challenge to me, so what could I do? I filled it to capacity and then some, so they had to make an extension! They also added storage for my punches. When they fitted it, DH said he was sure I could fill this too, but he hoped I wouldn't. ROFLMAO!
Good thing I have decided to not buy any more ribbon this year.
Have a great year everybody! I hope to stick to my decision not to say yes to so many things and to make a concerted effort to slow down and craft more!

Finally I am back!

My poor little blog has been very neglected. Those of you who know me, will know that the last two months of the school year has been incredibly busy. I hardly touched sides. With final exam papers to be set and marked, new leaders to be chosen and an album for our retiring head mistress to be scrapped in a week I had no time for anything.

 

I did manage to finish a few last minute Christmas cards. Don't you just love this image from Make it Crafty?  She was coloured with my beloved Copics and there is some Flowersoft on her hat for a little added texture. The card was made using a sketch from the MIC Facebook sketch challenge. Such a lovely sketch to work with. This one is definitely going into the file to be used again.

 

My daughter really loved the card when she saw it and wanted to send it to her bestie in America. The only problem? Ellie has ginger hair, so the elf had to have a little make over. LOL I quite like the ginger elf.

All the papers are scraps from last year's Christmas LO's and the ribbon and flowers came from my stash. 

 

My DH and his friend has been very busy too. They built me this awesome storage for my ribbons and punches. I LOVE. love, love it!  They made the ribbon storage on the right about 2 years ago and added the other two units today.  

 

May you all have a wonderful 2014, I hope that it will be a year in which I manage to do a lot more crafting and a lot less running around.

WOYWW - I am still here.



A very good morning to all of you who came to visit. I am still here, life has just spiraled out of control and my poor little blog was tha one that got left behind. I really missed all of you and hope to be back more with more regular posts and visits from now on.

A you can see, not much has happenef on the desk, other than just dumping stuff and running. Those eagle eyed WOYWW visitors, did you norice my new and beautiful Big Shot? I could not resist buying it, I mean, its beautiful, isn't it?



 

I did do some crafting, and here are the results. first this card made from a Make it Crafty digi stamp. I just LOVE the images from Zoe's store. They are such a delight to colour and she is just the most amazing person. When we were burgled a month ago and I lost all my digi stamps, not only could I retrieve my stamps from her website, but she even sent me a gift voucher to make me feel better!!! Who does that? Only Zoe, so please do yourself a favour, go and visit her, you will not be sorry.

Of course she was coloured with my beloved Copic markers and the paper is Graphics45 



Lastly I thought I would show you grandie nr.3's Birthday invitations and party packs. She is having an owl tea party. Thank goodness for my Silhouette! I had so much fun with these,

That's it from me folks. Have a great day and a fantastic week. Thank you for visiting, I will be around soon (at least before next Wednesday for the WOYWWers.