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For anyone who is wondering why I should possibly want to show you a random heap of stuff on a work surface, where have you been?  It is for a wonderful weekly blog where we all show everyone else what we are working on, what we are not working on and what has been left behind by the aforesaid activity.  We are hosted by the wonderful Julia at Stamping Ground, where you will find links to others who have been far more creative that me this week.

You may notice that a lot of the things from last week are still here, because the focus of work has moved downstairs for the writing of the cards and the wrapping of the presents - no time to create masterpieces (what masterpieces do you create, I hear you say).  There are a number of things underneath the piles which I cannot show you until they "go live" or until they are delivered to the recipients.  My previous post does show a collage of some of the cards done for this Christmas, if you have time to look back.  For those who are short of time (aren't we all?), then have a wonderful Christmas and I will see you all afterwards.  Now it is time to visit Julia to follow those links, but I hope you will find time to leave a comment before you go. 

Done it - well, nearly!

I have finally finished writing the Christmas cards.  Well almost!  There are about five that I need to make, two inserts to do and a few ecards to send.  The worst is over, however. 

I could not show you all the cards I had made, and I showed most of them throughout the year as I made them anyway,  This is the next best thing, a collage of some of the better ones.  They are all in their envelopes with their address labels on and stamped, ready to go (we bought all our stamps last year (just after Christmas).. 

We still have three small presents to buy and then we can wrap everything and label them - must make some labels tomorrow.   There are a few things still to arrive to make up some mixed parcels.   They are all promised in time for Christmas, so I am not panicking yet. 

The best thing is I can now allow myself to do a little of what I want to do.  I have new stamps to try out, and paints and inks to get messy with.  Yippee!  Watch this space for the fun I intend to have.

How are you all doing with your preparations?  I must sit down now and make out my menu and shopping list for feeding the family.  I intend to make it as easy as possible, doing as much beforehand as I can, to allow us to enjoy having the family together.  I fancy that sleep might be in short supply.  Our youngest granddaughter wakes at around 5 am, and I am certain that the dogs will wake up too to tell us, so sleep will be finished.  We have thought about decamping to the caravan on the front drive for the night but it depends on how cold it is.

Card of the Week

I was so chuffed today to see the write up for the Card of the Week on the Robyn's Fetish Challenge Blog this week, featuring this card using their images.  This was a card I did as a member of the Craft A Scene Design Team for this month's challenge

I was contacted on Sunday by Susan Paulson of Robyn's Fetish asking if she could feature my card on their Challenge Blog as the Card of the Week.  I had to give my permission, send a copy of the card, and details of how I made it, and the write up is now "live" on their blog.  As a thank you, I was also given any image of my choice from their online shop.

It is good to know that the sponsors are really interested in what we are doing with their images. good. The other DT members have done some awesome cards, as have all those who have entered the challenge this month.  Do take time to go over to Craft A Scene to see them all. 

WOYWW - 184

As you can see, my desk is a total wreck at the moment, due to trying to write Christmas cards and do the inserts at the same time, and a few other jobs too.  I won't list all that is there and just let you wander and wonder.

I am sure most of you have finished all your preparation by now and can sit back and pity me..........  did I hear hysterical laughter there?  Oh well, I was hoping that others might have been better off than me.  Anyone got any ideas on how to wrap a huge ride on tractor and trailer for our littlest granddaughter - that could be fun.

If you want to see loads of other desks, some in the same state as mine, some much tidier and interesting, just follow the link  and call in on Julia, our esteemed leader.  She will be delighted to see you.

To anyone I don't contact before the great day, have a wonderful Christmas and see you in the New Year with lots of resolutions (to write the wretched cards in March in 2013, for one).  I hope to get round as many of you as possible this week, panic permitting.  Have a great day.

Craft A Scene - DT - Winter No 2

This is my second offering as a member of the Craft A Scene DT for the Winter challenge for December.  Our sponsors for this month are Robyn's Fetish, who very kindly gave us a number of their designs to play with.    This card is a combination of two of them (Christmas Cottage and In The Cold), after a fair bit of computer playing.

I used My Craft Studio to cut out the first cottage, and then duplicate it twice to produce the row of cottages of graduated size.  I did the same with the In The Cold image, placing it digitally in front of the cottages.  Then I printed it out twice, once on cheap copy paper and once on the good card for the finished design.  The image on the copy paper was cut out and used as a mask so that I could brayer the sky behind it.  I started with Adirondack Cloudy Blue, then Denim, and then finally part of the Sunset Big and Juicy ink pad.  With the mask still in place, I stamped the trees behind the cottages, using a new Clarity stamp.

The colouring in was done with Promarkers.  I started with the windows,with two shades of yellow to give some shading, and then embossed them with clear embossing powder to give them the shine of glass.  I had also embossed the chimneys and the smoke in the same way to make the sky easier to brayer - too idle to cut the mask for those.  The wellies were embossed with iridescent powder to make them a little sparkly.  It also protected them while I was adding the blue shades to the snow.  I love using Promarkers.  It is so easy to achieve good shading with them with a little patience.  The only other thing I added was some Polar White Flower Soft round the bottom of the cottages, and dots of gold for the door knobs, and silver for the sled.

This is, I think, a better picture, having scanned it this time.  Hope you like this effort and it may give you ideas for cards that are much better than mine.  Have fun and let us see what you can do over a Craft A Scene.  Come on, you know you want to have a go.

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This is the parlous state of my desk this morning (well, last night, and it hasn't changed since).  Binoculars to watch the birds on the feeders outside, keyboard to write this post, paintbox used for the last project (cannot be shown yet) and to be used on the next one, and sundry other bits and pieces that need putting away.  Still cannot find that foiling kit, drat it!

If you are wondering why I am showing you this dull mess on my desk, then you had better go over to Julia's desk to see loads of others showing you their desk on Whats on Your Workdesk Wednesday.

It is now official, there are not enough days this month to get everything done, presents still to buy, cards to write and to send, life to live .......   HELP!!!!!  I need more time.  Hope to see you all later around the blogs.  Love and hugs to you all.

Craft A Scene DT Card 1 for Winter

This is the first of my two scheduled DT cards for December for the Craft A Scene Winter Challenge.    The original image was one of four donated by the sponsor for this month, Robyn's Fetish.  As soon as I saw the images, I knew what I wanted to do with this one.  It positively cried out to have the doors opened and the windows cut out to reveal a scene inside.  Fortunately, I had just replaced the blade n my Fiskars finger blade so it went through the card like a knife through butter (probably better as our butter is rock hard in the fridge).

The scene for the inside came from a My Craft Studio CD Rom (Craft' E' Christmas Crystal Sparkles), and the digi stamps of Santa and his elves were from the same source.  The Christmas tree you can see was part of the background sheet, and just needed a bit of glittering.  Can anyone tell me how to get glitter to show up on a photo?  I have failed miserably with that task again.  All the colouring in was done with various Promarkers, some of which needed the extra thin nibs added.  In fact, some while ago, I treated myself to a bumper order for those nibs as I was fed up with having to swap them around and get rid of one colour before I could use them.  On more than one occasion, I forgot to cleanse them before trying to add a different colour to a nearly completed image - not a good look.

Santa's beard and the fur on his clothes and on one of the elves was added with a Quickie glue pen and some Polar White Flower Soft.  I kept the colours very simple, more in keeping with what we think of as a child's colouring.  I also added some glitter (Martha Stewart fine red glitter)  for the tree stars and the decorations, and, of course, the holly berries on the fir branch.

I had intended to put all the elves inside, but then the doors looked so bare and dull that I decided to put two of them at the front, ready to go in.  The background and the digi stamps were all printed separately, cut out and added by using extra sticky tape, shaker tape and Pinflair glue, according to the effect I wanted, and whether I needed the extra moveability of the silicone.  I did want to add dimension to the background scene, by raising the figures above the background, and the shaker tape and the Pinflair do that job brilliantly.

I hope you like what I have done with this card and that it show you that you can mix and match different media, and do not have to stick to one set of stamps to produce a reasonable card.  The original image gives you chance to really work your imagination, and I look forward to seeing lots of you joining in with this month's challenge over at Craft A Scene, and seeing how you interpret "Winter".  Come on, join in, and have some fun with us.