WOYWW - 121

No pictures of my actual desk this week, just a couple of cards just completed, done in rather a rush.  I am still in the middle of a major tidy up, so there is not a lot of space in which to play.  This first one is for the anniversary of our close friends.  Hopefully they will not see it before the day.  

I used a couple of the Big and Juicy ink pads to brayer the background onto a Clarity silk art card.  The brayering could have been better, but fortunately the stamp covered the worst faults.  The stamps were all from the Clarity range.  The couple in the boat came out better than I thought they would.  I did the reflection first, by inking the stamp and running the brayer up it.  Then I could position the reflection roughly in the right area, before stamping the main image just above it.  When the whole thing was dry, I used a white Sakura pen to add highlights.  The whole thing was mounted using Pinflair glue on to dark blue card from Paper Mill, and finally on to a A5 Clarity silk art card.

 

This second card was done in the same way, with the same ingredients, but for some reason the printing seems to be darker on this one. I really like the oriental feel of these stamps, and they really lend themselves to this blend of colours.  I do need a lot more practice again with the brayering to get the smooth blends that Barbara Gray achieves.  I still have a lot of Christmas cards to do so the brayer will be well used in the next few weeks, not to mention a lot of masking, embossing and stamping (not necessarily in that order).

I thought you may like to see one or two more photos from our flying visit to Spain.  The area was completely free from touristy rubbish, well off the normal trails, more of the real Spain.  This castle is Berlanga de Duero, so spectacular, and seriously dramatic in a thunder storm.  The wedding reception was held here, the canapes on this terrace, the main meal and speeches in the marquee, and the evening reception back out on the terrace.  The whole place is spectacular, especially when floodlit at night, and visible from quite a distance.

This is the church of San Juan de Rabanera in Soria, again beautifully lit at night.  It is classed as an ancient monument, with good reason, and really well kept.  The area around it was pristine, no rubbish anywhere.  In fact, that was one thing that struck us about the whole town - no rubbish lying around, the town square washed every morning.  The people were so proud of their town.

The last photo for today is not a wonderful picture but it intrigued me.  I took it from the plane as we were dropping down through the clouds coming home.  If you look carefully, you can see the shadow of the plane on the clouds.  It shows a phenomenon called a Glory, where you get a rainbow halo around the shadow of the plane.  Sadly, the rainbow does not show up as well as it did in real life, but you can see the brighter cloud around the shadow.  The science is that the sun is directly behind my viewpoint, so shining through the ice and water in the air to create the rainbow.

Maybe, next week there will be a bit more crafty stuff to show you, but till then, why don't you wander round to Julia's pad (http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/) to find the link to many really crafty people who give us the chance to take a sneaky peak at their desks.

PS Does anyone have any idea on how to get mica powders off a Versamark pad?