WICKED WEDNESDAY ATC #62 - FAIRY HOUSES

I am a little late this week with my entry to the WW challenge, but then time is alluding me at the moment. The theme fairy houses reminded me of a workshop I did some time ago called Fairy Doors which was run by my friend Lindsay Mason and whom I am trying desperately to see before Xmas. We made a little door from bits of grungepaper and decorated it to our own design. They were supposed to go on your skirting board so that fairies could come and go as they pleased. I thought I would try and make an ATC - sized one, but the pieces were just too small and fiddly and over powered the card, so I came up with this instead:

Here is a little fairy wondering whether to buy the house over the meadow. I'd stick to the one she's got, it's more modern and has out buildings!!!!
Well, only 2 more challenges from WW for this year. I've enjoyed each week and am looking forward to next year and hope I can join in each time again.

WICKED WEDNESDAY ATC # 61 - WING IT

My most favourite 'qwirky' stamp designers, Stampotique, are sponsoring WW this week. You really are in for a treat if you pop over and have a look at the samples because their amazing DT have joined the WW DT and created wonderful things.
I made a 'thing' too, wotcha fink??

Little Mot with his pincurl and a set of cabbage white butterfly wings, just perfect for a 'thing'!!!

Looks like someone else has an eye on him though!! Watch out 'thing'.
Such fun.

WICKED WEDNESDAY #59 - MYTHICAL CREATURES

I love the themes that the WW DT come up with each week, this one being no exception, especially when they pick me as a top 3 which happened last week. Thank you guys.
I pondered over what to use for my card this week so I waited to see the samples that the DT had made just so that I knew I was on the right track. My image is a stamp designed by my friend Lindsay Mason who is not only a freelance designer but is Ranger educated too. You can guess how wonderful her creations are.
Here is my little mythical chappie:

I stamped him onto cream card, coloured him with distress markers and very carefully - and fussy - cut him out. The background is 'one I made earlier' by mopping up ink from my craft sheet. I just scribbled the lines around the edge. I used 3D foam to stick little elfie down, stamped his greeting, inked over that and stuck that too.  It looks better in the flesh as taking photos yesterday was a nightmare as it poured down all day and hardly got daylight at all.
Well, hubby has gone to our garage and is having a go at the brakes on my car. The parts were only £50 so if nothing else is wrong then it's a cheap repair. Fingers crossed again. To add insult to injury, we are now being plagued by a heron who comes each morning to have a good look in our big pond. GO AWAY. You are not eating my fish. My finger is still sore under where my ring was (cut off 2 weeks ago - ring that is not my finger, lol), and now I have a bad bout of what I think is psoriasis. I think I'll rub myself out and ask Lindsay to draw me again!!!!
See you next week for another challenge.

WW #58 - BE THANKFUL

So many ways of being thankful, that being the theme over at Wicked Wednesday ATCs this week. I decided to go with a sort of harvest card in the style of Tim's November tag.

I used a cream base card, stamped the grasses with embossing ink and added clear powder which I heat set. I then used various distress inks on the background and 'flicked' water over it to add some 'bleached' areas. I stamped the word thankful (a Hero Arts stamp) in black Archival and the background stamps with distress ink wiping away any ink from the embossed grass. I then stuck a little array of tiny leaves and an acorn to the bottom corner. Oh, and I roughed the edges of the card too.
It's a cutie eh?

WICKED WEDNESDAY #57 SNAILS OR STRIPES

Guess what? I won the WW challenge last week. A $10 voucher for Stitchy Bear digis - and I've already spent it. So, THANK YOU once again to the wonderful DT at Wicked Wednesday.

This week their theme is snails or stripes. I knew at once what I wanted to do and whilst I haven't really used stripes, I have incorporated some lines:

2 snails having a fun game of noughts and crosses. The big snail is leaving 'slimey' crosses whilst his mate leaves 'slimey' circles. I wonder who will win?? hehe
Simple ATC. I just used a quickie glue pen to draw the board lines and embossed them with black powder. The snails were stamped in Archival and carefully cut out, coloured with distress markers and mounted on 3D foam on the base card. I also used a distress marker to colour the border. The circles and crosses were made with picket fence distress stickles.

WICKED WEDNESDAY #56 - HEAD COVERINGS

A bit of magic for this week's WW challenge. What better than to find a gorgeous cuddly rabbit in your top hat?? I stuck lengths of satin ribbon to the base card, found a top hat image on the web which I printed off and cut out, added a bit of glitter for some bling, swiped a red Stazon ink pad over some silver mirri card to make it pink, rubbed a 'magic' rub on over it then clipped a little rabbit peg behind the hat which I stuck down with 3D foam.
What fun.

WICKED WEDNESDAY ATC #55 - FULL MOON

Whoohoo! I saw this theme and thought - I can do something else for my Apothecary. Thank you WW for this weeks theme.
Now, when I was making one of the potion bottles for said apothecary, I made some UTEE moons. I had a brass charm which was hollow and had the face of the moon on the front. Just perfect. I held it firm by sticking it into some Plasticine and then I poured melted gold UTEE into it. The one I used here is a little bookmark. So here is my card:

Ok, I own up, it's a little book titled 'Full Moon Hairy Herbs'.

Can you see the hairs???

They came from my step sons puss cat. Purrrfect for this little project.
I really, really had fun making this and will apologise for the photo quality. No matter what I did I just couldn't get a decent one.

WHATS ON YOUR WORKDESK #177

I got up at 7am this morning but thought 'what the heck' and went back to bed hence my late post today. I doubt Julia, the leader of the desk hop, will mind too much, after all, I've given up all hope of ever visiting the hundreds of desks each week that pop up on Wednesday. Sorry about that, but today's success is still wonderful. I change the way I pick the ones to have a look at from starting at the beginning of the list, to visiting the first 5 in each column, to closing my eyes and taking a stab in the dark. No matter how I go about it, I haven't managed all of them for nearly 2 years!!!!
What I have managed though is to see some fabulous spaces, clever projects and lots of stash that I would love. Not that much on mine though today:

Just the remnants of some card I was cutting for this weeks Wicked Wednesday ATC challenge.
So then, next week I will be in the motorhome up in Stockton-on-Tees. I booked this in order to take our granddaughter to Newcastle for some shopping experience as part of her birthday present - she turned 15 last month, but unfortunately she has made plans with her friends for Halloween and we will still be there so she has had to put a rain check on the trip. It also seems that there will be snow over the tops this weekend and we travel on Saturday - great!!! Winter never really left the UK this year and it seems it is around with avengeance again.
Stay warm wherever you are and happy woyww.

WICKED WEDNESDAY ATC #54 - BUTTERFLIES

Last week, over at Wicked Wednesday ATC, was a celebration of their 1st birthday and there were umpteen prizes to be given away. Guess what! I won a $12 voucher to spend on Just Some Lines digis - which I have, whoopee and a big thank you.
This weeks challenge is a favourite of many I guess, butterflies. I am having fun using gesso and bits of paper, ribbon, grungepaper, etc. so this is my card:

The base is mountboard rather than just card because using both gesso and inks/paints on card makes for a disintegrated mess! I stuck little material butterflies together with hand - cut diamonds from grungepaper and scrap pieces of card border to the base before giving it the once over with white gesso. Once dry I used various green distress inks over the top. I have a gorgeous luscious green ink spray that has refused to spray from day one but it does make the most wonderful 'blobs' of colour which is what you can see in places. Finally, I distressed 2 card butterflies that have been waiting in my stash for years to be used on this ATC, stuck them together, added flower stamens for antennae then some seed beads for it's body. Another little punched butterfly and some darker distress to the edge of the card finished it off.
I enjoyed making this and it was so quick. Enjoy the different colours that my butterfly tea light gives and I'll see you next week:

WICKED WEDNESDAY ATC #53 - ONE YEAR CELEBRATION

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to all at Wicked Wednesday ATC.
I found this little challenge blog in their week 2 and have played along every week since. I know how difficult it can be to work with a digi image and a theme so I have the greatest admiration for the DT who come up with the best cards ever. I work with digis for my DT so being able to do whatever I want on the WW challenges suits me completely especially when I can look at the future themes list so my thoughts have time to form - well that's the theory anyway!!
For this week's card I've used a Magnolia stamp, some alcohol inked card, some sticky backed paper, watercolour pencils, a couple of brads and of course - a birthday candle:

Congratulations to all the DT and especially Jenn. Mwah.

NO PHONE!!!!!!

My mobile has gone back because it's broken - can't make or receive calls - so out came my old phone, a pay & go. The rotten suppliers have deleted my number because I haven't used  it for ages, but the worse bit is, they have also taken the money that was on it. Surely that can't be right. Anyway, this means I don't have a phone at all now. It's quite scary really because what if I break down and need to call the AA!
The phone companies are happy to take your money, contract or otherwise, but leave you in a mess at the drop of a hat. This is the 2nd phone in my 24month contract to fail. Thank goodness it's up at Christmas because not only will I be looking elsewhere for a better deal, I shall never have an O2 contract again especially after the fiasco down south when I couldn't get a signal most of the time.
Another little rant now - the new bins never came. Should have had replacement bottle and paper bins 2 weeks ago, even waited in for them (didn't want them, no room) so the council here are rubbish too - no pun intended.
One little bit of a surprise yesterday meaning that possibly we have a brilliant Royal Mail. I received my ATC swaps from Jenn of Wicked Wednesday ATCs, but there is no stamp, no franking and no PO label whatsoever on the envelope. How on earth the envelope came all the way from California like that beats me. My swaps are super, I love them:

Thanks Jenn for arranging the swap.
Right then, today it's cementing time again only this time I'm helping so the job can get finished before it rains once more. My poor old knees!!!!!

WICKED WEDNESDAY ATC #52 - DARK FLOWERS

I have a very eerie skull image which is just perfect for this weeks challenge over at Wicked Wednesday, but can I find it  ---  NO. Instead, I've used the wonderful Fashion Witch image from Rick St Dennis.

My camera is having a day off today and doesn't want to take nice photos so I'm afraid the colours on this card are a bit 'wishy washy'. I used Copics to colour the witch and black soot alcohol ink on the roses.
Finally my big craft project is finished and a new shelf has been put up to accommodate it. I hope to start blogging photos tomorrow if you want to pop back.

WICKED WEDNESDAY ATC #51 - BASED ON A STORY CHARACTER

I won a $10 voucher in week 49 from the Graphics Shoppe. There were so many images to pick from that it took me hours to choose. So thank you once more to WW for entering me into the random org.
This week has so many themes to pick from. I had a little freebie image from Whiff of Joy that has been sitting in my image file for ages and ages. Time to bring him out:

Watch out it's SPIDERMOUSE.
He's a cutie eh? I just used some Whispers pens to colour him before carefully 'fussy' cutting him out. There was a picture of Spiderman in next weeks What's On tv paper so I used that for my background on top of red card. The spider charm is covering some wording and Spidermouse is on 3D foam for added depth.
My big crafty project is coming along nicely and won't take much longer to complete. However, I am out on the town tonight with the one and only Hels Sheridan who is coming up north to Inspirations to demo tomorrow and then run a whole day's workshop on Saturday. Of course I am booked on that - first in the queue actually, so not much time for the project over the next few days. Want another little peek -----

Bye for now.

WICKED WEDNESDAY ATCs #50 - CIRCUS FUN

I have been very short of time this week so my entry is a bit (a lot actually) cheeky. Not wanting to miss out on a Wicked Wednesday challenge, I finally made this:

The images were a freebie I found some time ago and have been sitting in my image file just waiting for this week's challenge. I couldn't pick just one so used all 8 by making this little concertina fold, double-sided ATC.  I hope these cheery little clowns bring a smile.
I have been 'beavering' away at my Grande project and apart from waiting for some special glue to arrive, I am well on with it. Sticking awkward shapes of metal in equally awkward places on glass and plastic have proved too much for my Cosmic Shimmer, Multi Matt Medium and Glossy Accents, so let's see what this other glue will do - if it ever gets here.
Today's tease then:

Hmmh!

WW ATC #49 - LOVE TO LEARN (NERDS/GEEKS)

I did my usual trick of checking out the future challenges over at Wicked Wednesday ATC challenges before I went on holiday in July, and managed to complete several of them in readiness. This week's challenge has now got nerds and geeks as a little extra. My card however, is just 'love to learn'. Hope it's ok:

I went to a Copic colouring get together last year where we took our own pens but could use the stamps which were there. This is made from 2 Magnolia stamps and a stamp block which allows you to line up one stamp against another image giving the illusion of one sitting, standing, leaning etc on the other.
I tried really hard to blend reds - which isn't easy - so Magnolia has a red dress on. I think it worked ok.

WW #48 - BLACK & WHITE & ONE OTHER COLOUR

I had such fun with last week's card, 'back to school'. Not only did I win a top 3 place from Wicked Wednesday, but I also won one from Just Some Lines too. How chuffed am I. Thank you to both challenge blogs.
This week's theme can be interpreted in so many ways. I decided to go along with something I saw in Craft Stamper magazine where different layers and Gesso formed the background.

I used a piece of mount board (for my US pals, mount board is used to frame pictures etc) and covered it with a thin layer of Gesso. Whilst drying, I managed to cut the orange oval from card. Not an easy task when the dies you have are all the wrong size!! I then arranged a torn piece of white doily, a torn piece of water colour paper - just the bit that was fastening it to the spine - and stuck them all down with glue and seal from Ranger. I stamped the flowers at the top right using black Archival and then stamped some tiny flowers and swirls onto 1 layer of tissue paper using black Stazon. I roughly cut these out and carefully stuck them to the card using more glue and seal. The tissue simply disappears leaving the stamped images. A quick squirt of Perfect Pearls copper and a black marker around the edge to form a frame - done. This technique is a great way of using up tiny left overs and can make some rather appealing results.
Right, I'm off to await the sun and then I have to paint some wood preserve on my greenhouse before the winter comes, although in the UK, we are still waiting for summer!!!

WICKED WEDNESDAY ATC #47 - BACK TO SCHOOL

Oh crumbs! back to school. Have to admit to dreading that day after the long summer holidays especially when we actually 'got' a summer not like this year. No, I didn't enjoy my last couple of years at school. I loved the athletics and team sports - was quite good actually and was school captain at most sports - but the academic bit was horrible although I do admit to really liking geography. Still, I made a good living with a really good job so alls well that ends well as they say.
Back to this weeks WW challenge.
I searched the digi webs for a suitable image and found this from Soft Pencils Studio.

I re-sized the image to ATC size and used distress markers to shade it. Each little girl and boy plus their puss cat and mouse were coloured, cut out and stuck to the base card with 3D foam for a bit of depth. I then stuck a couple of buttons on for wheels after I had cut out the whole image.
So that's at least 3 children on their way back to school. My 2 grand daughters are still in Turkey on their holidays. I bet they will feel the same way I used to and not want to go back this year!!!
I think I may just enter this little card into a couple of challenges too:
doodle garden digis      and
just some lines
both of whom are running back to school as their theme.
Thanks for the nudge Jenn.

WW # 46 - WHOOO LOVES OWLS

Adorable subject this week for the Wicked Wednesday ATC challenge. I have a couple of owl stamps, both quirky and almost real - looking. Again, I searched for a suitable card and decided to enter this one because it has always made me smile:

I made this one on 27th July 2009!!!! and called it Head to Head, but I hope it satisfies this week's theme. The little stamp was a freebie from Craft Stamper magazine which I simply stamped, coloured and 'fussy' cut before using 3D foam to stick it to the distressed background. But it's the goggle eyes that make you smile.
I should be back from my hols when you read this entry (I had to draft the last month's posts) so can start to make my challenge cards again.
Note: I am back but have had a very busy week so far and therefore decided to run this previously drafted post. I just wanted to add an enormous thank you once again to the DT of Wicked Wednesday for picking me as one of their top 3 last week. Whoohoo!!!!

WW # 45 - THE BLUES (shades of blue/sadness)

I certainly wasn't feeling blue when I made this card for the WW challenge this week.

Distress inks mopped up from my craft sheet for the background, over stamped with a chicken wire stamp from the Artistic Stamper, paper roses coloured with distress markers, leaves punched out of blue papers, a stamped and cut out butterfly also given the blue treatment and some tiny words cut from an old dictionary and distressed with blue. So simple but very effective.
I did find another blue card during my rummaging:

I reckon blue isn't 'blue' after all.

WW # 44 - FRANKIE AND HIS BRIDE - FRANKENSTEIN

When I looked at the list of future challenge themes over at Wicked Wednesday ATCs, this week was down as Zombies. However, when I checked back it had changed to Frankenstein. I had already made my card for wk 41 - famous monsters and made my bone collector card for the Zombie theme. Anyway, all I had to do was check out one of my favourite digi sites - the Octopode Factory - and find a Frankie's Bride. Easy peasy.
The template for my monster is a freebie by Valerie Brincheck. He is ATC size but with the addition of brads at strategic points, he becomes a very large monster indeed. See.......

Oh what super fun.