WOYWW # 508 {a view}

Happy desk peeking day, if you'd like to see more spaces or play along 

the link up for this blog hop starts here at our hostess

Miss Julia's Blog.

There is also a new Instagram hashtag of #WOYWW

 Yesterday was hubs birthday, and When I came home from work I had to park my truck on the slope outside those driveway gates and shovel in front of them to open them as the snow was above the bottoms of the gates. so, after I got my truck parked in the garage ( under my feet from this view) I then went back out with a shovel and cleared that entire top of the driveway between the gates and the street and the sidewalk. ( that sidewalk is about 200 feet long ish) and the snow funnels and drifts into that part of the driveway with those fences there so, it was about half way to my knees as I was doing this. I came in with the ends of my hair frozen. ( not kidding, it started snowing monday and did not stop until about 8 pm ish last night, so after that I left the gates open and when hubs got home he got out the tractor and blew the rest of the driveway out.

So, my desk looks like this. I did finish the gold fish card and you can see that here. I don't know if you are all familiar with the fitbit craze? at any rate I have one and I tend to average between 11K & 12K a day. (my biggest amount of steps in one day before yesterday was almost 14K)
last night when I went to bed I was at 20,036.
funny true story my elbows ache.
So, its probable the desk will continue looking like this for a few more days.
Thanks for stopping by.

Stars,Moon & Sea

This week's Featured Stamper is Ankita who has this cool card seen here that I kept coming back to every time I made time to peek at her gallery so, I spent a big portion of the day cleaning my desk so I could play along. 

 To make changes, I flipped mine up to portrait, switched out the cork framing for acrylic paint covered corrugate paper an cut with scissors some of the starfish instead of the sentiment. I also used a piece of the watercolor paper towards the top of the sheet to use the tear off instead of giving it a stitched diecut framing.
The starfish were stamped on the watercolor paper with some memento dessert storm and I used daniel smith and QOR watercolors over the top of that, ( and more once the cut out ones were done so I could cover up the cut lines) I then used a Versafine marker to scribble some spots for the Hero Arts sand embossing powder to stick to.

 

I wanted the corrugate to peek out a little and catch the out of the box starfish legs so, this card finished out at 5" wide and 6 " tall.  I added some of the embossing powder to the starfish also.

I am going to take a black sharpie marker to that sentiment, it was stamped with a hand held block onto the watercolor paper so, ( yes, I do know better but, its been dark and cloudy here all day so, in the spirit of hurry up and get it done so you can shoot it with what ever fragments of day light there are left today this is what happened)
You can find this challenge here to play along, Thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Fine Art America}

This week Brenda has directed us to the Fine Art America site and my normal thing I do for any IC site is to find two or three things and save the links because, I tend to create at the last minute. and this particular week, I had taken advantage of the sale at Simon Says Stamp for their anniversary and ordered these Carabella 2 fishes stamps and the third thing I saved inside FAA was this gold fish love painting. And I kinda of laughed out loud when I found it knowing I would have the stamps soon.

  

 They were stamped with Memento dessert storm ink on watercolor paper and colored with Daniel Smith watercolors. the eyes were done with a black sharpie marker and a white gel pen. I did do this card at 4" x 9" to accommodate the size of the stamps.

 A closer look at the colors, when I was on the second round of color I realized that starting this with an aqua brush ( the bristles are crud on those) I really didn't stay in the lines and so, working at the last minute in snatches here and there after work I decided to just keep going with this first try.
all things considered I really think this turned out pretty cute.

The painting colors that inspired my card can be found here in their store but, don't blame me if you find lots of eye candy there and fall deep down the rabbit hole. You can find this challenge here at splitcoaststampers to play along with us. Thanks for stopping by.

WOYWW # 507 {Stamps & Happy Mail}

Happy desk peeking day, if you'd like to see more spaces or play along 

the link up for this blog hop starts here at our hostess

Miss Julia's Blog.

There is also a new Instagram hashtag of #WOYWW

 Sooo last week I caved on a Simon Says Stamp sale and these two stamps came in the mail on tuesday ( these are tuesday evening shots)...
and I instantly opened up the fish to start playing with them.

I bought all these Daniel smith tester sheets of dabs of watercolor paints a long time ago now and just thought they may work well with the fish. ( this is first layers of color) will look at it again when I get home. I probably should have taken the time to grab water dishes and used real brushes but, I was being lazy and since you can see The sorting mess was not picked up first I did just grab an aqua pen.
The sorting continues. I have I think come to the decision that all the sentiments are coming off the blocks. ( however, Amazon has noticed that I have bought the cling foam more than once and has hiked the price each time, this last round is up 10.00 from a few weeks ago so, its sitting on a wish list waiting) and that's OK as there are still boxes of stamps on cling foam already on the floor still to sort.
Its also slowed down because, cutting up one sheet of the stamps with gloves on is time consuming and so, taking them off means I end up with scaly skin again after so, I have been doing less and not touching any of it with rounds of playing in between.
That's about it for me, thanks for stopping by.

A Simple Geese Card

 So, this monday the clean and simple challenge was to use only one third of a one layer card. and the try a new technique is to color something with pencils or markers on kraft cardstock.
so, I grabbed this Inkadinkado flying geese stamp and used the new black versafine claire ink to stamp it and colored it with some polychromos pencils and then added a bit of white gel pen to it. the sentiment is from the Altenew Birthday greetings set.

A closer look at the coloring. I did not blend this and I did make the gel pen streaky to give it a sketched feel. This one finished out at A2 in real life. thanks for stopping by.

Challenge Cards

 This week's featured stamper is  Heejung and I found this card that I kept coming back to. I had originally intended to do a one layer ish card with the woodgrain printed paper but, ( its very thin) and so, I ended up die cutting it and layering scrap cardstock behind the diecut parts. I also kept the stamped panel one piece and tied on the sentiment to dangle instead of counter sinking it. The frame is a poppy stamps double stitched one and it has 3 layers of card under the paper and is up on 1/16 pop dots. That herb background is a really old one from Inkadinkado and the sentiment is from the Papertrey ink garden variety set.

 A closer look at the stamping, I did go very light with the versafine to ink this and then added a bit of color with some zig clean brush markers but, not perfectly more of a loose look to play into the rustic white washed painted on the boards thing.

 Last weekend the featured stamper was Sally who posted this cool card last year during dtgd for my challenge I hosted and I love that ( esp, the rope detail) so, changes were I did not do a chalkboard and I kept the blue belts on the boots and (added some stardust gelly roll pen to the buckle) and I switched out the rope for some blue jeans ribbon. I had bought this set do do something for J with and finally inked it. ( The boots are from the SU country livin set and the sentiment is from Tim Holtz simple sentiments set)

 Now this was an experiment, I see these people who manage to combine challenges for lots of them not just one or two so, last monday I jotted down.
repeat stamping ( cas challenge)
then I made a kind of a sketch of the sketch
then 4 letter word
orange
sky colors
it was not all the challenges but, it was ones I thought I could wrangle into one card. ( as soon as the orange came up I ended up tossing out the repeat stamping but, I did do repeat stickles on the diecut hugs (PTI ) the sketch, I ended up cutting the top paper corner to corner and its really supposed to be higher up the sheet. (it does however have a 4 letter word lol) so, there is just as much sky colors are there are orange and its not mixed media. and I ended up only linking it to the 4 letter word challenge.

The printed papers are from My Minds Eye and there is lace detailing on the stripes so, I chose an old Old Town Crafts battenburg lace butterfly to perch on the word. I did heat emboss this in white on some scrap of very pale blue and then added some blue pen to give it some shading. (its very subtle even in person) The orange stitched paper is from Provocraft ( its very old) and was cut with a memory box stitched circle die.
This card finished out at A6 and since orange is not a go-to color for me I am on the fence about how I feel about it. It will more than likely head to the booth. thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Isle of Wight Studio Glass}

This week I have picked the Isle of Wight studio art glass site for our inspiration destination.
This particular vase was the first one that caught my eye I would totally make time to dust this ha ha.

 So, I started out looking in my blue scraps file folder and was hunting for something maybe with a tissue or mulberry type texture to get that crackle effect and found this piece of blue ( it has a smooth plastic feel to it with the crinkle texture) (this came in a textured handmade assortment pack a very long time ago, so I have never known who makes it and I have avoided using it because, the assumption I had was it was not stamp-able. so, I used some versafine onyx black with this old SU artfully Asian branch and decided to just try it. The blooms were colored with some SU markers and an aqua brush. the berries were done with some white Nuvo drops. The sentiment is cut with a Reverse Confetti sentiment die and the sentiment is from the Altenew Beautiful Quotes set. The card base here is a premade Impress one ( the inside is white so, it did not need lined) and its A2 in real life.

 A closer look at that textured paper.

and the vase that inspired it all. You can find this challenge here to play along with us. Thanks for stopping by.

WOYWW # 506 {more progress}

Happy desk peeking day, if you'd like to see more spaces or play along 

the link up for this blog hop starts here at our hostess

Miss Julia's Blog.

There is also a new Instagram hashtag of #WOYWW

 

 I am slowly but surly working my way through this seemingly endless stack of cling mounted stamps that used to be in the dresser.

 what's currently being stamped and sorted ( stars) 

Had to go get my teeth cleaned this morning so, there was no time to putter. took me an hour to dig trails to my bird feeders through the snow and do the top outside of the drive way ( the part that slopes towards the gates) so, I will probably not be making any rounds until Thursday.

 thanks for stopping by.

WOYWW# 505 {nothing}

Happy desk peeking day, if you'd like to see more spaces or play along 

the link up for this blog hop starts here at our hostess

Miss Julia's Blog.

There is also a new Instagram hashtag of #WOYWW

 

So, things have been on a roll for a little while now with the organizing cling stamps and un-mounting the sentiment stamps. and I hit a snag last Saturday am I woke up with my left hand looking like snake skin, it was peeling it was scratchy and itchy.  Best guess is maybe it was an allergic reaction to the glue on the cling foam sheets or combined with say the goo gone wipes ( I use those on the scissors as I am cutting) and etc and so forth. So, I ended up putting lotion on my hand every 30  minutes to an hour and by Sunday night it was starting to look like real skin again. So, I had found a pair of disposable gloves I got years ago for doing alcohol inks with to clean up the mess. without touching any of those things to do it & on Sunday I even made a couple of really simple cards with some of the stamps I had unearthed and I cleaned up after my self. ( its a surprise I know to me too)  So, I am thinking I need to haul home a box of those gloves to continue. which I will do but, I have forgotten about it when I was at work the last two days it snowed here and my thoughts were usually along the lines of just go home.
So, that's about it from me. I am still "this close" to being almost done.

Oh, and Julia asked about the PSX stamps. So, around the corner behind that open door there is an altered bakers rack (you can see an older mug shot here) those are really old photos from when the table was on the other side of the room. and the collection was smaller. My husband took that rack to work and added extra shelves to it to hold all those frames of stamps for me. and once a while back when the un-mounting started I said something like oh, I guess I can let go of this (because the trays fill up with dust) and out of the corner of my mind I seen hubs face and decided that was not the thing to say. So, what I am doing now is getting rid of the trays and keeping some things in boxes. So, I changed directions with if I kept something on wood what would it be, and I settled on the PSX stamps because, I love the art on them and all of mine, the rubber is still in perfect shape on the foam after all these years so, I then told hubs ( later, a long time later) if I die first those are the stamps he may get some money out of hahahah. Anyways, I may un-mount the PSX sentiments at some point too but, probably not the images. I used to rotate them around the room ( on the shelf behind where I stand I have two shelves filled with background stamps and sometimes it is the psx florals) so, I don't know for sure but, at this point its being more helpful to sort the odd ball stamps rather than the ones I have bigger collections of. I also have a lot of stampa rosa ( the original housemouse sentiments and images and those sentiments are also in boxes next to the psx ones)

I am also testing having sheets of dies in those same boxes. so far I have just the tag dies in one on the rack and I am debating about sorting out that drawer of slim dies to move those to the rack because, the dresser draw is now full and I really have to brace my leg to hold it up when I pull it out.

Thanks for stopping by.

A few Simple cards

 I am still sorting through my stamps which feels like an uphill battle some days and a Oh, I have cool stuff moments on other days but, Saturday when I woke up my left hand looked like I had lizard skin as it was white on top and peeling. So, I decided it was an allergic reaction to the glue on the cling mount sheets and that my hands could use a break so, I wore gloves and cleaned off my whole table. and the top of the file cabinet, I put away the Christmas gifts, the Christmas stamps. no more piles on the desk. the not sorted unmounted stamps are on the floor again but, at least the pile is 

 smaller than it has ever been so.

 

 I started pulling out some stamps with the thought of I should use these. to see if I wanted to keep them. I have let go of a lot of Hero Arts backgrounds over the years and have only kept one box of solid shapes. They used to use them with pale shadow inks.  The flower and the trio background are both older retired Hero Arts and the sentiment is from the Unity set called Frankly said. The one on the left has some I have been hoarding printed paper and finished out at 5 1/2" square the one on the right is A2 and a little more clean and simple. both blooms I added some clear stickles to the petals after.

 This was another one of those hmm things, I was debating letting go of these bitty pressed flowers ( a boxed set from Hero Arts also long retired but, tried to see if I could think of an idea to use them.) the grid is part of a 9 block stamp also long retired that I would have to go dig it out again to find its name, It did not stamp that well so I kinda trimmed it down to a 6 block just eyeballing it on the paper trimmer. because, the pale blue cardstock is both the stamped panel and the base, I think it fools your eye into thinking I did it you know maybe a little more perfectly like as if I had used a die to do it. ( well, that was the hope anyways) The sentiment is from the Club scrap lavender fields set.

And this one was done as a case of this weeks featured stamper Joyce who has this pretty card with the color block technique on it, and I knew I wanted to do a one layer card to make changes and grabbed this Hero Arts distressed square background and used some very pale Avery Elle sea glass ink to make that block. other changes were I also moved the sentiment up to the color block (changed all the stamps) I did end up finding some pale blue card for the base and cutting a window into the front to give it some more color as an anchor because, the sea glass all but disappears on a white card. That tree is from Coronado Island stamping ( tall cypress) and the sentiment is from the Simon Says Stamp set called moments of grace. 
and the best part is, the table is once again clean.
we shall see how long it lasts. ( my hands were back to normal this morning)
Thanks for stopping by