WOYWW

Hi Everyone,

So I completely fell off the blogging bandwagon last year. I got a new job in London and moved back down south... things got a little hectic and sadly crafting/blogging siffered. I really missed having a nosy round peoples desks on a Wednesday, so I'm back and as my new years resolution was 365 crafty makes in 365 days I'll hopeful be doing every WOYWW this year. For anyone that doesn't know what WOYWW is check it out here  http://stamping-ground.blogspot.co.uk/

So this week I had a proper clear out and sort out of all my craft stuff. Now that I have moved back in with my mum (temporarily!) I have all my craft books upstairs on a cute little bookshelf I got for a fiver at a bootsale and all my actual supplies downstairs next to the dining table where I actually make things. It was all in a bit of a mess and took me all day on sunday to get it sorted out but it finally is and I can certainly say that it being so organised is making me feel a lot more inspired.

Thanks for checking me out this week, I'm hoping to visit as many of you as possible. :)

WOYWW 4th April

I have missed WOYWW for a couple of weeks, glad to be back this week though to have a snoop round other peoples craft spaces. If you would like to join in then head over to Julia's wonderful blog.

This week I have been finishing of my easter cards, it took me a while to get my card making mojo back as have been spending the last month or so experimenting with other crafts. I am quite happy with the card I made though as it only took a couple of hours to complete. The stamp is one I got in hobby craft a few weeks ago it's so cute!

 As you can see my desk this week is again the floor, my actual desk is in my spare room and I like to watch the TV whilst I craft so I never seem to use my actual desk, maybe I should move the desk into the living room...hmmm.

WOYWW 14th March

Only a quick post for this weeks WOYWW, its been a busy week already and its only Wednesday bring on Thursday, I have booked friday off work and am going for a long weekend to stay with my gran in Devon can't wait.

Now on to the important stuff what's actually on my desk. This week I have been working on a sock dog well trying to at least. So far as you can see it only has 3 legs and no eyes or nose but hopefully you get the idea. I found sewing some of the bits on a little hard and for some reason choose to use a light thread when I think I should have used one that matched the colour of the sock.

I have really enjoyed making the sock dog though and cant wait to get him finished, will be looking to make some more sock animals soon so keep your eyes peeled for a growing sock menagerie!

The other crafting project I am working on this week has yet to actually be started, for Mothers day I bought my mum a 5 day holiday to Nuremberg for us both, we aren't going till September but I am going to give her the tickets this weekend. I plan to make my own mini travel guide with photos and information about what there is to do there but was wondering if any of you had any crafty idea for wrapping up or disguising the tickets as giving over a printed e ticket is perhaps not the most exciting thing ever.

If you have no idea what WOYWW is then you need to visit Julia over at stamping ground, she is the lovely host of this brilliant weekly blog hop in which creative folks share their workspaces and projects. Last week I think I got round about 45 desks am hoping to get nearer a 100 this week :)

WOYWW

So it's been a while since I last joined Julia's fab blog hop. If you haven't seen it its a great place to check out what other crafters have on their desks and what projects they are working on.

I have been away from WOYWW and craft for the last month or so as life has been pretty stressful but I am hoping that things are on the up now :)

Anyway here is a sneeky peek of what's on my desk. As you can see I have been multi tasking working on both Mothers Day cards and Easter Cards. I have been working on the floor again and as you can see I managed to spread mess everywhere. In the top picture you can see my alphabet stamps which I love to use to make my own handmade sentiments. In the second photo is a tin which I have full of die cut shapes and pre stamped images which I like to have out when making cards as I can then pick whichever shapes and stamps best fit the card I am making. In the third picture there is my tray filed with inks acrylic blocks and some clear stamps.

I have decided to have a massive sort out and organize of all my craft stuff this weekend so hopefully next weeks WOYWW will be a much tidier affair.

(check out the posts below for better pics of the cards I have been making)

WOYWW 1st February

Sorry for the delay with posting my desk this week, haven't had a chance to look at Julias Blog yet but can't wait to look at what everyone has been working on later today.

This week on my desk I have some crafty goodies which Lou from http://handmadebylou-lou.blogspot.com/ sent me in the post. Crafters are such a nice bunch of people and I really was over the moon to receive such a great variety of stuff from Lou as a beginner I haven't worked with many embellishments or die cuts yet so am very excited to see what I can get making with all this wonderful stuff.

Hopefully will be making some cards this evening so should be posting a few in the next few days, keep your eyes peeled :)

WOYWW 25th January

Last week I managed to get around to about 80 of the other desks, and loved looking at the huge range of stuff on them so many ideas flowing for things I want to make and things I want to buy. It's really great that so many people visited my blog too, as someone fairly new to craft its brilliant to get so many lovely comments, tips and advice from other crafters.

Inspiration from Making Magazine

Felt! 

My desk this week has been filled with a whole array of needle-craft materials as you can see. I was inspired by a project in Making magazines January issue and decided to give it my own twist. I have been making a felt flower decoration but decided to make them into flower people as a fun desk decoration.

1930s book on needlecraft

This involved cutting out a range of different sized circles from felt and then sewing them together before attatching a pipe cleaner and placing them into a piece of floral foam in an old candle pot which I decorated with some fake grass I made. I managed to master blanket stitch for the first time which I was reallly impressed with. As you can see I have a very old needlework book which I think was actually published in the 1930s I got it from an antiques fair a few months ago, as well as being beautiful to look at it also has some really easy to follow instructions for all the various stitches.

googley eyes! 

I have a huge collection of googley eyes and managed to use some on this project, I think they add a great element of fun to most designs and am really happy with the way they have turned out here. I can't wait to put this fun flower pot ontp my desk at work and brighten up the otherwise mundane office.

This week I am going to attempt to make it round to all the desks over at Julia's wonderful blog, cant wait to see what you have all been up to.

Competed project :) 

WOYWW 18th Jan

Last week I managed to visit pretty much all the WOYWW links over at Julia's brilliant blog I really enjoyed looking at the work everyone was getting started with in 2012.

I still have no proper crafting desk and this week for some reason I have been working on the floor its actually really comfortable and gives me plenty of space to make a mess in! So here's a look at what's going on on my desk/floor this week.

As you can see the floor has sort of been taken over with crafting. In the top left I have one of my storage boxes which I use to keep all my various adhesives and scissors and craft knives in. In the middle is one of my smaller storage boxes which contains my alphabet stamps and quilling papers.  I also have two excellent craft books out one is Martha Stewart's craft encyclopedia and the other is Craft Wisdom and Know How. Both these books are perfect for newbie crafters lots of hints, tips, tutorials and fun projects to get started with. I also have my dinner in the top right I love to craft whilst chilling out over dinner hence the pizza in this photo.

As you can see I had been reading about the art of quilling. It was a technique I had never tried before so decided that I would practice a few of the shapes that were shown in various books to see if I could get the hang of it before using it on a card, this way if I wasn't any good at it I wouldn't mess up a card. Both books offer step by step instructions for various shapes so I got my quilling papers out along with the quilling tool and started practicing.

The technique is a little fiddely but very fun to see how easy it is to make a whole range of shapes some more complicated than others. The 3D effect looks great too and I have tons of ideas of how I can use quilling on cards and other crafty makes now I have got the hang of it.

I made a wide range of different shapes including a flower, teardrop, scroll, heart and various circles. I think the effect is ace and cant wait to try different shapes and papers. So yes this week my desk is filled with quilling and for anyone that hasn't tried this technique yet give it a go it really is great fun. This is what I love so much about crafting such a huge array of new skills to learn and master, I look forward to getting round all your desks this week and finding new techniques, crafts and projects that your all doing and giving them a go myself.

WOYWW

So last week whilst blog hopping I stumbled across this fantastic post where each Wednesday crafters from all over the world congregate on Julia's blog to share pictures of their work desks and the a particular projects they have on them on that Wednesday.

I only discovered the blog a few days ago and have to admit that I have been hooked ever since. It is so interesting to see how other people organise their work spaces, its also great to see that the people that post vary from novice crafters like me to some real craft artists whose work just amazes me.     

So far I don't actually have a desk solely for craft so kind of just spread out in the kitchen or lounge. This week I have been working on Thank You cards and decided to do something a bit unconventional so have done a thank you card with a panda on. As you can see from the first picture I used my large collection of pro markers to colour in the digi stamp.

I store my promarkers in a old sweet tin and to be honest its not great it is hard to find which colour I am looking for and its impossible to keep the pens in colour groups which makes it quicker to get the colours needed for blending. Some sort of storage solution needs to be purchased asap. 

As you can see from the above picture my desk gets a bit messy when I am fully immersed in a project. In the background you can see a pad of multi coloured card stock which I purchased in Lidl at the weekend it was a bargain at 1.99 for a pack of 25 sheets. You can also see my self healing cutting mat which I love I use it for everything not just cutting, it makes it much easier to tidy up when I am done if all the bits and bobs are on the mat. You can also see double sided sticky tape which I think every crafter is a little bit in love with, and my craft knife and scissors which I used to cut out all the elements of my digi stamp.

This is the final card not 100% happy with it but pleased as its the first card of this type that I have made. I used a digi stamp which I cut into individual elements and mounted them on different levels of my folded piece of card. The bamboo canes were fiddely to cut out so I don't think they look as neat as I would like. The sentiment circle I did in green and then added stamps I think it would look more effective in a purple colour rather then blending in with the foliage in the rest of the image. I added some glitter glue to the card to make it a bit more interesting. Overall I like the image but think the way I have set up the card could be better I think I would give it 6/10.

I look forward to looking at what everyone else has on there desk this Wednesday.