Crafty Sort Out …….WOYWW (#117)

Good morning my fellow What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesdayer’s!

I’ve actually made a big effort to get here a bit earlier this week seeing as it was turned 5pm when I joined you all last week. Julia our blog hop leader must have thought I wasn’t coming, I was so late.


My desk this morning is a mixture of new and old stash and a newly started project, which translates to one enormous clutter.

I started yesterday morning with the idea of making myself a new address book , you can just see it at the back of the table.
I was so fed up with my family and friends moving house and having to cross out entries making my current book look a real mess that I decided to try and make a ring binder type book, then doing a separate page for each person so that if anyone else should ever move I can just remove the old page and add a new one.
The theory sound good but will it work…….we shall see!

As you can see, I didn’t get very far.

This is the start of the two panels for the front and back.
I’ve run some Black card through my Cuttlebug with Nesties and an Embossing Folder and then swiped across the top with a VersaMark Pad and clear embossed it. The next step was paint it with Acrylic paint, wait for it to dry slightly and then wipe off some of the paint with a damp cloth, leaving it looking slightly distressed.
At this point I’m not sure what was more distressed, the covers or me because I don’t use Acrylics very often and I was getting in a right old state Lol!

While I was waiting for it to dry completely I got a bit waylaid.
I started having a sort out of craft bits I don’t use any more, mostly rubber stamps but other bits and bobs as well and I spent the afternoon getting some of it on eBay, which explains the piles of stamps still scattered all over my desk this morning.
If you’re interested in seeing what’s up from grabs there’s a full list Here with pictures and links that will take you to the eBay page or you can click the link at the top of this page.

I’m especially hoping to sell lots of the cross stitch threads because they are being sold to raise money for the Kids Company stitching project that I stitch for. If anyone is interested in them you can contact me direct rather than go via eBay because I had 30 or 40 of them.

Finally on my desk I have some new goodies.
While I was having a sort out postie came and brought me some new Promarkers, Distress stains and this gorgeous Penny Black stamp……..can’t wait to play with this one.

Well that about it from me this morning but before I go I just want to say that I hope everyone over there on the East coast of America are safe and well after that enormous storm. I can’t imagine what it must be like living with that threat every year.

So, I’ll be round to see what everyone is up to later.
Take care and …………

Happy Crafting!
Sue
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Completely Forgot …….WOYWW (#116)

Oh no, I almost missed it!
Can you believe that I forgot it was Wednesday and it’s turned 5pm and I’ve only just remembered to take a photo of my desk today for What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday.


The reason is that I’ve been completely engrossed in making birthday and new home cards so my desk is in a right old state.

I really wish I was one of those people who finish a card and put the stuff they won’t need again way before they start on the next one but as you can I’m definitely not one of those.

All I can show you of my days work at the moment is this birthday card using one of the fab stamps that were sent to me by Nicky aka Minxy a while back. Oh how I love these!

I’ve paired the image up with some Craftworks Cards papers from their Ohh La La collection which works well I think.


If you’re interested I’ve also finished off the LO that I was working on last week. You can see how it was done Here and read all about my mum and dad’s wedding on Family Footprints in the Sands of Time, my heritage blog.

I’ll try and get round as many desks as I can tomorrow when I have some time to spare but for now, thanks for stopping by and …………………………….

Happy Crafting!
Sue
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Kid's Company Charity Bike Ride

Please scroll down for my more recent posts but please read this first and consider helping us.

This post will stay at the top of my blog until the Charity bike ride is completed on 20th August. Thanks so much.
Sue
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I don’t know if you’re aware of the work that Kids Company do, but their focus is on helping vulnerable children who can find themselves in all sorts of horrible situations through no fault of their own.
The Kid’s Company website explains what they do far better than I ever could so please pop along and read about all the good work they do for these children but naturally their work costs money and they are always looking for way to raise the 9 million pounds their website says they need this year.

As part of the fundraising, two fab guys, Dom Wright and Dom O’Neill set out on Friday 29th July to undertake a mammoth cycle ride from Land’s End to John O’Groats and they are looking for sponsors.
If you feel you can help by adding your name to their list of sponsors your donation would be gratefully received and I thank you in advance for your support.
Check out their blog for all you need to know to sponsor them and read about their progress.

Thanks once again for your help………..
and rather you than me boys, my legs (and other bits) ache just thinking about what you’re doing!

My Parents Wedding

OK, panic over……….I’ve managed to get in touch with my brother and now know the name of the church were my mum and dad were married, so I’ve been able to finish my LO

I even managed to find this fab photo of it.

I’ve had a play with it in Photoshop to change to opacity, printed it out onto some white vellum and I’m planning to use it as a backing sheet for another page I’m going to do with more of the wedding photos, so that’s my next task.
But while you wait with batted breath for that one, here’s one I made earlier!

Click on the picture for a clearer look.

The frame was made by cutting the panels from one of the Basic Grey patterned papers and I’ve mitred the corners so that it fits together.
I’ve then cut out extra flowers and decoupage them to the frame and finished it off with some Glossy Accents and some Gold Peel-Off corners.

I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out to be honest!

The flowers were put together with some that were in my stash.
I’ve no idea where the large velvet ones came from but the Cream ones were bargain silk flowers that I brought in Dunelm Mill and pulled to bits………..really cheap and you end up with loads.
For the centres I’ve used some of the little Lemon Roses were in the candy that Brenda sent me recently.

I had fun with the ribbon too.

It’s actually seam binding rather than ribbon, that came from The Ribbon Girl.
To add interest to it I’ve folded it back and forth as I stuck it down and then sewed antique Mother of Pearl buttons along it at intervals.

But even after all that I still felt my page needed a something else so I decided to add the little dove and heart charms but they were Silver and didn’t really go with the page so it was my Krylon pen to the rescue and……….. ta dah……… Gold Charms!

Please pop across to my heritage site Family Footprints In The Sands Of Time, to read the full story of my mum and dad’s wedding day and find out an interesting little bit of trivia regarding someone famous.

Oh, I almost forgot, The Ribbon Girl Blog have a challenge on at the moment to use ribbon on a card or project so I’m going to enter my LO in the off chance of winning some fantastic bling.

Thanks for stopping by.
Sue
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I've used :-

Patterned & Plain Papers
Cappella – Basic Grey


Other Stuff
Journaling Sticker and Wedding Tag – Basic Grey (Cappella)
Distress Ink – Ranger (Scattered Straw)
Yellow Roses - Recollections (Boutique Fleur)
Cream Seam Binding - The Ribbon Girl

From Stash
Velvet & Silk Flowers
Vintage Mother of Pearl Buttons
Heart & Dove Charms
Gold Brads
Gold Thread

Picture in a Frame…..at last! & WOYWW (#115)

Hi all!

You know, I can’t believe that a week has gone by and we’re all back here nosing around the WWW again. That’s ‘World Wide Work desks’ in this case and as usual our hopper in chief is keeping us up to scratch with proceedings over at the The Stamping Ground, so pop over and join in the fun why don’t you.

I actually started the day making another LO for the family tree album, this time of my Mum and Dad’s wedding but when I came to do the journaling I couldn’t remember the name of the church they were married in.
The obvious place to look is on their marriage certificate but unfortunately my brother still has that and I couldn’t get hold of him so it was no help, but then I remembered the box file I have, full of all sorts of papers that dad had got together when he started to research the family.

I wondered if there might be anything in there, so the LO got pushed to the back of my desk and then I started to go through the papers……….now I know why I hadn’t tackled it before!

This is how my desk was looking last night.

As you can see, I have papers all over the place.

There’s lots of information there but it’s in no order what so ever, which is understandable given that dad could hardly see, bless and I’ve found multiple copies, sometimes as many as eight, of the same pages so I decided to leave the LO for a while and try and sort it out.

There’s lots of stuff in there for people I’ve never heard of but who are definitely part of the family so I need to take time to study it all and get in contact with a couple of the people dad was corresponding with via email in a bid to get some order to it all.

Oh, and despite all that sorting I still didn’t find out the name of the church so the LO will have to wait until I see my brother at the weekend.

You can just see a glimpse of the LO poking out from the pile of papers and the lovely vintage Mother of Pearl buttons that I plan to use somewhere on it.

And last but not least I thought I would share a photo of my mum and dad with you.

We don’t have many photos of them together, mainly because mum was so thin due to illness and hated the picture being taken but this one was snapped at a family wedding back in the 1980’s and I’ve only just this week managed to find a frame that I liked for it.

Hope you all have a fantastic week and …………………………



Happy Crafting!
Sue
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Anniversary Waltz - WOYWW (#114) & Cupcake Challenge

Good morning fellow crafters, I hope you are all safe and well after all the riots that have been going on across the country in the last few days……….. It’s all so scary, isn’t it?

I live quite close to London but fortunately far enough out not to have been affected personally so far.
I believe there were a couple of incidents in our high road with windows being broken and the police were out in force by the station just in case the thugs got on the central line trains and came down this way but that was the extent of it.
I did get up to find my garden covered with lumps of Black stuff that looked like polystyrene though. It had blown across from the Sony Warehouse fire in Enfield and you could see the plumbs of Black smoke from here too.

I’m sure that most people as I do respect the right of the family and friend of the guy that was shot (the incident that sparked this all off) to hold their peaceful demonstration but then the gang elements who have nothing to do with it get involved just for the sake of it and then all hell breaks loose.
My heart goes out to all those poor people who have lost homes and businesses through those mindless louts who are just out to cause trouble and words just fail me when you see images of youngsters of ten or eleven out on the streets joining in….where are their parents for heaven sake.

Sorry, rant over but I just had to get it off my chest.


Now then, on to happier things and what’s on my work desk this morning.
(click on the pictures for a clearer view)

As you can see it’s a bit untidy but that’s because I was working on a few Anniversary cards yesterday. You can see two of the finished ones there, the first is this one.

I’m entering it into this week’s Cupcake Challenge , which is to use stitching on our cards.

The stamp I’ve used is one of my favorites, Flying Stars, by Penny Black which I’ve water coloured with Distress Inks and added some tiny gems to
I’ve also used my new seam binding from The Ribbon Girl……..why is it that I’ve only just decided to give this a try…….......I love it, I love it, I love it!
As you can see if you look in front of my distress inks, I have brought a few colours to play with and I’m sure I’ll be going back to order more.......…oh yes!

For the second Anniversary card I thought I would get out my tapestry stamps which I’ve not used for a while.

I’ve dry embossed the heart using a brass stencil in my Cuttlebug and then stamped the flowers and leaves over the top, adding a few sticky pearls that I’ve coloured with Promarkers to the centre of some of the flowers.
I finished it off with a stamped greeting (Write Big – Imagine That) and some Gold edged organza ribbon.

Don’t forget to hop on over to the The Stamping Ground and join in with the fun of seeing what’s on other crafters desk this week.

Stay safe and ……………

Happy Crafting!
Sue
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Flower of the Month

It’s been a couple of weeks since I joined in with my old friends The Daring Cardmaker’s,  but today I thought I’d make a card for their ‘Flower of the Month’ challenge and there are two to choose from this month, Poppy or Gladioli.

In a bid to use up some very old craft bits that I brought way back when I first started card making I thought I would use some Peel-Off’s.


Now I know that peel-off’s have a bad name in some camps and if I’m honest I don’t used them often myself other than the occasional greeting, but I remembered that I had these rather nice Poppies sitting in the box and they don’t look to bad when they are coloured.

I've printed the background directly onto my card, using the Artylicious ‘Season’s Greetings’.
I love this CD because although it’s intended for Christmas, there’s an awful lot that can be used at any time really, making it a good buy.

The Peel-Off’s were stuck to white card, coloured with Promarkers and then cut and layered along the edge of the card and around the bottom edge of the ovals that I cut with my Nesties.

And there you have it…..quick and easy, the way I like them!

What I’ve used:


Craft Creations – Embossed Hammer Card Stock

Craft Creations – Poppy and Butterfly Peel-Off’s

Craftworks Cards – Greeting

Promarker Permanent Ink Pens

Artylicious ‘Season’s Greetings’ CD

Ranger Distress Ink – Black Soot & Barn Door

Introducing ..........My Granddad

I’ve finally finished the page for my Heritage Album that I was working on yesterday, so let me introduce you to my Granddad, Frederick James Gowers, my Mum’s Father.

I had fun with this Lay Out because I thought I would give that lacing technique try.

I’d seen it done on someone else’s blog in my travels, sorry, I can’t remember where, but I made a mental note at the time to give it a go at some point.

I think it works well on my page but I didn’t stop there, I decided to do cross stitching all around the edges too and ended up with nice sore fingers after all that hand stitching, but I think it was worth it.

Embellishment wise I was a bit stuck but then remembered that some time ago I had brought a pack of big Brass looking round stickers. I also came across the metal photo corners but the colour on all of them wasn’t right for what I wanted, so I’ve given then a dab of Alcohol Ink. Even after that the round stickers weren’t really right, so I had a rummage in my stash again and found the vintage brads which I proceeded to cut the prongs off and stick them to the middle with Diamond Glaze.

I also had the ‘Grandfather’ plaque to hand but I didn’t want to stick it directly onto the page so I decided to use one of the fab Brass tags that Lythan brought for me at Ally Pally as a thank you for driving there. I stuck the plaque to the tag added one of the brad top as well, just to tie everything together.

You can read all about my Granddad over at Family Footprints In The Sands Of Time, well as much as I know about him at the moment that is, but hopefully I’ll be able to add to it as the weeks go by.


Thanks for stopping by

Sue

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I've used :-

Patterned Papers & Card Stock
Timepiece – Bo Bunny
Bazzill Basics

Other Stuff
Alphabet Stickers – Papermania & Basic Grey (Life of the Party micro stickers)
Brass tags – Vintaj Natural Brass Co.
Photo Corner – EK Success Architexture
Hemp Cord – Create Cousin
Distress Ink – Ranger (Vintage Photo)

From Stash
Grandfather Plaque (Costco Kit)
Brads
Eyelits
Dymo Tape

Sleepless in......Essex!……..WOYWW (#113)

Doesn't have quite the same ring as Sleepless in Seattle does it but that was me last night.

Now, while I do love my little maisonette it has it’s disadvantages at times. I couldn’t sleep because of the heat and I couldn’t have the windows opened right up because I live on the ground floor, so I had them on the snib but they were letting hardly any air through.

Needless to say I was up at silly o’clock this morning playing in my craft room and as Wednesday’s here again that means that The Stamping Ground’s weekly blog hop is in full swing today.

Here's my desk this morning.

I turned out three very quick cards, two of which you can see on the back of my desk and now I have my Heritage album out and am working on a page of my Grandfather (Mum’s dad) Frederick James Gowers.

I’ve messed around with the photo to the best of my abilities in Photoshop but it’s really just trial and error because I have no idea how it should really be done, but I'm quite pleased with the outcome.

I’ve gone from this:-

To this:-

I never knew my Granddad because he died at the age of 55 from lung cancer before I was even thought of. But what I do remember is this very picture in a rather large frame, hanging on the wall in my Nans home.

I've always thought he had a slight resemblance to a young Prince Philip, what do you think?

Once the page is finished I’m going to have to do a lot of digging because I know very little about his life.

Obviously he was in the army and the census shows he was a soldier in 1918 so he fought in the 1914-1918 Great War but I’ll have to try and get hold of his service records to find out where he actually was.

He married my Grandmother Emily on 31st October 1918 and after leaving the army he worked for the London and North Eastern Railway, first as a General Labourer and then an electrician.

That's about as far as my knowledge of him goes so hopefully my investigations through various members of the family will come up with some more intresting facts about his life.

Thanks for stopping by this morning, I hope to repay the visit very soon myself once I've armed myself with a cup of coffee.

Happy Crafting
Sue
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How Old!

That’s exactly what the team over at the Cupcake Challenge Blog are asking this week.

It’s not often that I make cards that have an age on them but just like busses, you wait ages a then they all come along together.
Last month I had to make two for my friends four year old twin grandchildren, neither of which I remembered to blog about I might add and now I’ve been asked to make a 21st and 40th so this challenge has come along just at the right time.

The 40th card is still in the making but yesterday I finished of the other card and here it is……..yes I know, it’s another stepper!

The shoe and flowers are all digital stamps The Digital Stamp Boutique which I’ve coloured them with Promarkers and the greeting is also a digital stamp from Cindy Close.

What I've used

Patterned & Plain Papers/Card
White Creative Hammer Card – Craft Creations
Urban Prairie – Basic Grey

Equipment
Spellbinder Nestabilities – Scalloped Rectangles
Ranger Distress Ink – Worn Lipstick
Promarkers – Pastel Pink, Dusty Rose, Pastel Green, Soft Green & Black
Digital Stamps – The Digital Stamp Boutique & Cindy Close
Ranger Stickles - Diamond

Stash
Organza Ribbon
Gold Brads

Anniversary Wishes

Challenge Up Your Life have an Anniversary theme this week and as I have no less than five to make this month I thought I would share this one with you.

The Dark Grey and Black & White papers are from the Colorbok pad that I brought in the USA while I was on holiday in February and it’s perfect for anniversary cards so you can expect to see a lot more of it!

The pretty stamp was a freebie on the cover of an old Craft Stamper. It’s been stamped with Black Versa fine and embossed with clear embossing powder and then I’ve given it a rub with some Silver wax rub-on but when the card was finished I decided it was looking a little plain. I gave it some thought and decided to add the Navy and Crystal gems because that was their wedding theme last year and I also added the Silver heart charm to finish it off.
The greeting was computer generated.