WOYWW

HI everyone, a quieter week this week.  This is not the time to bog people down with personal stuff but in very brief. Whitefrairs incompetent and useless, West Midlands Police fantastic won't hear a word said against them, there will be an arrest and HE will be tried in the criminal or civil courts and lastly we plan to run ASAP after New Year the flat will end up being empty for a month or 2 maybe but safety is paramount and no one can offer us any protection or methods to obtain proof.

The mini book  - thanks to anyone who stopped by and the handful who left comments :) Hello to the couple of new followers I have acquired and thanks for the support. I tried to persuade T to pick out the name but he resolutely shook his head and said NO! not even for a read of his favourite book. Anyways ONEOFF can you send me your address by email and I'll get the mini in the post to you.

My indeterminant surface is a disaster at the moment. There is some crafting stuff a foot when T will let me between lurgies and insecurity etc.

I have a couple of finishing off bits to do and the assembly of both sets of parents presents the folders of which are visisble here.  I have to take a break as it is DH birthday this weekend and there is much food to be eaten we are escaping over night and then heading for the Birmingham Christmas market on Monday :) Hope you are all having a good week wherever you are and thanks for all the supportive comments at the sucky time.

WOYWW - 78 at least last week was no 77?

Another Wednesday and this one is the start of the Christmas Countdown.  My workdesk this week does not contain craft stuff.  If however you would like to know how to make this:

 

then take a look at the previous link.  If you would like to have this mini book then you just need to leave a comment and check back here next WOYWW -79.  Thank you to the 3 people who have looked in and hello (wave) to my 2 new followers, if you just looked and didn't leave a commnet then that is grand to.  Need more desks check out the link on the right.  If you have turned up here randomly you can ignore the rest for those of you who drop by regularly it's got worse.

I know a number of people who factor in Karma, the thing is if all this crap is happening to us then does that mean we deserve it?  We had to have the police out twice this weekend.  The 1st was a public order offense number 4.  The '__________' (insert suitable expletive) responsible should be arrested at some point this week, I'm afraid I have little faith in many things at the moment so it means very little to me.  I was verbally abused on my way out of my flat and into the street words beginning with F and C were used and I was repeatedly told I wasn't welcome, I'm lucky that T didn't pick up on it because he sure doesn't hear those words at home.  Having reported it all to the police on the Sunday at midday, we left to go to the supermarket to discover that both wing mirrors had been ripped from our car.  I can't tell my 2 year old son why it isn't ok to go back into his room once he has come out in the morning. Or why the piece of scum downstairs doesn't take our wheeley bin out then shouts abuse at one of us for having to take it out before 7 in the morning. Or why mummy is scared to leave the flat and if she does leave why she is frightened to go back. Or why mummy is crying a lot because he only knows crying is because you are hurt or because you can't get what you want and neither of those apply.  The police can do very little as there are never any witnesses. Whitefriars so far have chosen to do nothing, we have a meeting with them on Monday.  We are looking at the best way to try and rent out the flat so that we won't have to foot 2 lots of payments (one mortgage / one rental) because have no doubt this man wants us gone and if we just went (which I would dearly love to do) he would make sure no one else would move in. We have also sorted out a garage to lock the car in from Monday ( the car is called Humphrey and he is away being mended at the moment).  So what ever you believe in please give us a thought, I know there are people who have and will go through far worse, but my little universe is very important to me and at the moment the thing keeping me together is that it is just stuff and I've lost stuff before and that can be dealt with.  My worry is what happens if it changes from stuff to one of us because all the causes and triggers are not going away and can't so where does it end?

Tutorial for an Interlocking Accordion Fan Book.

These mini books are a great quick make for christmas (and numerous other occassions.......). You can put one or more together in a couple of hours.  As has been already been noted they would hold seed packets, recipes, ATCs to name but a few, have fun!

Supplies

2 sheets of 12 x 12 double sided cardstock sliced into 10cm x 30cm (4” x 12”) strips

Coordinating 12 x 12 sheet for book cover

Coordinating cardstock for embellishment and tags

2 of 10.9 x 15.2 (41/4” x 6”) Chipboard or board book for book covers

Double sided tape and glue

To make me

1. Select one strip from each of the different papers, cut them  down from 30cm (12”) to 22.5cm (9”).  Score these pieces of paper at 1.25cm (1/2”) from either end and at the centre point to give two 10cm (4”) squares (left picture).  Score the remaining strips at 10cm intervals (4”).  So you should have 2 pieces like the picture on the left and 4 like the one on the right.

 

2.  Taking your first 3 matching strips. At the midpoint of each 10cm square make a cut from the edge to the centre (5cm or 2”) from the bottom.  Attach the 3 square strips along the tabs using glue or double sided sticky tape. Repeat with the other strips of paper but this time make your cuts from the top to the bottom. N.B. Be aware of directional paper.............

    
3.   3. Interlock downward cuts with upward cuts (you may need to reverse your folding at this point to make it work.  It will start to look like this:

When they are all interlocked you will be able to fold the whole thing flat from each end.

4. Working from the bottom, and ignoring the first piece of paper i.e. selecting only 2 pieces either side of the fold staple about 2.5cm (1”) from the edge near the top. You will have 7 stapled pockets on each side.

5. Taking your choice of paper for covering your chipboard, cut 2 rectangles 13.4cm by 17.5cm (5 ¼ ” by 7”).  Apply glue or adhesive to one side of the chipboard and centre on paper (you will have a ½” border all round).  Cut a diagonal at each corner as shown leaving a small gap to the edge of the chipboard.

Apply double sided sticky tape to all 4 sides and wrap to cover, then  use a coordinating (in my case the reverse leftover piece)  cut two 9.5cm by 12.5cm (3 ¾ “ by 5”) rectangles, cover in glue and centre to complete cover. I use a bone folder at each stage to make sure the 2 surfaces are well adhered.

6.  After deciding which cover is the front and which way round you want your ‘pages’ to face.  Apply adhesive to the top surface of your pages.  Align the bottom of the pages with the base of the cover and centre before adhering the 2 surfaces. Apply adhesive/ glue to upper surface as shown in left picture  centre top book cover over bottom cover (check that you can’t see any of the inside) then adhere together. 

     7.  To finish cut a strip of coordinating paper 10.9cm by 7.5cm (4 ¼ “ by 3”) and score in 1 ¼ “ from either end (approx 3cm) to leave a ½” spine. Glue down aligning book cover edges with edges of score.  Decorate and embellish your book as you want :)

So for your chance to win the above book leave a comment before 8th December, winner will be selected at random and announced on my blog.

 

WOYWW - 77 a mini surprise giveaway

Good morning lovely people.  Have you had a good week? Ours has been a mixed bag, it is all going well with Timothy in his cot converted to bed form, we put him there and he stays although yesterday he 'need truck' this thing is nearly half as big as him, so I snuck it back out once he was a sleep.  On the downside someone threw a full bottle of Groschl through our kitchen window smashing it, (we are a ffirst floor flat so unlikely to be random) we were out, with friends babysitting, so that was a crap end to the evening. Anyway enough rambling thank you for all your lovely comments last week, the papers are this years and last years Imaginesce, polar expressions (2009) and Christmas Cottage (2010). So here's the thing - Julia, I do have a finished book to show you but after some thought I decided to go a stage further.  I will show you shortly the finished minibook - then later this week I will post the tutorial I have written to make your own.interlocking accordion mini. It will be my first tutorial and if you leave me a comment then I'll enter your name into a draw to win the very mini you see below (winner announced in 2 Wednesdays on Dec 8th in WOYWW 79). What's WOYWW where have you been all this time, there is a link on the right head on over and start the journey of a lifetime..........

Enough procrastinating without further ado...............

I used the same idea to produce a holder for some pockets to make a year planner for one of my lucky relatives :)

So if you want the christmas book check back tomorrow night onwards and leave a comment for a chance to have it all to yourself.  Happy Wedneday

WOYWW 76 - 2 ATGS (don't shout)

Ok ok ok, the more eagle eyed among you spotted that hey - there is a logical reason honest.  You buy an ATG for yourself and figure you'd get your mum one for Christmas because she would find one useful too.  So you set your own up as a 6mm, buy the adapter thingy and ship your tape in from the states because you can't get it in the UK.  Then it turns out your ATG tape is better than your doublesided sticky tape at sticking chipboard to paper - all of a sudden you are going through 6mm tape like it is water through your hands or money through a crafting person (ha ha) so then you have an inspirational idea - you have already got your mum more than agreed budget so run her ATG gun with the 12mm tape which you can get here in the UK and therefore buy in much smaller quantities.  So then you have 2 ATGs that you are using both very helpful in their own way - see (my mum's bestmate has ended up buying her one for Christmas anyway when I told her about them!) - well they are on sale at the moment. Simples see!

Right so workdesk space thingy.

My workspace is a hive of Christmas activity - it's ok after bonfire night now :) I'm making some lovely quick album thingies that were inspired by a Laura Denison design and in the back is a card - I'm mainly a Lavinia stamps kinda girl, the father christmas stamp was a gift from a friend of my mums when we went to the NEC so I wanted to make her a card to say thank you.  The houses were stamped with versafine black, coloured in with promarkers then coloured over with a viersamark pen before being clear heat embossed so that I could brayer over the top. Moon was made using a post it note mask. One desk not enough then head on over to the Queen of it all at the Stamping ground and find 2, 3 or probably a hundred and something more!

Now for those lovely few of you who have been following T exploits.  Climbing on to the chest of drawers turned very quickly into a bid for freedom and so the cot has been converted into its bed form.  So far in 2 nights we have had 2 nights slept through and it only took us 45 min to get him to stay in bed and go to sleep (the first night we kinda cheated he fell asleep in the car when OH took me to my scrapbook class and didn't wake up until the morning........)  So it is bye bye lovely 2 hours afternoon of freedom nap time but hopefully he will now sleep through the night.  I really must post more often so that these WOYWW don't turn into a tome.  Have a lovely week (can't you just spot I've have more sleep recently!)

WOYWW 75 - reorganisation

Where to start this Wednesday morning.  Sleep deprivation has been high on our agenda still.  I think it has been cold related but OH and I have been woken up or kept up too many times to count by the 2 year old terror.  Yesterday through his choice not mine there was no afternoon nap (I went into his room to discover he had climbed out of his cot on to the chest of drawers (which is above the level of his cot.......) pulled down the curtain rail and was proudly declaring mummy mummy).  However last night we ALL slept through the night - I'm sure many of you have been there where young person sleeps through and you lie awake at the times they have been disturbing you for the last for rthe last however many weeks. Please let it be over and normal sleep resuming.  Then however many weeks (think it is being counted in days now)until Christmas - it's ok bonfire night is over now we are officially allowed to start thinking about it. I get a debtors letter claiming I owe £90 to Orange from 2007 -n what I want to know is as I have lived at this address since way before then why oh why is this the first I have heard about it (and I haven't been with Orange for a good while).  Lastly there was my trip to the NEC which was a lovely if not elbow bashing day out toooooooooo many people.  Yet I was disappointed I think maybe because the needlecraft section was in the craft section this time the papercraft etc section was much much smaller.  Good deals on Martha Stewart punches but then I couldn't remember where I had seen them all and soooo many people (I don't really like lots of people much happier with a few special ones - you know like you guys) I'm sure I over spent on the punches I got by about 5 quid. other than resupplying my sakura glue pens it was a poor buying session (still manages to spend enough mind you). Is that enough words D???

Anways if your still here I did get a shiny big (much better for chopping 12 x 12 than an A4 mat .................. sorry about that dragged away to put nutella on baby boys (I know 2 is not a baby but he is my baby) toast. Where was I ah yes shiny new cutting mat, however there was no way yesterday I was going to get mat in place with previous chaos so rearrangement time.  Which led to more rearrangement - especially with the curtain pole coming down in the boy's room so I took a mid craft tidy break to sort out and rearrange the bedrooms - I'm sure I am not the only one to be so easily distracted.  Still with the appalling weather it gave me the opportunity to work on the above beautiful butterflies (A Bug's Life is currently no. 1 on T DVD list).  So today the sun is out, there are no packages to be delivered, the flat is in a reasonable state, we may just have to get some fresh air, mind you  that cold has settled on T chest maybe we should stay in the warm and I should craft?.................

What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday

Still here.  Doing a lot of Christmas related stuff and like many others need to keep it away from the lense so people don't end up seeing what they've got before it is given to them!  Managed to fit in some Christmas cards so thought I'd get in while I can.  I have two main requirements this year, cheap and quick.  So it's what I already have or what comes with magazines :). This lot were the result of embossing folders -  I tried the inking trick but didn't like the results. I'm off to the NEC tomorrow (carnage will ensue) and on my list are some gelly pens to put in some colour.

 

Now on the bad news front the interview didn't work out so it is going to be a poor crafting session for me until next May.  On the plus side my Roald Dahl card (see some earlier posts in September) was a winning entry so I now have lots of delightful stuff I probably don't need!! but who cares.  However a trip to Switzerland to visit good friends and their 5 month old baby girl mean all batteries are rechargesdand ready to go. Below is a panarama of the Alps looking across Lake Geneva:

WOYWW 71 - thank goodness for daylight lamps

It is officially dark now when I get up in the morning and my early morning crafting habit would be impossible were it not for my lovely daylight lamp.  We have an estate agent, no board as yet. The best friends a girl could ever hope for came over Sunday and helped us clear the bramble patch which is our excuse for a garden. I am doing lots of crafting it is a diversionary technique as I have an interview tomorrow for a senior marking position at AQA and without it the money to do crafting will be scarce.  To the workdesk I hear you cry enough of the waffle.

The more eagled eyed among you will spot the changes.......... Did some rationalising last week, having decided for the present what type of crafter I want to be (that is still many different forms). I'm currently enjoying making my own albums so I guess I'm part book binder at the moment :) Have a lovely Wednesday and a splendid week.  Visit many more desks starting with Julias over at the Stamping Ground, see the WOYWW link on the right for an all absorbing never ending joy ride :)

WOYWW 70 - working some grunge

Morning - ever had one of those nights when something wakes you up and you can't go back to sleep and your mind starts a working, but you think it'll be ok I'll go back off in a minute. Then 4 hours later when you finally get off something else wakes you up. Finally at some hour much earlier than you want your baby boy (read toddler) decides he is ready to go and you just know that you should have got up and done something for a an hour or so and you probably would have got more sleep - those nights anyone?

My workspace is not very occupied, mostly we have decided to try and sell our flat so I am dealing with estate agents and I have been watching craft stuff not doing,..........  BUT I do have lots of goodies to show you that I made at Artian on Saturday - 2 of them courtesey of the lovely ladies at Paperartsy who had me all star struck - hello lovely ladies.

 I may have made a couple of purchases to..................

If you want to see lots of properly active desks in action then hop on over to Julia - see the link on the right hand side for WOYWW, there is always plenty going on and if you've got an hour or 10 you meet some lovely people on the way :)

Ring ring

Ok for those lovely 2 of you that have been with me from nearly the word go this will be less of a surprise, for the rest of you well........

When I'm not masquerading as a crafty person I occasionally get roped into cakes - it started with my sister and her boys and my son in the last couple of years.  If you scan back right to the beginning in July you will find my pirate ship and rocket creations.  My mum's friend describes my cakes as unique / original and asked for a phone cake - it was very difficlut to do, largely because there is nowhere to hide - and we crafters do like being able to disguise that ink smudge or paint splodge.  Still the recipient was delighted and gave me more money than was asked for so thumbs up all round:

WOYWW 69 - I want to go back to Arran

Decent accomodation, beautiful scenery, fab company and the beach all around sigh...........

The only thing I didn't do much of was crafting! - didn't manage to find much time, did do some christmas cards and a birthday card.  So on to the point of today, what is going on with my workspace - firstly and ta for your patience, yes the big fat object on the windowsill is a HP photosmart printer - originally for scrap-booking, currently for printing off records of my cards!

Starting work on Christmas cards as I have a few gifts I would like to make to.  Been using the free stamp I got with craft stamper magazine.  Thought I'd also show the Cosmo Cricket entries I put into the Quick Cards competition. All papers were Golly by Jolly which I picked up last year. Pu1nched circles for the tree and then stamped the tree trunk on acetate using versafine and then clear embossed. The acetate was fixed using woodware maguc vellum.  The second card used the nesting label 1 to frame cut up strips of paper and die cut snowman.

Click on the WOYWW link if you want to start where it all begins. Have a good week if you can.

WOYWW 67

Thanks for all the brilliant comments from last week. My card has gone and is in the lap of the Quick Card judges - unfortunately never to be seen again. I figured that it was about time to stop showing cards and actually get down to the point of the bloghop and show my workdesk. I'm proud of managing to get round all of the desks over this last week and am in awe and envy of more than a few. So for your delight my desk of indeterminate purpose - in this case craft table :) On my craft space is the start of my christmas effort, we are off on our summer hols the end of this week (beautiful island of Arran) and there may be 'gulp' no internet access - it doesn't bare thinking about so I may go a little quiet. Anyway being away does not equal no crafting so I'm getting my craft store ready :) You can nose around at your leisure it is all a work in progress. I guess most people have a source of caffine, the poisons of my choice is always in easy reach!

Thought I'd also give you one of my competition entries (so many of my babies are being judged) the competition closed yesterday - so more of thoe lovely owls. I know that iris folding is a little out of fashion at the moment, but when I first saw these I knew I could make my mum a happy lady, it is only my 3rd or 4th one and I had to do the template for this myself so a little bit of a work in progress. The embossing folders are Tim Holtz (one of those got to have things love the wood and brick textures) inked using versafine for added depth. All card is from the papermania colossal pad - my stock cardstock. The duo of cards came about as the cutout was used for one and the imprint for the other. Lamp-post was pierced from black card. Right I'm off to do packing 'see' you all in a week or 2. If you want to join in click on the WOYWW link on the right bar for the low down.

Inspired by Rainbow Days

One of the great things about all this blogging stuff is seeing something fantastic that someone else hase done and then with their kind permission having a bash yourself Julie over at Rainbow Days produced this stunner a couple of weekends ago, either click on the picture or the link above to see this and other variations. Inspired by this and a comment Julie made about not having a nestie squares which would have made it easier. Now I don't have nestie squares....yet......... but I do have label 1 and my flower punches were at my mums - and I think I agree with Doone's earlier comments that spellbinders good and Martha Stewart punches not so much - at least they don't come out anywhere near as much for me (not the case for everyone I know) however, I do LOVE my stamp and punch MS, I have a cupcake and a butterfly one and along with the hugs and honey scraps of paper I made this thank you card for a friend. I was also short on a sentiment so I used my Sakura glue pen (I really love those things) and broke into my MS all the colours of the rainbow and some glitter pack and there you have it. So thanks Julie for the inspiration :)

3 owls, an embossing folder and some googly eyes!

OH and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary yesterday - well I say celebrated we exchanged cards and got some nice Thai food in for dinner. For my creation I had lots of fun with googly eyes, spellbinders nesting owls and a Tim Holtz impressions folder. I used a trick he displayed on his blog, carefully using a craft knife you slit along the crease of the embossing folder, allowing you to create a longer / bigger image - only when you are embossing pay attention to the creases when you add the rest of the bits so you don't end up adding un-needed prolifary items! I decided to create our family in owl form so baby owl is a combination of 2 big owls. I don't really know if he liked it - I think he smiled, but he has only expressed a reaction to one of my cards and that was the seasons winning card from a few posts back - that one he didn't want to part with! Hope you all have a lovely weekend. We are wrestling with fitting roof bars and a roof box to the car we are taking on holiday at the end of next week - when the rain stops that is.......

WOYWW 66 - the finished Dahl

Ok you have all been splendidly patient. This card may not be a Quick Card winner who knows but it was certainly a labour of love. I had to play around with the card 'padlock' to my original idea as the point was for it to hold the gates shut! Okay so the gates and ticket were cut from card and painted using smooch inks - they are nice and shiney and gave the metallic feel I was after. Papermania magnetic buttons were sealed into the padlock parts to keep the gate shut All figures were hand drawn - for me Roald Dahl always goes hand in hand with Quentin Blake and it would be nye impossible to separate the two. They were coloured using Promarkers and versafine ink (for the skin colour and brown - henna promarker had lid come off and dried up and for some reason I have never got round to skin coloured promarkers - must remedy that). Printed off the banner (font was a free one Fontdinerdotcom Sparkly :) I found out that yellow was Roald Dahl's favourite colour. Wrapped the banner round 2 cut off wooden kebab posts before fixing. Hope that it doesn't disappoint you all - for me if I am reluctant to let go of the finished article then I feel like I've done alright...........

Anyone stumbling in and wondering what on earth WOYWW (What is on you workdesk wedensday) is all about follow the WOYWW link on the right hand side for inspiration abound

Ooooh Spellbinders

Ok just so everyone doesn't think I'm a one card only girl here is something to keep you entertained until tomorrow's big reveal. I am very happy I have booked myself on to a scrapbooking course at my local shop stampeeze - I figure that way at least I'll have a go once a month if not at any other time and I really want to make sure I get my baby boy captured while it is still fresh (ish) in the mind. So to today's card, my big cousin turns 50 this weekend so after trawling the web I came across a couple of decent phrases 'don't think of it as getting older, think of it as becoming a classic' and 'congratulations on turning 18 with 32 years of experience'. Then thanks to Eileen and her wonderful spellbinders creations I recently invested in 3 or 4 to go with my nesting owls. So out camethe bigshot and the nesting labels 2. The 5o is created by inking up your stamp with versa mark and then heating with clear embossing powder - neat effect and can be used for 'watermarking' in all kinds of backgrounds. I cut the owl out of 2 types of card so I could make the wings a different colour. The caption was just done (as I'm sure you all know) by printing first onto paper then taping my cut shape over the top and re-running through the printer - I use this a lot with acetate to. Once I have my competition entries in I'll post those up - end of the month. Looks like a boy card I hope.

A further Dahl teaser

Thank you to all the lovely people out there who have said hello and left comments - they make me more determined to find time to craft. We live in a middle floor flat and my son and I have to be as quiet as possible when we wake up (anytime from 5.30, although nearer 6 at the moment). The little fella is very into Pixar movies at the moment. So breakfast and Pixar for him and crafting for me for a couple of hours and then we can go out and play. So anyway the last 2 mornings since Wednesday I've finished off all my bits and pieces. Time to begin assembley of the master creation :) We are waiting for a parcel to be delivered today - it could be a long one...............