Pip Pip!

Had a long weekend in Spain, (at the villa that I periodically advertise for rent). It sounds so luxurious doesn't it - a long weekend, and abroad too - get her! Well if it'll help, we had legal work to do concerning banks and solicitors, so the two working days were taken up by that; and I do want to give a big shout out for the inventor of office air conditioning. It was a blazing 42 on Thursday and not conducive to me concentrating on anything expect the thought of Miss Dunnit back at the villa by the pool. But we played over the weekend - had to stay off the beach until late Saturday afternoon - too hot for fat English women. So I suffered the hardship of sitting in the shade, eating ice cream and drinking Granizados. And so here we are, back to real life.. - I have a comments and questions to answer and I think it's fair to say that I won't get to last week's desks before tomorrow! I know it's hard to feel sorry for me, but spare a thought for me as I get back to work - VAT today and Health And Safety meetings tomorrow. That's quite a high price, huh!!

Thinking of You

...is this week's Dare over at Daring Cardmakers. It's a charity thing this week too. Joanna, our Darer, would like you to send your card to PostPals (or a similar charity worldwide). But please, not before you've shown us! I've returned to my comfort zone for this - a bit of DP and some lovely stamps, can't beat it! The paper is K & CO, and the stamps are Hero Arts (the text), SU! (the truck) and Magenta (the stars on stalks). I've noticed as I go around the WOYWW desks that people work in incredibly different ways....I thought I might briefly outline my Modus Operandi for this particular card:

1. Push back stuff that you saw on the desk from Wednesday. No point tidying, I'm coming back to it very soon.

2. Rummage on stamp shelves for 'Thinking of You' appropriate stamps. Nothing that strikes as appropriate, but find the truck stamp and decide it would be a nice one to use.

3. Spend aaaaaaggggges rummaging for the SU! stamp that is a pile of love hearts, designed specifically to fit in the back of the truck. Fail miserably and swear a bit when the rummaging causes a stamp collapse of the front row and they have to be rescued from the bin. Who put that there?

4. Decide that love heart idea is a bit girly really, so settle for shooting star idea.

5. Hurrah - use a piece of square white card from scrap box. Stamp truck in black ink and emboss with clear powder. So far, quite quick!

6. Decide that it's better to pick DP before colouring the truck...one should inform the other. Hurrah - find huge scrap of cloud paper in pattern scrap box. Cut so size and stick to card front.

7. Trim white card and mount to nice (hurrah) scrap of blue card. Trim to create narrow frame. Put glasses on and trim again.

8. Find another pattern scrap piece and add to the card front, the artsy belief that it will focus the eye in the 'business third' .

9. Use 1mm foam pads to attach the mounted image to the card front. Realise that was a mistake. Peel it off, successfully, for once. Feel like intrepid card maker woman for being so brave.

10. Mask the truck, stamp and emboss the shooting stars. Wrestle to get the foam pads off the back at the top so that I have a surface that's flat to stamp the text on.

11. Replace foam pads and stick the image on the card front. Give up trying to match the blue and settle for silver with some not very good white gel pen highlighting.

So interweb - is that a creative process? I dunno - in writing it's a bit of a shocker....please no-one tell DCM or Postpals!

Rocket Science it ain't

See, I was in Marks & Spencer a couple of weeks ago, looking wistfully at the fridge full of banana, coffee and chocolate milk. Or buying new knickers. Could so easily have been either. In the food section - it was the Andover branch, therefore can't call it the Food Hall - there was a slightly hidden display of shopping bags. The usual ones - bright green, covered with their logo, and the one that conveniently folds down into a little purse size. And this beauty. Obviously there was a slightly more sensible colour, but as a gift, this has 'lovely colour' written all over it, huh! It feels like a felted fabric and is apparently made from 10 recycled plastic bottles. It was a bit less than £4. It's gotta thick piece of something plastic and recycled looking to place in the bottom and make it square and stand alone and oh joy - it stays on my shoulder! So then I wanted to decorate it to give to a friend who suits pink. Big time. The buttons in my collection were desperately small and the proportion was shot, no matter if I used all of 'em, they weren't obvious enough - know what I mean? Then I was browsing at the LSS and telling Shopkeeper Gal who pointed me in the direction of these felted, die cut flowers. A whole bag for £3. Throw in a few nice epoxy type brads from the stash, half a tube of super glue and - *kaploooie* - nice bag, happy giver, hopefully happy receiver! We (that's you and me, friend) are definitely getting better at using proper shopping bags, so I'm going to try to find some nice big buttons that don't push the cost into the ridiculous and 'make' a couple more. Oh man, I'm not ahead, but at least I'm making a dent in the 'ideas for Christmas list' list! I know. Sorry, not quite September and I'm scarey. But then, dear interweb, that is really nothing to do with the month.

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 64

Ha! Told you it wouldn't last. Or did I? Probably not - but you knew anyway! So here it is, back to being a glory surface. The Copics are out - all those shades are for a Christmas card that I had finished working on. The pack of Artemio stamps are the top of a pile of clear stamps in the Christmas theme.....I am trying to fulfil a promise, made here, very publicly. There's a cold cup of coffee - because I moved it to the left which is out of my 'favoured hand' line. Apparently. I say it's more to do with getting engrossed and forgetting it. The jar of buttons is teetering on the left front edge - I know not why. At a guess I'd say they were standing on top of my Copics box so had to be moved. There are the makings of a proper card on the desk though, so even though I've worked myself into about 6 square inches of space, I'm functioning. And look - a baby wipe - gosh everyone, I must have cleaned a stamp!

If this sight doesn't make you feel better about your own space, I fear that we are related and you'll just have to live with that bombshell. Meanwhile though, please show your work space and what you're up to....we love seeing it. Post a pic on your blog, come back here and add your link to the ever helpful Mr Linky. Lots of people visit lots of people, some people will visit everyone, some in one day, others over a bunch of days. No matter - this is about the showing and the sharing. Do you have any idea how many tips and ideas we've shared by doing this? I estimate about sixtyninetykerjillion by now. Priceless!

Personally I will be operating remotely this week, this post has been scheduled (I hope). This is not only my desk as at Tuesday evening, it's pretty much how I will leave it! My visiting you may well be erm, patchy or non existent. Don't take it personally, and don't worry - it's all good!

Oh, this turned into a review!

Some time ago on a Wednesday, a few readers spotted this material on my desk; some thought it printed paper or vellum. It's actually a really rigid acetate (by Kanban) and it's very pretty. Also lends itself to be being left pretty much to itself, which is a gift for a quick or unusual card, huh! I used a DO Crafts foil starter kit - traced some of the pattern with the glue and foiled that and then used their 'Bonding Powder' to stamp and foil the image. (the Bonding Powder isn't part of the kit). Whatcha do is stamp the image in a pigment ink and emboss it with the Bonding Powder. Then you lay the foil over it and rub gently, lift the foil and *pouf* foiled image. It worked really well for me (even though it doesn't photograph brilliantly.) However in the Workshop where this was being repeated, it became obvious that my technique was a bit lucky. Should I wait for the embossed image to cool or hurry and get the foil on whilst still warm? If you aren't using black card, how easy would it be to tell that the powder was embossed? Because it went right for me first time, I didn't do the usual fiddling about and 'trials' that a new product usually causes me. Anyway, because it's £4.50 a pot and because at that price you want to know it'll work well, I've done what any normal person would do. I put on my glasses and read the label. Of course there isn't much room on the label, so I immediately did what it suggested and visited DO Crafts' website for more information. There wasn't any. It's listed as a new product. Helpful. No 'how to' information or hints and tips nor nothing. I am a bit surprised by that, but also I'm not. Now see, I'm more than happy to road test products (aren't we all) and review them, but you kinda need to know what to do with them first, huh! The best tip I can give you is this: it doesn't 'emboss' to a shiny raised surface....the white of the powder simply melts under the heat. It works most effectively if it's warm when you apply the foil...and we discovered in the workshop that re-heating a spot that may not have taken much foil initially is often all that's needed. Not a bad product, but I can see it being tossed to the back of a cupboard in disgust - and at that price, it shouldn't be!

Anyone from DO reading? You're welcome!

You learn a lot about yourself..

I know one or two of you will have picked up on my modest declaration that this month I'm a Guest Designer for the Daring Cardmakers Design Team. I love a title! Well, this week's Dare is set by Jane and the card shown is my attempt. The Dare reads thus:
'Material girl' I would love you all to design a card inspired by a design on clothing - I know we have done inspired by clothing before but I was thinking more about being inspired by the pictures/textures/slogans/quotes on tshirts - not just limited to the colours/patterns on materials.(although, of course, they are perfectly acceptable too!')

Well, I walked around this in a panic for three days. Finally, I 'drew inspiration' from fabrics that I've worn in the past and of course, an iconic (if you're old enough, and British) tee shirt slogan. See,.....Jane set no boundaries , but made suggestions. And so I learned that I had to interpret and come up with something and oh boy, I learned that I do like a narrow boundary! So I just know that you can do better - be tempted please and enter, show me what you think of Jane's dare. I dare you too!

Thanks for your interesting and helpful comments about yesterday's posts...my word some good ideas. I will of course, fill you in on my progress. The bump at the edge is already looking ike a gonner thanks to advice.
Have a nice weekend!

The big tape gun thingy..

So, I've had it a while now - well, nearly a month. That's longevity in double sided tape use isn't it? I haven't thrown it against a door, window, or even at Mr Dunnit. I brandished it at a crop and come home unblemished. So I thought you may like to have my thoughts so far.

I'm pleased with it. It does lay down a very aggressive tape though, so if you're a bit commitment phobic or tend to 'hover' over the piece trying to get things really square...it may cause swearing; somehow the tape magically attracts the work in progress piece to it, which is sometimes very un-funny. But that may well be the work woman blaming the tools.

Willowy Blonde pointed out that the 'guys' who made it into a tape dispenser after it was a successful shop pricing gun were surely only in it for another use - coz it still looks like a

gun and hell, it ain't pretty. However, this has a couple of advantages. Lots of people think it will be heavy and cumbersome and so wouldn't dream of borrowing it - unlike a roll of tape that gets passed back and forth during a 'session'. Us big girl crafters who own the ATG gun know that it's not heavy.

The advantage to the magnificent over-the-top casing has to be that it keeps the tape edges clean. You know - how many times have you laid a neat strip of tape against the edge of something and then stuck it down, only to realise that the edge is now peppered with fluff and/or glitter that has stuck to the roll of tape. Oh. Just me then?

I'm a bit anal about getting tape onto the edges and into corners, I can't bear a peeling corner - it's a bit too home-made, even for me. I'm just about down with the where to start and where to stop the dispensing of the glue tape...but still can't deliver it to card or paper in a straight line! Nor can I work out how to avoid creating a small ridge of the glue when I stop, and that sometimes shows, especially when using paper and not card - that is an annoyance for me, but I think it may be a technique that I'm lacking. It so usually is!

I made the mistake of buying very wide tape (in my excitement I think, I would never usually use 19mm wide). I have since topped up with (although not yet using) a more standard 12mm width and I have also brought a reel converter to enable me to use 6mm tape which is quite narrow. I don't have any yet - by the time I ordered they were out of stock! I got mine and the tapes from a site recommended by Jo of JoZart; it's www.3m.co.uk - sign up for the email news and then you'll see quickly when they have it and/or the tapes on special offer. I bought the gun at offer time and paid about £15 for it....tapes extra - it doesn't come with one. But interestingly, Shopkeeper Gal and I were discussing this article and she discovered that she can supply the tapes - at much less than the 3m website is offering.....the gun is about the same price. This is worth knowing people, we aren't talking pence here.

No doubt the first couple times it will be a fiddle to load - but you won't waste tape - they put a good couple of metres of film on the end of the roll to help you. Clever stuff. Do I recommend it? I can't yet tell if it's cost effective, but it's looking that way. If you habitually use glue to stick card and paper because you like the increased 'handling' time, the ATG is not for you. But if you're a committed tape user, I'd say it's worth investigating. If you come to Ludgershall Crop or we ever meet, I'll let you test run it. For about 2 minutes. This is not a sponsored review - and I'm still not in LOVE with it, but we're definitely friends....not least because I can't lose it on my shambles of a desk!