Wrap It Your Way

Wrap It Your Way - Amber Ink's Inkcredible 21 Day Challenge - check it out do - you take a food or gift item, and deck it out. And there are some stunners - visit the link and Look! There is an amazing opportunity for you here - if you win , you and Amber, (the genius with the pencil and graphic programme) get to collude on producing your ideas as digi images and stuff - I know a heap of people that could be doing this!

So I've used my utter favourite (so far) ipaper - Snowflake Lace - to make this little cone shaped hanger/ holder. It's from a 4" square, so you can get plenty from a sheet! You'll recognise the Martha Stewart border punch along the top of the 'insert' cone and I used a die to cut the snowflake shapes, attached them with silicone glue for a bit of dimension. Obviously the devil in the detail : the pink candy canes...in a pack of 20ish from Sainsbury's. I expect if I looked everywhere, everywhere would have them, and probably in traditional colours, but I do quite like the pink for a change.

I must say that despite my initial ignorance and crappy printer fears, I've really had my head turned by this ipaper - so jolly convenient. And I read that one Torchbearer sends her files to a copy shop for printing - now that's a great idea - no probs at all with colour cartridges there! I could build up a bit of a stash instead of print and use - which makes me feel like I have last minute-itis, and doesn't help my decision process because all the possibilities crowd my head!

Look, nearly all glitter!

Aha - that Dunnit woman, she flits from extreme to pole and no doubt. One minute she's moaning about being sick of Christmas and glitter and the next - well just look at this! I couldn't resist it. The weather was dead flat cold and dull, the Christmas shopping was erm, shelved because I had a rather severe attack of humbug and so I played a little. In my amazing capacity as part of Amber Ink's th(ink) Tank I had preview access to some lovely stuff and this card is a result. Sure is a result - all images are digital, including the background paper.! I seem to have managed some of the basics of digi and I'm not a bit smug about it. More 'terrified of the shape of things to come' is a better description! Anyway, I bring you sparkly kissing fish for your sparkly delight -I used Spin Pin-Black Tie for the paper and digi stamps Best Fishes. Check out what others are doing by following the link from my fab pink badge!

The use of all this glitter has naturally affected my family, by virtue of central heating, static and breathing. They look even more gorgeous when seen through glitter tinted eyelashes. Miss Dunnit is amused by my surprise at quite how many colours of glitter that I have. She amused is good - because I was shocked! I don't keep them all together (for reasons of I don't know tinged with madness), and so when I amassed them to give me colour choices, there were loads - pots, tubs, phials and bags, some decanted into wider mouth pots, some mixed from careless spills (to form a kaleidoscope colour, on purpose, of course). They cheered me up, they floated around the room and sparkled everywhere - and still do. And then I tidied them away, back into several places. Unlike me I know - perhaps it was the need not t be totally covered in the stuff before I made something else. Perhaps it was because the glittery colours cheered me up. Perhaps it was because I was ashamed of the number in the collection. I dunno. Share your shame, what's your glitter collection like? And are you like me, one of the people that thinks you 'don't do' glitter? It must be genetic, because I really thought I didn't!

Look, no glitter!

I was getting bogged down in season-ality and the sort of colours that go with. This fresh little bunny lad is Dandelion (code K001 to be precise) and was a breath of fresh air to colour and make. He's from the Crafthouse Press - more excitingly for me - he's part of a range of foam mounted rubber stamps! Now that is seasonally excellent news! Cut along to your LSS and have a look - I've got a couple others to show...and will when I need to rest from the December stuff!

Did you notice that this week had a record number of WOYWWers? I expect if you have guilt about getting round every desk then you will have noticed. But let me re-iterate; it's meant to be fun - work and having a bad cold and worry about all sorts of things makes the real life a tad more difficult than hopping round friendly blogs on the interweb. So cut yourselves some slack - everyone is really happy to get visitors,but if you can't visit everyone, it doesn't matter, honest. Dip in and out, take part, comment, don't comment - it doesn't matter. Don't pressure yourselves. But hey - if you aren't posting to your blog or WOYWWing for whatever reasons, be unapologetic and stay in touch anyway huh - you don't need to post a pic every Wednesday to drop by and say hi, for sure. So as we gear up for the big season, do take my advice huh. You might as well. I'm not using it (- as one of my stamps sagely puts it!)

Oh and Julia, how come you have an open box of Cyprus made turkish delight on your desk? Well, interweb, nosey as you are, you'll be pleased by the answer. It's genuine stuff and I must say, we ended up fighting over the nutty, almondy pieces, oh yum. All thanks to Cath in Cyprus, who for happy family reasons, was recently transformed into Cath in Tidworth! Oh it was very nice to meet her - you know what I mean, when you sort of have to hug to prove it's really happening! Brave Cath came over to the shop on Thursday evening and joined the workshop - which was manic but fun. The weather was foul whilst she and her lovely man were here, I hope they travelled well and have got the chill off their bones by now.

Have a nice crafty christmas shoppy weekend y'all. No, really if I have to, I think it only fair that you do too!

Me and a th(Ink) Tank....

I'm pleased, delighted and frankly terrified to have been invited by Amber and Incredimombo to join their guest monthly DT, the th(Ink) Tank. If you do WOYWW, you know about Amber Ink, gorgeous, lively and timely digital stamps and papers and a collection of clear stamps too. Oh man, the digi learning has been scarey and is definitely at the 'beginner' stage and the crappy printer has made me panic; and the light is terrible and my daylight bulb just went pop! But hey, the first digi images are conquered and the printer is about to be usurped by doing some printing at work and the daylight bulb has a guarantee on it. So it may all come good.
Amber, Incredimombo, be reassured that I've got the timetable on the wall and I'm not shaking every time I look at it now, I can photograph at work in better light and most important - I'm really looking forward to playing with all the stuff!
Now just in case I've fooled you into thinking that this isn't a HUGE deal for me, check out my fellow Amber Ink torchbearers; they are amazing. No pressure at all then!
Shannan - Ambassador of Awesomeness
Torchbearer Angela
Torchbearer Julie
Torchbearer Kerri
Torchbearer Stacie
At the Amber Ink blog you can find baby pictures and Incredimombo's write up biographies, really entertaining. Be prepared to add these girls' blogs to your reader, they are fab.

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday 76

What isn't on there - a question a few of your pose on some weeks. Well, I'm with you sistahs, this week, my desk shows everything and because I skived from work early on Tuesday, you get a full frontal stark daylight shot. Grim. Because I'm scheduling this post, I suppose I can reassure you that I'm going to clear it up - I need to, I have loads to do and frankly I am now at the stage of needing to start again; it's that bad. Gosh, that empty beer bottle and equally empty foam banana packet doesn't do much for my clean living reputation huh! I'm still beavering over Christmas cards, but have non Christmas stuff in the pipeline too, so the crafty things are all good - it's just the desk that appears to get the better of me! In view of upcoming events , I'm having some lessons from Miss Dunnit about the manipulation of digital images. She is not as patient as I'd like. And apparently, my ability is questionable. I'll show her. Or I'll fall flat on my face.

Some interest to those of you digi babes - Angela at Toucan Scraps (WOYWWer of immense staying power) has put out a call for Tutorial Writers - check it out - you have nothing to lose!

http://colestoucan.blogspot.com/2010/11/tutorial-writers-call-full-time-guests.html

So I've shown you mine - now you show all of us yours! Photo your desk, workspace, counter top, lap tray - whatever you're doing, put it on your blog and then visit here to leave a link. Then loads of us will come by for a rummage. Simple. It's all about sharing what you're doing and showing us what you've got! Thanks!

Me and the Distress Ink thing....

Betty-the-bag-lady commented twice over my use of Distress Ink on the snowflake card in previous posts. I'll not picture it again, for gawd's sake, talk about thrashing the impact out of a picture! I've given Betty the impression that I'm in love with the Distress Inks that in the past, I may possibly have been a bit rude about. Well, I'm not in love with them yet. But if it's possible, I'm less out of love with them. Make sense? Certainly Mr Holtz must have heard me when I talked about him working in seven shades of wee wee - I mean, why else did he produce all the bright colours, huh - Spiced Maramalade? I rest my case. I still maintain that you can't get a decent stamp image off these inks - particularly with clear stamps - even treated, sanded and blahdy blah. No doubt it's better with real rubber, but still it seperates a bit on the surface. But I do like 'em for colouring and blending in an offset direct to paper technique. (That's my way of talking about using a bit of cut'n'dry foam to sponge ink over a surface. You gotta admit, I sure can pull technique names out of my erm, head.) If the more vibrant colours hadn't arrived, I would still be in the un-loving camp. But I can't resist strong and bright colour, to the extent that my collection has gone from six to nine inkpads. Now I realise that TH isn't going to get rich from my collection, nor is he remotely interested in my occasional use experience, and there's a way to go before I increase my alcohol ink collection (currently 2), but hey - I only pretend to be a big girl crafter..and I never pretend to like what I don't. Can't. Unless it's given as a gift and it's a handbag....but that's a whole other story!

Doone dear gal, if you're reading this: I haven't been able to get into you blog this past week - Google keeps telling me that you've been infected with a malware that you aren't aware of - is it just me?

No really. I AM THE WINNER

Thank you for your feedback and comments over the previous post - I sure made my point to computer guy and you commenters made my day - good grief you are a generous lot. As soon as my head is less swelly, I'll get my feet back on the ground and possibly maybe do some crafting. No chance of housework for sure. See, I only do housework if Mr Dunnit isn't home. He works on a Saturday morning, always has, not unusual, huh. He went off at 7.30 this morning and I resolved to sort out the kitchen, do some ironing, chuck the vacuum about downstairs and go to the post office. And promptly went back to sleep. Mr Dunnit woke me at 10.00 when he rang to say he was coming home. Great tactics for avoidance, huh! See, I can't do housework when he's home - he's in my way, I don't want to waste our time together and he distracts me by always having the tv on. It's his company of choice, mine is the radio. Of course, creating a blog post and cruising websites while he's home is by no means a waste of our time together. Why, he just has to stand up and walk 3 paces to see me!

Anyway - I forgot (of course), to include details of this card and had a few questions about it -yes - the Artemio snowflake stamps were stamped on cream card in clear ink and embossed with clear powder. The purple is a Dusty Concord DI and sponge application, the text is the same ink, a stamp that I cannot live without from A Stamp In the Hand. And the teeny postage stamp is from a small set by Inkadinkado. Stamped in Purple Stazon and the whole piece swiped with clear ink and embossed with a sparkly clear powder.

Have a lovely weekend.