The last week has been quite overwhelming, not for any bad or sad reasons, just tiring and ridiculously busy. Amongst other things, it's been lovely but emotional to move my sweet Mother In Law into her new home. Partial other thing...the process for advising change of address is absolutely a nightmare in some cases and swift, easy and almost a pleasure in others. I've spent over three hours on the phone to a single utility company this week. Arrrrgh. So what you find on my desk...even more images to go on change of address cards. Another 10 needed and a lovely way to ignore the neglected housework and do some cutting and colouring! The desk is almost at the point of being unusable it's so untidy, but that won't last, some very real deadlines for an ATC and a scrapbook page for a Chinese Whispers round means that I need to focus. See that lovely ATC just above the birdhouse images? that's the swap I've received for this month....now you get the motivation, it is somehow embarrassing to get the swap before I've made the swap if you see what I mean! I neglected visits last week and I'm very sorry and feel that I missed out, this week will not be so; if you have already forgiven me, can I have my share of last week's biscuits as well as today's? I plan to make some Easter biscuits before Miss Dunnit and the Current Squeeze come home, but so far my plan is already a bit, well, falling apart! I hope you all enjoy a spring warm and comfortable Easter weekend.
Last week I stamped a few sleeping ducks (I really did, no euphemism here!). They sat untouched until the weekend, and on Sunday I turned them into cards. Cute - it's an old image but I do like it. The card you can see is one of four the same, the other two are new baby cards. 
Whilst I was having post lunch coffee, I bashed out a few of these little sleepy duck images, painted them with the glittery paint pen things (can't remember what they're actually called) and left them to dry while I went out to paint. I hope that each is slightly different, the bottom left image is really quite paint heavy so have pretty much already ruled that out for use. So this is yesterday's desk, but totally untouched this morning, and will be till much later! You can see the Paper pad in all its glory....I've rifled through it at least twice now. One day I might use something from it!
I know that Spring is around the corner, but I really would like to see more of it, NOW. Impatient, much? It's been a long and wet winter and I'm very over it. So, I got myself on a mission. A bit of colour please, and maybe use a stamp or two that I don't naturally turn to. Can't fail with flowers, huh. These two cards are made with a Basic Grey stamp set and the vertical text stamp is a wood mount from Magenta. Both I've had for years and never used. I'm not a huge fan of vertical messages because they aren't, to my eyes, immediately readable. Nonsense probably, but I can't get over it now, I'm too old. In order to layer all these images, I used Distress Oxides. They do not like being used to ink stamps, especially the clear stamps. To stop the ink beading on the stamp I used an emery board to rough up the stamp surface a bit, particularly as they were 'new'. (Cough, I've only had them about ten years). I stamped birds in three colours and in the end chose to use the purple ones, feeling that they needed to be a strong-ish colour to sit apart from the flowers. You can just see the large text stamp in the right bottom corner of the pic- that's an old Hero Arts stamps. Simply says 'enjoy' in about 1" high letters. I stamped it inside both cards. Keep it simple, to kind of reflect the style of the front. The thing I like about a single word greeting in the Oxide ink particularly is that I can let my big sprawls writing go over it if I get carried away, it'll still be visible. So that's two for the finished drawer, an old set of stamps finally used - and enjoyed and a quick test of my collection of Distress Oxides which thankfully don't need re-inking or discarding. Not a bad session!
As I was running about with the hoover and some clean bed linen this morning, I realised that I hadn't even got around to making my single monthly commitment- one ATC! Karen chose 'Red' as the theme . I wanted it to be a bit Spring like because it might hasten the arrival - you never know! So, I pulled out every red ink pad I won, red embossing powder and set to. I was going to make a complicated background of layered coloured images which is why the stamp set on the left is open. I put myself off that quite quickly when I discovered that actually, a lot of my red ink pads are similar and don't offer much contrast. The tulips stamp is a solid one that I've had for years. So many years that it benefits from a time when I used to varnish the wood on the rubber side to protect it from ink staining. I did get over that quite quickly, but the few of that era that I still have really do still look as good as new! I only used two reds in the end, and the embossing powder, and if you look closely, you can see that they aren't on the desk. Gentle desker, I had already put them away when I thought to take this photo. I know. I'm not I'll, but when pressed for time, even I recognise good housekeeping will help! It was nearly lunch time, so the inevitable cup of coffee joined me at the desk, and then turned into a glue stick holder. It's not still there, promise! The Easter decs are still unfinished and shoved, not even pushed back. Luckily for me, Easter isn't till the end of March. So that's me, off early to collect paint and wallpaper today, so bear with me if I don't show up just as the first need for mid morning coffee strikes!
I collected a couple of second hand stamp sets over the weekend and actually moved them from dining room to Workdesk last night. That's it, the full extent of this weeks creativity at my desk! The highlighter pen is a remnant from sitting there to read through some legal paperwork. The purchase of Ma In Law's new bungalow has at last completed, and so I've been wallpaper stripping, masking, painting, dismantling fitted wardrobes...all sorts. Still a way to go; todays delights will include filling about a million screw holes in the wall from which I dismantled a fitted wardrobe (we're changing that bedroom into a lounge), and having a little go at the skirting boards. I figure I'm Ok for basic Do It Yourself chores, but don't want to
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