WOYWW #447: Christmas presents and happy play!

For once, the past week went rather slowly. The countdown to Christmas was rather excruciating as I was counting down the days till I was finally allowed to open my present! Not since I was a child have I felt so excited! Here I am for a special edition of WOYWW this week: What's Underneath Your Christmas Tree?

Here's a shot of our tree on Christmas morning. Oreo is well positioned for his festive snap. His present is on the left, mine's the big one in the middle, hubby's was too large to go under the tree, so we took a photo of it instead (it's a metal tool cabinet on wheels - the man version of the iconic Ikea craft trolley!) - the rest belongs to my son, who was almost as excited about Christmas as I was! He chose his big presents but I also bought him some smaller things for the surprise element. Luckily, we no longer need to pretend about Santa! What a scam, hey? He still holds that against us!

Here's Oreo posing with his present: six months' supply of Dreamies, his favourite treat.

This cinematic light display is so much fun to leave messages around and I couldn't resist that little cuddly toy that literally jumped on me in the shop. His name is Barry.

And here's the one you've all been waiting for - tada! No, not Darth Vader - the Big Shot with a selection of dies to play with. Darth is only guarding it for me. 

I used to have a Big Shot years ago, but I sold it when I got my Silhouette Cameo. It was a mistake - you really do need both - they can't replace one another! Although I realised this early on, I didn't have the space for another device, so I had to make do without a Big Shot for years. Now, I've found the perfect spot for it:

I had a marathon play session in my craft room trying out all my new dies. I bought some simple shapes, tabs, tags, frames and a nice alphabet with numbers - the kind of things I can use on a regular basis without having to fire up my Cameo every time I need something. I was delighted to see that most of the the dies easily cut thick kraft card - I'm pretty sure the Cameo would have struggled with that. I've made some tags with my newly cut shapes and also to test run some cheap craft paints, found at The Range.

Note: I chose these numbers at random - I've only just realised, it could have easily been 2018 - why it's 9018, I'll never know LOL! The creative side of my brain doesn't have a seasonal setting!

Actually, it wasn't the Big Shot's ability to cut shapes from card that excited me the most! It's the fact that I can now cut foam, and emboss as well. The Cameo does neither of those jobs. I have a lot more things to share about the Big Shot, but I'm afraid I'll have to leave those for another blog post.

That's it, folks! The last WOYWW in 2017! I'll be back for a lot more in 2018! I hope you'll enjoy your New Year's Eve celebrations. See you again in the New Year!

WOYWW #446: Tiny houses and gelli printed mini envelopes

I'm writing this WOYWW post on Tuesday night, which is quite unusual for me. I will probably sleep in tomorrow as we are officially on holiday as of tonight and we are now unstoppably hurtling towards Christmas! I've got something crafty underneath the Christmas tree, but I can't reveal it until next week!

For now I will just show you these little houses I cut on my Cameo. Aren't they cute? I found the free cut files on this site.  Here's a photo I took while I was inking the edges. The walls are stained with distress oxides and the roofs with distress ink (rusty hinge). That shelving unit on my desk is new (well, recycled - it already has a nice ink stain on it!) and still needs to be fixed to the wall. It will be great for storing regularly used products within easy reach.

I've also made some mini envelopes with some gelli prints I'd created earlier this year. I used a scoreboard, which was an early Christmas present (from myself!). I should have got one years ago - I don't know how I managed without it so far! The envelopes are slightly different shapes and sizes but mainly around ATC size. 

I've been meaning to share this gif for a while but always forgot. This cat looks a lot like Oreo and reminds me of myself when I order art supplies online LOL!

Kitten Cat GIF from Kitten GIFs

I hope you've enjoyed your visit today! Wishing you all a joyful and peaceful Christmas! I hope to be back again next week for this year's last WOYWW.

WOYWW #445: A journal cover and some white stuff

I'm gutted that I had to miss #444 of WOYWW. It will be more than two years before such a rare opportunity presents itself again. Oh well, here I am now and I expect I will now overshare, but just bare with me!

I took my desk shot over the weekend. I was still in the mood for making something metallic and I'd found this large clock face stuck on my Cameo cutting mat. It must have been there for a while as I can't even remember cutting it, but I thought it might look good on my 12" X 12" kraft journal cover. Do you recognize the clock face? Hint: it's very famous! There are also some die-cut mini houses on my desk which could be my next project.

My second photo shows my desk a few hours later at night, after I applied back gesso to the entire surface and started adding metallic paints to accentuate the die-cut pattern. I had Oreo to keep me company.

The following photos show the finished project. You don't always get what you expect in the harsh reality of day light (a bit like putting your make-up on in the dark!) but I was quite pleased with the results the following day:

There's an easy formula to achieve this look and it goes something like this:

In other news: we've had lots of snow! I only wish it had come a couple of weeks later for a white Christmas, but perhaps we'll still get some more. It was certainly quite a treat to wake up on Sunday morning to find everything covered in snow. 

I told you I was going to overshare LOL! Thank you for visiting - I hope all is well with you wherever you are in the world!