WOYWW #539: Still on a roll!

I've been very productive this past week, I'm happy to report. It is no doubt due to the inspiration of the Life Book Summit which has now been extended by one week until 7th October. I have lots to share today with fellow deskers on WOYWW, so let's get down to it!

First off, my desk. This photo was taken just a few minutes ago. Having tidied up my craft room over the weekend, my creative space now looks much more inviting! That's one of my altered books that I use as an art journal laid out on my desk. I worked on the page on the left last night and I'm not sure if it's finished yet. I might add something to it later on, but for now I'll leave it as it is.

I also added two oracle cards to my collection...

....and completed two projects inspired by Jenny Grant and Tiffany Goff Smith during the LifeBook Summit. They don't actually look much like the lessons, which is not a problem at all. I got a few ideas from the videos and I integrated them with  my own style. 

I have a fun photo to share as well. This was taken up in Scotland on a pig farm, showing hubs with a now well-established beard in a rare state of laughter. Apparently, one of the piglets kept pushing him with their nose, which he thought was funny. They're doing a research project about the facial expressions of pigs and Netflix was there to film it (the guy on the right is a reporter from the US and the lady is one of the collaborators on the project). It will come out next year as part of a science series. I just thought I should shamelessly brag about it. He was so nervous about the filming, but from the sounds of it, it went quite well, so fingers crossed. 

 Hope you're having a creative week too! Happy Whizz Day! 

WOYWW #538: I'm on a roll!

For once, Wednesday couldn't come fast enough to share all my makes so I made a rare post outside WOYWW, where I shared my son's birthday card on Sunday. It features Oreo's whiskers - the real ones!

I've been rather productive this past week - partly inspired the LifeBook Summit,which is accessible for free until 30th September. This was the state of my desk earlier this week - and it still looks pretty much the same, i.e. very messy. I won't be able to put off tidying much longer.

Here are the results of my activities. Firstly, two journal pages completed ad hoc with whatever materials I could get my hands on without getting up - which is one of the advantages of having a permanently messy desk. 

Another project was attempted following the ideas of Cathy Nichols at the Summit. She showed us how to make oracle cards incorporating magazine images. The challenge was to select your supplies and collage materials at random without looking - even the magazine image came from a randomly selected page. I cheated with the second one a little when I added a die-cut shape and a tea bag, but otherwise all the colours and collage papers were chosen blindly. This encouraged me to use some of my supplies that may not have been my first choice otherwise. The good thing about this project is that it is expendable indefinitely - and I envisage dozens of these cards to make a complete deck. 

Hope it hasn't been too rainy for those of you in the UK. I got a little wet yesterday going to work, but it was sunny by the time I got back. I'll take a little rain over the relentless heat in the summer any day! Happy #538!

A cat-themed birthday card for my son

I don't normally make greeting cards because I find the constraints of trying to make something that other people like a bit stressful and restrictive to my creativity.  One exception is my son's birthday. The tradition started back in 2014 in my first year of discovering mixed media - so, this is the sixth project in the series. You can find all the previous ones under the birthday label.

Mike wanted a "cat-shaped" card - well, it didn't turn out to be cat-shaped but it's very much cat themed! It's made out of a large recycled cardboard envelope, which was covered in book paper to make it more sturdy. Several layers of gesso, paint and collage later, the substrate became strong enough to hold its own weight standing up, despite its large size, which is just under 14" X 10".

I didn't really have a plan before I started this project - it sort of evolved as I went along over the course of several days. The blood moon was printed off the internet, the cat shape cut on my Cameo and the rest are die-cut pieces.

The inside of the card features photos, cat cartoons printed from the internet, letter stickers, washi tape and a pocket holding a little note card (which you might recognise from an earlier project) with a birthday message on the back and a gelli pinted mini envelope from years ago that holds Oreo's whiskers. We've been collecting his lost whiskers ever since he was a kitten - it kind of became a good luck tradition!

The back of the card has some squares cut from a cute cat fabric that I'd had for many years, even before I became interested in crafting. They just happen to feature the same cat/moon/stars theme as my design on the front of the card so they were a perfect match! 

My son said this is the best card yet I've ever made him so I have my job cut out for next year! There was also the obligatory cake, with god knows how much butter and sugar in it - I'd rather not think about it (and it still looks like it's missing a layer LOL) - and the "official" birthday portrait with Oreo (looking a bit unimpressed!) who celebrated his fourth birthday at the same time.

Happy Sunday! xx

WOYWW #537: A blue box and a quick journal page

Here we go again! Did I really miss a week of WOYWW? #537 tells me I must have skipped a week! Oh, I remember now - I had this box ready to show you, but somehow I ran out of time posting it. So this week, I have two projects to share. First, the box, which doubles up as my desk shot:

I remember buying this box some time ago - actually, my son made me buy it to keep his pirate treasures in it, but it somehow fell out of favour over the years. I found it unloved and buried at the bottom of his wardrobe, so I reclaimed it and decided to cheer it up a bit - with what else then blue paint? He pointed out that I always make everything blue - guilty as charged - I just love blue, I can't help it!

My second project was a quick journal page I made yesterday. I started it before leaving for work in the morning and finished it when I got home. I probably didn't spend more than 30 minutes on it in total. It was inspired by a warm up activity on the LifeBook Creativity and Well-Being Summit. It looks nothing like the example project, but comes from the idea to just flip your journal to a page that calls to you and use whatever supplies appeal to you at the time - so I just went with whatever was on my desk without thinking much. The sentiment was cut from book paper and it was the very first phrase that caught my eye - I'm always amazed at the serendipity of it all! And of course, it had to be blue! 

I took this candid shot of my husband with his new beard repairing the conservatory roof the other day. After someone at work remarked that he resembled George Clooney (LOL!), he decided to keep the beard. Here, he looks more like Tom Hanks in Castaway building his raft before he lost the weight! 

We've had a few spectacular sunsets again - funny how I was worried about losing the sunsets when we moved from Gloucestershire but we even got better ones here! I realise they all look the same after a while but that will not stop me from taking countless photos every time! 

That's all folks - two in one this week. Next week, I'll be back with my son's birthday card, which I can't wait to give him on Saturday. Happy WOYWW! xx

WOYWW #535: A Sewing Box and Blenheim Palace

I wasn't around last Wednesday to post because we visited Blenheim Palace. We had a lovely family day out with our normally elusive teenage son and it didn't even cost us a penny as we were able to convert Tesco vouchers for an annual family pass. I'll show you some photos further down but first - the all important desk shot for WOYWW.

You can't really see much as I'm working on a top secret birthday card for my son's 15th birthday later this month - Oreo is conveniently lying right on it. All will be revealed in due course.

I do have another project though, that I can share. I made this earlier in the summer - a little fabric covered sewing box. Not that I sew much but I still needed somewhere to keep my threads and needles for the odd repair job. I used the Sizzix Scoreboards Treasure Box die to cut the box - I didn't have the right card for it (I used an empty a cereal box) - so it's a bit flimsy, but it serves its purpose quite well. I wish I could give you a tutorial, but I really just bodged my way through it - hence the crochet lace covering the untidy edges!

And now, just a few of the photos we took at Blenheim Palace. We were very lucky with the weather - it was nice and warm but not too sunny or hot and it didn't start raining until just after we had left. 

 

Here's a triple selfie we took in the Secret Garden at Blenheim - I needed a photo of the three of us for my son's card as is our tradition and we didn't have any recent ones. My husband appears a bit rough around the edges as he's growing a beard but he's still not sure if he's going to keep it. 

Toodaloo! I'll be around visiting, if not today than later this week definitely! xx