WOYWW#584: Resined dominoes and other things

Is it hot enough where you are? I couldn't even sleep last night it was so hot - I got up in the middle of the night to watch a film about Alaska and imagined running through the snow! It definitely helped and it was a couple of degrees cooler downstairs as well. I'm just not a hot weather person. However, I'm not here to moan about the weather, but to show you my desk for WOYWW. Here it is a few days ago while I was waiting for my resined dominoes to cure.

I'd made these colourful dominoes years ago and frankly I don't remember how - they may be gelli prints, but I'm not sure. I found them at the bottom of my cupboards while looking for something else. I'd never posted them because they looked a bit naff but the resin gave them a new lease of life and now they're masquerading as fridge magnets. 

I've also cobbled up one of my scrap pieces using bits and pieces on my desk. The rule is to use whatever is within arm's reach without having to get up looking for stuff. It only took 5 minutes! One of those rare projects that just fall together.

And now onto some other photos. I realise that my regular repertois is quite limited and goes something like this: desk, artwork, cat, garden, sunsets in any possible combination. So here are the last three items on the list - with three for one on the sunsets! 

First off, here's Oreo sitting on the fence a few days ago when it was still reasonably cool early in the morning - notice those giant claws on the left side of the photo - the camera angle is deceptive - they're not that huge! 

Second, our half barrels newly planted in the front garden. We are a bit late in the season but we still have at least two months to admire them and the holly in the middle is supposedly winter hardy. There will be new bedding plants around it next year and we'll be ready to go sooner. 

And last but not least, the three-in-one sunset shots - they were taken just minutes apart but the sky changed dramatically in that time. 

So there it is for today! Posting three weeks in a row - must be a new record for me this year! 

Stay cool and thanks for your visit ! xx

WOYWW #583: Random projects

Hello again everyone! It's unusual for me these days to post two weeks in a row but technically I'm on holiday this week, so I have a bit more time on my hands. First off, a rant: I don't think I like this new format Blogger, do you? What was wrong with the old one? It's so unintuitive - took me a while to figure out how to add photos (and I regard myself as reasonably tech savvy) - it would have been a good idea if the editor didn't default to the HTML view! Argh! Anyways, I seem to be back on track after my initial panic of looking for the upload button and not finding it. 

Today I'm sharing some random projects that were totally not planned. I couldn't sleep in that heat last week, so I got up in the middle of the night at around 1 am and started playing randomly. I was up again early the next day and continued - the photo of my desk was taken that morning. Still very messy busy!

 

Below are my completed random projects - I only used things I found lying around on my desk (gelli prints, scraps from previous projects, postage stamps, washi tapes etc) - this seems to be my go-to method and the reason I need to keep my desk busy at all times, so I have plenty of things within arms reach to play with. 

These poppy heads are stuck on wooden bricks with washi tape. The bricks were decorated with gelli prints first: I just stuck them on with gel medium, sanded the edges and inked them and then painted the sides black. I will definitely make more of these as you can stack them on each other like building blocks, as you can see on my shelf.

In other news, we went cycling last weekend and I fell off my bike into stingy nettles - no harm done other than some minor bruises and stingy nettle burns - at least I can tick off the "silly accident for this year" on my to-do list. (If you remember at around the same time last year I fell down the stairs at work, so it seems to be an annual occurrence). My son told me he thought if anyone was going to fall off their bike, it was going to be me, given that I'm the one always dishing out safety advice LOL. What can I say, I was just demonstrating what not to do. 

Look at these petunias in my hanging basket. When I bought them a few weeks ago they looked sad and neglected with just a few flowers, badly in need of watering but they recovered nicely. 

Thanks for visiting today! Let me know you've been around to make sure I visit you back!

Happy WOYWW! 

WOYWW #582: Tim Holtz Curio Box

Two weeks flew by again since I last posted. I'm back today for with a project I completed on Monday. I've recently acquired the Tim Holtz Curio Box die and I had to try it! I'd known about this die for a while but I managed to convince myself that I didn't need it, until I'd watched this video that shows you how to make different size boxes with the same die - what can I say, I was sold!

The photo of my desk for WOYWW shows the aftermath of this project though the mess is an accumulative effect of my previous projects for the past few months - I can't even remember the last time I cleared my desk - not since the new year, come to think of it!

Here are a few photos of my completed project: I used some poppy heads that I collected around the house, gilded them and put them in a small glass bottle filled with acrylic gems to keep them in place. The inside of the box was decorated with the blue/gold gelli prints you can still see lying around on my desk, and the outside was textured with some dry-wall tape and paints/gold gilding wax applied on top. Some decorative elements completed the picture: metal corners, crocheted ribbon and a paper flower I found in my stash.

Some of you were missing Oreo from my blog in previous weeks, so here are a few photos of him to make up for his absence (notice the funny way he sits on the fence - he always does that!). 

Then here he is in his favourite position sprawled out on my son's desk while he's playing computer games - the best of buds these two! 

And finally a close up of him looking rather domineering, which he is, of course.

Thank you for visiting - I'll be around soon! Happy WOYWW! xx

WOYWW #580: Blogiversary, Tiny Book and Die-cut Petals

I wanted to link up two weeks ago and again last week - I even had my photos prepared - but just didn't have the time, so I'm writing this well in advance for the nice "round" #580 of WOYWW aka Julia's long standing desk hop, now in its twelfth year! Incidentally, it was my 6th blogiversary earlier this month and as it's customary, I've made a collage of my favourite projects this past year, many of which you probably still remember.

My desk has seen some action in the past two weeks as well. I've made another Tiny Book with the Eileen Hull die (which is not that tiny after all!) and I also got the matching book case die from Craft Stash. I didn't really need these dies but I figured it was my patriotic duty to help the British economy recover, so I'm just doing my bit, as I'm sure you all do too :) My desk actually shows a gelli printing session - it was the easiest way to put paint on my book case and I made some prints as well while I was at it. I covered the Tiny Book with fabric and used the gelli prints on the inside cover and sewed some tea-dyed papers inside. 

The Tiny Book is actually big enough to put something in it, so I've made a sample page featuring postage stamps and die cut rose petals. The petals actually cut very well - they're a bit fragile to work with but no more than tissue paper. I pressed them first for a couple of weeks and they cut just like paper.

And here's a real life petal in a new hanging basket I acquired for the garden - just love that deep purple - hey, wasn't that the name of a band?!

We had this little garden visitor as well - this must be a good summer for hedgehogs as we've seen six of them in just the past three weeks, while none in the previous 3 years!

Thanks for visiting today - I'll be over soon. Look forward to catching up!

Happy #580!

WOYWW #577: Miniature library

Five weeks since I've last shown my virtual face at our favourite blog fest WOYWW. I'm super busy still, multi-tasking between my job, homeschooling, housework and gardening - honestly, I don't know where the hours go! I did have a few hours free last weekend and worked on a little project that was completely unplanned. Just one of those instances when you stumble upon something that you just have to try! It was miniature books this time - and of course, I'd known about these for a while, but I had never felt compelled to make my own until now.  This was the state of my desk during the proceedings, still messy from previous projects weeks ago. The water actually evaporated from my paint pots!

You can see one of the miniature books being glued, the others are already installed in the mini book case that I've had for years and never new what to do with. Plenty of room for some more! There's also another book on my desk that was cut with the Eileen Hull Tiny Book die - though it looks positively giant next to my miniature ones! Let me show you my miniature library - so far I have made seven books. Here's a download of the covers I used courtesy of Thicketworks. I just printed the covers, reinforced them with cardboard, tea dyed some paper strips for the inside pages and accentuated the covers with some gold ink and gilding wax. 

Here's a closer look at my not-so-tiny book as well. This was cut from grey board and covered with an old metallic gelli print and embellished with gilding wax. The 'Map of the World" strip is an off-cut from a Dufex print that I framed as a present for hubs for Father's Day from our son. We printed off a card from the internet to go with it - as a quick fix. 

I also have a new addition to my plant stash. I have since managed to nearly kill it with TLC (too much or the wrong kind of plant feed?) but it's recovering nicely in its new position in the flower bed outside. I learn as I go along! 

Happy WOYWW - stay cool on this hottest day of the year so far - although it's said to get even hotter tomorrow. Luckily it won't last long - a couple of days of this is all I can bear. It's quite pleasant in the house still - glad I don't have to go anywhere. xx

WOYWW #572: Moulded shapes from toilet paper

Sheesh, has it really been 4 weeks since I last blogged? I've been incredibly busy with work and homeschooling but managed to find a little time to create something last week. I'll show you later, but first here's my my desk as it was last weekend, getting a bit messy!

I've been experimenting with moulded shapes made from toilet paper. Now that the toilet paper craze is over, I have enough supplies to waste it on this non-essential activity. Basically, you have to soak the toilet paper, blend it and then press it into a silicone mould and squeeze out the water. Once dry, it's rigid, very light and easy to paint. This was my prototype: 

I simply stuck it on one of the inky backgrounds I showed you last time. I made two others while I was at it. The face was also moulded from toilet paper - and yes, I realise it's a bit freaky! The skeleton leaf for the third piece was just lying on my desk and I thought why not use it?

Gardening news: I was so looking forward to my rhododendron blooming as it had two dozen buds from last year. I didn't realise that only one of them was a flower bud and the rest of them were all leaf buds!  You can see them here:

Then just a few days after we planted it out, a hard frost came and all these new leaf shoots perished. I was so sad! I just hope it will still bring new shoots this year. I could have easily kept the plant in the pot for a few more days and put it in the conservatory if I had known that the frost was going to be so harsh. Well, you learn from your mistakes.

I'm also looking after these little trees shown below. I grew all of them from seedlings and it's so rewarding to watch them grow. That big one on the right was just a tiny little thing a few weeks ago. I think it's a Mountain Ash tree. There's also a chestnut tree that grew out of a sprouted chestnut my husband found on the ground, a couple of lemon trees that I started growing last autumn, a Crimson King that's probably from a seed that got blown over from a neighbour's garden two doors down and a few other unidentified species - we'll find out what they grow into - it will be a surprise! 

We even made it to the garden centre last weekend when they first opened after the lockdown and picked up these cute little flowers. They're some sort carnations, so pretty: 

Just one photo of Oreo left to share - doesn't he look handsome? It took me a while to get him to sit this way and look in the camera. That's a Japanese Maple in the background that also got planted out a few weeks ago - we bought it last year, but I kept it in a pot over winter. 

Hope everyone's doing well and enjoying the summer weather - hard to believe I wore my woolly jumper just last week!  I may not be able to visit everyone today, but I'll definitely do so later in the week. Take care and stay safe - or shall I say Stay Alert - those of you in the UK will understand the reference LOL! xx