WOYWW #623: More teabags and altered playing cards!

Running late today, even though I was up at the crack of dawn, but got distracted as usual. I snapped a quick photo of my desk just minutes ago - I'm afraid it's in a terrible state still - I must make some room before starting on my ATCs for next week! 

First things first, I've finished my 100-day project! Ok, I cheated a little by working in a weekly series - you're supposed to post every day, but I couldn't have done that, so this was a good compromise with the same end result - 100 altered teabags! In the end there were 9 left over which (in retrospect) would have been a better number to work with purely for esthetic reasons.  Here are my last nine tea bags - white stamping on a colourful alcohol ink background. 

Here's a picture of all 100 of them in the box - I wasn't sure they would all fit but they did! 

Even my clean up sheet turned out rather pleasing:

Apart from these, I've also worked on some more altered trading cards for the MME Facebook group, inspired by some of the members. It's good how we can bounce ideas off each other. These were done with alcohol inks and distress oxides:

That's it for today. There's just an Oreo photo left to share - he's looking more like himself in this one lounging on top of my puzzle board. He's newly jabbed - we missed his booster in lockdown and had to start a new course. It was very stressful for both of us with the vets being overbooked! All good now!

Happy #623 everyone! I'll start working on my ATCs this week - let me know if you want to swap and I'll add you to my list! xx

WOYWW #622: Catching up with challenges (teabags and playing cards)

I've been playing catch up this week, having missed last week's WOYWW.  I forgot to take a photo of my desk, but I can show you my alternative work desk, ie. our dining table. I know I said I was going to keep those gorgeous foiled puzzles until Christmas but I couldn't help having a go at one of them. It is now almost finished - this photo was taken earlier just after I had started it. I think I've found the perfect set-up with this new puzzle board - combined with my old one, I have four sorting boards and it only takes a few seconds to wrap it up and move it out of the way. The dining room gets the evening sun as well, which makes it very pleasant. 

Despite my absence, I managed to keep up with my challenges. Here are two weeks' worth of 100-day project teabags. The first lot is simply quotes typewritten directly on the teabags, and the second lot are around the theme of birds of prey to tie in with last week's challenge in the Mixed Media Emporium FB group - two birds with one stone, figuratively speaking! This brings me to #91 - only 9 more to go! 

The new challenge this week in the MME FB group was altered playing cards - the biggest challenge for me was to find my playing cards as I knew I had a couple of decks I bought a few years ago just for this purpose! This is what I made with them, front and back:

Hopefully, the weather will now allow us to plant out some of our newly acquired plants and trees. Hubs working on a flower bed at the moment, so I'll have somewhere to put them. Here's a shot of one of our new acquisitions: a  passion flower - isn't it fascinating? These flowers keep opening and closing - I wish I could film it in timelapse! (edit: actually, I've just found this video - it's quite amazing!)

And finally, a photo of Oreo that some of you will have already seen on Facebook - doesn't he look like an owl? Julia said without the whiskers, she would have been fooled LOL! 

Happy WOYWW gearing up to the 12th anniversary! xx

WOYWW #620: Embossed teabags and other things

I almost didn't write this post, thinking I can skip one, but I seem to be addicted, so here I am again for WOYWW #620 nearing the 12th anniversary! Hopefully, short and sweet this time around. I didn't have much time to play this past week but I still managed to keep up with my challenges. This desk shot was taken last Saturday - I was running late with my 100-day teabag project, so I opted for something simple and white embossed some stamped images directly on the surface of the teabags showing off their natural stains. At least that TH stamping platform wasn't completely wasted on me! 

This also tied in with this week's challenge in the Mixed Media Emporium FB group (although I didn't know at the time) which was "insects" so I was able to use my trial pieces for a journal page. 

And now for some enabling! I wandered into my local Works rejoicing that they are now open again and picked up these two puzzles - I couldn't choose between them, so I had to buy both! I'll keep them for next winter - something to look forward to! They're gold foiled, which makes them quite special, though it will be tricky gluing them together. I think some super gloss ModPodge might do it, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there. 

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Remember the snowy tree from last week? Here it is a week later in full bloom buzzing with bumble bees! Looks like spring has finally arrived (again) and it wasn't even frosty this morning! 

See I can do short and sweet! See you in a bit! xx

WOYWW #619: Clock faces on teabags, leaf prints with alcohol inks and snow in April!

Lots of photos today, so I'll cut to the chase. A bird's eye view of my very messy desk - it's getting to the point where it's no longer serviceable, so a partial tidy-up will be required, leaving enough scraps lying around for inspiration. We all know what happens if I clear my desk completely - it stifles my mojo, but an unmanageable amount of mess has the same effect, so it's kind of a fine balancing act between the two extremes. This photo shows my desk while I was working on my next batch of tea bags for #the100dayproject. 

And here are the finished pieces - I decided to use some clock faces for these. They might look familiar to some of you as they were leftover prints from my 2019 ATC swap and a perfect size for my tea bags. 

I've also done some gelli printing with alcohol inks for the Mixed Media Emporium FB Group challenge. The theme this week is Leaves/Flowers. I first wrote about this process here where I used alcohol inks on a gelli plate with stencils. It's pretty much the same process with skeleton leaves. If you click on the photos, you'll see the definition of the veins in more detail! 

What's with all the snow on Monday? Did you get any? Thankfully it disappeared by mid morning  but I was in a bit of a shock when I woke up and saw this:  

Happy WOYWW! Nice and sunny today! xx

WOYWW #618: Dragonflies on teabags and faux eco-dyeing

Brrr, where's Spring gone? We've been cruelly plunged back into winter and it looks like it might stay unseasonably cold for the rest of the week. I even had to wear my wooly hat yesterday - I never needed it in the winter - or perhaps just once. Got the central heating on full blast today.  However, I'm not here to moan about the weather, but to show you my messy desk for WOYWW #618: 

This photo was taken sometime at the weekend (when it was still nice and warm!). I was working on my teabags for #the100daychallenge on Instagram. This lot features dragonflies. I did a trial piece and then went on to do seven more for days 57-63. Here they are: 

These actually look better individually than all together, which is not always the case:

I had a little play in my journal too - no plan, just random arrangements of scraps (I won't get upset if you think the before looked better than the after). 

The weekly challenge in the Mixed Media Emporium FB group was 'trees' to tie in with April's theme 'nature'.  I tried my hand at faux eco-dyeing. I'm not even sure if that's a thing but I put together ideas I'd seen on YT and came up with a technique involving some cuttings (amongst other things), distress oxides and an iron. I've got some interesting results, but further explorations will be needed, so at this stage it's purely experimental. 

Oreo visited me in my craft room earlier this week and I just had to take this photo, which gives you a different perspective of my desk... he's still sporting just a single eyebrow whisker but doesn't seem too bothered about it. (I have since discovered the missing one in my son's wardrobe where he likes to snooze!) 

...and I caught this sunset a couple of nights ago:

Happy "Spring" - it can't be far off now! xx