WOYWW #625: ATCs and an old book

It was so much fun receiving all the WOYWW anniversary ATCs in the post - we know why it's called Happy Mail, right? I haven't actually done much in the past week and I even forgot to take a photo of my desk, so instead I'll show you my floor where I laid out all the ATCs received. I feel so spoiled, especially by Caro, who's sent me not one but two ATCs (as I was also her PIF) along with a load of goodies as shown in the bottom row. I love each and every one of your creations - they're all unique and they will join all the others from previous years' swaps - I'll just need to get them organised.

These were the ones I sent out below, along with a postcard I had printed from my own photo (I used Moo.com - they're really good!). It shows the Almonry Museum in Evesham - I took that photo in 2017 when we first visited not realising, that we will end up living here. Four years on and we couldn't be happier! 

I could finish here and call it 'short & sweet' but I'm dying to show you this old book I bought on Ebay. I was going to use it as an art journal but it's really too precious for that - I can't possibly deface it! It was published in 1866 and belonged to someone called Annie Mahone. I wonder who she was and what her life was like back then a 150 years ago! I feel so privileged to own this old book - I might get into the habit of collecting them. Here are a few photos - there are some illustrations inside as well, which I might scan and share later, as they would be copyright free by now, I assume.

Again, I could finish here and call it 'not-so-short-and-sweet' but I still have a few photos of some blooms to delight you with. First, my 3-year-old rhododendron bush, which had two flower buds this year - twice as many as last year! - and loads of new leaf shoots. And then my little garden centre haul, that I bought to console myself after being bitterly disappointed with my online purchase from Gardening Express. Do not buy any plants online - it's  a big scam - they use stock photos to lure you in but that's not what you're getting! I won't ruin my blog by showing you what they sent - lesson learned! 

And that's it! Not at all short but hopefully still a bit sweet! I'll see you around!

Happy #625!

WOYWW #624: Gelli printed envelopes, mini journal and trial ATCs

Here it is, the 12th anniversary of WOYWW, possibly the longest running blog hop in the history of the internet! Huge congratulations to Julia, our beloved hostess and eternal thanks for facilitating our weekly meet up, come rain or shine. I've only been part of it on and off since 2014 but it feels like forever and WOYWW has irrevocably become part of my life and my Wednesdays would never be the same without it! Without further ado, here's a photo of my desk in the midst of activity:

I knew that sticker maker would come in handy one day! I printed some vintage butterflies and moths on tracing paper and ran them through the machine - it worked remarkably well and I used them to decorate my envelopes and ATCs for the big anniversary swap. I won't show you my ATCs, but I'll give you a glimpse of the envelopes, which I gelli printed. 

OK, perhaps I can show you my trial ATCs - these are the ones I made before making the real ones for the swap, just trying out a few things. I'll show you the real ones next week, once they've been received.

Then later I used some of my gelli prints and the left-over bits and pieces on my desk to make a mini journal, which was our new challenge in the Mixed-Media Emporium Facebook group. It just all fell together serendipitously!  Here are a few sample pages: (they are not entirely finished yet - perhaps they never will be - but sometimes less is more.) 

That's it for today - happy WOYWW anniversary, everyone! I'm going to be out for most of the day, but I will visit when I'm back. I amazed myself and posted off my pre-arranged ATCs early on Monday (16 of them!) - very much out of character for me as I like to procrastinate until the very last minute. I sent them second class, so they may not have arrived yet. The reason I sent them second class is because the blue stamps suited the envelopes better than the red first class ones, not because I'm stingy LOL! It was purely a design decision! 

I still have a few ATCs left over apart from the one reserved for my PIF, so please let me know if anyone else would still like to swap. And if I sent you one, but you're not in a position to send one back, please don't worry about it. It's all for fun, not for stress! See you all later xx

 

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