WOYWW 28th March 2012

Good grief... it can't be!!  Wednesday again?  Look what I found when I was out shopping yesterday?  I had to pick them up... love the packaging with all the doodling on it... almost an ideal snack for a scrappy person, don't you think?

This is my work desk at the moment... I making another of the Less Patient books with the drawers so that I can write a tutorial for it... it could take me a while!!

Sitting together on the sofa behind me are the cats... unusual for them to be up close and personal with each other so Pandy must have been feeling the chill and searched Tom-Tom for the heat!!  I know it is now officially spring and at home in Scotland they are enjoying a veritable heatwave... here in Calgary it is not so spring-like... had snow yesterday so obviously Mother Nature didn't get the memo about spring arriving...

I had a tidy up in the basement this week... and moved the furniture about a bit so both desks are next to each other now.

and my little lounge bit behind me now looks like this...

Here's the full on version... computer desk to the left, scrap room at the rear and lounge bit to the right.

If you are wondering why I am showing you my scrap space... pop over to Julia's to find out the details and the linky list of lovely crafty places to visit.

Envelope Tutorial

I have had a few people ask how I made my envelopes from yesterday's post... and I feel completely silly even putting this tutorial on here because really... these are not your fancy envelopes with 15 scores and numerous amounts of measuring and swearing or anything... I use the KISS theory (KISS - keep it simple stupid) on envelopes because I know that they are going to be abused by the mail service and thrown in the bin by the recipient...  I mean... it's a envie ok? ;)

This is all based on a 12 x 12 sheet of double side paper... it doesn't have to be double sided but it sure looks prettier if it is and in keeping with my KISS theory... I am not about to start making liners for my envelopes!!

My version is quick and easy and use the entire 12 x 12 sheet of paper... no waste at all!!

This is the back... they do look pretty and I would love my mail to arrive like this!

and they even come with a little tag to add a note on... 

So you need your sheet of double sided paper...

and these tools... but if you don't have something... I am sure you can find a substitute that will work just as well.

Remove the white strip...

and whatever you are wanting to put into the envie... all of mine are based on my needing to post 7" x 5" journal pages.

After deciding which side you want as the outer... lay paper on cutting mat with the inner side facing upward.

To make it as simple for myself as possible I use the squares on the cutting mat... so I cut a length 3 squares off the left side.  Each square is an inch so 3 inches.  Put the strip to one side.

Keeping my paper square on the cutting mat and lined up with the markings from the top... count up 4 squares from the bottom and score that line across...  (if you want to measure then from the bottom measure 3 3/4" and make a score line).  

Fold on the score line...

Measure 4 inches or squares from the top and do another score line and fold. Now, easy is that? LOL

Add double side tape to the two bottom sides and then stick into place forming your pocket.

Add a strip of double side tape to the top which will seal your envelope before posting... so leave it for now!

I nip the corners off the fold, so that it looks like an envelope and as though I have spent some time on it... I also inked all the edges on mine but you don't have to.

OK... now bring back the 3 inch strip you cut off at the beginning...

Cut a 5 inch piece off one end... it will be your address label for the front.

Cut a 1 1/2" circle from the other long piece and a smaller circle for decoration.

Tidy up the left over piece by removing the bit with the circles cut out and snip the ends to make a tag shape.

Glue the smaller circle onto the larger one alternating the patterns and then attach it to the edge of your envelope seal piece.

Remove the corners and ink the address label piece and glue to the front of your envie.

You're done!  Oh and they only take a matter of minutes and are great for using up the piles of papers that get left behind in big packs after you have done a project.  

WOYWW 21st March 2012

it's Wednesday again already????

aren't they brilliant?  Chris found them in Michaels when we were shopping and popped them into the trolley for me.  They look great in the windowsill of my scraproom - I took them down for the pics because the light behind in the window did weird things to my camera.  

This is what my desk looks like at the moment... I am making 7" x 5" circle journal pages for a swap group I am in and I didn't have any envelopes that were that size... so as I happen to have quite a bit of spare 12 x 12 paper sitting in the corner (ahum... quite a bit... read tonnes) I decided to make use of some of it to make the required size envelopes for the pages to be posted off in. 

I think they look pretty good and cost me nothing... and who doesn't like to get pretty mail sometimes?  I have even bought lovely big international stamps from the post office for them... (and why am I telling you this?  because here in Canada if you want to use a postage stamp you pay 5% extra)!!!  Yep... how insane is that?  They always print out the postage at the till and stick this piece of paper on everything... but I really did want some of those pretty stamps and I am sure the swap ladies will enjoy them...

and at the back of my desk is the lovely WOYWW badge that arrived in the post today!!  Thank you so much Julia, I will wear it around town and see if anyone recognises it but at the moment it is sitting on my noticeboard in rather good company with my G45 badge!!

If you are wondering why I am showing your desk... well, I guess someone out there may not have heard of the wonders of WOYWW so just follow this link to the desk of  chief inspectors of desks the world over and check out this noseyness fest of craft desks that covers the entire world.

CJ Swap Page

This is the first swap page for a CJ swap I am in, where we don't actually send the books but just make the pages and send them out individually.  This means I could actually join the group as CJ's tend to take so long to complete and I never know where I will be and have always feared losing someone's prescious book. This page is for lou@papermaker and her chosen theme was silhouettes and songs.

I chose an old favourite by Harry Nilsson song from 1967 - 'One is the loneliest number' and used my Tim Holtz umbrella man as the silhouette as he always gives me a feeling of sadness, I am not sure why.  I used coffee to make the paper have the distressed appearance, stamped the background with faded writing and then swiped Gel Medium and a dash of gold paint over the surface which gives it a lovely gold wash effect.  I added some 'rain drops' with Glossy Accents to the umbrella man.  

Hope Lou likes it... 

Altered Book Homework... week 4

This week was all about glue and the sheer numbers and varieties out there... and honestly... if you ever have a question about a certain glue just go to Elizabeth's lesson for this week and you will have your answer!!  I don't have a heap of different glues like Elizabeth does... it's one of those things that removal companies do not like to pack and ship from continent to continent, so what is on my desk is what I have bought here or smuggled into the country... because one thing you learn is that glue is not cheap.... nope, not cheap at all!!  

So the first page was using a glue stick... oddly, I was fully expecting this to be a big mess but as it happens it ended up my favourite glue for pasting large areas together!  I made a little pocket out of one of the pages that I torn out previously and used this for keeping the tag safe.

The tag has the details of the type of glue and how I applied it.

This page used Aleens Tacky Glue - it is thick and heavy and I wouldn't use it again for this particular job.

Tag with description.

Mod Pedge is my go to glue for many things and I actually like it but for large areas like this it didn't do very well... the page was wrinkled and Mod Podge smells bad.... :(

 I have it in matt, gloss and a shimmer but it didn't beat the glue stick for doing an entire page.

This page was glued with Gel Medium... and though I have had it for a while I was not sure how to use it, it goes on so smoothly it is lovely, and I mixed some gold paint with it to go on the front of the pages and it gives a fabby effect... I think I would use it for decorative purposes rather than large gluing jobs... the costs would be prohibitive and the pages dry a bit wrinkled.

Tag with description for the Gel medium.

Gesso... yep, Elizabeth made us use Gesso to glue the pages together!!  First of all, at midnight last night I was playing 'hunt the gesso'... I knew I had some, but it wasn't where I thought it should be... in fact it had disappeared and I took the scrap room apart looking for it... it was one of the 'smuggled' in things as it still has a £8.50 price tag on it!!  

So to my surprise, it did indeed glue the pages together... but left wrinkles and a very hard page.

So I had this huge mess going on... and decided that I would have a play with coffee... it took a couple of coats of coffee to give this colour and I made a couple of 'love' letters from copy paper and love the effect I got, the paper dries very crackly and brittle... like very old paper... I needed to do this to get over the stress of making a mess on lots of pages... but now I have lots of time to decorate them and hopefully pretty them up a bit!!

this is a close up of the letter...

it looks like a really old letter... I had to sand the folds to make it look old and well-read.

What's on Your Work Desk Wednesday 14th March 2012

I lost an hour this week... and still haven't caught up so there is no surprise when I look shocked to find that it's that time of the week when we all show our desks!!

So here it is... my altered book is in the background and Elizabeth will notice that the door knob has been removed temporarily so that I can actually work in it... good job it just screws in and out so not a problem.

I'm chuffed to bits with the way the niche turned out and really looking forward to getting on with some of the pages now!

This is the niche... it's supposed to be an Apothecary Shoppe Window.

and dear Elizabeth must be rubbing off on me because also on my desk is the pile of dictionary papers that were removed to make the niche!!

so as I had bought the rabbit and it is covered in book papers, I thought I would put the offcuts to good use and cover a pile of those polystyrene eggs with them for a table display for Easter. The bags of chocolate eggs at the back are going to the children of friends as soon as I have figured out a novel way to present them... and if those bags remain intact from now till Easter... and if I were a betting woman?... ;)

and at the front of the desk is what arrived in the post this morning from a friend!!  Isn't that the most fabby ribbon?  I am planning on making a book to celebrate our Queen's Jubilee year and this is definitely going to be in it.