WOYWW 212

Here we again all set for the tour of the crafty desk of the world otherwise known as What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday magnificently overseen by our own Julia, the Mistress of the Desks!  If you have no idea what I am talking about, where have you been for the last 4 years? LOL Go check out Julia's place and all will be revealed and you won't be disappointed.

I have two work desks on the go this morning but am working at this one just at the moment...

At the end of my kitchen is a family room type of space, and it looked a bit colourless, so I added the red throws to inject some... but it still needed something to make it look a bit more friendly and welcoming, if you know what I mean?

So yesterday I made this raggedy quilt cushion for one of the sofas and am now in the process of making a second one for the other sofa...

getting better?  So why did I make stars and stripes?  If you follow this blog, you may recall that while I was Canada I bought a trundle guest bed and a trunk from the States... with the stars and stripes on it... well, when I go home from here, these two cushions are for the trundle bed to go with the trunk in my guest bedroom back in Scotland... see? 

 Everything I do has a plan... it just takes me much longer to see the end result because I am always in another country!!

At my other desk the other side of the sewing cubby hole, are lots of bits... packaging that I haven't managed to throw in the recycle wheelie bin... and I am waiting for a light bulb to go in my brain so that I can make them into something... yep, it could be a while!!

My last day of being home alone...

Chris is on his way back from the Philipines and will be here tomorrow, so I thought I would make the most of my last day and have a play with the moppi box I picked up in Ikea when we went to get the storage for the scraproom... its been sitting on the side since May waiting for me to give it a make over.

Of course, I neglected to take a photo of the box before I started playing but found a photo of the 4 drawer version on the Ikea website... my 6 drawer version doesn't seem to be there at all!

 The idea for this began a lot further back than that though... in fact, a year ago, when we were in Canada.  I saw a scrap page using Graphic 45 papers called Communique.... but the weird thing was I had never seen these in a store.... nope, not ever, so I must have been buried under a dark rock while they were being marketed.  I searched high and low and couldn't find the papers until one day I saw a 12 x 12 pad advertised in the States!  Yay!  Yes please and thank you and they were in the post to me.  I have no idea why I haven't seen them used more, because they are fabulous and will be a favourite of mine along with the Curtain Call and Steampunk Debutante ranges.

Last night I sat and gave it a coat of red paint... and then went to bed to let it dry with huge misgivings... something kept saying I should have done it black but I wanted it red...

Once I had sanded it back and aged it a little with inks it wasn't so fire engine red anymore and I was a happy bunny!  I then got the papers out that had traveled from the States to Canada, back home to Scotland and then out here to Australia.... 

I did paint the inside of the drawers black and papered all the sides.

and the side of the exterior box got the treatment...

and the other side... which has a face!! LOL

and the top... which I have left uncluttered from 3 dimensional stuff so that things can be placed on it.

and this is what it is for... its my Communication Zone!  Between us, Chris and I have chargers and cables by the dozen so this now sorts that little mess out nicely!  A is for Annette, C is for Chris and B is for Both!!

Remember the aliens in kimonos?

Yes, those little aliens wearing kimonos...

well, I made them some hair and now they don't look like aliens at all!!

I have made these two into cards... so be warned, if I need a card in the next day or two, these will be it!! LOL

So now I have them out of my system I must go see what else I can find to amuse myself... I'll be back later.. I have boxes of matches on my desk... that's always a good sign!!

WOYWW - 19th June 2013

Here we are at Wednesday and I am halfway through my 'home alone' week already!!  I have been playing, and it seems like such a long time that I just sat and went with the flow... evidence of my efforts is in the two previous posts.  But... this is what is on my work desk today... yep, I got Pinterested... was looking at stuff and found a pic of these little paper folded kimono dressed dolls and had to have a go... with varying degrees of success! LOL

At the moment they look like aliens in kimonos... if I could just find some black paper for their hair they might actually look presentable... oh and do NOT even try these unless you have really thin paper... 

just out of interest and nothing to do with kimonos or aliens... when I watch the TV in the evening something throws stones at my front door... ping... ping.... ping... and this is the mess I wake up to in the morning... not stones but pips!!  I couldn't figure out where they were coming from until I looked up...

Just to the side of my front door is a palm tree...

and its got little red berries hanging from it... so I have figured out what is happening... the possums are going up the tree after dark and eating the red berries and throwing the seeds at my front door!! Blimmin' cheek!

If you are wondering why I am showing you aliens in kimonos on a Wednesday please pop over to Julia's and she explains the phenomanom  WOYWW nose amongst desks! 

So you take a bit of cardboard tube and a couple of beer mats...

and you grab some Graphic 45 papers - On the Boardwalk in this case,

and you add some chains with chipboard bits and pieces dangling

some stick pins and flowers...  and you play for a few hours and then get the mahoosive new glue gun heated up and glue the top of the reel a little off centre... bum.... bum... bum.

It's noticeable isn't it?  I have got to take it off, which will ruin the paper, which will mean stripping it and doing it again... if it were for me, I wouldn't bother but I am making it for someone else... and they will probably not appreciate its little eccentricities.... LOL

Sorted!!  You might be able to see some little pearls on the underside of the top?  I put them there as locators so that when I had the hot glue on I didn't have to faff about... it worked and it is now straight... it would have bothered me, so easiest to just rip off and make it right!  

Telephone Box Tag Book

When I was at the Scrapbooking Expo in Brisbane last week, I saw these kits with telephone boxes and couldn't resist buying one!  They are from scrapmatts.com and the telephone box is obviously laser cut wood and it all goes together really beautifully.  Included in the kit was 4 tags for the inside so I have done it as a tag book of our Grandkids... just one minor problem, I appear to have left my supply of photo paper back in Scotland!  Darn it... so will now have to go shopping so I can print the photos for the tags.

I added some smaller tags to the four supplied for journaling and dates. 

Found my British ribbons and kept the colours to red, white and blue. 

This is the back of the chipboard tags... 

and here it is sitting on my dining room dresser... a little bit of England!!

I think it would look pretty cool in blue as a Doctor Who theme too!! :)

So a sewing I will go...

I have had such a lovely time this week playing with my sewing machine.

It all started when I made the mat with pockets to sit under my sewing machine... then I made a little pin cushion and thread catcher thingy to go with it... well, I was on a roll by now and decided to leap into the unknown and make a cover to keep the dust out of my sewing machine...

Impressed?  I am!  Making 3D stuff while sewing is much harder than making stuff with chipboard... though there are certain advantages with material over paper... one stretches a wee bit whilst the other just tears! LOL

So I had some material left over and made a needle case and a larger version for holding all my bobbins...

This sorts out the basket of bobbins that were always a tangled mess! 

So now I have a matching set of useful bits but there was still a peice or two of material left...

so I made this!! 

It holds all the tools for the sewing machine, and in the pocket it has all those spare feet things... which I really need to find out how to use!!

and then I thought... gosh, wouldn't it be cute if I got the Bejeweller out and added a couple of sparklies!

and now I have a sparkly sewing machine cover too...

WOYWW 12th June 2013

On my desk are 3 more of the anniversary swap ATCs, from left to right theya re from Julie Ann, Rosa and Neet.  I have decided that I am going to make a mini book for them when they all finally arrive and the best bit is that these little pieces of art will be doing all the work for me when it comes to decorating it!

On my other desk is what I am actually working on at the moment... a quilted sewing machine cover to match the mat with pockets I made yesterday... and I even made a pin cushion and little thread catcher... and yes, that is a seam you can see inside the thread catcher... think I need to chat to Annie and find out how to do it without the seam... 

On Monday, it was a public holiday here for the Queen's Birthday... which made me laugh because nobody back in the UK had one!! Well, Chris took me to the Scrapbooking and Papercrafting Expo in Brisbane for the day and I had a wonderful time!

Here is Chris guarding my purchases while I went off to buy more stuff... ;) 

and this is what I got!!   Lots and lots of fabby stash to play with... and I will have loads of time to play because Chris is off to the Philipines this weekend on business and won't be home till next weekend.  It's a shame they didn't give us more warning or I could have organised the cats and gone too!! LOL

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WOYWW 5th June 2013 (and the Stamp Cleaner)

Another one bites the dust... week, that is... and here we are again ready to do the tour of the desks!

 This is what is on my work desk this morning... hmmm, doesn't look very exciting does it?

 Normally when I am stamping, this is what is on my desk... a microfibre cloth, cleaner, baby wipes, and the scrubby thing for stamps... and all those things end up in different places when it comes to put them away...

So this morning I am sitting looking at them and a little light bulb went on in my head... 

So I got the sewing machine going and had a play...

and it worked!  I had the baby wipes in one pocket on the right and the cleaner in a little pocket with the scrubby thing on the left... but it looked a bit utilitarian...

and the scrubby thing moved about on the microbfibre so I added some velcro so it stayed in place and won't get lost if I go to crop or travel.

and added some pretty polka dots to the edges to pretty it up

and it works really well!  I used black because when you are cleaning stamps everything gets mucky really fast... 

and they are so easy and quick to make that I made a second one, so I can throw one in the wash and have one on the go!

and I would like to thank Jo and Annie for my lovely WOYWW 4th Anniversary ATC's !!

I just went upstairs to make a cup of tea and there was a box on my doorstep and inside was this!  Bridget showed one on her blog last week and I commented that I would love one.... and bless her cotton socks, she only went out and bought one and sent it to me!!  Thank you so much Bridget, the tin is lovely and the tea will go down a treat too!