Buddleia Card and Book Collage

 

I've achieved quite a lot since I last posted considering we had my step-son and his family visiting from the USA last week.  

I've completed another collage using the prompts in The Collage Workbook - it was all about using bits of old books - which was lucky, as I have loads!  

 I also had to make a sympathy card and I found this Buddleia stamp set in my stash that I'm sure I've never used ...

 ...and I've been gold leafing some prints too!  

Housework is next on the agenda! 

But before that I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW for the weekly desk hop.

Blue Mono Printing and the Midnight Garden

A bit of a printing fest going on this week, and it's all a bit blue!  I've continued with the mono printing from last week but changed the colours to suit my midnight garden theme - I seem to come round to that each summer as I really do love the muted colours and beautiful shapes of my garden as it goes from dusk into night.    

The bright sunshine we've been having has meant I can get some more cyanotype printing done - topping up my stash for card making and collages - always a favourite activity!

 

  I've also been running low on notecards so I have printed off another run of them using some of these photos of old and new cyanotype prints. I need to trim them all up - about 30 in total - a job I don't enjoy so we'll see if it gets done by next week - I'm betting it doesn't!!

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week.

Stamped Collage and Mono Printing

 A busy desk this week! 

A collage from the Collage Workbook challenges - this week incorporating stamping - I used some little seedling stamps that I hand carved a long time ago and gold leafed a few -I meant to gold leaf just one as a 'statement seedling' but I find it hard to stop leafing whenever I start so it reached 7 before I found my self-restraint!!

I also did some mono printing - here are a few that are still on my desk, out of what felt like hundreds I had printed!

And I received the last of the happy mail from the ATC swap - Jan very kindly sent me a replacement ATC as it looks like the original got lost in the post - I'm so thrilled to receive it and what a gorgeous card too - an absolute treasure, thank you so much Jan.

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week.

Word Collage and ATC Swap

  This week I've made another collage for my journey through The Collage Workbook by Randel Plowman - for this one I had to use one word only in it and not a lot else!

In my newly reorganised studio I've 'lost' a sepia pen, two bottles of epoxy resin and a small office date stamp - each has been put in a convenient, logical and completely different place to where they used to live!  I am resisting buying more as I know that as soon as I do they will resurface!  However, despite having no sepia pen I've managed to start a new collage!

This week has also seen more happy mail - a beautiful ATC and card from Sylvia, it arrived more quickly than I thought and I love the little extras - thank you so much Sylvia.  That leaves just one ATC due and I have a horrible feeling it's probably been lost in the post but I'm keeping my fingers crossed it might still turn up.

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week.

ATC Swap for WOYWW

 What a lovely week it's been with happy (and beautiful) mail dropping through the door for the WOYWW 13th Anniversary ATC swap.

The theme was Connections, and here are some of my ATC's that I sent out, but more importantly...

 ...here are the beauties I received during the week!

Thank you so much for these gorgeous little works of art - they will be treasured - and I think a couple are still on their way so more happy mail to come!

There has been no crafting going on this week but we did do a trip to Exbury Gardens, which is about a 5 minute drive from where we live - I just had to visit the Wisteria while it was in full bloom!  We were early enough to be the only ones there, so we were able to enjoy our flask of coffee on the bench inside it without ending up in anyone else's photos!  

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week

 

WOYWW 13th Anniversary

Happy 13th Anniversary to all Deskers over at WOYWW - what an achievement, what a fabulous group to be part of and of course a huge thank you and gold star to Julia who makes this possible each week.

Everything has been ATC's here so there's nothing on my desk to show today -  so here's a card I made for the Hubs a few weeks ago!  I've been busy finishing my ATC's and with some help with the die cutting and some left handed stamping (elbow still playing up) I've managed to complete my bundle and they are ready to be sent to their new homes - cutting it a bit fine but I did it!

 

Typography Collage

I made this a couple of weeks ago, continuing my journey with Randel Plowman's Collage Workbook - I had to find a word or phrase and work it in to the collage, so I got out my old typewriter, found some old book scraps and set to work!

I then made some backgrounds for the ATC swap next week followed by some 'extreme gardening', tackling the brambles, ivy and next door's Leylandii that are trying to take over the garden.  The end result of all this hard work is tennis elbow! Not nearly as innocuous as it sounds!

Despite this I'm planning on taking part in the swap and will definitely make a few extra ATC's for anyone wanting to swap, especially now that I already have the backgrounds prepared!  

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW

Numbers Collages

 Two collages from the challenges in the Collage Workbook - both based around numbers.  The backgrounds are pages from an old Logarithms book I found during my clear out, and a technical plan the Hubs was throwing out from his days as an electronics engineer - I think he only parted with it because I said I could find a use for it - and then of course I had to!! 

Some mono prints are sitting on my desk at the moment - I'm gearing up to use some of them in collages but I'm not sure when or how  - as usual there's a lot going on in my head but not very much in practice!

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week.

Just adding a quick question - has anyone else had trouble setting up email notifications for comments on their blog - it's completely disappeared so any advice will be greatly appreciated.