WOYWW 181

Today it is What's on Your Floor Wednesday, from me, as that is where I'm busy sorting out some projects for make and takes at Vicky Stampers forthcoming party. These will all be packed into kits ready to make in a jiffy. A few really useful ideas which I originally wasn't going to show before the party but then I realised that most of those attending don't look at my blog and I'm sure the couple of people who do see them won't mind!

I also thought that it might be useful to some of you incase you fancy having a go at these simple wraps for chocolate bars as it will be a while to wait until after the party and you could have them made. They'd make good craft fair sellers, I'm sure. I use the packs of bars from Aldi, which are lovely chocky and so reasonably priced.

Some came from ideas on the web and as there are lots similar out there I don't need to give direct credit but I have drawn and printed, altered and adjusted all the designs, some are my own, and I will give instructions for making them over the next few days. I have some other designs too but my scanner/printer is playing up, so watch this space if you are interested.

Why am I showing you my work place at all ? Because I do every Wednesday, just as nearly 200 others from around the world do too. All because of the crazy idea by our lovely Mrs D, (that's our Julia at stampinground). Interested? Get over HERE PDQ and see the rest or join in if you've got a desk to show us.

Above you'll see my penguin candy wraps... entirely my own idea, this one, and so easy to make. A really quick attractive table gift or decoration.

Below are the kits for my reindeers.

A close up of the little penguin.

 This, below, is a simple sleigh made from a bar of chocolate and two candy canes as the runners. These would decorate a table and look great.

 Frosty the Snowman keeping the chocolate from melting!

My swap angels have been landing and I will post pics soon of those that have arrived in their new homes. 

I am still awaiting contact details to send angels out to Vicki Okie Nurse, despite leaving messages for her. I really do hope she is OK and wonder if any other WOYWWers have heard from her recently? 

I'm off to Germany next week, all on my ownsome leaving DH to fend for himself... aaaahhh!!!! Going to visit my lovely family and the Christmas Markets will be on so it's a double treat.  I'll be missing next WOYWW but I'll have lots to show and tell about when I get back home. 

Mitton Hall/Samantha Murray

On Friday I had the honour to attend a presentation to one of our Olympic Team GB medal winners, Samantha Murray, at Mitton Hall. This was a very special venue to honour an exceptional young woman who is a real credit to this country and to herself.

On a cold November day, we gathered in the main hall with a welcome roaring log fire, for a delicious afternoon tea and a champagne toast to Samantha. 

Mitton Hall near Clitheroe in the Ribble Valley, Lancashire, is now a beautiful country inn, but was originally a manor house dating from the 15th century and it has been lovingly restored.

Check out Mitton Hall here

This gallery wraps around the entrance hall.

Here is Samantha wearing her medal which she won in the pentathlon. My DH on the left presented her flowers and our friend Reg presented the award.

She is such a lovely charming person and such good company, generously sharing her medal around giving us all a rare opportunity to handle it. (It amazed everyone by how heavy it is!) 
I really feel that she will go far in life with her qualities but first let us wish her the best of luck for at least one more medal in Rio 2016.

The cakes were delish!

Part of the main hall.

In the bar the superb, ornate, carved panels were salvaged from a Methodist Church in Clitheroe.

Samantha, to her credit, is spending all her spare time visiting schools giving motivational talks to pupils and has also become president of a children's charity.

WOYWW 180

Here's the last leg, or perhaps I should say wing, of my host of angels for my swap.

Shown on my desk for the weekly dose of WOYWW... a real tonic prescribed for crafters and snoopers by dear Dr Julia  to cheer us up each week.

Here they are, all 16 ready and waiting to wing their flight o'er all the Earth. I've purposely taken a poor photo so they aren't too clear but no one in the swap will know which one they will draw/receive.

Most swappers are making two and I will announce the draw of where to send No2  as soon as the last couple of people email me with addresses and let me know if they will be making 1 or 2.

Now that Caro has safely received her Box of Bits & Bobs Blog Candy prize, I can show the bag bling gift I made for her and sent along with her little parcel. The 2 sides were stamped onto card, coloured,  then stuck together and sandwiched between two clear "Fragments"using Glossy Accents as the adhesive. I also laid a couple of double strands of fishing line through the middle, making a loop at the top and leaving long ends onto which beads and charms were threaded to dangle on the bottom. 

The edges can be coloured with Krylon metallic pen but I attached adhesive metal tape to mine.

This is a nice, quick and easy, useful gift to make... have a go!

The face stamp was a freebie in Craft Stamper a while ago and the quote is from a plate of small Tim Holtz clear stamps. 

What a short post for me!! There's more to come maybe tomorrow! 

Linocuts with Left Handed Lucy in Lancashire

We had a super day at a workshop with Lucy Bishop of lefthandedcrafter and "Woad Butterfly" as our fabulously good tutor in Rochdale, Lancashire.

It was organised for us by Lynn of Doodly Birds and, as Lynn had already been on Lucy's course, she spent most of the day looking after the class, kindly providing us with  tea, coffee, her delicious home made cinnamon swirls and even run to the bakery for some wonderful hot pies for our lunch.

So Thanks to both Lucy and Lynn!

It was far easier to create exciting things with the help of Lucy's expertise than I ever remember when doing linocuts at school. First, I chose to make a sketch of an Olive wood angel figure that I love, then I recreated it to print. I was so excited and pleased with my initial attempt. 

Lucy demonstrated the rudiments of cutting, inking and printing along with the important safety factors, so we didn't lose parts of our fingers. She then expertly guided us through our own endeavours.

She had some super examples for inspiration and a library of books on the subject for us to browse.

I moved on to design and create a quirky dragonfly which I coloured at random

Here's my lino cut and the first magic print.

I love the somewhat imperfect effect when we printed on fabric

The rest of the class were such good company and they all produced some excellent prints.

Carol of carolcsstuff and stampattack cut and printed a super house and a lovely little bird in a cage....

Anna's seed heads, above.

Below,Annette's lovely butterfly made a really effective shopping bag.

Here are Lynn's famous Doodly Birds and the texture panels she made last week.

Barbara made lots of  fabulous gift tags.

Falling leaves on Barbara's Tea Towel

John's classy trees worked so well

John even made a cute little owl

Line up with Lynn, Annette, Carol,Barbara, Jo, Lucy, John

and here with Anna on the left....

I thoroughly enjoyed the day course, one of the best I've been to in ages, and I am really inspired to continue and hopefully increase my skills. Lucy is an excellent teacher and I would recommend her classes if it's something you'd like to learn. Good fun, good results and a most enjoyable day was had by all.

Amazingly FIVE of us were lefthanded... just like Lucy!!

Last, but certainly not least, here is the ATC I made for last month's Vicky Stampers challenge. I waited until the 11th day of the 11th month to post it! We all have someone in our families who should be remembered today so here's my poppy in REMEMBRANCE....

Lest we forget

I stamped the poppy onto vellum, distressed it, then attached it to suitably worded old dictionary print. I must admit that, after the photograph was taken,I did write in the missing letter "r" on the word "remember"! 

I drew this poppy as one of the designs as part of a plate of Japanese stamps for stampattack, a couple of years ago. 

Angel Swap info & VS Brayer Workshop

Thanks to all of you who will join in my Angel Swap. 

The swap invitation is now closed.

Very soon we will have a wonderful Heavenly Host of Angels taking flight around the world. 

Here are the participants......

Dolores(2),   Shaz Silver Wolf(2),   Donna,   AnnB(2),   Neil(2),  Morti(2), 
Vicki Okie Nurse(2),   Maria(2),  Lunch Lady Jan(2),   Chris pearshapedcrafter,   Famfa(2), Ali of Teddy Bob Crafts(1), Annie Wipso(2),and Jo Twiglet (2) 
are all definites.

Please email me so we can exchange snail mail addresses and (only if you want to swap two), please give me permission to pass on your details just to one other so your No2 angel can be posted by one of the other participants.

I hope I have not missed out anyone who has expressed an interest but do contact me if there are any queries.

We also have POSSIBLE sign ups by  Peggyappleseed, Caro,and L'il Pidge.

No pressure if you can't manage it but I'll be grateful if the "possibles" let me know as soon as they can if they will join in or not.

You only have to commit to making ONE.

If you make one angel you will receive one angel made by me. 

However, you do have the OPTION to make TWO. 
I will add (2) after the names who plan to do so.

If you want to make and swap two angels just send me one and I will draw names and tell you to whom you should send your No2.

It would be nice if you don't post them on your blog before they have been received so be sure to thank people as soon as they arrive.

Guidelines ....The angels should be small enough to use as a Christmas decoration and thus should be light for posting. They should have a facility, eg., a loop or cord by which they can be hung.
Please add a tiny tag with your name and also, for fun NAME the angels .... we might get a Gladys or a Henrietta amongst them!

The angels can be made from anything you wish, just use your imagination:

Card, Grungeboard, Embossed, Beads, Metal, Fabric, Lace, Plastic, Heavy Acetate, Feathers, Angelina(Angel Hair Fibres), Shrink Plastic, Stampboard, Wood, etc. etc!!! 

Try not to buy materials but delve deep into those hidden stashes of treasures.

Please try to finish and post your angels by the weekend of 7th December which gives you around 4 weeks to make them and around 3 weeks for them to arrive before Christmas.

I will start posting them day by day on my blog through December then the whole host will be posted together in all their glory before Christmas.

Finally and totally unconnected......
Here are the examples of my inefficient, incompetent, brayering which I produced at the Vicky Stampers workshop on Saturday and the resultant cards, which, nonetheless, I must admit I quite like. The imperfections suit the mood of the sky and the overall scene. I must practice a bit/lot/...an awful lot so I can do it really beautifully and at least partly as good as our excellent tutor Jacqui! 
It was still an excellent day of crafting and lots of fun with lovely people. 

WOYWW 179 / Angels from the Realms

Another week, another Wednesday and another WOYWW.... 
What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday 
courtesy of the one and only, the inimitable, Julia of Stamping Ground.  

After a great weekend with Donna, who came across for a workshop with Vicky Stampers, I am continuing with my Host of Angels for my decoration swap. Here on my desk you can see them in varying stages of completion but none have yet had their faces or bling and sparkle added. Some are waiting to be squirted in the eye and other regions with Dylusions and Glimmer Mists.

There, spot in the middle, is the first edition of Donna's new Mail Art Stamp, one of her new range, designed for the Artistic Stamper, just waiting to be inked. Thanks to Donna for gifting it to me and I will put it to good creative use very soon.

Below, at the front there's a skinny angel and you can see that, just to be quirky and just because I've had it for eons and wanted to find a usefor it, I am using African tree bark for the bodies, moulded paper clay for the faces and Grungeboard for the wings. For some of the wings I used the left over areas after the swirls were removed from the Grungeboard sheets and one can be seen below..and a there's a set of wings (much too good to discard) amongst the spare faces above.

Celebration Prize

Here's the box of Bits & Bobs I offered last week for someone to win and thanks to all who entered...

 the winner is ................

Ta Dah!!!!!!!!

...

...

...

...

It's Caro  ... (A WOYWW and I think from Yorkshire)

Congratulation Caro... if you will email me your details (or if you put them in a comment I won't publish)

Your prize has grown somewhat as the little box became too small so you'll get this melange of tiny treasures to sort out and I'll also send a little hand made gift from me. Hope you enjoy sorting through it all however the little Homepride flour grader man has been returned to his rightful home. I didn't realise it belonged to my DD2 but she spotted him and claimed him!!

I forgot to post my homework from the Wiltshire WOYWW Crop for Miss Julia, last week, so here at last before I get detention is the results from the pack I was given to make up into a card.

Here's the Christmas card kit I should have made on the day...... finished at last and probably the only one I will make too!

Finalyl here's one of the little Belles I visited recently in Brighton and you can see why I call them the Curly Girlies...ooh I do miss them but I'm going soon (at the end of Nov) to Germany to see my little Fraulein Curly Girly.... so excited!

In a day or two I will contact all those who said that they would like to swap an angel... mine are almost ready to wing their way to their new homes so if you put your name in... get fluttering those wings.

Peacocks at Lydiate Hall Farm

Here's one I almost forgot to post.

Recently, on one of our jaunts, we visited Lydiate Hall Farm which is in Lancashire about 30 minutes North of my house. There is a farm shop where we buy local produce and also a nice little cafe for a good lunch or home made cake and coffee. 

Best of all there is a big duck pond and a little country walk with so many peacocks, far more than I've ever seen in one place.

They performed beautifully and I was able to get really close up for my photos.

Such a small place but it is a little gem for a short visit not too far from home.

The ducks keep children and adults amused for free!

These two proud cockerels were real bossy boots.

Lazy sheep in such an idyllic setting

The cafe and pond

Nothing much there but it's a little hidden gem where we love to stop occasionally and I just thought it was worth sharing.

Better by far than MacDonalds!