WOYWW, Drunken Stampers, AND Grungy Monday

all rolled into one!  Wow, am I a cheater or what?!?  Nah, just multi-tasking.  funny storry, my 18 year old sister is famous for doing about fifteen things at once (reading, texting, playing a video game, more texting...you get the idea) and was constantly bragging about her multi-tasking skills.  So for Christmas, Mom got her a roll of Scotch tape that said right there on the label that it was "Multi-tasking Tape"!!  Too funny.    She hasn't mentioned it since...  But I digress.  Which is not unusual at all.  Nope, not even a little bit.  So the picture on the left is of my desk.  A veritable sea of stuff- can you name everything? 'cause I'm not sure I can.  But it is different stuff than last week, so kudos to me.  And on the right is my submission (finally, I know, I'm a slacker!) for Grungy Monday.  Click here to be whisked off to the lovely and talented Linda for the deets on Grungy Monday.  And the same card is also serving as my submission for the Drunken Stampers challenge by the Numbers.  And I do so appreciate that they aligned this challenge with my 20th wedding anniversary, that was so thoughtful of them, don't cha think? So thanks, Drunken Stampers for making the challenge so easy for me this week!  There is a lot of Tim goodness on the card, including the paper which is from the new Co'ordinations Distress Colors pack.  Plus tons of Ideaology, Distress Ink, and the new Tattered Banner die cut (which is too awesome by the way).  Have a lovely time browsing the desks (don't know what I'm talking about?  Then click here to be flown over the pond-without any turbulence at all- to the Queen of Desks Julia) I'm off to spend some more quality time with hubby on our anniversary.

House Mouse Challenge #95- May flowers

As I was merrily cruising the desks (and being jealous of all the nifty IKEA storage things) I came across a link to the House Mouse and Friends Challenge blog.  Huzzah and thrice!  I have about 50 assorted House Mouse stamps that stay on the shelves (but they make me happy!  and they are so cute!) so "aha," I say and pull one off to meet this challenge.  And coincidentally enough, I needed a birthday card today so serendipity works her magic and off I go merrily stamping.  The card is based on a design by Cambria Turnbow and kindly posted on SCS by Beate Johns.  Mine is  larger than the original to fit the stamped image and flower.  Mine is 12" long scored at 4" and 8" and is 5-1/2" tall. 

Opened once

Opened out full length

I added 1" of coordinating card stock to the back right hand edge to keep the look of the original, but didn't do the closure the way she had, I just tied a ribbon all around.  Thanks for stopping by!

my first attempt at a large altered canvas

I've been inspired by all the altered canvasses I've seen lately, and my 20th wedding anniversary is coming up next week, so I thought I'd try my hand at creating one for my hubby.  It started with the small "love" canvas at the bottom left and then it grew (rather like a mushroom!).  For my first attempt, I'm pretty pleased with it.  But I need to go somewhere and learn how to really apply the base coats, 'cause let me tell ya!  My first thought was Distress Stains!  After attempting the small canvas and realizing that the Stains didn't want to "stick" to the canvas, I prowled the art section of Michael's and found gesso.  Slapped on a coat and waited not only the prescribed 24 hours, but three whole days!  (I was busy...) Went to apply the Antique Linen and...well...not so much.  Wiped with a paper towel and tried again thinking it may just need a couple of coats...even dired with the heat gun!  Got a lovely color applied.  Laid on the Tim masks and sprayed a mix of Distress reinker and water.  Pulled up the masks and it was a mess.  The reinker didn't stick (yep I heat gunned it!)  and I wiped it off to discover that all the Distress Stain come off too!  EXCEPT where the masks were!  Okay, weird.  Reapplied the masks, 'cause it did look cool and sprayed with Tattered Angels Glimmer mists.  Oh yeah, that's awesome.  Except in that one place, I'll just fix it...nope.  I should have left it alone, it really didn't look that bad, so giving up on the spray thing, I painted on some brown acrylic paint.  Which immediately reacted with the remaining glimmer mist to become, um, ugly.  Wiped that off and here is the extra weird part...you can still see my original masked clock and gears!  Very strange.  But the brown seeped in some places so if you look closely it looks weathered and worn.  Resprayed the whole canvas with a blue skies Glimmer Mist, heat gunned, then masked and sprayed with sapphire glimmer.  Let it puddle to it's heart's content and walked away.  It was really hard to go eat dinner knowing there was undried mist soaking into the canvas, but I did it.  Came back and it was mostly dry so I helped it along with the heat gun and wow!  I really like the splotchy-ness.  Finally being satisfied with the background, on to create arty goodness.  Sprayed a smaller canvas with tuscan sun glimmer mist (no gesso!) and let it run and be splotchy. 

Inked a grungeboard heart with Fired Brick Distress Stains then top coat of gold Glimmer Mist.  Too much!  Toned down the gold with cranberry zing glimmer mist, more fired brick stain, and vintage photo stain.  Sapphire glimmer on the grungeboard wings, tiny attacher and an ideaology lock, all glued down with glossy accents.  Attached a regular screw eye to the bottom for the key.

The numbers are grungeboard covered in vintage photo distress embossing powder and then vintage photo distress stain.  And of course, there's lots of ideaology gears and a clock face and some corners.  The original canvas has a frame and an ickle bottle filled with hearts.  Sappy maybe, but it's been a great 20 years! 

I'm quite pleased at how it turned out, hope hubby likes it, as it will be going on the wall and he'll have to see it everyday!  Now I'm all fired up to create some more, hey Hels, what's that paint you use?  Traditional Tan or something right?  hehehe!

woyww...two days later...or almost three if you're in the UK...

I was going to post this last night (Thursday) when it would have been only a day late.  But our friend blogger must have been out on a bender 'cause he wouldn't let me.  Let me warn you, the desk is not for the faint of heart this week, it is an unholy mess. Well the left side and back at the top right.  I do have a space in the center.  But probably not for long.

I've actually been working!  Making the cards for my challenge group-which is what you see there in the center.  But only the back, 'cause they haven't seen it yet so it's only fair.  If I remember I'll post it on Sunday night or Monday.  The mess contains scraps of paper, whole sheets of card stock (I couldn't decide which color to use as the base so just got all 6 of our allowed colors out) that are stacked on top of who knows what- oh I do!  The serendipity squares that I was originally going to use on the cards.   I did the fronts for all five cards and then couldn't make the inside happen.  So after waiting for three days and still nothing was happening on the inside that was what I wanted, I ripped them all apart.  At least I did save the squares and the idea is (for now) still in my head.  Maybe it'll come together later.  So there's ribbon bits and buttons and brads and ink pads (top right under the in stitches mat) and ink applicators and scissors, and stamps and probably the Lost Ark of the Covenant is in there somewhere.  The picture does not do the pile on the left justice.  I'm pretty sure Jimmy Hoffa is under there.  But work has been done and art has been accomplished!  Now to make the other 4 cards... maybe I'll just lark about among the desks instead... click here to be transported to the lovely Julia, Duchess of Desks to find out what I'm on about.  :)

so I'm a lazy slob and have been back for a week

Hello all in Blogland! Thanks for all the nice comments on my journals, I am happy to report that Mom and Sis loved them! And the other kids in our group were jealous. :) Once we got out of the Newark, NJ airport (a harrowing tale of the filthyest, awfulest weather imaginable- we circled Newark for about 2 hours and they closed the airport 3 times, then rerouted us to Allentown, PA where they put us on a bus and drove us to Newark! 

Here we are on Saturday at 11 pm,not behind security, no food that we knew about, not even any chairs to sit in (!),and no hotel in sight. I have never slept on the floor at an airport before, but now I can mark it off the list.  And I can say that I don't recommend it.  At all.  Not even a little. Around about 3 AM we discovered the Dunkin Donuts downstairs so there was sugar to be had. No plane available yet. Well, one that left on MONDAY at 10pm! We would have lost both our London days! But our group leader persevered and got us out on Sunday after all. So we only lost 1 1/2 days.) BUT once we got to England, we had the absolute BEST weather...sunny, warm, beautiful! My mantra before leaving was "if I get too cold I'll buy a sweatshirt"  but didn't need to!  Quick tour of Windsor Castle on Tuesday.

Windsor

Then a "free day" in London, went to Westminster Abbey and the Tower, but couldn't resist the picture of Big Ben!  Well, the tower big Ben is in (is it St. Stephen's tower?).  Then the next days were filled with  lovely tours of Oxford, Stratford-upon-Avon, Hadrian's wall, York, and then there was Scotland.

Oxford

Stratford-upon-Avon

York

Oh lovely Scotland who provided us with the weather we had all been expecting...rainy and cold. 

Huzzah!  I got to wear the raincoat I had drug all over England for a week, AND I got to buy a sweatshirt!!  I was rather excited.  :)  All in all (except for that leaving the US part) it was absolutely great!  I will be sharing some more of my pics later, I took about 1300.  Don't worry, I won't post them all!  :P  

p.s.  Does anyone know why Blogger is a big pain when it comes to adding pictures?  And why they are always spaced so weirdly?  At least I got it to put three on a line this time, it will probably never happen again...