WOYWW, Klimt finished, Christmas cards and snow

Hello my bloggy friends!

I hope you are all well and safe - I hope all our American WOYWWers are safe from the devastating Sandy! We had snow too on Saturday and Sunday but it didn't last! It is cold though - we went from 24 deg C last week to -5 C this week! A shocking change but I guess we are use to this! 
So to get on with things let me show you my messy desk and craft room - I started doing Christmas cards (well I made 2 - I have to do about 70! Huh! I better get on with it!) and ended up pulling out stamps and stuff to make them and made such a mess I can't believe it! 

So here is the desk.....right side.... a bag of tissue paper, ATG, MS punches, TH dies, brads....oh my black beads necklace...I was looking for that one.....

Right side.....the usual junk that is there but a bit more on top....a Nellie Snellen die, pewter distress stain, lots of glues......

and then there is the very messy couch.....stamps, cards, my altered book, more stamps.....

Stuff everywhere....huh!!!!


To show you what I have been doing - I finished my Klimtesque canvas.....I was very much criticized by my daughter but on some points I think she was right....I would love to hear what you think of my work - not praise - honest opinion! I found that it is hard to take a picture of a picture that is gold and shiny but I did do my best.....

details....

Well at least I learned a few more techniques - gold leafing was a right experience! Like it very much.....also I played with mediums, matt and glossy! I should have stamped my background stamps on tissue paper ( got the tip too late from Trish Latimers canvas tutorial) but I will know for next time when I get up to stamping on canvas!
Next up my first 2 Christmas cards....


Here is a very simple one - like it mostly for the colors I have chosen - grey and pink

And then a card with a Michael Powell stamp....I bought it the other week and seems to me if you color it with Twinkling H20s or some other shiny colors (mica Copics) you don't need any embellishments as it is just beautiful as it is! Very Christmassy!

So those are my makings for this WOYWW but I have a few more pics to show.... a lovely tree I take a picture of every autumn - it stands in the garden of our institute and the colors are just amazing.....

And as last our first snow photos.....

Ok then I am done.....
Have a lovely day, go over to our Queen Julias HQ and show us what you got...
 I know it is Halloween today and for many of you it is a fun day but for me it is a day to remember my lovely dad who passed away on this day 13 years ago! May he rest in peace! I love you dad!!!
Lots of hugs to all of you....
Cardarian
 

WOYWW - back to normal!

Good morning my dear bloggy friends!

Finally things are back to normal and I can get up to normal WOYWW ! Last week was a bit hectic - I wrote a long post about our BIG crop on Friday and you can see it here. Beware - ha, ha the post is so long you might shoot roots into your chair! But anyway THANK YOU again Julia and Jan - we had a lovely time and I will never forget my first crop ever!!!!!! Yes that is true!
Now returning back to reality and my desk which is the thing you all want to see - well a few weeks ago I was talking about making a Klimtesque canvas - it is not nearly finished but I think it will be in a few days - I finally decided how I want to make it...As you know I have used Donnas stamp as my main object and all the background will be gold - the true colors of Klimts early decorative painting! 
Here is what was on my desk this morning.....

Lots of gold paint - I decided to use 3 different golds - I started out with gessoing the canvas, then used matt medium to layer a few bits of old paper with gothic writing on it out of my stash of old magazines that have been thrown out of the library! Then the first coat of gold acrylic paint I am starting with a lighter gold and going towards a more darker antique gold color....on the side there you can see the stamp I am using already colored with shiny colors....the obligatory morning BIG cup of tea is there too! Don't ask! I couldn't open the Golden Matt Medium - it is so stuck I will have to wait for my daughters boyfriend to come around and open it - luckily I had another bottle of Liquitex matt medium! Huh!
Now more makings of this week....
I made a cute card for my aunt who is over 80 - I chose spring colors even though it is autumn as I thought it would be a bit morbide to send her a card with darkish colors and leaves falling - it is a bit suggestive isn't it???? So here is my happy birthday card - the stamp is from Kaisercraft a gift I was so kindly sent from Eliza all the way from Australia.....

No special technique - distressed background with Broken china, stamped twice so I could cut out the bird to make it a bit more dimensional two bits of ribbon and coloring with copics!The sentiment is one of our new Slovene stamps.. Bobs your uncle as the English say....
Oh yes I sort of finished off one of the jewelry thingies I have made at the crop with Jo.......I am not sure if I want to do more to it or not - for now it as it is - I am wearing it today anyway....

 And now after I have shown my desk I will give you just two photos of the autumn splendour we have.....

We have been very lucky up till now - temperatures nice 22-25 deg C.....but they say we might have snow for the weekend....oh well....
 Lots of love and hugs to all of you, have a good snoop and a lovely rest of the week!
Cardarian

A Friday WOYWW

My dear bloggy friends! 

I am sure everybody thinks what is going on with that women - she didn't even do WOYWW this week! Well I came back home from the crop late Monday evening, Tuesday I was working late as I had to make do for not being there on Monday and then Wednesday and Thursday the Slovenian university librarians had a conference so I was stuck there for the last couple of days! Although crafting is much more fun and I would rather do that,  my work does put bread ( and stash) on my table so unfortunatly it has a priority! 
But now I am back to normality ( I think) and hope to do a lot of crafting after getting all those amazing ideas from my fellow crafters at the WOYWW BIG CROP!!!
So let me start with the this BIG WOYWW crop I have been to last Saturday! I don't know where to start but I must start with Jan and Julia who were the organizers of this meeting - such lovely ladies, friendly, kind and soooo much fun! It was like coming home - I had not felt for a minute out of place - it was like I belonged there forever! THANK YOU my dear Jan and Julia - you were the stars of the show!!!  Ohhh the cooking Jan has done ....YUM, YUM, YUM!!!! And the cakes......YUM, YUM, YUM! Now I wish I had more of them!!!! Ha, ha....
There was about 20 of us....all lovely friendly ladies - each one not only a lovely person but an amazing crafter, some do scrapbooking, some cards, some jewelry, some sewing, art journaling... well just a fantastic group of ladies who I think could move a mountain ( that is our saying) if they wanted to! Ha, ha but we would rather do crafting!
I would like to mention all your names my dear ladies - So let me try - Jan and Julia - words are not enough to say how lovely these 2 ladies are, then my dear friends Jo and Donna who I was so happy to see again and give them a big hug!!! By the way there was lots of hugs going around! I guess we all need lots of love!!! Oh yes then there was Helen who is the first crafter from WOYWW that I have ever met a few years ago at Ally Pally! Then the lovely Di who has sent me a beautiful present a couple of years ago when we had our WOYWW anniversary gift exchange! And then came all the new people I have met for the first time - Mary Ann - who has surprised me by being an American amoung all the English ladies, oh let me think then there was Sam ( an amazing scrapbooker), Janet - she tought us all about beads - something I didn't have a clue about! And then Morti - Diane a lovely lady which was very kind to invite me and my DBF to her home where we had a lovely fun evening - THANK YOU DIANE!!! Also thank you for teaching us how to do the Domino jewelry - Mine I think has turned out very well  No not finished yet - I must mention Pam, Kate, Kyla, Kirsty and Cindy and also the lovely Zoe and Lisa! I think I have mentioned everyone now!Yes well I didn't get much done there as I was running around like a headless chicken - chatting with everybody - so much my whole face was hurting in the evening from all the chat and laughter! Julia gave us some tasks which I finished this morning at 6am! Yes I got up and did all the crafty work before actually going to work! 
I must mention that after the crop the next morning was a lovely day so me and my DBF decided to drive through London for a change! The M25 can get a bit boring ! I took some nice photos as we were driving along through the sun roof! THANK YOU TO MY DBF - he made all this possible for me so he deserves a big thank you! 
 If you have managed to stay awake through all my waffling I would now like to show a few photos from the crop that I have taken....they don't seem to be very good - I guess I was so excited my hands were trembling!...
 Group  photo....standing Jo, LLJ, Morti, Janet (Fairy Thoughts), Mary-Anne, Kyla (Li'l Pidge), Julia , Pam, Di (Pixie), Helen, Sam (Hettliecraft), Donna (Doone) me (Cardarian) , seated- Kate, Cindy, Lisa, Zoe

Zoe, Morti, Sam and Kyla (I think) all looking at Donna drilling holes!

Chatting....in the front, Jan, Helen ( she is crafting at the table although she was given a space on the floor!!!), Di...in the background Jo and Janet.......Cindy, Julia, Lisa,  Mary Anne and Pam....

Queen Julia....isn't she just lovely????? 

This is what Janet (Fairy thoughts) was teaching us......

and this is as far as I got......huh....

This is what Morti was teaching us - the domino thinge....I quite like the initial work but I need to finish it off...will show it when I am done!

This is what I was doing with Jo - from Jozart....stamping and coloring stambord .....not finished either but the weekend is coming and I hope to get that done!

And here are the tasks Julia gave us ....I should have done it at the crop - not enough time so I did it this morning - following Julias instructions....

And here is the homework we got from Julia....we got a little bag with bits of stash and we were suppose to make a card....here is my make - I did add the lovely washi tape Jo gave me - colored it with copics...added a flower to make it pop more and the sentiment was stamped with Hero arts alphas!

So there ...that was the crop.....just hang on a few more seconds...take a look at the photos of London from the sun roof.....
Harrods ( the bloody car just drove in front when I took the photo...huh!!!!)

Three in one....Westminister Abbey.....Big Ben and the London Eye.....

The Gurkin.....

And the Chard.....its suppose to be the highest building in Europe!

Still awake???? If not I hope you are having a good sleep.....but if you are still with me I wish you a lovely day and send you lots of hugs from sunny and very warm ( at the moment we have 24 deg C and it is the 19th of October!!!!) Slovenia...
CARDARIAN

WOYWW, Vintage cards and something Klimtesque!

Good morning to all of you lovely bloggy people!

Even though it is a very dull morning here in Slovenia I am shining like the brightest of summer days! Why are you asking????????? BECAUSE IN 3 DAYS I WILL BE MEETING A LOAD OF WOYWWERS FOR REAL!!!! YIPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, so happy! I am jumping up and down ( well no I can't because of my knee, but I am doing the happy dance!)
So now that you know the happy mood I am in let me show you my desk - my weekly contribution to the Queen Julias nosy gathering.....

So what do you see?? Well as you know I have bought some of the new Donna stamps from The Artistic Stamper . In my head I have this idea of making a mini Klimt-esque canvas with lots of gold, similar to Klimts paintings which I have been studying these last days....the focal point of this canvas will be Donna's stamp! I was initially going to paint it with Twinkling H2Os which I have ordered but they haven't arrived yet so I am giving it a go with regular gel pens - I have bought the Copic ones ages ago and before that some cheep ones from the stationary shop and I find that the cheep ones have a lot more mica and are really shiny! The only thing that is better with copic ones is the variety of colors - so here is the close up of my coloring...not finished yet - but I am getting there....

The body and the face will be colored with Prismacolor pencils the canvas will have lots of gold on it - don't worry I will show it on here when I am finished! So that is what is on my desk....
I have been making cards too....my sister in law had her 50th a while ago but because I wasn't here at the time I decided to make a meal for the whole family on Sunday so she wouldn't have to cook as she doesn't like to and I gave her a flower and and a card - she was very happy with her surprise meal! The card I made was vintage as she likes that....

I got these new Oxford Impressions stamps and I really wanted to try them out! I used a sepia versafine ink pad but the paper although quite smooth was still a bit too grainy! 
The next day I made another card for my friend at work with similar material but another stamp - this time I used a speciality paper and I think the result is much better....

The sentiments as you have noticed are in Slovene and I am very happy to say we now finally have stamps that have Slovene sentiments ! 
 So my dear ladies - not long now....I have calculated the hours - about 72 hours and I will be there crafting away with all of you! 
Have a lovely day snooping around desks - I will be joining you all later in the day!
Lots of hugs to all of you, see you soooon!
Cardarian

 

WOYWW, Autumn

Good evening my dear bloggy friends!

I am very late posting - it was a long and busy day and my eyes are dropping but I thought I must get on there and make an effort! I don't have much to offer - just an autumn card! But first is first - lets have a look at my really messy desk - hardly anything you won't find on there.....stamps, inkpads, even a bowl and a spoon - I had my chia! (you know that super food full of every goodness you need :-) ), A hook, a mouse well have a good snoop and you might find more! If you won't find what you want go over to Stamping ground where snoopers snoop all day!

 Yes my computer is showing Jozarts blog - thats where I got my idea for the autumn card.....and in the middle of the desk there you can see the background which I  made with the metallic distress stains, Adirondak Color wash and tattered angels sprays I was messing with it quite a while! Then I stamped leaves with stamps from the Stampattack with Versamark ink and embossed them with gold embossing powder and also stamped a few swirls... ....here is the result....

and a close up where you can see the shiny leaves....

I will enter this card into the Slovene challenge Craftalnica - as it is an autumn card and fits the challenge! 
So that is me for today short and sweet - ha, ha I bet Julia will be happy - for once I am short!
Girls I am looking forward to the BIG WOYWW CROP - not counting today we have 9 days to go! YIPEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
Lots and lots of hugs - see you sooon!
Cardarian

Halloween card

Drage blogerke in blogerji!

Čez vikend sem se lotila izziva Craftalnice - tokratni izziv je pripravila Janja in želi da sledimo postavitvi.....
Naredila sem kartico - čestitko za Halloween - ker je tudi to zame izziv - nisem namreč preveč navdušena nad Halloweenom ker se mi zdi da ne paše v našo kulturno sredino! Pa vendar povsod se pojavljajo  te čestitke pa sem rekla se bom še jaz poskusila! Uporabila sem tole štampiljko

....Inkadinkado...se mi zdi prav luštna, a ker sem hotela da je vso ozadje temno sem se odločila moje maskirane junake izrezati! Tukaj so moje veseli maskiranci....

....Ozadje - mesto je Hero Arts štampiljka, netopirji v luni pa Lost coast design! Kar precej bleščic sem uporabila - Rangers Stickles, Copics markerje in Memento in Versafine blazinice!  Tudi za pisavo sem uporabila Hero Arts črke....tukaj je še nekaj slikc od blizu...

Tako - končno mi je uspelo čestitko za Craftalnico narediti pred zakjučenim rokom - ne vem dnevi mi uhajajo in velikokrat se mi zgodi da zamudim rok !
Vsem ustvarjalkam želim lep teden in veliko inspiracije!
Lep pozdravček 
Cardarian

This blog post is ment for the Slovenian Challenge blog Craftalnica - this weeks challenge is a sketch and I have tried to make it as close as possible - I am not really a Halloween person because I think Halloween doesn't belong to our culture but I tried my best to do well! Above you can see what I have done - the blog post is in Slovene as I am happy to take part in our home challenge!
Lots of hugs,
Cardarian