WOYWW : Donna.

Hello my dear bloggy friends!

I haven't posted for a while. I know I am a bad blogger but there are reasons for that! I had visitors and more visitors, but today I am going to post no matter what!
So what is on my work desk? Donna!

Yes my lovely friend has been here with her lovely boy Niall (isn't that a romantic photo)

and we have been travelling, eating good food 

 
having good laughs aaaaaand CRAFTING!!!!!!!

So what have we done craftwise....

here is the desk of last night......

what we did was we made a template (texture board) out of modeling paste, stencils and we used it on the gelli plate and here are the fantastic results..... texture plate..

and here are our mono prints which look very layered because of the way they were printed - there is a new video about this technique which was made by the Gelli plate company - do have a look!

Donna did loads of lovely bits for my journals and I was taught how to do randomness ( I can' t explain it on here but in future when I do stuff you will understand what the lessons were about!

Now here is something Donna has been working on for her collabor - art (using my stamps - she did clean them) sitting here in excrutiating pain because she managed to throw herself down a flight of stairs the very day she arrived and sprain her ankle ! Have you heard the one about nurses and doctors being the worst patients??? I will say no more.... he, he....

I have also recieved 2 lovely ATCs from Sam from Hettiecraft 

and Sarn from Stamping for pleasure!

Thats all folks - there will be more photos in the next few days but for now I think this is more then enough!

Lots of hugs and love from
Cardarian and Donna

WOYWW, Life takes over and then you have no time!

My dear bloggy friends!

A very good evening to all of you! It seems that life gets in the way of my blogging and crafting lately! I had very good plans to write about my travels and post a few posts about what I am doing and also send a few people long overdue ATCs, emails and my address for them to send me things ( Sandra from Stamping for pleasure and Janet from Fairy Thoughts) but all my plans came to a halt when my mom called saying she has some health problems and I had to rush over there (200 km away) to see her and sort her out! She is feeling better now so I am back home and working long hours - I will try to sort out everything and get back to normal but obviosly when you are at my age it isn't that easy to carry on when you have a bit of a shock!
Anyway I will get back to everybody and I will send off the ATCs tomorrow - they are all ready to be posted - just need to take them to the post office!
Next up - my desk - I had a rush job to make two cards for my daughter, she will be going to a christening of her friends little boy so she wanted a card to say thank you for the invitation and also a card for the christening so here is my desk after making them - a right mess.....

and here is what I made.... The card has a vintage baby photo - not the actual baby that will be christened!

I made the little envelope with my new envelope maker which is quite a practical little tool....very easy to make any size of envelope - big or small!

I hope to have some time on Sunday (Saturday I will be at my cousins 50th birthday party - another day when life takes over)  and write about my latest adventures I will get to Sandra and Janet as I finish this post and hook up to the WOYWW central! Whaaaat????? You haven't heard of it! You must have! It has been going on for 4 YEARS!!!!! Well go over to Stamping Ground and Queen Julia will tell you all about it!!!
Ok then I am off deskhoping and emailing people - see you sooooon!
Lots of hugs to all of you
CARDARIAN
PS : I have recently recieved yet another lovely ATC from Twiglet and as it came after I showed the rest of my lovely ATCs you can have a look at it now... thank you Twiglet - it is lovely!!

 

WOYWW - all about the crop and my desk....

Good evening my dear bloggy friends!

I am very late posting - the reason is I came back from England last night,  went to work early this morning and came home late and honestly I am soo tired but I thought I just must jump in to say a few things before I trott off to bed!
Number 1 : THANK YOU JULIA AND LLJ for a wonderful day at the crop! I know you had a lot of work organising this and it was absolutly amazing! It was just a great day of friends and crafters meeting and enjoying doing what they like to do,  having some really good food (LLJ thank you it was all yum, yum) and enjoying our occasional teas ( mhmmmm Julia you did very well with that) and we even had an amazing cake (Fairy thoughts - Janet uhhh I must get that recipe!) and lots and lots of chat!
Here is a picture I snagged from LLJ blog - I didn't take a single photo at the crop!!! Imagine that!! I was chatting and eating and drinking tea and finishing off some of my atcs and suddenly they said we were going home and they all packed up ( I had to also!) so in the end I didn't take a single photo! Please go to LLJs blog you will find loads of photos there - others have also put on lots of photos so have a look!

 
Number 2: THANK YOU to all the lovely girls that attended the crop! I had a wonderful time chatting with you and find that everytime I go I meet some lovely people! This year I was especially happy to meet Shaz Silverwolf and her husband - both amazing kind people! Shaz laid out a table full of lovely things for us to take home! All sorts of die cuts and other nice things! Her husbund helped my DBF with some computer problems! Thank you so much!It was also lovely to meet Debs who was sitting next to me and gave me some nice crafty tips! I can't mention all of you but you were all wondeful!!!
Number 3: ATCs - I gave everyone at the crop an ATC and got ATCs from most of the attendees! I have sent one off to my original swap partner who was Minxy! Now I didn't have anymore to send from England but at home I have another few so I will send them tomorrow to a few people in England and other parts of the world  - I won't say who - let them be surprised!
Here is my lovely collection of ATCs....

From left to right Kyla, Jo, Wipso, Donna, Janet, Helen, LLJ, Cash, Julia, Mary Anne, Shaz and Zoe!
Those are the ones I have recieved up till now....love them all - thank you to all of you!!!
If anybody would like to swap with me let me know and I will send you one!!!
So there that is done!
Number 4: Finally my desk - I haven't done anything but what you can see are bits of lino cutting I did when Jo was here and a crackled butterfly me and Jo made with this new kid on the block called Kroma Crackle - very good cracks!!!

 
I promise I will share some photos from my travels in the next few days just give me a day or two to organize myself!
Ok then time for bed!
Have a good nights sleep and I will see you all soon!

Lots of hugs and love to all
CARDARIAN

WOYWW 208, 4th Anniversary!!! WOW!!!!

Good morning my lovely WOYWW friends!

I have been away for a while - very busy galavanting around Italy, Slovenia and now England! Read about all our adventures in Italy and Slovenia on Jozarts blog she has visited me with her husband Dave and has done an excellant job reporting about all our adventures! We all came back from Slovenia to England last Thursday and the next day I whizzed of with my DBF on our annual MG club trip to the Isle of Wight ! I will talk about all that later but now there is more important stuff to talk about!
And what is that you ask????? it is the 4th ANNIVERSARY OF WOYWW!!!!! YIPEEE!!! Open a bottle of champagne and celebrate this wonderful idea of our Queen Julia from Stamping Ground who 4 years ago started this lovely gathering, got us all hooked and is the heart of all this lovely friendship that has evolved over the years! THANK YOU JULIA AND THANK YOU TO ALL WOYWWers for taking part in this event every week and making all this friendship splash around the globe! We are sooo lucky to be a part of this!!
Now even though this is the celebratory week we still must carry on with our regular weekly business so I will now show you my desk....well it is not my usual desk it is the dining table in my DBFs launge!

 

 

The flowers are to celebrate the 4th anniversary! I am making ATCs  - I have made a lot already so they will be sent out to the people I will not see at the crop but I will bring the ATCs to the crop to give them away as it makes no sense me sending them from Slovenia!



So there that is our usual WOYWW done - as said I will show and tell about my adventure on the Isle of Wight but here is just a line up of all of the MGs that went on this trip! - took a picture when we were waiting for the ferry!

 





My dear friends, have a lovely 4th Anniversary WOYWW - I will be around to see you all and ask you for your adresses so I can send some of these ATCs out! Thank you again for all your comments and friendship!
Lots of hugs and love to all of you,
CARDARIAN

WOYWW, All new order and a short video!

Good morning my dear bloggy friends!

Sorry I haven't posted last week - I was away visiting my mom - she had a new shower put in her bathroom and once you let workmen in your house you know what happens - the whole house was dusty so we did a big clean up from top to bottom - also cleaned the windows and my brother mowed the lawn and tidyed up the garden. It was nice weather so we had a BBQ one day and in general had a good time! When I came back home I started on a big clean up of my craftroom! It was a lot of work because there has been a mess there for a while and the problem was I just couldn't find things so I decided to make a big change get my act together and really tidy up....here are the results....at the end of the post there will be a little video which I shot this morning so don't have a scare when you see me - it was 6am and I just got out of bed - so no glamourous me ha, ha.....plus this is my first ever video with my little camera that isn't really a proper video camera.....
First some still photos......
Well I have put all my washi tape, special ribbons and most of my jewelry making stuff in tin boxes, you can see my Crafty individual stamps peeking out of a box...the other 2 boxes are also full of stamps - I can't really write down all the different makes but in the black box there are just Hero arts stamps....

In the white box on top I have Paperartsy and Dylusion stamps - the black box holds La Blanche stamps and in that yellowish box I have Papermania, Stampattack, Artistic outpost and a few other companies....

Although this bit doesn't look like it is organized it is - I have sorted all my pencils, brushes, stencils - even when I had order it was never as good as it is now ( I better not mention how many things I have found that I thought I have lost! :-) )

 Here are my TH dies, Sizzix and Spellbinder dies all organized and easy to reach - on top some glues and various mediums for painting....

 And the other side - I finally organized my papers - they are organized by color and use ( stamping papers and crackly and stuff like that) I have also got up to organizing some of my stamps into files - I will show how I did it next time....

And last but not least a short video of my newly organized room - it is not at all anything professional and as I said an early in the morning spur of the moment thing but it is my first go at something like that so have a laugh ....
That is all I have to show for today - I will be visiting you all soon!
Lots of love and hugs to all of you
CARDARIAN 

PS: I am very sorry but my video did not want to upload for reasons that are not clear to me - I am blaming mr. Blogger! Hopefully next time I will be able to show you a video of my craft room!

WOYWW, ATCs and colorful spring!

Good morning my dear bloggy friends!

Are you having a lovely bright and sunny morning like we are??? I hope you are...
I have been doing my spring cleaning - so far I have managed to do the big terrace, lounge and kitchen - the bedroom is not a problem but the craftroom - that is a BIG problem! Huh!! But I have a plan and I will tackle it! 
I will soon reveal my lovely new order! :-))
At the moment there is no order - a big mess I should say - I have been making ATCs for the WOYWW swap - I will show some of them as I am giving away loads - I guess it will still be a surprise to the person who recieves the ATC as what she/he sees on my desk might not be what she /he gets.
So the desk of today....I was too early taking the picture to be able to catch a ray of sun on it.....

What you can see are a few ATCs in the front,  my special sequins container 
( I store sequins that are unusual shapes - like leaves, flowers, shells - by the way if any of you know of an online store in England that sells this sort of stuff please let me know), a big bunch of precut ATCs - they are all different sizes - I guess there is a confusion because some places use inches for the size of them and some use milimeters...the fact and the matter is that they should be 3 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches or 64mm x 89mm but people who sell them obviosly don't know that! Hmm what else can you see - two pairs of scissors, TH DI Vintage photo and a Stampin up stamping pad in olive, oh yes and my ATC stamps, and a little plastic box where I keep my Cut n Dry foams for my distress inks,  also a jar of flowers! If you see anything else - good for you! Ha, ha...
I still haven't started on the Gelli plate! The reason is I want to have time to play and I am putting together a selection of homemade "tools" to use on the Gelli plates! Julia Fei-Fan Balzer gives some excellant advise!
Of course I can't walk away without a few colorful spring photos! Enjoy!
A lovely pink....

two different purples....

and yellow and red....

That's it for today....have a good snoop and expect me to come and have a snoop at your desk too!
It is all the idea of a certain nosey  lady at Stamping Ground - go over there and find out!
Lots of hugs to all of you,
Cardarian

WOYWW, Ally Pally haul!

Hello my dear friends!

I hope you are all well and happy enjoying the spring that has finally sprung! We went from -5 deg C just last week to +23 deg C yesterday! Lovely change! Still I didn't feel it straight away as I was in England where we had rain and not very warm - quite windy! I did have a good time with my DBF, we went to Ally Pally on Saturday so that made me very happy! My knee didn't like the walking around and standing in queus but it was worth it as I have seen a lot of new stuff and of course I left  a lot of money there!Huh!
So to say something about the show - I think it was good that it was in one of the big rooms -  a lot easier to breath! As always there were queus everywhere - all the stands must have made a lot of money! 
I think the biggest sale belonged to Clarity Stamps - they were promoting the Gelli Plates - you could either buy the gelli plate and the brayer or a kit they put together that had some acrylic paint and some other things with it! Unfortunatly the demoing of Barbara Gray was very hard to see as there was such a crowd - she did have a demo in the dedicated area but that was full too so I didn't see much of that but I did buy the gelli plate and brayer!  
I spent some time at the Paperartsy stand and some at Creative impressions and of course I tried to see as much as I could at the Gelli Plates..
I met Helen from Stamping by H, Sam from Hettiecraft and Darcy from Art and Sole - they are or used to be WOYWWers.....I was really happy to meet Darcy as we have been in contact before but never met in person so that was really nice! I didn't meet any other WOYWWers but honestly it is hard to find people in that crowd! 
So finally here is my Ally Pally haul..... lots of stuff - let me show you some of it in detail...

  Gelli plate, brayer  and Panpastels.....

Paperartsy stamps, Fresco paints, Grunge paste and Treasure gold.....also you can see Gilding flakes and guilding glue from Cosmic Shimmer....

 

 I also bought a load of dies that I wanted for a long time - Memory box and some other ones...

As you can see there are also other bits and bobs - I got some rubons, glitterations and stickers - all comes in handy and it was at a good price! 
I haven't done anything much since I came home from England - I think the travelling and all that walking around has worn me out a bit so I am having a rest from crafting! I will probably be back in the swing next week when I will be showing you some of the ATCs I am making for the swap and I will try out this Gelli plate - see how that goes!
Have a lovely week - enjoy your weekly snoop and if you don't know what I am talking about go to Stamping Ground where you can find all the info about this world wide madness!
Lots of hugs to all of you,
Cardarian

 

WOYWW, Spring has sprung!

Hello my dear friends!

I hope you are having a lovely sunny spring morning as we are! Finally!!! It was a long wait for this sun but it did come eventually! I was getting really depressed as there was no end to the winter! I am looking forward to the next days when we are supposed to have around 20 deg C! YIPPEE! But first I am travelling to England tomorrow to visit my DBF and also to attend the Ally Pally! I hope to meet a few WOYWWers there! We will have a quick cup of coffee and a chat and then run around to see what is new in the world of crafting and also spend a bit of dosh no doubt! Oh I am looking forward to this event!
But at the moment it is time to show our desks to all of the world! What??? You haven't heard about this mad thing??? Well if you haven't then I recommend you go over to Stamping Ground where our leader Queen Julia has all the info for you!
Soo without further ado here is my desk - still sort of tidy well not really....I haven't had much time this week to do crafty stuff but I did manage to make a card and some backgrounds for ATCs - that will be for our WOYWW swap!

There are a few empty boxes and a pill box which I intend to decorate and use for various crafty things like buttons, thin dies and stuff like that! He, he a bag of jellies, a few sprays and yes those eggs are still there...
Here is another shot of my desk where you can see more of the mess...

In front there are my Dylusions sprays, my Big shot and some digital downloads I intend to use for my ATCs..Also my ATG and lots of other junk - he, he have a snoop you might find something I don't even know about! 
Here is the card that is sitting on my desk but for the purpose of the photo I took it to the kitchen where the light is much better!

This card will be put in for our Slovene challenge CRAFT-alnica  where they have a color challenge - the card was made with dry embossing and then I used the Faber Castell PITT markers to color the embossed bits, added a Donna Downey tag, stamped the sentiment and added a few other bits! 
So thats the crafty bit of my post today and now comes the spring bit! 
A few primroses flowering away on our faculty grass...

And a crocus in full bloom....

Thats all folks! Have a lovely week - I will be away but I will try to visit some of you this week! And I hope to meet some of you at Ally Pally!
Lots of hugs to all of you,
Cardarian

WOYWW, I have a clear desk but.......

Good morning my dear bloggy friends!

How are you all today??? Some of you are basking in the morning sun - some of you swimming in the endless rain! Well we have snow and rain happily married together for the last few weeks! I think my eyes have a membrane over them so if we ever see sun again I won't be able to look at it!! Still there is one thing we can not make to suit us - that is the weather so I guess we will have to deal with it whatever it is like!
I visited my mom over the weekend and since I came back home I haven't done much crafting. Before I left I made some Faberge eggs which you can see here. 
Now here is my desk for once clear! Nothing on there except 2 eggs that have been colored but not decorated....to me this is as clean as my desk ever gets but I am sure to a lot of you it still looks a mess....

I need to get up to making ATCs for the WOYWW anniversary plus other projects are pending....
He, he but don't be fooled by this photo.....the desk might be clear but my couch that is on the side of the desk is one big mess....haven't had time yet to sort that mess out....

Lots of stuff on there - stamps, cardstock, sizzixs plates, embossing foulders, ribbon,  stickers.....and on the right hand side a bunch of Christmas cards I have started to make ( one a week) but stopped making them as I was busy with other stuff - I better get back on track with that!
So there enjoy the snoop and join in as the world snoop is on at Stamping ground where our Queen Julia reigns! 
Have a lovely week - I will have time this week and will try to visit as much of you as possible!
Lots of hugs to all of you,
CARDARIAN

Faberge eggs

Hello my dear bloggy friends!

I am still doing the rounds from last weeks WOYWW - huh! Well Easter was inbetween and I have been away so there is a bit of an excuse! Still I hope I at least visit people who have visited me....
I have something to show you - I always thought one of the most beautiful Easter art were the Faberge eggs! These amazing detailed jewels fascinated me since I was a little girl! I guess all of you know the story of the Faberge eggs! The Russian Zcar gave his wife and daughters these lovely little gems for Easter every year!They were made by the jeweler Faberge especially for the royal family! 
I have made a few for my family - my mom, my brother and my daughter!
What I made is not even close to what the actual Faberge eggs look like but it is an experiment!
I colored the stiropor eggs with metal acrylic paints and then decorated them with german scrap, gems, glass flowers, pearls....
Here is what I have made

As this is something very much "vintage" it is my contribution to the Slovene crafting challenge CRAFTALNICA....
 I hope you like my faux Faberge eggs! 
Lots of hugs to all
Cardarian

More Easter Cards

Hello my dear bloggy friends!

I am back with a few more Easter cards! I should have showed this before but life took over - still it might come handy for a last minute card....

Well this one is not last minute - I spent half a day on this one....it is for my mom - a religiose one, to make this card I used a bunch of Paperartsy stuff - Smoothy paper, Crackle glaze - various Fresco paints and Treasure gold and one of their stamps! I die cut the cross with a Spellbinders die and added a metal corner embelishment! Also a paper doilly which I covered in Treasure gold!

This close up shows quite a few layers of paint and treasure gold....

Next up a bunch of bunnies.... I used flower soft for the little flowers in the grass - I think it looks so cute...

And here is another play with die cuts......

I did make many more but I did do variations on colors or embellishments! Anyway I hope you like my little selection!
I will be off to my moms - the whole family is gathering for Easter Sunday!
Wishing you all a lovely Easter - take time to spend with your family and
Aleluja praise the Lord our Saviour! Easter blessings to all of you!
Lots of hugs and love,
Cardarian