WOYWW 120

Caramba! Wednesday again and time to show and snoop. Huh, the new Blogger photo enlargement does give a slide show I agree, but you don't get the chance to REALLY enlarge a photo for a jolly good nosy :( Unless anyone knows differently, and no, I ain't got time to cut, paste into a document and then enlarge that many images when I'm blog hopping. Speaking of desks, this is the state of play here - and I had trouble loading the photos and can't get rid of the blank space above this posting - thanks again Mr Blogger:

I've dug out my favourite wood mounted Christmas stamps (are you banging your head on the desk yet?). Sorry, but I ain't a fast crafter so need to get my a*se in gear act together if I'm not to be caught out running late on card making for Christmas - The Crafty Elf frightened me into action, along with a few other bloggy friends:) So, now I have a constant reminder leering at me from my little shelf unit.

Onto the desk - ahem, pretty clear for me to the right hand side. Ha, let's just hope I get all the junk removed from our bed before this evening!

Still got the little red/pink glitter tray there as I'm making sparkled snowflakes and poinsettias whenever the mood takes me so I have a little stock of them to hand. And what's a fork doing there - have I been scoffing whilst crafting? Nope - making bows and the following pictures should explain - firstly using the bow maker so you can see the stages more easily:

 

Cut a length of your chosen ribbon, thinking about it you could probably keep the left hand end on your roll or full length of ribbon. Take the right hand end over the left hand end.

 

Tuck what is now the left hand end of ribbon underneath the back of the ribbon and bring it to the front over the top and tie a single knot. Result!

 

The front part of the bow is now facing away from you, just slip it off the pins of the bow maker. So far, so good. In truth, a bow maker is a bit of a luxury and some would say why spend money on one when you can tie perfectly good bows yourself. Well, this way does give you a lovely bow every time, it's quick and easy, the 'tails' hang down perfectly and I refuse to feel guilty about having a few tools to make life easier or the results a bit better.

But, teensy little bows can be a nightmare to make no matter how skilled you are. I need some for a card or three I have in mind and I suddenly remembered this little tip that I'd used in the past - I originally saw it on a craft show on the 'Tee Vee' and it's great if you're not very dexterous (hee, hee, got the big word for today in there!). So, get your narrow ribbon and raid the cutlery drawer for a fork!

Follow the same process as when using the bow maker and cross the right hand bit of the ribbon over the left hand bit

Tuck the 'now left hand bit' of ribbon between the prongs of the fork and bring it through the prongs, over the looped part to the front. Sheesh, I look as if I've got hairy backs on my fingers here. I promise it's just wrinkles in the skin - I've been and checked under a magnifying glass!!!

Tie a single knot, the same as you did on the bow maker bow

 

And here are the results :)) Have fun - it's almost addictive! 

I'm off now for my weekly hop around your desks. If I'm not there straight away it's just because I do spread it over a couple of days. To join me, go to Julia's here, she looks about to be buried under a pile of scrap stock!!

Happy WOYWW.

Di

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I'm whispering - Christmas is sort of under way here.

Yup, unable to settle to much in the way of card production yesterday, I decided to make some embellishments to have stored away ready for making Christmas Cards. Given the mess I make with sparkles everywhere - plus it's seems such a fag lot of extra work to make one embellishment (can that please be today's big word?) at a time - this is what I had a quick play with:

Sparkly Poinsettias

I'd seen the seven minute tutorial for making these pretties on Bev Rochester's Blog here but thought it was such a lot of work I'd give it a miss. However, when I already had everything to hand, apart from some moonstone brads which I swiftly obtained, it seemed daft not to at least try what seemed in advance a bit like peeing grapes............oh dear, I'm going to leave that typo there, of course I meant peeLing grapes:).

Bev's tutorial is worth a watch if you feel like following suit - and I have to say it was great fun making these and they're not as tricky or time consuming as I'd imagined. They sparkle beautifully in real life too! I don't work fast but they truly were very quick and easy to make. I need to make a few more of these, plus some red ones - quite therapeutic too :)

I'd forgotten to add the spacers behind the brads when I took the photo above, so flushed with success was I, but late last night I carefully removed the brads and added them.

The one thing I did differently to Bev was that I took the top off my bottle of Anita's glaze and used a smallish paintbrush to coat the petals before dipping them into the Diamond Dust. That was much easier and more controllable than holding a layer of petals in one hand and trying to manipulate a squeezy bottle in the other, Also, I tipped some of the Diamond Dust into one of those tray thingies with a little stopper on one end, making it easy to replace the leftovers back into the jar - and I was surprised how little I used too. A prolific card maker like Bev has a whole plastic food container full of the stuff of course :( What I'd do for a basket and ten minutes in her craft room to collect a bit of this and a bit of that!


The Boss is out today - 'playing with bows and arrows' as I call it - but, he said to mention just how delicious the Paupers Pie was that we had last night. We felt more like Royalty - it was sooo yummy! Thanks so much for the recipe Elizabeth - do go here if you fancy seeing what it's all about. As suggested, we had it with fresh crusty bread and tomato salad - def. one for the favourites list :))

Thanks for calling by!

Di 
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