WOYWW 267

Wednesday again but no workdesk to speak of as I have cleared everything away for my holiday ... did have the Gelli out earlier in the week and had a marathon session with it but did I think to take photos?  Did I heck!  They would have been a bit on the boring side as I just made a repeat of the Maya Angelou saying that I made last week - made two to send to lovely, lovely ladies known to everyone here but am keeping quiet as I want their arrival to be a surprise.  I made another one for someone who commented on the original one I made and I made four to leave in each of the B&B's as we leave on our imminent holiday in Ireland to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary!

And in case you don't know what WOYWW'ing is all about then check it out HERE - a chance for us in blogland to hop around the desks of fellow crafters all over the world and see what they have on their desks on this What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday!

So you don't want to see eight photos all of the same thing but in case you missed it they all looked pretty much like this one that I gave to MaggieC (Silvercrafter) last week after she took me with her to Maria Simms workshop in Shrewsbury.

Maria's workshop was very interesting and a lot of fun ... a style of crafting that I would not normally do and which is not really my "thing" but I learnt a couple of new techniques and am now the proud owner of those fabulous Clarity stencil brushes ... still trying to decide between them and my much used blending tools but can see how they will both have a place in my crafting.  The stencil brushes do give a lovely soft effect and I look forward to having more time to play with them when I get home.

We tackled four projects at the workshop ... all based on the one cottage stamp - the first being a row of cottages to make a street scene and then my first ever use of a stencil brush!  It shows the masking using a post-it note technique at its best.

Next project was the use of the ploughed fields stencil ... the stamp and the stencil all from Clarity obviously ... and using just two colour distress inks to get the shading of the ploughed fields.

Sorry the photo is sideways ... it was taken the right way around and appears in my photos on the Windows explorer thingy as the right way round but post it here in blogland and it is sideways!  You'll get the idea though - just don't crick your neck trying to look at it please!

Then we had to use masks and do weird and wonderful things with the placement of the stencil which, as you can see, I totally messed up.  Was about to start this one again when Maria cheerfully said "it's a path leading through the fields" ... and as that so reflects my new life right now I thought "Oh, ok!  I can live with that mistake then!"

The last project of the day was a Christmas card ... combining masking and using the stencil brush to build up the sky.

So whilst these are not cards I am likely to reproduce I already have ideas to use the stencil on the Gelli plate and, as MaggieC pointed out, if you look at the stencil sideways (not hard when it appears that way here already!!!) you see a beautiful feather!

SO thanks again to Maggie for letting me use so many of her fabulous Clarity products and I look forward to the next workshop with Sally-Ann Hanes next month!

Happy WOYWW'ing everyone!