WOYWW 589

 Yay!!!!  I'm here ...

... or am I?

Had SOooooo much trouble with this new blogger business and simply had to give up - if anyone is reading this then I guess I am here after all

Until yesterday when I really wanted to add some posts to my blog just for my own reference and continuity of what I get up to

Much hair pulling and uttering of really naughty swear words went on

lots of pleading with hubby whose reply each time was "all lost on me mate, I know nothing about blogging"

more pleading until he had no choice but to give in and suggest my browser (?) was too old to support the new blog thingy

he finally came from his side of the table to "take a look" & finally using his laptop I spotted a vaguely familiar format and actually managed to blog my rolling pin yesterday along with a couple of posts I had ready to publish but couldn't before now as I couldn't figure out how!

Quite why the powers in the know feel the need to change something that was working just fine for just about everyone is totally beyond me

but, right now, I must admit pretty much everything is totally beyond me

So, the point of all this drivel is to link up with Julia over at The Stamping Ground for the weekly hop around fellow crafty desks and to catch up on what we are all up to

I'm afraid I have not had time to join in for such a long time - firstly I try never to WOYWW unless I know I will have time to reciprocate any visits and secondly I worked hard to keep myself totally occupied during the first weeks & months of lockdown by doing a 15 week giveaway project

I planned on doing 12 giveaways to cover the originally suggested 12 weeks of lockdown but then figured it might go on a wee bit longer so went for 15 ... mostly for totally selfish reasons as I really became engrossed in the project and it most certainly kept me going 

Got a bit of criticism for it all of course - at the start I wondered if it might also be a distraction for others ... a sort of "goodness me, what is Debbie up to now" type of thing ... and to provide a little positivity during what were such unknown and scary times

but it backfired on me when it was suggested I had ulterior motives and was only after self-promotion ... I knew nothing was further from the truth and so tried to Move Past It and Carried on Regardless

Alas, my desk right now is somewhat bare ... inbetween projects and partly cleared away from doing my rolling pin earlier this week and partly set up for the next project ... the only dilemma being which one it will be!

Watch this space!

Apologies in advance if I do not manage to get to your desk this week .. shall try and hope it is not too different than with the old blogger 

although saying that there are a couple of deskers to whom I have found it impossible to reply as their blogs won't let me leave a comment

If I can work out how to get back to you then I certainly will

Rolling Pin - altered kitchen object

Finnabair recently did a live video where she altered a little coffee pot as inspiration for us to then alter a kitchen object of our own 

 Got to admit to not being a huge fan of altering objects just for the sake of it but was mostly inspired by Finn's colour scheme and an idea came to mind 

 In the early 1980's I used to make wedding cakes so a rolling pin was forever in my hands rolling out more marzipan & icing than I care to recall So a rolling pin was just begging to be altered! 

 I made many thousands of sugar-paste flowers - represented here by the metal flowers & piped out thousands of little individual lace pieces to then be attached one-by-one to the cakes & this is represented by the real lace on the rolling pin

 They are not too visible but there are two clock hands to make note of the very many hours each cake would take and there is a little white dove hovering amongst the flowers as I went under the name "White Dove Celebration Cakes" in those days - certainly no tatteredrocks in the building! 

 I knew I wanted to keep the rolling pin looking like wood but was very keen to use Finn's colour scheme as it is totaly different to anything I would normally do - and also using her liquid acrylic paints in a new (and VERY scary) way for me. I have only used them diluted in a water spray bottle before but Finn just squeezes some out and daubs and dabs with her paintbrush and magic appears before your very eyes. My magic was less successful but I was happy with the results The lace was dyed with tea and there is a list of products used at the end of this post

PRODUCTS USED : 

FINNABAIR (Prima Marketing) 

Art Basics Gesso - Clear / White Art Basics 3D Gloss Gel / Heavy Body Gel / Soft Gloss Gel 

 Art Alchemy Metallique Acrylic Paint - Silver Spoon / White Pearl 

Art Alchemy Liquid Acrylic Paint - Burn Sienna / Carmine / Tiger Orange / Umber 

Art Alchemy Metallique Wax - White Gold Art Alchemy Matte Wax - Charcoal Black 

 Art Ingredients Micro Beads - Copper Art Extravagance Glitter Set - Luminous Mitform Castings & Finnabair metals 

Lots of random metal bits from my collection 

Wooden rolling pin 

Small wooden dove Oddments of lace, ribbons & wire 

Oh, & a teabag!

Meet Huxley the Hare

This is a Powertex workshop that I was booked on to attend in May with the simply lovely Annette Smythe but, of course, the virus put paid to all that!

But imagine my delight when I found out Annette had made the class available as an on-line course along with the option of also purchasing the kit 

So whilst I missed out on being in her wonderful studio and enjoying her company (and cake!) I did get to make my little hare ... he has had many names but I have finally decided on Huxley

I did struggle to get the shape of Huxley's head and it is far from resembling Annette's but I have come to quite like his quirkiness

Can't thank Annette enough for all her support as I messaged her in a panic

at least doing it on-line I had to persevere and not hand it over to her and ask her to do it for me !

At one point I did have his nose spot on but then at some stage I squished it and did not notice until it was too late to correct but, hey, who is perfect anyway and I can live with his little twitchy nose ... it's kinda cute!

This is the link that will take you to Annette's website and from her home page you will be able to find both the on-line course and the kit Annette Smythe

Finnabair Patreon Challenge - Night Dreams

A new challenge was set by Finnabair for her Patreons with the theme being Night Dreams and the requirements being to use mica powders in at least two ways.

Being a lover of mica powders anyway I wasn't worried about that part of the challenge (for once!) and I instantly knew what I wanted to make 

Sent a template off into the garage for himself to cut for me from "anything wooden ... nothing special ... don't  mind it a bit rough " (the moons, silly, nothing naughty!!!!)

Back they came and after a little tweaking were exactly what I wanted ... himself is very useful !!!

My idea was to portray that dreams can be both dark & moody & scary but also pleasant & light & happy too

Unfortunately, right now, my dreams (and I am sure those of many) are rather on the dark & scary side

I used the same colours on both as I knew they would look very different on the black and on the white but I kept the dark one mechanical and the light one flowery ... at least that is what I tried to do

I really enjoyed making this but have yet to decide if I will share it in the Finnabair group ... it was suggested to me that it has nothing to do with dreams but I figure it is my interpretation so am just a bit confused right now over what to do

Time will tell!

The quote kinda says it all really 

PRODUCTS USED:

Finnabair (Prima Marketing)

Art Basics Heavy Gesso - Black / White

Art Basics - 3D Gloss Gel / Heavy Body Gel / Soft Gloss Gel

Art Ingredients Mica Powder :

Frozen Lake / Lilac Opal Magic / Purple / Teal / Deep Water 

Pale Silver / Gold Opal Magic

Art Alchemy Metallique Wax :

Brushed Iron / Old Silver / Electric Violet / Peacock

Blue Lagoon / Mint Sparkle

Art Ingredients Art Sugar - White

Art Ingredients Glass Glitter - Midnight Blue

Art Extravagance Glitter Set - Carribean

Finnabair Stars & Moon Mould

Resin (no idea what brand)

Tim Holtz Stencil - THS131