Okay, okay ... partial success & a Snippet for Pixie

Can report partial success on three fronts ... well, it was three but now I can only remember two of them so will work on those and hope the other one comes back to me!
Firstly - have inky fingers so that can mean only one thing ... I HAVE been crafting today!!!!! And secondly - whilst not being entirely happy with the results I am NOT beating myself up about it and have actually enjoyed playing around all morning.
Started just after my post this morning at around 8.30 and stopped only when daddy came ... he sits eating a slice of something (just plain Victoria sponge this week) or dunking a biscuit and reading my Radio Times and I collect my eggs and milk my goats (just the virtual kind, on Farmville, but needs must!!!)  Have just finished now - so that's very nearly almost five hours of inking and stamping and Vagabonding and bashing yet more brads with the what-was-the-meat-hammer-but-which-is-now-my-brad-basher!
So the question I ask is ... how many snippets does a Pixie Challenge require?  I do believe it is just the one to qualify as a Pixie Snippet so how does 31 grab you?  Yes, you read that right and to make sure you don't think it is a typo I shall spell it in letters ... THIRTY ONE!!!!! 
I knew that somewhere I had sheets and sheets of those silly little 1" square "tiles" that came with my Cosmo Cricket kit but which I had never used because I didn't know what to do with them.  I figured I would make them my snippets this week and the idea of a patchwork effect began to filter through.  
Do you think I can find them?  Can I heck!  I guess I must already have sent them to the charity shop along with a whole load of crafty-stuff I had no intention ever of using ... that will teach me!
Soooooo, I gathered together all my little teeny-weeny bits of paper left and salvaged what I could and cut my own little squares so these cards really and truly are snippets!  31 (still not a typo!!!) on each card and I made three so that is either dedication or utter stupidity.
I thought I had a "cross-stitch" stamp ... again amongst some I have never used, but it turned out to be a zig-zag instead ... so, not quite the effect I wanted but hey-ho, go with the flow Debbie!
Also had a very tatty and crumpled small piece of hessian left over from some project or other and as it isn't large enough to use for sewing (which is what it would have been bought for originally) I argued it also qualifies as a snippet.  With very careful cutting and placing on the die I managed to get almost enough petals to make some flowers ... they are not what I envisaged AT ALL but am still calm and going with the flow here folks.
I chose one of my favourite sentiments and added little keys and, voila! 

Want to know what Pixie's Snippets are all about?  You can check it out HERE

WOYWW 144

Such a boring workdesk so far today ... having not yet really got going!  But it is WOYWW day so I figured any photo' is better than no photo' and I promise you it will not be as tidy as this in a couple of hours time!

Whilst having my major sort-out yesterday I found a box labelled "Cosmo Cricket Christmas" that I must have had for a couple of years or so now and had completely forgotten about.  In fact, I have had it so long my style has changed and I am unlikely to ever use it as was intended.  BUT a close inspection of the papers revealed they were not particularly Christmassy at all and will do very nicely in continuing my butterflies/cogs birthday card theme for this year.  I was sad to run out of my regular Cosmo Cricket stash of papers but am quite inspired again having come across these.

Be sure to head over to Julia's fabulous Stamping Ground and make the most of the opportunity to visit lots of other workdesks!!!

WOYWW 135

Well, first WOYWW of the new year and I've made it!!!!  Alas, not much yet to show on my workdesk as I am a bit slow getting going today but it is going to be a Tim Holtz / Cosmo Cricket day with stamping and embossing and inky fingers and string and ... well, Wednesdays don't get much better than this really!
You can just about see my "list of cards for 2012" under my scissors and can report that for the first time in a VERY long time the first cards of January were posted in good time to arrive on time and not with an "oops forgot to post" message scribbled on the back so now I just need to get going and get cards done for the rest of January.  Easier said than done because the idea I had in my head for this year's cards has yet to work out quite as I'd hoped and I had to send the first four cards of this year without me being entirely happy with them.  A day of tweaking then and hopefully improving the design so it turns out more like I imagined.  IF I am more happy with the results I will post finished cards later ... if not then you will get a photo' of a blank table or a pile of torn up failures!

 I knew I wanted to use "calendar blanks" on the cards for this year but did not fancy using shop-bought ones and knew if I printed them myself I would have trouble inking them as inkjet ink always smudges so I printed them onto acetate and the date of each person's birthday is in red and there is a little Happy Birthday message  personalised for each person along the bottom ... at least this way I can utilise the colour of the paper showing through the acetate and not have to worry about inking my calendars!  I love using string although it horrifies most people I know so have used that to "tie" the acetate to the backing.

Well, blogging away here is not getting those cards made so am off to see if I can tweak my ideas into something I am happy with.  Not holding out too much hope as my mojo has not yet fully returned and it feels a bit of an uphill battle at the moment.

Now, hang on - can't you actually buy birthday and anniversary cards from shops?  You know, all ready made and just needing signing ... might just be the better option!  ;)