Laura Rumble - Crafter

You caught a glimpse of it on my desk on Wednesday and here it is... I was at a bit of a loss as what to put on it as I had no wood to practise on and didn't know how hard it would be.  The leaflet in the pack unhelpfully suggested a heart with an arrow through it and initials, scratched on with a key.  I decided against this (he's not that kind of a friend!) and went for mainly straight lines and an Etch Art tool... because straight lines couldn't be too hard, right?  Wrong!!  I'd definitely like to have had a scrap piece to practise on first! Anyhoo, I plumped for bunting and a scratched message in the pennants.  I changed my mind as my hands and wrists hurt too much to do any more scratching, and stamped the message in StazOn. I bought a few and I definitely want to try again but only on a day when my hands and wrists are feeling particularly strong!! :)

Afternoon all! Here is a card for Less is More's one layer and doodled challenge. I sat last night and doodled a bird.  I had looked through a book by Walter T Foster called How to Draw and Paint Birds.  It's quite an old book, we found it when clearing my grandparents house, but frustratingly it has no date anywhere.  Grr! This morning I sat down with my doodle, a burgundy card blank, some white transfer paper, a white pencil and two white pens and doodled again.  The white transfer paper gave me the opportunity to get some matte fine lines, the pencil some soft sketchy strokes and the pens some highlights. I finished with an organza ribbon because I like ribbon!!  :) I'm quite pleased with it except for the eye which just doesn't look quite right.  Tips on drawing eyes greatly received!! I'm also going to enter this in to Crafty Ribbons Challenge - things with wings. Thanks for stopping by

Welcome to my desk! It's football crazy this week... I'm working on a mini album (my first!) of my visit to Anfield in 2004.  It's not turning out how I envisioned it.  It's more distressed, less pretty.  But I think I like it.  And I'm having fun making it... By the way, last weeks planned tidy didn't really happen.  I thought about it.  A lot.  The floor is a bit tidier.  Anyway back to the desk...  You'll never walk alone lyrics for inspiration... Various tools... football brads... the club crest... various red, white and black bits'n'bobs... football ribbon which I'm desperate to include somehow but it might not work now as it's evolved from the original design... paints... my trusty craft knife... a 'carve your own postcard' postcard (I'm going to do something on it for a male friends birthday - I thought it was a bit different!) and some button rub ons which I've left on my desk to make myself use them ...

So everybody is talking about zentangles...  What are they, I ask?! So I googled it, and then youtubed it and then had a go... I'm quite pleased.  It's not like me really.  You just free style it with no thinking it through and no planning beforehand.  And there is no pencil lines before ink, no rubbing out and no going back and starting again. And it's not meant to be perfect.  A concept I struggle with.  I'm sure you are not meant to analyse it when you've finished but other than seeing all the mistakes and things I'd do differently the large section at the top stands out to me.  I think it looks like bugs or insects!  Not at all what I expected when I started out. Probably something I will have a go at again.  Next time I'd love to throw some colour in too...  but then it wouldn't be a zentangle... would it?

I said I would and I did! Here is my Less is More card repeated but this time with butterflies instead of hearts .  I think I prefer the butterflies. Whilst making this one I kept coming up with slight variations I could try.  I'm particularly intrigued by the idea of flowers with three shades of green stitched stems... Maybe more to follow..!

My desk looks the same as it did last week! Piles of stuff with a little space in the middle hollowed out for working in. Look at that yellow sponge with dried paint on it - ruined!  Tut tut, Laura, tut tut! Still a little stack of washi tape - unused as I don't really know what to do with it. But it's not all bad.  The pack of chipboard shapes that have been out waiting to be used have been used . Bizarrely there is still some chocolate left from a week or two back... not sure how that happened!! I'm planning a big ol' tidy after completing the layout that I'm currently halfway through.  'Planning' a tidy and 'doing' a tidy are different things you understand! If you are wondering why I'm showing you my desk hop over to Julia's .  I'm off for a snoop now, I didn't get round many desks last week.

I used my Scrapmatts - at last!!   I won some scrapmatts last March.   (They are laser cut chip board shapes – really delicate and detailed…)   I opened them, ooohed over them, decided I didm’t know how to use them and put them in my cupboard. Finally, a year on, I’ve been brave and actually used them! I have really used them too… As a mask, a stencil and as an embellishment! First of all I mixed up some mica sprays and made a background by spraying over the chippies.   This didn’t work as well as I’d hoped and is really difficult to photograph. Never mind, onwards… I then used one of them as a stencil.   I drew around it in pencil first and then went over in pens that matched the mica sprays. Finally I ‘mica-ed’ up the chippies and layered them on too. Gutted my backing paper... cos I'm stingy!! Double matted my photo. It needs something more… Flowers. Finished with seed bead centres. And here is the fini...