WOYWW - Pawly Horace Gets Creative

Hello there, goodness, ANOTHER Wednesday? Really? But we only just had one. Well, if you insist. I guess that means another WOYWW then? Yippeee, it's the best bit of Wednesday in my furry opinion. All the
nosy curious bears and humans get to peak into other crafters' lives, courtesy of Julia at Stamping Ground.

With that in mind, would you like to see the bears' desk? It's Horace here today, I've bravely dragged myself out of my sick bed to show you our desk, as the other bears are all napping! Don't worry though, I have my special trapper hat on to keep my furry head warm.

On with the desk.... I'm finishing a journal page which I started on a visit to the cub, other people's stash is much more interesting than your own, and I had soon created a bright background, I borrowed the Indigoblu stamp as I wanted to stamp her up in red, and the cub only had black archival ink. I also borrowed some sentiment stamps, as I wanted to copy one and knew I'd never remember what it said once I was home. You can also see two Craft Stamper mags, the old telephone directory being used as a glue and wipe off book, the ipodgy, which Podgy generously allowed me to use, for a small fee of 60 Custard Creams........



Here's my finished journal page, eek, isn't it busy? Oh well, aren't they always when I journal?



Would you like a close up?



I'm off for a lovely hop around the WOYWW desks. See you soon......
Ooh, hold on! Don't go yet......have you seen our challenge? It runs for two months this time, so still time to enter. Have a look here for details, we'd love for you to join in.

With love from the bears

Sometimes....

..... I feel like throwing my hands up in the air, often with pleasure, but often in despair, and that's how I felt trying to make a tag for the challenge over at the Dragons Blog. The recipe this fortnight was Brown, Vellum and Hands. 'Ooh, that sounds good, said I' and promptly left my sick bed to start creating. I don't know if my bear flu affected my creativity but at first I just couldn't get started, despite loving the theme. I thought a small snack might help get my creative paws in action...



Coupled with a slightly alternative method of stamping...


I felt an idea stirring in my furry brain, so I foraged in the basket of inks....


I dabbed some distress inks - Spiced Marmalade, Scattered Straw and a little Vintage photo - onto an acrylic block, and spritzed them with water.


I pressed my tag into the inkyness, ooh, it curled up, neat!


After drying my tag, I added several splats of distress stain, in gathered Twigs and erm, ooh, I can't actually remember the other one's name, a reddish brown anyway! I then stamped a lamppost in brown Stayzon, and rubbed some of the erm, reddish brown stain onto a bottle cap, which I then dabbed randomly over the tag. I thought I ought to stop with the background effects then, I do tend to go for overkill sometimes!


I remembered we needed to include vellum, so I cut a small Tim Holtz Tattered floral, and scrunched it to make it even more distressed (it was so distressed by this point, it almost cried)!


After cutting some Dylusions hands, and snipping the original hands from my poor dancing lady image, I adhered the elements to the tag with 3d stickies, for a popping effect. The title comes not only from my frustration at the start of the tag, but also from the pop song that includes these lyrics, as I thought my lady looked like she might want to break into modern dance!


Here's a close up, the song will be in my head all day now.


Brown - Kraft tag and various brown inks
Vellum - tattered florals flower
Hands - stamped Dulusions hands

With love from the bears

Podgy's Wishy Washy way

Hola from the panda you all love! Horace et al are in bed with bear flu, so I thought I'd amuse myself by trying a technique from this month's Craft Stamper magazine - making your own washi style tape.




I selected some background stamps and some distress inks, and tried a new stamping technique.... Oh okay, I fell asleep, but it was an effective technique nonetheless.




I stamped up a cool and funky background - actually, you could use this as is for a journal background, but, having started my washi project, I thought I shouldn't be wishy washi over my original intentions!!




I cut my patterned card into strips.




Then inked the edges with distress inks. The magazine article suggests backing your strips with double sided tape, but I used Pritt stick to glue them onto a blank card.




Coolness! Gosh, I am soo clever!!




Ahem, I mean, what a clever technique! I added one of our previously made toppers and a sentiment to match...




Now I just need to pawposely forget someone's birthday so I have a reason to send the card.




I had an abundance of strips leftover, and a blue 'mop up' background in my journal, so I put them together




With a stamp or two - Alice in Wonderland, a pretty flower, and a flying fish or two - also adding some text from Alice in Wonderland
' Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to' said the cat.
'I don't much care where' said Alice
'Then it doesn't matter which way you go' said the cat.




I printed a directional signpost I found on the Internet to finish off my page. Here's a close up.

WOYWW - Card Making Mess

Good morning fellow bloggers, or evening even, if you are reading this after a hard day at work. Another Wednesday has sneaked up on us, but we don't mind do we? After all, it means another chance to legitimately nose at desks of crafters worldwide, ooh I love a good nose, Cedric has a long one, but not necessarily a good one!

Oops, sidetracked by noses, whatever next, but while we're on the subject, can you catch sight of my orange furry snout in the photo below? Wilbear panned in on the mess to prove we really are messy crafters, but he just caught my nose in the frame too (ouch!)




So, what is on my W anyway, and what on earth does WOYWW stand for, well to answer the second question first - because I like to live life front to back, or is it back to front? - Anyway to find an explanation for the acronym, press your orange furred paw here.

For an answer to the second question (if you managed to get that far without losing the will to live) look above! I'm in a card making mood, but also a stash busting mood, so I'm using scraps, mostly from the lovely September 2012 Papermaze kit. I really don't like waste, and always find I have large pieces of patterned paper left over from my scrapbook pages. What better way to use them up than to make a few paw made cards for charity? So far the bears have donated to Marie Curie, The Heart Foundation, Cancer Research, Suffolk Animal Rescue, German Shepherd Rescue in Scotland and Labrador Rescue also in Scotland, as well as donating cards and tags for local fundraising efforts, it's the most fun part about crafting, being able to give a little back. Well, that and the fact that crafting is hungry work, therefore more snacking is a must!!!

Here's one I made earlier, well, seconds ago, but we won't split fur will we?



Must dash, got to get my desk fix!

Podgy's Chalky Challenge

Yo, yo, it's Podgio, your most favourite bear! I've been pawrusing the latest issue of Scrap365, and liked the look of the chalkboard effect featured in it. I thought to myself 'I know a clever bear who could do that', so I did. First I typed some text on my Ipaw.



Then printed it out.


To the back of the text I added white pastel


I then placed the text onto some black scrapbook card, and traced over the letters.


Ooh, how clever.


Exhausted by my herculean efforts, I was in desperate need of a snack, what better than a healthy piece of toast, with Custard Creams on top.


For the final stage, I drew over the letters in white pencil.


Hey presto, chalky writing on a scrapbook page. Now I need to persuade Wilbear to take us to Duxford for a photo opportunity.

A is for Adolescent (with more Gelli)

Good Morrow, it's the much maligned Cedric here, I've managed to jump up to the creation station to create a page for the alpha challenge over at The Craft Barn . We have a French-English dictionary, and following the other bears remit, I searched for a word that translates to the same in both languages, hmmm.....

Ooh, got one, adolescent.

Now, I'm sure the bears won't mind me utilising one of their fab pre made Gelli prints. Cut to my dictionary size, they look rather funky.

Must make sure there is no ambiguity over the word and definition showing through.

Now for the bears' inimitable stamping technique. I'm worried that my tail looks big in this!

Paw cut my images

Stop for a bite of supper, just a small plateful for me. In case you're wondering, it's not cottage pie, it's bungalow pie of course!!!

Ta da, one altered dictionary page, A for Adolescent, with appropriate teen type words, and dancing teens, as music was a big concern for me when I was a teenagebear.

I added the words music, play, grow, freedom, fun, and it's all about me, as these are the words which come to mind when I think of the word adolescent.

I had such fun making this page, hopefully I'll be able to fight my way up to the craft desk more often.

Ooh, Wilbear reminded me to tell you, there's still plenty of time to enter our just for fun, literary based challenge, more details can be found here.
With love from the bears.

Gelli Canvas Prints

Hello there, Pooh here. Podgy offered me a play with his Gelli plate birthday present. I was almost bursting out of my onesie with excitement at the thought!


I decided to try something a little different, so collected a canvas from the bears' veritable stash. First I blobbed some camouflage colours onto the Gelli plate and brayered away.



Then I took a huge piece of bubble wrap, and pressed it into the paint.


When I removed the bubble wrap, I had a surplus of paint left on it and, keen not to waste it. I pressed it onto a spare piece of card in a very satisfying way. You should have heard the popping explosion - Podgy almost rocketed out of bed!!


Here's the paper bubble print.



Working quickly to make sure my painted Gelli plate didn't dry. I placed my canvas directly onto the plate. I worried My paws wouldn't apply even pressure to the canvas, and as I wanted to ensure an equal spread of paint, I came up with an innovative solution to my conundrum....


Ooh, Gelli canvas, how furbulous is that? I'll have to ask Wilbear to take us on a bears outing to Duxford War Museum, so we can get some military themed photos.


Of course, once I'd started on the Gelli printing, I got a little carried away, addicted? Me? Sorry, can't answer that, too busy Gelli printing!!!!



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