WOYWW #487: A New Project

New projects take time, especially when one is starting from scratch. This one offered a series of challenges, and so it took months for me to design and make everything. I really enjoyed this process. Please forgive me if I am unable to leave many comments. The eyesight issue has its challenges as well, but I'll try and visit as may of you as possible this week regardless.

For anyone new to this fun and perennial Wednesday Blog Hop, please visit Ms Julia Dunnit's blog for more information by following the link HERE. 

The story of this gift I made for a friend may be seen in the pictures in this post. For more on how I made the faux sewing buttons, please follow the link HERE.

Happy WOYWW!

~Rose

How To: DIY Custom Buttons

If you're at all like me, you love sewing notions of all kinds, especially BUTTONS!

Sometimes, it may be difficult to add a regular sewing button as an embellishment to crafting projects as these can be too heavy and/or too thick, especially for snail mail gifts. So I came up with a new solution very recently when I was making a gift for a friend named Lisa Conway at Lisa my Eclectic life. She has a YouTube channel as well as a Facebook Group. She and I both love to collect buttons and other sewing notions. 

These Directions will hopefully show you a new way of making customized buttons for your creative projects and even for gift wrapping or other projects. This all began with another project that I'll possibly be posting about here in time for the weekly WOYWW Blog Hop (that I miss most weeks) the first week in October.

NOTE: I used a colored Sharpie to color the insides of the holes prior to finishing the Button's circular edge. And I often used a desktop style Magnifier in order to see details better.

The top layers of all buttons shown here are of 140 lb cold press watercolor paper decorated with several layers of acrylic paint, but any heftier weight water media or mixed media art paper will no doubt work well enough. I painted an entire sheet first, then used 2 paper punches, one ATCoin sized (2.5") and, for the other, 1". Using acrylic media on watercolor paper makes the paper a bit more rugged, a tad bit like leather, as those of you who were interested in my ATC Treasure Box Project last year may have already noticed.

If you have any questions about this project, please feel free to leave a comment below.

I really enjoyed this process as it's a lot of fun. I plan to make many more buttons like these of different shapes and sizes in future. Won't you join me?
:)

WOYWW #480 : News + a New Process

Greetings everybody!
it's been a very long time since I last found the time to enjoy a Workdesk Wednesday. For any readers who might be new to this fun weekly blog hop, please follow the link to Ms Julia Dunnit's blog HERE.

There's news about my health, but I thought I'd first share with you a little process that I've invented. Each photo tells its part of the story. I hope you'll find it useful. This is an older project. I've been waiting for the right time to share it.

One of my "Scotchi Tapes" from a previous project.

Actually, it was a set of 4 small jars, not 3.

OK now for the boring, serious bit. I found out about a month ago that they really couldn't restore my left eye's sight. I kind of already had a sneaking hunch that was going to be the case, but it was not a relief to hear it. Too much nerve damage, they tell me.

There is a lingering possibility that a similar problem could eventually occur to my right eye as well. That fear factor is depressing, so I will say no more about that now. Suffice it to say, I am now being choosier than ever as to how I will spend my remaining eye strength. There is nothing so critical as this for me.

On the up side, however, there are to be no other intravenous high dose steroid treatments, so that's a relief in and of itself. The doctor's focus is now on keeping my remaining sight safe, so I will be needing glasses. These will act as a form of safety glasses for the purpose of keeping unwanted things from reaching either of my eyes.

I've never needed glasses prior to this trouble, so you won't find me complaining. At age 60, I'd say that has been a blessing.

NOTE: Please forgive me if I am unable to read everything or to respond to every comment or post. Rest assured, I am eager to see what everyone's been up to in my absence, and so intend visiting every participants' post this time around. Time to get started! 

:)

WOYWW #461 : Gelli Experiments

I had wanted to do this for a very long time. I really like circles in random patterns. What I came up with was a new way of using circles on my gel plate for a different effect than a stencil could provide.

As of this writing, the left eye's been achy for hours, so sorry, but I can make no promises about either commenting or responding come Wednesday.
:(

For those who are interested, the WOYWW fun starts with our ever intrepid leader, Ms Julia Dunnit. Please follow this link HERE for the details.

I will let the photo captions tell this story.
:)

Happy WOYWW everyone!

Wonky Altered Box for Paper Storage

This project took me a while to finish, about 10 days. It still isn't quite how I wanted it to be.

I will let the photos for it tell the story this time.

WOYWW #453 Happy Mail from a Facebook Friend

The number of comments and visits I am likely to make this time around will be limited to whatever my eyes will tolerate.

I am looking forward to finding out what my fellow deskers have been doing recently! For those of you who are new to the wonders of this fun weekly blog hop, please visit the blog of the Queen of the Deskers, Ms Julia Dunnit. Her deskers like to meet up very Wednesday.

Eye health report: No cure yet, although I am now trying a nutritional option called Taurine.

I used to say that I would never try Facebook again. I had a dead account there for years that I never used to use. Recently, though, a number of really nice people kept urging me to try it again. So I did! I revived that dead account. Since that time, I keep meeting more and more fun and interesting people at the various Facebook groups I've joined. And I now even have a small, select group which I've given the same name as this blog, but that is in connection with my older, bigger blog, Plush Possum Studio. 

It's nice to not always need to type comments when a thumbs up, heart or emoji will often do. If the eye is having a decent day, I chat along and have a grand time at the various groups I've joined there. 

One of the people I've been getting to know at Facebook (this time via YouTube first) is one Lisa Conway. Follow the link HERE to her fun channel, where you'll find her arting using gelli printing, watercolors and many other fun, creative things.

Recently, Lisa and I began talking about one of the products she'd been using with her gel plate, a form of wrapper for sandwiches that she'd happened to run across via serendipity at a Thrift shop. I had never heard of those before, and I really enjoyed how she was using those pleated paper wrappers in the printing process.

The next thing I knew, she was offering to send some to me, free of charge, so that I might try using some myself. Of course, I was both grateful and excited at the prospect of trying the Pleatpak wrappers. But she didn't stop with the wrappers. Oh, no. Wait until you see what else she's given me!

Buttons (!), lace, colorful circles for collage or embellishments, decorated paperclips, paper flowers, and so on....

Pure treasure!

I must confess to having never used napkins in any of my work before. Perhaps it's time.

Below are the wrappers. Notice the neat pleating? Well that is the cool part of using them in the making of gel prints. I will leave it to you to imagine....

Lisa,

Thank You

for this wonderful and inspiring 

cache of pretty goodies!

I love all of it.

WOYWW #448 New Year's Day Fright

Please forgive me for not commenting this week or featuring any new projects here. 

Everything's up in the air right now since I experienced a new symptom on Monday. Today we are all just holding our collective breath and hoping for the better. The left eye area's been aching. But that's been a problem since September. The new problem is a different one.

For more info on this fun blog hop, please go where the WOYWW fun starts at Ms Julia Dunnit's most excellent blog HERE. (You may also click on the WOYWW badge in the right hand column if that link is not set up yet)

I will admit to having some fear to get over. This new development has knocked me into a bit of tailspin.  It's making me doubt any future plans. I'm afraid to start anything new right now. My creative corner is lacking one ingredient: me. 

Not that there's been any sign of a second gray veil developing to the right eye this time - at least, not as of Tuesday night. The sudden symptom was happening when I woke up Monday morning. It was different in detail to the very first symptom which heralded the grey veil to my left eye (now still visible to me). The very real similarities between both times truly have me feeling skittish about planning for anything new, at least for a while.

Anyway, if you don't see anything new or current of mine being posted here or elsewhere online at some point down the road, you needn't be surprised. Meanwhile, let's keep hoping for the better and maybe a second veil isn't about to happen after all.

A diagram of what seems to be going on. 

At least, according to 1 of my doctors there's a 
very real chance that it could be.
I refuse to mope, yet there it is.
(I am BORED with me, so 
let's for heaven's sake 
talk about something else for a change.)

Image Credit:

https://www.naturaleyecare.com/eye-conditions/optic-neuritis/