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

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 #446: Happy Mail + a Mistake

Happy WOYWW to my fellow deskers! 

For my guests who've never played along, you can follow the link, HERE, to Julia Dunnit's wonderful blog to find out more about her fun weekly blog hop.

Note: Please forgive my lack of comments this week. The eye has not wanted to cooperate lately, and has even been somewhat painful at times. This calls for more rest than I'd care to have, but (thanks to Shaz and Shoshi for the new term) this is the "new norm," so I might as well get accustomed to it. 

I haven't been an active participant in weeks, but I really have been otherwise occupied. Mostly, there's been a fair amount of Mail Art to get together, along with some Happy Mail for others who were kind enough earlier in the season to have sent me some very lovely surprises.

Happy Mail is so delightful, isn't it? Sometimes, it is a good excuse for being creative. I sometimes need an excuse, so that's really been fun for me. Recently, I was the recipient of some very pretty and creative Happy Mail from Becky at Aunt Bec's Creations. I know her mostly from her YouTube channel (which you may find by following the link HERE). Her channel features loads of fun videos, including some live streams. She and her hubby, Scott, also keep a blog together HERE.

Now to show you her wonderful Happy Mail creations! I used Photoshop to hide the 2 addresses.

Inside that glistening and richly decorated envelope, I found an example of her pretty, handmade seasons greetings. Gotta love it!

But wait - there's more! 

An entire decoratively cinched bundle of her handmade Painty Papers! Sheer awesomeness!!!

Here's what they all looked like together on my desk.

Aren't they pretty?

And now, last and certainly least, my big Mistake.

I really blew it on this one, which made my afternoon yesterday just miserable. Yes, Tuesday was a dismal day at the workdesk, during which my poor eyesight and its accompanying bad aim (a.ka. clumsiness) caused the utter ruination of my saguaro cactus greeting card art, above. 

The idea seemed simple enough for me to complete. I had a watercolor block that I thought would be just right for the purpose of doing a color wash style of a desert sunset using glazes. To that, I would add a paper cutting like a silhouette of a cactus on a hillside which would be decorated with holiday lights. Such a decorating technique has been used for years by people in the desert southwest of the USA, btw. The family member I was intending to make this card for lives in the desert, so this seemed appropriate.

What had seemed simple enough turned out to have been much too challenging for me, as my eyes simply weren't cooperative enough. While you won't be able to see the big final Mistake which ruined all of my painstaking work, you must trust me when I say that it was a complete mess at the end that couldn't be repaired. A mess is not what I had been aiming to send to a family member, but that's what I got in the end, a mess. It was actually a strangely tough project all through.

If it had not been for Becky sending me such good cheer with her pretty Happy Mail, I doubt I'd be joining you this week. So a great big Thank You to Becky of Aunt Bec's Creations !!!!!!

For those interested in viewing more of her creative spirit at work, she can also be spotted on Facebook HERE.

Happy WOYWW and Happy Holidays to my fellow deskers!!!

:)