WOYWW journal, Gelatos and junk

Once again Wednesday rolls around and you know what that means ...

I'm just fancying up that pink sketch book journal with some nice paper and some diecuts. You can see some new Gelatos there as well. My original (larger!) box has been temporarily mislaid and I've stopped looking for them. They will turn up ... eventually. So I played with the new Gelatos (left) and remembered that I really like them and must make better use of them :)
Lastly, I think I "need" some Spectrum Noir markers, so have been studying the colour chart to see which ones I "need" the most :)

Have a good week and I'll catch up with you, sooner or later, via Julia's popular corner in blogland ... the Stamping Ground.


BTW, the "junk" refers to where the Gelatos could be buried, as in underneath said junk.

WOYWW a book bounty ... a bevy of books ...

... a brace of books? a barrel of books? Well, lots anyway!

Today's WOYWW is all about books, in various states of undress ... recycled or remade.

This book is moving along with Elizabeth's altered book project. Here we are reinforcing the inside cover. On the left hand side is a rather nice piece of card I have been saving (because it is was too good to use!) Same madness logic applies to that spotty brown tissue in the centre and my ever favourite Glimmermist has been sprayed on the right hand side. It's a work in progress ...

And below is how my "desk" appears this morning, right this moment, well it did before I left to come to work so I hope it stills looks the same when I get home. (See Elizabeth, I told you my computer was in a different suburb ... that is, the one with reliable internet access anway.)

In between fiddling with the AB, I came across an idea for making books from recycled cardboard boxes. Not an astonishingly new idea of course, because I've been cutting up and using bits of cardboard from all sorts of grocery boxes for ages, and you probably have too, right?  (And large cereal boxes make great work surfaces for paint and glue.)

Here's a quick look, if you're interested ...

open the box out completely, glue and fold ALL the edges, keep in place with your special craft pegs

now it will look like a book cover (sort of)

You can see some of these "covered" in the "desk" pic above.
The tiny lilac one in the bottom left hand corner is kind of finished, with hand sewn pages.
There's more to be done, come back next week for another exciting instalment of book recycling, one way or another!

Oh, and I was going to show you my latest op shop goodies,

but that's enough for now, right?

And, the whole point of this "show and tell" is to see what everyone else is up to

this fine Wednesday. See you at Julia's.

WOYWW the trashy novel got the upper hand

You remember how I said (well maybe I didn't actually say, but I think you guessed), that I had to specially buy a book that I couldn't possibly ever want to read, if I was going to deliberately "alter" it?  So I started removing pages from it as per Elizabeth's instructions and naturally, because it was "the printed word" I couldn't resist reading little snippets of it, here and there, and then I had to hurriedly read a few pages before I glued them together. Which only goes to prove that I will waste my time reading anything! And if you have this same affliction and you want to alter a book I suggest you try and find one written in a foreign language and if you do could you please send one to me, but not in French, because I would be tempted to try and read that too!

Anyway, I got my own back on the book by cutting a chunk out of it ...

The above book altering stuff is off to the side, so here is my "real" workspace,
and look how neat it is ...

Yes, I did place that book there deliberately, so you had something to look at! It's new and I like it a lot! If by any chance, you are zooming in (although I'm not sure why you would), the chocolate boxes are empty (of chocs), they are being used for storage, of course. Enough for now, I'm off to visit Julia's Wonderful World of Wednesday Workdesks.

WOYWW an extra day?

As today happens to be 29 February, a once-every-four-years kinda day,

which makes this a longer year than normal, would it be possible to get more done today? No, probably not. But I'll try anyway.

Here are the fruits of my meagre creative labours ...

The open book is being "altered", pages have been removed,

(trust me, they weren't worth reading),

and some pages have been glued together,

to make a more substantial background for painting, etc.

Some of the torn out pages have been given a new lease of life already,

(right hand side, next to UK Craft Stamper). And I think those oil pastels might get a work out somewhere in the book too. See that large stamp (next to oil pastels, borrowed from Sandra ... the stamp, not the pastels), well, you know where I am going to use that now, don't you? The colourful tag (on top of the stamp) is also from Sandra. Isn't that amazing, what you can do with those oil pastels?

Why all this show and tell?

It's What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday

You knew that, didn't you?

WOYWW ripping yarns ... or ripping pages

As mentioned last week I have found a suitable book for altering.

Following Elizabeth's very clear preparation instructions, I have started tearing pages out (the other method involved far too much glue).

So, here, today, you can see some pages ripped out of the ripping yarn book

(but not interesting enough to actually read. I don't think the literary world will be any the worse off if I alter this book beyond recognition). Have started coffee staining some pages. There's one sitting on a small cutting board.

What, you use your cutting board to actually cut?

The other side is stained from polymer clay too.

 The blue and white page in the middle is a new colour of misting spray which I made the other day. It's not an exact science, so it turned out rather well, don't you think?

Those postcardy things are freebies which you can collect around the place.

I find them irresistable.

Here's a question for you ...

Why did I actually NEED to buy ANOTHER book for this project?

And this only shows you about a third of the whole "library". Eeeek!

Now, I'm off to visit Julia and her Wonderful World of WOYWW.

You can come too.