WOYWW 864/84: Merry Christmas to All

Welcome to the weekly sharing of desks which is WOYWW (What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday?), the brainchild of Julia, who kindly entrusted it to me to continue after the first 15 years of togetherness.  Please feel free to link up your desk and visit others' - we are a friendly bunch.  Welcome to the Christmas edition for 2025.

As promised, my desk shows a Christmas card for you all in lieu of posting any.  I wish you all a very Happy Christmas and hope that you all enjoy a restful time as far as possible.  Thinking of Neet especially and all those struggling with illness / difficulties.

I admit to cheating a little and finishing the advent puzzle a day early so that I could share it with you today.

I thought I would give LLJ and Twiglet a good laugh with this last drawing.

Off to meet up with my boys and my brother- and sister-in-law at Trentham.  Today would have been Paul's 70th birthday.  Later, I will wrap presents (always my Christmas Eve tradition) ready for seeing the family over a Mum's tomorrow.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy WOYWW.  Can you believe that next week will be our last meet up for 2025?

Elephant Family Mini Make - Never Forget

It would have been my late husband's 70th birthday tomorrow and I wanted to create something to remember the occasion.  I adore the Family of Elephants stamps from Clarity Crafts and decided to combine them with a small alcohol ink / gel press background from a recent workshop with Barbara Gray.

Alcohol Gel Print Panel Card

 I am still using up the multitude of backgrounds made in the Alcohol ink / gel press workshop with Barbara Gray.  Here I used an offcut of a larger background to create a panel card.

Batch Making Mini Christmas Cards

 I had some die cuts left over from my Make and Take at the Anglo German Club (see HERE), so decided to batch make some mini Christmas cards on 4" x 4" white card blanks.

Art Nouveau: Ideas and Inspiration

I thought I would showcase some of my Art Nouveau projects using the stencils and both the full size and Bijou stamps from Clarity Crafts.  As always, the links to the projects are below each photo.

Bijou on designer card (see HERE).

Gift Tag Batch Making

 I needed some tags for Christmas presents and decided to batch make a set using some of the Landscapes by Barbara tags as a starting point.

Winter Cottages

I kept things simple with the last Clarity New Design Stencil Club offering of 2025, although I loved both projects that accompanied it.  As the larger infill elements came with it, I was able to use them to mask and add different colours through the apertures.

WOYWW 863/83: Manic Time

Welcome to the weekly sharing of desks which is WOYWW (What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday?), the brainchild of Julia, who kindly entrusted it to me to continue after the first 15 years of togetherness.  Please feel free to link up your desk and visit others' - we are a friendly bunch. Many apologies for not leaving messages last week - I managed a quick round of visits, but between rehearsals, sample making, family time and yesterday's concert I didn't manage to leave messages.

I have got as far as finding a couple of empty boxes for my new stamps but that is as far as things have gone.

My advent jigsaw has sometimes been completed very late - this is as far as I have got.

I have only kept up with my #dailyart2025 by being ruthless about a maximum of 15 minutes - and mostly 5-10.

The concert went well yesterday afternoon - I took Mum along having been over to take her out for breakfast first.  This afternoon I am having my hair cut then going into school to drop off a tub of chocolates and a card for everyone.  I am determined to do visits this week - even if it means leaving a generic comment.  Stay safe and Happy WOYWW - Here's wishing Neet a speedy recovery and home by Christmas!

#dailyart2025: Nearly Finished

 With only the last half of December to complete, my #dailyart2025 will be at an end.  I have been following the prompts over on 365 days of drawing prompts and other art, working in Petite watercolour journals from Clarity Crafts all year.  Here are my responses for the first half of the month.

I imagined he was peeping from his hole!

The largest room should be where I spend the most time!

I love the colours of autumn leaves.

This will be our third Christmas without him.

I used to love these ice lollies.

Conkers!

Some of the countries I have visited - need to add Spain and Switzerland.

Snowman Gift Tags

 I was determined to use all my Clarity New Design Club offerings before the end of the year.  I am renewing both the clubs I have been part of this year and adding the Groovi club to the list for 2026.  I decided to make a couple of gift tags using the December stamp offering - this adorable snowman and accessories.

Rainbow Dogs Birthday

 I had a birthday card to make for a dog lover recently so I couldn't resist using the dogs from the miniature cats & dogs stamp set by Clarity Crafts and my favourite rainbow colours.

Frohe Weihnachten

I was asked to do a Make and Take for the local Anglo German Club and this is what I came up with.  As Clarity don't do German sentiments, I used an old stamp that I had.

It's All About Santa

 The prompt over on Try it On Tuesday is 'It's All About Santa' so I thought this card using one of the stamp sets from Linda Williams' third Christmas Compendium collection would be perfect.

Stamp the large Santa from the Christmas Compendium stamp set of the same name onto Clarity stencil card in Versamark ink and heat emboss with gold embossing powder.

Die cut the topper using the 3.5” nested circle die and a mat from gold card using the corresponding picot die.

Colour the image using Ecoline and Kuretake pens picked up off a glass mat with a watercolour brush pen (Scarlet, Pale Pink, Bright Yellow, Green, Light Blue). Mat up the topper.

Add the topper to the front of a 6” x 6” white card blank.

Add Noel and Santa sentiments around the image in Versamark ink and heat emboss as before.

To finish, colour the sentiments using Ecoline and Kuretake pens picked up off a glass mat with a watercolour brush pen (Scarlet, Green).