WOYWW #282

Exciting stuff, eh?

As you can see, I am working on the dining room table this week. 

I had hoped to show you all of my completed Christmas Cards. The ones I was going to spend all day Saturday making. That plan fell through when I booted up my laptop to print out some more CAS to find my Gateway of almost eight years was no longer a part of my life. 

Coincidence that I get the Black Screen of Death the same week I made my Zombie Bride centerpiece? Hmmm 

So, instead of making Christmas cards I was shopping for a new laptop. I came home with a Dell. They are good systems, was on sale and - comes with Windows 8. yep. But so far I'm not having a lot of issues. I'm actually enjoying some of the new stuff this system offers.

My nightmare came on Sunday when I tried to load my Print Shop software to find my new system and my old software are not compatible. So I'll just buy the newer version of the software, right? 

WRONG!

The newer version is written by a different company, that do not have license to the original images. So everything (and I'm sure I'll be finding files I can't open at every turn) I've created in the past 12 years is not accessible.

So now, I'm either on the hunt for an older system to use just for graphics

or buy the newer versions and recreate everything in the new program as needed. 

I think I'll just label all my washi tape... which is what I'm showing you today.

Why am I showing you my Washi tape and spilling my woes?

Because Ms Julia Dunnit at Stamping Ground invites us all to travel the globe looking at everyone's workstations. Come on, show us yours! 

Creative  Blessings  

THE BIG REVEAL! - The Build Part 1

My Inspiration Colors

The day is FINALLY here! Well, we are getting closer. A bit of backstory:

My office (I'm a writer) and studio are in the basement. My space is about 120 square feet (10x12) and has one small casement window. Air flow is a real issue. Then I have a separate room about the same size for my sewing and mixed media - no window. When we moved here seven years ago I had a place for everything and room to work. However, with time to play and explore new mediums - not to mention new techniques and products being introduced daily - I've outgrown the space.

During a quiet dinner for two about four years ago, my darling husband made the comment I needed to get out of the 'dungeon' (the basement).

Challenge 1: Funds
We looked into determining the cost of building an above ground addition for me. Though the estimates were comparable, I was not ready to go into debt for my work space. So we put the project aside and I continued to outgrow my 120 square feet.

Challenge 2: Knees
I know I'm overweight by about 50 pounds but for some reason I never considered myself 'fat'. I am very active, though not athletic. I never was. But I don't stand still for more than about 5 seconds... if you're lucky. Since I also work from home, I have to make multiple trips up and down the steps every day to multi-task between work and household stuff. I have finally gotten to the point where by the third trip my knees are telling me to pick a level and stay there. I was raised family and home come first yet I'm at a juncture in my writing and music promotion career where I can't let that slide either.

So with both vehicle payments behind us and needing to put a new roof on the house, we revisited the possibility of my addition. We signed the papers on Monday afternoon.

This is a check register designed specifically for the project. I will track every bit of spending. Over the coming weeks I'll share some of my inspiration pieces with you. However, I am querying a couple of magazines and since they will want 'first rights', I may be limited to what I can show. I hope to know more on that part soon. In the mean time, updated posts of some sort will run on Fridays... recapping the week's progress.

And Now... The Floor Plan:

Our house is the front rectangle - about 1200 square feet. The new studio will come off the south side of the house into the backyard from off the dining room. The new space is 16' x 30' = 480 sq. ft. 

Thanks to a 1/4 credit in Home Ec in the 1970s I am able to draw floor plans to scale. I have utilized every inch of space to accommodate:

Office

Mixed Media

Sewing

Spiritual (currently in our bedroom)

Paper Crafting

Collections (Broncos & Girl Scouts) that are currently still in tubs in storage

In future posts I'll show you more of how I'm utilizing the space. Some of what I've learned along the way will be used in my Organization Class in mid January. 

In the mean time, tell me what you would do with this much space and what your medium of choice is (paper/ mixed media/ fabric/ etc) . I'll draw one person for a Surprise Bag of goodies! 

WOYWW #281 - Zombie Wedding!

Before I show you my desk, I want to remind everyone to come back tomorrow when I reveal that Super Sekret Project (phrase cloned from my friend Deborah Blake). For those of you who've been following along, you do NOT want to miss what I have to tell you. :-) At least, I hope you don't Hehee

Okay... On with the show!

This is my desk this week. With much encouragement, accountability and determination I've finally completed the centerpiece I wanted to make seven years ago. We have our Ozarks bride and groom and 13 black roses. 

If you check out the previous blog post HERE 

you will see the supplies. I used 2 blocks of the floral foam and glued them side by side in the clay dish. I glued the tombstone in place and covered everything with Spanish Moss. 

Each rose stem had 2 leaf sprigs so I stripped the bottom sprig off, cut the stem down to about 9" and stuck them into the floral foam. I used the remaining leaf sprigs as filler around the base. The two candles are battery operated and will add a nice touch in the evening. A drape of cotton spider web and you have a fitting tribute for any Zombie Apocalypse or Day of the Dead.

Now that I'm in the spirit I hope you'll hop on over to Julia's Stamping Ground and join me as I travel around the world visiting other creative folks.  

WOYWW #280 - Zombie Attack!

Okay... so this was not actually on my desk but this is the tub of zombie centerpiece supplies I've had since leaving Michaels Arts & Crafts almost eight years ago. Every year I pull out this tub with the intent of getting the centerpiece constructed.... and every year the tub goes back into storage due to lack of time.

This next photo is staged, but I wanted to try and get all the components in the shot of what is on my desk this week... a better (though not good) shot of the items I'll be using.

A zombie bride and groom, a tomb stone, battery operated candles and black roses. For lack of space I left the floral foam and Spanish moss in the tub at the moment. That little dish sits in a hammered wrought iron stand. I am determined to have this constructed by the end of the week and ready for the sofa table or dining room table. Halloween, or Samhain in my tradition, is upon me. 

So that's my desk. What's yours? Every Wednesday almost 100 of us gather at Miss Julia's Stamping Ground to pick up our map of other desks to visit. Come join us, won't you? Don't be shy. We've all seen the disasters - and shared them ::: cough cough :::

Creative Blessings!

Kel

MIXED MEDIA MONDAY - Shopping Mini Album

Because I knew I was going shopping over the weekend I wanted to make sure I got my shopping mini notebook put together.  I was inspired by pinkaboo6691 video which I have on THIS blog post. 

This is what the (5.5" x 7.5") notebook looked like before:

I dismantled the notebook and cut pieces of SU Marina Mist cardstock to be 1/8" smaller on 3 sides than the cover. I punched tabs using the SU Scalloped Frame punch and run them through the 1" Xyron. Rather than fold the label in half I chose to stick 2 together, giving me the decorative edge on the tabs.

The OCD in me wanted to have the same amount of pages behind each tab. Except for the Washi Tape category.. well ya' know LOL So here are the eight stacks ready for assemblage. 

I used papers from the ROSEWOOD slab by ColorBok. I LOVE that slab. If I seem to be running low, a replacement goes on my WalMart shopping list. Thanks to my novella book cover, I'm in this Marina Mist color mode. Plus when I'm carrying my red purse, this book will be easy to find amongst the other red items inside the bag. 

My categories are:

CRICUT

DIES

EB FOLDERS

PAINTS

PROJECT LIFE 

PUNCHES

SLABS

WASHI

And I have one left for whatever comes along.

I used the one of the sheets of paper as a template for the holes and the crop a dile to punch the covers. I used a standard office hole punch for the page dividers.

I KNEW I wanted some Thickers or similar for the cover. But when I got to Michaels yesterday I could NOT remember what I wanted Thickers for so had no clue what to look for. I have them written down for next week. :-)

I'm also not sure I'll add trims to the spine. While they look fun and artsy, I think I'll spend more time untangling them from other things in my purse. The only thing I might have done different would have been to cover the tabs in clear contact paper for durability. I still can... just would have been easier prior to putting them in place.  

FRIDAY FREE-FOR-ALL

On Wednesday, my first ever Close To My Heart order arrived. This is what greeted me when I opened the box.

My CTMH rep is my buddy, Brenda (see DisneyGirl )  on my sidebar under PBR. I swear if we were the same age we could claim separation at birth! So this post is all Brenda's fault. She is such an enabler!

I moved the stamps out of the way to see the bottom two items. Though this picture does not show the item well, you can see the bat and cat. Those are stencil charms. I ordered these to use them as stencils. They are perfect size for ATCs or the APC Challenge I'm working on.

This collection is Christmas Assortment. They go with a paper collection. I have plenty of papers so thought these would be perfect accents for a mini album

But my main order consisted of these:

Since September was National Scrapbook Month and this is CTMH 30th anniversary, they offered a special set of stamps. But you had to order a minimum of $30 in stamps to get the FREE set. I picked out sets I knew I would get a lot of use out of just so I could get this:

These are perfect size for Project Life. I also have a punch set from Stampin Up that coordinates with some of thee. Cool, eh?

And if you've never ordered from Close To My Heart... I am in LOVE with their packaging!

The envelopes are square plastic with snap closure! Oh my. These are going to be so easy to store! They are about the size of a 6x6 pad. 

You can bet I'll be playing with some of these new toys in the coming weeks. Right now I'm afraid to see what their October special is. hehe

Creative Blessings! 

Kel

WOYWW #278

Welcome to Whats On Your Workdesk Wednesday (WOYWW) and what my desk looks like this morning. Remnants of various projects. Let's cruise:  The package of fall leaves I picked up while grocery shopping last night. Thought they might make nice masks for art journaling spots, the grid is where I made paint swatches of my acrylic paints before going shopping. the paints in the background are the new ones I picked bought to fill in gaps. Heat gun to dry those swatches fast - cause you know I thought of this like an hour before I needed to leave LOL The gold paint pen and the stack of APC. 

I'll have the details tomorrow what I'm doing with the paint pen.

In the mean time, hop on over to Julia's Stampin' Ground to hook up with an extensive group of bloggers opening their studios for your snoop.  If you're a player in our group, please remember to leave your # so I make sure to stop by. 

Creative Blessings!

Kelly