Organize your Stuff: Week 12 (round 5): WOYWW 138

Thank goodness it is Wednesday, and We have POWER! *YEAH!!!!*

That means that we are able to share our crafty space as a part of that wonderful WOYWW (What’s on your Workdesk Wednesday), hosted by that always awesome Julia at the Stamping Ground. Come and see what everyone else is crafting and where they do it!

This is what our desk looks like today…

We have honestly not been that crafty this week. We lost power on Thursday, and then we did not get it back until Sunday night. So, for those WOYWW-ers, the POW apologizes for not visiting, we really really wanted to! Instead, OCD Me had us emptying and cataloging all the food from our refrigerator/ freezer, throwing it away, then cleaning the insides from top to bottom.

However, Creative Me did complete the above card right before this post. It is our Design Team entry for Tuesday Trio’s Sketch #103: Warm colors. Creative Me was definitely not in a warm color mood, sometimes it is not up to us. Girl Friday made a card too.

Well, what has been up? Not much. We have definitely been bonding. We had five “snow” days. The first few were for snow, but then it turned to ice and rain and power outages.

We had ice cream soup on power outage day #2 since the freezer started failing.
Then we retreated to a friend's house an hour north, as using a car as the world's most expensive cell phone charger and camping out at the Cutters Pointe coffee had lost its luster.  Super S thanks for opening your home!

Where in the world is Fabulous Spouse?  He has been in transit to Afghanistan since Friday, in a different country every day. Here is a picture of him at a layover in Bangor, Maine.

Fabulous Spouse then had a 24 hour layover in Germany and a two day stop in Kuwait. He finds it amusing, that there is a Starbucks even out there at a base in the desert (new since 2007)! Now we are waiting for him to find the internet and let us know that he has made it safely to his endpoint.

So, happily heated and electrified, We are off to hop around the WOYWW world. Come join us!

Organize your Stuff: Week 11/12 (round 5): Stickers & WOYWW 137

What!?! Is it Wednesday again? I guess that it What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday (WOYWW) time again! To see other desks, spaces, and cool crafty goodness, pop over to Julia’s Stamping Ground and peek around the world!

Time has slipped away from us, as the Pacific Northwest has seen it’s first snow this weekend… all weekend. OK, since Sunday! LOL! Are you sure it is Wednesday, because we still have not seen a plow or a school bus. Hence, the lack of a Monday post. We were on the boot and glove brigade duty! LOL! (The POW is pretty sure that we are almost out of our hot chocolate reserves. Armageddon better not come tomorrow, or we will be woefully short on the non-perishables).

So, how did Creative Me leave the desk today (Ok, on Sunday…before the one inch of Snow-mageddon)? Not too bad actually.

Since some of you have asked, yes, those are all folders of clear stamps in their double decker baby milk crates. Creative Me is a total stamp addict, and it makes it easier to grab them when they are so close!

Also, since PA Me got us distracted by the shiny fluffiness outside, we owe you a peek at our sticker storage. We have two 3-ring binders with clear page protectors stuffed with stickers. Post it notes serve as moveable tabs for the sections. (That was OCD Me’s idea).

But what did we create?

Our design team entry for Tuesday Trio’s Sketch #102: Winter could not have come at a more apropos time. Snowman anyone?

As for the family, Fabulous Spouse is wrapping up his training with the “big guns”. The boys are green with jealousy. It will not be long now, and he will actually be overseas, and a little harder to get pictures from. Fabulous man that he is though, we are sure that he will come through for us! (*hint, hint, Baby!*)

Saturday was our first basketball day. Illusive Middle Child was the team ball thrower inner (what position is that? We never played and must not have been paying that close of attention during practice). We think that it was because he was the tallest on his team by almost a head.

Girl Friday hopped and bopped and totally abandoned her assigned person to chase the ball every which way. She LOVED it. Ironically, she was the smallest on her team! Afterwards, Illusive Middle Child was convinced that his team lost (because they were not aggressive enough) and Girl Friday was convinced that hers won (because they scored lots of baskets). Neither kept score. So, we guess that it just is a matter of perspective.

Oh, and this is how we spend our weekend evenings, relaxing on Skype with Fabulous Spouse and trying to conquer the world (or at least getting out our frustrations on a few unsuspecting cultures) in a friendly game of Civilization V with him. Gotta love a man who lets you conquer his world! (Well, unless he manages to conquer mine! LOL!)

Off to hop and visit the World! Won’t you join us?

Organize your Stuff: Week 11(round 5): Operation Write Home

For starter, some housekeeping. For our most recent WOYWW post, click here!
For our Jan 1st One Little Word post, click here!

The POW apologizes for the infomercial. The writers have been sacked. (They forgot the moose though).
Today, we are sharing the card that you may have peeked on our desk.

Patterned Paper: Graphics 45, CTMH; Solid Paper: CTMH; Ink: Momento; Markers: Copic; Accents: Stickles, Liquid glass, DMC floss, Misc brads.

It is our entry today for Operation Write Home’s three patterned paper challenge. For every 50 cards with three patterned papers linked back to OWH, they get a box of cards shipped for free to our troops from their challenge sponsor, Our Daily Bread Designs. Creative Me and the POW highly encourage you to join in this challenge (especially, since once Fabulous Spouse gets to Afghanistan, we might just get a card from OWH!).

What is Operation Write Home (OWH)? It is a non-profit organization that accepts homemade cards and ships them to our forward deployed service members so that those service members can write home. (Darn it, no Hallmark in Kabul or the Horn of Africa!) For some, this is the only correspondence and communication that they have with their families, especially when the internet is down!

Note: No glitter goes on the cards that are sent to OWH, as it is able to flake off and stick to their uniforms. Glitter on uniforms makes service members visible to night vision goggles. Any glitter must be sealed with gesso or liquid glass (Creative Me started with stickles and coated with liquid glass).

As for the family, we sent Oldest Child off to the Klondike Derby (a Boy Scout snow Olympics of sorts) this morning…EARLY (6AM). He forgot his coat ?!? so we had to run home and get it. His penalty was a shot for the blog. Did we mention that it was 35 and raining? How do you forget your coat?

Also, here is a picture of the gang "poison testing" cookies for Fabulous Spouse's latest Care Package.  Today Illusive Middle Child and Girl Friday have basketball, so we will have pictures for Monday.

Have a great weekend!!!

Organize your Stuff: Week 11(round 5): WOYWW 136

Welcome Wednesday! It is time again for What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday (WOYWW), that wacky world wondering of women (and men) to see the whimsy and wonder that is our crafts and our creating space. Some are clean, and some are messy. All are loved! To see the rest of the desks please pop on over to the Fabulous Julia and the Stamping Ground!

Here are two shots of our desk this week.
First, completed project. (Pre clean up)

This moment…mid project.

Creative Me really had fun with this week’s Design Team entry for Tuesday Trio’s Sketch #101: Fussy Cuts.

This CTMH stamp set was one of Inner Hoarder’s recent purchases (because we totally do not have enough stamps stored on our desk!). The critters were so dang cute that Creative Me just could not resist coloring them and cutting them out for this card. We only wish that we actually had some snow. Then our kids could be cute and bundled up too!

Fabulous Spouse has been doing better this week. Chipped tooth fixed. Care package received (and shared with the guys…so we need to make more cookies). Got to shoot lots of stuff. What more can you ask for?

Illusive Middle Child started basketball on Tuesday. He actually has promise. Scary, I know. He is always happiest when he is playing a sport!

Oldest Child had Boy Scouts, and is getting ready to Klondike Derby.

Girl Friday is just kicking back, as she has nothing on the schedule until basketball on Thursday… nothing except making more cookies for Fabulous Spouse!

Off to hop now and see the world! Please join me!

Organize your Stuff: Week 10(round 5): Alphas

How do you store your alphas?

We just keep ours piled on a shelf. OCD Me finds this totally unacceptable. PA Me says “look, they are on a shelf! What more do you want?!” The Inner Hoarder keeps buying more Thickers. Oooh, Thickers. And Creative Me keeps using them.

Therefore, while the POW secretly sides with OCD Me, she has also seen out scraproom as a whole. There is just not space for it at this time. So we will keep that in the back of our mind (and possibly whisper to the Inner Hoarder that she really wants one).

While all this was going on, Creative Me looked at our alphas and of course saw a crafting opportunity. This is the layout that she created from the trip that we took to Las Vegas. It may have been quick, it may have been business, but we still had fun!

Papers: CTMH solids, slide, stamps; Graphics 45 paper; Cricut Destinations die cut; Thickers, Fiskars boarder punch.

It is amazing that we were able to get any crafting done at all, with a crazy weekend of wrestling, Boy Scouts, basketball (yes, basketball season has started), and of course, making Oatmeal Butterscotch cookies to send off in a care package for Fabulous Spouse (who chipped a tooth today in the Humvee Convoy rollover simulator). 

He really needs a cookie!

Organize your Stuff: Week 10(round 5): WOYWW 135

Welcome to the first WOYWW for 2012! What is WOYWW (What’s on you Work desk Wednesday)? It is a chance, every Wednesday, to hop around the world and see what crafty goodness people have been up to… as well as the places (from messy to neat) where they create their masterpieces and works of whimsy! As always, the Fabulous Julia of the Stamping Ground hostesses this global endeavor. Thank you, Julia!

Enough stalling. Here is our scrapping workspace…

…and here is our other workspace…

Since Fabulous Spouse left for Afghanistan (the morning after Christmas), we have been de-pink-ify-ing Girl Friday’s former room. In a great shuffle, Girl Friday moved into the empty room left by Awesome Auntie, and the boys separated for the first time since 2003. The POW felt that it would add insult to injury to give a teen his own room, only to have it be Pepto-Bismol Pink.

So, with the full support of Creative Me and the financial backing of the Inner Hoarder…we transformed it to this… Yes, we too are trying not to trip over munchkins, or the droppings of a horse of a different color…but no, Dorothy, we are not in Kansas any more… we are in a BOYs room! (which still has a pink ceiling fan).

In paper crafting land, we created the below card for our design team entry to Tuesday Trio’s Sketch# 100: Scraps.

Can you believe that we are on 100 already?! Anyways, the scraps are mostly MME’s American Made papers, and some CTMH solids and ribbons. The stamps are Mr. Tim Holtz’s (as if you didn’t know). Creative Me did not need to twist Inner Hoarder’s arm too much, as Journey is our word for Ali Edward’s One Little Word at Big Picture Classes. (link here to our post where we used Mr. Tim’s stamps on our title page).

As for the rest of the family goings on, here is a picture of Fabulous Spouse in his Army issue (the POW is still getting used to him out of his Navy uniform).  Goodness, is their anything sexier than a man in uniform? (Tree huggers, pacifists, and other non violence seekers need not respond).

Also, Illusive Middle Child took his first 2nd place at the Rising Stars Wrestling tournament. Is it a bad thing when you are SO excited that he pinned his first girl?

Girl Friday, is recovering a bruised ego from putting the New Year’s cider in the Freezer rather than the refrigerator as asked, but is otherwise doing well, especially as she is finally back in her Daisy Scout routine (getting ready for cookie sales on January 13th!).

As for the Oldest Child...Well, we love him dearly, but we think that the Xbox controller will need to be surgically removed in order for him to go to school tomorrow!

Well off to wander the world!  Thanks for visiting our creative space!

Organize your Stuff: Week 10(round 5): One Little Word

Wow. Can you believe that it is 2012 already?! Where has the time gone? Today is a blog hop with the participants in the One Little Word (OLW) class at Big Picture Classes. Thank you Ali for a fabulous journey!!! The 2012 class is gearing up right now, so you can hop along next month and share your January homework on the first of next month!

It seems like yesterday, that the year was just beginning, and we were quote hunting with Fabulous Spouse in a cyber-version of dueling banjos trying to find the perfect quote for our perfect word: EMBRACE.

This month, Ali asked us to reflect back on our word, to bring closure to our year. Here is ours.

EMBRACE has been a way of life this year. But part of EMBRACE-ing and loving is being able to let go. That has been the hardest part of this year. We are now half the size that we have been almost all year now. Awsome Auntie and her family have left after their nine month stay, and now Fabulous Spouse is gone too for a year in Afghanistan.

Yet we EMBRACE them in our heart, and hug the children left behind, hoping that they can embrace their new reality.

What is this?

It is the bottle of sparkling cider that Girl Friday was asked to put in the refrigerator. Where is it? Exploded all over the garage freezer. It is a war zone in there.  Ironically, our word for 2012 is… JOURNEY.

We guess that we just christened our voyage!
The next blogger on the list is Sam.  The rest of our bloggers who go live at 8AM PST are as follows:

Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/
Cheri http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com/
Veronica http://www.veronicanorris.typepad.com/
Kara http://iwannabemewhenigrowup.blogspot.com/
Rebekah http://istampscrapcraft.blogspot.com/
Sharyn http://www.lavieenchic.com/
Jill http://jillconyers.com/
Lynn http://www.crafty-creativity.blogspot.com/
Monica http://scrapinspired.com/
Lisa http://backtoallen.com/writers_blog
Cynthia H http://paperpapereverywhere.blogspot.com/
Lee http://thelinarstudio.typepad.com/embracelife/
Abbey http://athomewiththerichardsfamily.blogspot.com/
Monica B http://www.questtoperfectimperfection.blogspot.com/
Nikki http://www.inkyart.com.au/
Tere http://terecontodomicorazon.blogspot.com/
Melissa S http://blog.mshanhun.com/
Nicky http://seejanebake.blogspot.com/
Stephanie http://www.scrapworthylives.com/
Jenn L http://www.studiojenn.blogspot.com/
Cindy http://seriousplay.typepad.com/
Amanda http://scrappnbee.blogspot.com/  <---you are here!
Sam http://learncreatedo.wordpress.com/ <---next!
Jan http://mysimplelittlelife.typepad.com/
Jamie http://jmpgirl.blogspot.com/
Karen http://breathenowsmile.blogspot.com/