Organize your Stuff Week 16 (round 5): Paint, Mists & WOYWW 143

Happy Leap Day!
Thirty Days has September, April, June, and November.
All the rest have thirty-one…except February.
It has twenty-eight.
However, once every year in four, February has one more!

What a special What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday! Well, to celebrate this quadrennial holiday of sorts, come leap, hop, jump, or click with us over at the always Fabulous Julia’s Stamping Ground, where there are over a hundred crafty folk sharing their spaces and their work! Here is mine today…

And here are my paints… They travel a lot, having most recently traveled to Cub Scouts so that the boys could paint their carvings for their Den Totem poles, so the POW keeps them in a reusable grocery bag for ease of use and transport…even if it frustrates OCD Me that they are constantly getting messy. (Find a happy place, find a happy place...LOL!)

Our mists also are grab and go-able! This makes it easier for Creative Me to play. The big thing to remember with mists is a misting area. Inner Hoarder, of course, always has a spare shoe box…and thanks to Oldest Child’s ginormous feet, they are plenty big enough for most projects!

Here is our other project…

…our design team entry for Tuesday Trio’s Sketch 108: 5 colors. And let me tell you, there is nothing more mojo blocking then a color count for Creative Me. However, we made it through. It is simple, but it is done.

*Warning: skip to the end to avoid the family stuff*

As for our picture from the front this week, Fabulous Spouse has not done much of anything picture worthy, as it has been a little stressful in country. However, here is a picture of the Office Dodge Ball Team from last week.  On the plus side, we did get a huge boquet of yellow flowers this week!  There is a reason he is Fabulous Spouse!

As a result of increased stress in the area, we had to get our St. Patrick’s Day box out early. Let us tell you, Creative Me was totally excited with her first use of gel food coloring in the white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. They came out perfectly green and yummy.

Our big activity this week was going to see the Harlem Globetrotters, an awesome trick shot basketball team. Since Illusive Middle Child and Girl Friday are playing basketball for the first time, they were in total awe of what these great athletes could do!

Oldest Child spent the week assembling his first new bed since 2004. OCD Me really wanted to do it herself, but one week later, he had an Ikea bed that he had assembled more than half by himself.

Illusive Middle Child had pocket knife duty at Cub Scouts. Here is his carving for the Den totem pole…it is supposed to be a grey wolf (just squint and nod…its ok). Of course, the boy was the only war casualty, needing a band-aide for his thumb after somehow getting a small cut.

Girl Friday had the privilege of attending Girl Scout Songfest, celebrating Girl Scout’s 100th Anniversary. The vest was on loan from the POW, as Girl Friday wanted to wear something “vintage” to the celebration. *Sigh* We are vintage now…The POW guesses that means we are worth more than hand me downs! LOL! Girl Friday also got interviewed for the Girl Scout time capsule.

Anyways, have a great day! Leap around! Enjoy! Thanks for visiting!

Organize your Stuff Week 15 (round 5): Inks & WOYWW 142

WOYWW Valentine Blog Candy winner: Sarpreet said...its not unloved, its well loved, Great workspace, Happy WOYWW 141, thank you for sharing,# 52 February 15, 2012 1:19 PM
Congrats!!!

Welcome Wednesday! It is time to WOYWW or What’s On Your Work desk Wednesday, where we share our crafty spaces… the good, the bad, and the post-apocalyptic wasteland! (well, hopefully none are that bad, but we know that ours has come close from time to time!) To peek and oooh and ahhh at the other crafty spaces or post your own, pop on over to the Fabulous Julia’s Stamping Ground.

Here is our workspace after a week of half days for the little guys, and then a busy four day weekend!

As it is week 15 (half way there!) in our organization challenge, it is Ink Week, and so here is a peek at how we store ours. It is always a constant battle between OCD Me who wants them put away, and Creative Me and PA Me who tend to leave them on the desk (seen above) in easy grabbing space.

Inner Hoarder loves inks. It is only the POW who keeps this addiction in check. The biggest thing that Creative Me has learned over the years is that not all inks are created equal. Momento is what we use for Copic Coloring. Close to My Heart (CTMH) is our favorite for clear acrylic stamps,

...closely followed by Tim Holtz’s Distress Inks (OCD Me has labeled these and stores them upside down). We use Stampin’ Up for our rubber stamps, and VersaMark for embossing.  We have a bunch of reinkers (behind the tower).  These are definately cheaper in the long run for avid stampers then constantly replacing the pad. We have StazOn (the permanent marker of ink), but to be honest they are not used much.

Here is our card for this week. It is the one that Creative Me made for Fabulous Spouse, and was mailed off over a week ago. Unfortunately, with all the crazy this weekend, we did not get our design team card done for this week. *sigh* We could not find a Mardi Gras stamp in our massive repertoire of stamps, so Creative Me had to freehand this image.

Warning: Skip to the bottom now if you do not want the family stuff!

We all got into the Mardi Gras spirit though this week. Yesterday was Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday or Fauschnaut Day for many depending on where you are from. Having grown up in the land of the Pennsylvania Dutch, for us it was the tiny donuts known as Fauschnauts that meant more than Mardi Gras beads as part of our fun holiday traditions. Now that we have moved far away, we substitute donut holes, and even shipped some to Fabulous Spouse, who had a Mardi Gras party of his own over there.

Also, for his “official” picture of the week from Afghanistan, Fabulous Spouse got to attend the festivities and displays of the Mongolian forces at the base as they celebrated Mongolian Armed Forces Day. Oldest Child surprised us by looking at the picture and going, “Is that a gur?” (??!!??... It is from Civilization, Mom…). Why yes, it is.

Also, this week, we had Oldest Child’s first wrestling match of the season. He was Varsity 250 pound class, and almost won!

Girl Friday met the illustrator of the Fancy Nancy books at the Fancy Nancy Ballet.

…and Illusive Middle Child hid from the camera as much as possible.  However, we did snag this one of him helping with cookies for Fabulous Spouse's weekly care package.

Happy hopping!

Organize your Stuff: Week 14 (round 5): WOYWW 141

Welcome Wonderful What’s On Your Work-desk Wednesday(WOYWW)! We hope that you had a Valentine’s Day that was as wonderful as ours, yesterday! We are a little late getting this post up as it is usually prep-ed Tuesday night, but the little guys were busy texting Fabulous Spouse on Facebook until 9:30 PM last night…hogging the laptop!

Here is our desk as it sits unloved, and uncleaned by OCD Me.

To view other desks/ creative spaces, and the cool projects in the making from crafters around the world, visit the always Fabulous Julia at the Stamping Ground! (PS- We are sure that there are probably a few Valentine peeks in there).

Yesterday, our kids woke super early (like 5AM early) to see what stash of Valentines goodies had been left at their breakfast seats. Amongst the goodies were little candy boxes with stuffed animals. Leave it to Illusive Middle Child to maim his in the extraction process. So, it was time to break out our sewing kit (the same one that we used on today’s card) and patch the little mouse up.

Paper:Simple Stories, Echo Park, MME, CTMH
Notions: Bo Bunny, MME, DMC floss, unknown flower

Today’s card was made for our Design Team entry for Sketch #106: Anything Goes. This card is 100% scraps and leftovers. The flower was a crop win from prior to our 2008 move! ...and of course the DMC floss that fixed the mouse. Speaking of crops, week 14 is crops. OCD Me is the queen of crops. It is not something that we really need to organize. Here is round 3's post with pictures of the must have items that we pack.  You can skip to the bottom now, It you do not want the family news!

But what about the candy? You can’t have Valentine’s Day without Candy! The tribe had plenty of that!

We also received a surprise box of Sheri’s Berries chocolate covered strawberries from Fabulous Spouse (as the family is highly allergic to roses and we got flowers as our surprise gift last week). He is the BEST! The POW shared… because, well, it would be rude not to…even if the Inner Hoarder wanted them all for herself.

While we wish that we could reach out and hug him, the last couple of days, the internet has been stable enough to Skype, and the sound of his voice is really the only present that we need. (However, Inner Hoarder and the rest of our personalities are totally fine with the surprise gifts that we have been receiving! We LOVE our presents.)

Our picture of the week from the Front is this: a snowball fight. If only all wars were fought this way! LOL! Over 6 new inches of snow fell in Afghanistan (or Fabulous Spouse’s corner of it anyway) this week.

The POW loves this time of year! There are so many little, fun, no pressure holidays that the kids enjoy, and Valentine’s Day is a great kick off. (in case you are wondering, on the horizon we have Fauschnaut Day/Shrove Tuesday-Feb 21, Dr. Seuss’s birthday- March 2, Toy Soldier Day- March 4 (to march forth...lol!), Pi (3.14)Day-March 14, St. Patrick’s Day- March 17), but it is Valentine’s Day that gets us crafting! Girl Friday hand makes (or Cricut made, LOL!) all of her cards. It makes Creative Me SO proud!

We also created heart shaped banana chocolate chip pancakes (and bacon) for supper. We rarely do breakfast for dinner, so it has a fabulous aura and mystique (and when PA Me feels lazy and whips it up, we get Super Cool Mom points!). Hope that you have had a great week and as wonderful a Valentine’s Day as we have!

In Honor of Valentine’s Candy, post a comment and be entered for WOYWW blog candy…no need to follow (We will ship international!...it just takes a long time to recieve.) We will post the winner next WOYWW. If we get more than 40 comments, we will give away 2 Candies.

Organize your Stuff: Week 13 (round 5): WOYWW 140

Is it Wednesday already? It is one of those double edged swords these days. We find that the days are flying bye, even though each individual one takes forever! So, as we blink, we find that it is What’s On your Workdesk Wednesday (WOYWW) time again. The Fabulous Julia at the Stamping Ground hosts this adventure of spying and peeking at wonderful artists around the world and the spaces where they entertain their muses.

If you look, you can see *gasp* a layout at which Creative Me is still working. The POW, motivated by Super Bowl Weekend (*Go Giants!*) wanted to scrap our plethora of football pictures. However, three months of three kids at play is over 1000 pictures to upload. Then, there is the issue of Costco actually printing them… So, the POW not wanting to lose momentum grabbed our Holiday Party pictures for Creative Me to use.

Creative Me was already warmed up and in the zone after completing this card for our Design Team entry for Tuesday Trio Sketch#105: Using Kraft to Craft! Creative me broke out our Tim Holtz and CTMH stamps and some Momento ink to bring plain Kraft paper from drab to Fab! as Week 13 is stamp week.

If you can’t tell by all the stamps on the desk, the Inner Hoarder has a little bit of a stamp problem. (just a little, teeny, tiny one).

As for the family, OCD Me has begun to get the house back from the brink of Chaos after the power outage and four days of living like cave people. Why does it take such little time for the kids to undo that which takes OCD Me and the POW forever to accomplish?

Fabulous Spouse is fitting in fine at his new home in Afghanistan. He has even gotten his first care packages…even though they are taking about 8 days to travel the world. Also, he has had snow! Here he is next to the snowman that the Germans made this week.

As a family, we celebrated the Super Bowl. Illusive Middle Child was pulling for the Patriots… because his Dad is a Patriot…but the rest of us were rooting for the Giants (Girl Friday because of Madagascar and “All Hail the New York Giants”).

The family was undecided on the commercial winner. It was a toss-up for us between the Naked M&Ms and Dog with the Doritos as hush money.

Other than that it has just been the same ol’ routine. The POW has yet to find the clone who is supposed to help with the driving. PA Me must have lost her in the power outage. Also, the leftovers are breeding in the refrigerator again. We may have won the battle, with a total fridge cleanout, but we are loosing the Food War!

Now have a great WOYWW day! Happy Hopping!

Organize your Stuff: Week 12 (round 5): WOYWW 139 & OLW 2012

Happy Wednesday Everyone! Just like a blue moon, today is a rare intersection of my two favorite acronyms WOYWW (What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday) the weekly look at our crafty spaces around the world and what we are making there; and OLW (One Little Word) the word that is our New Year’s Resolution for life, and the homework that we share on the First of Every month about said word.

So, to start, here is our desk at 2 AM (yes, 2 AM…nothing like a little procrastination and a deadline to get Creative Me’s mojo flowing).

This desk is not unlike the many others around the world on display today at Julia’s Stamping Ground, stop on by if you would like a peek!

On the desk is this 9 patch for Ali Edwards’ One Little Word over at Big Picture Scrapbooking.

At the beginning of January, hundreds of us picked a word (or like us, the word picked us) and this is the homework that we had for this month.

Here is a peek at last year’s homework (same propmpt) for Embrace (link here). The POW is impressed at how different these words look on paper, despite being the same homework.

Last year, it took a while to pick a word to represent our upcoming year, but this year, there were no five way peace talk negotiations needed to get all the members of our mind onboard (although PA Me was a little late to the meeting). This year, we chose Journey. It seemed like a natural fit, as Fabulous Spouse left to go on a Journey to Afghanistan for a year, starting the day after Christmas, and we were going to be going on a single parent Journey trying to juggle the household of three VERY active children in his absence… and trust us, it has been one HECK of a journey so far!!! Also *spoiler alert to first time OLW’ers*, come summertime, we have to come up with a playlist for our word, and we love Journey songs!

So, easy as it was to pick a word, it was a little harder to come up with our quote. We were back and forth with Fabulous Spouse over Facebook (as his base does not have phone or skype-ability). This is what we settled on, as we liked several, but did not LOVE one the same way we loved our EMBRACE quote. See you March 1st with our photo homework!

(**Skip to end if you do not want to hear about our family…this is not the personal section you are looking for***)

This week’s summary of family happenings has Fabulous Spouse safely at his end point in Afghanistan. It was not quite the duty station that we expected, as he still has not found a wi fi spot or a working outside phone. Can you hear me now? Um… no?! Anyways, here he is at his 48 hour layover in Kandahar...  This is their version of a 4 star hotel..

In the great wide world of sports, Oldest Child started wrestling, and the little guys are still playing basketball and loving it!... They have even asked for a hoop to be installed in the backyard to practice.

Illusive Middle Child had his cub scout Pinewood derby, and came in fourth in his Den with his “submarine” car that he made and painted all by himself.

Here is the blog list for OLW. Thanks for stopping and visiting!

Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com/
Sharyn http://www.lavieenchic.com/
Jill http://jillconyers.com/
Lynn http://www.crafty-creativity.blogspot.com/
Jenn http://www.studiojenn.blogspot.com/
Carmen http://www.carmenpaulsorthner.com/
Marilee http://rose-brier.blogspot.com/
Kristina http://hrinspirationfromthe403.blogspot.com/
Cindy C http://www.cynthiacrysdale.com/
Kelly http://mindingmynest.com/
Cheri http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com/
Amanda http://scrappnbee.blogspot.com/
Cindy http://seriousplay.typepad.com/
Brooke http://www.everysnapshot.com/
Naomi http://www.poeticaperture.com/
Melissa http://www.smudgetime.com/
Karen http://breathenowsmile.blogspot.com/
Melissa S http://blog.mshanhun.com/
Devon http://www.youhadmeatneurotic.com/
Donna http://holimess.blogspot.com/
Dawn http://sunshineandcreativity.com/
Katrina http://www.katrinasimeck.com/
Sam http://learncreatedo.wordpress.com/
Monica http://scrapinspired.com/
Kimberlee http://scrapsandsass.blogspot.com/
Missus W http://mrswookieswanderings.blogspot.com/
Kaylea http://www.myscrappylife.com/
Nikki http://www.inkyart.com.au/
Erin http://erinsparkes.typepad.com/optimstic-fascination/
Jo http://www.curlyscrapbooker.blogspot.com/
Coley http://coleybelle.blogspot.com/2012/01/focus-word-for-2012.html
Beth http://www.thesingularlyordinary.blogspot.com/
Veronica http://www.veronicanorris.typepad.com/
Jamie http://jmpgirl.blogspot.com/
Monica B http://questtoperfectimperfection.blogspot.com/
Lisa http://backtoallen.com/writers_blog
Rebekah http://istampscrapcraft.blogspot.com/
Jan http://mysimplelittlelife.typepad.com/
Veronica http://www.veronicanorris.typepad.com/
Cate http://www.lifebehindthepurpledoor.com/
Stephanie http://www.scrapworthylives.com/
Orange Gearle http://orangegearle.blogspot.com/
Tere http://terecontodomicorazon.blogspot.com/
Junelle http://yesandamenblog.blogspot.com/
Ruth http://suburbansahm.blogspot.com/
Becky http://www.becky-handforth.blogspot.com/

Happy Hopping for OLW and WOYWW!