Workdesk Wednesday

Actually it is Eat Like a Gluttonous Pig Wednesday (cookie reception, holiday work party, and holiday dinner with friends), but there isn't a blog challenge for that.  WOYWW 132 brings you my desk that looks suspiciously like last week's desk.  Ummm... I mean the clutter looks just like last week's.  In fact, most of it has not moved, or if it did move it was just a bit back and forth or up and down. Other than that, there has not been a lot going on at my desk due to being busy and having company.

Some items to note: the prescription bottle is still there, now on the top of the desk.  The prescription has not been transferred over yet and I'm down to just 4 pills.  The bag of stickers is still there with the stickers strewn about.  In that same pile are envelopes to address still.  On top of that pile is one of the snowflake cards I shared with you yesterday.  There are ribbons, twine, and yarn on my desk from making cards with tags.  My reading glasses (that I left at home yesterday!) are on my desk next to a new box of glue dots. I'm not sure what the box of glue dots is on.  My bottle of water is up there too.  It is too cold to keep it on the floor this time of year because ick, who likes cold water?  I mean, besides normal people?!  There is still no room under my desk (don't expect that to change any time soon), but I did rummage through the pile of papers lined up against the right side of the desk and tossed a bunch of it.  One last thing to giggle at, near the ball of red yard and to the left of my water bottle are several pairs of scissors, two with black handles.  After I took the picture and looked at it, I thought, "There's a gun on my desk?" and went to look.  Nope, it is those scissors.

Same old stuff from last time.

That darn prescription bottle.

Here's the pile of stuff next to my desk that I shared last week. This rather depresses me as I had hoped to have this picked up by now.  There is another box of glue dots down here on top of  pile of random papers and a container of jewels.  That's new from last week

This is sad.

I cleaned out this pile of papers.  I swear I did!

The project I'm still working on is address holiday cards to get them in the mail.  Why is that so difficult? I do not know!  All I know is it is not getting done.  I also made some cards with tags on them last night and I'll share a couple with you now to prove that I have done some crafting.

And thus ends WOYWW 132.  So far, this challenge has not inspired me to keep a clean desk.

The Fine Print: Mess by me,  stamps and snowlflake die by A Muse Studio.

A Snow Challenge

Let It Snow! Let It Snow!  I don’t mind if it snows.  Just… not here!  In fact, as soon as I find that thermostat to the great outdoors, I’m cranking it back up to the 80’s since that is as low as I’m willing to go.

This week’s A Muse Studio challenge is to make a project that features snowflakes.  As soon as I saw that this project jumped to mind.  I have been wondering what to do with this very busy snowflake patterned paper and I think this works well.  Can you tell that the snowflakes have been cut out of glitter paper?  They are very cool in person and will make a great addition to my holiday card stash (still working on getting those in the mail!).

These scans have the shadow effect around the snowflake because the bling in the middle of the snowflake keeps it from lying flat on the scanner bed.

The Fine Print: White linen card base, glitter paper and patterned papers by DCWV, snowflake die by A Muse Studio, greeting by A Muse Artstamps, and miscellaneous bling.

A CASE Study

Today we will discuss what it means when a paper crafter says they want to CASE something.  CASE stands for Copy And Steal Everything.  That’s pretty hardcore when you see it printed out like that, but here’s an example:

This is the cover of the A Muse Studio holiday catalog (and inspiration guide).  Say that the card on the front cover is so inspiring to you that you wish to make your own, so you copy it.  That makes it a CASE card.  In fact, some folks say CASE stands for Copy And Steal Exactly.

 However, this next card is not exact and most folks would say that it is a CASE card too.

Most of the time, it doesn’t matter if you copied someone else’s design.  After all they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  The recipient of your homemade card will love it regardless if it was your own creation or if you drew inspiration from someone else.  It would be dirty pool to turn in an exact copy of someone else's card to a contest or submit it to a magazine for publication though.

The Fine Print: Santa’s coat, candy cane paper, and polka dot ribbon by A Muse Studio; Santa by Inkadinkado, greeting by DeNami and paper by DCWV.

Making Warm Chocolately Memories

I confess.  I do not have any warm chocolately memories.  I might have some scalding hot burn-your-tongue chocolately memories if I dig deep into the abyss that is my memory.

I had a very busy but not very crafty weekend, so the only thing I have to share with you is the project I made for a dinner with crafting friends this coming week.  I made these hot chocolate packet holders to share with my friends.

They are made with patterned cardstock, some of it is pre-glittered and others aren't.  They are scored and folded to make a packet holder.  The sides are held shut with red line tape.  The top flap is decorated with a scalloped circle and layered paper flowers held on with a brad.  To keep the flap shut the scalloped circle is hiding a nickel under it.  Besides, isn't it always nice to receive the gift of cash?!  :-)

The Fine Print--Patterned papers by DCWV and Basic Gray, corner round by Fiskars, scalloped circle by Marvy, paper flowers by SEI and Prima, hot chocolate by Nestle.

Tag! No, You're It!

I have pondered the latest A Muse Studio challenge since it was posted on Monday.  The challenge was to make tags.  I'm really not much of a tag making person.  I recently made tags for a one-layer challenge and  even though I was proud of myself for not only making, but actually using those tags I was rather tagged out. But in the spirit of the challenge, I thought I'd come up with something.

And I thought that all week until yesterday when the light came on!  Calendar tags!  I make them every year.  I totally forgot about them this year and that's kind of a bummer because I usually send them out with holiday cards but many cards have left the building without a tag enclosue.  Ah well.... 

These tags take the a|s challenge up on its offer that your entry does not have to include A Muse products.  Check them out:

Now, I'm really tagged out.

The Fine Print: Shipping tag base from Office Max, patterned paper from various companies, mini calendars from http://www.skybluepink.com/.

Just Dandy, Thanks for Asking

My goodness, I was so tickled by the WOYWW challenge since it was right up my voyeuristic alley, that I forgot to point you in the direction of the challenge.  It can be found by clicking HERE.  At the bottom of the post is a list of all the names of participants.  If you click on their names you'll be taken to their blog posts sharing their work spaces.

Also, a friend of mine suggested that I just posted the same photo of my desk that I posted before.  I know she was joking around, but compare and contrast the differences:

You can see that a lot of my basic clutter is the same but the stuff on the desk pad has changed.  That is where the fun happens.  You can see that I like to tuck random papers on either side of my desk and that there is a basic level of clutter at all times.  It's my favorite place to be.

I don't have anything new to share with you.  I addressed more cards and wrapped some presents last night.  Soon I'll get to the tags I want to share--I promise!  Meanwhile, here are some cards I made from the Club Scrap Just Dandy kit.  I think this kit was from back in September.  Fun stuff!

The Fine Print: Rolltop desk by American Home Furnishings, Office chair by Office Max, Black multi-drawer storage unit (to the right of the desk) by Target.com, Clutter by Judy Palmer, Cards made with Club Scrap papers and ribbon, circle punches and corner rounder by EK Success, border punch by Martha Stewart, butterfly die by Spellbinders, and paper flower by Prima.

WOYWW 131 My Inner Voyeur is Pleased

In my blog perusing days (as opposed to my more recent blog ownership days) I liked to browse around for ideas and inspiration. One of the things I noticed was that people would post cards for various blog hops or challenges.  I really considered that to be cool and it seemed like a great way to get motivated to actually make something.  Plus, the challenges had guidelines to follow.  I find that I do better when I have a starting point.  I thought that someday I would have my own blog and could play along and wouldn’t that be fun?!

Now I have my own blog and have done a few challenges.  However, right now I have been concentrating on my own personal challenge of making holiday cards using my Rule of Five and getting them addressed and out the door.  That has not stopped me from poking around the web and looking at what challenges are out there.

Then I ran across one that was so exciting and thrilling and different that I couldn’t wait to join in.  It is called What’s on Your Workdesk Wednesday and you don’t have to make anything for it.  You just have to share a photo of your workspace in all its glory and perhaps talk about what is going on in that workspace.  There are about 100 people who play!  That means 100 different workdesks and projects to check out.

Oh!  How this makes my inner voyeur happy.  I love to see the space where people play and create.  Plus, I often hear my crafty friends say that there is no way, no how, not even any chance they would ever share pictures of their craft area because it is too much of a disaster area.  Who are they kidding?!!  Any crafter or hobbyist knows that the disaster is part of the fun.  That creative mess is where it is happening.  If you are busy cleaning house than you are not busy creating!

I’m sharing my workdesk and even some related areas so I can play along.  What I worked on last night (the Wednesday in question) is sitting smack dab in the middle of my desk.  I am trying to get the prescription in that bottle moved from the evil non-customer-service-giving drug store to the nice, friendly, helpful grocery store pharmacy.  The grocery store is willing but they warned me they will have a hard time getting a hold of evil drug store.

Yeah, so not craft related...  The only other thing I’ve done sort of craft related this week is address cards for The Holiday That Shall Not Be Named.  There is evidence of that as well.  My pen is right next to the bottle. My address book is the black covered book on the right side of my desk and next to that are a few addressed envelopes.  That plastic bag has stickers in it that I like to decorate the envelopes with and under that are more envelopes. 

I included a photo of the stash next to my desk out of sight of that first photo.  That wooden crate is filled with the holiday cards I have already made.  All my A Muse Studio holiday stamp sets are there, as is a circle punch, a snowflake corner punch, more card blanks (the plastic square container), a little bit of holiday paper, and a box of embroidery floss.  I used the floss on tags I made recently and haven’t put it away yet.  In fact, the colors I used are still on my desk, somewhere in that rubble.  The round container used to hold blank CDs but now it has spools of ribbon in it.

Just for grins, I included a shot of what is under my desk.  I haven’t put my feet under my desk in forever.  I like to put my feet up anyway, so they go on the metal rung of that little stool.  There is all sorts of other random things down there too—my two score boards, a container of red and pink 12x12 paper, pre-printed card bases, a container of quarter sheets of patterned paper, a brown leather zip pouch for colored pencils and other patterned paper pads.  AND you can tell I was sick on Monday and decided to forego the Monday night vacuuming.  The cats were pleased with that decision.  The carpet, not so much.

So that’s my desk and surrounding mess.  I wonder if joining WOYWW more often will encourage me to keep it a bit more under control.  Hmm?  I guess we’ll have to wait and see.