WOYWW 373

Welcome to my workdesk. If you want to join in the fun of seeing everyone's workdesk, please see Julia's blog.  She started this fun Wednesday sharing many, many moons ago. There is never any pressure, it's just when and what you want to share of your workdesk. I joined, took a couple of years break, and just started back this year again.  See no pressure.

Alright, on to my workdesk.  It looks exactly the same as 2 weeks ago, except that a bin of alphas is now on top. The same layout still sets there unfinished.  I will say after getting back from our trip last week I did have my travel art/Bible bag, my camera, a few things I picked up at the stores scattered on the top too. These items were cleaned off yesterday as I was determined to finish this layout. I'm usually a "just get it done" type and not a "I have to have the perfect thing to do it" type. Well, as I was working up the title yesterday, I realized that it would be so much better if I cut a cursive font out of glitter pink paper for part of the wording. I had the perfect color, but with glittered flower designs. I don't want flowers. I want solids (temper tantrum thrown in here). I've since pulled out pink flock and AC spark! tinsel in cotton candy that I could use and "get it done". BUT...NO. I just can't pull the plug. I guess it will wait until tomorrow. We have dentist appointments, so I'll hit the Michaels or Joann's afterwards for some pink glitter paper. (shaking my head at myself for being that way, but the heart wants what the heart wants.)

I do like to keep these posts short, but have to share my next endeavor. A lovely lady at the client site my hubs works for gave him some zucchinis from her garden. Since we got our deer fence up this year, but no garden out, I'm ever so thankful. Zucchini Relish will be started today and finished tomorrow. Yummy!

 

And crafting has been really at a minimum for me as we clean up the house and play in the pool.  

For those that want to stop with the crafty related only, stop here.

My daughters health:  

Thank you all for the well wishes for my daughter. She has been fighting something for years which I thought were food related, but could not isolate, but it was only once every so often, maybe 1x a week to 2x a month depending. In the fall of 2014 things escalated and she became sick most of the time. Traveling one day would lead to her being sick all week. We found out she was hypothyroid and have that straightened out. We took her off gluten, dairy, egg, soy, green beans. She still had some issues. We were able to add soy back in, but had to take out most food preservatives and all artificial colors and watermelon???, seriously, out. Still her tummy would hurt and her motion sickness did not improve. She had allergy testing. Allergic to 19 of the 29 common allergens. She is now on claritin for allergies and doing immunotherapy drops to see if we can desensitize her. However, she is suppose to be at 3 drops per day and is still at 1. They say it takes about 5 years for the therapy and 6mos to 1 year to see any real improvement. But at only 1 drop, I don't know how long that will be pushed out.  For her motion sickness, just to run to town she has to wear the patch that people wear on the cruise ships, but it's been working. She now may have a slight belly ache in the morning sometimes, and almost always has one at night, but she has been functioning during the day quite nicely. Blessings!  The dr. thinks that she suffers from abdominal migraines. 

This was a diagnosis that we had earlier, but the medicine didn’t work. The diagnosis changed and that med didn’t work. The neurologist took her back to the migraine diagnosis and put her on a different med, and we are keeping our fingers crossed. He’s also suggested a counselor for biofeedback techniques. He made several other suggestions which we were already working on, so at least I feel we really have been on the right path.

Happy Wednesday to all.

Sandcastle Conundrum

If you read Friday's post, you know that I'm working with all of Shimelle's lines which is how I typically work with Shimelle's collections.

I struggled with these photos and how to put them together. I had a portrait photo of both my son and one of my daughter working on their respective castles. I had a landscape of each of their respective castles. I was originally going to try to put them all on one page. I couldn't make it work. If I separated them by child, then I could go with my go to design of an L or reverse L when working with one portrait and one landscape. But, I just wasn't feeling it. It took me hours to finally cut some papers down and arrange them. I still wasn't crazy about it. I left the layout unglued out until the next day.

Upon waking the next day, I did my normal routine and checked the computer. I'm trying to catch up on the blogs having been away from the computer for 3 weeks. I've been picking a blog and just reading up through the posts. Well, I chose Michelle's lovely blog Scrapthology to peruse. I have to say she puts out sketches every Sunday that are super, and I'm not really a sketch person. When I came to her July 3rd sketch, I was like why didn't I check her blog sooner. Then I could have used this sketch instead of struggling all last evening. I thought I was too lazy to go back and redo the pages, I know they weren't glued down, but I'd have to repick papers, recut papers, ugh, it just sounded like too much work.

Well, I couldn't put this fantastic layout out of my mind and ended up totally using this sketch.  Here are my layouts.

I love how they turned out. The Destination Adventure titles are cut from 4x6 cut apart PL styled cards that I cut in a label shape on my silhouette.  The journaling reads the same on both cards, as I thought they might want them in their individual books, however, it's part of our overall family day experience. If I put them in their individual albums, then I have to go back and write more information on page 3 of my outings layouts (posted Friday) or I could just make another page with just the sandcastles for the family album.  See my conundrum??  I just don't know what to do!  If you have any ideas or a preference, let me know.

WOYWW 372

Wait! What do you mean it's Wednesday already?!  I just was visiting some desks yesterday. Yeah, I'm that far behind this week.  Oh, heck, I'm that far behind THIS YEAR. ha.

Today my desk was beside the pool at the hotel. We're going to the neurologists this week for my daughter. So again this week I will be late to some desks.The doctors office is in the same town my husband has a client that he goes to each week. So we just tag along for the extra days - swim in the pool, sometimes sightseeing, and today -- Dave and Busters.Both of my tween and my teen are excited.

What did my work entail?  Hand lettering. What I realize is that I need more practice. Hand lettering is an easy on the go practice and activity.  I tend to not do it so much at home. It's great when I have down time at co-op or waiting for the kids at catechism, but it's summer and neither are going on.  I need to make more time for it.

So that's me this week. Happy Wednesday!

WOYWW 371

I've been wanting to share the lovely ATC's that I've received for our anniversary swap, but life has been too busy of late. Today I'm making the time to share them.

They are all so beautiful! I'm just thrilled with them!! I can't wait to work on mine for next year. I'll be including the cute cards, but not the fancy envelopes for mine next year.

Moving on, you're here to see my desk.  This is my Monday afternoon. I have some bits and pieces that need to be put away from my last crafting session. The box of stamps that I just paid shipping on, but otherwise, fairly clean as I do like to clean up between projects.

But as of yesterday, I had moved the stamps aside and pulled out another page kit. There is a page in progress with my bin of alphabet stickers setting on top of the desk to choose my title. I have 2 other photos with a different story that were in with the collection for the page kit propped up. In between the alphabet bin and the photos are the little leftover bits that have yet to be put away. From this view you can also see my computer desk with the silhouette and the stack of papers that always seems to be piled upon the corner. The pile changes, but always a pile. yes, I blurred it as the stack does contain medical papers for my dd's neurology appointment next week, and some bills. It also includes homeschool papers, blank midori styled inserts, a magazine and a joann's flyer.

That's how my desk looks this morning with the addition of my purse atop the pink alphabet stickers. Today I take my hubs to the dentist to have a tooth pulled. I don't see visiting many desks today, but will get to them tomorrow!  Happy Wednesday!

To view more desk, visit the lovely Lunch Lady Jan's blog!  (until next week when you'll be back at Julia's. Hurray!)

For the Joy of Page Kits

I used to call my scrapbooking style "Batch" scrapbooking, as I seemed to do things in a batch styled process. I'd edit and print and bunch of photos. Then my next block of time I'd work up some journaling on the computer for the photos. This would help me solidify the story I wanted to tell if there was one or might help me decide to break photos up for multiple stories. A plus is that it also usually gave me my title as well. Then I'd match the photos with paper, grabbing individual sheets from collection packs and tearing each sheet out from paper pads if necessary and bagging them together. Then I'd grab embellishments that I thought would go in each bag. I'd have a nice stack waiting for me.

I loved being able to just grab a bag. I don't scrapbook chronologically, so I could still go through my eclectic mix of photo bags and choose what was calling to me at the time.  However, over the last couple of years I fell away from my batch scrapbooking process and my page kits.

Recently, I've rediscovered the joy of page kits. 

I forgot to do the journaling before and just paired photos with papers. This is something I will go back to in the future. I realize I don't use a lot of titles when I don't work on the journaling or if there is no real story.

What I tweaked, just because I'm lazy, was that I didn't tear sheets from the paper pads or separate collection packs. If I was using a pad or pack, the whole thing went into the bag.  I would include any photo that I thought went with the collections feel. So I might have a photo of my son to talk about a quirky habit, a family outing, and my great niece (where generally there is no story since we don't see her often).  I didn't worry about embellishments unless I knew there was ephemera or an item that I really wanted to use. I like pulling those things in the moment.

With the Fancy Pants Collection "What A Wonderful Day", I ended up with 2 different photos of my niece in the bag. These are the pages I came up with.

What makes this tweak so AWESOME!  I liked that the paper pieces go back in with the collection pack and get put right back on the shelf for a quick and easy clean up.

I'll be adding even more page kits to my future. (happy dance).

Shimelle's Collections

I love all things Shimelle, aka Glitter Girl. It's probably a nostalgic reason.  My daughter and I used to watch GG together each week. We have different taste from each other and both have different tastes from Shimelle as well. But we both appreciated her teaching style.  So when American Crafts started producing a line inspired by Shimelle, well, I procured some of each. From Shimelle, True Stories and Starshine, I mix them all together. They work so well together.

So I had some photos of a day Adventure we had last June (2015) and some from morel hunting that May which I thought would mix perfectly with Shimelle's lines. Obviously I couldn't make a page kit, as this wouldn't fit in my page kit bag (a 2 gallon ziplock).

I keep all of Shimelle's items together, including the embellishments and stamps (for now). Although I do keep the stencils and embossing folders in there proper places, but they're easy enough to pull. That stack is still 5" tall.

AND this is what I created.

I used the Shimelle Starshine stamps an a PL roller stamp, although some of my roller stamp images came out cockeyed and funky. I took a photo of morels from the net and converted it to black and white upping the contrast and gold foiled them for the bottom corner.

Then I started our June Adventure Day. Page 1 tells the first part of the story, page 2 shows our views during the 2 different lake spots (picnic and playing), and page 3 shows our spot while the kids built their sandcastles.

 

Monday, I'll share the sandcastle pages and my dilemma.


I'm still traveling this week and this post was prepared in advance.  It was suppose to go yesterday. Yeah, that didn't happen. My daughter had a neurologist appointment. She has had some health issues that have become quite chronic in the last 2 years. Also her motion sickness which was always mild increased so dramatically that she cannot tolerate a trip to town that is 40 minutes away. We walked away with a new prescription. This is our 5th in the battle to improve her health. You have to wait 6 weeks to see if any of them work. But this Dr. thinks that the GI diagnosis of abdominal migraines is still good. The medicine the GI gave her did not work and we've tried another one in the interim as well. We have also had an allergy test for the common allergies which she lit up like a Christmas tree - 19 out of the 29 allergens caused a reaction. She just feels everything in her stomach, instead of a nasal or rash or something that would have caused me to think - oh, hey, allergy.  Stomachache - didn't even occur to me it could be allergy, other than food. She is still off gluten, egg, dairy, watermelon, and green beans. So here's to crossing my fingers and hoping that this will help ease her pain. Also we were told to take her to a counselor to learn biofeedback techniques. Excited about that. She has a hard time when her brother makes her mad. He can do something only slightly annoying and she goes from 0 to rage in .023 seconds. Her dad could do the same thing to her without that response.  So I hope in addition to biofeedback techniques they could help with some self calming methods too.

That's it for today. Sorry for the long post.

Finished a layout

With the prepping for leaving and actually going on vacation, I only had time to start a layout, but not time to finish the layout. After returning, I stole bits and pieces of time from cleaning to complete this layout.

Some very old Prima papers were used in the making of this layout. I still like them though. Some gold MME, and 1 gold crown from a Teresa Collins pack and 1 little cupcake that I just bought on vacation. One simple layout.

While on vacation, I thought I'd have more time to work on my ongoing 2007 Christmas photos project.  All I completed are pages 12 & 13.

Wishing you a happy, crafty day!

Long Overdue ME Time

Yesterday, my wonderful hubs took our adorable children to his mother's house. They get to spend time visiting and having fun while I get some much OVERDUE and NEEDED me time. You know, to recharge and relax so that I can use words like "wonderful" and "adorable" to describe my husband and children, instead of words that must not be named. 

In honor of movie watching, junk food eating, crafty fun here are your "made me smile, hope they make you smile too" memes.

 I actually did get dressed today, but only because of the following. My ATG gun top broke and I'm waiting on my replacement.

 

and it should include fromage and Swiss chocolates.

Wishing you a crafty & happy weekend.

Choosing a New Task (Thursdays post on Friday)

I've reserved Thursday's to keep myself accountable for larger monthly or longer projects. I last tackled how I organize each area. I walked away with a working list of things to do. I've accomplished some of that list which you can see here.  The more time intensive and the ones that I need my husband for are still out there.

It's been awhile since I've worked on a larger monthly crafty project. The kids rooms, vacation, outdoor projects and just everyday items have been taking too much of my time.  Although we still have travel for a doctor's appointment for my daughter and my son's birthday vacation to do go through yet this summer, I believe it's time to start a more regular craft task.

My problem lies in choosing one. The top 3 that come to mind are:  tagging my photos for easier finding or tagging all of my digital items for easier finding or resorting all of my pattern paper.  All of these take so much time that I cringe and balk at the idea.  I think I need to start smaller, and I couldn't think of a one!!  But I see in my above referenced post these two items left outstanding.

1. Organize my stamps into sheets by what the are. 
2. Stencils – put a layer of duct tape around and J hooks on

I'll have to give more thought to other projects, but the Stencils I can at least start this weekend while watching movies during my ME time.  

So Stencils Win!!

WOYWW 370 - 3 weeks of desk mayhem

So sorry to neglect sharing my workdesk, and well, posting in general, over the last 3 weeks. I was busy preparing for hubs birthday and father's day as well as to leave and then we were gone for 2 weeks. We basically had a 3 part trip: to husband's work town, to my sister's and to my father-in-law's. Lots of travel, family and fun! A trip well worth the time, however, it's good to be on our own turf again.

So here is my desk shares:
This was my desk 3 weeks ago.

 

This was my desk before we left with the exception of a new layout which I started the day before we left. See the nice new paper layer was put down too. My daughter thought it looked WAY too clean and doodled on it immediately. But that is hidden under the Making Memories magnetic mat. 

And this was my desk yesterday morning, after getting home Sunday and piling stuff on the desk as per the usual dumping ground routine. But ....

there are lots of goodies that came from a trip to Hobby Lobby and a few stencils from Walmart. There is also the layout that was in progress when I left. I finally finished it last night after putting away my new goodies, and then pulled another pack of papers and photos to work with out.

That's my desk evolution over the last few weeks. If you want to see other workdesks, pop on over to our current hostess, Lunch Lady Jan's blog and view a few. And don't be shy, join in too.

Happy Wednesday!