Red, White, and Blue

I went to a crop last night and spent a pleasurable evening crafting and gabbing with a bunch of my friends. It is always so much fun to get together and share ideas and get input from others on what they are doing and new things to learn.

Last night I couldn't make up my mind on what to make so I took several possible projects and one was to make cards for the 4th of July, Independence Day here in the USA. I had participated in a swap on Splitcoast Stampers last year to make patriotic card candy. I made a total of eight cards last night so thought I would divide them up over two days so I don't overwhelm anyone with them! All the cards blanks are made from Stampin'Up! card stock. The stamped images are from the swap. Bling from my craftroom stash. I think they are Recollections from Michael's. The paper mats are from BoBunny.

The first card I have named Eagle because it is a national bird and an emblem of our freedom!

The second card...America


The third card...Freedom


Fourth card...I love America


More tomorrow...

WOYWW #106

The weather has not been cooperating with me tonight! We got a severe thunderstorm through here at about 7:30 pm and it knocked power out for over 4 1/2 hours. It started out with a lot of thunder and lightening and then to liven things up a bit we were hit with 55-60 mile per hour winds and hail the size of marbles and a friend measured some at her house that was over 2 1/2 inches in diameter. I haven't heard the official rain total but I would imagine it was at least 1 1/2-2 inches in about an hours time. I ended up cooking supper by candle light and we ate supper at about 10:45!

I had planned on showing some pictures of the flower and vegetable garden tonight but didn't get pictures before the storm and after the storm every plant in the garden had been shredded. My husband had some beautiful corn, beans, squash, and tomato plants but alas no longer! I haven't been able to do any crafting this week but was going to start a project tonight and now without electricity I don't have light to do any work. I took these photos of my craft room using flash so I can show you something of what I am doing. I am so excited that it is starting to come together!

First off here is a picture of my desk this week. You aren't going to believe how little is actually cluttering it up!! Surprise! If you didn't make it to my blog last week I told everyone I had decided to stay in the smaller room but due to space issues I am putting in new storage drawers/shelves etc.
This second picture is of the closet that I put a shelf unit and a couple of the plastic 4 drawer bins in, stacking them so I could have more space for my 'stuff'. I decided to move the paint bottle rack to the closet because I needed the space for my stamp pads that I use more then the paint.
I am not finished with the closet yet as I want to organized some of the things a little different but decided to put stuff in the approximate position it will end up in the end so I can keep shifting stuff around. I have so much 'stuff' that I am seriously thinking about unloading some of it on eBay!

If you have made it this far in the post you are probably wondering what all this is about! WOYWW is the brain child of Miss Julia Dunnitt at Stamping Ground. Every week I travel the globe looking at the desks of other crafters/artists without leaving the comfort of my desk chair. Check it out! Click the link and get ready for a ride of a lifetime. I am off to check out the blogs. Check back later and I promise I will have 'created' something.

Summer of Color Event

I was blog surfing through some of the blogs I currently subscribe to when I read a post about the blog Twinkle Twinkle and that it was hosting a summer of colorful and creative art challenges. Wow sounds like a whole lot of fun to me so I am going to be joining in. Evidently they will supply the color challenge and it is up to the artist to supply the art. I think I will probably do some cards, some altered objects, ATC's and whatever else I decide to do. I am really looking forward to this!

WOYWW #105

Hope everyone has had a chance to recover from the wonderful party that was the 2nd Birthday Anniversary of What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday last week. I made it around to every blog and really enjoyed reading and snooping around the sites. Blogger wasn't functioning up to par and occasionally I couldn't leave a comment. If you want to find out more about what I am going on about pay a visit to the Queen of Snoops site and meet Julia Dunnitt and join in the fun.

This week has been a very busy week for me. I had a class teaching Tim Holtz style tag making to a group of 8 awesome women. They were all pleasantly surprised that they too could do that grunge and Steampunk stuff. We did three tags total, one using Ranger color wash, one using stains, and one where we made a stamp out of the Elegant Flourish die. I made these tags in April for a class last month but because of 3 deaths in the family/friends didn't get to do it till this month. Everyone had a blast and told me that they were looking forward to next month.

Another thing I have been busy trying to get done is get the house and my craft room/studio reorganized. That isn't an easy task for me with some of my health issues but I have been plugging away pushing the limits to do a little bit each day. I have decided to stay in the small bedroom and reorganize it rather than to transform the larger spare bedroom into a studio. I like this room and get good vibes when I am in there and I think I would rather the bigger room be used for guests. I don't know might change my mind next week but this is what I have done so far. This is my desk this week! Messy much? Yeah a lot! I spent two days putting together this drawer unit, actually 2 units, to store my stuff in. Unfortunately you can hardly see the unit. I got them at IKEA and I think I am going to love it/them.



Another view of the drawer unit. There are a total of 3-3in deep and 3-4in deep drawers in each unit giving me a total of 12 new drawers to store stuff in! I bought these about a year ago and was waiting till I got in my new room and after deciding to stay in this room I spent 2 days off and on putting them together.






Thought that you might like to see what is in the one drawer! It is all my border and corner punches! I actually have 3 drawers full of punches and when I was putting them in the drawers I thought OMG! I am a hoarder but I don't think this qualifies cause I use each and every punch through out the year and God knows it is the tools of my trade. Cross my heart!!




Now this is the big bargain find for my 'new' craft room. My nephews wife (guess that makes her my niece-in-law I think after this she will be just niece!) is a garage sale/thrift shop shopper and a while back she called and then she texted me a pic of a paper rack and wanted to know if I wanted it! Did I want it? Are there cows in Texas? Still a Pope in the Vatican? Long story short I told her "sure if it is reasonable" all the time expecting to pay $25-35 for it. My darling dear niece got this rack for the outrageous price of $6. Awesome huh!



Well I guess that is enough chatter for this week. I hopefully will have things organized and some thing nice to show you next week! I am off to snoop around WOYWW blogs! Have a good week!

Candy Giveaways

While web surfing today I found some yummy blog candy giveaways that I thought I would
share. Lots of fun stuff!

Vicky's Sticky with Icky blog candy


Mariannes Craftroom

Di's Digi Downloads

OWSE ATC SWAP 5/2011

I really have been having fun doing the swaps at the Outlaw Women Scrapbook Emporium! Each month Michele tells us what style/theme the ATC should be that month and we make 5 ATC to share. This month was anything goes and I decided to try using the new Tim Holtz stains and stamps. I really loved the vintage photos in the Lost and Found Paper Stash and used them as a focal point.





Each ATC's background is different depending on how heavy a hand I had with the stain bottle. I like it though. This one is a favorite. See the impishness in his eyes.





The June Theme is Patriotic and it can be any style of art, grunge, cutesy it is the artists choice! Want to play? Go to the OWSE and sign up!

WOYWW #104 and the 2nd Anniversay Partay!!!! Grungy Monday 09

Happy Anniversary to all the other WOYWWers that participate here at Julia Dunnits blog Stamping Ground! This week we are celebrating the anniversary by PIF-ing...swapping gifts. I only joined about 6-7 months ago but I have had a blast participating in the blog snoop each Wednesday and look forward to seeing every ones desks and projects they have made. Check it out it might be something you would be interested in doing! WARNING: it can be very addictive!!

My desk is an absolute disaster tonight and there is no way I am going to show it off. Truth of the matter is I couldn't get a picture that wasn't fuzzy or crappy looking so I just decided to show off what I have been doing this week instead. I think something might be wrong with my camera...oh no!!

Remember this house that I showed everyone last week that I was going to alter? Well I finally got the blasted thing done yesterday after a lot of futzing around trying this or that out. I am really pleased at how the house turned out!!

This picture was taken with the same camera under normal light and I don't think it does it justice color wise. The papers are all from Tim Holtz paper stashes Lost and Found and Crowded Attic. The dies and some Ideaology used are also Tim Holtz. The rest of the stuff, buttons, flowers, ribbons,etc are from my stash.

Here is an up close of the side of the the house. I used the Sewing Room die on both sides cause I like it and I thought it would look good...don't think I am lazy...just coordinated!







For this fob I used a swivel clasp and a button I had and attached various dangling things to it. Cool huh! Since it had the short little bottle I thought it needed a little something else on that side!









Here is an up close of the drawer fronts. I used some Accent Glaze and gave some of the buttons on the paper dimension and then used it to adhere buttons and pins to the front.




Anyway that is it. What do you think? Let me know what I could have done different or better. What am I going to do with it? I think I am going to use it to hold some of my hand sewing stuff like a box of pins, a tape measure, a few buttons etc.

I am going to go now to Stamping Ground and sign in then fix me something to drink and surf around to the other blogs to see what is on other peoples desks this week. Thanks for dropping by!

I decided after posting this for WOYWW to also use this as my Grungy Monday 09 over at Studio L3. I think it fits the Shabby Chic criteria that the challenge was about and I didn't get it finished until Tuesday! Linda Ledbetter sponsers a weekly challenge to anyone interested in learning to use/do Tim Holtz techniques.