WOYWW 9-20-17

Here we are in West Yellowstone, MT on our Wild West vacation! It's snowing out here!

It's in the 30's, but I don't mind  - much. Better cold than hot! 

We have also visited Mt. Rushmore and a nearby state park where you are guaranteed to see wildlife. And did we ever! Bison, pronghorns, burros, a coyote, lots of prairie dogs, and magpies. It was over 100 degrees while we were there,but it was a very dry heat.

All of these photos are from my cell phone and are unedited,  so please excuse the picture quality. 

Back to crafting, here is a card I made for my granddaughter before we left.

Hope you enjoy the photos! I'll have more to share next week. For more craft-oriented posts, head on over to http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/?m=1 and check out some very talented people. 

WOYWW 8-23-17

Yay - another WOYWW! I just feel glad about that, for no particular reason!

I've had a busy week, as usual. I forgot to mention last week that I was planning on going to the Scrapbook Expo in Schaumburg, a suburb of Chicago. It's a big deal around here. Not only can you find some great bargains, but they also offer classes and space to crop. So far, I haven't been able to take advantage of the latter two, but I do enjoy the shopping! I promised my husband that I wouldn't spend much since we're trying to save for our trip. Here's a photo of my (rather small) haul.

I bought 5 pages of stickers, which are on the left. I don't have dies or stamps that are very interesting for boys, but have two grandsons, so I rely heavily on stickers to make their cards. The sticker pages were only $1.00 apiece! I also got an embossing folder with a nice floral pattern, two adhesives ($2.00 apiece!), some magnetic sheets to store dies, and last but not least, some Christmas sentiments, since I will be making our cards this year (guess what I'll be working on during vacation!).

I also got some cardstock on sale at Michaels.

I use 110 lb. weight for my cards' bases, but only had cream and white, which was getting a bit boring. Since I mainly make cards for female recipients, I chose this package of delicate pinks for some more colorful bases. It was on sale for $10.00, not bad at all!

Here is my second scrapbook page for our California trip.

This is the house where we stayed. It is set up for families who have relatives in the hospital and need a place to stay. It was very beautiful and comforting. Unfortunately, I am having some trouble with my photo editing software, so the colors in my printed photos are way off and require several attempts before they are even passable. I'm trying to figure out what to do about that.

That's it for this week! Be sure to take a look around at some other workdesks from a group of very talented people at http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com. Have a great crafting week!

WOYWW 8-16-17

Another week, another WOYWW! My husband and I are busily preparing for a long road trip, this time for fun. We are traveling West from Chicago to Yellowstone, and circling back further south, with plenty of stops along the way. I'll post some photos during future WOYWW's. Meanwhile, I have one birthday 5 days before we leave, and two while we're gone, so between that and preparing for the trip, I'll keep busy!

I've also had some other birthdays to keep me occupied. Here are two cards I made for my grandsons.

Their birthdays are 9 years apart on the same day, in June. I only recently got around to taking care of them due to all of the family drama this year.

Here is a card I made for my daughter. I am at her house now. She went to the Cubs game last night to celebrate, so I watched her three youngest children, and spent the night.

It was my first time using distress inks. I think I need more practice!

I finally remembered to take a picture of my actual workdesk. Here it is!

I took it at night, so it's a bit dark. In the blue basket are things for current projects, with my paper cutter laying across it. The basket on the left holds stamps that need cleaning. The other baskets hold miscellaneous items, like stamps, wipes, glue, etc. The green coffee container holds my adhesives and is sitting on a cardboard box that holds various inks. There is also a beverage glass and a container that held some grapes that I enjoyed as I finished my daughter's card. Eventually I plan on putting a storage rack on the wall to the right, to relieve some of the clutter. The rest of my supplies are at different places around the room.

That's it for this week! Check out some other talented crafters at http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com. Have a good WOYWW!

WOYWW 8-2-17

So, do you remember how a couple of weeks ago I said that the family drama seemed to have settled down? Well . . . the very next day my daughter informed me that she might have to move back in. This is the daughter whose bedroom I had already converted into an office. Her roommate was letting people stay in the apartment who were physically and verbally aggressive toward  her, and she ended up having to break her lease and move back home. No amount of talking to her roommate or landlord had any effect. We had to have a police escort to get her stuff out of the apartment. She's now sleeping on our living room couch. There's some space in the office for her clothes, but not much else. We're making do as best we can, and hope she finds another place before Christmas.

Here is a picture of my workdesk this week.

Nice and cluttered, eh? Which is how a workdesk should look. If it was too neat I would feel like I'm not getting anything done.

Here is a quickie birthday card I made for my granddaughter, who turned 3 years old yesterday!

Nothing fancy, but I tried to use bright colors and a theme that a 3 year old would like.

And here she is blowing out the candles on her birthday cake.

That doesn't have anything to do with crafting, but she's so cute I can't resist! Now I have to get busy and make 2 birthday cards for my 2 grandsons, one who is 10, and the other 1, but they both share the same day as their birthday. Isn't that cool?

I also had a big birthday two days ago - I turned 60! I got myself some gluten free chocolate covered pretzels as my treat. We also ordered Vietnamese food, which was pretty good! I also gave myself a big present - I got said granddaughter enrolled in preschool - yay! It doesn't start until after Labor Day, but it's something to look forward to.

That's all the news from here. Be sure to go have a peek at some other workdesks at http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com to see some really talented crafters.

WOYWW 7-19-17

Yay, I made it - another post in the same month! So far, things have been all quiet on the family front. Let's hope it stays that way.

 I got a new rug for my office/craft room! Here's a photo:

That's our cat, who can frequently be found on my office chair or the new rug. (Well, it's new to me. I found it on Facebook for a fraction of the price I would have paid on Amazon. And no offgassing!)

This week I started working on a scrapbook for our whirlwind trip to California. Here's a photo of the first page: 

Since I am the only driver, and my husband doesn't take cell phone pictures, and we were in a hurry, we have very few photos of the first leg of our trip. I relied heavily on stickers for this page. 

One more photo - this is a picture of one of those paintings that you do in a group and everyone paints the same picture.

I'm not going to pretend to be a great artiste. But it's been rattling around the house since we moved last year. I finally got a frame and hung it up!

That's it for now. Check out some talented people at http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/ to see what others are doing this week.

WOYWW 7-12-17

Time for my monthly post! I hope to get back to a weekly schedule soon.

Unfortunately our family travail continued into June. My mother-in-law, who had end stage heart failure, passed away on June 17th. My husband and I went away for 2 weeks in May, right after the memorial service for my brother, and on the way back home we got the call that she was in the hospital. We spent a bit of time visiting her and running errands until she passed, and if you've ever handled funeral arrangements, you know what the next week was like! Not to mention cleaning out her apartment with a deadline of 2 weeks after her passing. We did manage to put together a nice service. We're still running back and forth settling the estate. Hopefully our family situation has settled down for a while,and we can get started living a somewhat normal life now.

I finally got a chance to work on my office. Here are a couple of pictures:

That is my writing area. Here is my crafting space.

I was going to use a long wooden table, but decided to use a card table that I got from my mother-in-law's apartment. The card table takes up about half the wall space (it's a small room). Eventually storage will be along the same wall. I decided to put my Cuttlebug and other cutters on the TV tray behind my chair. It's not done yet, I still have to hang pictures, shelves, etc. Along some other walls are furniture and boxes that still need to be moved to our daughter's apartment.

On the table I have a scrapbook, paper, and stickers. I'm starting to scrap our whirlwind trip to California and back. I just started on a page, so I will have more about that next week.

Have a great week crafting and check out some great people with lots of talent at http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com.

WOYWW 6-14-17

I finally have a chance to post! It's been a busy spring, and I haven't had much opportunity to make any cards, even though there are occasions for them.

First, I wish to extend my deepest condolences to all my friends in the UK. You all have been through it lately. I think I'm going to add the whole country to my prayer list.

Below is a graduation card that I made for my granddaughter. She is 14 and graduating from eighth grade. (Yeah, I know, but around here they celebrate that.)

My granddaughter posing in her graduation dress. Isn't she cute?
 

And here is her card:

Not a good picture, but the best I could get with my cell phone.

Also, I'm including a picture of my workdesk, aka our dining room table. It is in a state of chaos for various reasons (okay, I'm going to work on it today). The good news is that I may be getting full access to my new office in a couple of weeks! I can't wait to start working on it!

Workdesk/table:

Yikes.

That's it for this week. Be sure to check out some really talented people at http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/