'WOYWW - 02/23/11 - Tidy, Tidy and Todo!'

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes

Howdy and welcome,

This week I can luxuriate in my tidy, tidy  'current project' rack - and focus on some mini-projects.

And I owe it all to WOYWW which helps me take an objective look at my workstation. Now I see what you see - and sometimes it's just not pretty. But this week it is!

 'Workstation in Winter craft studio - North view'

Legend below

TODO

1) Craft iron and embossed wax paper: for a resist project to make backgrounds for art journal pages

2) Mallet, container of chipboard and new metal dies: for noisy project to hammer dies into damp chipboard and quiet project to rubber stamp chipboard with ink

3) Glittery chipboard stickers: for wet project to distress chipboard stickers with tinted gessos, acrylic paints and inks

4) Vinyl pouch (one of my old Lancome makeup bags) and list of supplies from CPS mag: for assembling my watercolor sketch 'go! travel bag'

5) Tidy, Tidy 'current project' rack - yay! This scrapbook rack was bought as a casualty of another scrapbook store closing. It's designed to display scrapbook layouts and open scrapbooks. I bought all three at the going out of business sale. Also, I take these racks to my annual family reuinion to display the heritage scrapbooks I made using my grandmother's antique photos. Very popular scrapbooks! (Granny was the original family historian and scrapbooker. I'm 'saving' her acidic scrapbooks - she left about 30 books. I'm removing the pix into acid-free books and using acid-free supplies. Every 1st Saturday of the month, my 78 yr old father and I go scrapbooking at his 94 yr old aunt Alma's house. She identifies the people and locations, Daddy organizes the piles and I'm the scribe and superviser. We have a great time - it's like an archeological dig!)

What do you think of my Tidy, Tidy 'current project' rack? How many days, weeks or months do you think I can keep it Tidy, Tidy???

Take a look at more WOYWW studios here...

Thanks for stopping by. Please comment and Followers are always encouraged.

Peace,
LuLu

'LIT List It Tuesday - Feb 22 Top Fave Foods!'

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes

Howdy and Welcome,

For List It Tuesday I'm sharing my Favourite Foods!

'Top 11 Foods in 2011'

Ingredients: Glaze pen on my painted pallet/grid paper,

tweaked in Photoshop and MS DIE using gradients,

layers, saturation and transparencies

Check these other lists here!

What's your fave food? Have you discovered sushi yet?
Please leave a comment about this post or any of my posts.

Please become a Follower and come back soon! Thanks for visiting.
Peace,
LuLu

'Sparkly Serendipity Strips Send Someone Something Special!'

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes

Howdy and welcome,

Lookee here! Phoenix Peacock used some of my Serendipity Strip embellishments to make Valenties day ATCs! They are so pretty. Visit her blog to see more...

Would love for you to comment on this post. And Followers are always encouraged.

Thnaks for visiting and please come back soon.

Peace,
LuLu

"A present from 'Down Under'!"

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes

Howdy and welcome,

For Christmas my  wonderful hubby gave me a gift on my wish list - 2 sets of Kangaroo Keepers, in black and tan. He found them at our local grocery store. Each set includes a small pouch and a large pouch.

The large black pouch I'm using in my daily black tote bag. The large tan pouch I'm using in my scrapbooking backpack!

Here are Before and After photos of the large tan pouch.

 Container of essential scrapbooking supplies

BEFORE

 Essential scrapbooking supplies spread out on my craft table

 Innards of the large tan pouch with loads of pockets

AFTER

 Large tan pouch filled with essential

scrapbooking supplies.

This pouch now contains even more supplies than were

originally in the BEFORE photo above!

Large pouch with drawstrings pulled nice and snug.

That's a pencil sharpener/eraser on the

right drawstring. One of my scrappbooking

buddies found these combo pencil sharpeners!

What do you think of this pouch? Do you ever use a purse organizer?

I'd love for you to comment - and Followers are always encouraged. Won't you click on the Follow button at the top of this page and start following me today?

Thanks for visiting and come back soon.

Peace,

LuLu

'WOYWW - 02/09/11 Ready Set Go!'

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes

Howdy and welcome,

For Whats On Your Workstation Wednesday, I'm showing a rare site - my tidy table! I've been trying very hard to make this space work for me.

 Tidy workstation - ready for next project

 The color section in this photo is 'the current project' rack. But it's full of stuff to be filed.

Over the past few months, I just threw stuff on the rack. Now it's time to sort and organize,

so that the rack can be used for it's intended purpose -

notes, sketches, ideas and inspirations for 'The Current Project'.

These are clear plastic bins for sorting 'stuff' on the current project rack. There is a 3rd rack to the right - not pictured. These are lids from some kitchen storage containers.

This week I'll be sorting the 'stuff'.

MY EFFICIENCY CHALLENGE

Becuase I'm ambidexterous, my work process use tools and supplies from both the left-hand and the right-hand sides of the table. It's not the right-to-left process or left-to-right process, normally recommended for efficient work spaces. Being ambidexterous makes it challenging to setup my 'ideal' efficient workstation - but I'm slowly getting closer.

DESIGNATE HOMES

There is an article from CPS (Cloth Paper Scissors magazine) I just read on the rack. It describes a few traits of an ideal studio - and I'm trying to focus on those traits. The most important traits to me are dedicated homes for WIP (works in progress) and deciated homes for finished works.

What about you? Do you have a right-to-left process? Do you have a dedicated space for WIPs? Or finished works?
 
Click here for a peek at more WOYWW spaces - so much fun to see where other artists create!
 
Thanks for stopping by. Would love for you to comment and become a Follower. Followers are encouraged! Please come back soon.
 
Peace,
LuLu

'LIT - List It Tuesday 2/8 - Top Fave Cities!'

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes


Howdy and welcome,

Travel is one of my favorite hobbies. Here are are my Top 10 11 Favorite cities for this week's List It Tuesday. The 'X' indicates the number of times I've visited that particular place when more than once. Except for Chicago of course - which is my home base.

'Top 10 11 Fave Cities' -

Glaze pen on painted grid pallet paper,

tweaked in Photoshop and MS DIE using gradients,

layers and transparencies

Wish I could afford to go to Nassau again - right now. It's snowing outside now - on top of the 20+ inches Chicago got last Tuesday and Wednesday during the blizzard of 2011. I'd rather be on a beach enjoying the sun or swiiming in the ocean! How about you?

What are your favorite visited cities?Click  Here for more LIT List It Tuesday lists.

Thanks for stopping by. I'd love for you to comment and become a Follower.

Peace,
LuLu

'WOYWW 2/2/11 - Laminatin' Heaven Inside / Snowtorious Outside!'

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes

Howdy and welcome,

Outside, here in Chicago, it's the Snowtorious B.I.G. Blizzard of 2011. But inside it's warm and comfy where I'm finishing up a little project to organize my future art projects. (We are so blessed to still have heat and power.).

The challenge was gathering supplies every time a new project is started. I was always neglecting to take something out - and then I was scrambling for something before medium or paint got too dry to manipulate.

So I decided that a supplies list was in order - a permanent list to use every time I start working on a project, including a written goal of what I want to accomplish during the art session. This way I can stay focused, be more efficient, effective and hopefully, more productive. Up until now, most of my art sessions have been random and serendipitous. I'd just work on whatever caught my fancy. Or experiment with whatever technique I'd just read about.

 Left to right: Golden Interference acrylic paint
(in a travel shampoo bottle with
 dabber applicator top), Xyron 510 refill,
YES! paste,

Permanent Supplies List, Xyron 510

You can see the laminated Supplies List just peeking out from under the right edge of the  Xyron 510 refill.

To make the list, I picked a sheet of Strathmore Bristol paper from my stash that was used as an experiment for calligraphy practice. It also had gold glitter all over it. I picked this Bristol paper because it's like thick cardstock. Then I covered it with some tinted gesso, and let that dry. I added a glaze from my stash I'd concocted with Golden Interference acrylic paint. Then I cut the paper in half from top to bottom and adhered the two pieces back to back with Xyron 510 permanent adhesive.

Next, I stuck a small double-sided tab in between the sheets at the top. It has one of my initials on each side. I adhered the tabs using my little Xyron 'X' sticker maker.

Then, I hand printed the list using a Sakura Glaze pen and printed the title with the calligraphy tip of a Copic pen. At first, I was going to type my list into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, but changed my mind. I decided that a hand printed list would be much prettier to look at for the next few years...

After the inks dried, I switched out the Xyron 510 perm adhesive refill for the Xyron 510 laminating refill. Then laminated the list. This was the first time I did any laminating with the Xyron. Not sure I did it 100% correctly, but it came out great for my purposes.

By the way, I also re-organized my workstation again before I started this project. My goals were to get as much stuff off my table as possible and to only have 1 current project on the table - in addition to my regular essential tools. I'm still working towards these goals, but getting a lot closer!

Here is a peek at more WOYWW artist desks.

Thanks for stopping by - and I'd love for you to become a follower while you're here. Just click the Follow button at the top of the page (if you're logged into www.blogspot.com.)

Peace,
LuLu

'LIT - List It Tuesday 2/1 - My Bucket List Top 10!

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes

Howdy and welcome,

For 'LIT List It Tuesday' check out my 'Bucket List TOP 10'.

'My Bucket List TOP 10' -
Glaze pen on wallpaper sample, scanned and tweaked in photoshop,
layers with original acrylic and pen collage on graph paper,
 MS DIE, transparencies, distortion, gradients

I'm a big dreamer and over-achiever. My bucket list Top 10 is wild - but doable.

Have you created a 'bucket' list - or things to do before you die?

More artists lists are here.

Thanks for visiting - I'd love for you to become a Folllower!

Peace,
LuLu