Good morning my crafty WOYWW friends! For those of you that aren’t familiar with WOYWW (What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday), head on over to Julia’s Stamping Ground and you will find desks from all around the world for What’s on Your Workdesk Wednesday where we get to snoop on other crafter’s desks.
Well, stop the search parties because I have once again resurfaced to play. The last time I participated in WOYWW was #470!! Since then, I had a fantastic summer and Hawaiian vacation to really crank things up. I am a self-employed crafter and this was the first summer I decided to stop putting so much pressure on myself and took the summer off to be with my boys and dear husband. So that’s what I did, so with it came me abandoning my blog too.
As both my boys are both in school again, today is my first day back to work and boy is it a bit crazy. I hired my youngest son, yesterday to help me create an inventory of all my stamping inks. Let’s just say that I have been crafting for years and have amassed quite a collection. So the first thing I did was give my son specs for the creation of a spreadsheet so that once I establish this system, I can maintain moving forward.
Because let’s face it, we all know the feeling of ordering some craft product only to find out days or weeks later, that you already own it!! I wanted to track the manufacturers, the type of ink, the color and how many I own, also have it tell me if I need to re-order any.
Once he created the spreadsheet, I duplicated it and removed some of the fields for printing purposes and added a ‘swatch’ column so that I could visibly see my entire inventory. I found a fun leaf stamp and got to stamping. Boy did it take time. I had no idea how many ink pads I own. I am extremely impressed that almost all of them were still juicy. I have some of them for so many years, I think some of the companies might have even gone out of business by now. But the fact that they are still moist is surprising.
But now I am left with an awesome system to help me when I am creating products. I can find just the right color and type of ink to use in minutes. So it was well worth the hours to create it.
I will leave you with one photo from our vacation and then later I will write a proper post to share some more of the fantastic details. I hope you all are well and I look forward to re-connecting with you talented WOYWW friends. Keep craftin!!
Belinda
Hello Everyone! I don’t know what I am thinking because June is a busy month but I am always up for a challenge. From June 1 – 30th is the 30-day coloring challenge created and hosted by none other than Kathy Racoosin at 
This is from Day 1 which was on Saturday. I convinced my youngest, to help me kick off the challenge by coloring with me. He is coloring in one of my old coloring books that contain a bunch of mandalas. I helped him select a color scheme and he dove in. I think I will try to get him to color with me on another day too because although he didn’t want to admit it, he was having fun coloring and chatting with me.
I chose the “In My Garden” coloring book. I am always discovering more about myself each time I sit to create. What I noticed was I gravitated to this smaller book to kick off the challenge. There is something comforting about a smaller canvas. It’s not too small it’s more of mid-range size about 8×8. So it’s fun to hold and easy to turn while coloring. I used one of my pre-made color swatches that I created a few weeks back to help me with my color selection. I find them so handy and when I use them the pages always look more cohesive.
Good morning my crafty WOYWW friends! For those of you that aren’t familiar with WOYWW (What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday), head on over to 
II have a dear friend that is blessed with the opportunities to go to Disney World. She knows my favorite princess is Tiana, which is the only African American princess created by Disney. I have collected a few of her dolls and other items. But my point that I am going for is that now I have a real African American princess to adore.
But I digress. Let’s stop the gushing and talk about my desk. Check it out! I have the completed page I started last week. Ha…I actually finished it to share! I think WOYWW helps on the accountability pressure!! Other items are this beautiful tea themed dies set I bought from my girlfriend over a year ago. Actually maybe longer. I hardly used it to so I was thinking I need to play with it. I am still loving my little tray to hold the colored pencils I use for a page. Lately, I leave my big case on the shelf once I have selected my colors and it makes for less clutter on my desk while I color.
On the left is the edge of my bullet journal (it’s turquoise). I just started using it this year instead of a planner. I am really loving the full flexibility and I am not at all upset that I fit half a year in this one so I ordered another, same color to finish off the second half of the year. I also journal in it which I believe led to more space needed but I like having everything in one place and I keep it simple so it’s fun to return to rather than a chore.