Oodles of Doodles

I'm going to Denmark in less than a month. So what does that have to do with doodles? Well, I'll tell you. It's intricately connected. In order to have all of my work done in time to stress-free evacuate the office in about three weeks, I had to read a heckaofalot of papers in a short span. We're talking me editing seven papers in three days. And I got a little loopy. And loopy means doodles. I thought some were fun so I decided you may want to see them. Frankly, I don't really have much more to say on the topic.

Office Tannenbaum

This is my 16" office Christmas tree, all decked out with battery operated red lights, little glittery silver snowballs and, just to amp up the Avril Lavigne factor, some skull and crossbones garland (homemade of course). And if my desk doesn't say "festive if not overboard" I don't know what does. I hope y'all enjoy this slice of my daily life here at work. Behind the tree is a corkboard covered in that I choose to call my inspiration board because I tack up little bits and pieces I collect.


A close up. You needed it. You wanted it. You got it.

Blueprints for Mr. Gingerbread

I wanted to share this creative sketch-out that I did before I started on the gingerbread man. I was talking over the project with one of my coworkers and I drew my concept for him (top right) and he inquired about the placement of the man on the tree. Those two faces on the left were his impressions of what a gingerbread man should look like when he gets a Christmas tree enema.

Neverland, the Last Office Halloween Post I Swear

The pictures of this craft don't look so hot. I'm the first to admit this fact. It was too awkward of an angle to get a good shot. Plus, I'm not so hot with the digi cam. My apologies. Here's the idea behind the craft though. So my office area was dressed as the characters of Peter Pan for Halloween. We needed a distinct Neverland theme. And tossing aside any obscure Michael Jackson references, we turned Wikipedia to remember the tale of Peter and his pals. And you know how you get to Neverland? Well, you fly through the window and take the second star to the right and fly on til morning. Please note that's from memory and I'm not sure if that's the exact celestial direction, but that's not important here. What is important is that I took a bed sheet, painted a window, used packing tape to make the frame of the window and scissors to cut the panes out. And we had ourselves a window. And when our visitors came by we covered the floor with white balloons to simulate the clouds with a pirate ship attached to the window. It was pretty cool. The entire department's efforts to transform into a fairy tale land won us $75 worth of breakfast tacos from Taco Cabana. So there's that. For the crafting details, I used craft paint with poster paint. What's great is that I diluted it pretty well with water and it took just a few ounces of paint to cover the entire twin size sheet.

Oh and as far as the pictures go, you get the overall view, which, granted, is cropped pretty funkily. And then you get some shots of me as Peter Pan and my coworkers as Tinkerbell and Captain Hook, respectively. I thought our costumes really sold us. What's great is that Mariya owned that dress already and it is perfectly Tinkerbell colored!

Fairy Tale, Part One

Yep, that's my boss dressed as the Pied Piper, with rats on strings attached to his belt loops. He clutches a South American flute of some variety, which of course is a trademark of the Pied Piper, as you can hardly call yourself a "piper" if you don't come complete with a pipe. And though his costume is daring for the workplace and shows quite a bit of creativity... that's not the point of this post my friends and devoted readers. Instead, I draw you attention to the "scene setting" (yes Katie, those are some useless quotes) scrolls of paper that are hanging on the front door, above, and bottom door, below.

And so begins the crafts for the office Halloween party. And no, you don't need to tell me that my office is a bit like The Office. I already know. I work there after all and I'm pretty high up on the Party Planning Committee. And I stayed up half the night making this and a few other assorted crafts that you are soon to see on this blog for our one-day-long celebration of Halloween. Thank goodness we came in second place (it was a tie for second but who really is counting) for our decorations. We tied with the IT department who turned their computer fixing area into, of all things, a dead cowboy train station, a theme which I believe is a little too out there. They just wanted an excuse to be half ghost half train robbers. And we transformed our lovely 15th floor office into a Fairy Tale Wonderland of sorts, complete with a whole host of delightful fairy tale characters.

I thought that these signs would make a good visual impact on our visitors, setting the tone for the theme. I used one of my favorite types of handwriting--that is my Tim-Burton's-Nightmare-Before-Christmas kind of handwriting so that the font would come off as slightly eery, fairly cheerful, youthful and full of whimsy. Michaels sold a 16' roll of paper, which I used as a table runner down the length of my dining table for a week or two before I had to make the craft and I'll be using again in another creative venture that you'll be reading about in a few days, well, if you want to. Each scroll piece is 8' long and features a few rolls on top and bottom of the writing, to give the storybook look. I sketched out the words in pencil (my least favorite writing utensil) before I wrote the words out with a Marks A Lot marker (or three).

I know that this post has made you anxious to see some more about my office Halloween festivities...

Plug for the Other Blog

Hello my dears --
I'm sure you're all too busy voting today (an activity which takes like forever -- I spent at least 10 minutes in line this morning. Geez! This country thinks I've got 10 minutes to spare every four years, how ridiculous) to check on my poor old blog, but I wanted to give a plug to my other blog, my artsy-fartsy borders-on-the-bizarre PDF'ed. I haven't had time to post lots of my bevy of craft projects to this blog, but with Halloween last week around the office, I kinda went nuts on the other blog. In fact, I have a post scheduled for every day this week and three days of next week. So if you like what you see of my pseudo-artistic endeavors using the copy machine at work, check back frequently.

Other coolkidscrafting items of interest include... Yours truly is busy designing the tree-topper for the Dallas Theta Christmas Tree Auction to be held this weekend at the Dallas Country Club. Never ever in my wildest imagination did I dream that one of my craft projects would end up prominently displayed at DCC, right there on Beverly Drive! It's gotta be really awesome, so naturally with T minus four days to go I haven't drawn up a plan, bought any supplies or started working on it! Yay for being a crafter and procrastinator. Oh and in case you were wondering, some of the Christmas trees to be auctioned off are designed by professionals with every craft and design supply at their fingertips and a limitless budget. Yowza! I just hope my tree topper isn't sad and Homer-Simpson-designs-Lisa's-costumesque when compared to the others.

Wipey Board Wonders

I'm still having difficulty getting too much crafting done. Or perhaps I should say that I have recently crafted and then forgotten to take pictures of the completed craft... Doh! For my church retreat last weekend, I did a calligraphy project. I scribed the same Bible verse on 36 cards, which were then tied to red roses for our retreatants. They looked simply marvelous darling and naturally I forgot to take a picture of the completed project. Rats! The women really loved the calligraphy project and many of them told me last night that they planned to keep their cards for a long time. Yay! My craft projects have gone to live in other people's lives and that's what really matters. So today I'm showing you some recent drawings from the wipey boards at work, all done by me of course. Above you'll see my Pooh and Piglet. Monday was in fact the birthday of Winnie the Pooh or as they say in Russia "Vinni Puh." If you've got a wee bit of time on your hands, you should watch that link's video. Russian Winnie the Pooh is awesome (thanks to the Russian coworker, I know of his greatness). Normally I don't blog about Soviet cartoons, but just this once... In my drawing, you'll see a particularly trim Pooh (I couldn't quite get the rotundity) with a honey pot and his buddy Piglet giving him a birthday balloon. We like to mark the important anniversaries around this office. Clearly.

And here's my front door. The quote about the hurricane was contributed by one of my coworkers... I'm not that bitter about baseball. I just wanted yall to see what the office mates get to see when approaching my door.

And of course to gloat about defeating the LA Angels of Anaheim or whatever ridiculous string of words and locations they are going by today, I added a dead rally monkey to my door. Enjoy. I promise I'll be crafting soon and then I'll post some cool actual crafts instead of just useless stuff.

Two Months Back

Here's the highlight doodle for the month on August. Pretty exciting, huh? Well, it seems that Hilary has finally mastered the art of the swirl. Oh wait, I've been doing swirly things for years. This is just an ultimate manifestation of all things swirly.
I still wanted to show it off though in case you wanted to see more from me, which, of course, you always do.

p.s. Sorry I'm so delightfully sassy this morning.

Three Months Late

Here are the doodles from the month of July. I haven't posted my monthly doodle sets in a while, so I'll try to do that, now that I've got three months worth stockpiled as pdf's on my computer. I realize that posting my doodles verges on narcissistic, but I just feel like my little inked up calendar is such an expression of me. Anyone who knows me or has ever sat through a meeting with me has certainly seen me have at a piece of paper with relentless, wrapped attention to detail. I won't stop doodling until the whole page is covered, even at the expense of the necessary information on the piece of paper... like phone numbers or deadlines...

I'm particularly proud of this "doodle." I'm also forever indebted to my coworker who handles the office supplies catalog who ordered me the most awesome marker set ever. And I'm proud to say that I've actually managed to incorporate the markers into my work on at least a half dozen occasions. Judging by the doodle, you can tell that I was really looking forward to the leg surgery. I was, for what its worth. I was most anxious to have the surgery in the rear-view window instead of always looming on the horizon. And it was as pleasant as could be expected, considering the crux of the operation was to remove a 17-inch nail from my thigh. Delightful, folks. I decided to follow up my two days of intense health care with a tribute to America.

You'll note that throughout the doodles, you can see the Red Sox scores noted on each game day. A particular highlight of my stay in the hospital (besides the fact that a billion loving people came to bring my flowers and tasty food ... always a huge plus) was that the hospital carried a station that aired the Red Sox. So I got to watch my beloved baseball boys whilst doped up on Aunt Beth's brownies and morphine! Talk about a sweet summer...

Finally, I just really liked the way this turned out. And, no, I didn't win the dessert bake off. I'm not even going to claim that I was robbed (though my cupcakes kicked major booty). It was a high calorie day of office fun.

Corner View

Hey folks. I bet some of you started to wonder if I'd ever post again. It's true I've been a real delinquent, and after saying I'd be better, too. Oh well. I have a billion things to post--all these great craft projects that are done but I just haven't had the chance to put up here yet.

And today's post is so silly, but I just thought I'd show you the "corner view" from my office. I built this litte hammock for my Wally The Green Monster to sit in out of a paper napkin and some straight pins. He gets the lovely view of a postcard from the Dallas Art Museum over his left shoulder and a snapshot of a lemon tree in Italy over his right shoulder. And of course, facing straight ahead, he gets to look at me typing away at my computer all day long. Naturally, a partially doodled calendar for the month of July is at the front of the picture.

And that's enough silliness from me for one day! Who ever heard of bringing a Wally The Green Monster to work? Some days I can tell I'm just going to need the little burst of energy that his silly little self brings me.

And in case you wondered... this is actually one of the tamest sections of my little office home (note that I didn't say home office). I should post more pictures so you can see how completely over the top the place is. It matches me pretty well though...

Talk to you soon!

May Doodles

Yo Peeps! I know it's been a long time, but that doesn't mean that I don't love you. You know that I do.
I don't know why I'm so busy or noncrafty these days; perhaps I should consider expanding the criterion for what qualifies for this blog. I certainly got some creative inspiration from my little cousin Mary when I saw her last weekend in Austin. She's the cousin that needs a craft blog... Alas...
In news that should bode well for the number of blog posts, I got a new computer! This should allow more posts.

These are my Month-O-May calendar doodles. The above section features a white out project that I won't try again. Turns out it's pretty hard to draw anything with white out. And at the bottom of that picture, you'll see a doodle inspired by an afternoon of listening to my Grateful Dead channel on Pandora. Trippy.

This one is fairly generic. You do learn that I'm tired of Mariah Carey from this shot though.

Here's my birthday salute to me. Yay. 26. I'll try to do some creative stuff soon. I hate to lean on office calendar doodles. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy my fav leisure time activity.

Busy Week Blues!

Yo! I've been wicked busy this week. Yeah, I said wicked. I did winter twice in Maine so I feel like I can pepper my posts with that New Englandism every once in a blue moon. I didn't get a chance to pursue all of the crafting delights I was hoping to pursue this week (I don't even know where the time went...), so I'm publishing some classic doodles. This is all from my April desk calendar. You don't believe me? Look at the picture below!!

Benny and the Jets was on my Pandora... decided I needed to try my hand at a rather mannish topic--airplanes.

This is how I feel. The items on my to do list are like scary, spikey monsters standing right behind me. "Help! I'm stressing!" -- that's my mantra this week! I hope to bring you some good stuff soon though. I've been procrastinating on a sewing project that promises to knock my socks off, perhaps yours as well. Don't know yet.

Fav doodle of April. Hands down. Fav.

(Insert very small plug for the awesomest team in baseball...) No, really, the song was playing on Pandora and I was feelin' it with my new pink pen. So thus ends my lamest post ever, but I wanted yall to see something creative from me...

Missing In Activity

Yo! Readers.... Have you missed me? I realize I've been gone for a while (a creative hiatus, if you will), but I have tons of things in store for this week, including a guest posting with some really creative cupcake creations from the East Coast (not pictured above--instead, those are the ones I served on Easter. I'm a cheater though, they're from Society Catering on Greenville and not my own kitchen!). And with Calligraphy Class 2 starting next Monday, you can bet you'll see a bunch of scripting projects coming along really soon, too! And, one more thing... if you get bored because I'm slow to update, you can always visit my other, wackier blog, PDF'ed, which showcases some of the bizarre things that go on around my office.

Geez! Leave Me A Gnome!

People who know me know I love me some gnomes. And I got a new gnome! There's a beautiful German woman who works at my office with me and, in keeping with her German heritage, she finds my gnome fascination really humorous. So she got me this gnome for Christmas. When I unwrapped the package from her, I was bouncing off the walls of my cube. It's a great gnome. Ursula (my lovely German friend and coworker) and I agreed that it has the best qualities of a gnome, with oversized ears that aren't too pointy, a sufficiently aged face, a full and lush white beard, suggesting his wisdom. So I'm sharing my gnome with my blog audience because its such a great gnome and it makes me really, really happy.

Also, I kinda wanted to have a label "gnomes" after I saw that Katie has one over at Subtropical Paradise...

And lest you worry, this gnome is NOT lonely. He's in great gnome company in my cube... The "gnome on the range" cowboy western postcard is on one wall, and then there's the gnome lamp that really sets my cube apart from other people's. That's one of those things I bought at Urban Outfitters in my teenage days, thinking it was about as cool as cool gets. And yeah... it's still a light up gnome lamp... At least I'm not still a teenager. But it's a perfect cube accessory, because the entire concept of spending 9 hours a day in a little box is every bit as ridiculous as the gnome collection! Note that between the two gnomes is as award from the Maine Press Association. I like to mix my credentials with whimsical fictional woodland creatures.

Sticker Chicks Reunited

My office bff Stepheny and I collect fruit stickers. It's to the the point that we both admit we've bought fruits we don't even like very much so that we can get a cool sticker. The cantaloupe sticker really sticks out the most and that's all Stepheny. Actually, almost all of the stickers are Stepheny.
And I've posted this because today we were reunited with our sticker sheet. It had been lost for weeks and the office wasn't as fun without it, quite honestly. Well, it returned. Miss Stepheny found it in her cube and we are rejoicing. It's back on the wall and eagerly awaiting new fruit stickers. Too bad I didn't bring an apple to work!

Brand Spankin' New

I'm always striving to live a creative life. I'd describe my style as "over the top even though I'm consistently striving for minimalism." You can take the girl out of Texas, but you can't take the big hair out of the girl... I guess. And I'm back in Texas now anyway, so I guess there's no hope for me. I am doomed to a life of projects that involve glitter, beads, fancy buttons, bright colors, wild textures. I'm OK with that, because my projects make me one happy camper.

The above picture is from a fairly random pdf I made of objects from around my desk at work. It just goes to show you the kind of stuff I like to work with... Colors, textures, anything that makes the drab walls of my cube nice and bright.