Halloween FUN!

Last year at work the girls in the Finance/Admin department decided we should do a little work Halloween party & potluck!  There was a contest for best costume, and best decorated desk.  My competitive spirit was all down for this!

I'll start with my desk decorating:

I was originally made some bloody handprint window clings out of white glue but didn't like they way they turned out, so I threw them out and ended up painting my hands with red acrylic paint and smearing them on my cubicle window (SO much fun, by the way!)

(attempt at glue window clings)

I found caution tape at the dollarstore to put all over the exterior of my cube.

Because my boss is not the type to participate, I expanded my decorating onto his cubicle too.  :)  I picked up this Styrofoam tomb stone at the dollarstore.  I had considered a chalk outline and toilet paper decorating for my boss's desk, but I didn't have time.  Maybe next year!

I made a stained bloody curtain out of what I had around the house.  I coffee stained a white piece of fabric, and then used my scrapbooking spray ink to add some "blood"

(Curtain drying in the bath tub!)

I found some severed fingers and random eyeballs and brains at the dollarstore.  I floated some things in jars of colored water (Tip: neon food coloring made for great colors here!)

Some of them I drilled holes in and put on my Christmas lights

And then some were just placed around :)

The potluck was extremely successful! People brought what they said they would, we had a good mix of things, and it was all so tasty!  Some people even got really into it!

Spider dip!

Witch fingers

Jello brain!!

Thanks for checking out my Halloween hauntings, hope you got some fun ideas for decorating and food!

I can't wait to do my desk this year! 

     

 

Office Re-decorating

If you've been around here for a while, you'd remember when I first got my new job I wanted to spruce up my cubicle a bit.

I had a couple posts of my cube before and then about some of the things I'd made for it here and here. 

I now present to you the new look for my cubicle.

These coasters were from tiles I'd bought at ReStore.  Except this isn't the color the tiles originally were.  They were white with grey specs.  I spray painted them and then stamped them with Staz On ink! 

Now another problem I had was that I have a lot of coil bound books (Canadian Electrical Code, and training manuals, cuz I'm cool like that!) that just don't stand nicely on a shelf.  I bought some plain magazine holders, and guess what - spray painted those too! Then I hot-glued a little scrapbooking label thing to the front!

Here's some other details that I have kicking around - magnetic spice jars for paper clips, rubber bands, etc.  magnetic Martha Stewart notepad, reed diffuser, and vase with artificial flowers for a pop of color.  The vase filler is just coffee beans.  I got them from my dad's condo after he passed away because by that time I figured they were pretty old, and so bam! perfect for vase filler!

I really like my little homey touches to my office and I hope you do too!

$5 of Decorating Fun

Once every year I get to remind my boss how "old" he is (old in quotation marks because he's only 4 years older than I am, and neither of us are actually old) I like to do this by decorating his cubicle for his birthday. 

This year I spent a total of $5 at the dollar store, and produced fairly good results - and that included a card!

This banner was left over from last year...but you can't go wrong with one of these!

I decided against the Disney Princess theme and went with something slightly less emasculating and less obnoxious - hockey theme!

I found a package of Canadian hockey team napkins - perfect!

I also picked up some streamers, balloons and tissue paper!  Streamers and balloons are pretty obvious as to what to do with them, but the tissue paper I took one sheet at a time and grabbed it by the middle and stuck it in random crevices...like between his monitors.

So for not very much money, I was able to decorate the cubicle and still have plenty left over! 

More funny vinyl "families"

This one was a present for my boss's 30th birthday.  He's the one who I made this for (for his girlfriend for Christmas)

The tall guy on the left is meant to be my boss, I'm the girl, and the guy next to me is a co-worker who works closely with us, but is technically supervised by someone else.  

Now before you go thinking my boss is a big jerk, let me explain.  I'm an electrical engineer, and so a large part of my job is creating drawings for my designs in AutoCad (I'm sounding really cool now, huh?)  As part of the drawing control procedure, someone else has to officially check the drawing (my boss).  Last summer, my boss was out of the office, and I was going through my drawings that he'd checked and on one of them I missed something really obvious and written on the page in big red letters was "DO BETTER!"  I BURST OUT LAUGHING.  I also realized that that's kinda my boss's catch phrase.  So "Do better" has kinda become a joke around the office.  

One of the best things about this - it cost me nothing.


I figure this probably isn't going to be the last twisted vinyl family I make.  And yes, I would take orders.  

     http://www.creatingreallyawesomefreethings.com/

Help & Advice Needed! Aka more tile coasters

My obsession with tile coasters continues with this grey set.  The plan was to use these at work and continue decorating my cubicle

This time I wanted to use my silhouette! I JUST learned how to use the trace function and it blew my mind a little!  (WHA?! You mean I can cut out any image I want?!)

I found a quatrefoil design I liked and cut it out of white vinyl to fit my coaster.

(hard to see here, but...)

(a little easier to see once I removed the stuff I didn't want)

Using transfer paper I stuck it to my coaster

And then removed the transfer paper leaving my nice little stencil

I then painted it in with yellow acrylic.

The problems began when I started taking off the vinyl.

It looked great, but the paint didn't want to stick to the coaster.  :(

I'm not sure what to do with this now.

Do I:
1) Continue on, and then put a million coats of sealer on it and pray it turns out
2) Peel off everything including the existing paint and....
        2a) Spray the coaster with some medium so that the paint will adhere to it and start over
        2b) Try again with spray paint instead of acrylic
3) Ditch the idea all together because I'm considering going for a green/white/zen kinda feel for my desk


Let me know what you think.  I have one half finished coaster sitting here and it's driving me nuts!

     

     

Cubicle Decorating: Office Essentials

Continuing my quest to have a cuter office, I bring you the latest installment of Operation: Cutesify Office!

I love all those twisty tissue paper rosettes, so I had to make a few for my office.  

I made a bunch in different sizes!  I used tissue cut into strips about 1.5" wide.  For the big ones I used 2 pieces together, and the small ones I just used one strip.

I backed them all with card stock of about the same color to give them a bit more stability.

I turned some of these into magnets because last week I realized I could really use some magnets at work.  

I started with these plain dollar store magnets - they came on a really cool metal backing which I'm thinking about what I could do with it!  Maybe something like these metal tags from Tatertots and Jello!

And here's the end result! Won't these look cute up on my metal shelves?!?

What else have I found to do with these flowers?? 

Remember the sewing kit from my survival box?

Look how cute it is now:

The last new addition to my office?  

This wipe-off board!

I always need to make myself quick notes, and never have scrap paper around, and if I do, I lose them, or have a million different notes, so to be more organized, I made this frame into a wipe off board!

I just printed an image from the Graphics Fairy onto some yellow card stock and put it into a dollar store frame.  I love it!  

Slowly sprucing up my desk, one week at a time.

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Cubicle Decorating: Desk Survival Kit

Part One: Desk Survival Kit

I was inspired by The New Professional's Cubical Survival Kit

...AND The Box of Teacher Goodies by eighteen25

I came up with this!

I started off with an organizing box from the fishing tackle box section (this is where I found the best variety of containers at the best price - the ones in the crafting sections are so much more expensive for the same thing!!)

I decorated the top with scrapbooking paper and mod podged it on. I added a cute rub on too!

And then I filled it with all types of goodies that I might need at my desk at some point or another (my office is out in an industrial area, so if I were to need something, it wouldn't be a quick trip to run out and get it)

So what's all in my box of goodies?

Well, firstly, quick wardrobe fixes:

TIDE TO GO PEN (not pictured -  it's already in my desk drawer, but will be added to the kit)

STICKY LINT ROLLER

Personal Care:

TRAVEL SIZE HAIRSPRAY

TRAVEL SIZE DEO

BURT BEES LIP BALM (I'm a super lip balm addict, I go crazy if I forget it!!!)

BLOTTING PAPERS - not pictured (I'm an oily skin person, so by mid-day I have a BP-like slick on my forehead-GROSS)

MIRROR COMPACT (not pictured)

COMB (not pictured)

Dental/Breath Helpers:

MINTS

GUM

DENTAL FLOSS

TOOTHBRUSH

TOOTHPASTE

Feminine Products

PADS

TAMPONS

Nail Care:

CLEAR NAIL POLISH

EMERY BOARDS

NAIL BRUSH (My nails are usually really short, and tend to get really dirty underneath, and it seems that a nail brush is the only way to deal with it!)

NAIL CLIPPERS (I actually found a little set with the 3 emery boards, nail brush and 2 sets of nail clippers for $2!!)

HANDSANITIZER (not pictured.  I'm not a huge fan of this stuff because I believe in good old fashion hand washing, but I think it has it's place every now and then)

CRAZY MULTI-TOOL (I have no idea where I got this from, but I decided it would be best off in my desk kit.  It has a cork screw, bottle opener, nail file, knife, saws that really aren't sharp at all, a screw driver, scissors... and all that other stuff that no one really knows what it is or what to use it for)

Disposables:

WET WIPES

BANDAIDS

Q-TIPS

COTTON BALLS (don't ask me what I intend to use these for, but it seemed like something I might want as I was gathering other things from the bathroom!)

TYLENOL

I'm considering adding some decongestants into here too

COUGH DROPS (not pictured)

SEWING KIT

SAFETY PINS (not pictured)

Being a ponytail girl I can't live without

HAIR TIES 

BOBBY PINS

CANDY

So there you have it.  Everything I think I might need (and way way more I'm sure!)

Do you have a stash at your desk? Did I miss anything that you think I should have? Let me know what you think!