I woke up yesterday to seeing the bear had once again made an appearance in our back yard….and literally squeezed a solid metal bird feeder in half.  I need to find it in the trash so I can share the photo of it, as it’s amazing the damage one bear can do.  He also bent two shepherds hooks in half…We should have known he had come by for a visit, as Honey had a huge anxiety attack in the night and was shaking, standing basically on top of me in bed, and looking down the hallway.  I sent Rich to check out what was going on, and the only thing he didn’t do, was turn on the outside light.  I’m pretty sure if he had, he’d have come within feet of the bear.  Honey, on the other hand, never left my side, as she’s not the world’s best protection.  So another big bird feeder bites the dust.  I have one other large feeder that’s shaped like a gazebo…It has a bite out of the base of it from last year’s bear encounter.  I never know when he’s going to come out of hibernation, and he had a short sleep this year, as he was still awake and destroying my bird feeders in late November.  I think it has to do with when the weather remains cold, otherwise he gets confused, and doesn’t snuggle in for a long winter’s nap…

I have been in the craft room, and made the video on guillotine trimmers.  I’ve had viewers who struggle with paper trimming and I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of their issues revolve around not understanding how to read the ruler or the measurements on a paper trimmer.  I’m hoping my guillotine trimmer video will help crafters with that..

One of my closest girlfriend’s 60th birthday is today and I wanted to make a special card for her.   A week or so ago, HSN had a craft day and Crafter’s Companion had a great kit (I thought) with three of their new inks in varying shades of pink/fuchsia, a layered stamp set and matching dies for $29.99, (I think)…..I thought it was a good deal considering I was getting three full size ink pads, and a large set of stamps.  Maybe it was too good to be true.

I wanted to use the flower set to make my girlfriend’s card, and wanted to play with the inks a little before putting them on the card.  When I stamped them, they were spotchy, and we all know that normally, the splotchiness goes away when it dries….this did not happen to me.   Once dry, they were still splotchy.  I cleaned the stamps before using them with my homemade stamp cleanser, and when I used other brands of inks, had no issues.  In the end (after three solid attempts at making this card, and failing), I decided to use the lightest pink, so you could see just how poorly they performed, and knowing it would be covered by the other layers of colors from the second and third layered stamps.  As soon as I switched to another brands ink, I immediately noticed a difference, not only in the splotchiness, but also in the overall ease of use.

I was happy with my end result, but thought it was important that I shared this video, so others who might be on the fence about these inks, would know not to buy them.

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