My friend Elizabeth had sent me watercolor paper leaf shapes and I wanted to play with them. Using a lot of paper under them, so I could make a huge mess. I used a stiffer brush, and my Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolors in the 36 count set. Here’s a link if you are looking to buy them. http://tinyurl.com/y7kjb6x8
I dipped the brush into the watercolors (that I had pre-wet) and added a little water to the end of the brush. Take your finger and pull the brush fibers toward yourself while aiming it at the leaf or whatever shape you use. Use a bunch of colors until your leaf is covered. They take on a metallic sheen when you add any of the metallic colors near the bottom of the palette of colors. I used tear tape and a little wet glue to adhere them to green card stock.
For the sentiment, I used Rubbernecker Stamps Freehand Phrases #900 (link to them — http://www.rubbernecker.com/product-p/900.htm )
and stamped it with a darker ink color on the bottom corner of my 5 1/2″ x 4 1/4″ card. I glued the leave to the front of the card on an angle and trimmed away any that was hanging over the edges. I used gold Stickles and went around the edges of the leaf to accentuate it. I added some dots of gold Stickles (here’s a link to Stickles http://tinyurl.com/ycvbpfds ) on the Maple leaf. Any time you use Stickles, make sure you give them a really long time to dry, overnight is best, and keep them out of your work area, or you’ll end up smearing them–not that I would know anything about that. haha.
On the envelope, I used a leaf from the Autumn Glory set of peg stamps in Always Artichoke ink from Stampin’ Up. Here’s a link to the peg stamp I used. Here’s a link to the stamp I used.
https://pegstamps.com/cart.php?m=search_results&headerSearch=Y&search=SFL34134

I went to Michaels and found some great deals on Halloween things…Martha Stewart Halloween washi tape 80% off, and some fun things for Rich when he scares the trick or treaters.  I found a cool macabre battery operated candlestick that he can hold up to his vampire face, since he used to hold a flashlight under his chin to accentuate his fangs and fake blood.  The seven kids we had this year got a big laugh out of him, so they know what to expect.  He doesn’t scare any little kids, as that’s just wrong…Older kids are kind of asking for it (in his opinion.) bwahaha!

I made the foam pumpkin that is decorated with napkins and has the whole back open for a fairy garden inside.  When I bought it, I didn’t know about fairy gardens, and thought the opening was so you could cut the face out easier or so you could put candy in the back….ok, I don’t know what I thought it was used for.  Now that I have a clue, I decided to buy grass that has a sticky back to it and glue it inside the pumpkin.  I found a really fun creepy gate at a craft store an hour from where we live and thought it was perfect, but it was too large for the opening…Darn it.  So when I was at Michaels, I’d seen a fun door for my pumpkin at Michaels.com and they said they had them at the store I was going to go to…..Of course I couldn’t find them and had no idea where to look.  It’s like those Jane Davenport items that everyone else buys there.  I think they hide them in my store, so I never find them.  I have no idea where to look, but apparently they sell them there, at least they say they do.

I asked one of the many workers about the Halloween gates for fairy gardens.  “No, we clearanced out all of the fairy garden things.”  So I stupidly explain that I had just been on the website, and it said they were carrying them in that particular store….Worker #1 gets on her microphone and asks worker  #2 where to find the fairy garden gates……They haven’t had those in months is what apparently was said over the microphone.  I know when to throw in the towel on asking for help, and this was the time.  I thanked both workers and went on my way.  I had a few minutes to kill, so roamed to the front of the store near the floral section and ran into the big Halloween clearance display. 80% off everything…..including, wait for it, a HUGE section of Halloween fairy garden things.  I know you are shocked, almost as shocked as when I ran into a third worker and asked her for Mason jar lids that you can put flowers or pens in….Are you waiting for me to say that she got on her microphone and asked someone else where to find them?  I was going to lie and say she didn’t do that, but she did.  This was actually worse, because she said she’d get back to me, and then I never saw her again.  I get so frustrated when I ask people for help and they don’t know more than I do…I’m sure that these employees have down-time where they could roam the store and then have a better overall understanding of what their company sells.    I seriously could work there and do a better job of finding things for customers with no training, but armed with the notion that there is a sign at the end of every aisle describing what you can find within   You can find everything but Jane Davenport items, as they hide those from me.

Did I mention that I started my YouTube channel the last week of October, two years ago?  I can’t believe that so much time has passed, when in some respects, it seems like it was only a few months ago.  But when I look at the list of videos, I can’t believe I have had that many ideas in two years.  It’s a good thing I have so many people on YouTube that have given me inspiration.

I was talking to my closest college friends at breakfast a couple of weeks ago, and they asked me about my YouTube channel.  I had asked them about what they thought of me starting it, before I actually did, and both said they thought I wouldn’t be able to handle the negative comments that all YouTubers seem to get.  Fast forward to two years later, and they can’t believe the channel is still up and running, and in fact, growing.  Neither of these ladies have ever made anything crafty, so that part of the channel is really alien to them.  One asked me how many videos do I put up in a month, two, three?  I laughed and said well, two or three a week and sometimes more.  They were amazed that I could have enough ideas to accomplish such a feat.  I told them it’s not just me that has ideas.  I  take others ideas and try to make them my own.  I could tell from their facial expressions that I was basically talking another language, and that they had lost interest in the discussion.  That’s the difference between people who are still physically active, and those of us who aren’t.  It’s hard for them to see life without hiking, running, jogging, and bike riding, and it’s really hard for me to imagine life that would include those activities.  Luckily I was never very sports minded, or I think getting arthritis at 22 would have been a lot more stressful.  I used to joke that I got arthritis in the 1980’s, so I wouldn’t have to do aerobics, as that was a huge craze back then.  Jane Fonda had workout tapes and were the forerunner to all of the women’s exercise classes that were to come.  Women wore tight spandex bodysuits that showed every bump and bulge and I never had the body type for those, ever.  Actually, arthritis was the perfect excuse so I never had to try one on.  Thankfully, when Olivia Newton John came out with her “Let’s Get Physical” video, I was not lining up to buy a headband that matched my frisky Lycra bodysuit.  And you thought arthritis had no upsides to it….Oh, how wrong you are.

I’m still working on trying to get the word out about the video for helping those affected by the floods and hurricanes.  I guess we’re just not going to get very many requests since Lindsays’ blog post didn’t really stir the pot.  I was hoping that by having others spread the word, we’d start to see more people making requests, but that just hasn’t been the case.  It was a good idea, but it didn’t seem to really work well.  I have a couple of ladies who are still trying to pass the information along, and unless that works, we probably will not be seeing many more requests.

I’m getting ready to file this under, a good idea that didn’t work like I thought it would.  If I had a dollar for every idea I thought was good but didn’t have big impact, I’d be sitting pretty.  That’s such a weird expression…I’m going to check it out.   From Phrase Finder, here’s what I found:

Sitting pretty

Meaning

Comfortably placed or well situated.

Origin

We don’t know how the expression ‘sitting pretty’ was derived. That is, we don’t know who or what was being referred to as ‘pretty’ when the term was coined.

The image of a young woman posing for a photograph or ducks sitting tight and making a difficult target for shooters may spring to mind. The expression isn’t known until the early 20th century so both of the above are plausible.

We do have something that can help locate the source of the phrase. The word ‘pretty’ has another meaning, in addition to the more usual ‘attractive’ and that is ‘in an advantageous or safe position’.

The earliest uses of the phrase in print seem to point to ‘sitting pretty’ just meaning ‘sitting (in a real or metaphorical sense) in a position of advantage.

Those first uses are all American and we can conclude that ‘sitting pretty’ was coined in the USA. Here’s an example, from the Nebraska newspaper The Lincoln Star, May 1915:

Clyde Wares returned to his club in the metropolis yesterday and according to reports everything is ‘sitting pretty’.

 

Back to me:  I’m not sure who Clyde Wares is, but the fact that he returned to his club in the metropolis in 1915 tells me more than I need to know.  Apparently, not only his club was, but it seems old Clyde was probably, “sitting pretty” too.   I always thought the term referred to money, as in sitting pretty meant that they had a lot of money, but apparently it has to do with feeling safe or, in fact, oddly enough, pretty…  How about that reference to ducks sitting tightly to make a difficult target for hunters?  I guess that makes sense, but I’d prefer to think of it as the woman in the picture, actually sitting pretty.  OK, so I learned enough for the day…I don’t want my brain to explode over sitting pretty, now do I?

 

I’m thrilled that Lindsay has posted the information about our Make A Difference video and hope we’ll start getting some requests for craft tools…

Source: Power is Back On! Happy November!

I had Rich upload the video for the second part of the waterfall card.  I don’t think people will be very impressed with it, as mainly it’s just me gluing paper to the album…We’ll wait to see what they say.

No more responses to the hurricane/flood video.  I’m disappointed to say the least.  I have a lot of leftover things from the destashing that I was going to donate, plus the money we raised.  I really hope Lindsay gets her power back on so she can put the video on her blog and we can hopefully get more inquiries.  I wish I knew what else to do to get the word out, but at this point, I guess I’ve done all I can think of, so will just wait for the week to wind down and then address it at the end.

The highlight (yes, this is pathetic) of my day, was going to the dermatologist to get the OK to dye my hair.  I know it sounds dumb, but I had a small spot of skin cancer removed from the crown of my head and they couldn’t get my scalp to pull over the affected area and so I couldn’t dye my hair.  It’s not like I’m completely gray, but I’m just gray enough that I don’t like it.  It’s a foolish thing to whine about, but I’m going to whine regardless.  I think we women really want to extend our youthful hair for as long as we possibly can, and I’m committed to doing that.  I want to have brown hair for a while longer, as this mixture of brown and gray is really not in my game plan.  (As if I have a game plan?)  So I got the OK and tomorrow, I’m forty again…maybe 35….Probably more like 50.  It’s just one of those things that is important to me.  Maybe I should look at some bold colors, like lavender, or pink….probably not.

Here’s the second part of the waterfall photo card album that I showed in part one. The sizes of papers you’ll use for the layers are listed in this pdf file. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-DLO0m6zf9fZkIwaTdycmtCekE/view?usp=sharing

You’ll definitely want to print this out so that you can make the card and decorate it with paper.
The foil papers I used are Christmas Combos from Die Cuts with a View and I’ve had them at least one year, so doubt that it’s still a current paper, sorry.
I used red card stock to back it from Recollections in their lighter weight card stocks.
I tried to use the paper as my decorations as well, so on the tops of each red paper covered area, I used strips of the foil paper to make it look like it took some time to make all of my pages pretty.
I took the poinsettia paper and cut out three of them, and the third one, I only cut out the red area…The other two had green leaves as well. The bottom two layers had green and I made sure they had foam between them and I bent the leaves up. The top layer that was all red had foam under it as well, and I made sure that it was really bent upward, so it looked real. I used green and red pearls on the front of the album and Merry Christmas, from an Aliexpress die, that I cut in gold foil and backed offset with red paper so it would show on the gold background.

I spent a lot of today trying to find places to post my video, so that people who lost their craft tools in the hurricanes and floods would be able to contact us.  I asked Lindsay if she would put it on her blog and she agreed, but then said they lost power and she didn’t know how long it would take to get it back.  She said she couldn’t do her blog on her telephone and that was the only means of communication that she still had.  I think she wanted to avoid draining her phone battery when she wouldn’t have the means to re-charge it.  That was my only definite.  Then I contacted Splitcoast Stampers to ask them to assist.  For some reason, the lady there kept saying that I couldn’t post it there even if it was for charity, as we were asking for craft tools.  I sent her a note in response and explained that we weren’t looking for craft tools, instead we were looking for people to give craft tools.  I haven’t heard back from her, so I might have upset her, and that definitely was not my intent.  Then I sent a note to Catherine Pooler from StampNation and asked her group if they would forward my video to members so we could find more people to donate to.  I got an email from her group saying that I would hear from them in twenty-four hours, but again, so far, nothing.

I never knew it would be so hard to find people who would want or need craft tools.  This thing will probably end on November 4th,  and then I’ll have people coming out of the woodwork asking for giveaways.  It definitely makes me proud that so many of my viewers want to help, but I really wish we could find the people who need and want our help,  In a million years, I never thought that this would be our issue.  If anything, I thought we’d have an overabundance of requests and never be able to accommodate the sheer volume.  I feel like putting up a video that says “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”  Too much?  Maybe.

I saw MayMay make a card with this prototype and decided I should make it into an album. Although I show you a completed Halloween album, the card/album I make on this video is actually a Christmas card/album. I hope you’ll stay tuned for Pt. 2.

To make the album, I wanted to give you your own cheat sheet to have beside you while making it. All you need to do is print this out. The last page has some words that you can print on card stock and use for images on your album. Please copy and paste the link below and then print it on whatever paper you choose. If you want, your third piece of paper should be card stock if you want to use the directions in your album.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-DLO0m6zf9fZkIwaTdycmtCekE/view

I hope you enjoy making this album. I’ve got a part 2 that will be uploaded tomorrow so you can see me decorate the one I’ve made with Christmas paper.

Today I went to hang out with three other ladies who wanted to make something paper inspired for in their craft booth.  There are two lady’s involved, one does primarily wreaths and wall art, and the other does hand stenciled signs and chalk paints furniture.  They had sent me some pictures from Pinterest of ideas they thought they would like to try.  I took all of the supplies that we would need to make the projects and gave each woman a portion of the project to complete.  Within ten minutes, the furniture painter decided that paper projects are too much work and too detail oriented and basically, quit….The wreath maker hung in there, and soldiered on.  The other woman and I continued cutting and gluing so by the end of the afternoon, we only have maybe four completed projects and they were really small.  Here’s the image they saw on Pinterest, as ours didn’t really look like this when we were done.   Ok, that didn’t work…It was a heart shaped tag with a paper rose glued to it and a couple of leaves.  Ours was different, as I used a flower shaping punch and then we added jewelry to ours for an embellishment.  I don’t know if they’ll be able to sell them, but I thought I’d walk them through how to do it.  I didn’t make a video, as it would have been hours long because we talked a lot and crafted very little.  It was a lot of fun to watch people who are seriously crafty, deciding that the projects I find simple, they find tedious and too much work.  There’s the difference between people, I couldn’t ever make a mesh wreath or re-paint furniture, but that’s their comfort zone…Mine is paper based…Small and easy to do, at least for me….