This was one of those days where I accomplished things that had been really wearing on me.  I’m not sure if you have this problem, but there are times when I postpone things and then they just take on a life of their own.  I had some crafty supplies I wanted to drop off to our local library and had bagged them up months ago.  I mean months.  At the same time, I’d collected a bunch of things I wanted to donate to our local troop packing site.  They send boxes of foods, magazines, just about anything a person serving overseas might want from the US.  Ok, that’s not all.  I am responsible for handling the graves for my family as the only ones left are my sister and I, and she lives in North Carolina.   Rich has been having some back and hip problems and I really didn’t want to add to his health issues and weeding is a killer for back issues.

So I put all of the bags together and said today is the day.  (Really I wanted to put it off another day, or month, but was committed to handling everything.)  We dropped off the things to the library then went to the cemetery.  In the time it took us to get there, maybe twenty minutes, the temperature seemed to go from 70 to 9 million degrees.  (I could be exaggerating, but I really don’t think I am.)  It was so hot and of course our family graves are all in full sunlight.  It was a painful experience and I felt so bad for Rich, as he didn’t even bother trying to bend over, but sat in the grass.  It really didn’t take very long to do four graves, but it seemed like forever.  We rewarded ourselves with a huge Mountain Dew and a bag of chips.  I know you’re probably wondering what I did while Rich handled weeding and planting.  My job is to cut down or rip out any of the perennials that try to take over the entire plot.  I had a pocket knife and didn’t even maim myself.

Oh, and I handle all of the weeds that Rich rips out.  Ok, not all of them, but a large portion.  So although it sounds like it wasn’t much to take care of, I really dreaded planting at the graves and still wish I had other family members (my sister) to hand it off to.  Darn that long distance.  To finish off the evening, we dropped off the troop supplies and my jobs are done.  Wow, it seems like it took longer to type this than the actual jobs took.  That’s what I get for procrastinating.

I didn’t do much of anything today because I had to go to the dermatologist and have a biopsy done on a spot on the crown of my head.  I’m pretty brave when it comes to doctor’s sticking me with needles and scalpels, but honestly, I worry about the results.  I won’t get those for over a week, so it gives me plenty of time to consider the worst possible outcome.  Yep, that’s me, the fretter.  I can fret with the best of them and today is a big day on the fret meter.  Yikes.

I always love how people say they are stress eaters.  We left the doctor’s office, went right to a fast food place and got a mini pizza and a huge Mountain Dew, then onto the grocery store where we bought a bunch of cinnamon bites (fresh from the bakery), a couple of donuts for on the way home, and then consumed a donut like we’d never eaten.  I know you are probably thinking, geez, did you unhinge your jaw and just inhale the food.  Almost.  Rich and I shared the personal pizza (so that’s only 1/4th of what I could have consumed), then shared the donut…So really, I hardly ate anything.  I was so full from all the sugar and carbs, that I didn’t eat until popcorn and another piece of pizza while watching a movie.  Ok, so maybe I am the world’s biggest stress eater.  I never really thought about it before.  And, here’s the worst part.  I’ve made Rich a stress eater too.

I know it sounds crazy, but I really thought I wrote this blog and must have forgotten to publish it, or else I thought I wrote it and didn’t.  Hmmmm…which could it be.  I think I must be losing my mind.  I really would like to think I wrote it, but I don’t see any drafts, so I think I wrote it in head and not in real life.  Darn it.

I have been wanting to make a video explaining all of the different types of inks and why you use them.  A lot of people think that the little spots or squares are perfect, but just try inking one background stamp and you’ll probably reconsider.  When I started stamping, I thought I needed every color in every brand which is kind of dumb.  Dye inks are dye inks are dye inks.  The only difference is the colors.  If you like one brand’s colors, then buy those inks, if you like another brands’, buy those.

I really like the big ink pads for a lot of the things that I stamp, but when I use the MISTI on smaller images, probably wouldn’t make such a mess if I used the smaller pads.  These are the things you need to consider.

Do I need oxide inks?  No.  Those inks were designed for people who really want to try specialized techniques…If all you are doing is stamping different colors, then you definitely don’t need them.

How about pigments?  I really think you need a good white pigment ink as I have made a lot of different cards (mainly Jennifer McGuire influenced) where I use the Unicorn White by Hero Arts and love it.  The only other pigment ink (and I don’t think it’s a true pigment) that I can’t live without, is Versafine Onyx Black.  It’s a very dark vibrant black ink and perfect for embossing on.  You don’t have to heat set this “pigment” ink, but all others have to require some sort of drying, to avoid problems with smearing.   That’s why I don’t really think it’s a true pigment ink.  If you want a sentiment that looks like a professional printed it, get Versafine Onyx Black.  You might hate the container it comes in, as I did, because the lid slaps you and gets ink all over you and everything else.  I highly recommend buying a Distress Ink blank and putting the Onyx Black re-inker in it instead of using the container it comes in.  You’ll be thanking me for this tip.

The rest of the inks vary as to why you need them, Versamark for heat embossing, Distress inks for being reactive with water, etc.  You don’t have to have many inks, but I really like stamping in colors that aren’t always black as I’m not fond of flowers that have a lot of black in their details as opposed to stamping the flower in another color that matches it better.

I love playing with ink and hope I’ve given you enough ideas so you can determine what types of inks you will want to add to your arsenal.

I love finding new and different layered dies and this haul is no exception.  I tried to include all of the sizes of dies in the video, but not the prices as there are so many dies and the prices vary.  You’ll want to check the sizes of items and convert them from cm or mm to inches so you know their sizes.  Here’s a free conversion table to use from Google.  https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=convert+cm+to+inches&spf=1494713327290

Here is the link I would use to get to AliExpress.  If you get any free offers for money back from purchases, I would be careful about using those, as I believe that they might be a scam.  Instead, just use http://www.aliexpress.com to get to their site.
I also wanted to share some great things my friend Kay sent me.

I wanted to do a collaboration with Gracie Harrold, whose channel is new.  Gracie makes Disney based cards with a new twist.  I have been friends with her mother, Barbara, whose been a great supporter of my channel and when Barbara told me about Gracie’s channel, I offered the idea of a collaboration so that others can see the unique spin Gracie puts on Disney movie-based cards.

I found an image of baby Groot from the movie Guardians of the Galaxy, and had copies made at Staples on white cardstock.  I used a wood embossing folder from Darice with Baked Brown Sugar paper from Stampin’ Up that was 5 1/4″ x 4″ wide and ran it through my Vagabond.  I took my chip brushes from Harbor Freight Liquidators and used Distress inks, Ground Espresso, Fossilized Amber, Hickory Smoke and Gathered Twigs with my brushes  to make the background look more like a tree.

I cut out all of the baby Groots and then found a Touch 5 marker in the color of putty and colored all around the edges of the Groots.
I cut off the legs on two of the Groots and used the marker on the edges, then cut the arms off of one Groot and did the same.  I cut the head off another Groot and the eyes and mouth off of another and colored the edges of them as well.  I wanted to create a 3’d image of Groot so glued the full Groot to foam tape and put it toward the right side of my tree background.  Then I put foam tape behind the legs and added them to the image and added foam tape to a second pair of legs and added them to the Groot.  Then added foam tape to the back of the arms and laid the arms in place.  I added a second head with foam tape toward the top of the head and none toward the bottom so the top of his head stands up more than the bottom and put tear tape on the bottom so it laid flat.  Then I added the eyes and mouth again making the eyes have more foam tape under them than the mouth.
I had cut a flower out of his hands and so I made a branch by using markers on white cardstock and using foam tape behind the branch and laid the end of the branch in his hands.  I used stamps and dies from Sizzix called Words and Tags and the number is 657919 for the set.  I used small flowers and stamped them with Stampin’ Up Daffodil Delight and  Distress Ink Fossilized Amber and swiped the Fossilized Amber across the stamp and then stamped over the Daffodil Delight, and used the die to cut out five  flowers and four sets of leaves that I colored with markers.  I put foam backing on the flowers in two rows so they were higher than the branch and used tear tape to attach the leaves to the back of the flowers.  I attached three flowers with leaves on the branch and one flower without a leaf in his hand and the last flower and leaf, I laid in the bottom right corner of the card.

I printed using many different fonts, “I am Groot” and “I am Groot” (Thinking of You) on my copier on white 110 lb Georgia Pacific cardstock and chose the one I liked best for my card.  I cut the two sayings out so that they were thin strips and laid them aside.  I colored one yellow and used a brown marker to accent the edge of the saying and then cut it into a banner shape and added it to the front of the card using tear tape.  You have to use a strong adhesive when attaching things to embossed backgrounds.
I used the other sentiment for the inside of the card and cut it into a banner as well.  I used an 8 1/2″ x 5 1/2′ card base in baked brown sugar and scored the 8 1/2″ length at 4 1/4″ and made a side folding card.  I put tear tape on the back of my tree with Groot background and attached it to the front of the card.  I put my sentiment inside and stamped the back with my stamp.
I used the flower stamp and stamped and colored it on the back flap of my envelope.

I really enjoyed this experience and hope that you will go to Gracie’s channel and check out her video as well.  Here is a link to Gracie’s channel.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbdLeUbM6wRhbsHUA9IibLA

Tonight I took a beginner’s sewing class at Joann’s Fabrics.  They taught us how to fill the bobber (bobbin, geez, I’ve already forgotten what it’s called.)  They showed us how to put thread on, and weave it all through the machine and finally thread the needle.  Then came the big leagues.  We stitched on paper and then we almost made a pillow.  By almost, I mean, we took two pieces of fabric and put them together, pinned them, then stitched the three sides and part of the fourth.  Apparently we were supposed to bring the partially completed pillow home and finish it.  My friend had purchased my sewing machine at a garage sale and I’m not sure what was wrong with it, but it had one speed.  SUPER fast.  There was no slowing it down, no pacing myself.  It started and it stopped.  When it started, it went from stop to super sonic speed.  I hated it and thought my machine was a piece of crap.  There was a lady beside me that knew how to sew and she agreed that my machine was pure crap, but the teacher thought it was just fine, and maybe needed fine tuned.  Fine tuned?  We found no speed control and the pedal had one speed, fast.  Actually two, fast and stop.

I wanted to really understand what I was doing when trying to use a sewing machine.  I didn’t want to walk away thinking I’ll never be able to do this myself.   Regardless, it wasn’t a winner of a class and my 7th grade Home Ec teacher might have been right.  I really am lucky I found a career in banking, because after she had me in home ec, she thought my opportunities for success were fairly limited.  A lot she knows.  I’ve got part of a pillow and some stitched paper to prove her wrong.  So there.

I’ve been wanting to do a video for a long time and today I finally made it.  I wanted to go through all of the different kinds of inks that are out there and talk about them and why you use them, when you use them, and why you need them.  I think (as usual) that it was too long, but that’s what happens when I start talking about things.  Plus I found ten different types of inks to discuss, so it takes a few minutes with each one.

I also finally got my collaboration video up with Gracie Harrold.  I made a 3-d baby Groot card and it looks pretty good.  The card itself was really easy and yet it took me hours to cut and color five small flowers.  I almost gave up at one point because I just couldn’t make a flower that looked decent.  They all looked like I hacked them out with garden sheers and colored them with a three year old.  I hated the first five, so I made another set, different but still horrible, and finally, set three were the winners.  By that point I’d given up on hand cutting them and just die cut them.  Beaten by five small flowers.  That tells you where my head was at when I tackled them.

Oh, and lastly, Honey decided she needed to taunt the neighbor’s dog.  They were outside minding their own business, and Honey ran at their small dog like she was going to maul it, only to run away at the last minute, and repeat.  It took me forever to get her back in her own yard and into the house and by then she’d done her scare tactics at least ten times on the poor dog.  I do believe she might be insane.  I doubt they’ll ever let their dog go outside again without serious adult supervision.  I feel so stupid that I can’t keep my lunatic puppy where she needs to be.  People keep telling me I need to get her a shock collar, but I just can’t stand the idea of shocking an animal, even if it might fix her crazy side.

Brother, it’s always something.

I saw the idea of this card in a photo somewhere and wish I could find it again. I think it was in an old card magazine and feel bad I don’t remember which one.
I started with a piece of 110 lb white cardstock that was square 5 1/4″ and traced my largest circle stitched die from AliExpress and here’s a link to them.  I think I paid $2.43 for the set.

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?ltype=wholesale&d=y&origin=y&isViewCP=y&catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20170604121610&SearchText=8+circle+dies+metal&blanktest=0&tc=af

After putting the largest circle in the center of my paper, I traced the outside with a pencil, then used a ruler (it would have been so much easier if I had used a protractor so each piece of the pie was the exact same size as the next.)  I centered my ruler horizontally an drew a line across with my pencil, then I centered the ruler vertically and drew a line. Then divided each of the four pieces in half and drew a line to end up with eight similarly sized pieces of pie.  Then I took my markers, Spectrum Noir and Touch 5 and colored them in rainbow order.  The red was Spectrum Noir DR4, then the rest of the colors in order are OR1, LY3 and 43 , 72, 87, 83, and 147. The order is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, pink, lavender and purple.  You want to color to your lines and then you can color outside the back of the pie as far as you want as none of this will show.
I took all of my circle dies and centered them on the image and made sure they were perfectly centered then put washi across all of them and around the back so the dies are well adhered, then ran them through my die cutter.  I carefully held onto them and put scotch tape across the back vertically and horizontally to hold them in place.  I put foam tape behind the circle and adhered it to the center of a 5 1/2″ square white pre-made card.
I used sentiments from TAC Trendy Greetings (after researching, TAC stands for The Angel Company)  and the set Floral Sentiments from My Creative Times for my sentiments.
I show me stamping my images on vellum but didn’t like how the vellum looked, so re-stamped them with Versafine Onyx Black ink on white scraps of card stock and used clear embossing powder by Ranger, heat setting them and layered them on a red piece of cardstock as it was for a 40th anniversary which is the ruby anniversary.  I didn’t measure the white cardstock as I just trimmed them so the sentiment had about 1/8″ above and below it and made them long enough to fit on the card where I wanted them.  I added about a 1/8″ border of red behind the white so you could just see the red and trimmed the red with scissors to fit there and used a tape runner to adhere the two together and attach them to the card..
I had chipboard letters and numbers and found 40 so laid it on a Distress Festive Berries ink to make it red and used my micro brushes that I bought from Wish.com for $1, to color the edges, then clear embossing powder and heat set it to make the chipboard letters shiny.  I put the 40 below the “Happy Anniversary” sentiment I put on the inside of the card.  I was going to put it on the front of the card but didn’t like it there.
In the end, the card looked close to my vision, and I hope you like it.

Today is the day for my Groot card.  I had Staples make me copies of the image as my copier wasn’t delivering crisp results like I wanted for the card.  I forgot to bring my own card stock that would definitely have been better than theirs even though I was going to use Georgia Pacific cardstock from Walmart.  I think the Staples employee told me they use a 40+ grade of cardstock which I didn’t even know existed.  I’m a little bit worried about the sturdiness of the paper, but am willing to give it a try.  The worker was willing to try making the image darker and lighter and gave me all of the “samples” she made, which was really nice of her.  At this point, I’m not sure if their copier is that great, because I expected miracles and didn’t get them.  Is there a chance my standards are a little too high?  Maybe.  I thought I’d get these really crisp images in colors that were almost unbelievable.  Huh, that might be a little bit of a stretch from someone who looked like she learned how to use their copier a couple of days ago, although, to her credit, she had mastered the light/dark button.

I’m going to make the card and it’s going to be fabulous.  Now all I have to do is think of a reason someone would want a baby Groot card.  It’s not like I have little kids to give cards to and I’m not sure if others will understand the saying “I am Groot” as apparently that’s all he says.  I thought it would be funny to write that on the outside and on the inside of the card, write the translation.  I might just use “thinking of you” as my translation, because otherwise, it might not work for “happy graduation.”  It could be a stretch but I’m going with it.  After all, I am Groot, which means “I’m screwed.”

Ok, so I missed a day of blogging and I’m not sure where the time went.  I haven’t been doing a lot of crafting as I’ve had a few doctor’s appointments this week and just haven’t been up for doing very much.   Honestly, sometimes the days just slip by me and I forget what I’m doing (or what I am supposed to do.)  Today I went to some garage sales and for the most part they were disappointing, but that’s because I have everything I could need or want and don’t have many items that friends have asked me to get for them.  I did find a two tiered K-cup rack that made me really happy, so I can replace my two individual ones for one big washi tape rack.

Naturally I found baby stuffed animals for the dogs and since garage sale season is in full swing, I can’t get through the door without being mauled by my dogs looking to see what kind of toy I’ve brought each of them.

After coming home, a nap was in order as we had an anniversary party we needed to attend.  The party was really nice, and they had a great band, but you know you are getting old when the band is so loud that you can’t hear anyone around you or what they are saying.  I’m sure I didn’t make the appropriate responses to the things people were saying, because I really didn’t have much of a clue as to what they said.  I felt a little bit dumb until I asked the lady next to me a question, and her answer was completely off track, so I knew she couldn’t hear me either.  I wondered why the couple didn’t ask the band to turn down the volume, as the average age of their audience was probably 65-70.  We decided it was definitely time to leave when the band put strobe lights in different colors pointed at the crowd.  (This is the moment you know Rich and I are old.)  We looked at each other and Rich pointed to the crowd and said, “I think these lights give people seizures.”  The funny thing was I was thinking the same thing.  If you had only seen these lights, they reminded me of movies where they are interrogating  and torturing the person at the same time.  Definitely not a great idea for the age of the crowd that attended.

And finally, to end the night, I got two cupcakes on a plate as we both wanted a treat for the road, and one cupcake rolled off and a man stepped on it and kept walking (not realizing he had a cupcake attached to his foot.)  Honestly he must have been ninety.  Rich kept trying to get him to stop walking so he could remove the cupcake from the man’s foot, but the poor guy couldn’t hear him over the music, or maybe he was the first to let the strobe lights affect him, it’s a toss up.  We finally retrieved the runaway cupcake and left after feeling terrible for the poor man and his icing covered shoe.   Ah, the glamorous life I lead.