I’m still working on the card I’m doing with Carol Held.  Here’s the name of the stamp set we are using.  It’s from Stampendous and is called Sketchy Blooms.  It’s a really pretty stamp set, and I’ve water colored it and it looks ok, but nothing spectacular.  Of course I stamped the sentiment on crooked, so that’s something else I need to fix.  I thought about turning it into a shaker card, but am not really sure where I would put the image (inside the shaker) or where on the watercolor piece I would cut to make a shaker out of it.  I thought about making it look almost like a book having the shaker be the outside and my watercolor image on the inside, but don’t know how that will look.  I may cut my image down as I used a 5 x 7 piece of watercolor paper and used one full image of the stamp and a portion of the stamp at the top left on the paper.  It looks fine, but I’m not going for “fine,” I’m trying to make this Carol Held worthy.  Therein lies the problem.  Whenever you compare your work to someone else’s, you end up feeling insecure.  I think that is the biggest mistake we crafters make.  Let’s face it, I can’t watercolor like Lindsay, I can’t write like Kristina Werner, and am not the artist that Carol Held is, but I love their work.  I can try to replicate the techniques they do, but it will never be like theirs.  I’m great with that, but if one of them asked me to do a card with them, I would panic, just like I am doing right now.

Since I don’t have their particular skill sets, I need to focus on mine.  I know what I am good at doing and need to think about that, and make the card based on what I do best.  I can’t be Carol Held, but I can make the best Sandy Parker card possible.  Once I wipe my mind of the expectations I have for this card, I’ll be able to continue.  Until then, I’m going to sit back and contemplate what techniques I want to use with this card and then make the best card I can make.

On a scary note, Rich is only one or two videos behind me at this point, so I need to make more videos to ensure he doesn’t become complacent, ha ha  Also, there’s no redeeming my U shaped plate as I tried every thing and it’s never going to flatten out so that it is usable.  It’s a minor setback considering I could have completely broken my Vagabond by getting the embossing plates stuck inside permanently.

I really want to make a card that will dazzle people, so have been working on the card I’m making with Carol Held.  Well we’re making a card using the same stamp set and putting our own personal touch on them.  I’ve been water coloring like a lunatic and trying to find just the right colors and look to make this card exceptional.  So far, I’m at the “I’m not sure” stage of the card.  It doesn’t look bad, but it definitely doesn’t look good.

Ok, and I have to admit that I have a MAJOR problem with the Vagabond today and thought I was going to have to tell you that I killed it.  You know how the one thing you can’t do is get something jammed in it?  Well of course I got something jammed into it.  It’s one of the new embossing folders, that has one design on one side, then you turn it inside out and there’s another design.  Of course when I put the sandwich together, it didn’t occur to me that these were much thicker than a normal embossing folder.  It went almost the whole way through and then got stuck.  It was warping the top plate of the sandwich and I couldn’t get it to move backward or forward, so I held down the plate in the back (I’m sure that was a big no-no) and it inched through a little bit.  Did that several times and finally it popped out.  In the meantime, my plate is now almost U shaped and I’m not sure how to flatten it.  It’s definitely not something you can flatten in the machine as it really is U shaped.  So now I need new plates.  Who else would do something like this besides me?  How cow I was scared it would never come out.  If you had seen the curl on that plate, you wouldn’t have thought it would either.  Maybe I’m not a die cutting machine type crafter.  They always make it look so easy and I always make it look so hard.  Geez!

I can’t decide what else to do to my card to make it look good enough to show to Carol’s viewers.  I’m really nervous about this.  I don’t want to make Carol look bad as she has worked really hard to get to the number of subscribers she has.  Since the Vagabond debacle, I’m spending a few minutes just second-guessing everything I could do to make this card work.  I’m not sure what it will take to make it really spectacular, but that’s what I’m looking to produce.  I want this card to have some big WOW factor.  Yikes, I better get back to the craft room…

I saw a video Kristina Werner did with blending an easy ombre effect and thought I would give it a try.  Here’s a link to Kristina’s card.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjxoH1Ky12U

I used two stamp sets Stampendous Cling Hydrangea Lace Cap and My Favorite Things All Occasions for the sentiment.  I stamped with Color Box black archival ink in my MISTI.
The Stampendous stamp has clear plastic backing that is supposed to stick to the MISTI but would not.  I made a big deal about it and then watched a video from Stampendous that said the backing is supposed to be there, but it wouldn’t stick to my MISTI and in the video, they said it would.  I guess they were wrong.

I used Fabriano 140lb. watercolor hot press paper from A C Moore as was the ink I used.  I used Onyx Black Ink from Versafine for the sympathy sentiment and then used black embossing powder and heat set it.

The watercolor pencils I used were Caran d’ Ache and Prismacolors and I listed the specific colors in the video.  I used a Dove blending pen to liquefy the pencils.  I found a great deal on the Dove blending pen with extra nibs and a bottle of fluid to refill it for around $7 only at Walmart.com.

I thought it would be fun to highlight the gold so used Ken Oliver Liquid Metals in gold and colored the gold with it.

After coloring the image, I made a mask and then used a 1″ chip brush I bought on Lindsay’s recommendation from Harbor Freight Liquidators.  They sold one for 69 cents or a box of 36 for $8.  I bought the box and am sharing with friends.  I cut about 3/4″ off the top of the brush and used it as a blender tool to create the ombre effect in the background of my card.

I used a piece of 110 lb white Recollections card stock and cut it to 8 1/2″ x 5 1/2″ and scored the long side at 4 1/4″ to make it an A2 size card.  I used the extra gold Ken Oliver liquid Metallics to color the outside edges of the white card stock and then used gold washi and ran it around the edges of my fun foam so when you look at the card from the side, you don’t see the color of the fun foam, you see the matching gold color.  I got this idea from my friend Carol Held.  Thanks Carol!

I made a great card (well I tried to make a great card) today.  I was using Kristina Werner’s technique of ink “smooshing” and although it was really fun, I was not very good at doing it.  I think my problem was trying to control the color.  Kristina used a simple image and just put color where it landed.  I was trying to put the color into a floral stamp and I’ve changed the technique and called it “modified smooshing” as I felt it best fit the way I was doing it.  At first I decided I was a smooshing cheater, and then decided modified smooshing sounded better.

I even used the Vagabond.  Don’t be shocked, I’m serious about using it.  Well, I think I’m serious about using it.  I only die cut the word “You,” but that was all I needed for the card.

I had my normal setbacks including one that even I was disgusted by.  I was cutting fun foam to fit the back of the watercolor paper and my scissors kept catching on the foam and so I tried three different times before I realized I was also cutting my watercolor paper.  I know what you are thinking.  Three times, come on.  Seriously, I have three small slits on the bottom left corner of the card and so far, I haven’t figured out how to eliminate the problem as if I cut it off, I also cut off part of the image.  I decided to use some Nuvo drops and put a small light orange dot over the slits, but who am I kidding?  They are definitely there, small dot withstanding.  I’m so mad at myself for doing it three times, but decided this would be our little secret and we’ll see if you can see it in the video.  Sometimes you can’t see things, but those are normally color issues.  So this will be our little secret, unless of course, it’s really obvious in the video.

The next malfunction was with a bottle of black liquid (I don’t have the bottle right here, so don’t remember what it’s called.)  It’s shiny and I colored “you” with it.  Well, I tried to cover the word, but it wouldn’t come out of the bottle through the tiny needle tip.  Ok, so after making a small mess trying to get it to come out, I turned off the camera and shook the bottle and bingo, it came out in a very large pool.  Oh, the messes I make.  And I had just washed the ink off my hands.  Another trip to the restroom and I was ready to try again.  Wouldn’t it be funny if another crafter blurted out the things they do that aren’t very smart?  I think I would like that very much.  Lindsay does it once in a while, but otherwise, I can’t think of any other crafter that does.  Ok, me.  But we already knew that, didn’t we?

Normally, I would spend some part of my day doing something crafty, but today I ran errands and am now celebrating.  If you aren’t a dog lover, you probably won’t be interested, but our dog Aggie turned fifteen today.  She’s a golden retriever whose life span should be between 10-12 years.  She’s an amazing dog.  At fifteen, she’s still spry and happy and full of life.  She has to be in the same room as me or at the very minimum outside the door.

We got Aggie as a companion for Noel, the yellow lab seen in the photos of me on this blog and my YouTube page.  Noel was the first dog we had that loved me more than she loved Rich.  For Aggie’s first five years of life, she loved two things, Noel and destroying furniture.  She was a wild child and found every way possible to ruin furniture when we weren’t home.  We gated her into a laundry room and part of our kitchen and used a latch to close the door that lead to our family room.  She didn’t like that latch and figured out how to push the bi-fold door just right so the latch would open and she had free reign.  Once inside, the world was her oyster, or our furniture was hers to ruin.  Her first move was the couch.  She was really devious, and lifted the cushions of the couch pulling the stuffing out from under the cushions.  When she was finished, the cushions fell back into place and the couch looked perfect, except for the floor full of stuffing.  Next came the love seat.  We thought we had fixed the door so she couldn’t get it open, but she is wily and got inside again.  She destroyed the love seat the exact same way she destroyed the couch.  The couch looked perfect until you sat on it and the cushions sank almost to the floor.  The love seat was a fast project, so Aggie had time that day to ruin the antique piano we had.  It had a wood veneer finish and Aggie tore the veneer off both sides and the legs of the piano.  Needless to say, Aggie was a terror as a puppy.  She didn’t pay a lot of attention to Rich and me, and we thought that was the nature of a golden.  Once she turned five, everything changed.  I stopped working and she had someone to play with besides Noel.  Aggie loved Noel and we got Bella so that Aggie would have another dog when Noel passed.  Our vet said that Aggie and Noel were so closely bonded that we should expect Aggie to pass shortly after Noel.  The only answer was to give Aggie a baby of her own, so we got Bella, another golden.  Aggie was devastated when Noel died, and we didn’t realize how devastated until about two weeks after Noel passed.  In the middle of the night, Aggie let out this horrible moan like her world had ended, and in a way, it probably had.  She seemed to snap back and as Aggie got older, we started to worry about the bond she had with Bella, who has a very gentle soul and how Aggie’s passing would affect her.  Enter Honey, our half golden, half English retriever.  Aggie’s not really interested in Honey when we are home, but we cage Honey when we are gone, and Aggie spends her time sleeping in the same room to watch over her new baby.

When Noel died, Aggie became my dog.  She won’t let me out of her eyesight and frets when I’m not home.  If I go downstairs, Aggie goes downstairs and even though she struggles on stairs, spends every evening with me when Rich and I are in the “man room.”  We used to have date night on Friday nights where we would watch movies and eat popcorn together on the couch.  Now Aggie thinks half of the couch is hers so Rich sits somewhere else.  Of course she needs help getting up on the couch, so Rich helps her up and she has a blanket as I’m not crazy about having the dogs on the furniture.  Since Honey, there’s no controlling it, as Honey thinks all furniture is hers for the taking.

Aggie sleeps beside me on her bed on the floor and makes sure she finds my hand if it’s hanging over the edge of the bed so she gets a little extra attention.  She lays outside the door when I take a shower, as it’s too hot in the bathroom for her.  She’s taken over for Noel in loving me, and I make sure she knows she’s the queen bee.

Aggie loves to have a pillow under her head when she sleeps.  She’s got the sweetest face and the worst breath of any dog I’ve ever met.  Her teeth are great but her breath is gross.  No reason for it and so far, nothing has ever made it better.  She likes to think she’s a lap dog, but she’s a big golden, normally weighing around 85 pounds.  It doesn’t matter, she can always find room on our laps.

And so we are celebrating today, as fifteen years is a long time, but passed by so quickly, and we’ll be broken hearted when we lose her.  A love letter to my best girlfriend, Aggie.

 

 

I made a card that I used a lot of different techniques on and in the end, I added more and had to back out of some of them.  I used watercolors and Distress inks and really liked the effects of Ken Olivers liquid metallic  in gold when added to the center of flowers.  It was a lot of fun and I think I’ll be playing with more of the colors I bought in my last haul.

I also made a watercolor paper block that Lindsay had made a few months ago for painting with watercolors when she’s outdoors.  I thought it would be a great way for me to use watercolor paper that is basically the size of a postcard and not have to tape it down as the paper is adhered to a cardboard backing with hot glue.  I know you’ll be glad to know that I didn’t permanently damage anything with the hot glue and tried my new mini glue gun from A C Moore.  This was the first time I used it, and I didn’t realize that the little feet on the front don’t bend backward so they are out of the way.  I had a problem with gluing and having the feet get in the way of the project.   Don’t you hate it when that happens?

I also got a set of watercolors today from Amazon.  I have a set from Koi that are a small travel set.  This is one of the main reasons I started my YouTube channel.  The Koi set are fun paints, but small, and close together.  I can’t stop myself from getting one color paint smeared into the next pan, thereby contaminating the other color.  It’s not such a big deal with most colors, but white and light colors are a problem.  Most people would not have any problem with this, but when your hands and wrists don’t work like other people, these things become setbacks.   I’ve been really watching what other YouTube crafters are using for watercolors and I found a set that (right now) is perfect.  They are the set of Kuretake Gansai Tambi Water Colors, 36-Color Set and I bought them from Amazon for less than $32.  Here are the reasons I bought them.  First they are full pans of color so they are larger than most sets of paints.  Second, I saw Kristina Werner use them as well as Lindsay recommended them to me, and lastly, you can remove the colors out of the packaging and use each individual color in its housing and not have the rest of the set in front of you.  It makes it so I can use the colors and not have to worry about contaminating colors and the pans are large enough, I shouldn’t have any problems navigating my brush through the palette.  I’m really looking forward to using these and will definitely do a review of them.

I got some negative feedback today on my “which watercolor pencil is best for you” video.  The person didn’t like the way I spoke and thought I “waffled.”  I explained that this channel is structured for persons with physical limitations.  The only reason I am bringing this up is that apparently from now on, when I do any type of product reviews, I need to preface them with the reason for the channel.  I don’t think people understand that there is a huge difference in the way people with physical limitations use crafting tools vs. others and that’s important to note.  After all, it is the main reason I started the YouTube channel.  If there had been another YouTuber with hand/wrist problems, I could have saved the money on the Koi watercolors, as I would have bought the new set in the first place.  Information like the research I’ve done to find this set is invaluable to people like me, but someone like my commenter would never understand why.

My friend Elishia and I decided to make a card using the same stamp set and putting videos up with them.  Her channel is new and it’s WanderingDreamer555 and here’s the link to it.

https://www.youtube.com/user/WanderingDreamer555

This stamp set is from Stampendous and is called Hummingbird.
I chose to use the larger hummingbird and the large flower for this card.  I used a piece of vellum that was 5″ wide and about 8 1/2″ long.  I stamped the images in my MISTI with Distress Ink embossing ink and used Ranger Princess Gold embossing powder on it.  After I heat set it, I colored the back with alcohol markers from Spectrum Noir.  Use dark colors as light colors won’t show up as you do your coloring on the reverse of the vellum. I used some Bic Mark It and Sharpie markers and found that the pearlized markers showed through the vellum much darker than the Spectrum Noirs.
I used 110 lb Recollections white card stock 10″ wide x 7″ tall, scored at 5″.  I scored by vellum at 7″ and then glued it to the inside of my card and put glue under different parts of the vellum.  I cut a piece of card stock 1 1/2″ x 5″ and glued it over the vellum on the inside of the card.

 

 

I made two videos tonight and started a third.  I would normally tell you all about it, but instead I thought I’d tell you what else I did tonight.  I tried to set my oven on fire with butter that leaked onto the inside of the oven.  I smelled the smoke before the alarm went off, and turned on the fan and shut off the oven.  The smoke was so thick that I couldn’t get the pan out of the oven, or open any windows, so had to get Rich to help.  We opened almost every window in our house and still the smoke kept coming.  It took us over two hours to stop the smoke as the oven was hot and the butter just kept smoking.  Sometimes I’m not sure what I’m thinking when these things happen.  It didn’t stop me from crafting though, as soon as the smoke was under control, I was back in my craft room.  I’m really exhausted from crafting and fire brigade, so am cutting my post short tonight.

I promised that I would devote my blog today to Rich.  After all, I wouldn’t have a YouTube page, Facebook page or blog without him.  Ok, if I’m being totally honest, I wouldn’t know how to set up a new computer without him, so I would be technologically challenged (a lot more than I am today.)

Rich and I met in college.  We had met casually a few times, but then I was asked to tutor him in accounting and gladly accepted the challenge.  After all, how many times do you get the chance to tutor someone as handsome as Rich?  We spent a few months as friends and that evolved into us dating through most of college.  We got married less than six months after Rich graduated.  We were young, almost 22 and 23 when we got married.  Today that sounds so young, but in the 1980’s, it was really common for people to get married right out of college.  In fact, almost all of our friends were marrying around the time we were.

Two weeks after we got married, I got diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.  Rich and I thought it was something you rubbed Ben Gay on and it went away. It didn’t.  Mine was a very aggressive form of arthritis and by the time I was 27, I had my first knee replaced.  It was highly unusual to do any joint replacements that young.  In fact, I was the youngest person the doctors had ever done a replacement on in our hospital.  This isn’t about me though, it’s about Rich.  During the surgeries, Rich was a trooper and never complained about the things he had to do, and believe me, he had to do some really difficult things for a young married man.

We couldn’t have children because of my arthritis and although we both say it was ok, we both wish we could have had kids.  I think most people would like to have children.  Regardless, it wasn’t in the cards for us, so we travelled and did the things we wanted to do and both had good jobs and I was a saver, so Rich was able to retire at 52.  Of all the things that life has thrown our way, having the option for him to retire and spend his time with me has been the greatest.  We genuinely like spending time together and enjoy each other’s company.  We were friends first and that’s the bedrock of our relationship.  We have fun together and laugh at the same things.

We have three dogs, golden retrievers, and they keep Rich on his toes, especially Honey, our one year old.  She’s half English retriever, which means a white retriever, so she’s a lot lighter in color than the other two dogs.  Also a lot crazier.  Maybe she’s not crazy, maybe in the four years since Bella was a puppy, we’ve forgotten how crazy puppies can be.  No, I think she might just be crazy.  Rich is a great dog owner, doesn’t mind letting them out in the middle of the night or giving them food at 5AM because that’s when they want breakfast.  He’s just a nice man.  He’s not perfect, but who is?  He’s perfect to me though, and that’s all that matters.  I can only hope that others are as lucky as we have been to have found each other. Our story wasn’t easy and most men wouldn’t have persevered throughout, but Rich isn’t most men.  I am blessed to have found him and hope all of you who celebrate, have a very Happy Valentine’s Day..

I saw Jennifer McGuire do a card of vellum and thought it would be fun to try.  That’s about where the similarity ends as I tried a bunch of different techniques.  I used vellum as my entire card base and put a white piece of cardstock  (110 lb. that is 2 3/4″ wide by 4″ tall) inside the vellum and put a blank piece of white card stock on the back of the vellum the same size.

I took the 2 3/4″ x 4″ tall piece of white Recollections card stock and put it in the MISTI and put the picture of my Rubbernecker stamp over the card stock where I wanted to stamp the image.  Lay the non-lined stamp over the picture so it covers the entire image and then close the door of the MISTI so it adheres.  I used a bunch of Gelato type products on my stamp including Gelatos, Instant Educa Play Color, and Faber Castell Gel Crayons.  First, I sprayed the stamp with water and covered the images with different colors.  Then I stamped once on scrap paper and the second time stamped on the card stock inside.  I rubbed the gelato type products on a piece of acetate and used it as a palette for coloring.  I used a brush and water to color with.
I used Marco Renoir colored pencils to enhance the colors and defined the flowers before stamping the second layer.  I put the card centered inside the vellum and put temporary adhesive behind it.  The vellum is 8 1/2″ tall by 5 1/2″ wide scored at 4 1/4″.  I put the vellum piece in the MISTI and used Versafine Onyx Black ink on my second layer and then Ranger clear embossing powder on that and heat set it.
I used a die set from Avery Elle called a Tag for all Die for the thank you and made my own black shiny paper by using black paper and clear embossing powder and then heat set it.
I cut a second pink “thank you” with the Vagabond.  The vellum was adhered together with Tombow Vellum adhesive.  I attached another piece of cardstock on the back of the front piece of cardstock and it will remain blank so you can write on it.  It is also 2 3/4″ x 4″ tall.
I off set the thank you pink and black card stocks and they looked really great in the end.  I attached them on an angle on the top and bottom of the card.  I used Elmer’s Craft Glue and the Tombow Vellum tape runner to adhere them to the card.
I had to use a glue stick to adhere my washi tape to the envelope.

The Rubbernecker stamp is called Bouquet #919 and here’s the link to it on their site.  http://www.rubbernecker.com/product-p/919.htm