I’m sure if you’ve read my blog that you know I’m terrible at social media.  I’m not sure what I’m doing and in general, just fly by the seat of my pants.  I’m sure that Instagram is terrific if I knew how to reach the masses, but I don’t.  I have been really slow in updating it and finally, tonight, I spent a couple of hours adding all of the videos and photos that I have been postponing.

I think I’m old enough that I’m past the social media generation.  I know there are a lot of people much older than I am that are really involved in it, but I’ve never found the need.  I never had a facebook page until I started my YouTube channel and I don’t think I do that well either.  I’d love to have a facebook page where my viewers can put photos of the things they create whether they are related to what I am making or not.  I have no idea how to make one of those pages and have tried to research it, but haven’t found any answers as to how to make one.

It would be great if our great nieces and nephew lived close by.  I’m sure they would spent ten minutes and I would have a new YouTube page, understand Instagram, know how to use twitter and a couple hundred other things I have no idea how to handle, and they are fifteen and seventeen.

You’re probably saying, “Geez, Sandy brings this up about once a month.”  I know I do, but it really bothers me.  I would like to make sure that my YouTube channel gets as much exposure as possible, because otherwise, how will people with physical limitations find it?  I worry that I don’t do enough to get the word out there about the channel.  I’m sure you know I’m never trying to grow the channel to the point where I would make money…I have absolutely no interest in doing that.  I would just like to know that people with arthritis, or stroke victims, or people with MS or ALS or hundreds of other disorders know that there is a place for people to find the right tools that will work for them, as well as be able to watch someone who clearly has hand issues but continues to craft anyway.  If you read this blog and would just tell one person, and they tell one person, think of how fast the word would spread.  I’m not looking for miracles, or maybe I am.  I’m just hoping people will be able to somehow find this channel and know that they can continue to make whatever type of project they choose to make…There’s nothing stopping them.

I decided to spend a lazy day and made a simple fast video to highlight an easy and inexpensive Valentine’s gift.  My friend Lynn and her husband have always bought all of their kids and grandkids chocolate covered strawberries for Valentine’s Day.  It’s a really sweet (no pun intended) way for Lynn to continue the tradition since her husband has passed.  I made chocolate covered strawberries for Rich’s side of our family many years ago, and our niece asked if I would make them for her high school graduation party, so I did.  It was kind of tricky deciding how to keep them cold enough that they wouldn’t melt, but in the end, we came up with a way (don’t remember what it was, but it worked!)  That was several years ago and I continue to make them from time to time for Rich.

Rich and I have spent our Valentine’s Day on vacation every year except the last couple.  Last year I was recovering from my hip replacement and this year, our oldest dog, Aggie, is almost fifteen, and we just didn’t think she could manage well for a week.

So to make a very long story a little bit shorter, I decided to make Rich chocolate covered caramel and almonds as well as chocolate covered strawberries.  I wasn’t sure if anyone knew how easy they are to make and that you can make a dozen of them for under $5, which is why I made the video.  Since a dozen sells for around $50 during Valentine’s Day week, why not make something easy that looks and tastes like you spent a lot of money on them.

I buy my chocolate in the bags from any craft store.  You can buy the Wilton cake brand from Michaels and Joanns, but I actually prefer the ones they sell at A C Moore and don’t even know the manufacturer.  I put the whole bag in a heavy ceramic or glass big cereal size bowl and microwave it on the normal setting for thirty seconds, then take the bowl out, stir it and then another 30 seconds, repeat the process.  Once they are almost completely dissolved, take it out and give it one last good stir and the chocolate is ready to go.  I tilt the bowl for really big strawberries, but otherwise, just hold the greens at the top and swirl the berry around in the chocolate then hold it until the excess chocolate has dripped off.  I put mine on a silicone sheet until they are set.  If you put them in a cooler area, like your garage, they will set up very fast.  I don’t recommend putting them in the refrigerator as I’ve had the berries shrink and the chocolate fall off of them.  Strawberries are never really good once they are in the refrigerator, so keep that in mind when you are making these.  They only last for about a day, so make them right before you want the family or loved one to eat them.  I found the same chocolates at Walmart and the strawberries were less than $2 at my local grocery store.  I highly recommend these as a great Valentine’s Day gift or as a nice way to share a great treat with family and friends.  Rich didn’t want to wait to eat his and he’s already had three of them plus a couple of the chocolate covered almonds and caramel.  He has a pretty big sweet tooth.

I’d like to say I did something crafty today, but unfortunately, we ran errands and bought groceries to prepare for the big winter storm we’re supposed to get tomorrow night.  We never know if we’re really going to get a ton of snow, or if it will miss us as we are very close to Lake Erie and are victims of lake effect snow and all that entails.  Normally we get around a foot of snow when we have one of these storms and since we are both retired, we don’t have to go anywhere, so we buy groceries to last a few days and just hang out.  I spend a lot of time in my craft room and watching movies with Rich as we love to hang in the man room and eat a ton of popcorn and spend the day watching anything that looks good.

I need to make more sympathy cards as one of my parent’s closest friends passed away yesterday.  She was in her 90’s and lived a good long life.  She had a terrific family and will be missed.

I also wanted to mention the video that is below this post.  One of my viewers told me that my videos are really long, but she’s willing to sit through them and I thought it was only fair that I produced one that was seriously short.  So this is my gift to all of you as I hate taking so much of your time when my videos go long.  I hope you like it!

I wanted to make a card for our nephew who won a prestigious scholarship from his nursing program and was chosen from his entire class to be nominated then won.  I’ve already made a couple for him but one was too “girly” and the other, well, it made it as far as the trash can.
I started by using a set of stamps from Paper Smooches  called Bold Buzzwords and used Versamark embossing ink on white 110 lb. card stock and placed it in the MISTI.  It started at 5 1/4″ wide by 4 ” tall..  I used white Ranger embossing powder and then heat set it.  I used a bunch of mini Distress inks, Broken China, Evergreen Bough Peacock Feathers, Scattered Straw and Picked Raspberry and rubbed the inks right into the paper.  After, I wiped the paper with a dry cloth.
My white background  is 5 1/2″ wide by 8 1/2″ tall scored at 4 1/4″
and made a gold layer that was 5 1/4″ x 4″ and then my top piece I cut to 5″ x 3 3/4″ and put foam tape on the back of it to adhere it to the gold layer..  I used my stamp on the back of the card that I had made at DiscountRubberStamps.com for $4.95 and then the new stamp I designed and had made by Stampanda.  I went through Groupon and used their discounts for Stampanda and this stamp was (I think) $12.50 which I don’t think is horrible for a custom made stamp. The washi tape was from Stampin’ Up and I believe it was discontinued.
This is a really fast and fun card to make and I encourage you to try it.

I spent the day today with my cousin, well technically, my cousin’s daughter.  Is that my first cousin once removed?  Never sure how that works.  She is the one that made me her first handmade card for my birthday and I absolutely loved it, and that was using her kids old craft supplies.  Just think what she can do with the real stuff.  So I took her some starter things that I thought might help, and we went out to lunch (because you have to make sure you have a full stomach when going on a crafty expedition), and then to AC Moore and Michaels.  We had a terrific time trying to decide what are the necessity craft supplies you need and trying to find them at the best price.  I think we did OK, but had a lot of fun just spending time together and catching up on the family and how we and our families are doing.  She’s such a sweet lady and I had a lot of fun with Shelli and can’t wait to see what she creates with the things that she purchased.  I’m sure it will be unbelievable, as she is so creative to begin with, and unlike me, doesn’t need to find inspiration in other people’s techniques.  Although to be honest, I think every crafter uses Pinterest or YouTube or Instagram or other social media for ideas.  I don’t use anything but YouTube, obviously, because I like to limit my social media skills to the ones I’m pretty familiar with.  Pinterest doesn’t really help me as I can look at the card, but have no idea what their techniques were.  I need step by step instructions to help me find my way.  At least I did when I first started.  Now I can figure things out a lot easier.

I’m sure that Shelli already has her tools out and is creating beautiful art.  Now that she has the basic supplies, she will gradually turn into a crafty buying maniac like the rest of us.  I’m looking forward to all she can do and will make sure I put up some pictures of the things she shows me!  I’m so excited!

I wanted to make a thank you card for the Rubbernecker Stamp Company owners, as they sent me a box of their stamps to encourage me and my channel.  I’ve been working on making just the right card for them and it’s been a struggle, as every card I’ve tried to make has not made me happy.  You know it’s bad when I have one of those days.  I finally finished the card tonight and am really pretty happy with the results.  Sometimes though, it’s not about the crafting.

When I started my channel over a year ago, I was contacted by Rebecca Walton, one of the owners of Rubber Stamp Tapestry.  She wanted to send me some of her stamps to see what I thought about them.  They are the makers of the peg stamps (www.pegstamp.com), and I immediately fell in love with them.  They are easy to use and are so much fun to work with.  It’s been great watching Lindsay (the frugalcrafter) work with them and seeing the ideas she comes up with for them.

Rebecca had read my resolution to get to 3,000 subscribers this year and wanted to help me work toward that goal.  Here’s what she put on her company’s facebook page today.

I couldn’t ask for a better endorsement for my channel as Rebecca knows me and my commitment to helping others learn techniques they might think are beyond them.   I hope others don’t give up and learn to laugh at the mistakes they make along the way when their bodies just don’t do things the way they used to. When you have physical limitations, it can be easy to let life pass you by, and I hope my YouTube channel helps people find an outlet to create, be entertained, and most importantly, have fun!

It’s been a great day!

I used a 5 1/4″ x 4″ Fabriano Hot Press 140 Lb. water color paper that I bought at A C Moore and put it in the MISTI and held it in place with my new grid sheets I created. (I’ll attach the link to the video I made showing how to create them and how to use them.) I used a sentiment from Fiskars from their Thank You set in Mermaid Lagoon ink from Distress ink and used clear embossing powder from Ranger clear embossing powder and then heat set it.
I created an ink pad by using four baby wipes folded on old plastic packaging. Here is where I made my big mistake and don’t know what I was thinking when I did it. Maybe I was thinking, these re inkers are right here, I’ll just use them, but it was a crucial mistake. You can’t use Distress re inkers to make an ink pad if you use wet baby wipes as they are water reactive and the baby wipes dilute the ink. You can use any dye re inkers except Distress Inks. I used blues, yellows, orange and pink re inkers and put drops of them all over the baby wipes. This will make a really interesting background if you do it with dye inks.. They won’t dilute like mine did.
I stamped the ink pad several times before I got the result you see in the video. It looks like it was only once, but Rich had to cut out all of the stamping I did to get the inks to not look so diluted and for time sake as I did it many times. It’s also how my hands got so much ink on them. once I was happy with the inked result, I decided to use the Mermaid Lagoon ink pad and rub it around the outline of the stamp. I used a foam pad on a tool from Tupelo Designs to use with re inker and used my yellow to make the yellow areas more vibrant, then did the same with the orange color I used. I did the same with the Mermaid Lagoon and put it on the blue areas, then did it with Picked Raspberry.

The plastic background ended up acting as a palette for the leftover blue. I used it with a water color brush and sprayed water on it to paint my background. After the blue was gone, I sprayed a little water on the acetate and used the water to reactivate the water in the image so the white wasn’t so stark. I decided to do a splatter in the end with the fossilized amber and it really added to the design.
I stamped the inside sentiment from the same Thank you Fiskars stamp set.
I used a 5 1/2″ x 4 1/4″ white 110 lb Recollections card stock and colored it around the edges with the Fossilized Amber ink pad and rubbing it on the paper. I put foam tape on the back of my water colored image to give the card dimension. I used a matching glitter washi tape on my envelope.

I’m thinking I could be losing my crafting mind.  Today, I finally accomplished the impossible.  I finished the hummingbird card that my friend Elishia and I are both putting up together on our YouTube channels.  Of course this isn’t the first, or second attempt at this card.  I finally decided to make a card with alcohol imarkers painted on vellum.  In theory I didn’t think I could really screw it up and in retrospect, I could have made the card so much simpler, but didn’t.  I’m not sure why I always choose the most difficult methods to make cards, but I guess it’s just the way I roll.

My card looked so good until I started coloring in the background blue, for sky.  At first it looked ok, but as more of the blue was colored in, it started to show weird lines where the ink dried.  I started playing with it and eventually rubbed a mini-Distress ink over it to get the color to look consistent.  Here’s what I just thought of.  Why didn’t I either color the paper underneath with Distress inks, or, and this would be even easier, put a piece of blue paper under the vellum.  Sometimes I wonder where my common sense goes when these things happen.  Has anyone out there seen my common sense?  It’s MIA!

Ultimately the card looked good, but I feel sorry for Rich as I’ve been having more and more moments like these and his editing is getting bigger and bigger.  Today he’s editing one of my cards and said that normally he makes thirty edits per video and the last video he’s been working on has almost one hundred edits.  I’m making some serious mistakes and I’m not really sure why.  It’s frustrating because I hate to make this much work for Rich, even though he says he doesn’t mind.  It makes me feel terrible.  So the next one of my videos you watch, just remember there are probably one hundred mistakes you didn’t see and at least another hundred that you do.  I’m the world’s greatest crafter!

I know it seems odd that I made a MISTI tip video within a week or so of Jennifer McGuire’s MISTI tip video, but I swear, I’ve had this in the planning stages for a long time.  I had purchased the vinyl grid sheets from Amazon months ago and was too lazy to cut them and make the video.  I’ve had Cyndie’s templates for over a year and never have used them, so again, lazy.  The only reason my video is up now, is that Jennifer’s video reminded me of the things I had purchased to make my MISTI life easier and hopefully yours, as well.  I don’t know about everyone else, but I get tired of the magnets.  They are cumbersome and I’ve had some real issues with mine having them smack together and explode.  I wanted to create a system that made most of the magnets unnecessary and that’s what the vinyl grid sheets do.  Once they are in place, the card stock can’t move and even if it is lifted by an acrylic stamp that won’t let go, it should still land back in the spot it came out of.

I’ve found additional uses for the lining I put on my MISTI grid paper.  I didn’t realize how handy that overhead projector plastic would be.  I was making a card and decided to rub mini Distress inks over the card while it was in the MISTI.  Since the plastic was behind it, not only was clean up a breeze, but I also found that I could take a water bottle and squirt a small amount of water on the plastic and basically use it to watercolor right in the MISTI.  I loved the convenience of this tip and you’ll see it in action on the next video I am making.  I also really liked the idea of using the ink that ends up on the plastic by accident, so I took a paint brush to the plastic and used the ink the brush picked up.  I’m really having fun not having to clean the MISTI so often and always having clean grid paper.

Tonight I thought I’d make a couple of cards and decided to work on the hummingbird card that my buddy Elishia and I are doing together.  Well, not together, we’re each doing our own card using the same stamp set to see what the other comes up with.  I thought it screamed for gold embossing and water coloring, but  so far, I’m not sure if it’s going to make it or not.  I put Glossy Accents on it and if that doesn’t make a big difference, this card might be going into the trash.  Darn it, I hate it when I put a lot of work into something and the results are yucky.  Time will tell, hopefully the Glossy Accents will make a big difference.  You never know.