I think I finished my sister’s birthday card set but haven’t made the video of them as of yet.  I decided instead to recreate one of the many cards that was lost on the memory cards that are gone.  I wanted to show an easy method for card making.  I used a premade card base that had a chevron pattern.  Then I added a couple layers of paper, one glittery and one purple and then punched out three Halloween figures and attached them to the card with a sentiment that was also punched.  The end result is a cute card with not very much work involved.

My girlfriend Cora, whose been in a couple of my videos, came over tonight to borrow some of our Halloween decorations.  I think I mentioned that our trick or treat is on the Thursday before Halloween (I have no idea why.)  She brought her eleven year old daughter with her named Abby.  Abby loves crafting and has been an avid watcher of my channel.  Cora said that Abby watches one of my videos and then goes into her room and tries to recreate whatever I’ve just made.  I think it’s really sweet that she’s such a crafty girl and I’ll make sure to have her in a video.  She’s already more crafty than I am as she sews, paints, stamps, basically does everything and anything in the crafty world.  It’s great to see that she’s spending her time doing something productive.   She’s a great kid and I’m sure she’ll be thrilled for the chance to do a video with me.  Maybe we’ll make one before Christmas together.

I bought a new glue gun from Aleene’s at A C Moore regular price is $29.99) and some long glue sticks.  I also went to Michaels and bought the 110 pound card stock (black) $16.99 regular price.  I also bought some note cards that were $1.50 for six.

Donna sent me some great Halloween embellishments and chipboard bottles and some really lovely paper.  She sent me a make up bag that I really loved with Halloween symbols on it.

On the card I used two Stampin’ Up papers, Taken with Teal and More Mustard.  The ribbon I had in my stash and used my Xyron 1 1/2″ machine to turn it into a sticker.  The flower embellishments I got from Ebay and they were item # 222091402976 and sold for 94 cents for thirty of them with no shipping costs.  They come from China so you’ll have a little wait before you get them, but I really liked them.  The turquoise rhinestone brads I had in my stash and don’t know where I got them.  The sentiment on the inside of the card is from the new Simon Says Stamp set called Thankful Heart.  I used dark turquoise glittery washi tape on the envelope.  I hope you like the card and the video.  Thanks for watching!

Rich and I are so happy to be celebrating the one year anniversary of our YouTube channel.  Tonight is the night that we celebrate trick or treat and Rich always dresses up as a vampire for the kids.  This year I asked him if he would help me with our anniversary giveaway and he did a terrific job!
We will be picking five winners by random drawing.  To enter the drawing, you need to leave a comment below with your favorite video of the year on our channel.  The comment needs to include your email address so we can contact you and the comment needs to be submitted by midnight on November 2nd, 2016.  We’ll make the announcement on November 3rd.  Thanks for the great year and we look forward to an even more exciting 2017!   (Oh, and I apologize if Rich scared anyone, he really gets into his role as vampire.)

 

I spent the day today working on my sister’s birthday present.  She wants a set of cards for her birthday and not just a few.  She wants a year’s worth of cards.  I spent a lot of time working on sentiments as I thought it would make more sense to make cards without a sentiment and then give her a ton of options when it came to what she can use the cards for.  At our age, we have more friends and family who are ill and we start to lose more people as well.  Sadly, we send more get well and sympathy cards than almost anything else.  So I’ve been making a lot of cards and all that are roughly the same, but as different from each other as I can make them.  She really liked the card I used in the Primrose Petals card video.  If you check that card out, then you’ll realize that it’s not a hard card to make, but it takes some time when you are trying to make them look different from each other.  I’m not sure if she’ll be giving more than one of these cards to the same person and if she is, I doubt that she’ll want them to remember their cards looking the same.  So once I am finished with them, I plan on making a video just to prove that you can make the same card, but have it look different by changing up what you use in the form of ribbons and embellishments.

I also decided to remake the wet glue video.  If I didn’t already mention this, there was a fingerprint or smudge on the camera lens, so the video had a fuzzy quality to it.  I thought it was on a portion of the screen, but when Rich started to edit it, the smudge took up a large part and made the video virtually unusable.  I started to fret about remaking it, as the first one took me almost an hour to film.  I kept all of the papers that gave the glue name, price, number of ounces in a normal bottle, and had the glue on the inside as well as on the outside of the paper.  When I made the initial video, I gave all of the information about the glue then glued the paper shut and waited a second to show how well it stuck the paper together from the beginning.  I also put glue on the outside of the paper to see if it glued invisibly or shiny.  At the end of two hours, I went back and went over the results.  Which ones were still stuck together and if I could tear them apart, as well as if they were shiny on the outside or not.  I think I’ll go over my footage and take notes of which glues were more sticky up front and the rest I know from the information I recorded at the end of the video.  The video will be a lot shorter and hopefully will be clear as day.  Boy, if there’s a way to screw up a project, I definitely know how to do it.  Which leads me to my last task.  I went back to the nursery that I filmed of the child’s chair I remade into a flower planter.  I have all of the video except that part, which unfortunately was on one of the missing memory cards.  If the cards ever do show up, I only have a few videos left on them that I haven’t recreated.  It’s been a bummer, but at least I’m almost over the hurdle.

 

 

The one year anniversary video went live last night and I’ve already had a lot of comments.  Whenever you have a giveaway, you get a lot of viewers and I’m hoping that if they are only coming to the channel for the giveaway, that they might see a video and decide to stay and watch more.  I love giveaways because I love giving people an unexpected surprise and always hope the winners will be names that I recognize.  I use a website that randomly picks numbers for me.  So if I have fifty comments, I put in the number fifty and then they randomly choose five numbers between one and fifty.  It’s a great system because it takes all of the guesswork out of it and ensures that I am honest in my prize giving.

I’ve read all of the rules that YouTube has for contests and drawings and made sure I comply with all of them.  One of the rules is that you can’t ask for or require people to subscribe to your channel.  That’s kind of funny, because I’ve seen so many contests that require just that.  I’m ok with that rule because I want people to subscribe if they like and want to watch my channel, and not because I’ve asked them to subscribe.  That’s how I can watch my subscriber numbers climb and be proud of them because either you, my current viewers/subscribers have said others should check out my channel, or they have found it for themselves, and like it enough to subscribe.  That’s such a great feeling, to know that people like you are helping others find our channel.

At the end of every video I ask for viewers to share my channel with others on social media.  As you know, I’m terrible with it and wish that I had the interest in learning.  A lot of the media is for cellphones and I’m horrible using the touch phones and I’m sure you can imagine, never hit the correct keys.  So I stick to my laptop and a phone that’s one I can use and am fine with it.  The only time I wish I had advanced to more social media, is when it’s connected to our YouTube channel.  I think the channel would have a better chance of reaching my target audience (anyone who would see value in the videos we do), if I was more connected.  So that’s why I ask all of you to help me spread the word about our channel.  I really lack the skill set to do it myself.   I appreciate the help all of you have given me and never take it for granted.  Thanks again for the past year, it’s been terrific!

I’ve been really wanting to do a one year anniversary contest video, but to be honest, haven’t really wanted to be in front of the camera.  I was on a new medicine that made me gain over twenty pounds and I haven’t felt really great about myself.  So tonight was our trick or treat night where we live and Rich always dresses up as a vampire for the kids and he’s really believable and scary.  Once he was in costume I thought it was the perfect chance for me to do my anniversary video and he was terrific about making it.  I gave him an outline of what I needed him to say and he took the camera and tripod and off he went.  He came back with a really spooky video that I hope doesn’t upset any of our viewers.  I can’t tell you how happy I am that he made the video and it’s already online.

I’ve had such a great time making videos and I think Rich had a good time as well.  This year has literally flown by and we’re so happy that our subscribers are growing and we’re continuing to hear from new people.  I never expected the YouTube community to welcome us with such open arms and I’m excited with what our second year will bring.

If you want to be included in the anniversary contest, you only need to leave a comment on the anniversary video telling me what your favorite video was for the year.  You need to leave your comment before midnight of November 2nd, 2016, to be included in the drawing.  I forgot to mention that it will be a random drawing and I’ll make sure to go back into the information section to include that as well.  Please make sure you include your email address so we can contact you.

 

I had a really great thing happen when I was playing with my colored pencils tonight.  I was making a video using a note card set I had bought at Michaels.  It had flowers on it and seemed perfect for coloring.  I started using the colors I thought I wanted, then decided I just didn’t like them.  So I took my eraser and it did erase the colors, but not completely.  The flowers took on a vintage look and are really interesting, in my opinion.  I’m not sure if it was the paper the note cards were printed on, or the fact that I used Vaseline to blend some of the flowers (but not all of them), regardless, the end result is really neat and I’m really going to be happy to share it with you when the video goes up.  Rich is pretty far behind with videos and has some really big ones to put up.  I think the video for best wet glue is over thirty minutes long and I doubt that he’ll be able to make it much shorter.

I made a few cards for my sister today as that’s all she wants for her birthday on November 2nd.  I’m not sure how many I can make for her, but I’m going to try for twenty of them.  She wants all of them to be the same style, so it’s an easy card to make, I just need to leave the sentiments off and stamp out sentiments and use punches with them so she can attach the sentiment she wants to whatever card she chooses.  I’ll be really glad to get them done because I always worry when I have a big project to do when I need to make my own videos as well.  I can’t make a video of my sister’s card as I’ve already made two videos using the idea of her card and I think three would be a big stretch.

I’m going to make a couple of fall thankful for you postcards on video tomorrow.  At least that’s my plan.  I think postcards are a quick and easy way to send something that let’s people know you are thinking about them and that’s always a good thing.  (Look, I’m Martha Stewart now..I guess MacGyver is on hiatus.)

To make the bottle, find the labels at the Dollar Tree as well as the bottle.  Using re-inker added to Mop n Glo, let it sit for a couple of days to let it thicken.  Pour it into the bottle and twirl the bottle around and then drain the excess.  Put the label on and you are done.

The Stampin’ Up Tableau of Terror stamp is my favorite Halloween stamp and I stamped it on watercolor paper and I stamped it with Memento Black ink.   I cut dark purple paper 11″ x 4 1/4″ and scored it at 5 1/2″.  I also cut a lavender piece of paper at 4″ x 5 1/4″ as this is a top fold card.  I trimmed the Tableau of Terror paper down to 4 x 5 1/4″ as well.  I used alcohol markers to color the images.  The inside sentiment came from a set by Inspired by Stamping called Tricks and Treats as well as the spiders I stamped around the from of the card.  I cut the purple card base on my paper trimmer to get a tag angle at the top of the card then placed the piece I cut off on the other side of the card and traced it with a pencil and trimmed the other side.  I also put the piece that I cut off on the Tableau of Terror image and cut the top corners so it matched the cuts on the card.  I also cut off the inside lavender piece to match the cuts on the outside of the card.  Make sure you cut the lavender paper before you glue it down (something I didn’t do.)  I used a Distress Ink Shaded Lilac to distress the edges of my white card stock.  The distressing tool is from Tupelo Designs LLC and look on their website under “tools” to find them.  I used a 1/4″ hole punch and colored a scrap of paper with a black marker and then punched the hole.  I attached it into the center near the top of the card so it looks like a hole in the paper.  I then took a piece of orange satin ribbon and cut it on an angle and glued it on the black circle so it looks like the ribbon goes through the paper. I used a stamp from Stampin’ Up Howl- oween Creeps (retired set) and punched it out with a label punch.  I used purple glitter washi tape on the envelope.   All in all, I really think it came out pretty well and I really love that stamp..  Thanks Elicia, for this great stamp!

Today was a day of cleaning house, doing laundry and having our carpets cleaned.  I was able to mail my Halloween cards and my great niece’s birthday present.  I have a lot of ideas for videos for Thanksgiving and Christmas and probably should get a few Thanksgiving in and then go right into Christmas, as there’s always a lot more interest in Christmas and the holidays in general.

I’ve been watching some videos featuring what’s called a twist and pop card, and their basis comes from origami.  When I watch people make them, I think about how they could manage their paper a lot more easily if they just make the folds by hand and not use rulers and dimensions.  The folds are all center folds so it should be easy to do.  I’m going to practice on some paper and then get serious about making a few.  I’m hoping my method will be easier than the ones I’ve been watching on video and should be a lot more fun to make.

I made another video last night that was a haul video, plus a card related to the haul.  Rich is so buried with memory cards, I think he might break under the pressure.  No, he can handle it, it’s just a matter of getting serious about his projects.  He’s a great team player and knows we need to get the Halloween videos up before Halloween.  I think he’s sweating just a little bit though.

I have to go back to the neighborhood nursery and re-video the end of the child’s chair turned into a plant stand.  The only part of the video that was lost on the sticks that disappeared is the ending where I filmed at the nursery.  It’s been raining the last few days and I’m hoping that tomorrow the weather will be better so that I can finish that video as well.  I’m glad that’s the only part of the video that was lost (at least I think it’s the only part.)

Just a slight change of subject.  Don’t you hate it when you get your carpet’s cleaned?  They are damp and make walking from carpet onto tile an ice skating rink.  My socks are wet and I’m a little grumpy, but my carpets looks so much better.  They have taken a real beating since we got Honey.  She’s eaten the edge of our hall carpet and peed on as many rugs and carpets as possible.  We’ve waited as long as possible to have our rugs cleaned, but we couldn’t wait any longer as the weather is getting too cold to have a really damp house.  I wonder how many other bloggers discuss dog pee and carpet cleaning?  I’ll bet it’s very few, if any, besides me.  I guess I’m the lone wolf.  If that puppy pees on the carpets again, this wolf is going to howl, and I’m seriously not kidding.

The worst part about losing my two memory cards, is losing the Halloween videos that have now put me really far behind on the ones I really wanted to do.  Some of the projects are quick and perfect for a Halloween party, like the apothecary bottle I just put up.  Others, like cards, are too late, and I have a couple more of them that need to go live.  Rich is going  to put one up tonight and maybe one tomorrow so both are online before the end of the month.  Geez, I hate being so far behind the curve, but the great thing about YouTube is these videos live on and can be viewed next year and into forever.  I had Thanksgiving projects on the sticks as well so I’ll remake them and put them on line as soon as I can.  My wet glue video with the creepy blur on it needs to go live before Halloween as well, or else the blur is just a blur and not something kind of funny.

I’m going to make one last Halloween project tonight because I got the greatest package in the mail today.  I’ve met so many wonderful people on YouTube and I got a present from a lady named Donna.  She knew how much I love Halloween (as does everyone else because I talk about it all the time I think.)  She sent me a bunch of Halloween paper, embellishments and an adorable makeup case that I’ll be showing on the video.  I can’t begin to show my appreciation to all of the really sweet and wonderful people I’ve met this year.  I’ve also been thrilled to have connected with one of my relatives as well.  I have a very small family as I think most of you know.  I have one sister in North Carolina and both of our parents are deceased.  I have three cousins, yes I said three, and no surviving aunts or uncles.  One of our cousins has a son and a daughter and I knew them as kids, but have not been in touch since we’ve been adults.  I got a comment from Shelli (my cousin’s daughter), on one of my videos and have been hearing from her regularly since then.  When you have a very small family, it’s great to reconnect, or in our case, to connect and without this YouTube channel, I doubt if we would have ever done so.  Yet another wonderful gift that YouTube has given us.

I’m a little bit behind with my first anniversary video, but will be getting it up shortly.  I can’t thank all of my viewers and especially my subscribers, for making this such a wonderful and fulfilling experience for me and for Rich.  We’ve been blown away by your thoughtfulness, generosity and sweet hearts.  Thanks so much for sticking with us through the learning curve this year has provided us. We couldn’t have done it without you.  Literally.