I love the Tim Holtz “Crazy” stamps and made a really great card with this set just before I started my YouTube channel so don’t have a video of one, so I thought it was time to make a slider card as well.
I made a card that is 10″ long by 7″ wide and scored on the 10″ length at 5″.    I have a top piece of cardstock that is 6 3/4″ x 4 3/4″ in a sky blue color.
I stamped my birds on white card stock with archival black ink and then colored them with alcohol markers then cut them out and didn’t cut out their feet and legs or hair.  I stamped the birds again on the blue paper and then glued the colored birds over the stamped birds on the blue paper so then they have hair and feet.
I used an old Stampin Up set called “a little birdie told me” for my sentiment on the outside of the card.
I cut a long strip on the blue paper between the two birds.  This cut strip needs to be wide enough for a foam adhesive piece to slide in it.  The strip can’t be as wide as a penny.  You’ll put a foam adhesive piece on one penny and lay the penny under the blue piece of cardstock in the strip you cut out.  Put the other penny on top of the strip and attach it to the foam adhesive on top of the blue paper.  Attach the kite to the penny on top and the kite should slide back and forth.

Today is my one year anniversary for the blog with over 500 posts on it.  I’m really excited that my YouTube channel and blog are continuing to grow.  I’m kind of surprised that I haven’t had a lot of responses to the contest I’m running on the YouTube channel as I’m not asking for much, just a comment below the video saying what video they enjoyed the most.  Doesn’t seem that hard, but then again, this is a busy time of year for people, so they might not have the time to watch the video and respond.  Also, because I didn’t mention a number of viewers, the people that troll for contests didn’t find it, so that’s a great thing.  Mainly my subscribers and viewers are the ones who have responded, also a great thing!.

I started thinking about what I must have been doing a year ago since I didn’t have YouTube videos to plan or comments to make on the blog.  I know I read a lot more than I do now.  Maybe I watched television and don’t have time for that anymore as well.  I probably had a lot more free time and didn’t have a lot to think about.  I really need to get serious about fixing my glue video and getting it up and making a similar video with glue sticks and small disposable tape runners.  I think it’s important to know which glues work and which don’t.  I’ve had people recommend tape runners that didn’t work at all for me and wonder how they could work for the person that recommended it.  That’s another reason these videos are so important to me.  If they have nothing to compare their tape runner with, then they probably do think they work well when they definitely don’t.  I like to make sure I test them for immediate sticky and then long term adhering plus whether they dry clear or shiny.  The tape runner that was recommended is not a permanent bond (although the tape runner says permanent on the label.)  I need to get the video up so the referrer can see what other tape runners work like and know that theirs isn’t up to par.  I know that I normally would bring up the par reference, but as a golfer’s daughter, par is a golf term meaning the average and if you are shooting below par, it means you are better  than average.  So my reference is saying that I just want the glue to work the same as all glues should work.  There, now I’ve made my own reference explanation.  This is a first for me.  I’m savoring my brilliance, and now I’m done.

Before I go, I wanted to tell you that my girlfriend loved her child’s chair converted into a flower/plant holder and liked her card even more.  I was happy to see how much she liked both.  Yay!  Her card and chair videos will go live in a few days or weeks depending how many videos Rich has ahead of it.  Poor guy!

I was up so late last night making the Halloween card and another card, I really didn’t craft at all today.  I wanted to make sure I finished my last Halloween card because it was on one of the memory cards that went missing and the technique is one that will work for any occasion. I thought that although Halloween is today, this technique needs to be seen.   You use a note card that’s premade and already decorated then add a couple layers of paper and punched images and you have your card completed.  I did a few extra steps to make my card a little more frisky, but I showed how you can make it easier without the additional steps I took.  Once I finished that card and the video, I remembered we were having lunch today with one of our good friends.  Her birthday is on November 2nd, and we were celebrating it today and I wanted to make her a card (because I had forgotten up to this point.)  I really love the AI girlfriend series and have a couple of their stamp sets.  The one I used for her card is perfect for the two of us and so before I went to bed, I made another card and another video for her card.  It came out really well and I think you’ll like it.  I also made her a gift that I tried to finish earlier this year, but failed to accomplish it.  It was turning the child’s chair into a flower planter.  The video for this was delayed because one portion of the video just happened to be lost on the same memory cards that contained so many important videos, so I haven’t been able to put it up.  I’ll make sure that Rich gets the chair video as well as the girlfriends’ card video up as soon as possible.  He has a huge stack of videos that need to go live and I’m hoping he’ll be able to get them done one a day until he’s caught up.  It’s not easy, because every time he hands me a finished video, I hand him two more that need to be edited and uploaded to You Tube.  He definitely doesn’t have an easy (non-paying) job.

I made this card before and had it on the missing memory sticks so I remade it because I think the process is great for any 5occasion, I just happen to be using it for a Halloween card.
I started with chevron notecards that are 5 1/2″ wide by 4 1/4″ tall or an A2 card size.  I used a silver glittery paper that is 5 1/4″ x 4″ and then a purple layer that is 5 1/8″ x 3 7/8″ tall.  I have a new gingerbread punch from Stampin’ Up and used the Cookie Cutter Halloween stamps that go with the punch.  I stamped the mummy, the skeleton and the vampire with Versafine Onyx Black then colored them with alcohol markers (you should use Memento black ink to avoid smearing when using alcohol markers), and then punched them out with the gingerbread punch.  You can save time by not coloring your punched images.  I also stamped a bat from a retired set called Googly Ghouls from Stampin’ Up and cut it out and put googly eyes on the eyes of the bat.  I used a third Stampin’ Up retired stamp set called Howl-o-ween Creeps for the sentiment.  I used a label punch for the Happy Howl-o-ween and punched another label in orange and cut it in half and made the orange edges show beneath the white layer.  I used orange ribbon near the bottom of the purple layer.  This is a really good way to make a very fast card, by using punches and a premade card base.  I hope you’ll give it a try.

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.