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.

Often I am asked for my email address and other social media information.  On YouTube within the picture at the top of my home page, you’ll find links to all of them, but I thought it would be easier to post them here as well as on Facebook.

Email: saundralparker@yahoo.com
Blog: craftingforalmosteveryone.com
Instagram: crafting for almost everyone
Pinterest: saundralparker
Google+: crafting for almost everyone
Facebook: crafting for almost everyone

I love making Halloween decorations and these bottles are so easy and cute.  I found the templates on this blog.  http://blog.worldlabel.com/2014/printable-halloween-apothecary-bottle-labels.html
I printed the labels and then chose the ones I liked best from the two pages of labels.  I used a distressing tool I made with a plumbing fixture that I jammed a bunch of make up sponges into and then folded the top one over and hot glued it into the plastic.  I used Distress Ink Pumice Stone and distressed them by lightly dabbing on the paper, since I used computer printer paper for the designs.  It worked well as long as you don’t rub the paper or it will pill.  I bought my bottles from A C Moore and they were $1 each.  One has a circle embossed into it, so it’s perfect for the circle label.  I liked the “Dust of Unicorn Horn” and a smaller label that said it was “Highly Potent” for the smaller bottle.  The larger bottle with the circle, I used the label that mentioned Crow’s feathers, so I put three feathers into the bottle after I was done.  I used grape Kool-Aid and filled the Horn of Unicorn Dust bottle with it.  I used tear tape to adhere the labels to the bottles.  And used matt Mod Podge to coat the labels when they were dry.

Today is Rich’s and my 34th wedding anniversary so we went out for supper to celebrate.  It’s hard to believe it’s been thirty four years, but I’m so lucky to have met my soul mate when I was nineteen.  A lot of people think there is no such thing as a soul mate, but we are proof that we married our other half.  We were friends before we dated and I think that has something to do with how we just knew we were meant to be together.  We dated for two and a half years and two weeks after we got married, I got diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.  If you’ve read my blog, I think that you have heard the story that when we heard the diagnosis, we thought “no big deal.”  We thought it was like a television commercial with two ladies playing tennis and one woman complains about her arthritis and the other tells her to rub Ben Gay on it.  Little did we know that within five years, I’d have my first knee replaced and in the next six years had both knees, one hip, one shoulder and my neck fused. Additionally, one of the knees became infected and I spent five months in a wheelchair trying to eliminate the infection.  Rich has been a total trooper through all of the ups and downs of my health and not many men would have done the things he’s done to keep me going.  He’s my rock and brings out the best in me.  I wish every woman could find a man who helps her through her toughest times and is there to celebrate the good.  It’s been a great thirty four years and we’re looking forward to the next thirty four.

You have to love the music, Rich did a great job on this one!  This is number #6 in taking something old and making it new again.  You can start with a foam wreath ring and cover it with yarn or ribbon like this one is.  The Dollar Tree sold almost all of the pieces of my wreath except the eyelashes that I got at Dollar General for $2.  The mirror, boa, hair, skull, battery operated tea lights and flowers are all from the Dollar Tree.  I used low temp glue sticks and a glue gun that works with them.  I started by cutting out the back of the skull so I could lay it flatter on the wreath but more importantly, to put the tea lights inside.   I flipped the hair piece over so the hairband didn’t show and then glued the head band to the skull, braided the hair, and wrapped the hair around the top of her head, then glued it in place.  I attached the eyelashes and then put some wet glue on the lash line to ensure they stayed put.  I glued the boa down first then glued the skull to the boa and the wreath in the back.  I didn’t like the purple flowers once I had them close to the wreath, so went with white flowers instead.  I cut the teeth off of the tiara and glued it to the head.  I glued the mirror under the boa and glued the white flowers around the top of the mirror.   I loved the results and hope our niece does too.

I’m working on my last Halloween projects and I’m really sad about it.  Halloween is such a great time for making and giving gifts.  I’m sorry you missed a couple of my videos due to the loss of the memory cards, but I’m getting over it now.  I have a stamp that I’ve been meaning to use called Tableau of Terror, and just came up with a cute card idea for it.  You’ll need to wait to see this one.

The other project I made is taking bottles that are vintage looking that I got at both the Dollar Tree and A C Moore.  All were a dollar each, and I found different uses for each of them. There’s a couple of websites where you can print spooky labels and one I really liked.  It had crows feathers and dust of unicorn horn etc.  I loved both of them and had a bag of feathers that were perfect for this idea.  I distressed the labels and then put them on their respective bottles.  One looked like it held powder, which is perfect for unicorn horn dust.  Try saying that three times fast.  After I put the label on it, I filled it with grape Kool-Aid powder which is the closest thing to unicorn horn dust I had on hand.  Then I put three feathers in the crow’s feather bottle and called it a day.

The last bottle looked like an old ornate liquor bottle so I used a label that came from the Dollar Tree and used Mop N Glo mixed with re-inker to color the bottle. (My other two bottles were already colored.)  I swirled the Mop n Glo mixture around in the bottle but didn’t get a very distinct color from it.  So I turned the bottle upside down and let it sit for a couple of days.  I was using that time for the Mop n Glo mix to evaporate (or thicken a little bit.)  It worked really well.  This time when I poured the mix inside and swirled it around, the color was a lot more vibrant and I really liked the results.  It even stained the cork, which added to the vintage look of it.  I had previous tried a recipe I’d seen on the web of a mixture of food coloring and Mod Podge.  I’m not sure why mine was a failure, maybe the opening was too narrow, but the Mod Podge never completely dried, so my blood red looked pink.  There’s nothing spooky or creepy about a pink bottle.  So I rinsed it out and started over.  My first instinct was to use the Mop n Glo idea as it worked so well for Christmas ornaments last year, but the YouTuber convinced me that Mod Podge was the way to go.  I should have stuck with my first instinct, but I really just wanted to try that recipe anyway.  I’m always trying to find new and better ways to do things, but this definitely wasn’t one of them.  The end result is a bottle that’s almost whiskey brown in color and looks terrific.  Now all I have to do is finish my Tableau of Terror card and Halloween 2016 is a wrap.  I’m sad to say it’s over, but I’m on to fall and Thanksgiving and Christmas crafts.

I’ve been putting together a box of crafty things to send to a teenager who loves crafts but doesn’t really have many crafting tools or products.  We all know I have more than enough for myself and a few hundred other people (that’s a maybe a slight exaggeration,) but I thought it would be great to set her up with some of the tools to get started making paper crafts at the very least.  It’s hard to know what crafts someone would like to attempt and I have tried so many since I was a kid, that I’m not sure what types she will like.  I thought paper crafting has so many options from cards to 3-d structures like boxes or stationary holders or even covering composition books or making their own books, it’s a wide open field.  I’ve tried to consider all the possibilities in putting together this box of goodies and hope I have covered enough that she’ll find something she enjoys doing.  When I was a kid, I tried crocheting and always dropped a stitch at the end of a row so my afghans always looked crooked.  I didn’t really love crocheting once I realized how much work I put into the afghan only to hate the results.  I’m not one of those people who would undo it and start over.  Once I’m done, I’m done. Then came the “crazy about ceramics” phase in the mid 1970’s.  Geez, this is really showing my age.  But after you make presents for your grandmothers and mother and a few for yourself, what do you do with a bunch of painted ceramics?  In college, I took a pottery course that literally saved my sanity.  It was my last semester before graduating and I was in flux about what I really wanted to do with my life.  I had an accounting degree but didn’t love accounting once I had my internship.  I also had a business degree which ultimately is where I found my home in managing banks.  But I digress.  Pottery gave me an outlet for creativity that I had never had before.  I loved the wheel and the way the clay felt, it was just great.  Of course it’s not like I had the talent to be a professional potter let alone the tools so that was four months of a great craft.  I also took a course in jewelry making and failed miserably at it.  This course had me filing copper and silver by hand to make jewelry designs.  No beads or charms, just hard physical labor.  I hated it.  After that, I discovered needlepoint.  I really enjoyed it but again, once everyone in the family has a piece or two of your needlepoint, well, you know where I’m going.  Same with cross stitching, which I did in the mid to late 1980’s.  After that, I pretty much devoted my time to working until I retired, then I had time to kill and saw some YouTube channels on card making.  Actually, Rich saw a video of Kristina Werner making a card, showed it to me, and I was hooked.  I think the thing I like most about paper crafts is there is a continuous need for them.  There’s always a birthday, thank you, get well, wedding, new baby, or sadly, sympathy cards that need making.  I love that I haven’t been in a greeting card store or aisle in a couple of years.  I’m so excited when someone loves one of my cards and even happier when I find that my cards have affected their lives, which was the case of my girlfriend who had cancer and passed away this summer.  I sent her a card every couple of weeks, and her son and sister both told me how much it meant to her when they would find my card in the mailbox.  I guess I’m saying that giving handmade cards to my friends and family has been a craft that has no end and it’s the reason I focused my gift to this girl around paper crafts.  You can never run out of ideas or uses for them and the receiver of the cards or paper craft are always appreciative, because it’s not only useful but makes them smile.  And isn’t that the greatest gift you can give?