We started uploading the videos that we made with our great nieces and nephew while on vacation in Washington D.C.  They are fifteen and seventeen and are so much fun and are very good friends as cousins.  The first video features our nephew, Logan, who is 15 and his cousin, Erika, who is also 15.  They attend the same school and their lockers are in alphabetical order, so they are next to each other.  It’s great to have family that are also good friends and I think it comes across clearly in the video.  Logan is a real character and Erika seemed like she had been making videos forever and was so comfortable in front of the camera.  She and I made one more video and Logan’s sister made her own video which will probably be the next video to go live.  It was a lot of fun being behind the camera with them, as they came up with their projects and I helped round up the supplies and they took it from there.   I wish we lived closer so we could spend more time together as they made me feel so comfortable spending time with them.  Oh, and I’m going to be the bride-of-honor (I made my own title) in each of the girls’ weddings, but only if I can wear a purple sparkly tutu.   I thought it was the perfect touch for an almost 60 year old woman, and of course it made them laugh and that was worth everything.

I wanted to make a mini pad cover that was multi-purpose so started with Dollar Tree lined paper pads that come in a five pack and are lined and are not post it note pads.  I took the top two pads and separated them from the rest (keeping the cardboard backing) and measured them.  Mine were  7 3/4″ x 5 3/8″ high.  Score at 3 5/8 and 4 1/8″ on the 7 3/4″ length.   Make sure you measure your paper pads though because the Dollar Tree pads are not all the same size.  I covered the back of my paper with tear tape including inside the score marks.
I made an additional piece that was the exact size of the left side to the score mark and tear taped it down.  My measurements were 3 5/8″ wide by 5 3/8″ high.  Then I made the pocket and it needs to be 4 1/8″ x 5 5/8″ high.  I scored 1/2″ on the 4 1/8″ length and 1/4″ on the 5 5/8″ across the bottom.  I put score tape on the back of the scored areas but made sure the sticky part wasn’t close to the edges.  You’ll need to cut a diagonal on the paper so it becomes a folder and trim on an angle and snip off the excess at the top and the little spot where the two score meet.  I made another layer of paper the is the same size as my original outside layer but trimmed about 1/8″ off the sides and bottom so it doesn’t stick outside the original paper. This piece needs to go in pattern side down but don’t put score tape on the left side. I put score tape on the back right side and the middle between the scores and this is when you will put your pen holder in place before you lay this layer down..  I cut a piece of thicker cardstock that I used for the outside and made it about 3 1/2″ long and 1″ tall and folded it around a pen and then put tear tape inside the folded paper keeping it away from the pen.  I took the backing off and lined the two sides of paper up and squeezed them together, with the pen still inside so the pen shape isn’t lost.   Then I put tear tape on both sides of the length of paper and took the backing off and laid the pen outside the back cover but as close to the cover as possible so that it won’t fall out but leaving room for the pen on the outside of the paper and then laid it down and pressed it into the back.  Now you can lay the paper down that you cut just a little smaller  than the original paper.  I then cut a piece of pink sparkly paper and cut it so it was the same size as the left side of the layer I just put in and added 1/2″ to the right side and scored on the right side at 1/2″ and put tear tape on the score part and the back of the rest of it and then laid it on the left side of the paper we just laid so you aren’t looking at the back of a piece of paper.  I then put tear tape on the back of the tablet and laid it on the right side of this section.  I put two mini post it note pads on the left side of this section and took some thin washi tape that matched my project and using about 1 1/2″ threaded it through the top of a paper clip and squeezed it together and then trimmed the top on an angle.  My outside paper started to crack from all of the folding I had done with it, so I surrounded my left edges with washi (front and back) for a more stable look.  I also thought it looked cute.  I took a scallop circle punch that was 1 3/4″ and punched out a gold glittery piece of cardstock and then took a pink bottle top from my stash and the plastic piece that will go inside it .  I put a “B” from my stash inside the plastic dome and then added some floral paper behind that with tape runner and pushed it onto the bottle top using wet glue to hold it in place.  I also added wet glue to the back of the bottle top to hold it on the glittery paper.
Here is the information on the tear tape available on ebay.  If you type in rhis item number in the search bar, you should find it.  Right now he is selling it for $1.39 for 5 rolls that are about 1/4″ wide and 18 meters long.  I thought it was a great deal and wanted to share it with you.  The seller’s id is wishmart 2014.  I hope that helped.
I’m sorry this project is a little confusing, and here are some things you can do to make it easier.  If you used double sided paper, you wouldn’t have had to line anything and I couldn’t give you exact measurements at some points because the Dollar Tree note pads are not consistent in size so you’ll need to make your measurements yourself.  I would be careful where you put tear tape as sometimes you only need it on the center between the scores and other times you need it all over.  Make sure you put your pen in when I tell you to and not when I did.

Every once in a while I am obsessed with a crafty product.  Currently, I’m really having fun with the new Rubber Stamp Tapestry red rubber stamps and their existing line of peg stamps.  I stamped a card with one of the red rubber stamps and it came out so cute, I was amazed.  So I had a plastic travel cup that I bought at the Dollar Tree (is there another place to shop?) and I didn’t have a use for it.  I thought I might make it for the Christmas family we adopt, or our great niece.  But I started looking at it today and it’s the perfect size for an afternoon iced tea.  One of the stamp sets has a tea kettle and tea cups and it just clicked that they would be so much fun on the cup.  So I started stamping and the next thing you know, I’ve dropped two different dew drops (ink pads for those of you who are unfamiliar) into the bottom center of my project.  I was so happy (or crying), because what do you do with that?  In the end, I covered my mistakes with washi tape and put the mug bag together and I love it.  I think you will too.  Why use those travel cups from the Dollar Tree to decorate just for kids?  I’m telling you, once you see mine, you’ll want one for yourself.  It was a great time and I recommend the project highly.  I had a great time and now every time I drink out of that cup I’ll be reminded of how I had to cover up two different ink pad impressions and I’ll be the only one who knows.  And isn’t that the joy of crafting?

I promised in my last video where I showed the new line of red rubber stamps from Rubber Stamp Tapestry that I would use them in the MISTI. Unfortunately, my camera tripod was bumped and the part where you see my actually stamp with the MISTI is cut out because it was off screen. I apologize for that but you do see what the stamped image looks like. I used different water based markers on the red rubber and it worked great. The set of stamps I used from Rubber Stamp Tapestry aka pegstamps.com were called Just Add Flowers as well as a sentiment stamp from Simon Says Stamps called Flowers on my Mind.

The card is a 10″ x 7″ card scoring the 10″ side at 5″ so the card ends up being 5″ x 7″. I used a layer of pink cardstock from Stampin’ Up then a plaid pink layer that was 4 3/4″ x 6 3/4″ and used tape runner to place it on the pink card base. Then my pink layer that I stamped on was 4″ x 6 1/2″ and I made a banner with the scraps from the papers I used on the card and made the pink layer thinner than than the plaid layer (about 1 1/4″ and 1 1/2″ wide). Stamp your sentiment on the pink layer that is thinner and cut a notch out of the end as I show you in the video and then use tape runner to apply it to the plaid 1 1/2″ layer and notch out the end of it as well. I put foam tape on the back and attached it to the bottom of the card. I really loved using the peg stamps with the red rubber new stamps and the MISTI.

Happy Labor Day!  In honor of the day (and because of my crafting debacle yesterday), I decided to take a day of rest.  I did post one video that I’m really proud of and did some follow up work on some other videos, but didn’t do any crafting.  I really thought about it but then I took a nap instead.  Sometimes you just need to regroup and recharge before throwing yourself back into a project, at least that’s what I told myself today.

Poor Rich is buried under videos that need to go live, so I’m giving him a little break as well.  I’m ready to throw myself into Halloween videos and think I’m already behind on it, but keep telling myself I have two months to produce some awesome Halloween videos and I love Halloween videos.  I’m not into the costumes, but love giving great treats and watching Rich dress as a vampire every year to entertain our trick or treaters.  I’m thinking about making treat boxes shaped like a coffin for my candy this year.  I’m sure it’s been done before, but why not do something fun to hold the treats?  Not a plastic bag either, that’s been done since I was a kid, in a time before plastic.  I just can’t decide where to start, but tomorrow is the first Halloween video and I’m going to start out with something really fun.  I just don’t know what it will be yet.  I did buy some lights from the Dollar Tree that are mini lights shaped like pumpkins and bats and there are ten on a string.  They take two AA batteries and I thought I could make a really fun Halloween inspired wreath and intertwine my crazy new Halloween lights into it.  I haven’t fleshed out all of the details, but I think it will be pretty cute (once my plan comes together.)

I probably have mentioned this in the blog before, but every spring and fall I practice interview all of the graduating senior accounting and business majors from the college that Rich and I attended.  I do a seminar to set the expectations the first week and then interview the next two weeks.  With that being said, this Wednesday I have two seminars scheduled and then I will be interviewing on the 12th, 16th and 19th.  The seminar day isn’t much, just a few hours, but the interview days are really long.  I need to do a lot of videos now to ensure there will still be videos going up during the time I’m too exhausted to do them.  I’m doing pretty well staying on top of my end of things and hope we’ll continue to have videos go live every day or so.  I’m crossing my fingers on that one.

So the day started out very hopeful, full of organization with my little chair, painter’s tape, stencil, paints, you name it.  I taped the stencil onto the top portion of the very tiny chair and thought, this shouldn’t be too tough.  I had the right tools, the right attitude and the stencil was tiny, maybe six inches of daisies.  Six inches of pure unadulterated pain is what it was.  I couldn’t do one thing right.  The daisies looked like a five year old had stenciled them and even though I taped the stencil in place, it looked like crap.  Crappy, crappy, crappy.  I was almost crying by the time I threw in the towel on the project from hell.  I have no idea how a stenciling project could have turned into a paint splatter problem, but I had paint from my chin to my elbows to my wrists and of course, covering my hands.  They were actually raw by the time I got the paint off of them.

I felt like a failure and it brought back the memory of my one other stenciling from the 1980’s when I decided I could stencil my mailbox.  Back in those days people stenciled walls, doorways, mailboxes, you name it.  I thought “how hard could it be?”  The answer is clear.  Stenciling is hard to do and do well.  I even did the stenciling with a stencil brush this time and I should have just free-handed the daisies as I think I could have done a much better job.  I was so embarrassed by the mess, I just took a towel and wiped as much of the paint off as I possibly could.  Almost all of it.  The chair is back to being blue and I’m over stenciling.  My new plan is to take paint markers and paint the image in and make it look like whatever kind of flower I can muster.  I may even try to use some of my stamps and some Staz On and ink the stupid chair.  I’m so downtrodden over this project, I’d like to burn the stupid thing.  The worst part is I think my girlfriend was relieved to see the chair go back into my car (and she never really saw the big mess I made on it.)  I hate to admit defeat, but this chair has me ready to scream “Uncle.”  What the heck makes people do that?  And who came up with it anyway?  I’m just too tired to find out.  Maybe I’ll be inclined to check into it tomorrow.  For now I’m going to bed and hoping I forget all about the stenciling debacle and that some day I produce a chair that’s not a total embarrassment.  Until then, I’m hoping I develop amnesia about the whole day and never mention it again.  Sometimes crafting can really stink.  Today was one of those days.  Uncle!

Garage sales today were so much fun.  I found some great things to make unique small wreaths with and have been thinking about how much fun it would be to make little wreaths with small pine cones or berries or buttons on them.  It’s something that’s been really brewing in my brain.

I also started working on a small chair that I bought a huge mum to set inside the seat.  The seat was wicker that was woven and coming apart, so I cut it off and sanded the entire chair.  It took forever to get it semi-ok, and I’m not totally thrilled with it but I spray painted it a sea-blue color and then tomorrow my goal is to stencil the top of it and put the mum inside and bada-bing, instant cute chair/plant stand.  (Or ugly total failure.)

I’m not sure about my stenciling skills as I haven’t tried stenciling on wood since the 1980’s, and that was a total complete 100% horrible failure.  I’m pretty worried about it especially when I might have to do the stenciling at my girlfriend’s home if I run out of time waiting for the paint to dry.  So far the paint is just tacky and I know I won’t be able to stencil over it so I guess, tomorrow is another day.  I’m still very worried, but am keeping an open mind about it.  This has disaster written all over it.

I started my day early, 4AM, because I had misplaced the opening segment to one of my videos and just could not sleep until I found it.  Luckily it was on a memory card that I thought had another video on it, so was able to go back to bed relatively quickly.  Rich put a video up today and has several more that need to go live as well.  At this point I think he has eight videos waiting to go up.  I think if he actually knew the number of videos awaiting him, he might just quit and I’d be looking for a new editor/husband.  He’s a really great sport about this whole process.  He knows I’m doing this to keep myself occupied and to allow other people with similar health concerns to find an outlet for their creative side.  Luckily he also loves technology and the computer, two things that are mandatory in creating videos (at least that’s what I’ve been told.)  My total video experience is based around using the camera and creating the video content.  Once I do that, I hand Rich the memory card and we are off and running.

I’m really excited about the quality of the videos I’ve just done for Rubber Stamp Tapestry, the Peg Stamp people.  They sent me their new red rubber stamp line and I wanted to do their product and their company justice in my video introducing their new line and how I will store them.  I also did a second video that showed the stamps in use.  Both of those videos will be the next to go live and we should see the first one tomorrow that introduces the stamps and shows storage, then on 9/4, we should have the other video live that is a demonstration of use of the new red rubber stamps.  These are really high quality red rubber and are so deeply etched, that I don’t use any foam backing and show how I do use them in the Misti.  I’m thrilled that they trusted me to allow me to introduce their new line of stamps along with Lindsay, the Frugal Crafter, who is their official YouTuber.  I’m excited that they put me in the same league as Lindsay (ok, maybe it’s only in my mind, but that’s how I’m choosing to see it.)  So please check out the new line of red rubber stamps from the Peg Stamp people as they are perfect to use with their traditional peg stamps and on their own.

I’m making a few videos with pre teen and teenagers based on the projects they want to do.  Peyton (who is 11) wanted to refurbish old cowboy hats and turn them into hats she and her friends could wear to a country western show at our local fair.  She chose the hats, the ribbons and accessories and was not very interested in talking or being seen on video.  She used hot glue to glue her ribbon and feathers in place and used a safety pin with three beads on it as the accessory.  I apologize for the lack of sound and the fact that it was difficult to se what we were doing as she wasn’t accustomed to working with the project facing the camera.  All in all, she did a terrific job and I hope she likes her video.