I buy my chocolate wafers at A C Moore usually on sale for $1.99 a bag.  I buy dark chocolate but they aren’t bitter like a normal dark chocolate, and have a nice chocolaty taste.  I put the wafers in a microwave safe bowl and microwave them for 30 seconds at a time then stir and microwave another 30 seconds and stir.  You should have completely melted chocolates within 1 1/2 minute at the most.  I buy Dole raspberries and if they are large, cut them in half.  Don’t wash the raspberries or they will break down, just wipe them with a wet paper towel if they need it.  I take a teaspoon and put a dollop of melted chocolate in the bottom of my ice cube tray, then drop in a raspberry and then cover the rest of the hole with chocolate and use a spatula to level off the top.

Your tray should have a silicone bottom so you can pop out your chocolates.  Regular ice cube trays are difficult to use for this technique.  I found these trays for $2 each at a kitchen supply store.
After your chocolate has filled the tray, take a paper towel and wipe off the edge of the tray and make sure you get as much off as possible for a better finished look.  Put them in the refrigerator for a couple of hours until they are hard.  They will get soft very quickly in a warm environment (like summer), so make sure you don’t take them out of the refrigerator until you are ready to eat them.  If your bottom edges look rough, simply use a dry paper towel and gently rub the edge and the excess chocolate will come off,  You can use dried fruits as well. I like dried cherries, blueberries and raisins.  If you use a smaller fruit like a raisin, simply add more fruit to make up for the size difference.
If you have ever purchased chocolate covered fruits, they can be quite expensive.  I recommend you giving these a try to save yourself a significant amount of money and impress your friends and family with a great dessert treat.  These are really addicting and I hope you’ll give them a try.

I was a crafting fool today.  I decided I should use my new Rubber Stamp Tapestry red rubber stamps, but wanted to show them and how I was going to store them first.  Video number one, in the bag.  Of course my next video was using the stamps, so I made a card for a friend who is recovering from gall bladder surgery.  That video took a little longer, but the card was pretty great when I was finished with it, in my opinion.  We went out to supper with friends and when I got home, I had a text from Peyton (the cowboy hat video) saying that she enjoyed her video and was ready to make more.  I had to laugh because it took absolutely everything I had to get her to talk on camera and she did not want to be seen on camera either.  Wow, how things have changed in a  very short amount of time.

I was thinking about reading, but had been wanting to do a video on a back-to-school composition book makeover video and decided to tackle that instead.  My great nieces and I had done this project while I was in D.C. and we found there were a few tricks to doing it properly and that all composition books were not created equally in dimensions, so they aren’t exactly simple to cover.  I made the video and had more mistakes doing it myself then when I had done it with the teens last weekend.  You’d have thought I would have learned something from making the exact same project twice before, but no, I had to redo a lot of the process as I kept making mistake after mistake.  In the end, it came out fine, but my tripod had been bent at a weird angle so all of the videos I made today were too close to the subject matter and I had things out of frame and you know how I absolutely HATE that.  I finally figured out my tripod problem about five minutes before the end of the last video.  I guess I’ll never get this process down pat.  Maybe if I do, it won’t be any fun anymore, but I’m sure we’ll be waiting a very long time to find out for sure.

Since starting my YouTube channel, I have made so many really wonderful friends.  Almost from the very beginning, I met one of the owners of Rubber Stamp Tapestry aka pegstamps.com, named Rebecca.   Initially she wanted my input on her stamps and how they work for the crafter with physical limitations.  She sent me some sets and I was amazed that 1. she found my site as it was really new, and 2. that she cared what I thought.

Rebecca has kept in touch with me and given me a lot of valuable advice along the way.  She understands the goals for my channel,  as I’m not looking to sell anything, I just want people like myself to have a voice on YouTube.  So today in the mail I got a package from her.  I’d ordered some inks and another flower stamp (I can’t pass up any of her open flower peg stamps.)  Inside the package was a note from Rebecca, (there always is), thanking me for my order, asking how I was doing and what I thought of her new line of stamps.  They are branching out into a line of red rubber stamps that are on a sheet and work perfectly with their peg stamps.  There are baskets and barrels and tubs and bicycles, perfect for filling with her other line of stamps.  I think they are absolutely beautiful and can’t wait to make a video using them tomorrow.  Of course, Lindsay, the Frugal Crafter will be making one as well, but I’ll just link my video to hers and my viewers can use her promotional codes for discounts.  Rebecca offered my own promotional codes but I wouldn’t feel like she is getting enough bang for her buck with my site and she deserves the kind of audience that Lindsay can bring to her.  Of course I am absolutely thrilled to be part of her “family” of crafters, and can’t wait to see her stamp sets take flight.  I’m thrilled for her and her new venture and hope you’ll check out the videos and the new line of Rubber Stamp Tapestry stamps that you can find at http://www.pegstamps.com.  I can’t wait for you to let me know what you think in the comments on my videos.  You know I always love hearing from you!

Today is a travel day involving at least a six hour drive home.  I dread long drives especially in a lot of traffic.  It did take us almost eight hours as we got into a construction zone, so we were exhausted by the time we got home.  I was ready to get back into my own routine again and starting by falling into bed at 9 PM.  Life is good.

Crafting with teenagers frankly makes me feel old.  I had to laugh as I was riding around with our two great-nieces, as I had almost no idea what they were talking about.  The terminology they used made me feel like I was 100 and I was beginning to think I’d entered another dimension.  One thing that stays true, though, is the good hearted nature of teenagers when they are on a mission.  They were completely focused on the job at hand and made great crafts and were a joy to hang with.  Is hang still a word?  I learned so many words I was using were incorrect that now I’m not sure what’s right or wrong.  I had a terrific time though and got three pretty terrific videos in the end.  I realized there’s such a huge difference between my first video with an eleven year old where I couldn’t get her to speak up or turn her project so the camera could capture it, to working with 15 and 17 year olds who were old hats (definitely not a saying that is used any more) at making videos.  They were so much fun and wanted to do more and more things and had terrific ideas along the way.  It was such a great weekend spent in DC, I was sorry to leave the family behind.

Our last video involved shrinking #6 plastic into small art, and it worked great, but we thought we were using number 6 only to find we were not.  Long story short, it’s number 6 or you have a long curled piece of plastic on your hands.  Funny, but not usable.

First full day in DC.  Since we are here to visit relatives, why not make a bunch of craft videos with the great nieces and nephew.  I asked each what craft they wanted to make and brought most of the materials with me.  It was a full day of crafting, unbelievable what we accomplished.  The mothers joined in as well, but decided they didn’t need to be on video for their projects.  My great niece Erika, found an adorable idea of turning a Mason jar into a fairy light (if I’ve already covered this, I apologize.)  What I didn’t realize is that our great nephew (Erika’s cousin, Logan) would want to make one of the jars on video as well. I’ve never crafted with a sixteen year old boy and he was hysterical.  Had his own ideas of how the project should go and basically turned the whole project into a laughing experience.  I’m sure Rich will be editing that video forever to get it into some semblance of order.

His older sister, Ashtin,  was going to cover a wood version of her first initial in papers that she liked and hang it on her dorm room door next year. At the last minute, she decided to cover a full length wall mirror instead.  The logistics of videotaping a huge mirror without getting all kinds of odd reflections was tricky.

The mothers made the fairy jars and covered a couple of notebooks with papers and embellishments.  With all of these projects going on at once, I was running (or walking fast, ha ha) from group to group to keep everyone rolling and videotaping each segment to make sure each project was covered from beginning to end.  I’m not sure how any of it will look on video because our lighting was terrible, but it was so much fun and I think they all really liked their projects and isn’t that all that really matters?

The only downfall of the trip is that Rich couldn’t bring the computer with the new video software and the hotel’s system won’t let him download the amount of data that’s required, so we won’t be uploading any videos until Wednesday.  I apologize for the long delay between videos.  We’ll make up for it when we get home because I have at least three or four more of mine that he hasn’t edited.  I hope it will be worth the wait.

Today was a big travel day for us, leaving from our house and heading to Washington DC tosee our nephews and their families. I am so excited to be here as we have two great- nieces who want to each do their own individual craft project and video tape them.  There’s also a joint adventure in crafting of a technique that we will all be attempting for the first time

One of the girls is going to college next year and wants to decorate her full size mirror, which looks like it will be really cute when it’s done.

Our other great niece is going to do a project where she turns mason jars into glow in the dark jars that look like they hold lightning bugs.

Our craft that we are all attempting together is using plastic from food containers, cutting them into shapes, coloring them with alcohol markers and then baking them and hopefully turning them into some kind of jewelry.  I think it will be a lot of fun and each person’s project will be completely unique to them.

But first, I can’t go to a big city without checking out AC Moore, the Dollar Tree and any other craft stores they come up with.  We’ve already made a date for early tomorrow AM to go out for coffee then off to the craft stores.. I’m so excited and had a great visit with one of the families tonight and can’t wait to see the other tomorrow. It should be a really fun craft and family filled day.

I worked all day yesterday on organization then decided I needed to make a card for a birthday I’d already missed (by a couple of days.)  It was from the Woodware stamps that I am loving and was a big chicken with the birthday idea of being a spry young chicken.  It was  a cute idea for an 89 year old lady and I’m sure she will love it.  The first mistake I made was re-inking my archival ink only to discover the re inker said it was archival, but definitely was not.  I used alcohol markers on the card and it smeared the black ink EVERYWHERE.  At first it didn’t really bother me, but then I started to get frustrated and then I just started laughing at the mess I was making and blaming Jennifer McGuire because she never has that problem with her cards.  Then again, she edits out all of her boo boost.  I guess it’s considered “old school” if you don’t voice over and edit out every mistake.  I’m ok with doing it my way because otherwise, how will anyone ever figure out what to do if that mistake happens to them.

Ok, so they won’t find out anything from the chicken card either, because my frustration lead to me trying to cover up some of my mistakes and nothing seemed to go well. In the end, I fussy cut the chicken (which wasn’t well colored), and decided to just go with it.  It’s definitely not video worthy but I’m still going to mail it.  I’m working on my girlfriends’ birthday card today and making a couple of gifts for my nieces’ and their daughters, all, hopefully tonight.  It’s kind of a big plan considering we are planning on driving a couple of hours to trade in our car for a new one and pack for our trip tomorrow.  Nothing like putting off projects until the last minute, but that’s just how I roll.  Really?  I thought I just fly by the seat of my pants, so I either roll or fly, either way, I’m hoping to get these projects completed before we leave.

I guess when it rains, it pours, and sometimes in a good way.  I just finished putting my two small drawer units together (well Rich did) and then went to a garage sale today and found another great (pretty ugly) black tall dresser for $10.  I think I’ll need to take one piece of the cube storage out  to make room for it, but this is so much better and sturdy, that I am thrilled.  I spent most of the day organizing and filling the first set of drawers and cleaning out areas that need organized.  I’m going to clean the new dresser and repaint it black and maybe add some different knobs. I’m not quite sure.  But my goal by the end of tomorrow is to have the new drawers in place and organized and be ready to craft.  I can’t tell you how relieved I will be to actually go to a place to find the crafty item I’m looking for and find it without a moment’s hesitation.  Can you picture it?

Already I can see a huge difference in my organization and have found everything I’ve needed without any serious anxiety or pain.  It’s a great day and I’m am THRILLED with my new finds.  I’m make sure to do a video on both dressers from start to finish so you know exactly how ugly they were and the butterflies they will be turning into.  That might be a slight stretch of my imagination, but wouldn’t it be great if they did look good once completed.  I’m off to paint!

I decided that since I have my new chest of drawers to organize my craft room, I might as well take the time to organize each craft as I get to it.  I store my 12 x 12 paper in plastic cases by color. We’ve all bought pads of papers that we like, only to find that half of the paper is not really our style so it just sits there.  My boxes were getting so heavy, I couldn’t manage them.  So I painstakingly went through each box and piled all of the papers I didn’t think I’d be wanting to keep into one big box.  It’s heavy, but at least I can now lift the individual boxes much easier.  That lead to organizing my buttons by color.  I can’t stand looking for buttons that match, so bought three identical plastic boxes with dividers  (for a quarter each, YAY) and organized them.  Onto beads.  Beads are tricky because they can be so small and easy to drop and impossible to pick back up.  I decided if I dropped them, they were history and it made the process that much easier.  I still have a way to go to organize them, but am a lot further along than I was.  Next step will be brads and eyelets.  I have a lot of each and organizing them is sometimes cumbersome because they can be so small as well.  I really would like to get to the point that everything is labeled, organized by color and easy to find.  I’m saving washi tape for last because it’s already pretty well organized but in too many different locations so the tricky part will be getting them in the same place.  Who knew organizing could be such a long and tedious process?  I used to love organizing, but am now almost overwhelmed by it, because every minute I organize, is a minute I’m not able to be making videos.  It’s a big trade off and I need to get really serious about finishing my organizing so I can get even more serious about making videos.  Oh, and did I mention I still haven’t really organized my ribbon?  YIKES!