Yesterday was all about strawberries.  I wanted to make jam, and although we live in a rural area, have no place within twenty-five miles that sells local strawberries.  I knew they normally sell them twenty-five miles away, so we got in the car and were on the hunt for them.  We found a farm that used to produce Troyer Farm Potato Chips, but stopped maybe ten or fifteen years ago, and now, they use a portion of their property for strawberries…..Unfortunately, the sign said “U-Pick,” which Rich was completely opposed to….I asked him to drive up to the building and ask if they had any already picked that we could buy and they had just run out, (darn it!) so the only option was to pick our own.  Oh, and we followed a detour that took us ten miles out of our way, only to figure out that we missed the “real” detour, and had to double back….so there was no way we were going to drive around to find another strawberry farm.  We got out of the car, and the workers explained the picking system (little did I know there’s a system that involves flags…you start where the flag is and take the flag with you, then plant it where you stop, so they know exactly what parts of the fields have been picked.) Let’s just say the flag system is genius, and within ten minutes…count them, ten minutes, Rich had picked four quarts of strawberries.  I originally was helping, but the way their fields are set up, they mound the strawberry plants and then there’s a small trench on either side..The trench is filled with hay, so you can’t see any uneven areas, so it was hard for me to navigate.  Rich was worried I’d fall, so sent me back to the car…(and frankly, it was much faster going without me slowing him down.)

We went out to dinner and as soon as we got home, I made two batches of jam.  I make freezer jam that should be perfect every time, but somehow, this time, it didn’t seem to get thick….I read online that if it doesn’t get thick in two weeks, I should take it out and put it in a pot and boil it to thicken it.  I really followed the directions, so am not sure exactly what I did wrong…and when both batches didn’t firm up….not sure what the problem was.  I know if you buy old pectin, it won’t work, but I just bought mine, and I used a timer for boiling time and stirring time, and tried to be completely accurate with my measurements, but still, runny jam…Darn it….

Today we met our close friends at a local spot that is unique to our area.  It’s called the Spillway at Pymatuning Lake.  This video says it all.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsfRt55_qM8  It’s a spot in a large lake where you are allowed to feed bread to Canadian Geese and Carp.  Carp are large fish that look like really ugly Koi fish….there seem to be a million of them, and feeding them is a lot of fun, as they all shove each other out of the way for bread, and they are BIG..It’s kind of gross to watch, but you can’t take your eyes off of them.. You need to watch the video, as my words don’t do this justice.  Any way, our friends and Rich are from a larger city, Youngstown, Ohio.  They’d never seen anything like it, and when Rich and I were in college, I took him there for the first time and he was mesmerized.  This is the second time we’ve taken our friends there, and they love watching the display like we do.

Our friends brought a lunch and we brought a lunch, so we social distanced food, and then we both brought desserts that could be eaten without touching each others food.  Of course, I brought a big bag of kettle chips, because what’s lunch without chips?  And then I realized I forgot to bring bread to feed the fish. How dumb was that?  There used to be a shed that sold bread about a mile from the fish, but our friends drove in that way and said it wasn’t open….so no bread…bummer.  We brought subs, and I didn’t eat half of mine so we’d have a little bread to feed them, and that was enough to make us all happy.  We got a big laugh out of an entire loaf (in the bag) of bread that fell into the lake..The carp were trying really hard to open the bag, but sadly, the bag won and the carp were still working at getting inside when we left.  It was a nice day and great to see friends during social distancing.

I couldn’t sleep at all last night, then got up early to go to garage sales and rummage sales with my girlfriend.  The first sale we went to was a rummage sale at a church near my house.  It’s a really big, well-attended church, and they always have a ton of things to look at.  My girlfriend found a large game (toy of some kind) and asked one of the volunteers the price…The volunteer said there was a tag on the game for $5, so my girlfriend said she’d take it.  The volunteer was taking it to the check out area when (I believe) the head volunteer asked her if she’d sold it, and the volunteer said yes, for $5.  Apparently the head volunteer thought they were selling it for $40, so started yelling loud enough for the entire sale to hear her, about how this item sells for almost $200 in stores and why would she think they should sell it for $5…blah blah blah.  There is NOTHING worse then a public display of aggression….especially when that aggression is directed toward a volunteer.  I felt so badly for her…having every person turn to witness her being screamed at….I think she should have taken her apron off and told the head volunteer that no one should be treated like this, especially someone giving their time to their church.  It was appalling.

This sale has over 1,000 items for sale, and how the head volunteer can keep track of every price is beyond me…but, she also kept track of where things were placed, as an elderly woman asked for my help because she looked at a picture frame and then when she put it back, it wouldn’t stay leaning against the wall, and kept falling over.  So I picked up a small box of picture frames and leaned them against a corner of the larger frame (as the elderly lady was concerned the box would hide the frame, and once I put it there, she said she could see the frame with no problem…)  As soon as the scream fest was over, the head volunteer walked the length of the sale, found the box of frames I’d leaned against the larger frame and started muttering about people moving things, and put the small box of frames back where they originated (about a foot away.)  I’m not one to let things slide (you probably know that,) so I told the head volunteer why I’d moved the box, and oddly, she said that made sense, and moved the small box back.  I was really tempted to say, “And by the way, if I was the volunteer you just yelled at, not only would I have stopped volunteering here, but I would have talked to the pastor about your rude behavior.”  Yes, I’m that girl.  I’m all for the underdog, and can’t stand it when someone uses power to make someone else feel like they are less.  But, I was with my girlfriend, who was already feeling terrible because she felt she caused the argument with her interest in the game…The real fault lies with whoever put the $5 price tag on the game, and of course the head volunteer wanted to know that as well….so I’m sure, she could scream at someone else.  It would have been the highlight of her day if she could have fingered the culprit.

We left that sale and went to a garage sale held by two little old ladies, and you know I’m a sucker for them…They had an outside table that was low, but looked like it would adjust to a taller height.  I’ve been looking for a small dining table for on our patio, and asked them how tall the table would go….The one lady said, “I’ll show you,” and the other said, “I’ll bring a chair.”  So they adjusted it and had me sit in the chair to see if it would work…It was perfect, and I was happy…

I bought a bunch of small things today and had a good day..probably the best day of garage sales for the year.  I’ve been buying a bunch of large frames for my diamond paintings and now just need to figure out how to get mats for them, and then I can give them as gifts..I found two more today.

When I got home, I was happy to see that Rich had brought our round black kitchen table to our garage and sanded it, as I wanted to repaint and polyurethane it.  So we spent the rest of the afternoon doing that and doing the same to the matching chairs…I feel like we’ve really accomplished something today, although tomorrow, I probably won’t be able to move, it was still worth it.

I have been watching a lot of videos on water coloring flowers.  I don’t know if I can turn my wrist the way the artists show in their demonstrations, but I’m willing to try.  I have water colors, but wanted to create a palette of colors that will inspire me to make flowers.  I know it sounds stupid, because you can blend colors to create any color you want, but when I watch these artists, it seems that their palettes are focused on floral colors.

There’s one artist in particular, that makes me feel like I can do this…and here’s a link to the video I’ve watched, and re-watched.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arw-nteUQ3c    I’m not going to start until I know I can really devote some time to practicing, and I’ve been working on a couple of other larger projects that I want to finish first.  I’ve been collecting everything I need for our great niece’s freshman college journal/album.  I am at the point where I’m ready to put it together, and need to prioritize that first.  I’ll tell you how crazy I am, if you didn’t already know.  I bought a bunch of chipboard squares that are 6 x 6″ each.  I am making the base of the album from those.  They are white on one side and cardboard colored on the other.  Her college colors are purple and gold and her sorority colors are black and gold, so I thought I’d make the spine gold and the edges of the cardboard black.  How can you go wrong with black, right?  So I started by edging the cardboard with black ink, and that would have taken me forever….then decided maybe Oxide ink in black would be easier, and yet, it wasn’t.  So then I thought maybe paint…and finally, I had my answer…Black acrylic paint.  Worked like a champ..Believe it or not, messing around with all of those mediums and then finally painting the cardboard, took me an entire evening.  Of course I got sidetracked a few times, and then decided I needed to arrange my craft area, well, you know how I am…Squirrel…If you don’t recognize the squirrel reference, you need to watch the animated movie, “Up.”  It has a dog that talks, and he’s easily distracted…when he is mid-sentence, he might see a squirrel and says “squirrel.”  Rich immediately latched onto that phrase and when I lose focus, he’ll say “squirrel.”  Back to my story…

So I cleaned the area where I video and arranged a couple of drawers, then decided I needed to get back to the album.  I had pulled out some watercolor card stock that already has a gold pattern on it, and decided to paint some of them purple and some black.  The trick is wiping the excess paint off of the gold foil that’s on the card stock without wiping off the purple or black paint.  I had the worst time attempting this, and in the end, might not use some of the papers I painted.  I tried dabbing, wiping, using a baby wipe, a kleenex, the bibs I keep on my chair, and none of them seemed to wipe only the gold foil…they took most of the watercolor off of the areas without gold foil.  Frustrating?  Yes…You’ll definitely hear the whole story when I make the album video.

We’ve been having a lot of thunderstorms this week, and Honey has been spending most of her time in the basement with the door closed.  I, on the other hand, am not feeling like myself, as the change in barometric pressure messes with my arthritis…And boy do I hate the weather forecasters who don’t have a clue what the weather will be doing…The weather channel should employ a lot of people whose bodies are great weather predictors, as I am sure we’d have a much more accurate forecast.  Squirrel….

Tonight I’m having a video chat with my best friends from college.  We started doing this during quarantine, and have been keeping in touch every couple of weeks with this method.  I honestly hate watching myself live time, and don’t like to see myself, but love seeing my girlfriends and catching up.  There’s nothing like talking to old friends who know all of your secrets and still love you for your flaws.

Tomorrow is a big garage sale day and I’m looking forward to two church rummage sales nearby.  You never know what you’ll find at those, and “rummaging around” is great for the soul….

I’ve been making videos non-stop for the last couple of days.  I made a paper bag clutch that I saw on Scrapbooking with Me…It was fairly simple, and lots of fun.  I love making things with paper bags…

I took one of the Fansells diamond art passport covers that I had finished, and by request, turned it into a credit card wallet.  I’ve had to revamp it at least six times, but tonight I finally finished it and am really pleased with the results.  Here’s what the outside of the passport cover looked like.

I finished the trivets that I layered with a cotton material for a friend, and will be finishing that video tomorrow.  And lastly, I’m working on a scrapbook for our great niece, who just finished her freshmen year of college and joined a sorority.  I’m so excited for her and she loves her school and sorority..She and I are the only Parkers to belong to a sorority and it’s fun to talk to her about it.  Things have changed so much since I was in college.  Now, you choose the sorority you want to join within the first month of being in school.  I can’t imagine making a choice like that after only knowing the girls for less than a month…Of course, I didn’t join a sorority until I was a sophomore, as I really didn’t think Greek life was for me.  I didn’t search out the experience, they came to me with a bid to join them, and I was truly honored, as I thought these women were smart, beautiful and classy..  I didn’t know what they saw in me.  I loved them and the entire experience, and my senior year, I was voted president…something I never thought was in my cards….and then I married the captain of the football team…Sounds like a Hallmark movie, huh?  I can only hope that our great niece has the experience in college that Rich and I had, and that she continues to love it like we love our alma mater.

 

Below you’ll find the products I purchased.

Fiskars rotary paper trimmer—broken…darn

Self Adhesive Ribbons

Plastic divided box

Embossing Ink and Embossing ink markers

Embossing Heat Gun

Ribbon Rack

I  bought some new blending brushes and wanted to try them out.  I compared them to last year’s blending brush with the goldish/copper handle below….

The new ones I bought were different.  One is a flat headed large brush that comes in its own case.  One of my viewers tried it and absolutely loved it…so I thought I’d give it a whirl.  You can either buy one for $1.88 from Aliexpress, or $3.50 from Ebay, but both will originate in China.

My last purchase was a mushroom shaped foam brush that also comes in its own case. I found it on Ebay for $1.99 and $1.24 on Aliexpress, and again, both originate from China.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You probably realize that I like to not only compare the brushes and how they perform, but also how they perform with different inks and on different types of cardstock.

Let’s just say that the end result was surprising…I hope you enjoy the video..it should be going up in the next day or so..

The Aqua Fusion cologne gift set I bought at the Dollar Tree..it’s readily available at most Dollar Trees. I really like the smell of it and so does Rich.

The bottom of the box dimensions:

7 7/8″ tall

5 1/4″ wide

Score all four sides at 1 1/4″

The top of the box dimensions:

7 1/2″ tall

4 7/8″ wide

Score at 1″ on all four sides

Score on the back of the paper you are using. Fold all of your scores. Then cut a thin triangular slit on the long side on each score to the 1″ and 1 1/4″ score (depending on the piece you are cutting.) Your cut should cut out the score line and the angular cut should be closer to the edge of the cardstock (and not toward the center.) Fold in the flaps you’ve created by cutting the notches out and put glue on the entire flap then fold the flaps so they create a corner of the box and put a clothespin on the corner until the glue is set. Do the same to all corners.

Once the box is made, all you need to do is decorate it. I ran tear tape on the ends of ribbon and cut the 12″ ribbon in half then laid the ends on the inside of the top of the box. I folded the ribbon so it made a knot on the top of the box and used my extra cardstock to make a small gift card.

I have been working like a busy beaver in my craft room (if you’re from an urban area, you probably don’t understand that reference…..but here in rural America, beavers work super hard to build dams…)  I finished the Christmas cards from my paper scraps, then had to modify the frame that comes with a round diamond painting…Here’s the painting.

To be honest, I wasn’t crazy about the tassel and the hook at the top of the frame.  And if I’m going to be totally honest, I can’t figure out where I put the tassel and hooks that came with the diamond painting, so that’s a secondary issue.  I decided I wanted to use the round frame and put the diamond painting in the frame without the extras.  I don’t see my sister getting excited about the tassel either, so that’s another reason it had to go…

I used tear tape on the back of the diamond painting and adhered it to the foam core that comes with it..Then I put it in the frame, but it wouldn’t stay put, even using tear tape around the inside of the frame….so I went with my trusty glue gun and hot glued the back, and it worked like a charm.  I put a small pearl pin in the top and bottom, but both can be removed if my sister decides she doesn’t like those either…

Then I made boxes to put Dollar Tree men’s cologne in for a Father’s Day gift.  I figure there are a lot of people who give Father’s Day gifts from little kids and they probably buy those gifts at the Dollar Tree….So if someone needs to find a last minute gift and needs an easy way to package it, this box is fast and simple.

Once I was done with the box, I had watched a video where a woman turned a small brown paper lunch bag into a decorated envelope “clutch.”  I’m not sure if anyone would use it as a clutch, but I thought it was fun and you could use it to put important papers inside, or give it with money in it as a gift…I was amazed at how easy it was to make, as I only watched that video in part, and only once.  I thought the end result of mine was fun and now that I’ve mastered it, I’ll make a video showing how I did it.  I need to work out a few kinks, like forgetting to put the brad closure on after I’d laid the liner paper down….Need to do that in the reverse.  I’m going to think about different closures I can use with it too…I might try Velcro or magnets…I’m not sure yet.

Today I went to garage sales and one had all kinds of scrapbooking tools….First, though, I went to a garage sale that an older lady was having, and she had a Fiskars paper trimmer that looked fun.  What I didn’t realize at the time, is that it was a rotary trimmer and it was missing the blade….funny thing to miss, huh?  And wouldn’t you think that she would have said, “By the way, there’s no blade on that trimmer.”  So basically, I bought a worthless piece of plastic. The real sale, though, had all kinds of paper crafting supplies, and if I was new to paper crafting, there were tons of things I could have bought..But having a room full of crazy paper crafting supplies, I really didn’t need anything, but still bought a couple of things there..Nothing impressive.  She sold a really cool looking heat gun that I’ve never seen before, and it came with a embossing ink pads and an embossing pen, and all for $3….I decided it had to be worth $3, but will let you know….They had a few of those plastic storage boxes that you put embellishments in, and you can never have too many of those, and when they sell them for a quarter, it’s crazy to pass it up.  They also sold a wooden ribbon tower…I already have one, but you know how much I love ribbon, I had to have it.  It came with maybe ten rolls of ribbon, an it’s already completely full of ribbon that I had laying in a plastic basket.  Maybe I should consider using all of the ribbon I have, but that would take a few lifetimes…at least with this additional rack, I’ll be able to see the ribbons I have, so will use more of it.  (At least that’s my plan.)

Here’s what the ladder looks like…I already have one that I bought at Joanns, like this.

It was a great crafty garage sale day and I’m ready for date night to begin…(Friday night is our date night…we have take out dinner and watch movies..)  I know our lives are pure glamour….what can you do? haha

One more note of interest.  You know the bird houses I decorated?  The cute yellow house has a wren family inside.  The two rectangular houses are uninhabited, as is another wood house I have, but another wren family is creating a nest in the inside of our patio awning….Apparently they didn’t want to slum it in the rectangle houses….Picky birds.  I did see the one wren with a stick in its beak, standing on one of the rectangular houses, waiting for its mate to get out of it’s way so it could add its stick to the nest…so the house was good enough to stand on, but not good enough to live in..  Bummer.

I can’t believe it…I’ve finally finished the scrap Christmas cards and the video…In the end, I think I have almost forty all-occasion cards and 35 Christmas cards done.  It took me a month of working on them off and on, and believe me, I don’t think I’ll be trying that again any time soon.

I also made a quick video of a decorated box I made for a Dollar Tree men’s cologne gift for Father’s Day.  I know a lot of people buy small gifts for their kids to give to their fathers, and the mother/aunt/friend could make the little box I show and then the child could decorate it with the cologne inside.  I’m giving mine to the postman, to give him a small thank you for all he’s done for us during Corona….

Rich and I went out to dinner (first time since Corona) with close friends.  We went to Red Lobster and they are really taking the virus seriously.  They removed several tables so people can’t get close to each other and have signs on every other booth, saying they are unavailable due to social distancing.  If you stand up to walk anywhere, they require you to wear a mask, and unlike stores that don’t enforce it, they are serious about making people wear masks.  They don’t have salt and pepper shakers on the table, and their menus are photocopies that they can easily destroy after one use.  I still brought my hand sanitizer in and used it several times during the course of dinner (every time something new was introduced to the table,) and was glad we were able to see our friends in a safe atmosphere.

Tomorrow I have two doctor’s appointments…One with my dermatologist for a couple of spots on my face he might need to remove,  and a phone visit with my rheumatologist.  I can’t imagine we’ll be on the phone for very long, but I have to have a visit every three months in order for her to prescribe my medicines.  Of the two appointments, I’m more concerned with the dermatologist, as my mother had melanoma, and it’s hereditary, so I try to be super cautious of my skin, and I have a very fair complexion with lots of spots.  The spots on my face have been worrying me since the middle of the Corona quarantine, and I’m glad I’ll finally get them checked.

My girlfriend and I went to a few garage sales a couple of days ago, and sadly, couldn’t find much that made me happy…but, we also went to a local church that is allowing food trucks to sit there, and I bought a huge bag of kettle corn, so my day was complete and my stomach full of goodness.

I had bought some trivets from the Dollar Tree, and material that I really liked from Joanns, to layer on the back of the trivets.  I took the little “feet” off the bottoms of the trivets, and as I did, I kept thinking that I should put them somewhere”safe” or I would lose them.  I know you’re thinking that it should have been simple to find a safe place to put them, but sadly, my safe place turned out to be not so safe, as I lost three of the eight feet…Darn it..  So I’m rethinking how to turn something else into feet for one of my trivets, or instead, just use that trivet in my craft room for something else…I’m not sure what, since my glue gun no longer seeps glue when it’s just sitting there…I have to say, I’m still really impressed with the Gorilla Glue mini glue gun I bought at Joanns a few months ago.  And, it was really inexpensive.  Here’s a video I made when I bought it in case you’re interested in getting one.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8aAxDjeaFY

I worked on the scrap Christmas cards, and boy will I end up with a lot of them when I’m done..And by a lot, I mean between 30-40 cards…That’s a lot for me.  No wonder it’s taken me a month to finish them. haha

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been trying to do a few giveaways for a couple of reasons.  During Corona, it’s nice to have some little thing to look forward to I think, and although the giveaways weren’t huge, they would be a nice treat for the winner….And, since my channel isn’t monetized, I think YouTube isn’t putting my videos where people can readily find them.  If you are subscribed and know when one of my videos go live,  that’s great, but it’s probably the only way you’ll find them.  It’s frustrating for me, and the numbers of views on my videos is reflecting that issue.  I wish I knew what to do to help people with physical limitations find my channel.  That’s always been the big question, but now that YouTube isn’t putting my videos into people’s options, it’s getting worse.   I might make a video where I explain it and ask everyone who watches my videos if they would be willing to spread the word about it on facebook or other social media.  Do you think that would help?  At least I’d know I’ve done everything I can to get as many people as possible to find my channel.  I know my channel isn’t for everyone (thus the title,) but I wish YouTube found value in it, even if I don’t bring them any money from advertisements, but I also don’t cost them any money, because they don’t pay me to make videos…  Geez…this is frustrating.