I’ll be honest with you…the longer the quarantine goes on, the lazier I become…And not just lazy…I am eating anything and everything in sight.  Is that happening to all of you?  I don’t know how to stop myself.  It’s mainly at night, and the only way to stop myself, is to diamond paint.  If I watch television, I want to eat.  It could be the commercials that talk non-stop about Corona that sets me off, but I am compulsively eating.  I’m not even hungry, just, I don’t know, bored, maybe.  I don’t eat much during the day, and clearly do absolutely nothing to burn calories, but make up for it at night.  It’s gross.  I can’t seem to stop myself either.  My binge of choice is hard pretzels and dip…can’t beat that combo for a great treat..

The last two Saturdays, my best friends from college and I have been “Zoom” chatting.  I love seeing and talking to them, but holy cow, when I see myself on the screen, all I can think is that my cheeks look like a chipmunk whose got enough nuts in them to last the entire winter.  The last call, I mentioned my cheeks to the girls, and the one said, I wanted to ask, but didn’t think I should.  My cheeks remind me of when I’m on a prednisone burst, but I’m not.  If you aren’t familiar with bursts, it’s when arthritis is in a big flare…You take large doses of prednisone and then taper it down to the dose you normally take over the course of the next week.   It’s not a natural look, and if you’ve seen someone on a steroid burst, you’d notice how crazy their cheeks look…  Why my cheeks have suddenly gone rogue, I don’t know. Could all of the calories I’m consuming be going directly to my cheeks?  I guess it’s possible, but think that’s just crazy.

So to stop myself from further binging, I’m diamond painting like a crazy woman.  It’s gotten to the point that my wrist and fingers are starting to really hurt from over-use, so I need to cut back….but then I’ll probably binge again…Geez….

Rich and I have been watching a television series called “Outlander.”  It’s about a woman at the end of WWII,  after spending the war separated from her husband as she nurses soldiers on the front lines. With the war over, they vacation in Scotland where he’s researching his ancestry and telling her stories of the history there.  They stay with a reverend whose well versed in the history of the area, and his housekeeper that is full of stories of “fairies” and time travel through some stones in the area.  The nurse decides she’s going to visit the stones on her own, and collect some flowers/herbs she’s seen there, and ends up travelling through the stones to the 1700’s.  It’s interesting to watch history unfold, and to see the love story between herself and a Scotsman develop over time.  Since she knows the history of the area from her husband, there are a lot of things she knows will happen, and does her best to change history.  It runs for five seasons, and my only advice is to watch the warnings at the beginning of each episode, as I don’t watch rape scenes, and seeing the warnings, we know that we’ll need to fast forward to avoid them.

As for crafts, I’ve been working in my art journal and have another idea of how to frame a diamond painting, so will be giving that a try.  I’m finished with the passport cover Fansell’s sent me, so will be doing a video on how to turn it into a notebook cover, with a closure on the cover, maybe with an eyelet and an elastic band.  I had a viewer ask if you could use the passport covers to hold credit cards, and I’m trying to think of a way to do that as well.  The side slots are too large for credit cards, but I’ve got another idea I want to try, that’s too hard to describe here.  If it works, you’ll be seeing a video doing it.

And finally, Rich and I have started our garden in the house, and it’s taking off like gangbusters.  I wondered where the gangbusters phrase originated from, and here’s the answer from the Urban Dictionary.

Gang Busters was a famous radio program that was first heard in 1936 and aired until 1957. The sound effects of police sirens, tommyguns, and screeching tires that opened the show were dramatic and exciting — this inspired the expression ‘coming on like gangbusters’.
Usage has opened up to describe things that are not just exciting, but successful, intense, and many other adjectives, and many drop the ‘coming on like’ prefix. I think we should be more careful about how we use it, and keep it true to its origin — something that starts with much excitement and drama is ‘coming on like gangbusters’.

(Back to me…)  After reading this, I wondered why the author said “I think we should be more careful about how we use it”….and looked a little further into it’s origin….I found this origin and wonder if that’s what the author is referring to..

“A law enforcement officer or officers who is actively and successfully engaged in the breaking up of criminal gangs. Do (or go) gangbusters, from the entertainment business, to be extremely successful. “Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Volume 1, A-G” by J.E. Lighter, Random House, New York, 1994.”

(Me again.)  It’s sad that something that was so lighthearted originally, could be turned into a menacing term…I guess that’s just how things go….

I’m ready to have this quarantine over and get outside and start doing something, anything, other than stay inside.  Our weather still isn’t warm enough to spend any time outside, and I’m not going to stores or anywhere other people will be.  Our area has only had fifteen cases of Corona since they’ve been testing, and I’m sure we have a lot more cases of people who either never had symptoms or just didn’t get tested.  I’m glad the numbers are small and hope they continue to be so…but once the state “reopens,” I worry that people will go back to being careless and then the numbers will definitely rise.  Let’s hope people continue to wear masks.

 

I wanted to use a new large stamp I bought from Prima, called Gardenia (link: https://tinyurl.com/y9cgmrng) and wanted to use it in the art journal I’m making out of a kid’s cardboard book.  I used Krylon Spray Gesso on the book to ensure the background is white, and it will accept inks and markers (as the surface of the book is normally shiny and doesn’t absorb inks.) I stamped the Gardenia stamp with a jumbo Ranger Archival Ink in black (link: https://tinyurl.com/yb2xva6y) over a two page spread, making sure most of the face and hair are on the right side of the pages. If I was doing this again, I’d recommend you’d use a stamp that wouldn’t cover both pages, and that you stamp as close to the outer edge of the book as possible, as the floss adds so much bulk, I can’t close my journal any more. (Big mistake, trust me.)

After inking, I used a black alcohol marker to darken all of the lines and then colored the image with watercolors (and maybe should have stopped there, and I’ll probably say that a few times before I finish it.) I took embroidery floss in the colors of the watercolors and cut very short strips and laid them in school glue then put them on the hair on the image. I didn’t put any floss in the spine of the book. To make the flower, I started in the center of the flower and used a red floss and spun it in a tight circle and continued the circle…I added a darker red and went around the outer edge of the rose to show you how to do it. The more glue, the better… I let all of the image dry…then decided to use a stencil and used Brutus Monroe silver glitter glaze (link: https://tinyurl.com/y9n39gzf) and a bubble stencil to add circles all over behind her. I wanted to make sure the background wasn’t white, since I had some spots of color on it (that I didn’t like), so I inked it with archival gray ink from Stampin’ Up (that they no longer make.)

I used a Michael’s Shimmer Mist in orange (the spray no longer worked, so I had to put it in a little dish and a brush to color around the hair image (This was a mistake, as it looks smeary when it’s dry.) The shimmer mist I used was from Recollections, and Michaels doesn’t sell it any more, but here’s a link to Dylusions Shimmer Spray. link: https://tinyurl.com/yajwryjh

I added some Stickles (link: https://tinyurl.com/yblqcgat) to the hair… (Another step I should have skipped.)

All in all, it’s a fun idea, but a lot of work and makes an even bigger mess. If I hadn’t been set on making a mixed media image using embroidery floss, I would have stopped with the watercolor image I started with…but then it wouldn’t have been mixed media, darn it.

Sorry it’s taken me so long to write here, but time just seems to pass now that we’re quarantined.  It seemed like I just wrote here a couple of days ago, and then when I looked at how long it had been, it’s a week since I actually wrote something…geez….

On Saturday, my two closest college friends and I had a video chat through zoom.com.  It was so much fun that we decided to do it again the coming Saturday, so it gives me something to look forward to..  I’ve never really been fond of video chatting, but since we aren’t able to see anyone in person, it’s the next best thing, and I miss seeing my friends.

On Easter, I made a ham for Rich and I, and really don’t know what I was thinking.  It was maybe 6-7 pounds (the smallest one Rich could find) and we’ll have ham for months.  I called two friends and we dropped off ham to them….I was happy to share..One of the ladies I shared with was my mother’s best friend.  I had to drop off the cardinal cards I’d showed in the video where I made a ton of cards with the images I’d colored, and I made her a diamond project that was a cardinal bookmark (and showed it in the last unboxing/haul video I uploaded.)   I knew she’d be happy with the cards, as she used to have lunch with her high school friends from April through October, but with quarantining, she won’t be seeing them any time soon.  She called me within ten minutes of Rich hanging everything on her doorknob, as she was thrilled with the cards and her bookmark.  She said she’s been missing her friends and this will give her the opportunity to catch up with them (they’re all letter writers.)  She lives alone and said that (I didn’t know this about her) she mainly watches sports on television, so doesn’t have much to entertain herself with.  She likes to go to garage sales too, and that’s another hobby that’s out for now.  I really feel badly for people who live alone, as this has got to be a very lonely time for them.

I’ve been mainly reading and doing diamond painting since Easter, as my anxiety has been higher and I want to stay as calm as possible.  We had visitors the last few nights….and they aren’t really good at social distancing.  We had a small mother black bear and her two cubs come and destroy my bird feeders and we were lucky enough to catch them on film.  I’ll try to insert the video here.  The first was caught on our Blink camera.  I guess you’ll need to copy the link to see it.  https://www.facebook.com/raparker1/videos/10215134111817728/?t=0

The second video is the cub on a second night.  We used a spotlight and couldn’t get all of the bear on video together.  https://www.facebook.com/raparker1/videos/10215134479426918/?t=0

They are so lazy..the mother just laid on our patio eating all of the sunflower seeds that she could get out of the bird feeder, and her babies had a feeder between them on the ground and they laid on either side of it, eating.  Such beautiful animals, but I am so glad that the window was between us.  Now that all of the bird food is gone, I’m not replenishing the feeders.  It happens every year…we should take our bird feeders down before the bear come out of hibernation, but we never seem to time it properly, and the bears ruin several feeders annually.  Luckily, you can find bird feeders at garage sales, so I have a lot of back ups….At least I plan ahead in some aspects of wildlife here.

The only other thing that has been keeping us busy is planting our garden.  We’ve started a lot of seeds and will replant them outside once the weather is warmer.  I have to say, we aren’t big vegetable eaters, but the dogs really like fall squash, watermelon and especially tomatoes, so we plant it so they’re amused….we added kale, lettuce, broccoli and snap peas for us….we’ll have to wait to see how our garden grows….right now, things are sprouting up like crazy, but sometimes that doesn’t translate into produce, as we aren’t that great at watering our garden once it’s in the ground…It might be different this year if we’re still not allowed to do much once the weather gets nice….we might be spending our time gardening….

 

Fansells.com have been kind enough to give me the following products.

If you have interest in purchasing any of them, the links are listed below.

Cardinal bookmark link: https://tinyurl.com/so6rrgu

Giveaway items:

Birds on a branch diamond painting: https://tinyurl.com/vkqxgan

Sea Turtle diamond painting: https://tinyurl.com/twr8ljm

Giveaway Instructions:

The giveaway ends Midnight on April 20, 2020.…to enter, you must live in the US and leave a comment below this video that says which of the paintings you prefer….”birds” or “sea turtle”…and I need your email address please…If I know you, I won’t need it, but otherwise, I want to make sure I can contact you. If you don’t provide your email address, please check your comments on the 21st. If I don’t hear from a winner by the 30th of April with your mailing address, I’ll choose a replacement winner….(that’s why I prefer getting your email address as that way I can be sure you know you’re a winner.)

Peacock Journal: https://tinyurl.com/v9m9rvt

Mother Mary Journal: https://tinyurl.com/w8zy9ce

Mandala Lamp https://tinyurl.com/rnklz89

Passport Cover: https://tinyurl.com/s8bwgkb

Photo Album: https://tinyurl.com/syhh29k

Refrigerator Food Magnets: https://tinyurl.com/rwewp3p

Mickey Mouse Diamond Painting: https://tinyurl.com/s2gq2d7

Red Birds with Deer in Background Diamond Painting: https://tinyurl.com/u2gakd3

Vintage Garage Diamond Painting: https://tinyurl.com/v3hmg23

Owls Diamond Painting: https://tinyurl.com/vfkerqp

I wanted to show you three ways to use a large background die..

1. Using the die in a basic way: I took a rabbit stamp from Fun Stamper’s Journey called Miss Whiskers link: https://tinyurl.com/ursu2w9 and placed a 4 1/4″” x 5 1/2″ tall card base in cream in Michaels Recollections Heavyweight cardstock (link: https://tinyurl.com/wq2663j) in the MISTI with the die laying on top of it. I laid Miss Whiskers so she is placed with the die covering the bottom of her fur, and then removed the die….If you place the stamp too high, she’ll look like she’s floating above the die and you don’t want that. I used Stampin’ Up’s Archival Gray ink that they no longer make to stamp the rabbit. Then I took the die cut I’d made out of green cardstock, and used Distress Oxide Peeled Paint ink and a blending brush (link: https://tinyurl.com/vwnyoye) and inked the die cut to make it a different color…That lead me into option #2–I’ll go back to option 1 in a moment.

#2 Using the die cut as a stencil on a postcard: Put the die cut over a piece of 5 1/2″ tall x 4 1/4″ wide white heavyweight Michaels cardstock that I’d stamped a postcard stamp on one side..On the reverse side, using the Distress Oxide Peeled Paint, I colored, using the die cut as a stencil and one of the distressing brushes. Making sure that the areas around the leaves were well colored and the area inside the center (where the rabbit would be sitting) would be much lighter. After the ink was dry, I took a matching green Arteza alcohol marker (but a little bit darker green) and traced every leaf, so the leaves would be even more defined. I then took Squeezed Lemonade Distress Oxide ink and a second blending brush and colored the center of the image to make it lighter…(where the bunny will be.) I needed to create a mask for the bottom where the bunny would sit in the leaves…I traced the inside of the bottom leaves on a post it note (the sticky part) with a pencil, and then cut that out and laid it on the leaves in my MISTI and then laid the rabbit on top so the bottom of the bunny is hidden in the leaves. I stamped with the gray archival Stampin Up ink and then used Arteza alcohol markers to color the rabbit. I used a “Happy Easter” stamp from Amuse Studio’s “For Peep Sake” set and stamped near the left side of the bunny’s ears.

Back to Option 1–I colored the bunny with Arteza alcohol markers and glued the big leaf die cut on top of the card base with Tombow Mono Aqua glue. I glued some diamonds (you can use diamonds for nails that are easy to find online, mine were left over from diamond painting) on the flowers in the bunny’s headdress. For the sentiment, I stamped Happy Easter with black Brutus Monroe ink on green cardstock, and used their Icicle embossing powder then heat set it. I die cut it with a die from Spellbinders that came in a monthly kit..I die cut the sentiment and then used Peeled Paint Distress Oxide ink on a small blending brush to add more color to the edges of the sentiment.

I showed a magnetic dish I keep my small dies in that I got at Harbor Freight Liquidators link: https://tinyurl.com/tzqtlyz

Option 3–Making a shaker card. I cut the die out of a bunch of different green cardstocks and tried to make sure I didn’t take the leaf pieces out of the die cuts. I used the same green as I’d used on the other card to act as my base after I’d cut it with the die. I glued it to a piece of 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″ acetate (from a stamp set I bought) and then took individual pieces out of the other colors of die cut leaves, and glued them in place on the acetate backed base. This takes some time and patience, but the end result is cool. I then took a craft colored card base that is 5 1/2″ tall x 4 1/4″ wide to attach my die cut acetate to. I stamped a bird from an old Inky Antics stamp set called Cupcake Birdie Honey Pot in the center of the card base then colored it with Marco Renoir colored pencils. To create the shaker part, I had to add foam tape all around he back of the leaves to ensure none of the shaker components would come out. I glued down some enamel dots around the bird and then added loose diamond accents and glued the leaf die cut to the front. I added a die cut Happy Easter on green cardstock to the front with foam tape.

I’ve been having a lot of fun working on the three bird houses I showed in my Dollar Tree haul video.  Although two of them started out pretty rough, they’re looking kind of cute now.  I didn’t realize that using outdoor ModPodge would require a month of curing time (set up so the Mod Podge can be outdoors safely) as well, as requiring a sealant to get rid of the stickiness that Mod Podge seems to leave behind.  I’m not sure if I would have used Mod Podge if I’d read the label when I bought it.  I thought it was the sealant…silly crafty girl…..

I had made a bunch of cards to give to my girlfriend and had a Dollar Tree box shaped like a book that I bought at Christmas time.  I covered the box with papers and decorations and made it kind of cute….I could have ordered something for her online, but in the spirit of quarantining, I decided it would be more fun to give her a bunch of handmade gifts…So she’s got a snowman diamond painting journal (she collects snowmen,) and a journal I made with a diamond painting passport cover, two destressing bottles, diamond refrigerator magnets and, of course a card.  Rich made her a really yummy chocolate cake and we blew up a rubber glove and tied it to the top of the gift bag when we set it on her porch swing…No breaking the social distancing rules here….She laughed when she saw the glove balloon…Since there wasn’t any helium involved, it did look a little pathetic, but the wind caught it and it blew around the bag, so it was still kind of frisky.

My college girlfriends decided we should have a video chat “happy hour,” so we got to catch up with each other.  We did the conference through zoom.com and it was free and simple to do.  If you go to their website, you can easily figure out how to set up a conference video call.  We had nine women on, and frankly, that’s too many, as it’s hard to not talk over each other, and we had some issues with one person using a poor wi-fi, so hers kept freezing and we kept stopping the call to figure out what was wrong with her technology.  I have no idea how any of this works, and was just happy that I figured out how to get on the call….at one point though, I must have touched something on my computer, as I could still hear everyone, but could no longer see them.  After about five minutes, I pushed a random button and everyone reappeared.  I have no idea how I lost them or how I got them back, but of course, I missed the most important part of the call when I had no video…one of the girls got a new puppy….and I didn’t get a chance to see him/her…bummer.

It was great seeing everyone though, and if we had maybe four or five people on one of these video calls, I think I would have enjoyed it.  As it was, nine people made it frustrating and I wouldn’t recommend doing it with a group that large.  The one thing that made me happy, was Honey wasn’t freaked out by the noise and different voices, and instead, decided she might need to get close to the computer screen and check things out…so at one point on the call, Honey took my place…and then Bella wasn’t to be outdone,  shoved Honey out of the way so she could find out what she had been missing.  I wonder why none of the other women had issues with their pets needing some video time.  I guess I’m the only lucky one…..haha

My goal is to show you how to create a die cut with several colors of paper in it.

The die I used is from Creative Expressions by Sue Wilson and is called the Easter Bunny Egg, link: https://tinyurl.com/rgcuazd

I cut the outer egg and the rabbit center out of a pink cardstock, a lime green cardstock, and a gray cardstock and separated the outside egg area of all three colors from the inner areas that held the rabbit in the same three colors.

I left the grey outer (egg) layer as is, then I took the pink egg layer and cut all of the loops off of the outside, then took the green layer and cut the outside loops off of it as well as the flowers.. This allows it when glued together to have gray loops, green Happy Easter and pink flowers. I glued them together with Tombow Mono Aqua Adhesive with the grey layer on bottom, then the green layer and the top pink layer.

I die cut the bow that goes with the egg out of the pink cardstock, and cut a second bow and then glued them together….I’ll attach this to the egg later.

I took the center section with the rabbit out of green cardstock and cut the flowers out of it….then with the pink layer, I cut the leaves out of it and then glued the pink layer over the green layer, so my flowers would be pink and the leaves would be green…Then I took the grey layer and cut out all of the flowers and leaves and glued this on top of the pink layer. I cut a glitter light black rabbit out, and cut the rabbit out of the background and then glued this to the top of the grey rabbit.

I used a Black Sharpie to outline the rabbit and the outer edges of the center section so you don’t see any edges that aren’t black.

I die cut carrots that have a green top. I did this three ways:

1. Put washi tape behind orange and green paper butted up against each other and then cut it out…I think this looks the best of the three methods.

2. Cut out the entire carrot (including the greenery) out of orange cardstock, then cut the greenery out of green cardstock and glue the green cut out over the orange paper (that should be green.)

3. Die cut only the orange part of the carrot out of orange cardstock, and diecut the greenery out of green cardstock, then put a small dab of glue on the back of the bottom of the stock of greenery to the top of the carrot. I think this method looked the worst.

I used a light grey card base from Recollections Heavyweight cardstock from Michaels that is 8 1/2″ wide scored at 4 1/4″ and 5 1/2″ tall (an A2 size card).. I glued the outer egg onto the card base and then glued the rabbit part inside the center …I glued the bow to the top of the egg and glued some carrots around the bottom of the egg.. I added a dot of glue into each of the outer loops of the egg and added a bright pink diamond I had left over from diamond paintings into the loops. Then I added red diamonds into the center near the rabbit and around the outer part of the card. I stamped a sentiment on the inside of the card from a stamp set from Amuse Studio called For Peeps Sake with black Brutus Monroe Ink.

 

Below you’ll find complete instructions, as well as products used in making this project.

I used the Easter egg picks shown in this Dollar Tree photo: https://www.dollartree.com/easter-craft-eggstravaganza/e227

3″ square glass votive holder link: https://www.dollartree.com/square-glass-candleholders-3-in/849995

Succulent clip: https://www.dollartree.com/floral-garden-artificial-succulent-clips/262638

Garden Floral Moss: Note: mine came with a few small pine cones, but you won’t see them once everything is in place. https://www.dollartree.com/floral-garden-floral-moss/192146

1 1/2″ wide Organza ribbon..I’ve had mine for a while, and found this similar option: https://tinyurl.com/srftcc3 You don’t want it to have wire and it should be organza as you don’t want the ribbon to be showing through the eggs much, as the eggs are the stars of the show.

You’ll need a hot glue gun. My favorite is the Gorilla Glue multi-temp mini glue gun…link: https://tinyurl.com/s29l82o It doesn’t leak, and works great. I found mine at my local Joanns, and it was around $5 with a coupon. Joann.com doesn’t offer the mini version any more, so I couldn’t link their website, sorry.

I decorated my eggs by using embroidery floss link: https://tinyurl.com/v4cssrs dipped into regular school glue and then wrapped on the side of the egg. I added a little glitter and recommend using clear or light colored glitter, as darker shades are too bright. Let the embroidery floss dry on the egg before gluing the project together.

To make the decoration: 

First, I removed the sticks from the egg picks and then used a craft knife, cut the eggs in half from top to bottom. You’ll want to cut around the entire egg with the craft knife, until it separates. You could also use a sharp kitchen knife like a steak knife.  Don’t use a tool (like scissors) that will squeeze the eggs, as they are styrofoam, and will be crushed.  After cutting the eggs in half, rub the two sides against each other over a garbage can, to remove any excess styrofoam from the center.

I laid a piece of ribbon that was about 2 ft. long on the side of the votive holder with a glue dot (so I would know where the eggs should be glued) I found that three half-eggs covered one side of the votive holder, so you’ll need twelve half eggs…I cut all of the eggs from the egg picks and used the leftover eggs to tuck under the succulent when the project was done. I alternated the colors of the eggs so there was a lot of variety in color. I hot glued the ribbon to the side of the votive holder and was going to make a bow, but then decided it would look better without the bow, so cut and glued the ends of the ribbons under the eggs. I took the moss and filled the votive holder, then glued the succulent to the top (after removing the clip from the succulent) and put the leftover egg halves under the succulent.

I’ve been making some last minute Easter cards and showed how to layer die cuts so you know how to make multi-colored die cuts.  I think a lot of people think that when they see a die cut that has a few colors, that they somehow come that way, but it does take some extra work to get the finished results to look good.

I also finished a diamond painting of the vintage car garage….and I really like the end results.

I made a postcard with a bunch of rabbits that I used masks to position the bunnies next to each other, and that card probably took two hours to create with masking, stamping and coloring, so I decided not to make it into a video.  I know I should have, but don’t think anyone would want to sit through a video of that length to make such a simple card.  I’ll be sure to show you a photo of it in an upcoming blog post.

Mainly, I’ve been thinking about how to DIY masks, and here’s the video that does the best job of creating a really good mask.  If you read the comments below the video, you’ll see that this mask has been studied and a doctor at UNC came up with some variations that makes this mask more effective than the ones used in hospitals.  Here’s the video in case any of you would like to make your own masks.  It doesn’t require sewing, and if you have shop towels (thicker paper towels), long rubber bands, scotch tape, staples and small paperclips, you can make these masks with what you have.  I’ll give you a link to the longer rubber bands that the doctor recommends.  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001GKO2L6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My girlfriend and I are splitting the pound box of rubber bands and I have a ton of paper clips to share with her…I’m going to try doubling the shop towels for the highest efficacy, but if doubling them makes it too hard to breathe through, I’ll go back to single towels.  I’m hoping that by using the long rubber bands and only using one per mask, that it will be more comfortable than wrapping the rubber bands around my ears…When he puts the mask on, it doesn’t look very comfortable…If you need to make a mask, Walmart has the double rolls of shop towels on hand in their stores. (At least ours does.)

I received a set of 30 Chalkola Chalk Markers with an extra gold colored marker and a black board from the nice people at Chalkola.

Chalk marker can be used with any non-porous surface…examples would be glass, plastic, blackboards, ceramic. You can write on ceramic mugs, I bought a Christmas ornament (I bought one from Celebrate-it) and drew a Christmas tree on it.

The Dollar Tree sells trinket boxes link: https://www.dollartree.com/colorful-macaroon-shaped-hinged-boxes/270777 that you can use for the tooth fairy and write a message on it.

Snail images free images to print: http://clipart-library.com/free/snail-clipart-black-and-white.html

Plastic notebook sleeve to color on: https://tinyurl.com/umzspdm

I’ve found these at the Dollar Tree during back to school time. Tracing a design on a car window. Put the paper on the outside of the window and tape it where you want it. Get inside the car and trace the design on the inside of the window and it will stay there until you wipe it off. Once you’ve completed your design, remove the taped image from the window.

House window: To put a design on your window, tape the picture to the outside of your window, and draw on the inside of the window, and once the drawing is complete, remove the paper from the outside of the window… Stamping with markers: Use red rubber stamps and use the marker on the stamp then use your fingertip to remove excess ink…stamp onto a non-porous surface and let dry. You won’t get a perfect image, but it’s fun to do. You can also stamp on the Christmas ornament I showed earlier.

To receive a 10% discount on any Chalkola order, use the code: CHALKOLA10

1. Eligible entries must subscribe to Chalkola’s YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC73SQh4Ry2JZ-gw46e3DzZA Only persons from the UK, Canada and USA are eligible to win the set of chalk markers. The set size is a set of 21 markers for the UK and Canada and a set of 30 for the USA .

2. You need to leave a comment below this video that says you’ve subscribed to Chalkola’s YouTube channel and your email address or name. I’d prefer your email address so I can contact you after the drawing’s results.

The drawing will be done on April 15th and I will contact you via email to let you know you’re a winner. The marker set will be sent directly from Chalkola to the winner.