Went to a bunch of garage sales today and spent a total of $1.25…some days you just don’t find anything worth buying…Then read a book this afternoon by Steven James, called
“The Rook”, about an FBI profiler.  It’s the second in a series, and the first was much better..The first was called “The Pawn,” if you like those kinds of books.  I was so excited to start the second in the series after reading the first, but sometimes the author gives everything to the first book, and doesn’t have much left for the second..  I was disappointed that it wasn’t more exciting, and found myself dosing through parts of it…bummer.

Decided I needed to clean the craft room and finish a card I’ve been working on for quite some time.  It’s not that the card is difficult to make, it’s more that I forgot about it.  How crazy is that?  I was looking at a memory card to make sure I uploaded my sister’s corsage video, then realized I was out of frame so much, I couldn’t put it up…and found the video for this other card….I’m losing my mind, I’m pretty sure.  I finished the card and its corresponding video, in frame, hard to believe.

Rich and I went out for a late dinner with friends and I have to say, I think some of these things only happen to me.  We were having Italian food at a really nice restaurant and the waiter asked if I wanted grated cheese on my eggplant parmigiana.    I said, “Sure” and he started cranking the wheel that grates the cheese…All of a sudden, a bigger piece of cheese fell out of the grater and into my iced tea.  The waiter looked at it and said something, I’m not sure what, then picked up my spoon, pulled an ice cube out of my iced tea, sat the ice cube on the table, and said “Good enough” and walked away.  No one returned with a new iced tea, and the piece of cheese continued to bob around in my glass.  I thought it was funny, but our friends were a little embarrassed.   I take these kinds of things in stride, because they happen to me so often.  I’m not sure if I told you the story about the last time we went to this same restaurant, last week.  Rich and our friends (thankfully not the same couple) were seated, and I went to the restroom, and made it to the table probably two minutes after Rich.  The waiter walked up to the table (also not the same waiter), and said to me “Is there something wrong with your hands?”  I immediately wondered if he was talking about my arthritis, and from the way Rich stiffened, I knew that’s what he thought…In the next breath, the waiter said…”You could have called, you know,”  referring to the fact that I was later than the rest of my party.  I know I turned all shades of red, and Rich said if the waiter hadn’t said the right thing after mentioning my hands, that Rich felt the need to do something drastic.  Maybe we shouldn’t go to that restaurant…possibly that’s the issue…

 

I volunteered to make the boutonnieres for my nephew’s wedding in an aquarium in North Carolina in September.  I also made my sister’s corsage, but unfortunately, was out of frame for most of the video, so you won’t be seeing that video, darn it.

I began by taking three 7″ long lollipop sticks that you’ll find in the candy making section of your craft store. Here’s a link to some I found at Party City that were 8″ long…I’d cut them in half as you need the thickness of the longer sticks. Link: https://tinyurl.com/y4mbb966 .  I cut them in half and used three of them and hot glued them together so they were like a pyramid. I took a small piece of 7/8″ wide ribbon that I bought at Joanns in the color that matched the ties of the groomsmen, and ran it through my Xyron (link: https://tinyurl.com/yynlccyv) and laid the ribbon shiny side face up, into the Xyron, and pulled it through to create a sticker out of the ribbon. At this point, you should take two of these small pieces of ribbon and wrap the ribbon around the top and bottom of the lollipop sticks.   I mistakenly did it in the reverse order, putting the carpet tape on first…and should have done it this way instead. I took my roll of 2″ wide carpet tape link: https://tinyurl.com/y2smqnt3 (This might not be the right tape…it needs to be clear tape, and I bought mine at a small local hardware store, so don’t have a link for mine.) Take the roll of carpet tape and unroll the tape the length of your three glued-together lollipop sticks and then cut it to that length. You’ll want to wrap the carpet tape tightly around the three sticks and rub it so it adheres properly as you go…You’ll have more than enough tape to surround the three sticks, and you can trim off the excess. Make sure if your three sticks are not all the same length, that you have the uneven end hidden under your embellishments, and the even end be at the end that you’ll see. I took Offray 7/8″ wide satin ribbon that matched the men’s ties that I bought at Joann (link: https://tinyurl.com/yxpnfh2j), and leaving it on the spool, started by wrapping the ribbon around the bottom edge of the sticks to surround all three, then start to pull it on an angle and wrap the sticks all the way to the top, holding it tightly and making sure you don’t have any wrinkles or gaps in the ribbon. I think I should have gone with a thinner width than I used, maybe 1/2″ would have worked better, or even thinner...I wrapped the ribbon to the top and made sure the top was also wrapped so it had a straight row of ribbon instead of angled ribbon, then hot glued the end of the ribbon down. I bought twelve starfish from Amazon (link: https://tinyurl.com/y3nfg6dp) and strombus vittatus white sea shells from Etsy (link: https://tinyurl.com/yya65wc3). I used hot glue to glue the white sea shell to the side of the sticks about 1″ from the top of the sticks. I held the shell in place and made sure it was well adhered, then glued the starfish to the front of the sticks and onto the sea shell as well. I held it in place until the hot glue held. I took a metal brooch pin bar (link: https://tinyurl.com/y3zghxc3) and a needle and thread, and sewed it to the back of the three lollipop sticks, by sewing under the ribbon only, and making sure you can’t see the pin from the front. After attaching the pin with thread, I also added hot glue under the pin bar to make sure it would stay attached no matter what…and wrapped the thread under the pin bar and into the hot glue. 

To ready the boutonnieres for the wedding, I took a long piece of acetate and folded it in half and used a bag sealer I bought on aliexpress (link: https://tinyurl.com/yxegy7kb) and ran it along the unsealed edges of the plastic to seal the bag shut on all four sides. You can simply use a plastic bag with a sealed closure, but I wanted these to stay sealed no matter what, as I’m flying with them in my luggage…I took my label maker and wrote “groomsmen” on the label and attached it to the bag.

Every once in a while, I have a day where nothing goes right for me.  Today, I dropped my camera and it will no longer allow me to put a memory card inside…Frustrating…My computer stopped reading memory cards, so I had to buy a device that allows it to read them, and I knocked the computer off a counter and it landed on the new device, making it inoperable.  I ordered a new device and it came today, in time to read the memory cards for the videos I’ve made making boutonnieres..I finished my sister’s corsage video and took photos of it, only to watch the video and realize I was out of frame for roughly half of the video.  So much for that video…I did salvage some photos of it so I thought I’d at least share those with you.   I wish you could see it on the wrist, as it does look really nice, and I’m proud of it.  I hope my sister likes it.

I can’t tell you how frustrated I am with the videos I’ve created over the past week.  I wish I could say that I have a bunch that I’m proud of, but that’s not the case.  Sometimes I just need to take a break, step back, and decide what I want to create instead of what I’ve been doing, and that’s trying to video a project that isn’t meant for video (i.e. making my sister’s corsage)…I think the problem comes when I don’t have any real plan, and just try to plan on the fly..that doesn’t make for a great video…too much stopping and starting and way too much editing for Rich.  I have a couple of videos I haven’t taken the time to watch yet, maybe it would be better if I waited until tomorrow to watch them, as they could miraculously be better than if I watch them today.  I doubt it..It’s been a bad video kind of day…

We found out our dog sitter couldn’t stay with our dogs while we go to our nephew’s wedding in September.  We had two sets of friends offer to stay, but it’s almost a week and I wouldn’t feel right asking someone to sleep over five nights with our girls.  I had saved two names of dog sitters from the last time our dog sitter wasn’t available and called one…She’s since decided she can no longer do overnights, so that scratched her off our list, and I called a second lady, who was my last hope…I didn’t hear back from her, but hoped I would hear from her on Monday, since Sunday isn’t really a work day for most people.

Sunday, we went to the horse races in Erie and Rich took his camera and got some amazing photos.  I’m not really into the races, but I do love spending a lot of time with friends, catching up.  So it was a great afternoon and evening.  When we got home, there was a message on our machine from the potential dog sitter, and she was willing to meet with us on Monday..so far so good.

Yesterday, the dog sitter came to visit, and I knew her (not her name, so I felt foolish when I opened the door and recognized her.)  Her mom and my mom were friends, and her cousin worked with me at the bank, and I see her often with her mother at garage sales.  She’s really nice and very thorough, so we signed her up on the spot…Another wedding crisis averted.

Today was a day of drizzle.  If you have any kind of arthritis, you know what drizzle does..It’s exhausting and I slept until almost noon, got up for almost two hours, then took a two hour nap.  I could go back to bed right now and sleep all night..It’s frustrating, because I want to do things (in my head), but my body says, “How about we take a nap instead?”

I’m hoping the weather turns better tomorrow, as I have a bunch of videos I’d like to get done this week, and hope I have some ambition.  Plus I have more wedding things I need to finish.  I did make my sister’s corsage on Sunday before the races, and made a video of that.  I think it turned out nice, and took it to show to my girlfriend to get her advice, and she said she really liked it.  I made her promise she’d be brutally honest, and I’m sure if she didn’t like it, she would have told me….She also has really good taste, so I hope that means my sister will like it too…You’ll all be able to judge for yourselves before the wedding, as the video will go up in a few days…

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I started with a really ugly lunch box that I bought at a thrift store. Near the end of the video, you’ll see a cardboard insert that was in the lunch box that shows you what the outside of the box looked like before I spray painted it. To spray paint a lunch box, you need to put masking tape around the handle and the metal closure on the front. Let it dry thoroughly and make sure it’s open when you spray it and let it dry. If you have made some mistakes with your spray paint, it won’t matter, as no one will see it.. Pick a napkin pattern that you like…You’ll need up to four napkins to finish this lunchbox if you use the longer dinner size.  If you use the small square napkins, you might need up to six of them.
I separated the plies of napkin by putting a piece of washi tape on the back of the napkin and rubbing it so it’s well adhered. I gently pulled the tape while holding the top of the napkin and the two will separate. To adhere the napkin, I used a Mod Podge like product, called Art Minds Decoupage Glue and Sealer (from Michaels) in a mat finish–link: https://tinyurl.com/yxrypw88.  Make sure you use a coupon at Michaels that you can always find on their website and take to the store with you, or download on your phone. I brushed the glue on with a foam brush starting on the top of the box, and covering the whole top with glue. Don’t be shy about adding the glue, there should be a generous coat on the lunch box…lay your napkin on the top and starting from the center, gently laying the napkin down so no wrinkles form. If you like some wrinkles, leave them in. You can also add some Distress Stains (link: https://tinyurl.com/y5rxkb7v) on the wrinkles if you want to make the project look more antique. I didn’t cut the napkin until after I glued around the edges down to the lip and once this is glued down, cut the excess napkin off. It’s a lot easier to trim the napkin if you wait for the glue to dry, but I’m not that patient.  If you tear the napkin or a small piece tears off, simply find another piece of napkin that looks similar to the spot that tore, and glue it in place. Once you’ve got the napkin glued down, add another coat of glue on top of the napkin so it’s well coated. Make sure you don’t glue past the opening, or you won’t be able to open your lunch box again.
Let the top dry with the lunch box open so the glue doesn’t glue the top shut.…make sure it’s well dried before you flip it over. This time I cut the napkin so it didn’t have a lot of excess before gluing it down, then glued it the same way I glued the top. I only glued napkin to the spot on the lunch box that is raised (about 1/2″ from the bottom.) After I laid the napkin in place and trimmed it to fit, I added another layer of glue to the top of the napkin. For the center section, I cut the center length out of two napkins that were roughly the same height as the middle of the lunch box about 2 1/2″ (that had no napkin on it.) If you have a guillotine paper trimmer, it’s easy to cut the napkin before you take the back off the napkin. I started by cutting the napkin on the right edge, so I could slide it around the metal piece that holds the handle, put glue down and then laid the napkin in place and wrapped it around the left side of the lunch box and around the back. I had to cut a second napkin to finish wrapping it around the lunch box, glued the lunch box and laid the napkin around to the front.   I cut a piece out of left end of the napkin where the metal piece that holds the handle on the lunch box would be as well as the spot under the handle that stretches to the other handle (and kept the piece I cut out) so I could lay it around and under the handle.  Then glued under the handle and laid the strip I cut out under the handle and then put glue over the napkin on all four sides.  Make sure the lunch box is open when it’s drying, to ensure you don’t glue it shut.
There’s a cardboard insert inside the lunch box that had a white side…I put the glue on the cardboard piece (on the white side) then laid the napkin over it and then trimmed the edges. After it’s trimmed, I added another layer of the Art Minds Decoupage glue on top of the napkin so it is sealed.
You can add another layer of the glue to ensure a great water tight seal if you choose. This was fun to do and will turn last year’s lunch box into something new and different….and doesn’t take much time or money to do….

I’ve been working on the boutonnieres, and I have to say, they take a lot of hand strength.  If I do three in one setting, my hands are shaking by the time I’m done..that tells you how out of shape I am.  I now have four groomsmen, the bride’s brother’s and the groom’s boutonnieres done…All I have left are the fathers, the ring bearer, and my sister’s corsage.  The only one that worries me is my sisters, as her dress is lightweight, so I might have to change it to a wrist corsage…I guess we’ll wait and see.

I went to a bunch of garage sales with my girlfriend and actually found a few things I liked.  We went to one at a friend’s house, and she had two handmade dog beds made from recycled sweaters.  The ones she was selling were pretty large, and I thought it would be fun to buy one for our nephew’s dog…I’m not sure of the breed, but here’s a photo of it.

I’m not sure how to make the photo any smaller, but this is Oliver.  He weighs about five pounds.  I haven’t seen him yet, but Rich is going to photograph him with the bride and groom on the beach the day after the wedding.  I can’t wait to see him, I guess he’s an attention hog…and if he doesn’t get enough attention, he causes trouble..  Dogs have such unique personalities, and I hope he’s going to love his new bed….I chose a Ralph Lauren sweater to create a custom made bed for him…the sweater had a small spot on it, so she didn’t feel as badly that we were ruining one of her mom’s “better” sweaters…

We went out for lunch with friends then went to see “Fallen Angel,” an action movie with Gerard Butler.  We’ve seen the first two in the series of Angel movies, and this one wasn’t as good as the other two, in my opinion.  Although there were a couple of scenes with Nick Nolte, as his father, that were really good.

A couple of days ago, we saw “Blinded by the Light,” set in the early 1980’s in England, about a Pakistani young man, struggling with racism and a controlling father, who finds the songs of Bruce Springsteen to free him from the world he lives in.  I have to say, it’s the best movie I’ve seen in a very long time, and even if you don’t like Bruce Springsteen, this movie is uplifting, and touching, and truly wonderful.  It’s based on a true story, and if you get a chance, go see it.  I convinced our friend and Rich to go, and they made sure to tell me at the beginning of the movie that if my choice was a bad one, I wouldn’t get to pick again….I was kind of worried, until the end when they both said they really liked it, but not to get a big head about it…My last pick was “Greenbook,” and it won the Oscar for best film, so you know how often I get to choose the movie we see.. It would be funny if this year’s Oscar went to “Blinded by the Light,” and then I’d be two for two, so maybe they’d let me pick more often…I doubt it.

It was almost 90 degrees today, so of course I decided this evening would be the perfect time to go to our county fair.  It was so muddy from all the rains we’ve had, and the mud smelled more like sewer than mud, so parking the car wasn’t easy.  We were trying to make sure we didn’t get stuck, and at the same time, park somewhere that we could actually get out of the car and into the fair, rather than park and not be able to navigate past the car, since the mud was so thick.

We walked around a little bit and ate supper at a chicken barbecue that I love.  They have a covered tent, but definitely needed a huge fan to cool off the crowd.  We met my girlfriend and her family and watched her daughter showing her goat, and that was so horribly hot, plus the air was gritty from the sawdust they use for the animals, that you felt like you had a layer of dirt all over you when you left.   We decided we needed to get some dessert type snacks, and found our favorite maple cotton candy, (don’t knock it if you’ve never tried it,) and later, a dough-boy.

We went to see the photographs that people entered and by the time we’d seen half of them, I was covered in sweat and gave up looking….we sat outside for a little bit, and saw the bunny barn, that they keep cooler, so the rabbits get enough air, and then decided it was time to leave.  By then, I swear I was the only person covered head to toe in sweat…and felt like a sauna…I was so glad to get home and changed into a dry outfit and called it a day..

One great thing happened at the fair…we ran into a good friend of my sister’s that’s going to our nephew’s wedding, and is driving down, so we asked if we could put some things in her car since we’re flying, and she agreed…You have no idea the stress that took off my shoulders, as we’re transporting so much camera equipment, and wedding decorations, I don’t know if we’ll have room in our luggage for clothes…At least now I won’t have to worry…I’ll be wearing clothes, and not the same outfit for all five days….what a relief.

I really wanted to accomplish some things for videos today, but we had thunderstorms on and off all day.  By around 6PM, the storm was so bad, Bella and I joined Rich and Honey in the basement.  Most storms don’t worry Bella, but the wind was blowing so hard, our awning that’s over 20 feet long and 15 feet wide, was flapping like it was going to tear off the poles it’s attached to.  I think it was a safe assumption that we were better off in the basement.  This week is our annual county fair, and it brings a lot of people to the area.  Over the years, there have been all kinds of freak accidents, including lightning strikes that have killed people, and since we live about 1/4 mile from the fair, I was worried that there wouldn’t be enough places for people to take cover.  There are tons of small RV’s and pull trailers there for families with 4H animals, and I wondered if those are prone to be struck by lightning.  I took the family recipe book and the recipes I use often that I wanted to put in it (for our nephew’s wedding), and wrote a bunch of recipes.  I laugh when I read what I originally write on recipe cards, as one said I was going to use 1 lb of soy sauce….I’m pretty sure it was supposed to read 1TBSP., and hope that’s right, because that’s what their recipe card says.

Overnight, Honey was whining to go outside a lot more than normal, and by this morning, she’d gone out five times in two hours.  If you ever have a dog that does that (to pee), they probably have a urinary tract infection.  Honey was laying beside Rich on our bed and he checked her hair (since it’s almost white) and found blood, so I called the vet to get her in, and they said they’d have an appointment available on Thursday….Thursday?  I wasn’t sure what to say, so I asked if we could bring in a urine sample and they said sure.  If you’ve ever tried to get a urine sample from a dog, it’s not easy….I asked them how they recommended we do that, and they said to slide a disposable pie pan under her.  I’m absolutely sure that will never work, and have no idea what will…I know we tried it with another of our dogs with a UTI, and ended up having to have the vet retrieve the urine.

I wish you could have seen Rich, Honey and the pie pan.  All he had to do is get the leash, and once he tried to clip it to Honey, she started to pie from anxiety, (on our carpet,) and luckily, Rich caught enough to make it count.  I was impressed and giggling to myself, as he looked so frazzled, but was cool under pressure…that’s my Rich.  Honey on the other hand, is still anxious, as now Rich is leaving and Honey is whining.  I think we’ll go to the bedroom and watch television, as that’s her other “safe” place.  If she’s on the bed, she normally is pretty calm, but with her not feeling well, I’m not sure if that will calm her.  It’s hard being an anxious dog and even worse, when she doesn’t feel well, it amps up the anxiety.  Poor thing.

 

The weather outside is frightful…OK, not like winter frightful, but it’s been on and off thunderstorms all day.  Poor Honey doesn’t know what to do with herself and tonight, we had a really large buck standing in our backyard eating peaches from our peach tree.  Apparently the peaches were a little bit sour, as he would chew them and spit them out, then pick them back up, and try again.  Maybe he thought the second time around it wouldn’t be so bad.  He was a real beauty, and looked like he had either eight or ten horns in velvet.  My dad would have loved seeing something like that, as he was a big hunter, and like “spotting” deer just as much.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with “spotting,” it’s when you (and I’m not making this up) have a huge “flashlight” that you plug into the outlet in your car, and you drive around, looking in fields at night, for deer.  The light looks like this and can virtually light up an entire field, front to back.

I grew up in a rural area, and the kids always had the first day of deer season off school.  I know it sounds odd, but if you live in a rural area, most of the boys, and some of the girls, don’t attend school that first day, so the school districts incorporated it into their schedule.

My dad loved driving around counting the number of deer he saw.. Since he never hunted near our house, I always wondered what thrill there was in watching deer, but now as I get older, I realize that any wildlife are amazing, and I’m sure it was their sheer beauty that drew my father to them.

As for us, we don’t want any deer to starve, so the day after Thanksgiving, we start feeding them corn, and feed them until there are leaves on the trees, as we know that’s the type thing that deer will eat in lieu of corn.  Our herd has been has high as twenty-five, but in the last few years, we haven’t seen large numbers at once…more like three to five at a time.  We might still get the large numbers, but not all at once any more.

I would love to finish another video tonight, but the sky is a weird yellowish-grey color, so I think I might check the weather channel to see if we have any weather warnings, and go to the basement with the rest of my clan.

I did work on one project today….I’m making a frame for my nephew’s wedding and will be sure to show it to you on video…The lady that’s making the vinyl and I spent an hour or so hashing out the plans for it, and I should have my vinyl next week…I’m looking forward to finishing it and moving on to the boutonnieres I need to make.

You’ll receive a 10% discount on  ALL Arteza products if you use the code CraftingForAlmostEveryone5 which is valid until September 20, 2019.

Arteza’s Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/arteza

General links to Arteza sites:

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Product Links:

(US):

Glitter Gel Ink Pens – Set of 14: https://arteza.com/collections/pens/products/glitter-gel-ink-pens-set-of-14?a_aid=Youtube_CraftingForAlmostEveryone&a_bid=e1307ad4

Professional Watercolour Pencils – Set of 72: https://arteza.com/collections/pencils/products/professional-watercolor-pencils-72?a_aid=Youtube_CraftingForAlmostEveryone&a_bid=903a7e8c

Paint Markers – Set of 20: https://arteza.com/collections/markers/products/permanent-paint-markers-set-of-20?a_aid=Youtube_CraftingForAlmostEveryone&a_bid=3c2f67d0

(EU):

Glitter Gel Ink Pens – Set of 14: https://arteza.co.uk/collections/pens/products/glitter-gel-ink-pens-set-of-15?a_aid=Youtube_CraftingForAlmostEveryone&a_bid=6e9a351d

Professional Watercolour Pencils – Set of 72: https://arteza.co.uk/collections/pencils/products/72-professional-watercolour-pencils-tin-box?a_aid=Youtube_CraftingForAlmostEveryone&a_bid=d70885fc

Paint Markers – Set of 20: https://arteza.co.uk/collections/markers/products/arteza-paint-markers-set-of-20-markers-perfect-for-drawing-and-painting-on-virtually-any-surface?a_aid=Youtube_CraftingForAlmostEveryone&a_bid=d2dfc6a9

In this video, I wanted to use the Arteza set of 20 paint markers. As a recap, I really liked these markers, and think they are perfect for a project like this. I liked the colors and their ease of use.

The instructions tell you to open the markers and press the nib down on a surface three times to get the ink moving. I found this to be insufficient to get the ink moving, so kept pressing them on a scrap paper until they started moving.  You can see the ink work its way down the nib until it starts to stain the paper, then it’s ready to be used.

The stamps I used were a gift from a viewer and she couldn’t remember the name or maker of the sets. They appear to be thinner than US made stamps, so if you like them, you might want to check on Aliexpress to see if you can find them there.

I started the project by using spray Krylon Gesso on the pages of my journal to cover the pictures beneath. link: https://tinyurl.com/y5zp3ter

I used Ranger Archival inks that I bought in small sets from pegstamps.com..here’s the link to one of the sets I bought. https://tinyurl.com/yya9ao4v

I stamped the flowers in brown archival inks and the leaves in Potting Soil, and the green leaves in two colors, Library Green and Leaf Green.

I took round stickers from the Dollar Tree and swatched the paint markers onto a sticker and attached the round sticker to the back end of the markers so I’d know exactly what colors I was dealing with. When I was off screen, I cut the circles to fit the bottom of the marker.

I stamped all of the images across both pages of my journal and then painted each flower. I tried to paint similar images with the same paint markers.

After coloring the flowers and leaves, I used the white paint marker to add accents, and some of those had to be done more than once, as the under color bled through the white. It’s really clear with the red floral images.

I added some dragonflies to the top section as well as a couple of sentiments from the same stamp sets I’ve been using and used Potting Soil Ranger Archival ink for the stamping. I bought a Baren from DickBlick.com to be able to have leverage when stamping a large image. link: https://www.dickblick.com/products/blick-economy-baren/

I used Distress Oxide in Faded Jeans and used the Ranger mini blending tool and rubbed the surface with my finger to remove any lines from the edges of the foam applicator to color the whole background of the pages once the paint marker was dry…and that only took a moment or two…