Sometimes I just want to talk about things that I shouldn’t.  Today’s discussion is about hot flashes.  I know you don’t want to hear about them, but I’m going to share.   If you don’t want to hear the story, it’s ok, there are lots of normal people that blog on crafty sites, unfortunately, I’m not one of them.

One of my girlfriends asked me if I would help her reorganize a space that she and another woman share at an antique market.  She refinishes furniture and the other woman makes deco mesh wreaths, candles, framed art, and a variety of other crafty projects.  Their space is probably 25 feet wide and 15-20 feet deep.  It holds a LOT of stuff. The owner of the antique market doesn’t really believe in air conditioning, and yesterday, the temperature was almost 90 degrees, so it was extremely warm there.  Not only was it warm, but it was also very humid.  It was so humid, in fact, that we couldn’t get the metal tape measure (that normally retracts automatically), to retract.  It was humid and I was miserably hot.  I started with a minor hot flash and within a half hour of being there, my entire head was drenched in sweat.  I tried mopping my head, but that really didn’t do much (besides glue my hair flat to my head), so I just let it drip.  I looked and felt disgusting, but I was committed to helping, so I soldiered on.  The antique market was open, but they thankfully had very few customers, (so very few people saw how bad I looked.)  And then it happened.  A woman walked up to the booth (that looked like an explosion had gone off as everything was off the walls and either in shopping carts or on the floor), and says to me, “You look familiar.”  I immediately said the town I was from (which was about 40 minutes away), thinking that would end the discussion, and the woman said, “Rich Parker.”  This is the exact moment I tried to crawl under something and hide, because the sweat was now pouring down my back and I knew I looked like a wet dog.    She said “I met you once at a restaurant, and went to high school with your husband.”  Really?  What are the odds that I would run into someone who would recognize me from meeting me once and would remember me (even though I swear I didn’t look this bad the other time we met.)  She’s telling my girlfriend that she came specifically to see this booth as she is friends with the other woman that she shares the booth with and then looks back at me.  I decide to diffuse the situation by explaining, “hot flash, you know how these things go,” and she says, “I’ve never had one.”  I could have cried or karate chopped her in the throat for saying that, but I just smiled and said, “wow, that’s lucky,” but inside, I was dying.   I was just waiting to get home and have Rich mention that his facebook page was buzzing with all of his high school friends, talking me and my new wet dog look.

All I’m saying is some days it’s just not worth getting out of bed when you have a four hour hot flash ahead of you.

I started with card stock that is 8 1/2 x 5 1/2″ and put the 8 1/2″ length in the score board and score it at 4″ and 4 1/2″. This is the outside cover. You’ll need some scraps for the accessories for your notepad cover. I used Halloween type papers..
Trim two papers to 3 7/8″ wide and 5 3/8″ tall, for the front and back covers, plus one more piece 5 3/8″ tall x 3/8″ wide, making sure your pattern goes in the same direction as the two papers you just cut. This is the center piece for the outside cover. Cut another decorated paper to 4 3/4″ wide by 3 1/2″ high, then leaving your paper on the 3 1/2″ on your paper trimmer, turn it on an angle in the trim bar, and trim off the top on an angle. You’ll want to score three sides at 3/8″ (except the angled side, leave that alone)..Score it on the back of the side of the paper you want as the front so you fold it correctly and it doesn’t crack.

Craft Chameleon sells “ugly tape” tear tape for 99 cents a roll and I bought a lot of it as it’s a great bargain because you get a lot of it.

I used tear tape on the back of the 3/8″ wide strip and take the backing off of it and add a small amount of wet glue to make sure it stays well adhered. Take your 8 1/2″ x 5 1/2″ cardstock that is scored at 4 and 4 1/2″ and lay the thin piece between the two score lines. Then take the two pieces you cut to 3 7/8″ x 5 3/8″ and put tear tape on the back of them and add some wet glue to ensure they stay on the 8 1/2 x 5 1/2″ sheet, as these will cover the front and back cover of your note pads.

You’ll need two mini writing tablets from the Dollar Tree (they come in packs of five) as well as a pack of five gel pens by Jot from Dollar Tree. You’ll separate the writing tablets, making sure you have a piece of cardboard underneath each pad you use. You will want to use thicker card stock (any you would use for a card base, that is 1 1/4″ high by 6″ long , and wrap it around the cardboard backing for your note pad leaving a small gap on one side, so you’ll be able to slide the notepad out of it to replace it when your pad is empty. Trim the length, so that each side has about 1 – 1 1/2″ cardstock wrapped around the back, then put tear tape on the flaps that face you.. I added wet glue to the flaps and then press them into the inside of my notepad cover. Do the same for the second pad and make sure they are centered and near the top of the cover and both lined up so they appear to be the same distance from the top and insert a pen into the center between the two pads..
I took the piece of cardstock that we cut and scored to make a pocket, and folded under my scored edges, and cut out the bottom corners so it looks professional, add tear tape to the folded up bottom then fold the sides onto the bottom piece and put tear tape on the folded sides (as well as wet glue) and adhere it to the back outside of the cover. The top is angled, so there is a piece of backing that will show, and you’ll want to cut that off before adhering it to the back.
Next, make bookmarks to match. Use 2″ wide by 4″ long scraps and a tag maker punch…If you don’t have a tag maker punch, you’ll want to snip off the top right corner on an angle, and put that piece on the left top corner as a template, and cut the cardstock at the edge of the template, then punch a hole in the center to create a tag. I use thin satin ribbon that’s about 3″ long and fold it in half, push the folded ribbon through the center hole and then pull the free ends through the loop and pull. Snip the ends to make them look angled and use some wet or hot glue to put under the loop to hold the ribbon in place.
To embellish paper clips, I take a small silicone rose mold from Amazon Prime $4.19
https://www.amazon.com/Silicone-Chocolate-Sugarcraft-Decorating-Fondant/dp/B00YWL02TC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1506187403&sr=8-3&keywords=silicone+rose+mold
or Aliexpress $1.02 https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4-Pink-Rose-Shape-Cake-Mold-Cooking-Tools-Christmas-Decoration-Silicone-Mold-Fondant-DIY-Wedding-Cake/32771795658
I use LA Colors eye shadow in white, and a paint brush and rub the inside of the silicone mold and then fill the mold with hot glue and shove a plastic covered long paper clip into the hot glue while it’s wet, and hold it in place until it is a little bit cooled, maybe 20 seconds. Let the paperclips sit in the mold until the are cooled. Wipe off any excess eye shadow.. To create a holder for the paper clips, use a 1 1/2″ wide strip of matching card stock and score the length at 3/4″ (fold it in 1/2 and glue to make a strong fold), then score on either ends at 1/4″, fold under and add tear tape/wet glue and adhere it to the front of the notepad cover. Don’t glue it tightly to the cover, as you’ll want to attach the paper clips to it..I use two paper clips on the front and one, clip to the back pocket and put a page of the pad in the back pocket with a bookmark and paperclip. Decorate the front as desired.

Rich has been true to his word, uploading a video every day, to get caught up with me.  He’s only three or four behind now, so I’m going to have to get serious about making some videos.  He’s pretty sneaky, though, because he’s still working on the closet conversion and since my cousin came to make videos, hasn’t put the camera and tripod back on top of my desk.  This is his way of catching up with me because he knows I can’t lift the tripod, so I will need to wait for him before I can make more videos.

I do have some great ideas though, and more are swirling around as we speak.  I’m going to make a marbling technique video, where I show how to do marbling with everything I’ve ever seen used to do it.  That’ll be a lot of fun, because it involves nail polish, men’s shave cream and, well, marbles.  I’m really looking forward to making some really fun backgrounds with them.

Then I have a house mouse laying on a sunflower that I’ve put off making a video with until I considered it to be fall.  Now’s the time to pull that out and play with it.  Plus I have so many dies I want to try, and of course there’s the magic card die, that’s going to be a lot of fun, plus stamps with witches shoes….So many ideas, so little time.

First off, though, we’re working on getting the closet converted to my craft space (and that involved ripping out a metal closet organizer and patching a ton of holes, then painting.)  I’m not sure what happened in the process, but at some point, my maintenance guy just stopped working in there and went onto another project.  Drat, he’s sneaky.  Seriously though, Rich’s been working really hard, putting the metal closet organizer into another closet in the basement–one we had built but never use.  He used his electric drill, and drilled a small piece of his thumb into the wall, attached to the closet organizer, so I don’t blame him for taking a rest.  His thumb looked terrible and I felt awful about it.  It’s been almost a week, and it’s just starting to look like a thumb again.  Geez, I never knew closet organizers could be so vicious…

Nothing crafty today, we met college friends for lunch and a movie…American Assassin.  Oh yeah, I know what you are thinking…that’s quite the date movie..when you’ve been married for almost thirty-five years, you begin to notice a movie trend about fifteen minutes into your marriage.  Chick flicks are movies you watch on NetFlix, and action movies are saved for theaters.   I’m not going to explain this in male-think.  Ok, my only real point of reference here, is Rich and his thinking goes something like this.  If you want to see a great action movie, you need the big screen, the high-defnition, the surround sound etc., and none of those things are required for a love story or comedy.  You can see a love story or comedy on a fifty inch screen and it’s “like” you are in a theater.   I’m not saying we never go to the theater for movies I’d like to see because he lives and breathes popcorn with a ton of butter, but if we were looking at the percentages, I’d say it’s probably 80% action/super hero/adventure and 20% everything else.  Rich would be more than willing to take me to the theater for comedies or love stories, but after all of these years, he’s got me brainwashed into believing he is right.  Darn these men, they know all the tricks!

I’ve always wanted to try an acrylic pour, so my great niece Erika and I did one. But we needed gesso to coat our canvas, so I had to make my own gesso so, here’s the recipe I used to make it. Homemade Gesso Recipe Sitr all wet ingredients together 1/4 cup water 1/4 cup white acrylic (cheap) paint from craft stores You can make gesso in different colors, but I chose white. You can use acrylic house paint too, but I went with the craft paint since I’m only making a small amount of gesso. 1/4 cup white glue but not school glue, regular Elmers or Mod Podge (I used the shiny kind of Mod Podge because i’m trying to get rid of it) Mix your wet ingredients together then slowly stir it into the Plaster of Paris. Don’t do this in reverse by putting the Plaster of Paris into the wet ingredients or you’ll have a lumpy mess. Put your wet ingredients into your Plaster of Paris (or baby powder) and make sure you stir it really well until all lumps are gone. 1/4 cup Plaster of Paris (buy it at a hardware store) or baby powder (I don’t like my projects to smell like a baby, so go with the Plaster of Paris) It should be a pancake batter consistency, so if it isn’t thick enough, add a little bit more Plaster of Paris until it is thick enough. If it’s too thick, add more of the wet ingredients. Homemade Texture Paste 1/4 c Mod Podge or white glue (not school glue, just Elmer’s) 1/2 c homemade Gesso 1 cup Plaster of Paris or baby powder Add your wet ingredients that you’ve mixed well into the Plaster of Paris and make sure you get out all of your lumps, or you will have lumpy texture paste. I added small amounts of wet ingredients and stirred, then added more, until all of my wet ingredients are well mixed together with the Plaster of Paris or baby powder. I took a very small canvas and covered it with my homemade gesso and set it aside to dry. To do an acrylic pour, you’ll need to do a mixture of acrylic paints, white glue, water and silicone and we used popsicle sticks to do our stirring. 3 parts white glue (Elmer’s or Mod Podge, but not school glue) we used 3 tsp. 1 part water, we used 1 tsp. 2 parts paint, we used 2 tsp. Once you put your glue, water and paint together in a small plastic cup, (we used the cups you buy at the Dollar Tree for jello shots) stir it for a very long time, and it should be really watery. Leave the Popsicle stick in the cup you stirred it with, as you’ll need to stir it again. You’ll add a long squirt of silicone spray, that we bought at the Dollar Tree auto department, into each cup, and stir again until well mixed. You need to make sure that you stir these really well as you add ingredients. Then you will need a larger disposable cup to pour all of the paints into.Once you start pouring into this cup, we did not stir the paints again…Start with 1/3rd of your white paint mixture and pour it into the bottom of the bigger cup, then pour another color from up to one foot above the cup into the larger cup, then pour another color from the same height into the larger cup, and repeat all colors until you’ve used some of all of your paints, then add more of the white mixture into the cup, again from about one foot above the cup. To do a “dirty pour”, you’ll take a small canvas that has been gesso’d, and put the canvas on top of your cup, holding it tightly, flip everything over. You’ll need something to hold any excess paint–we used an aluminum pie pan and you’ll also need something to hold the canvas above the pie pan, we used small plastic cups turned upside down so the bottoms face up. After you’ve flipped over your canvas and are holding your cup of paint upside down on top of the canvas, put the canvas onto the small overturned plastic cups and lift the cup of paint off of the canvas, making sure to get paint over most of the canvas. Tilt the canvas so paint covers all of it, make sure you have paint covering all edges of the canvas and use your popsicle sticks to pick some paint off of the aluminum pie pan to coat the sides as well. What we found when we did this was that you need to stir your individual paint mixtures for a very long time until there are absolutely no lumps and it is watery. Then spray some of the silicone spray into the cup and stir it another long time. It probably took us 1/2 hour to stir everything correctly. We definitely didn’t stir the gold paint mixture long enough and that’s why our first pour looked so lumpy. It was a great learning experience and we did much better stirring our second batch, but didn’t put enough silicone into the mix, so didn’t really get any good cells. Our very last attempt was tremendous and had lots of cells. Erika added a lot more silicone in the last canvas and we stirred her paint mixtures a lot more than before.

I’d really like to say that I’ve gotten some cards made, or done anything crafty, but honestly, today was a day for cleaning.  We had the man that cleans our windows here, and we were trying to figure out why our High Efficiency Washer isn’t very efficient.  So we decided to take our blankets, comforters, rugs, sheets and towels to the laundromat.  I’m so disgusted that I can do a load of heavy weight materials such as I mentioned above, and after running them through the washer, the tops of some of the materials are still dry.  I understand the point of the High Efficiency washers is to save water blah blah, not clean anything, but this is ridiculous.  I have a girlfriend that just sold her house and bought a new one.  She begged the owner of the home she was buying, to leave her “old” washer there, so she could be free of the high efficiency washer in her old home.  So I guess I’m not alone.  I think the thing that bugs me the most, is that there’s no agitator in the center of the washer.  If there’s no agitator, what are the clothes slapping against to get clean.  If we go with the old theory of beating clothes on a rock, you need a rock for the cleaning process to work.  In my system, I don’t have an agitator (a rock) and I don’t even have any excess water, so what exactly are my clothes doing in there besides swirling around in water?  These are the questions that keep me awake at night.  No, but they are the things that really bug me.  I even started making my own laundry detergent because I couldn’t believe that it was my brand new washer that was to blame.  Let me just say this.  I had a dog bed cover that Honey had vomited on.  So I washed it, then I dried it and when I opened the drier, it smelled like a dog was living in there.  So I rewashed the dog bed cover and re-dried it, and opened the drier to the same smell.  So I put the laundromat to the test.  I washed the same dog bed cover and dried it, and when I opened the drier, it smelled like (and this you won’t believe), something that had actually been washed and dried.  Now I’m no expert on all things laundry, but I do believe I could be onto something here.  How high efficiency is this washer if I washed something twice and it still smelled like a dog?  So I might just be looking to buy a new (old ) washer now.  I just can’t believe how much time and energy I spend washing clothes that don’t get clean.  I’m tired, but feel like I really accomplished something today.  I have a clean dog bed cover and am committed to getting rid of my washer.  You’ll find it on Craig’s List under “things some sucker bought that just don’t work,” unless I find an equally descriptive category to sell it under.  Maybe “Junkers R Us” or “Crap we wish we hadn’t bought.”  I’ll keep looking until I find just the right place to chuck it, maybe a scrap metal reseller….that could be the winner.

I’m pushing Rich to catch up with me with videos and so he’s been working like a dog for the YouTube channel today.  We also visited a friend who just had surgery and took her some meals to get her through the next day or so.  Whenever I have a surgery, it’s always nice when people are kind enough to provide hot meals for us, so I like to do the same for my friends.  I gave her a list of the foods I make best…I’m an old fashioned cook, my specialties are things your grandma would make….Chicken and biscuits, meatloaf, chicken noodle soup (no, not Campbell’s), lasagna, roast beef….Picture me in the role of your grandma, and chances are, we make the same kinds of foods.

Her surgery was Monday, and she chose today as she knew she wouldn’t be feeling up to eating yesterday.  She said chicken noodle soup sounded good, and her husband loves chicken and biscuits…..I also offered orange jello with mandarin oranges as she doesn’t like sweets, (I know, what’s up with that?)  and she said her stomach had been upset, so jello sounded good to her as well.  So this morning, I made all of the essentials and we loaded up the car with everything, and even after a forty minute drive, only a little bit of soup leaked into the box that I lined a  grocery bag with. To have that small of a mishap is almost unheard of for me.  I really expected to get there and have to pull all of the containers out of a pool of soup and noodles, but no, it went well and I was happy.  I did feel a little bit bad though, because their young springer spaniel found the box with the soup drippings in it, and had a great time licking it clean.  I really hope she doesn’t get an upset stomach from it…I’d feel so bad if her dog got sick because of me.

On the way there, we stopped at a roadside Amish vegetable stand and bought the cutest cantaloupes that they call “lunch box melons”…..they were the size of a grapefruit and I just had to buy some.  So while I was visiting, I cut one of them into small pieces and added more fruit she had there, to create a small fruit salad for them for later.  I felt so bad for her, because she was really in a lot of pain, and there’s really nothing you can say or do to help with that.  So I had Rich entertain her while I did her dishes.  We know how it goes when the woman of the household isn’t well.  Our men have great intentions, but really struggle with the day to day operations of running our homes.  I think she was relieved that her kitchen was back to normal and that she and her husband both had a hot meal.  It’s the little things that makes us happy.  She’s told me in the past that if she won the lottery, she’d have fresh flowers everywhere in her house, so I had Rich cut a bunch of hydrangea’s off our big green hydrangea bush, and took them to her.  She said she was going to put them beside her bed, so when she doesn’t feel well, she can lay there and look at them.  I can see her logic, as fresh flowers from the garden just make me think of springtime, and I guess they make her feel like she’s won the lottery and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Our great niece, Erika, came to visit for a week and we did some crafting together. Erika wanted to make bath bombs like you would buy from the store Lush. We got our recipe from a website called DIY Projects for Teens:
You’ll need:

1 cup baking soda
1/2 cup citric acid–you’ll find this in the canning section of your local Walmart
1/2 cup epsom salts
1 tsp water
2 tsp essential oils of your choice–Erika used lavender and lemon
3 tsp olive oil
food coloring to the color you desire
rose petals (optional) If you use rose petals, you’ll want to put your bath bomb in a sock or panty hose and knot the end so you don’t end up with rose petals in your drain (it could clog it.)
We ended up with five cupcake shaped bath bombs from our recipe.
You will want to combine your dry ingredients and then combine your wet ingredients and add them quickly to the dry ingredients.
You can mix a couple of essential oils, and I made another batch and used clove, orange and vanilla in mine.
As for coloring, Erika wanted hers to be purple, so we mixed red and blue together and instead of it looking purple, it had more of a gray tint. It looks purple on camera, but more gray in person.
We cut the rose petals so they were smaller and wouldn’t take over the whole ball, and then put them in the dry ingredients before adding the wet.
We couldn’t find a ball to make our bombs, so we lined silicone cupcake molds with plastic wrap and filled them with the bath bomb mixture. We had to continue to push them into the molds as they seem to grow. Erika pushed a rose petal into the top of her cupcake to continue the look of the cupcake and they looked really cute. The recipe said they would dry quickly, but since ours kept growing, we pushed them down until they stopped growing, and that took overnight.
I made another batch that I did put into the Christmas ornament balls and they kept blowing open the balls as they do expand, so I recommend you not filling your molds as full as you normally would, and let them expand within the mold.

I hope you enjoyed this quick and easy stocking stuffer idea and it was a lot of fun crafting with Erika.

I talked to Rebecca, the owner of Peg Stamps today, and she’s going to mail me a case of stamps, inks and paper, and I’m going to do a destash video where I include her items as well as dies that I want to sell and other items that I have duplicates of.  All of the proceeds will go to buying gift cards for the victims of the floods/hurricanes, and I’m really hoping people will buy the things we are selling.  It’s the perfect time of year for this and I’m hoping it’s a big success.

As for today, I made some food for a friend who had surgery yesterday and then worked around the house.  It wasn’t a huge day, but we’re getting closer to getting the closet fixed and ready for me to use it for more storage space.  I can’t wait to get things in there and off of the floor of my room.

As of today, we hit 5,000 subscribers.  I’m having a huge party in my head…I’m just so amazed at the number of people who watch and enjoy my videos and want to take this time to thank everyone who has watched even one.  It’s a great day to celebrate!  I think I’ll eat some cookies, as there’s nothing better than cookies when you want to have a mini celebration.

As I lay here (in bed unable to sleep), I’m thinking hard about the fact that I am four subscribers away from 5,000.  I never thought I would see 1,000, let alone 5,000.  It is absolutely amazing and surreal.  Seriously, what were the odds that people would be interested in watching me say and  do really quirky things.  And yet they are, and growing by the day.  To say I am honored is not even close to what I am feeling.  Rich and I are so proud of the channel and of its future.  As it continues to grow, I am more and more energized by it, and ultimately what it can do for people like myself and others.  A lot of people don’t know that my channel isn’t monetized.  That means I don’t make money from it.  I won’t change that in the future either, as I want everyone to know that if I like a product, it’s because I like it, not because someone else is paying me to say so.  I don’t want anyone to wonder why I would recommend something, and hope that if they do, they will ask.

I hate watching advertisements on other sites and know you must as well, so (and I don’t think it happens), you shouldn’t see any ads on my channel.  I love thinking I control that, and can stop any advertising from popping up, but really, I’m not sure if YouTube can just put ads on my videos or not.  I’m just not really up on those topics, sorry, maybe I’ll figure that one out somehow.   YouTube doesn’t have a place where I can call or email them with questions..They reserve that right to the big YouTubers, people with probably 6,000 subscribers.  Seriously,  I think it might be in the hundreds of thousands before they give you a contact number, so there’s a good chance I won’t ever have a key to Emerald City for answers.  I never really watched The Wizard of Oz the whole way through (too scared of the monkeys), so I’m not even sure if my reference made sense.  That, and it’s after 1AM and I’m still typing.

So I’m going to go to bed and wonder if tomorrow when I wake up, will the channel have over 5,000 subscribers.  It will be a big day for us if it is, so we’ll probably go crazy and buy a new home with a craft room the size of my current home, or maybe instead, I’ll go to the doctor and get the stitches out of my head from a little surgery I had.  No, not to try and push more brains in there, but wouldn’t that be cool…

For those of you who have been with me for almost two years, bless you.  And for anyone new to the channel, hang around, you never know what I have in store for you, but whatever it is, I hope we have fun.