It was such a beautiful day today that I went out and picked up fallen branches in my yard with the dogs.  They weren’t much help, in fact, they were stealing the branches as soon as I piled them up and ran off with them.  Note to self, leave the dogs inside when picking up branches.

Tonight I thought I would start making a St Patricks’ Day card and am using some new markers I was given called Chalkola.  The company wanted to find out if someone with hand issues could use them and asked if I would consider doing a video.  I was asked to work with digital images and learned a valuable lesson about saying yes before I see the product.  Let’s just say the images weren’t what I expected.  I had a very honest discussion with them about my feelings, and they still wanted me to make the video, so am working on it.  The markers are large and I think primarily used on dry erase boards and windows.  They said they were fine for paper projects as well.  The nib is about 1/2″ wide and has no ink in it when you open the packaging.  You have to shake them for 30 seconds and then hold the nib down on a piece of paper until the ink starts to flow.  I explained that this process was more than I could handle and would be explaining that to viewers and they were fine with it.  The colors are almost neon, so I think they have limited use for card making (unless I make a neon card), and so far, I’ve really just used the white color.  It’s a great white and I used it with a background stamp on a dark green card stock and it looks terrific.  Because of the size of the nib, it made inking the stamp a breeze. I got a tie dye looking stencil today from Tupelo Designs.  It was part of their January celebration where they would give you a give with your purchases and I guess this was my gift.  I just started thinking about how cool it would be to make a t-shirt shaped card and use the stencil with the neon markers to make a tie-dye t-shirt card.  I could put a 70’s type sentiment on it, like “I think you’re Groovy” or something equally 70’s. Since the markers are water soluble, they are easy to clean as well.  The set did come with a small set of metallic markers that don’t require any prep work and I really enjoyed playing with them.  I’ll be doing something with them soon.

I played with watercolors to make a rainbow effect and will either incorporate it into that card or make another St Patrick’s Day card with the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow idea.  I’ve got a lot of ideas, but none have approached the finish line yet.  Rich only has one video to put up and then he and are caught up with each other.  This will sound kind of silly, but I get panicky when he’s ready for another video because then I have to come up with ideas more quickly and sometimes my brain just doesn’t work that way.  If I can get these cards made, that will give me a head start on him of a couple videos and take the pressure off (that is totally self inflicted.)

Our weather is supposed to change from the 70’s to a snow storm by Sunday night, so I better suck up the nice weather while I can.  Too late, it just started raining and that’s the first step in our weather decline.  Darn it, the window for great February weather is now closed.  Oh well, it’s better for crafting.

I’m so sorry this video is so choppy, Rich accidentally deleted some of the dimensions and parts of the video that make it a little difficult to follow.  I tried to fill in the blanks as best I could below.

I wanted to make a junior legal pad cover and thought the papers from Stampin’ Up would look great backing my white paper that I turned blue and created an ombre look with Distress Inks..  I used Chipped Sapphire and Stormy Sky.  I decided ultimately that I didn’t like the ombre effect and used the Chipped Sapphire over the front again.  I used Dream, Create, Believe stamps from Rubbernecker Stamps with white embossing powder and Versamark ink on white 110 pound Recollections card stock that was 11″ long and 1/2″ wider that the  junior legal pad.  I used the 12″ long Stampin’ Up DSP (that is retired and I don’t know the name of) as well as a 12: long navy blue paper, and adhered them together.  I cut them to 1/2″ wider than the jr. legal pad and left then 12″ long.  I adhered the blue and DSP papers together with tear tape and then made two score marks.  One score mark was made by leaving 1/8″ longer than the legal pad and then the second was 5/8″ above the first score.  Since all of these pads might not be the exact same length, you’ll need to measure yours to know the dimensions you’ll want to score on.  Remember that you will make the score mark 1/8″ + length of pad and second score is 5/8″ above the first score.   Once you fold both of these scores, you should be able to fit your legal pad inside.   Because legal pads require more than a 12″ piece of paper, you’ll need a second set of DSP and blue 12″ paper adhered together and cut 1/2″ wider than the legal pad.  You will put this pad against the front cover and draw a line and cut the paper.  Using tear tape, adhere this to the piece of paper that wraps over the top from the front sheet.  Attach the paper with the words embossed into it on the top of the pad .  Rich cut out the part where I explained that I wanted to have washi tape on the top so it would make the seam reinforced.  The “beautiful” is washi tape.

Stampanda Stamp—I found through Groupon, a coupon for Stampanda to make the stamp I made.  It’s considered a square address stamp and in the end, I think it was $14.50.  I typed in my sentiment, so you can make it say whatever you want, but it was you will find it under square address stamps on the Stampanda site..

My green mat was an oven mat that came from Ebay and it was no longer available, but I found another one I liked that is $2.12  and is item #142156077801 on ebay.

 

I made a video tonight and it was a successful one.  The card came out great and I was really happy with it.  This is the first card I’ve made in days that I’ve been happy with.  I sometimes wonder if the big YouTube crafty people have days of misfires.  Do you think they sit and have absolutely no idea of what they should create?  I’m sure they do, but wouldn’t it be great if one of them started a video by saying, “I’ve been trying to come up with an idea for over a week and my mind is completely blank.”  Better yet, how about, “I’ve been making cards for over a week and they’ve all gone into the trash. ”  Now that’s something I’d love to hear.  It would make me feel so much more productive in times when things just don’t seem to be working.

I’d also like to have an assistant.  I know that sounds dumb, but once I explain it, you’ll want one too.  If I had an assistant, I’d use them like in an operating room, where the surgeon says, “Scalpel” and they hand him/her a scalpel.  If I had an assistant, my craft room would be clean and organized and I’d never have to wonder where I put something because my assistant would clean it and put it away as soon as I’ve finished with whatever tool I’m using.  Just think how clean my craft room would be.  I make poor Rich edit out all of my issues with not finding tools when I need them.  We leave in all of the mistakes, but if you knew how many times I lose things that are virtually right in front of me, you’d feel really sorry for Rich.  I can’t help it either.  I used to be a very organized person, but since taking on this channel, my craft room is a crazy mess and it never gets any more organized.  So until I either get an assistant (and we all know that’s never going to happen,) or I get organized (probably the same chance of that), my craft room is going to continue being a scary mess.  I think it’s a safe bet, it’s never going to improve.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to do anything crafty today, as I spent most of the day at the college Rich and I attended.  Every year, I go back and talk about fraud in banking to an ethics class.  It’s a lot of fun and I enjoy doing it, but don’t think I’m cut out to be a teacher.

After that class I ran a seminar for the junior and seniors on interviewing. Next week, I’ll be there two days spending time practicing interviewing with the students.  It’s really exhausting, but the college is small, and their business and accounting departments are the biggest majors on campus.  This helps ensure the students get jobs and other schools don’t offer tools of this kind. It gives our students an edge and they are getting more jobs and internships than the schools they are compared with.

Rich and I both loved our time in college, and we’re always glad to do anything we can to help them.

Tomorrow, though, I’m back into card making.  I have a few ideas and am going to give them a whirl. I hope they turn out better than my last card as I’m still kind of freaked out by those results.  I did show the card to Rich, and he recommended that I stick with my plan of first shredding then burning it, so no one ever knows it existed.

My cousin, who is a new card maker, made a card for a baby shower and was embarrassed by her results. She said she tried to make it sound like a child had made it after she gave it to the expectant mother, joking of course..  The reason I’m telling this story is because I made a card tonight that is so bad, SO BAD, it looks like this is not just the first card I’ve ever made, but also that I don’t have a clue how certain medium work when you use them together.  I tried using alcohol markers with pigment inks.  Of course the alcohol markers bled into the pigment ink or the pigment ink bled through the marker.  Regardless, it was terrible, but you know me, I wouldn’t give up.  So I added Tim Holtz picket fence stain over the pigment ink.  That didn’t really make it look much better and, of course, I ended up with a little bit of alcohol marker on the dauber for the stain and the alcohol marker bled through the stain.  The reason I’m telling you this is because you’ll never, and I mean never, see this card.  It’s beyond redemption and I’m mad that I spent so much time on it before I threw in the towel.  I should have just taken one long look at it and made that decision about two hours before I did.  I should mail the card to my cousin with a note that makes her promise to destroy it as soon as she’s done laughing, or crying, because it is that bad.  But what if someone else accidentally looks over her shoulder and sees it, and knows I made it?  Or even worse, what if she looks at it and it makes her head explode from disbelief?  No, I think I better run it through the shredder, then burn the remains and never speak of it again.  That’s the best way to approach it I think.

So, now you know, it can happen to anyone.  Sometimes a card is just not meant to be.  Sometimes when you sit down and think you will produce something, you can’t or maybe just shouldn’t.  I think tonight was one of those nights.  I would have been better off watching television.

I’m still working on the card I’m doing with Carol Held.  Here’s the name of the stamp set we are using.  It’s from Stampendous and is called Sketchy Blooms.  It’s a really pretty stamp set, and I’ve water colored it and it looks ok, but nothing spectacular.  Of course I stamped the sentiment on crooked, so that’s something else I need to fix.  I thought about turning it into a shaker card, but am not really sure where I would put the image (inside the shaker) or where on the watercolor piece I would cut to make a shaker out of it.  I thought about making it look almost like a book having the shaker be the outside and my watercolor image on the inside, but don’t know how that will look.  I may cut my image down as I used a 5 x 7 piece of watercolor paper and used one full image of the stamp and a portion of the stamp at the top left on the paper.  It looks fine, but I’m not going for “fine,” I’m trying to make this Carol Held worthy.  Therein lies the problem.  Whenever you compare your work to someone else’s, you end up feeling insecure.  I think that is the biggest mistake we crafters make.  Let’s face it, I can’t watercolor like Lindsay, I can’t write like Kristina Werner, and am not the artist that Carol Held is, but I love their work.  I can try to replicate the techniques they do, but it will never be like theirs.  I’m great with that, but if one of them asked me to do a card with them, I would panic, just like I am doing right now.

Since I don’t have their particular skill sets, I need to focus on mine.  I know what I am good at doing and need to think about that, and make the card based on what I do best.  I can’t be Carol Held, but I can make the best Sandy Parker card possible.  Once I wipe my mind of the expectations I have for this card, I’ll be able to continue.  Until then, I’m going to sit back and contemplate what techniques I want to use with this card and then make the best card I can make.

On a scary note, Rich is only one or two videos behind me at this point, so I need to make more videos to ensure he doesn’t become complacent, ha ha  Also, there’s no redeeming my U shaped plate as I tried every thing and it’s never going to flatten out so that it is usable.  It’s a minor setback considering I could have completely broken my Vagabond by getting the embossing plates stuck inside permanently.

I really want to make a card that will dazzle people, so have been working on the card I’m making with Carol Held.  Well we’re making a card using the same stamp set and putting our own personal touch on them.  I’ve been water coloring like a lunatic and trying to find just the right colors and look to make this card exceptional.  So far, I’m at the “I’m not sure” stage of the card.  It doesn’t look bad, but it definitely doesn’t look good.

Ok, and I have to admit that I have a MAJOR problem with the Vagabond today and thought I was going to have to tell you that I killed it.  You know how the one thing you can’t do is get something jammed in it?  Well of course I got something jammed into it.  It’s one of the new embossing folders, that has one design on one side, then you turn it inside out and there’s another design.  Of course when I put the sandwich together, it didn’t occur to me that these were much thicker than a normal embossing folder.  It went almost the whole way through and then got stuck.  It was warping the top plate of the sandwich and I couldn’t get it to move backward or forward, so I held down the plate in the back (I’m sure that was a big no-no) and it inched through a little bit.  Did that several times and finally it popped out.  In the meantime, my plate is now almost U shaped and I’m not sure how to flatten it.  It’s definitely not something you can flatten in the machine as it really is U shaped.  So now I need new plates.  Who else would do something like this besides me?  How cow I was scared it would never come out.  If you had seen the curl on that plate, you wouldn’t have thought it would either.  Maybe I’m not a die cutting machine type crafter.  They always make it look so easy and I always make it look so hard.  Geez!

I can’t decide what else to do to my card to make it look good enough to show to Carol’s viewers.  I’m really nervous about this.  I don’t want to make Carol look bad as she has worked really hard to get to the number of subscribers she has.  Since the Vagabond debacle, I’m spending a few minutes just second-guessing everything I could do to make this card work.  I’m not sure what it will take to make it really spectacular, but that’s what I’m looking to produce.  I want this card to have some big WOW factor.  Yikes, I better get back to the craft room…

I saw a video Kristina Werner did with blending an easy ombre effect and thought I would give it a try.  Here’s a link to Kristina’s card.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjxoH1Ky12U

I used two stamp sets Stampendous Cling Hydrangea Lace Cap and My Favorite Things All Occasions for the sentiment.  I stamped with Color Box black archival ink in my MISTI.
The Stampendous stamp has clear plastic backing that is supposed to stick to the MISTI but would not.  I made a big deal about it and then watched a video from Stampendous that said the backing is supposed to be there, but it wouldn’t stick to my MISTI and in the video, they said it would.  I guess they were wrong.

I used Fabriano 140lb. watercolor hot press paper from A C Moore as was the ink I used.  I used Onyx Black Ink from Versafine for the sympathy sentiment and then used black embossing powder and heat set it.

The watercolor pencils I used were Caran d’ Ache and Prismacolors and I listed the specific colors in the video.  I used a Dove blending pen to liquefy the pencils.  I found a great deal on the Dove blending pen with extra nibs and a bottle of fluid to refill it for around $7 only at Walmart.com.

I thought it would be fun to highlight the gold so used Ken Oliver Liquid Metals in gold and colored the gold with it.

After coloring the image, I made a mask and then used a 1″ chip brush I bought on Lindsay’s recommendation from Harbor Freight Liquidators.  They sold one for 69 cents or a box of 36 for $8.  I bought the box and am sharing with friends.  I cut about 3/4″ off the top of the brush and used it as a blender tool to create the ombre effect in the background of my card.

I used a piece of 110 lb white Recollections card stock and cut it to 8 1/2″ x 5 1/2″ and scored the long side at 4 1/4″ to make it an A2 size card.  I used the extra gold Ken Oliver liquid Metallics to color the outside edges of the white card stock and then used gold washi and ran it around the edges of my fun foam so when you look at the card from the side, you don’t see the color of the fun foam, you see the matching gold color.  I got this idea from my friend Carol Held.  Thanks Carol!

I made a great card (well I tried to make a great card) today.  I was using Kristina Werner’s technique of ink “smooshing” and although it was really fun, I was not very good at doing it.  I think my problem was trying to control the color.  Kristina used a simple image and just put color where it landed.  I was trying to put the color into a floral stamp and I’ve changed the technique and called it “modified smooshing” as I felt it best fit the way I was doing it.  At first I decided I was a smooshing cheater, and then decided modified smooshing sounded better.

I even used the Vagabond.  Don’t be shocked, I’m serious about using it.  Well, I think I’m serious about using it.  I only die cut the word “You,” but that was all I needed for the card.

I had my normal setbacks including one that even I was disgusted by.  I was cutting fun foam to fit the back of the watercolor paper and my scissors kept catching on the foam and so I tried three different times before I realized I was also cutting my watercolor paper.  I know what you are thinking.  Three times, come on.  Seriously, I have three small slits on the bottom left corner of the card and so far, I haven’t figured out how to eliminate the problem as if I cut it off, I also cut off part of the image.  I decided to use some Nuvo drops and put a small light orange dot over the slits, but who am I kidding?  They are definitely there, small dot withstanding.  I’m so mad at myself for doing it three times, but decided this would be our little secret and we’ll see if you can see it in the video.  Sometimes you can’t see things, but those are normally color issues.  So this will be our little secret, unless of course, it’s really obvious in the video.

The next malfunction was with a bottle of black liquid (I don’t have the bottle right here, so don’t remember what it’s called.)  It’s shiny and I colored “you” with it.  Well, I tried to cover the word, but it wouldn’t come out of the bottle through the tiny needle tip.  Ok, so after making a small mess trying to get it to come out, I turned off the camera and shook the bottle and bingo, it came out in a very large pool.  Oh, the messes I make.  And I had just washed the ink off my hands.  Another trip to the restroom and I was ready to try again.  Wouldn’t it be funny if another crafter blurted out the things they do that aren’t very smart?  I think I would like that very much.  Lindsay does it once in a while, but otherwise, I can’t think of any other crafter that does.  Ok, me.  But we already knew that, didn’t we?

Normally, I would spend some part of my day doing something crafty, but today I ran errands and am now celebrating.  If you aren’t a dog lover, you probably won’t be interested, but our dog Aggie turned fifteen today.  She’s a golden retriever whose life span should be between 10-12 years.  She’s an amazing dog.  At fifteen, she’s still spry and happy and full of life.  She has to be in the same room as me or at the very minimum outside the door.

We got Aggie as a companion for Noel, the yellow lab seen in the photos of me on this blog and my YouTube page.  Noel was the first dog we had that loved me more than she loved Rich.  For Aggie’s first five years of life, she loved two things, Noel and destroying furniture.  She was a wild child and found every way possible to ruin furniture when we weren’t home.  We gated her into a laundry room and part of our kitchen and used a latch to close the door that lead to our family room.  She didn’t like that latch and figured out how to push the bi-fold door just right so the latch would open and she had free reign.  Once inside, the world was her oyster, or our furniture was hers to ruin.  Her first move was the couch.  She was really devious, and lifted the cushions of the couch pulling the stuffing out from under the cushions.  When she was finished, the cushions fell back into place and the couch looked perfect, except for the floor full of stuffing.  Next came the love seat.  We thought we had fixed the door so she couldn’t get it open, but she is wily and got inside again.  She destroyed the love seat the exact same way she destroyed the couch.  The couch looked perfect until you sat on it and the cushions sank almost to the floor.  The love seat was a fast project, so Aggie had time that day to ruin the antique piano we had.  It had a wood veneer finish and Aggie tore the veneer off both sides and the legs of the piano.  Needless to say, Aggie was a terror as a puppy.  She didn’t pay a lot of attention to Rich and me, and we thought that was the nature of a golden.  Once she turned five, everything changed.  I stopped working and she had someone to play with besides Noel.  Aggie loved Noel and we got Bella so that Aggie would have another dog when Noel passed.  Our vet said that Aggie and Noel were so closely bonded that we should expect Aggie to pass shortly after Noel.  The only answer was to give Aggie a baby of her own, so we got Bella, another golden.  Aggie was devastated when Noel died, and we didn’t realize how devastated until about two weeks after Noel passed.  In the middle of the night, Aggie let out this horrible moan like her world had ended, and in a way, it probably had.  She seemed to snap back and as Aggie got older, we started to worry about the bond she had with Bella, who has a very gentle soul and how Aggie’s passing would affect her.  Enter Honey, our half golden, half English retriever.  Aggie’s not really interested in Honey when we are home, but we cage Honey when we are gone, and Aggie spends her time sleeping in the same room to watch over her new baby.

When Noel died, Aggie became my dog.  She won’t let me out of her eyesight and frets when I’m not home.  If I go downstairs, Aggie goes downstairs and even though she struggles on stairs, spends every evening with me when Rich and I are in the “man room.”  We used to have date night on Friday nights where we would watch movies and eat popcorn together on the couch.  Now Aggie thinks half of the couch is hers so Rich sits somewhere else.  Of course she needs help getting up on the couch, so Rich helps her up and she has a blanket as I’m not crazy about having the dogs on the furniture.  Since Honey, there’s no controlling it, as Honey thinks all furniture is hers for the taking.

Aggie sleeps beside me on her bed on the floor and makes sure she finds my hand if it’s hanging over the edge of the bed so she gets a little extra attention.  She lays outside the door when I take a shower, as it’s too hot in the bathroom for her.  She’s taken over for Noel in loving me, and I make sure she knows she’s the queen bee.

Aggie loves to have a pillow under her head when she sleeps.  She’s got the sweetest face and the worst breath of any dog I’ve ever met.  Her teeth are great but her breath is gross.  No reason for it and so far, nothing has ever made it better.  She likes to think she’s a lap dog, but she’s a big golden, normally weighing around 85 pounds.  It doesn’t matter, she can always find room on our laps.

And so we are celebrating today, as fifteen years is a long time, but passed by so quickly, and we’ll be broken hearted when we lose her.  A love letter to my best girlfriend, Aggie.