My friend Sherry sent me all of the dimensions and directions to make this great purse…It’s perfect for a gift.

You’ll need this template. Print it out on your computer and cut it out as you’ll need it to make the sides of your purse.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_EhP26vb9-sM3yGkUVXTbqsFvIFIXQz8

Once you’ve chosen the paper you want to use for your covers, you’ll use the back of the paper (the blank side) and trace the template you just printed out…You’ll need to trace four of these for the outside and inside of the purse…You can use two paper patterns, one for the outside and one for the inside.
You’ll also need to use the template on cardboard, chipboard, mat board—whatever works for you. You’ll trace the same template twice on whatever cardboard option you choose.

I was sent tools by the MulWark Company and they are giving my viewers a great discount on the them.
MLK-53751 MulWark Industrial Grade Carpet Utility Knife: https://goo.gl/nRGA7v $3.20 with 80% discount
MLK-53761 MulWark 16 Pieces Precision Craft Knife Set: https://goo.gl/1Ljykp $3.00 with 80% discount

I found the middle size handle for the craft knife worked best for me, and really loved the cutting ability of the utility knife. I have to say that I was completely impressed with the quality of these tools.
After cutting out the cardboard and designer papers, distress the designer paper and then glue the paper to the cardboard. You will need to put your magnets in place before gluing down the designer paper for the front. I took the purse closure (below) and laid that on the center of the unfinished cardboard front with tear tape on the magnets that correspond to the one on the closure and put tear tape on the magnets then laid the closure on the front of the purse so the magnets with tear tape on them would adhere to the purse in the right spot. Then you can cover the cardboard with the designer paper.

Papers you’ll need:
The flap that holds the purse closed:
Black: 4″ long by 2″ wide round all four corners
score on the 4″ length at 1 1/2″ and turn it around and score it at 1 1/2″
Designer paper to lay on top of the black cardstock: distress the edges and round the bottom corners
1 3/4″ wide x 1 1/4″ tall (you need 2 of these) for either end
1 3/4 wide x 3/4″ tall for the middle
Before you glue the layers together, you need to determine where you want your magnets to go, and then make sure you glue it between the two layers of cardstock. I used tiny magnets and glued them under the front flap and put a pearl on the front flap so I’d know which is the front. Then I laid the corresponding magnets on top of the black cardstock attached to their other magnet piece so I would remember to glue it to the purse.  I attached this piece last after gluing the purse together and putting the straps on.

Front Pocket:
black: 4″ wide x 6″ tall and score on 6″ side at 2″ and 4 1/2″
designer paper:
3 1/2″ wide x 1 3/4″ tall piece for bottom section
3 1/2 x 1 1/4″ tall (sorry I said the wrong size on the video) for the closed top of the pocket.
Fold the bigger scored area toward the center and fold the smaller scored area down so it makes a pocket. Round the corners of the flap you folded down and put magnets under the designer paper on the top flap so it can adhere to the bottom and round the bottom corners of the designer paper as well. Before gluing your designer paper to the bottom section of the front of this pocket, you’ll need to put your magnets there and then glue the designer paper down. Take an oval punch and punch out (or cut) a notch in the bottom part of your pocket so that people can stick their fingers inside. You’ll put tear tape on the outer edges and pull the notch a little out and then glue down the pocket.

Inner Pockets: You’ll need two of these
Black: 8″ long x 3 1/2″ across (need 2)
score on 8″ length at 1/2″ and 1″ then flip over to score the other end at 1/2″ and 1″ and then turn on 3 1/2″ length and score at 1/2″ and 1″…again you need two of these
Designer paper: You’ll need two of these 5 3/4″wide x 2″ high

First fold all of your black scores on the pockets, then cut on the bottom scores on the second set of scores from the edge, cut them to the second score line up..do this on both ends, and then cut to the first score on the first scores on either end, then put tear tape on the outside up to the first score and tear tape on the inside of the longer piece at the bottom. Put the pocket together then put tear tape on the back of the pocket as well as on the side flaps, and put some on the very bottom of the pocket as well.
I decorated the pockets with some stamps that looked great after I glued the designer paper I gave the dimensions for above.
I used Distress ink in Gathered Twig and it was really too dark for this, but once I started, I was committed…I put it on the designer paper for the pockets as well as all designer paper on the entire purse.

Bottom of purse:  Black cardstock 6″ x 1″

Pieces your straps go through:  Black cardstock: you need four .. 1 1/2″ long x 1″ wide and round the bottom corners
designer paper 1 1/4″ long by 3/4″ wide and round the bottom corners
Glue these layers together centered on the black paper…
I used a Sunstar Kadomaru Pro, Corner Cutter and here’s a link to it at Amazon. http://tinyurl.com/yct9korz

I decorated the pocket for the front of the purse with papers from Graphic 45 that look like stamps. I also added a pearl there and on the purse closure.
I attached the pieces that the straps go through on the purse, then took my Crop-a-dile and punched holes into the centers of these pieces.
I glued a pocket onto the bottom of one of my cardboard pieces (purse side) and took the 8″ x 1″ piece and glued it to the bottom of that pocket, (making sure I only covered half of the 1″ wide strip), then took the other pocket and centered it on the other half of the black strip, then put the other side of the cardboard (purse side) onto it and used a pokey tool to rub the inside to ensure the pocket stayed glued to the purse.
I took two lengths of 15″long, 1″ wide organza ribbon and knotted the ends of it and pressed it through the holes on my purse with a pokey tool. You’ll need two pieces of ribbon, one for each side of the purse. If you use a thicker ribbon, only use 1/2″ wide ribbon and push it through one hole on one side then knot it and then push the other end through the other hole on the same cardboard piece, and knot it.

It was a very drizzly day today and I’m predicting another day of drizzle tomorrow.  I talked to my sister who lives in Morehead City, NC, where Florence came ashore, and she’s got mold and water issues.  She can’t find anyone in their area to help with the mold, and that’s been on my mind today, as my sister has asthma, and the mold is terrible for her breathing.  They were told to keep their air conditioning on 70 degrees, which is kind of cold for her, but her clothes are in her closet, where they had water, and now mold issues…so no clothes.  You’re probably thinking why doesn’t she just wash them?  Her laundry room is beside the garage where the water came in.  Once they got home, they turned on the lights there and had some flickering, so they want to get an electrician to see if there is an issue with the water causing problems with that as well.  It can’t be easy.  They live about a block from Walmart, and they just opened from 8-5PM this week, as their entire stock had to be taken out, and new stock put in its place as water had caused all kinds of damage there as well.

I’m wondering how anyone can find the professionals they need in times like these?  How do you find someone to help with mold when almost every home has been affected?  It boggles my mind.  It’s times like these when I really am glad that I live in the north, where we just have to sweat out the winters and don’t have to concern ourselves with things like hurricane damage.

For those of you in the affected areas of hurricane damage, I’m so sorry for all that you’ve gone through and everything that you’ll continue to face going forward…These are difficult times.

I have been looking at the scraps I had left over from making the purse, and decided that the cards I would put inside would all be made from those scraps.  I made seven cards, and show six on video, and only had a few small pieces of paper left.  I was so happy..I’ve never done that before…I always have small pieces that I need to do something with once I’ve made a project, but not this time!

I watched a video  where a woman makes an album out of four sheets of 12 x 12 paper.  I think I’ll give that a try tomorrow.  And then I’m going to pull out my Christmas suitcase, yes, I have (OK, two vintage suitcases) that house my Christmas things..It’s a great storage solution for things that you don’t need except during Christmas season.   I promised viewers that Rich would make a card and he wanted to make a simple Christmas easel card.  I told him if I pull out the Christmas things, he needs to get serious about his card, and he says he’s ready.  He also has four videos that need to go up, so I’m going to hold his feet to the fire in the next few days so we can get a head start on Christmas.

Today, Rich and I went shooting.  OK, he went shooting and I sat in the car and read.  When Rich retired, he didn’t have a ton of hobbies, mainly photography, and a college friend took him shooting a couple of years ago and he really enjoyed it.  He’s really athletic and super competitive, and target shooting with friends, struck a cord with him.  Of course we had to go pistol shopping, so he could find “the one,” and I can appreciate that, as I have to find similar craft tools.  He’s not a hunter, thankfully, and never will be, but has really taken to skeet and target shooting.  If you’re not familiar with the term “skeet,” it’s the same as clay pigeons and if you’ve ever watched a movie where the men had rifles and yelled “pull,” you know what skeet are.  They’re basically round clay discs that are thrown into the air by a machine, and every one you hit counts toward your score.  He has only participated in one competition, and did fine…not to his standards, but you can’t be perfect on your first try, can you?

I watched him target shoot and he did really well.  I love watching how intense he is when putting the gun in the holster and pulling it out, taking aim, then firing.  It reminds me of the westerns we watched as kids, where they’d have a duel, or the western equivalent…He kept the targets for me to see up close, and he hit the target with every shot.  Not bad for a guy whose only done this five or six times in his life.  I have to say, I’m impressed.

On our way home, we stopped in our town square, as the moving Vietnam Wall  was here this weekend.  You can’t look at that and not cry, as there are so many names, and it’s heartbreaking…not only for the loss of life, but for what the veterans who returned home had to face.  I was young, but still remember how hard that was to hear about.

Rich took a lot of photos, and I’ll be sure to put some up on the facebook page, or put them here, or both.  I’d like to say that I’d remember to put it on both sites, but I have a tendency to forget things like this.

I wanted to work on my art journal today ..
I used my homemade gesso first…here’s a link to the recipe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5BhWEv8AdE

I covered two pages of my journal with gesso and laid wax paper between the sheets so that the gesso didn’t glue the book shut.
After the gesso is dried, I removed the wax paper and removed any gesso from the edges with my fingernails, as well as the fold of the book so it will close.
I used Ranger archival ink for my stamping. I wanted to see if I could stamp on tissue paper. What I found was it was almost impossible to stamp these face down, and instead, had to lay the tissue paper over the face of the stamp and stamp it that way, by holding the tissue in place with one hand, and wiping over it with the other.

Docraft Santoro Color Me Stamps I bought mine from HSN.com, but they no longer have them in stock. I did find them at a different store in case you were interested. I bought four in a set, but couldn’t find them sold that way.
Short Hair Girl Willow D’Hiver– WIL907103 This is the one I used for the journal.
Link: http://tinyurl.com/y78o6clt or http://tinyurl.com/ybjbk4wa
Long Hair Girl Le Message is her name– WIL907101 link: http://tinyurl.com/y7hjwx6q

After stamping Willow D’Hiver, I let it dry.  I used a stamp set called Dylusions Hearts Edge for some leafs  with the same Ranger Archival ink. This stamp set is available at Michaels.

I didn’t have enough tissue paper to the left of my image to make sure it covered the page, so added another piece of tissue, and using a foam brush, glued it in place with Collage Pauge in matte that I bought at Hobby Lobby. I let it dry then and tore the edges off.  It’s easy to do when the Collage Pauge is dry, and the pieces hanging over the edge don’t have any glue on them.

On the left side (the hot mess page), I painted it with several colors of paint and hated all of them….So I stamped a Hero Arts stamp called Silly Scape K5425. I found one on Etsy and here’s the link.  http://tinyurl.com/y9s84bey 

I stamped it on scrap paper with Simon Says Stamp Intense Black ink and cut it out then colored it with my Touch Five alcohol markers in a variety of “city” colors (muted shades)..
I probably should have colored it before cutting it out, but I didn’t have any issue with doing it in the reverse.
You’ll see the background of the left side of the art journal change colors throughout the video. I never found a color I truly liked, so painted it black, thinking I would make it into a night scene. I wanted to do more, but I couldn’t get that side of the journal do do anything the way I envisioned…I was so frustrated, that I glued the Silly Scape down and die cut some gold stars and glued them in the sky. They tried to curl, and that was frustrating too.
On to the right side of the art journal…I used Arteza Brush pens…I have a discount code for all of you. They gave me my set for free, but I don’t receive any monies from any orders you might make, just as an fyi.
Here are the discount codes: Use Code Crafting1 with this link:
https://goo.gl/RZz8wE (for USA)
utm-limk for Europe: https://goo.gl/SiQYeo
This will give you an additional 10% off, as well as free shipping, until 10/17/2018
I gave the colors I use in the video, Crocodile green,  both browns in her hair, Sunset yellow, Orange Rust, Chamomile, then I used red on her necklace (you don’t see this in the video.)

I used an old Stampin’ Up alphabet set called Alphabet Fun (in lower case letters) to create the words I wanted for each page. Of course the left side was “a hot mess” and laid it on my craft mat that had orange on it, and the orange added to the hot mess. On the right side, I stamped “fall”…
I think it’s important to own your failures, and I definitely owned mine with this one..

 

I went to some garage sales today and found a really cool item..I think it’s a printing plate of a large tulip.  It looks like a metal stamp and I’m going to see if I can stamp it on paper..If I can’t, I’ll probably sell it at a garage sale..

We went to an auction tonight for our close friend whose mother passed…It was her estate, and I really wanted to buy something, but the only things I was interested in, another friend was also wanting to buy…So I deferred to her, and then all of a sudden, Rich was so excited about bidding on a couple of things.  He wanted a pocket knife (that looks kind of dangerous, and will possibly put him in the emergency room,) and a portable work table for manly activities…It’s basically a portable craft room, haha…

He was thrilled, and I walked away with a big bunch of nothing….I guess things happen that way sometimes.  We still had a good time and that’s all that matters, right?

My friend Sherry, sent me a template for a purse made out of cardboard and cardstock, with all of the dimensions and a template for the covers.  I loved it, and knew it was definitely something I’d want to make before the holidays, so viewers can make it for gifts.  I kept putting it off, and finally, today, I made it.

I had so many issues (as usual)…I kept telling viewers that when you are using magnets, you have to make sure you don’t glue down the paper before you put the magnets in place, then of course, I forgot.  I had to pull the paper back, not once, but twice…maybe four times.  I really can’t believe I made that mistake so often…I was using tiny magnets, and that helped in correcting the problem, but still…who does that?

I think you’ll love the purse…it’s so sweet and functional..There’s a place for several A2 size cards, plus a spot for stamps…It’s well worth the time it took to make…And it took me a long time.  I used Distress ink around the edges, but I chose a color that’s roughly the shade of poop…I hated it..but once I’d wiped it across a couple of surfaces, I was committed..Or maybe I should be committed.  I hated the color, and tried to downplay it as much as possible, and it’s still kind of gross…Geez!

And even with that, I still love the end result..poop distressing and all.

I have been working on my art journal for the past few days.  I had to gesso then wait for it to dry, so it’s a painstaking process.  I finally finished two pages tonight, and I have to say, one is terrific and the other is terrible….a hot mess.

I had to give in after several color changes and techniques that didn’t work.  I just couldn’t make anything come together and it was unfortunate, because the opposite page came out so pretty.  I wanted both to have a similar appeal, but nothing I did made it any better, so I gave up.  I don’t often throw in the towel, but once you see this, you’ll understand that I had no idea how to make it work, and I hope you’ll agree that there was nothing I could do to redeem it.

I need to go back to the Dollar Tree to video myself outside, as it was raining the last time we filmed there, so that video will go up once we’ve made the introduction and end..Hopefully it won’t be raining tomorrow so we can get that video up as well.

I have been wanting to run several errands that are the kind I normally put off, so today was the day.  It was drizzling, but I committed (in my head) to returning some clothes I’d bought, as well as some things I’d bought from Joann.com, including the Tim Holtz Stamp Platform that I absolutely hated.  I’m sure a lot of people like using it, but I’m not one of those, as I found the lid cumbersome, (way too heavy), and my arm was tired after two or three inkings.

Both stores that I was returning goods are ones that normally take hours for returns…I think I might be cursed, because I can take something back with a receipt, and I still wait an hour for something that’s gone awry.  Today was a crazy exception to the rule.  Both stores returned the items so fast that Rich thought I was bringing the items back to the car instead of returning them.

I had so much time left over, I decided to do my second Dollar Tree video in the new store.  I thought it looked a lot bigger than our current location, but it doesn’t appear to have much more and certainly not a larger variety of goods.  Regardless, this time I asked the manager if I could do a video and even gave him my business card.  He immediately told me that corporate doesn’t allow them to do that, and I explained how many videos are on YouTube that feature the Dollar Tree…so he wanted to ask his regional manager that just happened to be in the store that day…The regional said, “Sure, it’s completely fine.”  YAY!  So I did the interior video, but couldn’t do any outside video as it was raining too hard…It’s great for another day and I might try to find a few more things that weren’t in stock today.

Then I came home and worked on two pages of my art journal.  I guess we’ll wait to see how those turn out.  I’m a little worried that I’ve created a terrible mess with one page, but I’ll never learn if I don’t try, right?