I’ve gotten a lot of entries for our contest, and am so glad I extended the deadline to midnight tonight.  There are so many unbelievable projects and I’m so impressed with the skills my viewers possess.  It’s really amazing.  They should be the ones to have a YouTube channel, as so many of their projects are far and away better than anything I’ve ever made.   (I’m not trying to degrade my own abilities, I’m just saying, these are amazing works of art!)

Rich is working to get the waterfall card uploaded before Easter, and I seriously think he’ll be cutting it kind of close, as he has just started, and volunteered to help friends move into their new home tomorrow, so will be busy all day.  You might end up seeing that video on Sunday.  It’s an Easter miracle!

As for upcoming projects, I’m going to make a small flip book album that shouldn’t take a lot of time to make, and I promised a viewer that I would make a hummingbird card, and am trying to think of a new and different way to make it.  I don’t want the same old, same old, hummingbird.  I want this card to really pop.  Since my last hummingbird was done on vellum, I have a long way to go to create something more interesting. I’m still in the thought process of it though.

I ordered some brush markers today from Amazon, as I’ve seen so many people use the Zig ones, but I wanted to see if inexpensive ones would work as well.  I went to a site that rated brush markers and these were their top choice, and there are sixty of them for under $22.  So plenty of color options at not a bad price.  I really hope I like them.  I had bought the Zigs when they released initially, but hated them.  I hope these make me happy, so I’m crossing my fingers and will let you know how it goes.

 

Rich and I found a dog whisperer to work with Honey.  For those of you who don’t know, we bought Honey from a family that said they were raising English Retrievers (a smaller white colored golden retriever) and using the money to help their daughter pay for cancer treatment.  OK, we believed they weren’t a puppy mill, but unfortunately, what you don’t know can really hurt.  After we got Honey, we realized that with coon hound puppies, black lab puppies, Newfoundland puppies, and others we couldn’t see, they were basically just throwing food and water at each mother and puppies, and that was that.  Honey had no interaction with humans, was terrified of Rich and his deep voice, had mites from cats being in her (I’m not sure what it’s called) kennel?  It was a barn that I think they just threw hay in an area and the mother and puppies stayed in that part of the barn.  Honey had to fight for food, for water, for everything.  She had terrible fleas and a parasite that took months to get rid of, because it comes from a dirty (again, not sure of the term) kennel.  We had to take her to the vet every week for almost three months, and of course, when I called the breeder, they’d never had anyone else call about their puppy.  The Humane Society doesn’t have anyone to help with puppy mills or neglected animals, and AKC wanted nothing to do with my questions.  It took us a year to potty train her and she’s more afraid today than she was a year ago.

The vet told us that it would be a long hard road for Honey, but since we’ve had so many dogs and all have lived to be over 15, the vet knew we could handle her.  But as time goes by, her anxiety has gotten worse and worse.  I didn’t want to take her to just anyone to help, and this woman came very highly recommended and I can see why.  Although she noted Honey’s anxiety with her, Honey sat at her feet almost instantly.  I never knew when a dog was anxious, their tongue gets wider in the front part, so it hangs over both sides of their mouth.  Honey’s tongue was like that through the whole training session, until the trainer let her rest.  She immediately crawled onto my lap and settled in…It was the first time her tongue fit inside her mouth.  It was hard to watch.

She gave us some good training and I’m really hoping it will help Honey.  It’s supposed to boost her confidence and help her to focus.  I wonder if there’s a training exercise to help me focus….probably not..some old dogs, you just can’t teach new tricks.

I finished the waterfall Easter cards I’ve been working on.  I was a little bit frustrated, because the woman I was following, missed one part of the explanation, so my waterfalls would get stuck on the last two flips.  Nothing more frustrating than a card that doesn’t work.  So I kept ripping it apart, and finally added another piece of cardstock (where you can’t see it, and got it to the point where the fourth flip almost looks perfect.  I’ll let you be the judge of it when you see it in action.

I made two cards, so I could iron out that mistake.  The real problem was, she didn’t tell you exactly where to lay a strip of cardstock that you ultimately glued things to.  Since I put it in the wrong spot, gluing the waterfall in place was problematic.

Let’s just say that’s one I’m not going to be playing with again.  Although it did look pretty frisky with the little bunnies I put on it in the end.  I hope you like it and if Rich would give me back the memory card with the first half of the card on it, I could write my notes and we could get that bad boy uploaded.  Don’t hope for it before tomorrow or even Saturday…it’s going to be an Easter present for you. haha…

I had so many issues with the contest (and my inability to give good link info,) that I decided to extend the drawing/contest to midnight of 3/30/2018. Please email me a photo of one of your paper craft projects to saundralparker@yahoo.com as that’s the easiest way for me to attach photos to facebook.  Please include your full name as I’ll add that to the information I put on facebook.

I saw Jennifer McGuire do something similar to this card and I thought it would be fun to try. I started with two similar colors of card stock cut to 5 1/4 wide by 4″ tall and a card base that is white and sized to 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ and scored on the 8 1/2″ length at 4 1/4″ to make an A2 size card on Recollection heavy weight card stock.
I used Hero Art/Hues Unicorn White ink with Ranger white embossing powder then heat set them with Mama Elephant Water Blooms stamp set.  If you use clear embossing powder on this project, you’ll get a much more dull white background, and I don’t recommend you trying it.
I used Touch Five alcohol markers to accentuate the flowers and then attached then held both together on the 4″ length on my paper trimmer. I lined them up to the 2″ mark, holding them tightly, and cut them in half. Using my new Glue Dots super strength adhesive tape runner, attached both pieces to the card base. You’ll need to be sure to attach the top part first, then butt the bottom piece (in the opposite color) to the top part and make sure there’s no gap, then lay it down. I decided on this card, to put a little length of ribbon on it, so lifted the middle divider of the card and glued the end of the ribbon under it, then added a piece of tied ribbon onto the ribbon and glued the original length down with a small line of glue across the cut lines of the cards. I added Judikins Diamond Glaze to add a 3-d glossy look to the card, and apply it in little pools and then using a micro brush I bought at aliexpress and here’s a link to them. https://tinyurl.com/y9uj9pxr.
The stamp sets I used were:
Card #1
AlteNew Bamboo Roses
Impression Obsession Wishes
Card #2
Mama Elephant Water Blooms
Hero Arts Hello
I used Taken with Teal Stampin Up ink with Brambly Rose Lg. peg stamp. http://www.pegstamps.com and Fleur de Lis leaf from peg stamps with Always Artichoke ink to decorate the envelope.
I know the screen says the contest was extended to midnight 3/28, but this video didn’t get uploaded fast enough, so I extended it to 3/30/2018. I’m so sorry for the inconvenience I’ve caused.

I don’t know the winner to the drawing/contest yet, as Rich hasn’t added all of the email photos to facebook.  Once he does that, we can go to random.org and have them choose a number based on the total number of entries.  Takes all the guess work out of it and I won’t feel like I picked someone I know on purpose since I have no input.

Today I finished the last of the Easter cards.  I like to make sure my cards are last minutes, so I made ones to send to our family and hope they like them.  I have a couple of packages that I’ve been meaning to mail to friends and viewers, and just haven’t gotten to the post office, so tomorrow, after choosing the winner, I’m going to box up the basket and it’s contents, and get everything read to go into the mail.

Another call to my rheumatologist (whose on vacation) and more vague ideas on how to reduce the swelling.  It’s been working as long as I stay on higher doses of steroids, but once I drop down, the swelling gets a lot worse, Drat… Just thought I’d update you on the arthritis issues….Hope all of you are well..

It’s the last evening for the contest/drawing, and we have very few entries.  I know I had issues with the link, and fixed it several times, but still not many people have entered.  Do you think I made it too hard, or do you think people give away everything they create, so have nothing to photograph.  Frankly, they can submit anything they’ve created, as it’s not based on perfection, but rather, is merely a drawing, so any project can win.  I hoped a lot of people would want a basket of crafty things, but so far, not so many.  I even let them email me their submissions, drat!

Have two videos almost done and hope one will go live tomorrow.  That’s my goal any way.  It’s a pretty nifty idea too…

So far the contest is not going well because viewers can’t get the link to work to get to the contest info.  So this morning, I added the contest info to the information below the video, and hope that a few people can make it work.  Holy Cow!  I don’t know what I did wrong that people can’t make it work!!!!  I feel so foolish and know a lot of viewers are frustrated because they can’t get the link to work.  YIKES!  I guess at this point, I’ve done all I can do to rectify the situation.

On to brighter topics.  I went shopping with a girlfriend today, and found some fun vintage Ford and Mustang t shirts for Rich.  He has a 1966 Mustang convertible that was his dream car since he was a kid.  My dad worked for Ford in a car dealership as the parts manager for almost his entire career, so whenever I find any Ford memorabilia that Rich can wear/use, I buy them for him.  He likes to wear Mustang shirts while he’s driving his car.  Yes, he’s that kind of corny, probably one of the reasons why I love him.

I found some unique stamps for Easter, that had animals without their bodies, and an egg shape that you lay where the bodies would be.  It’s kind of hard to describe, but I thought they’d be fun for some cards.  I decided to make a waterfall card with them, and so far, some of them look natural, and some look like a face on an egg, with legs sticking out.  I’m a little concerned that the recipients will think I’ve sent them a blob, but since I’m sending them to our family, I don’t think they will mind.

I started working on them today and should have the video done in the next couple of days, as I have another one ahead of it.  I think I already talked about the first video, but it’s a split card design and is really simple to do.  I thought this card wouldn’t be too difficult that I’m working on now, but it’s starting to get a little more cumbersome with all the stamping I need to do.  Oh, well, another day, another video.

I was sent a great box of goodies from a friend, Aileen from Ireland. it was so thoughtful and generous, and I wanted to share them with you.
Heather, from Glue Dots, wanted to send me a prototype they have developed, and I was thrilled that they thought of me. She not only sent me the prototype (that I couldn’t show), but also a lot of other Glue Dots. I really wanted to show you all of the other Glue Dot products she sent me.

I have been wanting to try to make a split design card like Jennifer McGuire made several month ago, but never got around to doing it.  So I made a set of two cards as a trial, and foolishly, didn’t record them, and they turned out great.  I had to make a second set, and by that time, I was tired and whining, but I persevered and finished the set.  They are really easy to make, especially when you make them like Jennifer did.  She cut her sentiment in half and it was a simple way of doing it.  On my first card, I decided to layer some die cuts, and glue them over both colors of card stock.  I really liked that look so much better, than having half the sentiment in one tone, and half in another.  I hope you’ll let me know what you think.

I haven’t checked facebook yet, to see how many people have posted photos for the contest, and I really hope at least a couple of people do, because I’ve got the Easter basket full of all kinds of crafty goodies.  If you haven’t submitted your photo yet, it’s a simple process, and if you don’t know how to use facebook, you can email it to me at saundralparker@yahoo.com…I’m really looking forward to seeing what other deem to be their favorite paper crafty projects.