Friday-8:45am

I'm baaaack!  Already!  LOL!

Beautiful sunrise yesterday.

Karma was out using the metal arm of the chair for a hard pillow.  She does love her hard pillows.

She'd open her eyes when the chattering swallows sounded close so she could watch them dive and swoop by the porch screen. 

But there is a problem with swooping swallows.  They poop while they swoop.  I have scattered swoop remnants on the inside of my windows.   

Thusfar, they have been polite enough to hold it when my windows have been open.  But it does make me watch them quite closely when a dozen of them decide to have a wind dancing party right outside my open windows when I am journaling in the morning, you know?

****

Okay...
I have something to tell you and I can't quit giggling to myself every time I think about it.  You know things have been a bit off over here and it has taken me forever to slowly work on the manila envelope journal backgrounds, right?  I can't even remember when I started them!  Three months ago?  Anyways, as you know, I finished them.  So I went to watch the next video, right?

****

Okay, had to stop my giggling so I can type.  

****

I'm watching the video--pausing as I follow along this time.  She used some white paint and a stencil to blob on some shapes--which I did.  I used some bubble wrap and added some blue paint, too...

...cleaning off the bubble wrap onto my hockey tape as I go.  Everything is to be done sloppily and quickly without thought.  (This is all perfect for teaching me how to be a loose woman, right?) 

And then she took a rubber stamp and randomly stamped all over the pages using a black StazOn ink pad.  Did that... 

...and stamped all over my hockey tape, too. 

She gets to the next step and says to take out your same "water soluble oil pastels" that you used for your backgrounds...huh?

****

Been so long since I started this and watched her last video that I completely forgot that, because I don't have water soluble oil pastels, I had grabbed the gelatos--just because they were new and I had never used them!  So this whole time I thought her technique was with gelatos and baby wipes!  ROFL!

****

Now why this cracks me up to such an extent that I am still laughing about it today...well, it's hard to explain.  I used to have a really good memory and was an excellent multi-tasker...before the descent of the fibro fog.  Was, shall we say, a little vain about it and didn't really understand how people could forget such obvious details.  Dagan has always had a slippery memory and Leah needs her lists, too.  It's a standing joke between us that I have joined the ranks.  A question about this or that will come up and not one of the three of us can remember.  Doesn't bother them.  Never has.  But it sends me into giggleland.

****

Don't ever judge and think you are better than anyone else.  God will get you for that.  *she giggles with delight*

****

Anyways, all of that is probably only funny to me, but...water soluble oil pastels?  Wiped from my memory--LOL!

****

The next step was to scribble all over the page spread and use the baby wipes again.  (Oh, and you do have to kind of squeeze any excess water out of the baby wipes first--at least I remembered that!)
****
Well, I do have watercolor crayons.       

OMG!!  I barely scribbled any on (because I had no clue what it was going to do) and what a difference!  There's that depth of color I had been trying to get all along!  And it toned down the white, like she said.

Here...I'll show you without the distracting hockey tape sheets. 

She gave us some free downloads--copies of her paper she's made (mixed media) and templates for journaling inclusions.  I printed the colorful paper off on regular computer paper long ago when I started this little project and yesterday printed the templates off on white cardstock.  Since I had already printed off the colorful prints on such thin paper I wanted to use it.  So I cut out the templates and just glued the papers right on to them with a glue stick...and cut around the templates.

Then grabbed some white acrylic paint to slap on the inside to cover up the directions.

I've never added flaps and pockets and things to a journal.  That's the next step I'll be doing...adding these flaps, some paper strips, and more embellishments to the page spread.  Trying new things.  :)

****

Oh, and the glue stick question.  I had asked if anyone knew how to get them out of a glue gun because I wanted to use the glue gun with crayons instead.  But Leah and I decided that we should have a dedicated glue gun just for crayons.  Probably is not a good idea to try to mix the two.  Leah is going to pick up a new mini glue gun.  Melting crayons will wait a while.  ;)

****

But it feels so good to be able to putter again!  I never thought I'd be so glad to hear my timers going off to tell me it is time to move.  And then I take my body-breaks and go read A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.  Ahhh!

****

  Don't complain about your life (I had been feeling so frustrated sometimes by my limited few good hours a day last year) because it can always be worse.  
God'll get you for that.  
(Remember the show Maude?)  
*she giggles uncontrollably* 

****

I plan to play and read and be grateful for whatever the day holds...large or small.  ;)  Better to be the snail than the rock if you plan to move, right?  May it be a good one for you, too.

****

"Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start."

Nido Qubein