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Post by zenamidievel on Oct 25, 2021 17:09:47 GMT
Yikes!! Yay on your accomplishments and sorry about the headache!!!
TaDas: -DW is running, the bed is made grocery shopped last night for dinner stuff, ran a load of laundry
Printing: I will make this short. Some things have gone okay at the print place, there has been some frustration. Staples had saved a file for me in PDF form as ready print file. PDF's I don't work with usually, I have no idea how they edit them etc. The thing that drives me most insane is when something prints perfectly fine one time and not the next. Especially after communicating the clear goal of desiring a file I can send and will print correctly, every time I need more. Seems simple. However, if the person running the job makes adjustment on the copy machine, those adjustments are not saved to the PDF itself, so THAT is NOT they way to fix the file. In addition to this, if the printing location doesn't have a ruler tool to use to edit the PDF, it would be NECESSARY/REQUIRED to print a physical proof and measure the carp to be sure it's where it's supposed to be, centered properly. It is not something you can eyeball on the computer screen with no ruler and determine whether fine or not. So there is a learning curve, I have been super nice and patient even though I've eaten some costs here explaining to the 18-19 YO at the counter, how/why you can't do this or that, that stuff has to be measured on a proof, how to edit and check a file. This is all fine though, I'm going to get what I need, they will not hate me coming in, it WILL WORK OUT! This is very important because this file has my "12 Days of Christmas" card layouts and I'm out of stock! It cannot be easily redone from scratch.
Craft Exciting News!!! -the aquaintance who sent me three short Photoshop tutorials months ago, I have finally reviewed, followed up with question, got response, combined with online inquiries and I am editing the "12 Days" designs into circular shapes in photoshop with a border that will ultimately get mod podged onto the wood ornament disks I have. This is major! I'm through "Five Gold Rings" so far. -garland idea, I think I will be able to make 2-4 strings of 6' garland using some small, 2"x 2 1/4 " small wood tags and some beads I got with jute twine. I think they will be cute, I may even make them 8' long, I have to count my pieces and do some math first, this will use up supplies I have AND I think I can use the stamps I carved before for my gift tags on them. Just need to make decisions on color natural vs. color, paint, ink, blah, blah.
I'm going to have a really FUN day!!!!!
Z.
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Post by michelle on Oct 25, 2021 21:08:41 GMT
Stop with the blah, blah, blah. All of this is extremely interesting and so much fun to read about!!!Of course if you wanted to stop writing about it that is fine but don't short cut because of a mistaken belief that I am not interested! I get it about the ability of the counter staff. We have had to tell them to get the manager because we know they did it in the past so they can do it again. Also taken all evidence to prove this in advance of the skirmish. I had fun the other day training a sales clerk in ladies department. She had no clue and we both had a good time laughing etc and she learned how to do something. Times they are a-changing.... Just stopped by to d something fun to get away from the office work. Back to the salt mine. BBL!
It was a very productive day. I finished the special project for DH and managed to forge ahead with the office work which had been languishing. Tomorrow I have an appointment to deal with my pesky neck issues that have been causing those headaches.
Hope you are having a pleasant evening!!!
Onward>>>>
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Post by zenamidievel on Oct 26, 2021 15:10:00 GMT
Good Morning,
Okay, no more blah, blah...ha ha. I'm sorry about the headaches!
Home: -washed all the hand wash this morning, Put the dishes away from DW, reloaded -cooked/used up some food yesterday that needed it from pantry, that always makes me happy. -Laundry Room: I like all the pictures I hung in there, I think they really brighten things up and make it fun. For an area you normally either only walk through, or are doing chores in, those things make it fun. I hung a detailed hobby girl water color my MIL had painted years ago (she is very artistic), my cat picture, two photogography items of DD's, a closeup cat face and landscape, three tree pictures, 2 by DD Watercolor and acryclic, and birch trees in winter by DS which was an elementary school project, water color, I love it, also another elemementary school project by DD which I find hilariously cute, a very old wood burn of a kitten and puppy my mom gave me I think was her Grandma's, and a red phone booth picture double picture frame which holds photos of two red phone booths I took in Scotland. I have a small 8"x8" square canvas I'm going to a funny cartoon type bird painting on and hang that in there too which I think will be in very bright colors and one of DH's landscape photography items. Also I had two similarly sized, style pen and ink and water colors hung next to each other, an old round barn and old time mainstreet. You may not recall that not only did I have pictures from home, but I took all the artwork from cabin too, much of which was personal and really there is no where to put it all.
Craft: -12 Days CHristmas Ornaments: Yesterday I got all 12 of the images edited in Photoshop. THis took some time as the original design is square with scrolly border bits inside a black border and they're being converted to rounds. All the bits and border must be eliminated which can't be done just by cropping, I had to use the "Stamp" tool and color over all parts that might encroach into the circle area so that I only have the picture in the circle. That has to be saved, then I have to create the circles in PS, reimport the edited, saved images, fool around with it, center, etc. then it's ready to be saved again with the border. I also have to look at each image and see if the pictures themselves are similarly sized to each other within the circles, have similar margins, even though some are a picture of a single thing, or multiple things. I did make sure to make all of the the circles the same size, with same border thickness so when I need to resized to fit the wood discs ( have two types, and they are not the same size, they are slightly different) it can be done easily and proportionately to each one by doing the same thing. I will cut out every disk from my saved Word document to ensure they are the same size, prior to calling for them to print at print center. THe ornaments disk bases and backs will be painted red, the border is a thicker black line, then the inside pictures are black and red accents. THese will be printed on the offwhite sandstone card stock, cut out, then applied to the ornaments. I will do some red bases but I also have an off white color called lace, that could look pretty and appeal so to people that want a more subtle look going on with "Farmhouse" whites and neutrals, (seeing a lot of that) I will mainly do the red though, maybe just a couple of whites to see if they appeal or not. I plan on also taking the time to paint the top part of the ornament that is the top, attachment part, an offwhite color, so it looks like like an ornament top. -GARLAND: I have enough twine, little wooden tags and small beads to make 5 strings of 8 ft. "Farmhouse" style garland. This will be very simple, string, knot, bead, knot, tag, knot, bead, knot, space between, repeat. I decided on 8 Feet because you need some on the ends for attachments, many mantels are at least 6 feet, so if it's only 6 feet, that might not be quite long enough. ALso 8' is longer and better to go further around a tree if it's being used that way. I've been reading ways easy ways to get the paint color on the beads and will try it today. What I'm struggling with is color choices for the beads and the tags. I'm seeing lots of "Farmhouse Style" that just have natural color and off white. So in this instance I could use a black stamp for the image on the tags or red? Or do I do red beads, off white tag and red stamp? Or red beads, natural tag, red or black and stamp? Also which stamp? These are my own carved stamps, not sure if you remember, there's a candy cane, tree, bell and a primitive star. Decisions, decisions! I was thinking to do two of the same design because if someone wants for tree, you usually need more than one string. -Cookie Cutter shapes on wood...I still this idea and will get base paint on ornament to try doing a set today to see what it looks like.
Yesterday, I went and got more of my sandstone paper and stopped by the print shop to discuss the editing. I have to wait for her to finish that then I can call for the 12 Days cards to replenish my stock and the prints for the ornament discs needed. I also mailed out 3 orders for Etsy!
Okay, off to the races!
I hope your day is off to good start!
Z.
Goals for today is to get the base paint color on all the ornaments disks, get paint on the beads and possibly tags, start stringing, doing those and to try the cookie cutter set of ornaments.
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Post by zenamidievel on Oct 27, 2021 17:07:26 GMT
Good Morning,
I hope you're not still suffering from the headache!
THere is a lot happening here on the crafting front and it will be my mania through Sunday!
12 Days Cards: Today I'm hoping to get an e-mail that my print job for the "12 Days" cards are finished so I can pick them up. I did label for the bottom of the "12 Days" ornament boxes. and I can use the card sized image for the Partridge for the lids, they fit perfectly. ALso that image is the same size as the sample paper mache box I bought from vendor last year as research how to do, but also because I liked her artwork a lot. SO this is all good. So when they tell me that's finished, I can send my lable, the lid art, and the two sizes of circle art to them for it all to be printed at one time on the sandstone cardstock. I think I will be painting the outside of box and lid, probably black base, red lid. This is also similar to my sample box I'm looking at and would be quite cute. THis is more work to paint the exterior of the boxes but it's an extra step I think is worthwhile.
Garland: Bead painting...holy moly, tried following tip on how to paint beads fast by stringing and dunking, what a fiasco! lol!! I did one batch of 75 that way, and the other bath of 75 I put on the end of paintbrush and did by hand. Then I ended up going over the first 75 by hand again to clean them up. I did research, counted my beds, decided how long to do do the garland. I applied the offwhite paint to the wood tags and have about half them stamped now with the red ink. I decided to do two with primitive star, and two with candy cane, the wood tags are painted and will be stamped on both sides. Next steps are to seal with matte sealer, both the tags and the beads, then string and knot them to the twine.
Garland Ornament/Tag Spin Off: So looking at other examples of garland, I only needed 8 tags per 8 ft. garland. This results in a lot of these left over wood tags, about 70 to be exact. So what I'll do with these is do the same treatment as above described and create sets of 8 each gift tags with twine attached individually to each one that can be used for gift tags, ornament, or for someone to use to create their own garland, wreath craft project. THis will use up all these tags, they are super cute, very "Farmhouse" and not super expensive.
Ornaments:
Sleighs: Because I'd tried the bead dunking thing above I had excess red chalk paint in a little container. So I used that and proceeded to paint the fronts and backs of the HObby LObby red sleigh ornaments. THere are 6 of these sleighs. These sleighs are cute and I sold out of those last year. But this year I will do smaller group of 2 each per listing because it makes them more affordable and easier to ship. I will apply Nordic style paint to some and apple paper to some and sell in sets of two. I take the time to paint the back of these sleighs because we all know nothing ever hangs perfectly when hanging ornaments. I Find it disappointing and ugly when one flips and you're looking at an unfinished, craftwood back of something and I make sure to mention this in my listing info....not all of that of course, but that I've painted the underside also. So these are ready for the next step.
Balls/Wood Disks: I painted 12 Each of the smaller wood disc ornaments with the red because I'm going to try the sets of 6 EAch, two tone paper combo idea on them today. THis is hard to descibe what I have in mind, I will send a picture of one later. It may or may not turn out. But these are ready for the next step and I worked out 6 design ideas last night.
12 Days: I need to do a mass painting, front and backs of wood disk ornaments in preparation of assembling these ornaments. My main quandry now is, do I have to add a number to the backs of these ornaments? Like 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. ? I mean people know what they are, but maybe if I find a cute font and do smaller circle, this could be cute, and then it has something on the back...I have to seal the whole thing the same way anyway, so I could add that to the back and would be easy if it was small. I will ponder this.
Wood Cut Ornaments: I had 2.75 pieces of the craft wood board I'd cut the sets of 4 each, red NOrdic painted ornaments last year that I sold out of, the shapes were mitten, sweater, tree, bird, ball, fat bauble, skinny bauble and a bell. I mix these into sets of 4 and seperate the cutest shapes from each other so that if someone wants say the mitten AND the sweater, they have to buy both sets. I also separate the bird from the tree for same reason. THe rest of the shapes are more standard so I don't worry about those. All this cutting went well with the jigsaw and I did yesterday because I wasn't going to run that while I was home alone (DH left this morning) I also got the holes drilled without splitting the tops of the ornaments, as I had not extra wood, this was nerve wracking and I did break two stars I was trying out, but thankfuly not these others. So these are ready for base paint and to proceed on with them. I am able to get 2, 4 piece ornament sets from one length of that craft wood, so I will have 4 ornament sets in red and white to post when done. Last year nobody bought the vintage pink and green sparkle sets. Though someone did "Favorite" them yesterday. I went to her favorites and she had all things pink and green "favorited" so that was funny.
Okay, lots to do today, all fun! I will get cracking!
Z.
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Post by michelle on Oct 28, 2021 1:37:07 GMT
Z, I agree about the back of the ornaments. Years ago we could get super cute craft projects for making ornaments and I used to paint the back of those ornaments which really did enhance the way they looked. I remember how much fun these were to do! I don't know about adding the numbers--how would it look if they rotated and this is what was seen on the tree. Maybe make a little explanation insert letting people know which on is #4 etc. I bought a complex FR decoration and the owner of the store told me that she no longer had the set up instructions so she suggested we take a picture of the decoration so that I would be able to assemble it correctly when I got home. The laundry room grouping of pics sounds delightful! I just love!!!! that cat picture. Now you are an expert carpenter! Imagine using a jigsaw and getting the items to turn out. That is really great. I just can't believe how much you have learned and how wonderful it all turns out!!! My life has gone to the leaves. Six bags the last two day of yard leaves. It was such an incredibly beautiful fall day today! Also the pine needles are totally under control. I am excited about this because I felt like I kept encountering blizzard conditions of those needles. It seems that if I get things done 100% instead of 60-90% my anxiety level is lessened so I have been really concentrating on completing whatever I start.The trip to the Dr seems to have helped the headache situation. Definitely doing my happy dance today because I was headache free!
The outcome of the five inches of rain--which BTW I consider lemonade rather than lemons--is the basement has a water situation. DH did some rather sophisticated thinking and came up with a way to handle it. I will skip the description but will say that I no longer get involved it that area. I did get sucked into having to clean up a mess he made a couple of months ago that caused some problems. But I get creating "and thens" as in---I didn't bother to get rid of the tree saplings and now they have destroyed the plumbing pipes--that 's my favorite example of head in sand behavior since it never happened to me. I can think of a lot that did though. Well, that is in my rear view mirror and I do try now not to ignore important things and to refrain from causing any "and thens".
You are in high gear production!!! Great job!!! Hope you are getting some sleep Ha Ha
Onward>>>>
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Post by zenamidievel on Oct 28, 2021 15:31:53 GMT
Good Morning,
Yay for good news from Dr. and headaches. Hope this helps! Yikes on the plumbing pipes!! DId this just happen or is an example of something that happened in the past?
Garland: THis may have been more work than it was worth. However I will finish the last of 4 strands made and get them listed for a low price. But it was fun to try it. Also some things happened which gave me pause for using th ink stamps for ornaments in that even though it was dry, it ran a little bit, when I sealed them. As it's "rustic, primitive, farmhouse" style thing, I just tried to figure out how to minimize that, let go of perfection and kept going. I think they're cute, fun, may appeal. Not sure. It seems the style is now is to do these shorter garland pieces, think of a Rosary, except just a strand, with beads and a jute horse tail on the end. THey are cute, but more of a table topper, center piece type thing. Mine might appeal because it is light wieght, has good spacing between the tags and beads, will not take over the tree! It is probably not chunky enough for a mantel draping as it's a little sparse looking.
Wood Cut Shapes: I have those based painted front and back now, ready for next step.
12 Days Ornaments: I have figured out a circle and simple leaf and berry design to put an old fashioned font inside for the numbers of the days for the ornaments which will decorate the back of the ornaments. So I need to get that put together, scanned, get the numbers inside, so it's a printable file I can cut out.
Someone bought my paper cut starburst set of playing cards! Yay!
More later,
Z>
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Post by zenamidievel on Oct 29, 2021 13:04:00 GMT
Good Morning,
Craft Mania Continues: -Base coat of paint is on both sided of the wood cut shapes now, these will make 4 sets of 4 each ornaments, so I have 16 ornaments to do the design on and seal. -finished the leaf/berry wreath/circle border for the the "Old English" font numbers it is 1.5" round, the numbers inside are slightly under 1/2" tall The steps for this was, complete a border template, trace 12 times on the window to a sheet of paper, use fine tip felt tip pen to trace over pencil, erase excess pencil marks, color in the red dots and the leaves with the black. Print numbers 1 through twelve on paper, cut them out, center and tape inside each wreath, scan to jpeg, clean up the showing cut lines in photoshop, save to PS, and mail to printer. So this was all worthwhile, they look cute, goes with the black and red design of what's on front of the ornament. Took to printer last night to drop off the card stock to run the box top lables, circles with the 12 day images, the numbers, and the bottom of the box label. THe gal gave me the numbers right away, and so I can start cutting those out this morning, and paint boxes and ornament discs until they call to tell me they're ready. -I do have one worry about mod podgine these in that this cardstock is a not as "slick" slightly more porous and so fingers crossed this doesn't cause "lifting" or running of ink, I will have to be careful. -I got some cards decks and the garland photo'd and listed yesterday. I priced that garland inexpensively in hopes that someone who like, will just buy all 4 strands, as it is very light weight. Selling 1 strand would pay for the supplies to make them. -and I have left over beads that I painted which can be used to embellish/make cuter some ornaments when made, so I will use those for that!
Okay, so I'm cutting today, painting, and hopefully assembling some ornaments.
Update: Took a picture of some of the numbers so you could see what they look like with border for 12 Day Ornaments. I cut out 12 sets of those. Now I've found my tags, distressing ink, and will distress, cut, glue, ink numbers on some 12 Days of Christmas tags. Those were a hot seller last year. I will see if I can get 6 sets made this morning while waiting on my printing. ALso while cutting I realized that some 12 Day ornament sets could look quite nice on the off white chalk paint I got as well, more subtle, yet "sophisticated" take than in your face red. I might try a set that way and see what it looks like, could be quite cute.
Hope you're doing well there.
Z.
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Post by michelle on Oct 30, 2021 1:43:54 GMT
Those are cute! I can't believe the amount you are accomplishing--Great job!!!
I have been busy with my office job and also the leaf project. Every day I spend at least an hour working on downed leaf removal. This afternoon was an absolutely spectacular day! It's hard to believe that it was winter this morning and then it turns into the kind of weather we had today. I am getting outside to enjoy this as much as possible.
The deer we had last year have come back and started doing their nightly snacking on birdseed. I haven't actually seen them, just their tracks. I had to install a higher fence in the side yard so that Sam can be better contained since he gets somewhat crazy when he sees them. Now he can't see them when they come to feed which will help.
Tomorrow I am not going to help DH with his aftermath of the water in the basement project. That will not be pleasant at all. So I will work on getting a number of emails ready to be sent out and generally act like I have to get this Admin stuff done NOW which is actually true due to circumstances beyond my control. I am suffering from acute Vanishing Day Syndrome. LOL
Hope you are having a wonderful evening!!!
Onward>>>>
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Post by zenamidievel on Oct 30, 2021 15:15:15 GMT
Good Morning,
I'm sorry you're dealing with water in the basement. Good effort on your outdoor chores and hooray for nice days!
My eyes are usually bigger than my time in regard to craft projects. Everything takes longer than I think it will. But I'm having fun so far.
Yesterday I cut hundreds of shapes of paper, circles for the ornament backs (I'm doing 8 sets of this to start with), then all the circles for the fronts. I also cut the box labels top and bottoms, this wasn't veyr many, but then I cut all the little squares for the 12 Days gift tags. All this requires careful cutting to not leave white edges, cut carefully, not cut off black border either.
Gift Tag News: -cut, distressed inked fronts, stamped "To...From" on backs, of the stiff, craft paper brown tags. Glued the squares on, used a stiff little brush and ink, to stencil the numbers, 1, 2, 3, ....above the squares, added the twine hangers, and completed 7 sets of this type of tag. -went to shop and edited all my tag sets to have the same shipping costs as card packs, because that is what it costs, and I realized by having "free shipping" I was eating it on costs on tags, especially these labor intensive one. So now all my tag sets cost $8.00 and buyers pay 3.50 shipping (which is still too low, and only .50 cents per additional tag/card/mini notecard type item purchased when shipping to one location. I have included a note "Shipping Information & Possible Savings" in item descriptions, if anyone chooses to read that far, in hopes that people will purchase multiple of this type item from shop and take advantage of shipping savings. -today I need photograph and list these.
12 Days Ornaments: -have taken all the cut pieces downstairs -going to lay out an additional plastic cloth and have a serious paint fest of ornament bases and boxes to complete 8 sets of the ornaments on the slightly larger wood disc I have. I didn't mention this before, but I have two types and they are almost the same size but have different tops on them. Ultimately no matter, they both fit in the box and are so similar it matters not. But I will start with the first, slightly larger disk and get those made and listed then I can move to the smaller one later. -I'm super excited about today and getting a lot of actual production done on these. Wish me luck, it is happening, I'll post a picture completed ones when I get to that point. I just laid the paper on some red discs, looking super cute I think. We shal see!
Printing: Editing...I realized from my editing adventures of the ornament circles in PS that I can edit my original 12 Days Squares so all are same size and re-edit my own 12 Days cards that the printer is struggling with and also not having time to actually do. So I will work on that during drying times today with what I'm working on with the ornaments.
Hope your day is off to a good start.
Z.
Update: Whew! I've painted 10 boxes, bases and lids, the bases are red, the lids are black, got 8 ornament sets base painted (96 individual) with red base and black tops, both sides. To all of this I put a base coat of mod podge product, all sides, tops/bottoms ( I leave the inside of these paper mache boxes natural) boxes and ornaments. I thought maybe having a layer of the mod podge down would help with the paper sticking later and help stop/minimize paint bleed. While doing I saw no paint bleed on my brush or back in to mod podge bottle of either red or black. SO this is very good. ALso that mod podge protects the paint and strengthens the box overall even though they are sturdy little boxes and makes the boxes look pretty with slight sheen. It's 3:00 PM and I've been working steady on all of this since 7:30 or 8:00 AM.
I will take a break from these to let all dry very thoroughly before moving on to applying box labels and the paper circles to the ornaments. I will photograph the 12 Days GIft Tags I made and get those listed.
Research Etsy: I see a seller offering 12 Days of CHRistmas ornaments on teh same wood ornament I'm using, who is using printed images of 12 Days of Christmas stuff, and decopaging and selling for $80.00 and claiming there are hand painted accents to them, maybe there are, but it's minimal to none and she's charging $5.00 shipping. IMO $80.00 is too much to ask for those as well as even what I am doing. I will do further research and decide on pricing.
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Post by michelle on Oct 31, 2021 1:01:46 GMT
Z, You are doing fantastic!!! And getting a tremendous amount accomplished. I can't wait to see it all on your site! Not much happened today. I am at the end of another month of daily weighing and have 1,729 days racked up. Also have maintained at my new lower weight for about 1,600 days. I was losing for several months while weighing daily. I just can't believe that when I started I thought I might need to lose three or four pounds and ended up now at 15.6 pounds less. That is yet another example of the lies I used to tell myself. The worst lie being--Just this once I will... only to have it be such a endless cycle of stuff/starve. Well all that is behind me and I can honestly say that Nothing tastes as good as thin feels. I have given up all of my red light foods and there is no way I will ever go back to eating that garbage. It has been such a long hard journey but it sure is nice to have all those 1729 days and never have I missed pigging out one single time. Best of all I no longer have to eat my feelings. When something bad happens I don't turn to food. Well I just don't turn to food period. Hooray!!!!
More raking today. Also sent off about 1/2 of the work emails I need to do. I am going to finish them tomorrow and am excited to think that I am starting to get things organized. I may have to hire someone to work at home with me in March. We'll see....
Hope you got all accomplished that you wanted to!!!
Onward>>>>
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Post by zenamidievel on Oct 31, 2021 19:56:33 GMT
Good Afternoon,
It was so inspiring to read your streaks and weight success story. I'm glad you take the time to revisit this success and talk about it because there are "people"...lol....that need to be reminded what works and what doesn't. Hooray for you! And oddly enough, I had already said I would start my streaks again with the intermittent fasting and no "C" foods (cookies, crackers, chips, cake, candy). I have maintained my weight loss since my 90 day streak this year of doing that, but have stalled and it's due to overeating this type of food which means...scale will not move. So I'm starting this today and plan to do it again for 90 days! I can do this. TOday is a new day, start where you're at!
I'm glad you're getting through the work e-mails and continued yard work.
House: Just put dishes away from DW. I'm so happy I followed your lead with the shelf liner for all cupboards! It really saves on the wear and tear on finish of hte cupboards. THank you for the info and tips on that! It is beautiful here today so I have the den window open and set up a fan to blow fresh air into the rest of the house. At least this is the idea.
Halloween: I cleaned and carved two pumpkins and they are outside on the walkway. I might go get a bit more candy just in case (but I wont eat any of it, because today is a new day with my streaks!) Now I'm doing a generly clean up, pick up, putaway because I made a bit of messes with all the scraps and cutting kind of all over, while DH was gone, cause I was doing some of that cutting while sitting in recliner with cat on my lap to boot!...lol.
Etsy: After looking online at other ornament sets, texting and then speaking with my friend who makes jewelry from my old neighborhood, she gave me opinions, guidance on pricing and I'm glad I spoke with her. The bottom line is it's 12 ornaments and if they are each $5.00 which is less than my other ornaments, that's $60.00. THe box is adorable, is work, part of it, and so that really needs to be $5.00 then there is shipping, which will be $5.00, in total this is $70.00 item. It is unique, original design/art, a lot of hand painting and application. Just because that other seller charges $80.00 and $85.00, I'm not going to because it makes it too expensive for most people. $70.00 with "Free Shipping" noted I think is good and reasonable.
On this note, the application is going GREAT!!!! The box lids because it's a bigger piece of paper is the most tricky with it wanted to bubble/raise in places, but it got handled without damage. When I texted my sisters a pic of the ornament backs, with those numbers, one replied, "that is really cute, but what is going on the back?" So I thought this hilarious and was an excellent sign that the numbers are as cute as I thought and I'm glad I did this step. I replied "that IS the back"...lol. So boxes are done and all the number disks have been applied, next step is the fronts. These look so cute I cannot tell you. I think they will appeal in both a traditional yet someone clean/modern way too because how I did the fronts with a simple circle.
DH returns today from dropping/driving DS' car to Oklahoma, I pick up him up at 4:00 PM this afternoon. Getting to/from the airport here is also so much less of logistical traffic nightmare it is very nice.
Okay, must continue house cleaning, shower, got store, get DH, continue with mod podging. I'm soooooo excited with how these are coming out I cannot begin to tell you!
Hope your day is off to a good start!
Z.
P.S. I CB'd 2 old bottles of mod podge that were yellowed and super foul smelling!
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Post by michelle on Nov 1, 2021 3:25:11 GMT
We don't have any treaters. Instead there is a big party for them each year. The distances, no street lights etc make it difficult to even consider so it has been many years since we had any. Clair has a cute costume but did not have an indoor event to attend that would work for her. There are a lot of considerations to think about and thankfully I read a book called Teaming with you therapy dog which was very helpful for me to adopt the correct perspective about keeping the focus on the team member under stress, doing the work and that would be the dog. She enjoys it so much but gets exhausted from giving so much love to her instant friends. Also most times there are 4-6 students at once gathered around her on the floor. We have a rug that we sit on and my job is to be her safe place right behind her. There is so much to pay attention to during these interactions. For instance Clair cannot tolerate being hit on the head which is the form of patting that a lot of guys do. To them they are just being friendly. So my job is to keep that from happening. Many very fun things happen! She is a first class therapy dog and much adored by her friends. Just chatting......
More raking today. I spent time working on the plants that are enclosed so that the rabbits don't dine on them. I thought it would be a hassle but it ended up being enjoyable. Buttercup has a serious ball retrieval addiction so much time is spent getting the lost ball out of the leaf bag since that is where she thinks it goes so I can throw it for her. I have acquired an incredible pitching arm. She likes to play outfielder so I have learned to throw the ball very accurately so she can catch it. There are a number of variations of the game of ball developed by BC.
Congrats!!! on getting so much done. I can't wait to see the things you have been working on! They all sound wonderful!!!
Onward>>>>
Monday - I manged to get all the admin items that were critical done today. Also cleaned the K, dusted and vac'd some. Took the day off from raking which is OK since the fallen leaf production has dropped off significantly. I started working on gathering items for a collage/Vision board yesterday. My goal is to get one item a day but have not found one for today yet. The other day I managed to fix my color printer myself which was exciting and also the color feature started working again. Anyway I reduced my first image to fairly small.
Hope you are having a relaxing evening!!!
Onward>>>>
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Post by zenamidievel on Nov 2, 2021 16:58:49 GMT
Good Morning,
Love hearing about your dogs. Is there theme to your current vison board collage? Hooray for you checking off the criticals from Monday!
Streaks:W is weighing, EP is Eating Plan, EX is exercise whichI've not been doing, but I will keep typing that to rub my own nose in it until I do! W- 1 of 1 EP- 1-1 EX- O-1
Craft: Today I will be putting the final coat on the back of the 12 Days ornaments! I just did the fronts already this morning. Then I will be able to photograph and list them hopefully tomorrow!
Card Editing: I had not printed my 12 Days card sets in over a year. The old print place had converted these to ONE PDF and wouldn't you know I was back to not getting the same thing twice in a row and it created an editing debacle. I have been EXTREMELY patient and PLEASANT with all interactions there even though I suspect they could have easily corrected/printed what I needed without this hassle. I ultimately told them to not work on it anymore, I'd do myself as I believe the file had been messed with to a degree there was not way to get it back to normal. So, this led to my having to re-edit all 12 designs in Lightroom, then photoshop, very finicky process, cropping, saving copies twice, cropping again, reimporting to photoshop to get it in the black square, and so it was a true square, each one, because they all need to be able to be sized the same when doing they layouts in WORD. Fixing the texts, adding the text where it needed to be on the second page so I can get two sided color copy for the cards. This took HOURS, like 3/4 of the day yesterday and this morning. But now it is done. The PS tutorial I'd followed that friend made for me helped extremely in this process I was able to utilize the shape tool and helped be achieve, hopefully, the desired end result. Next step is to e-mail these to the printer today, drop off my cardstock for physical proofs to be printed. THere may be a slight adjustment to images required after this because stuff I print on paper at home is centered and for some reason when it's put through on cardstock at location, it is not. This is not a "new" problem. Once I see the proofs, I then bring those home, make "final" adjustments if need be, and then I can ask for one more set of proofs and all should be good to go. It is quite the process, especially with 12 files.
Ornaments & NEW idea! As I will be mailing the above and dropping cardstock off down there I will also edit my smaller 12 Days Circles that fit the smaller ornament disk stock I have so I can make more sets of those. But also I will edit and send my Paper Snowflake. The NEW idea with this is to do a two toned ornament! THat snowflake is cute and will look cute on red, black, and off white painted ornaments. My idea is to offer sets of I think 4 ornaments (cause I'm not shipping those in onsey/twosy that is too expensive for base shipping prices to do that) where one side is red the other off white with same ornament shellacked to both sides! This will be darling I think and I can also do black and offwhite. My sister says "don't do black, who wants that at Christmas?" However people do want that cause I see it all the time. ALso I may or may not add left over beads to these or I will save for the other cut paper ornament I'm still going to try set of, hopefully this week.
So, I've got files to e-mail, cardstock to drop off, things to get listed, things to make and there are still hand painted ornaments I want to paint! It will be a very FUN week!
Hope your day is off to a good start!
Z.
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Post by zenamidievel on Nov 4, 2021 1:00:18 GMT
Good Late Afternoon,
Streaks:
W- 2-2 EP- 2-2 EX- O-2
Things are going well.
Print Editing: THough I thought I was finished editing those darn 12 card templates, realized forgotten to change a default setting. SO that needed changed and then new images needed imported to document so were not compressed and bad! Positives are, I remembered for actually printing and all the difficult editing steps were already completed so this went fairly quickly. IN addition to that I called for 5 more files that hopefullly will be 3"x3" HOLIDAY MINI NOTECARDS, ORIGINAL, and for some of my "Snowflake" pattern in a circle with red and black borders. The mini notecards I did red and deep green border. I will make two sets of each of those and add to mini note card/gift enclosure card area. THe photoshop editing tutorials made ALL of this possible and easily done. That snowflake is cute and hopefully looks cute printed out on paper with the colored borders. WIth the circles I will make ornaments, they will get shellaced to some wood disks.
12 Days Ornament Status: All complete, I got one set photgraphed today and listed! I will work on the remaining throughout the day tomorrow. I wait to do add the twine until I can do flat photos without it first. But I have to go slowly, and keep the sets organized and labeled properly, not mix up photos. Very excited!
Ornament Ideas With Cut Decorative Paper: So I was going to do this idea with patterened and plain paper both with different cookie cutter type shapes. I still ultimately want to do more shapes (next year) but have dialed this back a notch. If I do a 5 point stars, I can have the center epntagon can be white, craft brown, black, red or green solid, I have all these colors of card stock. Then the star arm triangels can can be different colored patterned, yet coordinated paper. This is what I had in mind anyway. Also this would go faster and be easier to cut. I could possibly try some blue papers, winter themed for these too, not so in your face Christmas colors. I have so much paper colors to do this with, retro colors, blues, etc. this will be fun and I think I will cut some paper tonight for this. It's a funny thing, this is simple to do with the paper, but you have to select, cut and apply. I did some sets like this last year, one sold. But I'm not sure why more people dont' do this? I will show you some when I get them done. I have a template picked out for the star. I just need to decide how many will be in a set and how many to do. When I do these, I will also take care of my wood cut shapes I sawed and the sleighs I painted because these all sort of need the same things done to them.
Etsy: I lowered the price on all the metal ornaments. I reavulated what I'm trying to do with those, and that is, recoup the cost of them and make a dollar or two, not a killing. So, I think having them under $10.00 is good and we'll see what happens. No one has "Favorited" any of the new graphic angel designs, might be too early, we'll see what evolves.
Grocery SHopped yesterday including getting some things for THanksgiving, ran three loads of laundry today, cooked dinner food. DId the swiffer dusting upstairs, washed the hand wash items and mailed two Etsy orders, ran the DW, also been trying to pick up/cleanup throw away scraps of paper, this and that from my major printing, cutting, measuring shennanigans.!
Hope you're doing okay there!
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