All posts by Sylvia

Crafting

Where Have I Been?

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In a black hole of depression, that’s where. After “The Road Trip From (To) Hell”, I just kept getting more and more stressed. When that happens, I shut down. To add frosting to the crap cake my life became, my son moved in with me because he quit his job – the tavern he worked at closed its doors a month later – and lost his apartment (included with his job) and wound up, after a bitter battle with his daughter’s mother with whom he had been staying, homeless.

He did find a new job, but his start date kept getting pushed back and of course with no income, he needed to borrow (read – be gifted) money just until he started. He did eventually start his job. He was driving my old car to and from work. He offered $200 for it and then promptly traded it in for a car he can’t afford. His justification was he quit smoking and that the $300 a month he was spending on cigarettes would fund the car payments. Lies.

At least he likes this job. No more cooking. He has benefits! He’s never before had health insurance, and dental insurance, and sick leave, and vacation! Wow! Other than having a Covid scare, he hasn’t missed work or called in hungover. Even better, he’s not living with me.

I thought I was holding it together fairly well, until I totally lost my cool while giving a tour to strangers and potential members of the maker space I belong to. I then decided to take some alone time and not interact with too many people. So far it’s been working. I’m better. I got my sleep re-regulated so I now get longer unbroken hours of sleep. I’m not spending my days dozing on the couch.

Hopefully, I will post more regularly. I’m sorry for having gotten your hopes up last summer when I said I would post more regularly. Thank you for your patience.

About me, Crafting

When Smoke Gets In Your Eyes…

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…and lungs, and hair, and the air filter in the furnace because your using the fan to help circulate air from the window AC. I left the fan on when I went away for three weeks. When I came back the filter was seriously clogged from the wildfire smoke. I changed the filer and three weeks later changed it again. It was not as bad as the first but still worse than when I run the furnace for a month.

It was funny because the filter is rated to up to 90 days. It’s only been 18 days since I changed the filter and its about due to be changed. But you know, climate change isn’t really a thing. Yeah, and my sarcasm knob is turned up as high as it goes and that’s not high enough. I’m just as at fault as everyone else.

I have two ceiling fans going on the main floor and a window fan in the half-story blowing hot air out. The furnace fan pulls cool air from the window AC when it’s on and circulates it from the air returns along with air it pulls in from outside through the ground floor.

I drive too much. I would drive less but not every bus will get me where I need to go even with walking some distance. I do try to consolidate trips and confine them to one area at a time. The city revised the bus system so there are now fewer routes that just circle the city and some of the places I could go by bus within an hours time take almost twice as long because there’s no longer a direct bus.

Well, back to business. There will be more crafting news coming. The problems I’ve been having are just about resolved. I should have more time now. There is still a lot of smoke in the air. Breathing is rough. Eventually, the fires will burn out and the air will clear, until next time.

Crafting, Paper Crafts

Faux Leather for journal covers

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Only two members showed up for my faux leather session. We were turning paper grocery bags into a leather textured material for journal covers.

There are a number of videos on YouTube and several blog posts about the process. The technique we used consisted of opening a bag’s seam, smoothing it somewhat flat, and trimming it into a rectangle. Then it was sprayed either with plain water or a mixture of water and a softening agent such as glycerin, hair conditioner, or hand lotion. We used hair conditioner mixed one part conditioner to two parts water in a spray bottle.

After spraying the paper, we crumpled it and squeezed it in several different directions to form wrinkles of varying sizes. We smoothed our papers, sprayed the paper with more of the conditioner mixture, and crumpled the paper again. We smoothed and sprayed and crumpled until we were satisfied with the texture.

Our next step was to smooth the paper, and dab diluted acrylic paint in various shades of brown onto the surface with cosmetic sponges and brushes. We used a heat gun to damp dry the paper and apply more paint. Once we were satisfied with how our sheets looked, we used a heat gun to dry the base.

Once the surface was dry, a couple of coats of Mod Podge were applied to give a shine like finished leather to the paper, allowing each coat to dry before applying the next coat.

The faux leather is somewhat fragile and should be lined with something like muslin or even paper. The lining should be glued on with a glue such as Beacon 3-in-1 or Aleene’s Fabric Fusion if using fabric or Aleene’s Tacky Glue if using paper as a lining. I also advise sewing the faux leather and lining together around the edges after trimming the piece to the size you want.

The faux leather can be used as a binding for a journal. It can be cut into shapes for embellishments. And with care, can be used for earrings if a stronger sealant is used on both sides. It won’t be something to be used for items that get a lot of handling or wear, but you can experiment and find out what works.

A sheet of Faux Leather from a grocery bag.
A journal covered in Faux Leather.
Stuff

Smoke gets in your eyes…

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…lungs, furnace filters, air conditioner filters, car engines, and other things. The Canadian wildfires are wreaking havoc everywhere. In my case, the smoke is triggering asthma attacks. I’m a coughing asthmatic, not a wheezer. I don’t have regular attacks because I’m generally as active as a slug. But all the smoke in the air caused me breathing problems.

So I cough. And then my chest hurts, but not bad enough to go to the doctor. Right now all the windows except one are shut. That one has a fan to send the hot air upstairs out. I’ve been running the furnace fan to help circulate air. It does pull air from outside so I’ve had to change the filter sooner than normal. I was gone for a couple of weeks and when I checked the filter, it was a serious mess, almost completely clogged.

The filter is changed now and we’ve had a little rain. The air quality alerts have been cancelled. However, with the fires still raging, air quality may go down again. Eventually, the fires will die down, but the cycle will repeat.

Mostly me

Not So Cheap Movie Remake

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I was on a road trip with two of my sisters. We’ve been across the top of the country and have visited several National Parks. We visited friends of mine in Oregon and our brother and his family in Southern California. The car was fine all the way across the country from Florida to Ohio to Wisconsin to Oregon.

Nobody seemed to be able to fix the problem the damned 2017 Hyundai Sonata was having that my sister was driving us in. The problem started with either bad gas or a vapor lock and stranded us on a highway just outside of Medford OR. Since the car is under warranty, we went to the closest Hyundai dealer. We used up two of my AAA tows for that one because the car had to be stored at the tow yard overnight and then towed to the dealership in the morning. The tow driver dropped up off at a La Quinta after determining that they had a room available. The dealership got us on the road that day, but they failed to replace the dipstick they removed to check the oil.

The car had worked fine while we were in California and we headed out for Las Vegas. We spent five days at our brother’s but since two of us are allergic to dogs and he has four big ones, we had to leave earlier than we planned. California was a lot cloudier and colder than we expected with temperatures in the mid-60’s. We had packed for warm, sunny California.

Once in Las Vegas, the car seemed to work fine. We saw sights, took in a show and decided to head for home via Salt Lake City where our sister wanted to show us around. The second time the car failed happened right after we stopped for gas before leaving Las Vegas.

The car started sputtering and shaking. We barely made it onto the shoulder before the car died. We had to call the state cops who blocked the right hand lane because otherwise we might’ve gotten side-swiped by a semi, we were that close to the road. It cost me another tow. All this time my sister was claiming her roadside assistance as accidentally canceled.

The car was towed to a Hyundai dealership. The second dealership had to keep the car overnight. We got towed there late in the day and they couldn’t get to it until the next day. They called a Lyft to take us to Enterprise car rental so we’d have transportation. We made arrangements for a room at a casino in Downtown Las Vegas. We got a cheap rate for a Monday night.

The next day, we vacated the hotel room and drove to the dealership. They had not figured out what the problem was. The diagnostic computer couldn’t find the problem. One of their techs took the car out and drove it, but no problems showed up. They told us it was probably just a vapor lock and not to overfill the gas.

So we transferred our luggage and stuff from the rental to the care and went to turn in the rental. After that, we stopped to get some water and prepared to get on the road.

And the car died 100 yards away, while we were crossing the parking lot. We waited in the nice hot Vegas heat for two hours for the new tow. Mostly listening to my sister rant on the phone to Hyundai Customer Care and the second dealer did not replace the dipstick either because they were out. While my sister was talking to Hyundai Customer Service – big guts, not the locals, she found out she did have towing. Thanks a lot, because I’m out and if I need a tow before my next renewal in March, I’ll have to pay. She said she would reimburse me, but I honestly have no hope of that happening.

So there I was with my sisters in the third hotel we’ve been in, in Las Vegas, living in a bizarre remake of “Groundhog Day” minus Bill Murray, with the hotels changing every second time I wake up. Luckily we extended our stay another day because the car still is not ready. Maybe tomorrow. I kept hoping that I’ll wake up in my own bed having dreamed this entire road trip.

Home now. Finally. I decided to drive the car after the GPS took my sister off the highway and routed her 30 miles off-course because of construction on a section of the highway to my house. I hadn’t been paying attention and looked up from my book to find her driving around some small town.

Mostly me, Stuff

Wyrd Sisters Road Trip.

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My sisters have been planning a road trip for months to go to visit relatives out west. I’ve been fighting the idea for months. There are my health issues to contend with. (Did I just end a sentence with a preposition? Shades of fifth grade English! Or whenever. I have the stone tablet somewhere.)

Back to the subject at hand (such highfalutin language. I had to look that up.) Must be 4am or so. Asides aside, I’m not fond of the idea of leaving my safe zone. Sitting in a car for days at a time with people I barely like is not my idea of fun. The offspring thinks it’s a good idea. He’ll be around to watch things and get the mail.

At any rate, the sisters are here since I’m a logical stop on the way.

Craft Fairs, Paper Crafts

The sale went great.

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I did well with sales. Some of the vendors had large objects so they undoubtably made more money from a single sale than I did with my many little ones, but I was pleased with the results. I finally found the right venue for selling one of a kind books.

I feel I had enough products to give people choices of styles and sizes and a good variety of book types from sketchbooks, to journals, to zines with different types of binding methods and pages. No one bought the faux leather journal, but that’s okay. There were questions about it and several people expressed an interest in my book making classes.

All in all, I feel I had a successful and profitable sale.

Crafting, Mostly me

I wanted to take it easy today.

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However, I was looking for my cash box which I wrongly remembered as being in the basement. When I didn’t find it there, I went up to the closet in the main room of the half-story. Big mistake. It was like finding a pirate’s hoard, except it was just stuff. I have three air mattresses up there. I found boxes and bins of forgotten yarn.

I already have too many bins of yarn under my bed, and in small bins stashed on shelves of one of three bookcases in the living room. Plus there was a big box of yarn upstairs that was not hidden away. Fortunately, I only have to hold on to the yarn upstairs until the next prison yarn drive. There’s a program that teaches inmates to knit and crochet. I’ve donated lots of yarn for three years. I swear it multiplies in the bins.

I found many treasures up there. Handmade dolls and toys including a couple of dolls I made for my son when he was a toddler. There were dolls I made my youngest granddaughter. And all kinds of art projects from both of them that are carefully put away. I found an entire bin of my granddaughter’s art work that she made on our Saturday afternoons together. I plan to bind them into several books – there are a lot of drawings and paintings.

I did not find my cash box which was the entire reason for the treasure hunt. I did get everything put away and a bit better organized. The yarn got moved to the front so I don’t forget it. I searched a different part of the basement, but didn’t find the cash box there either.

So off to the garage again. I had moved the bins that I previously thought were missing. If I had labelled them, they would not have been missing since they were clearly visible as storage containers, but not as craft show containers. I found the cash box.

I’m making a list for what I need for set-up on Friday, double-checking that everything is priced and in the app for the card reader so I don’t have to use a calculator. It took a couple of hours to verify everything and get additional labels made. There are still a few things to do tomorrow like getting the display items gathered, but for the most part, I am done.

I used the weed whacker to clean out cracks in the concrete part of the driveway and started edging the asphalt and prepping for crack filler. I also used critter repellant in my flower pots because the chipmunks and squirrels were digging in them. Then I mowed the backyard and arranged the furniture.

Now I need to set things up to get an idea of how my displays will look and to swap out containers and supports as needed. I have two days.

Crafting, Stuff

Pricing the items is almost done and other boring news.

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Everything except the zines has a price sticker. I will also have a price list posted with general info. Most of the items I’m taking for the sale fit into one under-the-bed storage bin. The two book planters have their own boxes for transport and the folded page book will fit in a bag. Those three items will be transported in a large tote.

I’m ready to do a set-up in the garage tomorrow so I know what fixtures will fit in the limited space. I’m confined to just 1 table. Normally, I spread out onto at least two, but space is limited to the floor plan I drew up. If the landlord allowed us to use the parking lot, I would set up differently, but we would be required to have additional liability insurance. Our booth fees would have to go up to cover it.

Thursday evening, we will mark the booth locations and set up tables. I’m contributing 4 plus the one I’ll be using. I used to have 7 tables but I gave away two. I don’t have a lot of parties anymore, so I don’t need all the stuff. For instance, I used to be able to feed 50 at a time. I’d invite 40 people to my annual Halloween parties. My current house is half the size of the last place I lived. I didn’t get rid of much, so it’s cozy. At least it’s not hoarder cozy.

Now if I could just remember where I stuck the cash box. I think it’s in the basement because it wasn’t in the bins in the garage. I’ll have to take a look. If I can’t find it, I do have a small cabinet with drawers that I take. I can use the bottom drawer as the cash drawer. Everything is rounded up to include tax so I don’t need coins for change. The cabinet holds business cards, receipt books, the card reader, assorted odds and ends, as well as my seller’s permit and tax ID. Even though I haven’t sold anything due to Covid, I kept my paperwork current.

Now I have to clean the messes I have made and the parts of the house I’ve neglected. It’s not bad. Lawn mowing, refrigerator cleaning, mopping, dusting. The two rooms that are always clean are my bedroom and the bathroom. The rest of the house varies, but the upstairs gets the messiest because that’s where I work. I wind up with paper scraps everywhere. Fun, fun, fun.

Mostly me, Paper Crafts

Now comes the hard part…

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…setting prices for the items I have for sale. The zines and most of the other books are easy to price, the junk journals not so much. Each one is differently sized. They have differing numbers of signatures. Some have cloth covered boards; some have paper covered boards. I’ll figure it out. I have some idea for general pricing.

I’ll do the prep for set-up on Monday. I’ll set the displays just as I want them the days of the sale and take pictures. That way, things will be optimized for my customers. I just hope that the organizer will actually follow the floor plan I drew up for the space. I do have experience setting up vending space inside a room. I don’t have high expectation though. The last I heard there were 21 people signed up for a space that can only hold 14 tables with enough space for potential buyers to move through easily.

In other news, I just found out that the road trip I’m supposed to go on with two of my sisters is supposed to last 6 weeks. No way. I can’t sit in a car for days. I’m prone to blood clots in my legs. They already look like a road map of hell. I can’t imagine them after 6 weeks of car rides. I don’t want to go with my sisters anyway.

Even though they’re younger, they feel free to comment on my life, my eating habits, my (as far as they know) lack of a love life, and my weight. I tried to get out of the trip by using my sick cat, but she died. I’m trying to use the fact that I would have to board the cat I now have. She was temporarily re-homed because she kept attacking the sick one. My friend will keep her while I’m gone. Since I’m providing food, the litter box, toys, and bedding, she says I don’t have to pay her, but I feel I need to give something. She pays me market rates to watch her dog twice a week.

I’m sure my sisters will have opinions on everything else. They learned it from my mother who was oh so nice to me growing up. I’m the oldest, but unwanted. Or at least that’s how I felt my entire childhood. Especially after all the times I was reminded that I wasn’t supposed to have lived past two. After I moved away for college, my bedroom was given away, my stuff was tossed, and yet I was always asked when I was coming back home. I did once when I was getting divorced. It was the worst 11 months of my life.

All seven of my siblings are really close. So close in fact, that they have a group chat that I’m not part of. I know this because occasionally, I’ll get included in a reply to a message I never received. I don’t comment. Don’t care enough, but it does hurt a bit sometimes. I realized a long time ago that I’m responsible for my own success and not to wait for anyone in the family to say “good job.” I never know how to react to that anyway.

Now that you’re all depressed for me, here’s a picture of my cat.

Gingersnap, also called Bitey Thing, Ginny, and Gin-gin

She used to be a feral cat and was adopted by my son. He left her with me when he moved into a no-pets apartment. I’ve told him he can’t have her back even though he can now have a pet.

Y’all have a good day, now.