 At least I think it's still morning. As I said yesterday, we are, where is she? There we, she is. We're dog sitting for the kids. She's not happy right now because she's left home alone with grandma. Grandpa left and went to the gym without her. God forbid. So anyway, she's crying. Upstairs, I think, I think the resin tumbler I've been working on for my sister's friend is finally done. I was trying to get a good seal around the upper edge, which I think I finally managed to accomplish without even getting anything inside the cup that I have to cut out, which is like shocking. Anyway, I think it's done. I do have some random tumblers downstairs. I do think I'm gonna try to sell. I'll put some pictures here. So if you're interested, some of them are very much imperfect and maybe only good to hold your paint brushes, but they're for sale regardless. And let me know if you are interested. I think I'm gonna be moving this stack of less than attractive things. And I'm either going to be pushing my paint cart into that spot when I'm not using it if it fits. Or I have a couple of stacks of plastic drawers, iris cart drawers that might work there. That would be a little cleaner looking than that stack. So I think I might be sort of mulling that over today, pulling some things out and seeing what works and maybe what doesn't. And yeah, I think that's gonna be one of my projects today. First, I'm gonna check on social media. I'm gonna sit and have some water, turn the fan on up here, it's a little warm, wet, swiffer the floor, you know, all the things for the things. All right, I'll be back. So to my surprise, I didn't purge anything. I put all the resin stuff in the closet and if I'm not using it all the time, it doesn't have to be out in the room. I do it every now and then. Again, as I've said, I'm thinking about like not playing with it much at all and getting rid of some of it, but the cup for my sister's friend is done. So I'm gonna wash that out and let her know it's ready and get it in the mail sometime next week. I moved my paint cart, where are we? There we go, into the space. It fits perfectly and then it's not over here, clogging the floor over here and it doesn't need to be out unless I'm working on the easel. So that was perfect and I really just moved things around and it seemed to, for me, declutter a lot. So love that. I have to print the packing slip for an Etsy order, rinse out the purple cup for my sister's friend. I need to transfer those dies that I made the leftover into other jars or put more fabric in or something and I need to spool all the fabric that's dry now. But yeah, I think I'm gonna just take a break for a minute and I'll be back. Hey guys, so it's 1249, it's still Sunday. I almost forgot, I promised the kids I'd go and check on their mail and water a couple of plants while they were gone. So they're out of town for a couple of days. Good morning. I've still lost track of what I've done today, or not done. It is 1146 a.m., still morning technically. I have been up packaging orders that I'm now going out to go drop off. I will also say it's kind of weirdly surreal. Adjust the camera, there we go. Weirdly surreal that finally after like two months, I think it's finally time to put gas on my car again. I know for a fact that's not just us, right? We're not the only ones experiencing that where two or three months go by and then you finally have to fill the car up. We can't possibly be the only one. So Bob took Lily Bean out for a walk. We call her Bean because she's like a little jumping bean. For those that don't know, we also call her Spaz and Lily No Grass. So anyway, he took her out for a walk. It's disgustingly hot outside. My, me and my asthma do not like that. So we're staying in the house. I must not have been meant to walk today because I completely forgot to put my Fitbit on at all today. I don't know. It usually sits inside my shirt right here, FYI. Yeah, that's like the first time in like years that I forgot to put my Fitbit on. That's very strange. Anyway, it is, what time is it? 11, 17 a.m., Tuesday, July 21st. I got done a few minutes ago with today's live broadcast. We did some more slow stitching and we worked on, where'd I put it? I just put it down, a holy cow. We worked on finishing the slow stitch cactus that we started last week, which is, this is it done. And it's been pressed and mounted to a board and signed on the back. Am I gonna sell it? I don't know, but it's all ready to go to be framed at some point. Also, I don't remember now if I showed this or not, but I got this in the mail the other day, another embroidery book that was recommended. I'm really liking this one. So far I'm happy with all the ones that I bought that have slow stitching and hand stitching and embroidery stitches on them. They're really great reference books. I've actually made a pile in here over that way. I'm going to be working next on, have a bunch of stuff here lined out on the computer desk. Maybe working on a natural dye journal or a DIY dye journal that will include swatches of different colors of fabrics that I've managed to get, both with natural dyes and watered-down ink. I've printed out some stuff I want to paste in about references to what colors I can get supposedly from which things, and I'll be working on that later. It's laid out here on the computer desk. I'm not sure why. I may try to do a Zoom chat with my art friends later while I'm working on it. So that's probably why it's like that. Storying in my life right now. Corona brain, holy cow. I turned off the computer too fast so I'm putting it back up again because I need to do one more thing on it before I turn it off for the day. I did get the little reference journal done. Oops, I hope myself in the face. Fabric coloring experiments. And easier if we do this. So I'm writing down websites that I'm referencing for which I've printed some of the material out and pasted it in the front of the book. I left a little bit of space, like a page and a half. And then these are the different experiments I've tried. So for each item of colorant I've tried, I'm gonna put in some swatches of the finished fabric and trim. And I'm gonna make some notes. And of course I decided to add some doodles because that just made it soup so much cuter. And of course the doodles have to do with whatever the material was that I've dyed the fabric with. It's not as easy as you think to turn these pages. So that isn't the last one. Nope, that one. Even the one that's ink I left out, debated putting that one in here but I decided to leave it in. And then I added a little bit of that really thin masking tape. We've used this before on some of my homemade reference books. Because again, I just think that makes the book more interesting. So that will just be there for a while. I need some more vinegar before I do any more experiments. I'm headed out for a walk before dinner. Doesn't really make any difference if we go now or we go later. It's hotter that I'm comfortable with regardless. So we're gonna go for a walk and get a few steps in. I'm walking through the neighbor's sprinklers. Anyway, take crazy pants out. Get her to burn off some energy and see what we can see. Morning everybody. It is Wednesday morning, 947 a.m. I only know that because of the clock in the car. I think it's still July 22nd but to be fair, I'm not actually sure. As usual, not that that's anything now. I wish I could blame it on the pandemic but I'm feeling in good conscience. So I am headed over to the kids house. I need to water the plants. I haven't done that since Sunday and it's been hot. It is significantly cooler this morning than it's been. So I think maybe our heat wave that we're having broke a bit and you know, heat wave for Portland is anything above like 85. So hopefully it's broke. I don't know. We'll see. It's about 10 degrees cooler this morning than it was this time yesterday. So we'll find out. Anyway, I got the Etsy order. It was a small one so I got it in the mailbox over here. I've got some mail for the kids that came to my house for whatever reason. So I'm gonna bring that and drop that off at their house while I'm over there. Put it on the kitchen counter. Guys, we are headed out for our walk before dinner. We still have crazy. So I kind of talked the husband into not going to the gym and coming walking instead, you know, I go for a walk and then make dinner afterwards, get some vitamin D, do a safe distancing thing. I have a secret project I'm working on that I can't talk about, but send me some good vibes. Let's hope it works out. And I got some, got all kinds of stuff stuffed in my bra. I know that's TMI, but guys, it is Thursday, the 23rd of July, I believe. It's 2.39 PM. I haven't checked in before today, before now because I was fiddling all morning with my silhouette portrait. I have a silhouette portrait, like the original, not portrait one or portrait two, like just portrait. I've had it for a long time, although I've had it for a long time. I haven't used it more than maybe a dozen times or so, maybe a couple dozen at the most. It's unplugged a lot in the closet. Every time I do use it, it seems like the alignment on it is an issue every single time. Generally, I can figure a workaround and or fix it. I even had tech support on with me today. And the short story is I have an appointment at noon on Monday with some kind of IT head tech support guy. It was already worn. He's probably gonna want remote access to my computer. That's not happening. So unless he can help me figure it out without that, I don't know. Okay, people. So there's a fabulous young lady on YouTube. Her name is Kahlia Ravai. Hopefully I pronounced that correctly. Kahlia, if I got it wrong, please let me know. She's got a really great channel that I am loving. Her content's super interesting, but she helped me with my silhouette issue I was having today. I was like five hours on chat with silhouette and they couldn't help me. And they said they had to get back to me Monday. It was something as simple as turning on, where are we? Yeah, turning on the studio light because the sensor in the machine was too dark and it couldn't read the registration marks. That's all it was. I love her. Love her channel. Thank you so much. Yeah, let's all go show her some love and support and she's got 647 subscribers. Maybe at the very least we can help her get to 1,000. I would love that. All right, I'm gonna cut my stickers out. I'll be back. Hey everybody, so it is Friday, July 24th, 943 a.m. Don't get excited, I'm looking at the computer. Hello. Y'all remember when a few months ago when this whole apocalypse thing first started happening and I found out that my local postal lady passed away at the little post office annex place that I had my PO box and that the whole store as a whole was moving and when they do move, they're not taking the post office part with them. So I had to get a new PO box. So I just went down to the main post office and got a new PO box. I changed all the addresses everywhere except my business cards. I've been sending them out with the Etsy orders for months. If you got one of these or one of these and the address is 116th Avenue, it's not the right address, FYI. So I ordered new business cards today. I printed some labels with the new address on them to edit some of the cards. Sometimes a little slow on the uptake, I know. Anyway, I'm upstairs. I got that done. I'm gonna work on some more sticker sets and then I'm going to pack one Etsy order that came in overnight and I'm gonna try making some more fabric dye. We're gonna try this time sage with the mordant being iron. I have a couple of little pots I keep up here in the art room for cooking non-food items in when I'm doing art stuff. So I'm gonna grab one of those. I have some rusty metal bits, hopefully some of its iron and put that in their pot, the smaller of the two pots. And then the little bit of sage I bought at the store last night and some water and boil it for a couple hours and see what happens. So you're supposed to get a gray green. We'll find out. I'll be back. Okay, that loud obnoxious noise is the silhouette. We're cutting some more stickers, which I got designed today, printed today. We're cutting today. Boy, am I surprised. I got the new business cards ordered. I got a bunch of stickers to put on the old ones and edit the old ones printed. I got some Google documents created and shared with admins for different groups for 2021. Yeah, we're already planning 2021, I know, right? And I'm gonna work on getting all of these new stickers printed, well, they're printed, cut and packaged and listed in the Etsy store today. I also still have to wrap up that one Etsy sale, which I have, but I need to go check the PO box. So maybe we can just drop it off a little over there. It's a simple, small little thing that'll fit in a small envelope. So I think that's it. I can't think of anything else. We need to go over to the kid's house and water the plants, drop off some mail. I need to get some more printer ink at Staples and check on the PO box and mail that Etsy will never sell. We're gonna try to do that, I think. Anyway, that's a lot. I'm gonna get to it, I'll be back. Hey guys, so if you're seeing this footage, you saw the footage of me boiling some sage and rusty metal bits on the stove. In one of my pots I used for that, it's not a food pot. And we'll see what happens. I've got my doubts, but we'll see. We're gonna go for a walk. I'm gonna see if I can collect some flower petals in some of the public places where it's okay to do so. Got a bag. And get some steps in and yeah. Then I think we're having shrimp tacos for dinner. So it's all good. All right, on. Will we get red? I don't know. These are kind of a dark pink. So, I don't know. Still looking for blue. I heard red cabbage does blue. I might have to pick some up next time I go to the store. I got a few Oregon blackberries too. That's a surprise, because I almost never find them before the deer and other wildlife gets them. So, yay. Now, we can see what color those get. Maybe red, maybe purple. I don't know. But we're gonna go home now. I need to wash my hands. Now I'm hungry, need some dinner. I'll be back. 25th of July, I believe. And I spent a couple hours this morning chatting with a group of admins from Facebook art groups and working out some plans for next year and some plans going forward. We did some major cleaning up in the two art groups I'm part of, deleting a bunch of old files and old content, editing some more stuff. And my thing has been dinging, so I think we're still working on it. If you find that you're in those groups and you're missing something that used to be there and you're looking for something that you can't find, tag me or one of the other admins in a post and we'll see if we can put it back for you. What else? I am boiling rose petals in that pot and the blackberries in that pot. The rose petals, they're dead now. Anyway, we're gonna let them simmer for a couple of hours. I'm gonna turn the blackberries up just a little bit, turn the rose petals down just a little bit. We want things to be bubbly and simmery without boiling over or evaporating too much. We want a little bit of evaporation, but not too much. So that one looks awfully like dark red purple, although I heard I might get a blue. And then this one, I don't know what this one's gonna do. I heard pink or red. I can tell you right now, it looks like most of the color has leached out of the rose petals like right away, but I don't know what's gonna happen. I guess we'll find out. All right, I'll be back. I forgot with the rose petals. One of the notes that I have on making diet of roses says to put some lemon in there to get a really like sort of a nice brilliant pink, ish red color. So I had some frozen lemon juice in the freezer. So I grabbed a small little cube and I stuck it in there. So I don't know what's gonna happen. We'll find out. I got all of the houseplants watered. I got the sourdough starter fed. I'm gonna eat some lunch and then I guess I'll work on laundry. I don't really want to, but it's gotta get done. All right, I'll be back. Just decided to get out of the house for an hour. So we put Lily in her crate and just go for a drive. We drove down to McMinnville again and stopped at Gold Rush coffee again. I got the white chocolate lavender frappuccino. That's what it is. It's something like that. Blended, blended with whipped cream because, you know, it's the apocalypse so why not? So we're gonna head towards home. I wanna stop and get some red cabbage and beets to do some fabric dyeing. Fun fact, at least the beets I know Fred will eat. So they won't go to waste. I just want the water anyway. So that's what's brought up too. What are you up to this fine Saturday afternoon? I'd love to know. I'll be back. We also decided to stop at Fred Meyer so I could get beets and red cabbage. I spoke about earlier, but on the way home as we were driving home, we stopped at the Redberry Barn and we got some local honey and some, Bob got some barbecue sauce. But they have a, it seems like a really great bakery of both regular bakery items and gluten free bakery items. We have somebody in the family who's gluten free. Ice cream and they have gold jams, pasta sauces, all kinds of stuff. Besides a garden center and a whole coffee shop. So we'll be going back. We keep meeting to stop in there and get something and look around and we haven't done it to almost two years and we haven't done it until today, but we did do it today. And literally there was nobody else there but us. So maintaining social distance and all that wasn't a problem. So happy to stop in and buy a couple of things. We'll be back. Okay guys, so I've been making dye all weekend. You can barely see this one on camera. This is the sage and rusty metal. This is the wild blackberries, roses, pink and red roses, beets, the beet roots and then the beet stems. Now, when I did the beet roots, I did them like I was gonna cook them to eat them because my husband I found out today likes beets. Like after 36 years how I didn't know that anyway. So the water came out in my opinion a little brown but what I did was after I peeled and cut the beets once they were cooked, I saved some of the little skins and so I put some in here ready and I've got some more over here. We're gonna put them in the beet water and just it's still warm. So I'm gonna let it soak overnight and see if it gets more red but I'm gonna give you little swatches here. I might put one of the little these little bags in the stem water too and I'll show you why. So first this is the sage and rusty metal. This is what I don't even know if you're gonna be able to see that on camera. Can you even see that? That's just a quick dip with paper towel. We won't of course know for sure to always stick fabric in here what's gonna happen. This is the wild black organ blackberries. Look at that color. And I don't think you're even catching the full vibrancy of it on camera. Let's see, this is the roses. So it came out very sort of lightish pink. It's a pretty pink. I can't wait to see what it looks like on fabric. So this is the beets. Oh, I closed that too tight. Okay, and this is the beets stems. So again, I put one or two little bags already of beet leftovers in here. But see, it turned out very sort of orangey color which I didn't really expect it like it to be more red. So I'm gonna put a couple of these, more of these in here and hope that they sort of soak into the water and make it more red. And this is the beet stems, the stems and the leaves which is like super light, barely any color, almost pink. So we're gonna take this last one and put that in there because the just cut up beet parts, that's what I'm hoping to get something closer to that. So, and downstairs we have the cabbage which is very, very purple. So I think we're gonna let that boil and then turn it off while it's cooling, go for a walk and then see what we get, I'll be back. Okay, it's only been a few minutes and the beets, the beet bits are making a big difference to the color of the dye. This is the beet root, this is the beet stem. This is a little bit better swatches for you all. This is the roses. I guess I should, I could turn some more lights on. Let's see, wait a minute. There we go. Okay, beet root, stems, beet root, roses which is, you know, that's about the same color. Look at this is the wild blackberries, look how red that is. And then this is the sage and rusty metal. And then I'm gonna start a picture here of the red cabbage which is very, very blue-purple. Pretty cool. Now I can't wait to put fabric on all of these and see what happens. Manana. All right, the husband and dog went out for a walk. I opted not to do that. The husband and dog went out for a walk. I opted not to go with him because the cabbage is still boiling and all of that stuff. So, yeah, I'm going up and down the stairs a million times, I'm getting plenty of steps in today. All right, I'll be back. I'm filming this on the iPad because hubby's got my phone. I needed to come upstairs to not only close out the vlog but I got, can you even see that? I don't think you can. So, sorry about that. I got the first batch of fabrics. Where are we here? Can you tell I don't film with my iPad anymore? Here we go. I got my first batch of fabrics and trim into the dies. So in a couple of days, we'll see what the colors actually turn out to be. I got alum and vinegar in all of the dies, my mordant and fixative. And we'll see what happens. Six of them. I usually do like two or three at a time. I've got six. I actually didn't quite have enough container so I just ground for containers. So that's new for me. So anyway, it has been a fun week. Well, oops, you're sliding. It's been an interesting week. Hello, coronavirus. Things, I live in a Portland suburb, for those that don't know. So things in Portland are interesting right now. Yes, my husband and I are safe. And so is our daughter and her husband. I almost said fiance, they're married. And our other adopted sort of daughter, Jenny and her husband, Brian, they're all fine. But, you know, we aren't going to downtown Portland. We're all being safe and cautious and we're not going out if we don't have to and all of those things. But yeah, holy cow. Anyway, I hope you are all doing well. And if you have any questions, comments or concerns, please leave them down below. Or if you're in one of my art Facebook groups, you can tag me in a post over there. And if you tag me in it, I put my name in there that guarantees I'll see it. Otherwise, there's a chance I might miss it. I try to really keep on top of things, but, you know, I'm only human. You know, we're making some changes in the group for the coming year, but also some of them might affect the rest of 2020. You know, pardon my French, 2020 is a shit show, so I want to change things up a bit. You know, it can only be for the better. If you guys have any things in the Facebook art groups in particular you'd like to see, please let us know. Again, tag me or one of the other admins over there. And yeah, we will make sure to address as much as we can. If you want to support the free content on my channel or over in the Facebook art groups, and not only my content, there's a lot of really great creatives out there both on YouTube and in the Facebook art groups. And if you want to support the free content, they're bringing out, most of us have a way you can do that whether it's a PayPal tip jar or an Etsy shop or a Patreon or something. And it's usually in the video description here on YouTube, but if you can't find it, message the creator, content creator, and if you're in the Facebook art groups and you can't find a way to support, you know, private message to the person through Facebook and or tag them in a post. And you know, we would love the support. It takes a lot to do all these videos and creative content. So we would love the support. What else? I think that's it for this week. Stay safe, stay healthy, stay creative. Don't forget to go out and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it. I'm going to shut off my computer now. I'm going to go downstairs. I'm going to let the dice soak for a few days before I rinse them off. So if you want to see what those look like before the vlog, follow me on social media because believe me, I will be putting pictures out there on social media and I will be adding them to my little swatch book I'm creating. So there you go, there's a tip. All right, that's it right now guys. I am going to go sit down stairs and relax with the husband and enjoy an evening, cook dinner and all that stuff. And I will see you in the next vlog. Bye guys.