 Hi there. I'm Sandy Olnok and I bring you the three most common mistakes that paper crafters make. Mistake number one is selling yourself short. A lot of people do this. I see you put something before you put your work out there. You say, I'm no artist, but here's what I have. I'm no Sandy Olnok, but I colored this. I'm no this person, but I watercolor that. You really don't want to sell yourself short before you get started. You, my friend, if you make things, you are an artist. And I would love to hear us start using that term more than paper crafter because paper crafting is just one expression of artistry. If you make things, you're an artist. You're just down a different place in the spectrum than other people. There are folks way ahead of me, and I am striving to one day be able to say I'm as good as them. We all are reaching and stretching and growing, but it doesn't make us any less of an artist. So don't sell yourself short. Mistake number two is handicapping yourself on your tools. A lot of people will try to buy the most inexpensive thing they can possibly get away with to achieve an effect on a project. And I'm going to tell you that my paper trimmer I bought almost nine years ago is still trimming straight and true. And my scissors are still working just perfectly because I bought good ones when I first bought them. And they're lasting me a long time and they're helping me to be a better artist as I'm creating my projects. There are other specialty things. And I know we can't all afford all of them. That's why I buy them and I test them out to share with you so you can decide what you want to purchase and what you want to try. But if you invest once in a while, once in a while in one of those things, don't try to invest in everything, but get one of them and work with it and practice with it and commit yourself to get good at it. If you're going to use watercolors, get a good set of watercolors. Don't think that just because you're going to steal your kids watercolors out of their backpack that you're going to have the same results as Don Will Slagle. It's just not going to happen because you need good supplies in order to achieve a good result. If you want to know my basic list of supplies and all the stuff that I use, it's on my products page. There's a link in the description under this video. If you want to see what any of those things that I recommend are, they're the things that work for me. Mistake number three is pinning and organizing instead of doing. All right, can you get an amen out there from anybody? I know a lot of you spend all your time watching videos, reading blog posts, check in Instagram, watching periscopes, and you don't actually make anything. Or else you spend all of your time making labels and swatch sheets and charts for everything you own. And it may look beautiful in your room, but you haven't made anything with it. Getting better as an artist requires practice. That requires actually time doing the things. You have to not just collect the things, but do the things. To help with all of this, I am launching today a free public online card class called Go For The Gold. This is going to be on my blog. It's open. You don't have to register. You just go to my blog and it's going to be there. The first lesson today is on the Ellen Hudson blog, but it's linked from my blog just to make it all easier. So you can get the link in the doobly-doo down below. The reason for this gold class is that a lot of the gold products that you may want to purchase, I've purchased some of them in the wintertime before and they got all goopy and separated when I got them in the mail. So you want to purchase them before all that winter weather hits. So that's why I wanted to make sure I get this class out there good and early, so you have time to get them. And I also wanted you to know that they were sent discount for you for the duration of this class. All the information on that is on my blog post linked in the doobly-doo down below. All the information you need to know for the entire week is going to be on the blog. I'm hoping that this class will help you with all three of the things that I mentioned. Maybe you're going to start calling yourself an artist. Maybe you'll stop handicapping yourself on supplies and just perhaps you'll start making something because there are prizes for those who participate. Alrighty, I'll see you guys over on the blog. Take care. Bye.