 the end of the day. It's Thursday, September 28th, I think. The whole day has gone by like in a blur. I forgot to film anything for the vlog until just now. I have spent some time today doing some acrylic pouring. I'll insert some clips here somewhere for you. And chit chatting with my good friend Cindy Utter and planning some more stuff for next year. It's time for me to make a salad for dinner. And I'm working on the laundry and you know, just the whole day has gone by in a blur. I did the dishes. Oops, sorry. I did the dishes. Yeah, so anyway. It's just gone by in a blur. It's just, yeah, I don't know. I have tons of video to edit. I haven't edited any of it yet. I guess I'm doing that this weekend. Anyway, I hope you guys all had a great Thursday and we'll be back tomorrow. It's my husband's birthday. So I don't think we're doing anything super fancy. I think he's wanting to stay home and barbecue and I'm gonna let him. All right, I'll see you later. Hey guys, it is Friday. Yeah, Friday. It's the 29th of September. It's my husband's birthday. Happy birthday, Bob. And he took the day off of work. So he's home here. He's in the office and listening to a podcast or something and we went out to the grocery store and got the stuff he wants to have for dinner tonight and we're just having a quiet weekend day at home and we're gonna, I'm gonna catch up on the laundry and I'm editing video. And yeah, just, you know, we haven't done anything. I got, I did get my steps in. Yay. That's my goal is get my steps in, lose a few pounds. I'd like to get rid of this giant like neck that has grown since I've not only gained weight but been on the steroid medications, not helping and menopause is not helping. Anyway, I'm working on it. I'm trying. That's it really. I'm not gonna probably get a lot of art done today because the acrylic pores that I just did last night are drying and I'll try to include some clips here. I did shoot a little bit of footage of me creating the pores. So I'll insert that here in the vlog and you guys can see what that was like and they turned out really great. I think I finally have the hang or at least semi, semi hang, the whole acrylic pouring thing. But I was really happy with the way they turned out and it's a lot of fun and it's, you know, it's a fun way to use up some paint and I'm also updating my Apple products because evidently there's yet another iOS update. Just again, anyway. All right, that's it for right now. I will be back later if the kids are coming over for dinner and they're bringing Lily the little troublemaker. So if she does anything, you know, cute that I can grab the camera out for quick enough, I'll shoot some footage. All right, I'll be back. A little piece for the vlog, you know, because we're like shopping at Costco for dog food and stuff. Any of these like beds or absorbent pads or like he would just eat them most of the time. I don't think our dog likes me very much unless I give him a bacon treat. And then, of course, we're at Costco, so we need to hit like the snacks if they're having any good ones. Yeah. Oh, that's the Coke Zero, I think. Oh, no, that one was Coke Zero. I don't know what that one is. Lighter? Coconut water. Coconut water. I'll have some of that. Oh, it's very good. Oh, interesting. Kind of tastes like a cross between milk and water. Pillow, doesn't it? Yeah, I was drinking it all. Oh, my gag reflexes. We're starting to feel it. Mmm, that's coconut water. It's not our favorite. Instant coffee and coffee. See, we like coffee. Coffee, tea. Here's your cake cups. Yeah, but we have a lot. No, it's easier for me to just order them from Amazon than to like go shopping around them. Yeah, they have the Emeralds Big Easy Bowl between like, oh, look at that. Okay, I don't even drink anymore, but am I the only one that wants one of these just for the label? Do you have to buy a whole bunch of them? It's a Zinfandel, poison. Yeah, but do you have to buy like a whole case? Can you just buy one? Because then I'll buy one and make you drink it. It's like dollars for a bottle. Can we buy one and will you drink it for me so I can have the label? Because I need that label. I need that label. Yeah, I know. The joys of shopping at Costco, there's like 20 people in every line, holy cow, all the way down. I read online that Costco sells more hot dogs than Major League Baseball does in our season. Not surprised. Because what's the main reason you come to Costco to get a hot dog? It's a $1.50 hot dog. Exactly. And a drink. It's better than $20 at the baseball game. That's absolutely right. And it's probably a bigger hot dog. Richer than a hot dog. Boy, a heartburn. I get a lot of heartburn. I can't eat them anymore. Too much heartburn. Here less than half an hour. Spent 90 bucks. It's another grease from the hot dogs on our way out the door. Fun way to start the day on Saturday, September 30th. I have absolutely no sense of direction. I just want to talk to myself. Uh-uh. You sure we're down here? 100%. Okay. A lot of old cars. If you don't know what that is all to practice up on some other drawing skills. So I have this journal actually that I don't. It's got this really great handmade paper in it. I don't particularly like doing watercolor in it because I'm not crazy about the way it takes the watercolor, but I've been sketching in it and all. But today when I was in the chat, I was on an art chat with Cindy Utter and a few other people. While I was chatting I did this one. And um, yeah just playing and you can get it wet a little bit. And it does really great. Like I got her hair wet a little bit. But if you get the paper too wet, like here I was practicing lips last night. It just kind of bleeds everywhere and looks bad. But like when I redid the lips page and I just did just ink and didn't try to get it wet, it looked better. Yeah, so anyway. So I decided to use that inktober as an excuse too. Practice other drawing skills. And I have some ideas about that going forward. So we'll be discussing them as the week progresses and the month progresses. But if you're doing inktober, I'd love to see what you're doing. And yeah, if you're not doing it, think about it. You don't have to have any particular kind of level of drawing skills. Anyway, I'll try to remember to include a link about that and the sketchbook project in the description below. And that's it for right now. The kids are coming over to borrow our backyard to wash the puppy. Yeah. All right. And I'm going to make some smoked salmon fettuccine for dinner. And I've got to do laundry and stuff. All right. That's it for right now. I'll be back. Hey, guys. It is Tuesday, October. I'm sorry, Monday. Hello. It's been the weirdest Monday, not in a good way. It's Monday, October 2nd. And we woke up this morning to the news of the shooting in Las Vegas, which is shocking enough. And I don't know what you say about that. My heart goes out to everyone affected by the shooting and my prayers go to all of them. But that wasn't the end of the bad news. It's just, it's been one of those days. We found out a friend of ours was arrested last yesterday for drunk driving. And I'm not going to say too much about that. But I hope the person learns from this and gets help that they need. And then there was just a news report that Tom Petty, if Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is, at first he was reported dead. And now I think he's actually in the hospital. He's at a heart attack. He's in intensive care. They don't know if he's going to make it or not. It's just been not a great Monday. Yeah, and there's more to that, but I'm not going to, you know, say a lot on camera, but I did do Inktober day two, which the prompt was divided. And so there is my day two. And I have some laundry to do and no big projects, but I didn't have a lot planned for today and that's probably good because now I'm not known to do much. It's just like I said, one of those days. All right, so that's it for right now. I will be back. Hey guys, it is Tuesday, October 3rd. And I just got done with a Zoom chat with a bunch of art friends. We had a good time. And I made some new watercolor paint. I'll show you in just a second. And also what else did I do? Oh, I did Inktober day three. And yeah, so we had a smoked salmon the other night for dinner. And you know, you're a crazy mixed media artist when you can't even throw the box away without cutting the little fish off the top of the box first. So I did that. I know, right? So I took some nail pigment powder or glitter powder and I mixed it with a little bit of Lindy's Stamp Gang Magicals and I made a teal metallic watercolor. We're going to see after it dries how it is easier enough to re-wet and how it works in its wet form. I got this out of it, which is really cool and worked really well. So we'll see how what it does after it's dry and how easy it is to reconstitute if you get the same pigment load. It does have a little bit of glitter in it. And in this state, I was worried after it dried that the glitter would rub off, which it doesn't. So we'll see. And it lifts really well. If you want to lift some of the pigment out, you can see the little white patch right there. So it lifted really well. So we'll have to see. You have to re-wets. I'll let you guys know it's going to take a day or two. And then I did, intober day three, the prompt was poison. So there you go. And I'm going to go get the mail and have some lunch and do laundry because you know, there's only two of us. I don't know why we use so many towels and we always have so many dirty clothes. I don't understand how we do that. I have to do laundry again. The hamper's full again. So anyway, all right, that's it for right now. I'll be back. Hey guys, it's Wednesday. It's kind of late in the evening. I just had some dinner. The husband's not home yet, so I've been arting. You know, what does one do when you're home alone? And oh, you don't have anywhere you have to be. You do the creative thing, right? Yeah. So I had the impulse to work in my large delusions and look at her. Isn't she cute? She just came out. I don't know. I didn't film her or anything. You know, I'm enjoying remembering to art for me without the camera on. Shocking, I know. And I'm having a lot of fun doing it. So I think that's it though for this evening. I do think I actually need to do a couple chores before people get home. Like empty out the garbage cans because it kind of smell bad and do some laundry. Yeah, probably should start with the garbage cans. All right. That's it for right now. I'll be back. How are you today? It is Wednesday, October 4th, I think. And I have, you know, today is just, it's one of those days where you just are not motivated to do a whole hell of a lot, to be honest. And there's no rhyme or reason about it. I did get on the treadmill like I needed to. I did go get the mail. I did start a journal page here behind me. This is really turning out really interesting. So I can't wait to keep working on that. I'm not exactly sure where it's going, but I do like the direction it's going in. I made this watercolor pigment last night out of some nail glitter and some Lindy's Stampgang Magicals. And I mixed the two together and then I mixed them with enough gum Arabic to make a nice creamy smooth mixture that wasn't too dry and poured easily back into this. This is the little container that the nail glitter came in. And then I added a couple of drops of glycerin to it. One thing in the past I found when making homemade water soluble pigments is a lot of times they crack. And inexpensive pigments do the same thing. So I thought, I wonder if I add a little bit of glycerin to it. I wonder if it will prevent the cracking. I don't know if that's why it didn't crack, but it didn't crack. And although it's completely dry, it feels smooth and creamy. So I'm going to actually put some water in this and see how easily it reconstitutes, which is another thing with dried pigments that you worry about, even with two watercolor paints that you're supposed to be able to rewet. Sometimes they are difficult to rewet. So that's why I started using Oxgall in my water for my watercolors. It makes them easier to rewet and it makes them smoother. So I'm going to put some my watercolor water in here and I'm going to sit for a minute and we're going to see what happens. All right, I'll be back. Got totally distracted. But I don't know if you all are going to be able to see this. I'm going to try to do this left-handed. I'm right-handed, but it rewet super well. The pigment and glitter immediately, just it's only been like a minute, minute and a half. And it's already back to a paint that you can use. And when you take this, look at that. Off the brush. Look at this. Just it's gorgeous. So this is what I did right after I made the paint. And this is already dry. I did this yesterday. And this is what I just did now, which I think I like even better. Oh my goodness, look at that. All those sparkly bits is the nail glitter pigment stuff that I bought and I got it on Wish. Fabulous. And it had a little bit of pigment in it, but then I added some more pigment from one of the Lindy's Magicals I have here in the art room. Love it. Hey guys. Alrighty, on to the next thing. I got to get some stuff done because I just found out a couple minutes ago that I'm puppy sitting again. So that means the little troublemaker will be over and Mr. Krabby pants. And she don't really get along too well. Oh yeah, yeah, she's a cute puppy though. And my husband loves to puppy sit. He really is in love with her. And so when he gets home, I'll just let her take care of him. Anyway, these are some postcards that just had printed. They just came in yesterday from Vista Print. And I took some images directly out of my Explorations of Me journal, six of them, and I had them made into postcards. And you can get this set of six in my Etsy shop. This is the one that caused some controversy with at least one viewer late August or early September. So what I'm going to do with them, here's the stack of them. And I'm not going to do it to all of them at once, but as people buy them, what the plan is, I had them printed blank on the back because to be honest with you, it's less expensive. So what the plan is, I do have a stamp with my copyright symbol on it. I'm going to stamp them. And this is just, I'm using a little mini stamp block with my copyright. I have my copyright stamp on one side, and I have a little check mark on the other side. And the little check mark, I stamp in green when I make an Etsy sale or do something good that's with the art business. And then the copyright one I use for projects like this. And I have these little mini ink pads. This is a making memories or something, I think. I don't know what that is. I don't think they're around anymore. All right. And so then I'm going to take a green pen. I'm green pen. Oh, low. A black pen. And I'm going to actually sign them besides stamp them. And each set will be done like this. So if you want prints of some of my art, you want to set up postcards, you can get them in my Etsy shop. I have a limited selection of the older style of postcards available. I do use these postcards when you place an order. You get a postcard at random, and I actually write a personalized note on the back. So that's something that, unless you bought something from me, you may not all know. So each set will be signed like that. And there you go. So that's that. Now I need to clear off my table because I need to do and figure out what I'm going to do for Inktober today because I haven't done that yet. And I want to get it done before the little troublemaker comes over because I'm going to, she's a puppy and I have to keep an eye on her. It's like having a toddler in the house. So I'm going to clean off my desk and I'm going to set up for Inktober. I'll be right back. I'm already seeing at least one of these designs that's a possibility for the 2018 rubber stamp line for my design line. So I have this feeling I am going to need to scan this little book before I send it back to the Sketchbook project. That's it for today. That's it for, I've had a great week and I know I've had a lot of fun. I think this vlog in particular is going to be, hopefully give you a few chuckles. I think there's some funny bits in it. When I get it edited, I will review it, but I think there's some pretty funny bits in there. Don't forget to check out the video description for any relevant links. And my Happy Mail address, my Etsy shop, all that stuff. I am accepting design team applications until Halloween. So if you want to apply, the link for that application where you can see it and download it is also in the description. It's a Dropbox link, by the way. So if you have a problem with the Dropbox link, put a comment in the description of the video or add a comment to the description, to the comment section of the video or email me and I'll get it to you a different way. I think that's it for right now. Everybody have a great week. Don't forget the most important thing. Go out and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and I'll see you later. Bye guys.