 Hi everybody, so I thought I would get on and do a quick vlog maybe Maybe a little bit of a shout out because I'm gonna do one of those two I may although I may do the shout out in a different video And we're gonna use my iPad for the shout out because that's the one I watch YouTube videos on first, let's do the vlog part so I Have Kind of a lot of swap mail and happy mail it's sort of been accumulating. I've tried to remember to get on crazy island family and or Email and thank you all who have sent me something. I got one yesterday. I haven't done so I've got to make sure that I Want to do the thank you here and I'm gonna try to remember to also email her I'll try So we did an embellishment swap with crazy island family and I got this one is from Heidi Richards and You guys have all done a great job with decorating the envelopes and Heidi sent me some great bits and pieces this we were the last few swaps were travel Art bag theme travel journal themed so for this swap it was to share some Little bags of bits and pieces paper clips charms, maybe small pieces of fabric tickets things that They could put in a little box in their travel art bag to use in their journals when you're out traveling so That was the theme anyway And there's a video on it if you want to go back and look at what what exactly the swap was there's a video on my YouTube channel you can go back and look So Heidi sent me a Bunch of really great things and I'm not gonna open all these bags because these bags all have tons of little pieces in them As you can see but look at some of that just yummy. Goodness. It's in there I love the I think the key might be my favorite Heidi and a lot of you put notes in there Look at the sticker on this one. This one is from Carol Minton. Don't you love that? I need to take that off and put that in my drop paper journal. There's nothing else in there Okay So some some of them sent me some really great Like die cuts look at these die cuts. I love these die cuts and then some doilies Which are great and this which is I guess just a piece of Cut piece of paper, but I don't know it's kind of slick paper I don't know but look at the pattern and that feel it. I wish you all could feel a paper because it feels fabulous She sent me this really great napkin. Look at that. Is that not pretty or what? That's gonna be great on a journal page And my little bags of goodies Which were wrapped in this fabulous handmade paper Which I'm not sure which side I like better the side with the white fibers or the side with the gold I don't know And then there's another one in here has a little feather in it It's some really great things inside of here and another piece of handmade different handmade paper. I love That was from Carol Minton and it was inside of this jelly printed envelope and this one is from my friend and fellow Crazy Island family member and Crazy Island admin Cindy Utter. This one is actually Happy Mail and she was a stained glass artist and she's out of a lot of supplies and she has this Copper foil Tape. Yeah, it's tape. It's adhesive tape. It's used for doing stained glass, but she's been using it in her journal She has tons of it, I guess so she sent me some and it is 730 seconds of an inch wide so it's nice and thin Is that not cool or what? That is gonna be so great in some art journals on some art journal covers Thank you, Cindy. I love it She sent me Some great um painted cards And there's a note on the back of one of them, but aren't those great And then she sent me some napkins She got some really Cute interesting napkins look at that one Different, you know unusual Oh, that's a that's a tree branch And there's a woodgrain one And here's another these are all fall themed. These are going to be great on some fall pages or fall journals And look at this one. It's kind of a tribal print and I'm not done yet My daughter came home from Spain and she got home safe and sound Yay She started a new job when she got back again. Yay This one is from Dina Cottrell in Owasso, Oklahoma, and I'm sorry if I put your dear name or the name of your town But I have trouble with English on a good day I will tell you guys You know, I had to double check this because I wasn't sure It's my own dang design. I ought to know better But she colored it and um, she evidently bought one of my stamps and she decorated the envelope with it That's one of my designs. You can get it in Etsy and she colored it She did a great job. I love what you did with the stamp. You did such a great job I I was like I had to look at it. Is that my design? I think you did a great job fabulous fabulous In the envelope she included two look at these b buttons. Are they not cute or what? There's a couple of napkins this one and a three napkins this one And this one and this is full of papers So this may be from the match book which was A may swap or we did the match book of collage papers um I'm really bad about keeping track you guys So anyway, she did this really great match book full of these really great papers A bunch of really great tissue papers some matte paper I love this one. This is full. It has teacups on it. Look at that one And then tucked inside of it were some paper umbrella tops That's a great idea. You know if you're out on vacation And you get a cocktail or a fun drink with a paper umbrella Pull the paper umbrella out and take it back to your hotel room and pull the top of it off Wouldn't that be a great addition to your art journal page? I love this idea And then she um included a stencil So that was wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you and there's a little bag of goodies some die cut butterflies And oh a rubber stamp. I didn't even notice until just now So there's some one of them stuck to the stamp. Okay. So there's some die cut butterflies And then inside of there was this really great. Look at this unmounted sun stamp. It's unmounted rubber Wonderful Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is one of the ones I had trouble getting back in the envelope I'm trying to keep them in the envelopes at least for right now because I haven't had a chance to really sort everything up of the way This one is from Oh, I had to look up this one and this is gonna this one is creating a new um This one's creating a new rule in um the embellishment swaps So when you do the swaps really really really you need to put your name along with your return address on the outside of the envelope because um That way we know who it's from I had to go back and look it up Uh the person lives in loveland, ohio Hang on I forgot about this one. So um Let me see. Oh here. I think it's kim frondorf Yes kim, so that's who this is from so kim. Can you please um your address is on here? That's great. It needs to be but can you please put your name? You don't forget to put your name because then if they're like me and your email boxes you have like six of them and You know they're none of them super organized You know, it's hard to figure out. Anyway, I could be better organized about it But if you could please put your name on there that would make my life a lot easier All right. Anyway kim sent some really great stuff. So look at this napkin I love this napkin and then she sent this one So that was great She put some really great tape on the envelope and then she sent um this Which I can use like a sticker I think maybe it's contact paper feels like contact paper. Maybe that other one was too I love it. And then she sent a really great little bag of goodies Really some really fun stuff. So that's fabulous Love it. Thank you. And then I got a surprise mail in the Yesterday, this is from Stephanie parks from Auckland, New Zealand um Stephanie, um I didn't expect this and I appreciate it. Thank you. I'm going to share right now on what you sent Um, I'm going to start with the envelope because look at all of these fabulous stamps You know when I send things I usually take it to my postal place where I get my mail And they just you know run it through the machine and I don't you know Usually send things with all these great stamps, but look at these stamps and look at this one with I don't know what that is Most supposed to be but it looks like a giant slice kiwi And that maybe is what it's supposed to be. Oh, yeah hard of kiwi country. That is I mean the stamps are just fabulous. So I'm going to have to figure out how to get them all off of here So that I can use them in my journal She sent this package that was wrapped like this And it was tied with some brown paper string and I gotta say this is the second time I've gotten something from Stephanie And you have a really great way of packaging the things that you send And there are a delight to open not that everything's not a delight because it is But she wraps it up with a string and ties it with a bow and let me show you all like here's what it looks like here And then you unwrap it And what's inside of it looks like this And then these strings were tied in a bow So then you open it And it has this inside and this she's made out of piece of craft paper that she's collaged on top of with a little button And then some string that's tied to this side and it's threaded through the button Is that not clever? That's just so clever And then you have this package Which I retied because I untied it and it was so pretty I wanted to show you guys So it's wrapped in this handmade paper with a white string And there's a really great note in here. I'll tell you guys about in a minute Everything is wrapped in this really fabulous. Look at this paper It's just great paper And she sent me a small bag of die cuts which are wonderful and some of them are doodled and painted and She sent me some more of the great tissue paper. She sent me before She sent me some of this one which looks like a painted or dyed piece of tissue or cloth Feels like paint tissue some kind of tissue or handmade paper And I'd commented before she sent me some of this feather tissue And I love this feather tissue and so she sent me some more of it And then she sent me this really great one with dragonflies She took a store-bought I think it's a four by six photo album We would call it four by six. I don't know what it's called there and she decorated the cup painted and decorated the cover And she filled well didn't fill it, but she in the inside she put some pictures of some artwork that she's done inspired by My channel She's got a watercolor sketchbook going which I just love that You're doing a fabulous job And there's plenty of room for me to add more things in here I might use this for some of the notes and postcards and things that you guys send me because I save them all and then her sister used to make handmade paper and She had this card made an envelope made out of paper. Her sister's made look at this fabulous paper and She sent me this note on this other paper and I just wanted to pull it out I won't show the note, but look at that paper Just look at that. It's not not cool I love it. So Stephanie. Thank you. That was a big surprise, but it was a very welcome one And you guys all sent me some great stuff. So yeah, as I was saying my daughter got home From spain, but the getting home process was stressful. There was a terror alert the day she was traveling and That was so much stuff. I won't talk about that just Kind of made the process stressful I won't talk about it on camera, but because my daughter would just be horrified that I did that and I try not to invade her privacy, but uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah That was the day that There was a terror alert. There was a few other things with her traveling home that we were concerned about and then I went out to wash my brushes in the sink if you follow me on social media You know, I went to the garage Which is where the sink is that I wash my brushes and pallets out in And I went out there to go wash my sink and there was a spider out there that was a good two three inches across big yeah Grout I called the neighbor boy and he came over and helped me and he caught it in a jar and took it home and Um, told me later that it was a grass spider, which was what I thought it was and I happened to be allergic to those So glad I called him. Uh, it was just one thing after the other Just So I want it's done and over with Oh boy So I'm gonna put all this back in here and I'm gonna keep all of these things in the envelopes for a little bit um The other thing I wanted to talk to you guys about is I know if you follow me on social media You haven't seen a lot of art postings or pictures from me in the past week or so Um, and there's it's not that I haven't been arting. Y'all know me better than that I've been working on journaling crazy island style for july and august and trying to get Caught up through the end of august so that claudia rossi is about to move to hawai And while we welcome her on her journey. I'm trying to help her out a little bit by getting ahead Um, she doesn't know what kind of internet connection she's gonna have and we need to um get a little bit of head ahead with the filming um so that She has time um to work out any problems that she might have with posting and yeah, you know It's not going to be a problem It's just going to take her a little longer than she normally does So she would it's going to want to have things ahead of time so she can You know get everything arranged And it's one less thing she has to stress about because the moving process is a huge gigantic deal Um, but we wish her well and I'm a little little a lot envious. Yeah moving to hawaii I mean holy cow. I don't envy her the packing process um I just can't even imagine. I mean I've lived here a long time having to pack everything I own up into a shipping container When I do move because I don't plan on staying here forever. It's going to be a big deal Talk about a stressful All right, I think that's it. I'm working on my draw paper journal. It's getting really fat. Um I don't think it really closes anymore I don't think it's going to close you want to see Okay So I'm almost done So, okay, so here is the inside current page of my draw paper journal. Where are we? There we are And I have been just draw collaging down The bits and pieces and things that you all send me And I have not been waxing the pages. I've been putting wax paper in between Because I'm not sure I don't want to go back and do some doodling or journaling or painting on the pages And I've been using lots of different kinds of glue including elmer's mod podge Um collage podge mat medium some of those dry kind of sticky So I've been putting wax paper in between so things don't stick together until I figure out what I'm doing and I want to um Get the whole book collaged And then after that's done then I will go back and um Figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of the journal and Paint on it or whatever and then take the um Wax paper out But until I figure that out and I'll leave wax paper in there and that may be a journal that doesn't get finished this year It's a really big journal and I may take my time with the doodling process. We'll see um Yeah, I don't know. Uh I don't know. We'll have to see you know when we get closer to the end of the year We'll have to see how I feel about finishing any of my journals this year This may be the first year that I don't do you know a mad scramble to finish everything I don't I don't know how I'm good. I don't know what I'm going to do about that yet this year I I have a suspicion that it won't this will be the first year since I started art journaling that I don't get journals done I don't know um I think that's it right now Don't forget that if you have any issues like I have with anxiety disorder depression or something else And you have times when art is not enough and Go and read go for a walk do whatever you need to to get yourself through it In a healthy manner and don't stress about it. You know life is not just black and white. It's lots of shades of gray and You know somebody with anxiety disorder. I'm constantly reminding myself of that and it's okay that there are shades of gray And it's okay that I don't like them, but I don't have to make myself sick about it either I try I don't know I guess I should go do the dishes in the laundry. It's not high my priority list. I don't know about you guys All right, everybody. Have a great day. Have a great week. Have a great weekend And don't forget to do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and I'll see you later. Bye Thanks for the bits and pieces. I love them