April Craft Thread

I am going to try some sublimation on some 100% polyester fabric I picked up at Joann’s on the dirt cheap discount table! I got some cheap wooden spoons at dollar tree to paint for some plant markers. I have already done a beaded butterfly suncatcher thingy to hang from a metal pot hanger-another run to Lowe’s or Home Depot for a garden flag holder and planter pot hanger thing! Lord help me if I come back with more plants to transplant into this project! But I am having fun!

Here are some of my practice seals. Apart from a little play with the grandchildren, these are the first I’ve done on my own without distraction. Some aren’t too bad and they are intended to keep so I know what the stamp actually is! It can be difficult knowing that the image is of some.

What I’ve learnt :
1. I have too many stamps thanks to Temu’s cheapies.
2. Not all stamps are created equal, some are really cheap and the ones I’ve bought from non-Temu places are definitely superior.
3. Not all wax is created equal. Some melts better and stamps better than others.
4. Not all colouring pens are created equal! In the main the images look better highlighted but it can be tricky with the pens and aged eyes at night time. I have some really fine paint brushes that are meant for nail art and I’m hoping they will make my splodges better.
5. YouTube and Instagram make it look far easier than it really is. Who knew! I tried a dual coloured seal and although it eventually worked, it was with more fiddling than technique. I’ll put that up another time.

My problem is I have to keep track of my notes when I do that and I’m very bad at that.😊  I finally started to keep track on Ravelry and it’s saved my bacon multiple times.

finsup - LOVE those flowers. . The blanket is great too. I would have called it finished after 2.5 years as well.

I hamp a bunch of stamps from many years ago when it became popular to use this on scrapbook pages and cards only instead of using wax we used color hot glue sticks! They came out beautiful.

Your was wax seals are so beautiful and elegant , I love them

You can use glue sticks yes. Funnily enough I was showing a friend and she remembered buying seals years ago. She dug them out and they were by a company called Sonnets. I’d totally forgotten that. I hadn’t bought any then but remember them being around.

Finally took some progress photos!

I'm one round away from being done the first set of repeat rounds on my Thingie-ma-bob. Loving this pattern - getting better at the "leaves" round for sure. Love the texture in this one - Briar Rose was lovely, but didn't have any pop-out type of texture. This one is full of it!

I'm using Lion Brand bonus Mandala in Yeti with a 5mm hook I did control the colours in the first full rounds so it didn't transition mid-row, but now I'm just letting it flow!

Yep, hair clips 😂

This is wayyyyyy longer than I intended!  


He’s doing ok, still this side of the ground.  I don’t think I’ve updated in a while… radiation was successful on the 3 tumors in his brain from December.  He started with a bad headache the first week of March and an MRI 3/16 showed EIGHT new tumors in the frontal lobe.  He was really bad off with the headache and waited 10 days to tell his doctor- refused to eat/drink/get out of bed for over 36 hours (he did not even pee the bed!)- I felt like he had given up.  Finally had the MRI only to find the new tumors.  He’s just finished 5 targeted radiation sessions and is coming back around again.  His mom has been a HUGE help with appointments and coming to the house to make sure he gets up and is eating and taking his meds like he’s supposed to.  He did one treatment of opdivo/yervoy before the headache started but he had to go off that because of the massive swelling in his brain and the need to go back on the decadron steroid.  He was losing balance, couldn’t think, only wanted to sleep.  He’s now walking better, hasn’t fallen in over a week, is more alert more often (still tired).  He's supposed to be starting Cotellic/Zelboraf (I think I spelled it right) but we need an EKG first.  He’s heading in tomorrow for that so hopefully he can start it asap.  He has a rather large tumor on his neck that just looks awful- should be taken care of by these new meds.  They did DNA testing on his lymphnode tumors and found his type is very aggressive- it’s got the BRAF v600 mutation.  This new med is apparently very good at dealing with this type of melanoma.  I need to convince him to cut his shoulder length curly hair because it’s a matted mess.  I’ve been working on him and I think we are almost there.  I think he would feel better about himself if his hair looked nice.  Right now he throws on a beanie to cover it up and he looks homeless.  He doesn’t care if he looks homeless.  That’s a problem 😂.  So, yeah, life is keeping on and I’m going going going 6-7 days a week with work and the kids sports.  Very thankful I only have 2 kids and they each only do one sport! Thank you for asking.  

I’ve been reading but don’t have much crafty stuff to add right now. ❤️

Hugs seaexplore

I have a crocheted snowflake ornament from a pea holiday card swap on the old board. I even saved the envelope because I liked the way she addressed it. It’s somewhere in my craft jungle. I’ll try to track it down to see who it was. I’m pretty sure they were international.