AWOL again and confessions of a stamp addict

Unfortunately migraine robbed me of another day yesterday. I did get rid of it and started on the stamp cataloguing and sorting which I am continuing today. I would love to get them all sorted and put away tidy, so I know where they are and what I have. The way I am doing this is if I have a sheet or picture with the stamp or stamps I stick that to a piece of card to be laminated, first scanning it and printing onto thin card. The scanned card goes in my folder so I know what I have, the other is laminated to hold the stamps in another folder. I think I have 4 folders now, these are unmounted or UM rubber stamps mainly. I have had to mount most of them on EZ cling mount or similar first, I find EZ is the best to use. I have tried some glue that you paint on and it is supposed to remain clingy over and over, and at some point when it stops you reapply it. It is a messy business and I found the stamps quickly lost the cling factor, wouldn't cling to the laminate for long and stamps were jumping off all over the place! So back to EZ for most of those.

I am trying to keep collections together, if I have a few from a particular seller, or manufacturer I group them. If I haven't got a printed sheet I need to stamp them and copy or stamp twice and I just got through stamping an exciting find which was a set of stamps from www.timetostamp.com, and there was no clue as to what they were apart from a photo of the stamp sheet, and the seller thought it was corsets and stuff but it was so cheap, about £3 I think and it is vintage adverts for corsets, typewriters, pens, cutlery all sorts. I haven't scanned it yet because not only do I have room on the end for a few more stamps that don't belong to anywhere else, but I have one stamp that I am not certain of, it could be part of the set or not. I mounted and cut them apart a long time ago and they were all in with a heap of other stamps, some I can identify to other sets, but this one I don't know. Seems to be a lady and there is a word or some words on it. So I thought I will go to the web site and see, and the web site above takes me to I Brake for Stamps (a site I have bought from them too in the past, very nice stamps) but only a couple of the stamps from my set are visible here so I am no wiser. (Edited to say: I just clicked on the corset stamp and it brought up a sheet of stamps which i the sheet I have, so now I can see my random stamp doesn't belong to it.)

When I have completed the UMs I have a heap of single clear stamps I want to sort in the same way and mount probably on laminate sheets also. (Perhaps I shouldn't mention I have just purchased some UM Unity Stamps on Ebay, but at least they come ready mounted).

Oh and I nearly forgot I bought some bundles of Penny Black clings and Hero Art Slap-sticks (at very good prices on Ebay I must add, couldn't not buy at those prices), all ready mounted on printed cling mount but they need putting away and cataloguing so I could still be doing this for days!

I realise I haven't yet shown you the before and after photos of my craft room also, but it has got very untidy again in order to try and tidy it. I will try and find some photos I can show you. I also took a video but it is too long and I couldn't work out the software to edit it which was a trial version now expired. I haven't decided which photo software to go for yet, but I will get the matching video software when I do. I might just have to show you still photos.

I am alone apart from the dogs at least for the morning but I do have things to do so on that note I better get on with them! I only put the PC on to scan the stamp sheets you understand, but then I was tempted to peek at Facebook, then Farmville, then Countrylife, and do a little on those!

New card challenge over on Quirky Crafts Forum

We have a card challenges section on the Quirky Crafts forum now, just for fun though you never know what might happen. Challenge 1 is to make a card using the last crafty thing you bought and I have just bought some Nellie Snellen dies, which I wanted to try and I love them.
So here is my card:

Once again I used the cute puppy stamp free with Craft Stamper magazine, coloured with Promarkers, framed with a Nellie Snellen die cut frame, papers are In My Minds Eye which were free with Papercraft Inspirations, ribbon from Crafty Ribbon, Die cut ribbon slider using Cuttlebug die and circle with Nestabilties circle die, stamped in blue, and finally a gem added over the stamped flower. Typing this with splint on my hand so excuse any errors.

I have entered this in:
the I love Promarkers challenge which is animals,
Stamping for the weekend, ribbons and bows
 

Country Life on Facebook

Why have I got dragged into yet another game that is addictive, and just as I get into it all my buddies have moved to the next game I ask myself?
Well as if Farmville was not enough with its outdated graphics and constant crashes and bugs, I have taken on Country Life.
This is what I have learnt in the few days I have been playing:
Like Farmville you start with a small square of land, unlike Farmville you get a cow right away, you also get some plots with clover growing (from memory). The cow is a 3d animated cow and wouldn't look out of place in Shrek movies. The cow in in a pen with a feeding trough in front of it, and when the clover flowers you harvest the clover then click on the cow to feed it. Crops are in small squares a bit like Farmville, you click to plant the seed, you don't have to plough it first,  you click to harvest the crop and there is a move tool that can be used to move plots around. You use another tool to dig more plots, there is a sell tool.
Unlike Farmville the cow chews the food.
Like Farmville the crop can be sold but (not like Farmville) not for as much as the milk the cow produces; for every square of clover the cow eats it produces a bottle of milk, handy that, you don't have to milk it.
Things work in 3s here, you can feed 3 lots of clover to the cow max, it produces 3 bottles of milk at any one time max, if you don't harvest the milk it won't produce more.
If you buy a beehive the bees will pollinate the clover which turns yellow, and produce a jar of honey, you get extra coins for honey and the cow will then eat the pollinated clover and still produce the same milk which can be sold.
If you are really lucky someone will gift you a cheese wiz; then you can harvest the milk and click on the cheese wiz to fill it with three bottles of milk at the most, and it will whirr away and produce three cheeses at the most which you can harvest then sell (haven't worked out if there is another more lucrative stage like sandwich production).
You can move up the levels quickly and you can grow a greater variety of crops and buy more animals and give better gifts the higher you go and if you get enough neighbours you can expand, just like Farmville.
There are other gadgets, like a tomato sauce maker, a weaver for the sheep's wool, jam maker and all of these make the crops you produce more valuable to sell.
If you buy another animal it will be fussy about what it eats, chickens eat corn, three lots and lay three lots of eggs, though I never saw that chicken sit on the nest the eggs appeared there as if by magic. Sheep eat only wheat. Both crops take a whole lot longer than clover to ripen, and the sheep looks at you as if to say "where is mine then?".
You can also buy trees that fruit in the same way as Farmville trees do and sell the fruit, maybe you can make it into something else when you get the right gadget.
You can buy buildings, you have to get people to give you the materials then unless you have ranch cash or money to burn in spending actual money to get what you need. I am building a greenhouse where the crops will be ready quicker if I get it done, so more functional than Farmville here.
One tip on the beehives is once the clover (which is all they are interested in) has all flowered they go to sleep, and when you harvest the first square they wake and come and pollinate, but if  you leave just one jar of honey unharvested you can harvest that as soon as the clover is ready again and you won't lose out on that one first jar of honey, unless like me you are click happy and accidentally harvest the unpollinated clover next to the pollinated clover, or worse, sell your clover by mistake so your cows can't make more milk........
Well maybe the attraction is to see how far I can get or if I can score higher than my friends, it has taken over my life. so with that I better see how both Farmville and Country Life are doing in case I am missing out.

Quirky Crafts Challenge 25 - sketch

The challenge this week over at Quirky Crafts is to follow Lyn's sketch. The challenge is sponsored by Nikki and she has lots of cupcake designs and some other designs, some of which you will see on the Quirky Crafts Blog this week. I have used a digital download called Starry cupcake for my card. I coloured it with Promarkers, and decoupaged the cake, added Stickles to the stars, the paper is by DCWV, the cup cake ribbon is from Crafty Ribbon, can't remember who's brads they were, scalloped border is done using a Martha Stewart doily punch. Sentiment is from an MSE clear set, and the mini cupcake is from a Hero Arts clear set. Die cut shapes are cut with Spellbinders Nestabilities dies. Sorry is it a bit dark, I used my new mini photo studio again but the first time I used it I managed to break a lamp bulb while trying to put it away, and I haven't managed to replace it yet but finally I think I have found the right ones and they are on the way, so this photo was taken with only one of the two lamps working, (which is how I feel personally right now - 50% functional).

This is the sketch to follow: 

Sneek peek

Nearly time for Challenge 25 over on Quirky Crafts blog and what a lot of entries we have for the challenge closing today! Here is a sneeky peek of my Design Team card for this week, intrigued? Pop over to the Quirky Crafts challenge blog around 6pm to see more.

I haven't been very active in the past few weeks, first I had a virus that lasted for weeks, then the computer seemed to have a virus which took a couple of weeks to sort out, and then I was ill again. I have been having problems with my eyes being very tired and blurry vision even had my eyes tested and got yet more glasses, but this week had an excruciating pain in the back of my eye and started seeing double. I took a couple of days off work because I was worried about it happening when I drove, not to mention the pain dragging me down. I went to the surgery saw a doc who did blood tests, after saying my eyes looked fine. The tests came back clear, but I was still in pain and couldn't see properly and eventually convinced the receptionist that I did need to see someone before next Wednesday. The doc I saw thought it could be a sinus infection at the back of the eye so started me on strong antibiotics for a week, and anti inflammatory tablets. So far they seem to be working and things have improved though I am feeling very tired. I also have high blood pressure, which if not down by next week will have to be treated, so I have been trying to eat foods that lower it, and cutting down salt or cutting it out in an effort to bring it down. I don't eat processed food often, organic pasta sauce cheese, and organic chocolate are my weaknesses. I am hoping that a lot of it was to do with the stress of being scared silly about my eyes and the pain and it will be lower now I am not so worried about those.


So when you see my card in all its glory forgive me if I have gone over lines etc, as I could see two of every line when I attempted to make the card.