Fruitful day and then some not

Grace to the donations of some of you, for which I am exceptionally grateful, I was able to have a really nice shopping list done yesterday and today.
My clay stash is almost full - I didn't get the full amount of clay I need, just the bare necessities, because I am waiting for the sale on clay at Hobby Lobby, which should be if not next week, then the week after, and I'd rather get almost half again the amount of clay for the same money. But I got lots of clay. No worries about running out now.

I was also able to get regular resin, and order some other neat things, some silver and gold foil - so I won't have to struggle with the flakes and I will be able to show you some nice effects, then a few stamps - finally!!!!, a few extra mica powders.
One more set of Makins textures.
I found on ebay some mylar foils that are NOT Lisa Pavelka, but were like 1/4 price of hers, so we'll see how that works. I didn't get magic gloss, as I had already gotten the resin and didn't want to spend for something that has the same effect.
Besides, even if I live in Oklahoma, I'd rather use an UV lamp, so until I have that I won't get UV resin. Also, to be honest, I'd rather get some other UV resin than LP, I think that all her products are horribly expensive. The foils I have of hers - which I thought I had thrown away, but apparently I just stashed in a drawer corner - I got at Michaels ages ago, for a little bit over $1. I guess they weren't selling at all. No wonder. I honestly find them very garish. But I think I found a way to make them look less garish and get some nice effects from them. We'll see in a little bit.
It is ridiculous how stingy and picky I am about texture sheets though. I look at them, add them to the cart, then I decided they're too expensive for how ugly they look, and remove them from the cart.
To be honest, the only ones I really like are the ones from GF Art on Etsy. They're in Russia or Ukraine though.
I will also need to get some nice cutters, for polymer clay necklaces. All I have are Makins cheapo ones and some cookie cutters that I've bent out of shape.

Talking necklaces. You need to go to Walmart. I spent half an hour with my BFF looking at all kinds of boho collars with fringes with REAL LEATHER cords and strips and indian style and ... oh goodness they were tons and all pretty.

But, look at this. There were some bib necklaces and I realized that one of them is excellent to make a template of. $5. You can't find a bib necklace template for this small of an amount. You might want to do a short trip to Walmart.

see? It's a three piece

Three piece. Bonus: texture.

I still didn't find a good coral stamp. Talking coral stamp. I spent almost 2 hours on the Walmart website trying to get the most for the buck. I get to check-out.... 80% of the stuff on the list wouldn't have gotten here until after the 20th of July! Seriously? I get stuff from China faster than that. That's when I moved on eBay and ordered some from there.

But... no coral stamp. Talking coral stamp. It's so hard to find it. Try doing a search on "coral stamp". You'll get everything in crafting that is the color coral. Maybe, smothered in all those "coral embossing powder" and "coral distress ink" you might find a lost stamp. Considering how many coral stamps are compared to how many coral-colored inks, powders, pens, crayons, distress inks, stains, etc... you get the picture.

So. I will probably spend how much I have left of the evening cranking on the pasta machine. I did have to rest after I came home from shopping. The stores were absolutely packed, with it being the 1st and the 4th of July sales and all that, and it fatigued me horribly. I intended to finish a tutorial after I'd get home, but I was just too absolutely worn out. And I learned my lesson, of not trying to push it. If I get one of my fatigue bouts and I try to push on that, instead of resting, I need 2-3 days to recover after that, so it's worse than losing a few hours of work because I have to rest. It's one of the "new normal" realities I had to get used to in the "life after cancer" stage.

So there you have the truth on why sometimes I am late with the tutorials. When it's my fault. It's when I get one of those episodes of extreme fatigue. It's even hard to explain to someone "I am so tired that I am thirsty but I'm too tired to get up from the couch and go to the kitchen and get a glass of water; I'll just lay here and be thirsty". Sounds horrible, isn't it? I was killing myself over this in the beginning, I didn't want to "be lazy", then a few talks to my oncologist made me realize that no, it's not my fault and I'm not lazy, it's just that sometimes that is what chemo does to you. Ok, I'll stop whining now, lol.

So, good day! Good day indeed! Oh yes, and go to Hobby Lobby, they have some awesome sales right now for the 4th, and some of the jewelry findings are on 50% off, and the kicker is that even those that have price reduced still get the 50% off that price!

See you all tomorrow at the live event!