The Wednesday HodgePodge (June 8, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all! Today I’m once again joining the Wednesday HodgePodge. Here goes.

1. “A daughter’s a daughter all her life, but a son’s a son til he takes a wife.” What say you? Elaborate.
In my personal life, the exact opposite is true, in that my parents were very clear that, once I was an adult (ie. once I’d turned eighteen), I had to fend for myself. My contact with them lessened even more once I got married. My husband, on the other hand, sees his parents almost on a weekly basis. I am honestly much closer with my in-laws now than with my own parents, to the point where I’ve appointed my mother-in-law as my informal representative should I become incapacitated.

2. Something you’ve seen recently that was “cuter than a June bug”?
Hmmm, I’m obviously supposed to say little Wolke, my baby niece, but to be honest I don’t really care for babies all that much. I don’t really like children in general, but I’m going with her older sister anyway. She will be three in September and talks up a storm already.

3. “You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy ice cream and that’s pretty much the same thing.” Agree or disagree? Last time you had a serving of happiness ice cream? Dish-cone-milkshake-sundae…which one do you choose?
Disagree with the saying. Though I do like ice cream on occasion, it’s not at all my favorite treat. I don’t actually really have a sweet tooth since recovering from my overeating. Give me chips instead.

As for my favorite ice cream, it’s probably a cone, although I like sundaes and milkshakes too. I can’t remember when I last had ice cream. A milkshake though, yes, I do remember, but it was far from good. We got it with a paper straw, as plastic straws are banned in the EU, and it was too thick to drink with that but too thin to eat with a spoon.

4. What is one way/area in which you’re currently “swimming against the tide”?
I don’t do social media much at all. I mean, I do still have a Facebook, Twitter and Instagram account, but I hardly ever use them.

5. Three things you’re looking forward to this summer?
My birthday at the end of this month. Other than that, I don’t really know. My husband and I originally thought of taking a few days out by train, since Lobith is close by the German border and Germany’s public transportation is nearly free during the summer months. However, he found out that trains are already so packed that the police had to come out to remove some of the people. Not my idea of a holiday.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I have been obsessing over crafty stuff again. I am really looking forward to doing some polymer clay work again, but can’t decide what to make, honestly. Yesterday, I tried my hand at another pair of earrings, but the slab was a true lint magnet and I was too lazy to get alcohol to remove it. I wasn’t too inspired as to what to make out of the slab anyway. Any ideas?

Five Things I’m Glad I Bought #5Things

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s topic for #5Things is things you’re happy about having bought. I have bought a lot of things that I later regretted buying, most recently my Bose QuietComfort 45 headphones. Thankfully, after a long ordeal with the vendor, I got my money back. Hence, here are five things I’m actually happy about having bought.

1. my iPhone. I’m currently on my second one, having used the previous model for nearly three years. The current one, I’ve had for two years tomorrow I think. It’s an iPhone SE 2020. My previous one was the original SE. I am still debating with myself whether I want to get the SE 2022 or wait if they’re going to release a 14 Mini in the fall. I originally got an iPhone because of its more advanced accessibility features compared to phones running Android. Even though iOS has been causing some more or less serious bugs with each major update since I got my original iPhone except for iOS 12, I still agree iPhone’s the best.

2. My laptop. I got my first laptop when I was eleven and got my current screen reader, JAWS, when I was fifteen. In fact, yesterday marked twenty years online for me. I had to buy my own laptops from age twenty on. I use a Windows laptop and yes, I’ve tried a Mac but no, that one’s not for me. Oh wait, I didn’t actually buy my current laptop, since my mother-in-law paid for it in exchange for my Mac. Never mind.

3. My current headphones. Okay, they’re only three weeks old, so I’m still waiting for them to bite the bullet as my Bose ones did. However, those crashed within just over two weeks, so the current ones have already surpassed those. Besides, the Bose headphones cost €240, while these cost €50. They’re a Chinese brand, which is why I can’t for the life of me remember the brand name, but my husband Googled it and said it’s a good-enough Chinese brand.

4. Lots of polymer clay and crafting supplies. I mean, of course there are a couple of things I don’t really use, but most things I bought myself, I do actually love. Most recently, I bought a hand drill and a huge set of small drill bits, to drill holes into my earring pieces etc. I had some trouble figuring the thing out and for a bit thought I shouldn’t have bought the things, but now that I know how to use the drill, it’s fab.

5. Books. I don’t normally buy books, as I get most of them on Bookshare. That being the case, when I do buy a book, it’s usually one I won’t regret having bought. Most recently, I bought the latest Casey Watson foster care memoir and, while I feared the Apple Books app would have trouble with it, it didn’t.

What is one of your happiest purchases?

My First Proper Pair of Polymer Clay Earrings

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I finally have been motivated to actually make something out of polymer clay again. I guess last Saturday I kicked myself in the behind with my post, saying I fully intended to actually be crafting again rather than just looking at crafty YouTube videos. In fact, these earrings aren’t based on a YouTube tutorial at all. That’s honestly because I still consider the YouTube tutorials a little out of my ability range, but oh well.

I say these are my first proper earrings because I previously, about eight or nine months ago, created a pair of “boiled egg” earrings. I think I showed them here too, but anyway, VoiceOver, the iPhone’s built-in screen reader, guessed that they were two halves of a boiled egg. They were rather ugly in terms of color (yellow in the middle, then white, then purple) but more importantly, I’d glued the earring studs to the polymer clay using a cheap brand of jeweller’s glue. Now for those not familiar with polymer clay: most glues don’t work well with it. Only superglue gel will do and I’ve even heard mixed results about that. Don’t bother with E6000, let alone cheaper glues like the one I used. Bottom line: the earring stud fell off within several hours.

Now on to these earrings I created yesterday. First, I decided to roll out a slab of caramel Fimo with my pasta machine. I had to do this several times over because I kept getting horizontal roller lines in my slab. Finally, once I was satisfied with the result, I cut out the flower shapes. I later learned that it is recommended to lay a piece of copy paper over your slab and lightly roll your acrylic roller over it in all directions. This is called burnishing and should even out any ridges in your slab. I then had my staff poke a small hole into my pieces with a bead piercing pin. This is to guide my drill later on.

Then I baked my pieces at 130°C for 45 minutes. (For those reading the Fimo packaging that says to bake no longer than the recommended 30 minutes, this is flat out wrong.) I baked the pieces on a sheet of parchment paper which I’d put onto my ceramic tile. The oven I use is a convection oven where the fan can’t be turned off, so I had to put an aluminum container over my sheet of parchment paper to prevent it from flying all around the oven. Unfortunately, the parchment paper might’ve flown a little underneath the container, as my pieces did turn out slightly crooked. Either that or I should’ve used copy paper rather than parchment paper, as is recommended by some.

Once the pieces had baked for 45 minutes and then cooled down completely, I drilled the holes into the earrings. I had already decided I wanted to decorate the edges with gold Fimo liquid, but this was my first time drilling actual holes into polymer clay pieces, so I was too curious to see how it’d go to wait till I’d finished the project. I did the drilling mostly independently, only needing my staff to hold down my pieces because I needed two hands to drill.

I then sanded the pieces. There was a bit of a bump on both of my earrings, one bigger than the other. I’m not sure it was an air bubble, as sanding it didn’t leave a hole. I think I did an okay job of sanding them away.

I then decorated the edges with Fimo liquid. I needed some help with this, as of course I’m blind and I cannot feel my way to where I’d need to put the liquid or I’d put it all over my fingers.

Then another round in the oven for 30 minutes (which I’m not sure is enough, but my pieces look fine). Then my staff attached the jumprings and attached those to the earring hooks.

I intend on giving these to my sister when I visit her on Sunday. She’s more of a silvery girl than a goldy one, but I didn’t have silver-colored earring hooks.

Other than the earrings having become slightly curved in the oven, I am relatively content with how they turned out. What do you think?

Linking up with Inspire Me Monday, Busy Monday, Love Your Creativity and the Craftastic Link Party.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (May 7, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this Saturday evening. It’s rather late for coffee in my corner of the world, but I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare anyway. I don’t know whether we still have soft drinks in the fridge, as I don’t really care for them. My dietitian said that, if I don’t rate a treat at least an eight out of ten on how much I love it, I really should question whether it’s worth taking in the calories for it. Since soft drinks, including diet Dubbelfrisss, are extras, and I don’t rate them an eight out of ten at all, I’d much prefer water. That being said, if you’d like a soft drink, you’re more than welcome to go over to the staff or look in the fridge yourself. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d ask about your weather. Ours is good. We’ve had lots of sunshine, warm temperatures and almost no rain. In fact, I found myself pretty happy that we got a tiny bit of a drizzle this morning. Nature needs it (but then again it needs far more).

If we were having coffee, I’d share that this week started out rather rough, but has improved significantly as it progressed. I had some good meetings this week and we set out on the path of finding me a more suitable care home. For this purpose, the behavior specialist gave me some open-ended questions to think about for a “care home profile”. The answers I, my staff and the behavior specialist come up with will then be sent out to the care consultants within my care agency to hopefully find me a more suitable home.

If we were having coffee, I’d proudly tell you that I did quite a bit of walking this past week. I was finally able to go for a few 30-minute walks. They were exhausting, but I did it and I didn’t even use the elevator to go back up to the care home after the walks. Here’s hoping my physical fitness level is finally returning to some semblance of normal after the winter of me sitting on my ass and contracting COVID to top it off.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that, on Thursday, my one-on-one staff asked me whether I’d like to go to her home in the countryside to see her goats and their lambs. I loved it! Here are some pictures of me with the goats.



If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that, early this evening, I was startled because all doors in the entire home suddenly slammed shut. This normally happens when the smoke alarm goes off, but there was no smoke nor was there a smoke alarm going off. As it turned out, there was some power outage somewhere within the system. They’re currently working on solving it.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I bought Cernit translucent polymer clay and am totally in love with a lot of tutorials that use it. I also looked up tutorials on how to use micas on polymer clay, since I still have some left from my soaping days. I can’t wait to start actually crafting again.

That being said, if we were having coffee, I’d tell you I’ve been struggling with wanting to do more than I can handle emotionally or physically lately. I’ve also been struggling with the staff overestimating my capabilities. It’s all rather frustrating when I want to be independent and productive but can really not cope.

If we were having coffee, lastly I would however say that I still find escapism in reading, listening to music, blogging and watching YouTube videos even if I don’t get to actually make the things I see.

How have you been?

Zone: Describing My Creative Space #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to the last day in the #AtoZChallenge. About half of the times I’ve completed the challenge, I’ve chosen “ZZZ” for sleep as my topic for my letter Z post. I originally wanted to do the same now, but I really can’t think of ways in which my sleep relates to my creativity other than the obvious: that I need enough of it to be creative.

Instead, I am going with the word “Zone” and describe my creative space, or where I feel like I can “zone in” to my creative self.

I blog wherever I have access to my phone or computer. I could also probably be crafty in many places. However, the place I feel most comfortable being creative in, is my room in the care facility.

I have a desk, which I’ve had for over fifteen years. This desk, I use to have my computer and iPhone on. I prefer typing on my laptop keyboard, but can also type on my iPhone’s external keyboard. I cannot type anything beyond simple messages, usually consisting only of one word, on my iPhone’s screen directly. Even with the external keyboard, due to WordPress having done away with the classic editor on mobile devices, I much prefer to blog on my laptop. For this reason, when I want to blog and I’ll be away, such as at my and my husband’s house in Lobith, I’ll take my laptop with me.

For crafting, I have a separate table. I do need to clear it out when I am finished for the morning or afternoon, as I eat at that table too. I already showed you all where I keep my craft supplies in my letter K post. I can easily reach those from my table.

Then there is, of course, the shelf above my desk, where I display my finished projects. That’s part of my creative zone too, in that it inspires my creativity.

YouTube: Finding Crafty Inspiration in YouTube Videos #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to my letter Y post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today, I want to talk about YouTube and showcase some of my favorite crafty YouTubers.

When I first started working with polymer clay about nine years ago, I didn’t know much about YouTube. It did exist, of course, and there were definitely tutorials out there, but I was clueless. Now that I’ve restarted the craft, I get most of my inspiration from YouTube videos.

Of course, it helps if the YouTuber talks me through the process of doing the craft, although that too can get confusing. At least, I’ve found with macrame that it gets really hard when someone says one thing and essentially does another. With polymer clay, thankfully, I haven’t run into this problem that much.

My favorite YouTuber, for this reason, is Creative Rachy. Her voice-over is great and her tutorials are easy to follow. I particularly love her “Easy Charms for Beginners” tutorials.

I also love other YouTubers who share polymer clay charm tutorials, such as CupOfCuteDIY. This YouTuber in particular has some great compilations of kawaii (a Japanese term for “cute”) polymer clay charms sorted by theme or color.

When I want to do something specific in polymer clay, I now usually do a YouTube search for this term. For example, when I wanted to create the tulip for my mother’s birthday, I searched for the terms “polymer clay” and “tulip”. I then select a video that’s not too long in length. In this case, the video was about five minutes. Unfortunately, there was no voice-over. This is okay if my staff can explain what the YouTuber is doing in the video, which some staff are better at than others.

I usually watch a video in its entirety before starting the project, because that way I can tell if I need any supplies that I don’t have or whether any techniques will be used that I don’t understand yet. In the latter case, I can then look up another YouTube video with the explanation of said technique.

So far, YouTube has been of great help and inspiration on my polymer clay journey. Now of course I will need to step outside of my comfort zone and start experimenting.

Xenos, Action, Fimo-Shop, Etc.: Shopping for Craft Supplies #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to my letter X post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today I want to talk about shopping for supplies related to my creative hobbies. I am cheating a little as, while Xenos is a store that does sell craft supplies among other things, I haven’t ordered anything there in years and the last thing I bought there wasn’t craft-related. It was a wax melt burner. So, that’s all I’ll say about Xenos for this post, but I needed something for the letter X. I guess a lot of people cheat with this letter, so it’s okay. And even if it isn’t, I don’t care.

Action, much like Xenos, is another store that sells lots of things. Also like Xenos, its prices are usually lower than those in other stores, as Action usually sells imitation premium brand products. I did in fact buy a lot of my crafting supplies there. I refuse to buy polymer clay at Action, but I did buy my acrylic paints, my glitters, my brushes that I use for applying the acrylic paints or glitters or Fimo liquid, etc., and many other supplies there.

My polymer clay, I usually buy online. There is a craft store here in town, but they only sell like five different colors of Fimo at a time. One of my favorite shops is Fimo-Shop.nl. That store usually has the entire Fimo collection in stock.

Sculpey and Cernit are brands of polymer clay that aren’t that commonplace in the Netherlands. I haven’t used their clay, but if I need something from that brand (such as one day I needed a Sculpey glaze), I order from HappyThings.eu.

I buy my color recipes on Etsy. So far, I’ve ordered from DewDropInc and PolymerClayLoves.

I order from other stores too, but these are the ones I’m happiest about. For example, I once ordered my polymer clay letter stamp set from an online art store that happens to sell polymer clay supplies too (won’t name the store because this’d be a negative review) and, not only did the description of the stamp set not match what I got (it was fine, but still), the polymer clay I’d also ordered was extremely hard and crumbly. This is one reason I usually order my clay at specialized polymer clay stores now.

Works in Progress: How I Deal With Having Unfinished Projects As a Creative #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi and welcome to my letter W post in the #AtoZChallenge. For today’s topic, I chose “works in progress”. You know, those unfinished projects lying around forever waiting for me to get them done.

Right now, I have several works in progress with respect to my polymer clay. The most striking example is, of course, the mobile I’m creating for the baby girl my sister is expecting. I have yet to bake the last of my figures to go onto the wire, but I still also need to buy the wire for the actual thing.

Next up is of course the slice of a tree trunk I have had lying around for at least a month, waiting for me to build a forest scene on it. I initially thought of putting the polymer clay hedgehog I crafted about three weeks ago – which also took me forever to create – on it, but now I’m thinking of doing a squirrel.

Anyway, did I show you all the hedgehog yet? I don’t think I did. Here it is!

Lastly is of course the tulip I intended on crafting for my mother. Well, I tried. I mixed all the colors, which went well, but crafting the actual tulip was harder than I thought. That plus time pressure made me eventually give up and send my mother a polymer clay dolphin from my collection instead.

One reason I prefer to have smaller projects, is that having too many works in progress overwhelms me. This may be a reason I rarely have blog posts in my Drafts folder longer than a few hours to get back to later. Besides, if I start something then forget midway what I wanted to create, that’s a problem too.

Eventually, when I have had an unfinished project lying around for too long, I’ll discard it and start another, hopefully smaller, project.

Values: How My Creativity Reflects and Supports My Personal Values #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to my letter V post in the #AtoZChallenge. This was a hard letter to find a topic for, but with the help of The Year of You for Creatives I found one: personal values. Core values are the abstract qualities you find important in life, such as trust, love, connection, growth, etc.

Now I haven’t really ever taken the time to evaluate my core values, so it is quite hard to say whether they are reflected in my creativity. However, when I give it some thought, I realize one of my main core values is authenticity. This is still hard to express in my creativity, particularly my polymer clay. Like I said yesterday, after all, most of my creations are still pretty much copies of what I see online.

In my writing, I do try to express my authentic self. This does mean I am quite open about my experiences of, for example, mental illness. I used to overshare to the point where it got uncomfortable for the people around me. Now, though some of my relatives probably still perceive me as oversharing, I do try to be mindful of other people’s privacy.

Another of my core values is connection. This is reflected in the fact that I want to share what I create and know about other people’s creative work. This is one reason I have a blog. It is also one reason I started responding to people’s comments on my blog. For the first so many years that I kept a blog, I didn’t do this, because I felt it’d corrupt my stats somehow (don’t ask me why). I now not only know that engaging with your commenters is the ethical thing to do, but I also really value the connections I develop through interacting on my blog.

Connection is also a reason I’m in Facebook groups for polymer clay and why I share my creations on Facebook. I don’t really do Instagram, although I might want to learn to use it someday for my creative pursuits.

Self-determination is another core value. I initially wrote “independence”, but that doesn’t quite do it justice. Even though I’d really like to be independent, after all, that’s just not realistic where it comes to my crafting. I do, however, want to make my own choices and do as much as I can by myself.

Lastly, growth is a core value of mine. I always aim for progress, no matter how small. I do not always find this is reflected in my work, because I sometimes don’t see the progress I’ve made. I could really improve in this area.

Unique: Developing My Personal Style As a Creative #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to my letter U post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today, I want to talk about developing my own unique style as a creative.

As a writer, I think I do have a unique style. I have certain words that I use often, even though I try to vary my language too. In fact, I may have so much of a specific word choice that it gets boring at times. I really want to step outside of my comfort zone where it comes to my writing more and explore styles that I don’t normally employ. This includes poetry and flash fiction.

As a polymer clay artist, I haven’t really developed my own style yet, in the sense that most of my current creations are still based on the creations of popular YouTubers. Some are actually pretty much copies.

An interesting exception may be my unicorns. I do give a specific twist to my designs, most notably in the twisted mane and tail.

Unfortunately, with respect to my polymer clay, I struggle to step outside of my comfort zone even more than I do in the area of my writing. I fear ruining my clay, even though obviously that’s no problem, since I can always buy new clay. Honestly, now that I think of it, I may not have a unique style in any of my creative pursuits at all, but may just be sticking to a particular comfort zone. I really need to start experimenting more!

It may all be related to the fact that I’m not as imaginative as I’d like to be. Then again, Julia Cameron of The Artist’s Way (I think) encourages her readers to explore creativity by experimenting. She also says that, to be a good artist, you first need to be a bad artist. In this sense, maybe I should really start making my own unique creations rather than copying from YouTube more. They may turn out rubbish, but so what? Some famous quote I think said that something’s better well stolen than poorly created. I think I disagree.