Necklace for Beth

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, Friends and FamilyLeave a comment

Well I finally made the jewelry for Beth. I made the bracelet last night and I tried making the necklace last night but I didn’t plan it out right so I had to take it apart. I was in an ambien haze so I had to stop and go to bed because I was messing it up more than it was. I finished it this morning.

I don’t know if it is gift worthy. It looks like something a pre-schooler would make lol. I mean the bracelet is fine but the beads in the necklace didn’t come out as I had planned. They are supposed to be psychedelic but instead they look ridiculous.  They have fingerprints all over them too lol.  I’ve never bought beads with fingerprints on them.  And the holes that I stuck through them for the hemp cord wasn’t straight so some of the beads stick out further.

I need to NOT make any more beads with Polymer clay until I know what I’m doing lol.

I don’t know if I’m too embarrassed by this necklace to even give it to her at all.  Since we didn’t have any money for Toys ‘R’ Us I thought that homemade jewelry would be nice but it’s not as nice after all.  Darrin has a Sears card which works at Kmart so we’re gonna go there to get her a toy or something.

Notice how I’m not so embarrassed that I’m blogging about it with a picture?

Polymer Clay

On By Michel McDonaldIn craftsLeave a comment

We went to Michael’s today so I could buy some beads with letters on them for making my hemp bracelets for the kiddies for tomorrow. While we were there I wanted to get some polymer clay. I wanted to mix the colors to make them look psychedelic but I mixed them too much so they don’t look very good but when I mixed the yellow/green ones they came out a little better because I didn’t mix them before rolling them. I just put the pieces together and started rolling.

I bought some mini metal cutters for different shape beads but only used the heart  cutter and only made what you see in the picture above. I didn’t want to go crazy and make enough beads for a lifetime. Also they are too thin so I’m not even sure I can use them for beads at all. I may have to find another use for those.

I was told to mix them, let them sit out for 10 minutes then poke large holes with a stick before baking but when 10 minutes was up they were still as soft as they were when I first made them so I’m just letting them sit in the kitchen for a while. I’m going to use toothpicks to poke the holes through them when they are hard. If I poke holes in them now they will lose their shape and I’ll have to start over.

The clay is Smart Craft which I read is a Michael’s specific brand and I wish that I knew more about clay brands before I bought this because I just read a bad review of the clay and now I feel stupid. I hope they come out ok after baking. I don’t have time now to go back to Michael’s and buy the right clay and I didn’t buy the colored beads like I wanted to. I spent way more money than I can afford on all the stuff we did buy so this is it, I’m done for rest of the month (as far as buying craft supplies).

I hope these are cool enough beads for the kids necklaces, if not TOUGH lol. No but seriously if they don’t come out right I’m just not going to bring any of the stuff for making the necklaces at all. I’m just going to make Beth her bracelet (which I made with the letters) and necklace and that’s it.

Wish me luck. Hopefully they will be finished by tomorrow and they will make cool beads.

Update: The Craft Smart (Michael’s brand) is crap. I set the oven to 275°F for 15 minutes (for 1/4″ thickness) and it didn’t even cook the beads. 1/4″ thickness, I don’t even know what that means. Does it mean if I have 1 bead that is 1/4″ thick then it bakes for 15 minutes or 15 minutes for each bead? I guess I need a better translation. At any rate, I put it back in the oven for another 15 minutes and it’s still rubbery. I put it in for another 30 minutes and even though it was hard, it’s still rubbery.

I thought that when you bake this polymer clay it comes out like glass. Shiny and hard. These beads are neither shiny or hard. I let them cool and you can still squeeze them and you can see how rubbery they are.

I suppose rubbery is as good for a necklace. Unfortunately when I put the holes in the beads the clay was still very soft so the pressure from putting the holes in them made them lose their shape so in order for me to keep their shape I had to use a toothpick but that means the holes aren’t big enough.

I can’t win, I will have to get more next month and try again but with a different brand.

Hemp Jewelry for Children

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, Friends and FamilyLeave a comment

Last night a friend who used to be our neighbor asked (on ) if we wanted to go to his daughter’sbirthday party on Sunday (tomorrow). Of course we’ll come. I asked him to measure her neck and wrist for some hemp beaded jewelry lol.

What can I say, I love making jewelry out of hemp despite how much it hurts my hands.

So today we’re going to go back to Michael’s for some children friendly beads. I’m going to buy some of the lettered beads and make her a bracelet with her name on it and since it won’t be that long since she’s only 6 years old, 4 letters (BETH) is perfect. It’s a good thing her name isn’t longer like Elizabeth lol.

Since they have 2 other children around her age I thought that I would make them something too because I know how jealous they get when one gets something and the others don’t. I know it’s her birthday party and not theirs but they might feel left out so this will lift their spirits at least.

I’m probably gonna end up just bringing the hemp spools with us and my bead box just in case the other kids want a necklace too. I spoil all the kids too much.

So, what I’m going to get is a big box of many colored beads and the alphabet beads, I haven’t decided what color yet but we’ll see what they have. They might have one of those big round containers with alphabet beads, it would be cheaper if they did.

My hands are gonna be cramped up by the time we get out of there tomorrow. I’m gonna have claws instead of hands.

Hacked Yahoo Emails

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily Blog, Friends and FamilyLeave a comment

I got a strange email from my sister the other day with a link in it (which I won’t add here for your safety) and stupidly I clicked it but I closed the browser before anything could happen. I have wonderful anti-virus program that would’ve caught anything if I were infected.

I know that my sister did not send me that email because number 1 she’s in a bad place right now, her computer was stolen so she doesn’t have the means to send me that email and even if she had a way of sending me an email she would not send me a link with no text explaining what the link was or shy she sent it to me. Also, she wouldn’t email me, she would use to contact me.

Then this morning a friend sent me this email:

“I have a Japanese friend told me that he worked in a Japanese company. I visited the company he worked for and found the products very favorable. And there are many product versions, such as the European version, American version, and the Asian version and so on. All company’s products take photos for the true products. I suggest you should have a look in this website. There is the company website: (link omitted) , You can enjoy a lot of benefits in the second shopping time. Thank you ! k”

I know this isn’t from him because he signed it “K” and he wouldn’t have signed it with a letter, he would’ve signed it with his real name. And second, he never emails me. He doesn’t send me funny jokes or pictures of kittens or puppies or chain emails. He just doesn’t send anything. Not even an email saying hi. If he sees me online on MSN Messenger, well even then he doesn’t IM me. I usually have to IM him because he’s usually too busy to IM people.

So, my guess is that some how Matt and my sister have either clicked a link (when my sister still had access to a computer) and it gave them a virus which allows people to get your passwords or someone has hacked into the Yahoo mainframe. I don’t know which answer it is.

I am blogging about this so that if you have a @yahoo.com email address, back up your address book because what I know of hackers who do this kind of thing is that when they send these emails out to your friends they usually delete your address book / contact list. The only way to get that all back is by going through your sent folder and gathering all the addresses from the emails that were sent to your friends.

What should I do about hacked yahoo email? – Yahoo Answers

Good luck.

Shopping for an eBook Reader

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Gadgets, Kindle, Nook, Products I Like, TechLeave a comment

Someone I follow on tweeted this link today. Engadget’s back to school guide: E-readers. Naturally I had to look because I too want to buy an e-book reader. I have wanted one ever since they first came out but never could afford one because they were in the $400 – $600 range (around 2006).

In November 2009 I started blogging for pay (via PayPerPost and Blogsvertise) with the intention of saving money for buying an e-book reader, Kindle or Nook. Preferably a Nook because of the color screen at the bottom but it didn’t really make any difference. They were both around $265 or so back then.

I had a lot of trouble saving the money for one because my monthly income is so low that when I run out of grocery money I ended up taking the blogging money from PayPal to buy food. Since I have a PayPal debit card it makes it so much easier to spend the money.

9 months has gone by since I made the commitment to save the money and I still don’t have an e-book reader. However, the thing that I wanted the most out of an e-book reader was a lower price to justify my purchase.

eBook readers such as the Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook and Sony Reader have all gone dramatically down in price, down to a price that I can finally afford.

Unfortunately, they still don’t fit my needs. What I want is an e-book reader that will accept a lot of formats like .lit, .prc, .pdf, .mobi and .epub. What I want is for an e-book reader that would allow me to read those formats and still be able to use their dictionary. I don’t know if they all let you to use the dictionary with just a .pdf file which is what makes my decision so difficult.

Kindle Wireless Reading Device, Wi-Fi, 6″ Display, Graphite – Latest Generation:

Pros: The new Amazon Kindle is stylish. I love the graphite color. I like the keypad on the bottom, it’s small enough that I’m ok with it considering I would probably be typing on it occasionally when searching for keywords, making notes and searching for books in the Kindle store. They have games on it, which I don’t really care about, I just want it to read but it is good to know. The price dropped down to $139 and has free 2-day free shipping which is awesome. The battery works for a full month without charging with the wi-fi turned off which is great.

Cons: It does allow me to view my .pdf books but that’s it and I can’t use the dictionary for definitions which is a big negative for me. I mean sure I can’t do that with a paper book but this is electronic and I want that ability. Also, it does not have an SD card for adding more books.

NOOK Wi-Fi, eReader, eBook Reader – Barnes & Noble:

Pros: The B&N Nook is also very stylish with its cool color touchscreen at the bottom which also has a keyboard. The screen goes black while you are reading to keep you from being distracted. It does allow me to add a .pdf, .epub and .pdb file and has a MicroSD slot. The cool thing about the Nook is that you can lend books to your friends and if I had any that had a Nook then we could lend each other books. If you are in the B&N store you can browse through a book for free for 1 hour per day. The price dropped down to $149 and although it’s $10 more than Amazon it is still a good price.

Cons: The Nooks battery is only 10 days unlike the Kindle which is 30 days. The color touchscreen on the bottom is too slow for impatient people like me. Although as I said it allows .pdf, .epub and .pdb files it doesn’t allow the others. All my ebooks are in all the other formats I mentioned above.

Sony Digital Reader Pocket Edition – Dark Blue:

The price of this is different at the Sony site as opposed to the Amazon site. Amazon charges $136.99 with free shipping but according to the Sony site it’s $149.99. I would buy it from Amazon.

Pros: Although it is a little bit stylish in the dark blue color, it isn’t as stylish as the Kindle or Nook. The Sony Pocket Edition does allow multiple formats such as .pdf, .epub, MS Word, BBeB Book (?) and other text file formats. It doesn’t say the others. The ebook store Sony uses is the Reader store which I assume is from Sony, check out books from public libraries and access over one million free public domain titles from Google Books, sharing sites and other online stores and publishers websites.

I don’t know if that means I can access the Rainbow eBooks website or not, I hope it does because that is what I want.

Cons: One of the things I don’t like about this is that it doesn’t have a keyboard for typing and I don’t know how you type anything when looking up a book to buy.

I don’t know if this should go in pro or con, it’s charge only lasts 2 weeks but I mean seriously, I can charge it every 2 weeks.

This is a tough and huge decision, one that I can think about until the first week of September when I will finally have the money saved up to buy one. I’m leaning more toward the Sony reader though but I would like it if people would leave a comment telling me what they think of each of these readers to give me more to think about. Keeping in mind that I buy a lot of books from Rainbow eBooks and ebooks.com.

Judge Removes Stay on Prop 8 Ruling

On By Michel McDonaldIn Gay Rights, PoliticalLeave a comment

Below are the facts from Towleroad.com. From what I heard on Fox News, gay couples can get married on August 18th but… and it’s a big but(t), that gives the Prop 8 team a week to stop it from happening. They will stop at nothing to “protect” marriage from gay people.

Ok look, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it a million times more. Gay people getting married does not hurt straight people’s marriages. If anything it helps the economy because gay people are going to be spending big bucks on their weddings, probably more than straight people would spend.

Now I know that the argument for Prop 8 is not a financial argument but more a moral argument that being gay is immoral according to the bible which was NOT written by a “higher power” but by a bunch of bigots about 2000 years or so ago.

There seems to be a lot of things in the bible that people choose to ignore like that eating shellfish is an abomination (obama-nation?) LEV 10:10, slavery is a good thing especially when you are selling your own DAUGHTER Exodus 21:7, if you wear glasses you cannot get in to heaven LEV 21:23, that is something that everyone seems to forget and so many more.

My personal favorite is the one that says if you work on the sabbath you must be put to death. Oh yes it’s in there. Exodus 35:2. Check it out.

Now, please do me a favor, if you are going to ignore all these other things, please ignore all the gay BS in the bible. Thank you.

Amplify’d from www.towleroad.com

Judge Removes Stay on Prop 8 Ruling; Gay Couples Can Marry Aug 18

UPDATE: WE now have official documents. The stay is in place until August 18, at which time couples can marry as far as I can see.

is reporting that Judge Walker has lifted the stay on his ruling striking down Proposition 8, meaning couples are free to marry in California.

AWAITING official documents…

Also no word on the status of any appeal…

Said Evan Wolfson of Freedom to Marry in a statement:

“California is now the sixth state where same-sex couples share in the freedom to marry. As the Governor, the Attorney General, and Judge Walker have all concluded, there is no good reason to continue excluding same-sex couples from marriage. Same-sex couples across California can once again share in the respect and personal significance of marriage, as well as the critical safety net of protections and responsibilities that marriage will bring to their families. We are witnessing a growing consensus in America that loving and committed same-sex couples deserve the same respect and the same rights as everyone else. Americans on all sides of the aisle, from Laura Bush to Bill Clinton, have embraced the reality that the freedom to marry helps families, while hurting no one. As same-sex couples in California today celebrate their love,commitment, and equal protection under the law, a majority of Californians and a majority of Americans support their right to marry.”

Read more at http://www.towleroad.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/8mdv

Strange Activity With My Blog

On By Michel McDonaldIn Amplify, Daily BlogLeave a comment

You might have noticed there were 3 new posts with the title “Mel Gibson’s Father, As Crazy As Mel” today. That was unintentional. I was using the Amplify website to copy images and text as quotes for a post about the Prop 8 update (watch for in a few minutes) but it would automatically take my first Amplify post (About Mel) along with the Prop 8 info from Towlroad.com and post it without my permission.

The problem is a Google Chrome plugin that I have been using for a long time called Last Pass which allows my browser to automatically log in to websites with my stored passwords. For some odd reason it thought the subject line was a password and it automatically submitted my post thinking it was signing into a website.

That has never happened before and in order for me to actually continue with this blog post I had to disable that plugin.

I will try to keep that in mind next time I use Amplify to write posts.

Twitter Karma

On By Michel McDonaldIn TwitterLeave a comment

Awhile ago I talked about using Twiends for following and getting followers on . When you follow people you get credits depending on how many credits people are offering. The credits you receive end up being given to other people for following you. It’s a pretty neat process for raising your Twitter followers.

However, not all of those people you followed are going to reciprocate. That’s bad karma. I follow everyone who follows me and when I see that someone didn’t reciprocate it frustrates me. There wasn’t much I could do about it because I didn’t know who I was following that wasn’t followingme back.

Until now. I found a website with a service called Your Twitter Karma that will help you find out who is following you and who you are following. You click the twitter button to sign in with your twitter account, it asks you to deny or allow them to connect to your twitter then when you click allow it signs you in. You click Whack and it loads every person you follow and your followers.

The first thing you see is a summary.

See the 2 on the left are people who I follow but as you can see they never followed me back. The 2 on the right I follow and they follow me. This website cannot bulk unfollow because that violates Twitters . So, that means you have to look at every person one at a time. You can click their name and their twitter page loads in a new tab so you can see whether or not you wanted to continue to follow them.

In my situation I didn’t want a bulk unfollow because I want to keep following celebrities who are never going to follow me.

Unfollowing those who don’t follow you levels the playing field though because if I am following 1461 people, I want 1461 people following me too. With the exception of the celebrities of course but you get the picture. Although the amount of people following me is well below that 1400 number so the number of who I am following is going to drop dramatically soon but over time I’m sure that will go up again with Twiends.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this new bit of information that I have found.

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Hemp Rings Annoying

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, JewelryLeave a comment

I’ve been wearing 3 hemp rings for the last week and I’ve noticed that every day they get stretched out so much because I’m constantly playing with the bead in them. I don’t know why I do it, I have to fidget with them all the time.

They are getting so stretched that they fall right off my fingers. At first I thought that I would have to make new ones every week but then I held my hands under the water and to my surprise they tightened up and they all feel the same way they were when I first made them. Tight and hard.

I don’t mind them when they are soft and flimsy as long as they stay on my fingers.

So it’s good to know that if they start to feel too big for my finger that I can just run my hands under the water and they will go right back to being tight again.

$99 Color E-Reader and Social Platform to Challenge Amazon, B&N This Fall

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, eBook, Kindle, NookLeave a comment

via $99 Color E-Reader and Social Platform to Challenge Amazon, B&N This Fall.

I like this idea that the Copia is a $99 color e-book reader. However, I don’t like the fact that it’s an LCD screen and has a battery time of 4 hours. Those are the only 2 things I don’t like about it. When I’m reading an e-book, I don’t want to screw my eyes up more than they already get with an actual book. Reading from a LCD screen isn’t going to help my eyes at all.

The Copia does have a lot of cool functions though but personally I think it’s all too distracting from what you’re true intentions are when turning it on, reading. If I want to read reviews or recommendations on a book I can do that on the computer. When I want to read a book I want to read it without the temptation of all the other functions. By the time I’m ready to start reading the battery is already dead because I’ve been looking at reviews for the last 4 hours. Then I’m back at square one, no book to read despite my prior intentions.

Although the $99 price is very tempting, I think that I would rather spend the extra $30 or $50 for a Kindle or aNook.