Things I’ve Learned this Week

Happy Friday!  Welcome to the weekly round-up Cobs Lessons of Life.  A picture postcard in words (and sometimes photographs if I’m lucky and the one brain cell remembers to take them), of things I’ve encountered in the last week, from which I have learned something.

Shall we dive straight in?

This week I’ve learned …

That I REALLY, MOST DEFINITELY, ABSOLUTELY, TOTALLY don’t like it when women go around the supermarket shopping for their groceries, whistling the same bit of a totally unrecognisable tune like it’s a perfectly acceptable thing for a lady to do.  As my mother and Grandmother before her used to say:  “A Whistling Woman and a Crowing Hen are neither good for God nor Men!“…  and after this weeks shopping trip, I 100% agree with them.

I’ve also learned that Dr. Seuss actually really did know what he was talking about . . . I saw these words and absolutely laughed myself silly because they spoke of a trip Mr. Cobs and I took to the harbour side about a week or so ago with our Grandson, Little Cobs …

Whenever we go to the Harbour there’s always something happening, or something which we do which makes a memory for us all.  On this occasion Little Cobs wanted the binoculars – or as he calls them  bew-nonkly-erzs.  He has his own Bewnonklyerzs in the back of our car.

not Little Cobs Bewnonklyerzs – but the same as his, only these don’t have the four lens caps.

We bought them for him about two and a half years ago, and he’s always loved them. (He’s five and a half now).  They have their own solid sided case, caps on all the lenses, and he knows how to open the case, uncap them and get that neck thing around his neck so that they can’t drop to the floor, and even how to get them focused.  But on this visit he didn’t want his bewnonklyerzs, he wanted ours.

So out came our binoculars and he began looking at the yachts, boats, people zooming around on jet skis and various other things which were happening around and about.  But then, suddenly, he did something he doesn’t normally do.  He took the binoculars, looked at them for a moment and then purposely turned them around and looked down them through the wrong way round.

He suddenly burst into fits of giggles.  He was laughing so much that although he was talking we couldn’t understand a word he was saying.  Still laughing (so much that he was crying!), he took the binoculars away from his eyes and handed them to me, saying  “Look.  Look!”  So I looked through the binoculars … but no, he took them off me, turned the around so that they were now the wrong way around and again said  “Look!”  and began laughing again.  So… I did what any other Grammy would do ….  I looked.  And all of a sudden I could see what he was laughing at.  The world looked  …  weird.  Everything looked suddenly very insignificant.  The people looked like a colony of ants all doing the job they’re supposed to do.  I looked at him through the binoculars, sat next to me on Grandads lap … and he looked so funny that I began to laugh too.  I gave the binoculars to Grandad and told him to “Look Grandad,  and then you’ll see”  …  so he did,  and he did.

There were all three of us, sat in the front of my car, laughing like someone had just told us the funniest joke of all time.  People were looking in and seeing the scene and smiled.

Dr. Seuss knew EXACTLY what he was talking about when he said:  “Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.  It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope“.

In our case it was bewnonklyerzs . . .  but the view worked in exactly the way Seuss meant.  Try it sometime.

Let’s see … what else have I learned this week?…

Ahh…  now this is relating to Crafting … so if you’re not a crafter, I apologise …

I’ve learned . . .  that,  for me,  Digi Stamps seem to be a huge rip off because a crafter is being made to pay an awful amount more for an image than it first appears they’re paying.

For those who don’t quite know what a Digi Stamp is …  it’s just an image, which you buy the rights to use and you store it on your computer and print it out whenever you need it.

• If using Digi Stamps,  you have to pay for the Digi Stamp and then store it on your computer to use whenever you wish.  So far, so good.
• But…  then comes the problem of the cardstock you’d like to use,  against what will actually feed through your printer (and boy do I know the fury of trying to get some cardstock through my printer!  grr!).   You might end up having to print that image out on cardstock you didn’t actually want to use … all because the printer you own won’t take the cardstock you do want to use.
• Also …  You can’t print on some cardstock because they’re too slippery or shiny and the ink won’t ‘hold’ onto the card.  Or maybe you want to print out on acetate but can’t do that unless you pay extra for printable acetate, but then if you do, it’s not the really lovely acetate which you’d normally use in card making.
•  FINALLY ... there’s the  COST OF PRINTER INK.   OH. DEAR. ME!!!  ~ Get ready  for this little heart stopper:

Quoted directly from a report in a 2014

At £650, a bottle of Krug Clos du Mesnil 2000 Champagne is decadent,  but compared with the cost of essential replacement ink for a home printer it looks cheap – at about 90p a millilitre for the 750ml bottle.

HOWEVER …

In contrast, the ink in a best-selling 6.5ml HP 300 Tri-colour ink cartridge – priced at £15 on the high street – comes to £2.30 a millilitre.

This means  (wait for this) . . . .  

If that champagne bottle was emptied … and instead filled with cartridge ink  – it would cost . . .  £1,725. 

One thousand, seven hundred and twenty-five pounds.  You could have a holiday!

You can check the whole article out  HERE

I’ve double checked the cost of that same Champagne today, and the price of printer ink, and they are (roughly,  ‘give or take’) around the same prices.  But … you make up your own mind about it.

What else have I learned  …

Oh…  I was taken back to my school days when I came across this bit of information quite by accident:

On this very day in 1066 . . .

• The Battle of Hastings took place on 14th October 1066.  It was one of the bloodiest and most important battles fought on British soil and heralded the beginning of the Norman Conquest.

I loved the story of the Battle of Hastings when I was in school.  I remember we even went to see a tapestry – called the Bayeux Tapestry – of it.  It wasn’t THE tapestry but a replica, handmade by a group of ladies many, many years ago.

I’ve also learned this week that it’s not just Graphic 45 that I have expensive paper tastes for …  I’ve fallen in love with a Nordic craft companies papers and ... ohhh ...  I’m going to have to place an order for some.  I just have to work out how I can sneak them past Mr. Cobs so that he doesn’t notice them . . because  it was only three weeks ago I said that I wasn’t “buying ANY MORE PAPER until I’d used at least half of the papers I have in my craft room”.  And I MEANT IT!  But to be honest … I think I’ve done excellently well going three weeks!   🙂

Ah, I guess there are worse things I could be addicted to.  And just think .. everyone is going to get such nice cards made with these papers!  lol.

Well It’s Friday lovely people.  And we all know what that means.

Yes, it means that we have to do the dance.  Stand up.  Strike the pose please ….. AND CLICK THE VIDEO in order to ‘do the dance’, as you will be instructed . . . .

There.  Don’t you feel better for that?

I think …  Friday is such a lovely day.  It’s a day to do great things.  A day to remember how blessed you are and look at all the good which is in your life.  A day to clear things up which have been hanging around.  To get things sorted.  I know that sometimes gremlins can get into a day and give you a bit of a hard time …  but everything is sort-out-able.  Even gremlins.   There is always something which can be done – even if it’s going round to a friends just to chat about whatever it is which is bugging you.

And as for tomorrow, well, that isn’t even here yet,  but …  isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?

I wish you a weekend which smooths out some of the wrinkles in your life,  even if it just means resting and relaxing for a few hours to let the stresses ease away.

Have a lovely day, a wonderful weekend,  and  . . .  may your God go with you.

 

 

 

 

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Things I’ve learned this week …

Welcome to Cobs weekly confessional about the things I’ve learned this week.. I’m going to dive straight in . . .

I’ve learned (for the millionth time) that I just am not good in hot weather.  I get terse and grumpy.

Hello God, … it’s me again.  I’m here asking for the same thing.  Could you please turn down the heat?  You know that hot weather just makes me grumpy and miserable, so please could you turn down the heat – even just a few degrees would be welcomed.  Thank you ~ Cobs. x

This week I’ve learned that there are some projects that just don’t photograph well, and because of that I can’t blog about them until I learn how to go about getting a decent photo.  [big – s.i.g.h]

I’ve been playing with some mediums which are new to me,  learning and testing them out to see how they perform and what works with them (and what doesn’t).  These products are:  Buff it, by Pinflair;  and Brusho.

Brusho = little pots of amazing Water Colour Ink Crystals (little pots of powders to you and I) which can be used in loads of different ways.

You can sprinkle a very SMALL amount onto some watercolour paper and spraying it with a fine mist spray of water.

watercolour Brusho crystals sprinkled then sprayed

You can either then just leave it to do its own thing, or you can move it around by the use of a paintbrush or even picking it up and tipping the paper to make the colours run the way you want them to.

Wet water-colour paper, sprinkled with brusho’s then dragged across the card.  The sentiment actually says: Live Every Moment. Laugh Every Day.  Love Beyond Words.  (but I stamped it in the wrong place and you can’t read the final line.  But since these are only ‘playing’ it really didn’t matter.)

You can paint with the Brusho – and the colours are wonderful!  Again, you only need to use the tiniest amount. If you add a little to some water, in a spray bottle, you can then use it as a colour spray and add a spray of droplets to your project.

Now onto my second new crafting product..

Buff It is like the most incredible wax that you’ve ever seen  BUT … it’s NOT WAX!  I would guess that a greater majority of readers have a pot or two of wax which we use in our crafting.  But … the problem with these waxes is that they smell to high heff!  Coo do they stink.  It’s Paraffin.   However  Buff it doesn’t smell at all.  You could (if you were crazy) pour a whole tub of Buff it onto your project and still not have to fling the doors open in order to get fresh air so that you don’t collapse.  Again, this is another product which you only need a tiny amount of.

You can use it ‘as is’ … or you can add a little water to it.  A LITTLE water.  It dries quickly – so remember to take out what you need, then close the lid!  Work a little quickly with it, but if it dries out too quickly you can use a fine mister spray and add just a tiny bit of water, and it’s ready to go again!

Brusho and Buff it used together.  That’s the most incredible Gold colour not sunflower yellow as it looks in this photo.  I so wish I could have got a better photo.  Mr. Cobs saw this at this stage in the making and (in his words):  Wow, it looks like the Cosmos!  And I have to agree that when you see it with the naked eye, it actually does!

 

But … some of the projects I tried with these two wonderful craft magicals, just don’t show the real beauty which you can achieve with the products.  You can ‘see the things’ … but the camera just doesn’t pick up the magic.

Moving on …  Question for you:  When is a Sapphire not a Sapphire?  ……. [I’ll let you think about that one for a moment] ……

….. [still thinking?  —  Ready to give in?  …  ok, read on] . . .

I’ve learnt that . . . Sapphires and Rubies  . . .   are  . . .   the  same  Gem!

I know!  Surprised me, I’m telling you! 

Collectively Sapphires and Rubies are known as Corundum.  Their only difference is their colour!

Also … Sapphires don’t just come in blue.  Natural Sapphires can be found in pink,  white,  yellow,  green,  orange,  brown,  cognac,  black and purple!  (Did you know that you could get Sapphires in all these colours? It was a real eye opener to me.)  BUT …  Not only that …

Very rarely but . . . Sapphires can change colour.  Colour Change Sapphires will typically  be blue to violet in daylight, but will look purple to red indoors.

And a RARE PHENOMENON found in Sapphires is asterism.  This is where a gemstone exhibits special optical phenomena.  A six (or very rarely a twelve) pointed star will appear on the surface of the gem, that will move as the stone moves in the light.

And finally … 

I’ve learned this week …. that you don’t have to be using paper to get a paper cut, and neither do you need to be in your craft room!

Out shopping I wanted to feel the softness of a bathroom ‘rug’ (a mat for when you clamber out of the shower) – so with finger and thumb I kind of ‘pinched’ the mat so that I could get a feel for it.  But …  (be honest, you knew there was a ‘but’ didn’t you) …  in ‘pinching’ the bathroom mat, I lifted my other fingers out-of-the-way.  Now that seems like a safe enough thing to do doesn’t it?  [shakes head]  nope.  It most certainly isn’t!

The bathroom mat had a large piece of folded card over the top of it,  where a hanger was for hanging the mat up for display purposes.  In feeling the rug/mat,  I caught my middle finger (left hand) on the really thick card, and instantly felt the pain.  I looked down at my finger to see a gash with blood gently pumping out of it.

Now  come on!  Who would have thought that you could get a right ol’ paper cut from thick and chunky piece of card??  I could not believe it.

Mr. Cobs didn’t, in my opinion, take this injury at all seriously.  Do you know what he did when I showed him my life threatening injury?   He peered at my bloodied finger, pursed his lips, looked at me, made a ‘huhm’ sound, turned to walk off and as he did so he said:  “Well you won’t be doing that again, will you!”

I stopped in my tracks,  mouth agape, eyes as wide as saucers, … I called after him:  “You do know that you can be replaced, don’t you?” …  he ignored me totally, and  from the shaking of his shoulders  I could tell he was laughing at me.  The cheek of the man!

The thing is …  he knows I won’t ‘replace’ him because,  quite frankly,  I couldn’t bear to go through all that training again.  The man couldn’t boil an egg until I whipped him into shape.  He can now cook a complete Christmas dinner with very little input from me.  He’s amazing.  But look .. if you see him, please don’t tell him I said this because he’ll only get high with delight and strut around like a rooster in a hen-house!

Well that’s me done and dusted and now it’s over to you.  What have you learned this week?   Do share …  not because I’m nosey … but because … no…  actually … it’s because I’m nosey.  So do share what you’ve learned this week via a comment in the box below ….  and none of us will judge you.  We might laugh at you … or we might cry with you.  But we’ll certainly make you feel welcome.

Ohhhhh… I think The Lord may have heard my request because the rumbling of thunder can be heard.  Maybe he’s going to cool it down by watering his garden.  Oh my goodness  … BIG thunder and crashing lightning!   Ooo.. the lights have all dimmed, the TV has lost its signal ….  awww,  and the dog has come to sit on my feet as apparently I’m her best hope if something bad happens.  I’m going to get this post saved and posted before I lose the computer too!  eeek!

Wishing you a very happy Friday, and a wonderful weekend.  May your troubles be few and your happiness be high.

Oh ..  and …  be nice to each other.  Sending you squidges ~