Busy busy busy.  So many things I want to do and so many things I have to do and not enough time for either.  I've been feeling a little twinge of wanting to knit and/or crochet lately.  It's been a couple of years since that happened.  I only feel inclined to do that during cold weather and since the weather in New Mexico is pretty mild, I haven't really been tempted.  I don't know why I suddenly want to do it now, but I do think that I'll pack some yarn and hooks and work on a project during our drive to South Carolina in a few weeks.  I can't read because I get car sick, but I'm not sure about crocheting.  I've never tried it.

Well, I'm going to go paint some more pages in the journal I need to send in a swap like next week (YIKES!).  I am not sure if I'll be able to finish the entire book in this manner before the deadline, but I don't want to do half and half so I'm going to go into my office today and paint as much as I can, heat set the pages and then seperate them with waxed paper so that they don't stick if they aren't quite fully dry. Hopefully though the effort will be well appreciated.  I went to a lot more trouble than I probably had to, but I wanted this to be something really fun to receive.

I decided to make my mother in law a unique photo album using one of the 7 Gypsies photo carousels ala Ali Edwards.  I found a place online (Ritz Camera, I think, but the link is on my other computer so I'm not for sure).  They had the spinners on sale for only $26 which is almost half of what other sites charge.  So I bought the spinner and a couple of stamp sets.

I don't know what it is about stamps, but I can't get enough lately.  The thing is that I really don't know how to use them very well.  I have tons of inks and stamps and barely ever use anything regularly but a $5 office date stamp and a pad of black ink.  Can't seem to stop buying and hording though.  It's not as bad as my thing with patterned paper.   I love buying huge packs of it and then really don't know how to use it for anything.  So I mostly tear it into scraps for projects or else make envelopes with it. 

Anyway, I suppose I should be working on this project instead of talking about it.  Have a great evening. 

I'm eating while I write this, which made me think of wasabi.  I've only ever tried the green paste you can buy at any American supermarket, but I have developed quite a love affair with it.  Whenever eating anything even vaguely resembling Asian food (tonight's canned chicken chow mein being a perfect example of how low my standards are), I put a good sized dallop right on top and mix it in.  Inevitably, I take a bite where the paste hasn't been mixed well with the food and it singes my nasal passages.  Despite that, or because of it, I can't get enough.  I even found wasabi flavored cashews once, but never again. 

Wasabi will never take the place of my favorite hot sauce (Tapitio), but it's a close second.

Yeah, that's right.  I'm insane.  I thought I had a little more time to work on my ATCs for this one particular swap, but it turns out that they were supposed to go out today.  Oops.  That's what I get for putting things off too long.  I've only got a few more swaps before I'm completely done.  They are biggies though.  It'll be nice to just enjoy swapbot as a place to chat for awhile until things settle down again.  Having swaps right now is just one more deadline looming over me and it's taken the fun out of it. 

I wanted to post a little more, but I was sneaking in an entry while my husband finished up what he was working on so I guess I'm done too.  :)

I can't believe I totally forgot to blog all weekend.  How embarrassing.  I'm really bad at keeping to a daily post schedule. 

I've been really busy and today is no exception.  It's not even the fun kind of busy.  Just homework and house cleaning and other chores.  I'm trying to rebuild my Photoshop goodies since I lost all that stuff when my hard drive crashed awhile ago.  I told a lady on Swapbot that I'd make her a digi scrapping kit, but that was before I realized that I have pretty much zero tools at my disposal.  Yikes!  Well, I'm still going to give it a try and see what happens.

I haven't even had time to log onto Swapbot in a few days and I don't know if I'll get around to it today either.  So much to do and no time to do it.  Yikes.  Catch you guys later.

Today was probably the most boring day in a long time.  I did a lot of quizzes for my computer class in an attempt to catch up.  I didn't make any art or even play my video game.  It also turns out that we completely spaced on my son's speech therapy because of my husband's surprise day off yesterday.  Oops. 

Hope everyone had a nice day with more excitment than mine.

I just don't have much to say today.

We got the news today that my mother in law has terminal brain cancer and only has 3-6 months left.  We're planning an unexpected trip to South Carolina for Christmas.  I barely know the lady, but I feel so bad for her.

Just another of my trademarked quickie weekend posts. 

Hope everyone is having a wonderful day so far.  :)

I spent the evening writing an 8 page research paper.  I just want to sleep for the next week.  The good news is that I get to start picking next semester's classes next Friday, a week before most of my peers thanks to my "Crimson" status.  I get to be first to pick the next batch of classes to torture myself with.  Hooray!

Plus the state passed some new regs for what pre reqs I'm required to take before applying to the nursing program.  Fun. 

Night all!

Man, I am totally failing at remembering to blog every single day.  I don't have much unqiue to say today so I thought I'd write a follow up to the art tool post I made a few days ago.  Mostly because I got a lovely comment on it and it reminded me that I meant to do that.

My favorite embellishments are pretty evident if you were to look at my body of work.  I use the same things all the time.

Paper flowers-  These are my absolute favorite embellishment of all.  I buy them in all kinds of colors, sizes, and shapes.  Some aren't even technically paper.  I have some felt, silk, and plastic ones floating around too.  I love the embossing the most.  I have tried to mimic it myself since I have something like 4 different flower punches around, but I just can't seem to get it to look close to the same.

Buttons-  I prefer the flat 2 or 4 hole buttons.  I don't really like novelty buttons at all.  I have a jar full of all different sizes and colors.  I love looking at the jar almost as much as using the buttons, I think.

Ribbons-  Whenever rolls of ribbon go on sale at the craft store, I stock up.  The funny thing is that even though I collect them and love them, I actually very rarely actually use them.  They do come in handy for swaps though.  I love tossing in a few different kinds of ribbon as a nice surprise.

Homemade "chipboard"-  Remember the cereal box collection I told you about the other day?  The smaller scraps are perfect for cutting into shapes and painting.  Sometimes I double (or triple) the layers to make a more substantial element if I feel like the cardboard I'm using is too thin.  I love the way it soaks up the paint.  Very very versatile.  I just do all the things with it that you can do with chipboard and it works fine.

Felt-  Sheets of felt are so awesome to have around.  They add awesome texture to a project and come in tons of colors.

 Found junk-  I like to use all kinds of bits and pieces of things I've found around the house.  Junk mail is great and easy to find, catalogs, leaves, sand, whatever really.  It's a free way to make a piece truly unique.  I do a lot of this on my scrapbook pages.  I think a leaf I snagged on a trip tells as much of the story as a picture I took.

Handmade embellishments- I like to do this a lot.  I use paper scraps to piece together cupcakes or houses or birds.  I will cut circles out of patterned papers and felt and layer them with a button on top to make something unique.  Lots of things of that nature.  It all ends up looking very whimsical and kitchy, which is a look I adore.

Papers-  This is pretty broad.  I use scrapbook papers, fancy specialty papers, tin foil, found text, magazine clips, phone book pages, and others.  For collage bases I'm just going to paint over, I will use junk mail or patterned paper I don't like.  I actually use a lot of paper, but people only really SEE a fraction of it because of the ways I use it.

Corrugated cardboard-  I LOVE the way it looks when it's all distressed. 

Wire twists-  I've really taken to making circular embellishments that resemble those fancy paper clips you can buy.  I use 20 gauge wire and a pair of pliars and just kind of shape it freehand until I like the tightness of the coils.  I usually put some seed beads on it and then clip it to the edge of something to secure. 

Alphabet stamps-  I didn't really list these as a tool, but I suppose they could have very well have made it under that heading.  The right size and font letter stamps can make a world of difference to the composition of a piece.  Especially when I'm working on a scrapbook page or book.  Creative letting is an art.  I'm not very good at it currently, but I'm hoping to improve with practice.

Photos/images-  These can come from all sorts of sources, pictures I've taken, magazines, vintage photos, stamps, or clip art, but they are all used the same way.  It is a great focal point, although I don't utilize them as much as some other people do.

Stuff that I also consider to be tools-  Acrylic paint, embroidary floss, staples, masking tape, Dymo label maker, more decorative rubber stamps.  There are probably others.  I consider these things to be as cool looking as they are functional and so they get to be listed under both categories.

I think that those are the biggies.  Someday I hope to start scanning my art before I send it away so that I have a pool of references to draw from for posts like this, but I probably won't start anytime soon.  I'm just too lazy to mess with it.

Happy voting to you who are braving the polls today. 

I went to bed last night at 8:30.  That's so ridiculously early.  I had a headache though and sleeping just seemed like the thing to do.  So I didn't acomplish a whole lot.  Today is probably going to be more of the same.  I've been playing Fallout 3 off and on the past couple of days.  Video games take over my life.  I wish I were more inspired to work on art stuff during the day.  I have so much great stuff to play with and I haven't accomplished much in over a week.

I just can't seem to keep up with posting on th eweekends.  It's not even as if my life is so exciting that there's just no time.  I assure you that this is just not the case.  Nothing much goes on here around the weekends, but I just don't spend as much time online when my husband is around Fri-Sun.

I started playing a new game yesterday.  I hadn't heard of it before Saturday, but the reviews were so consistantly positive that I decided to try it even though it goes against my typical preferred style.  It's called Fallout 3 and it's supposed to be a "retro-futuristic" (think the way that people in the 50's imagined the year 2000 was going to be, like the Jetsons) post apocolyptic game.  Sounds kinda boring, huh?  That's what I would have thought, but it's ok.  It's more like an RPG than anything, but instead of the typical trolls and goblins you fight super mutants and radiation enhanced bugs and animals.  I only rented it so I don't know if I'll end up wanting to buy it when the time is up or not, but I figured this was the best way to go since I just wasn't sure I'd like it at all.

I tried my hand at hand drawing a couple of ATCs.  One is definately better than the other, but both of them turned out way better than I would have expected.  I really just like painting the backgrounds.  I know I mentioned that I got my orders from Skybluepink and the paper company the other day.  Well, in the SBP package I had some punchinella (best link I could find, SBP seems to be down right now) that I ordered and a couple of strips of lumpy textured stuff that I didn't order specifically, but received in a collage package.  I think that they are supposed to be drawer liners.  All I know is that if you paint on them and then use them as a stamp they make a really rich texture.  I love it.

So really that was the extent of my art this weekend.  Four ATCs and a bunch of painted backgrounds that I'll use for something.  Maybe.  Someday.

As always, I almost forgot to post.  I never anticipated how hard it would be for me to keep up on the weekends. 

Halloween went really well.  We went to a party at a friend's house before hitting up the neighborhood.  The boys had a great time and got tons of candy that we've been withholding for the most part.  They think we are mean.  I think I'm saving myself another trip to the dentist to get my son's spacer/crown thingy put back in.

I think I might like Thursdays more than the actual weekends for some reason.  I have no idea why.  We've come to the end of our insurance sponsered speech sessions so now we're back to once a week out of pocket.  Which is great as far as not having to worry about doing that with the boys.  I feel bad for my son though, he really needs as much speech therapy as humanly possible to do.  I think that even if he got twice what he's getting now he'd still need more. 

I finally got the Skybluepink package I've been waiting on.  I was nervous because the box was awfully small.  I was afraid that maybe half my order was still enroute or something.  Luckily everything was present and accounted for.  Things were just smaller than I'd pictured.  Except for these crazy rolling stamp things, those suckers turned out to be huge.  But I'm looking forward to playing with them.  My date stamp is one of my favorite tools (crap, should have put that in my list.  How'd I forget that thing?) and I've thought more than once that I really wished there was a word version.  So when I found these guys I was super excited.  They are the same font, but one is 12 pt and the other is 18 pt.

I kinda went with an Asian theme.  Not on purpose, I was just really attracted to the different joss papers and whatnot.  I'm just really glad my stuff came.  I'm waiting on my package of paper scraps and then I'll be good to go.  I'm planning to send out a nice fat package to my friend as soon as it comes.  We've had some issues with her mail arriving already opened by a super helpful neighbor who seems to think that she needs her stuff gone though before she opens it.  So I'm going to have to get signature confirmation or whatever it's called this time.  But even so, I'm still really excited to send her all this great stuff.

As election day draws nearer, I'm noticing a marked increase in the number of people that are knocking on my door.  I voted on Saturday because New Mexico evidently has some sort of early voting thing this year.  I don't know if that's always the case or what since I wasn't hear 4 years ago, but it was nice to get it out of the way.  Except now these people are still knocking on my door since they evidently don't get informed that I've already picked up my ballot.  It sucks. I am borderline antisocial in the evenings.  My husband and I both hang around in our underoos watching TV or playing video games (or for me it's mostly doing art in my studio) and answering the door just isn't something we look forward to doing once we're in the zone.

Besides all that, there's the fact that I don't care about any of this stuff.  I'm uninformed on all the issues.  I voted for Obama based on only two things.  One, I think the Republicans had the last 8 years to screw things up.  If the best they could come up with was Bush then too bad for them.  Secondly, Sarah Palin bugs the crap out of me.  I feel like she thinks she's running for Prom Queen rather than Vice President.  If there were going to be a woman in office, I would have voted for Clinton.  She's serious and business like and that's what I want from my Vice President.  Running a country is serious work and I want a serious canidate taking on the job.

And this concludes my ramble on the subject of politics.  I voted this year for the first time ever and I feel pretty good about it.  My husband never registered, but that's cool because he would have voted for McCain and then we probably would have gotten in a fight because of the two aforementioned reasons.  It's like when he says some actress is pretty and I want to punch him in the face for being so blind to the fact that she's actually hideous.  Or maybe that's not the normal reaction.  I think maybe I'm just more opinionated on every subject under the sun than is healthy or normal, LOL.

I'm only going to make a short entry this morning because I have a fairly large assignment due for my English class.  Something to do with an annotated bibliography.  Too bad I don't have any sources picked out to annotate.  Anyone know anything about human trafficking and sex slavery?  No?  Me either.  /sigh

I found out the other day that I've been added as a "Crimson Scholar".  I don't know much about the program outside of the bounds of my college (NMSU).  It could be a national thing or just a school thing.  I don't know.  What I do know is that it means that I get to register for classes a week earlier than I would get to as a continuing freshman though and that's a huge deal.  There are a few classes I need to take online that fill up really fast.  By getting first whack at them, I can knock those out so much earlier than having to wait until I fall into a higher class level and get to sign up earlier.

I have this listed on my swapbot profile, but I will go ahead and restate it here in case someone missed it or forgot it or just otherwise didn't care.  I'm currently going to school full time with the intention of graduating with an ADN.  I think that stands for Associate's Degree in Nursing.  But the salient point here is that I want to become a registered nurse (RN).  This is a tiny part of a much larger career goal.  After I get my ADN, the plan is to move to Maryland where I can get a job (I hope like crazy that I can work in the ICU of Johns Hopkins because they have such an amazing reputation that it will give my resume a lot more clout than working anywhere in New Mexico).

Maryland wasn't chosen at random.  There are only a handful of graduate schools in the country where I can study my chosen career, Certified Registered Nurse Anethestitian (CRNA).  We had to overlap those schools with places where my husband can realistically hope to find a job doing what he does.  There are an even smaller number of locations for that.  As it happens, Maryland has both, so that's where I hope to end up in a few years.

So after ADN we head for Maryland where I land a highly coveted job in a busy ICU and gain valuable work experience.  While I'm doing that, I hope to get accepted into the online RN to BSN program at the University of Maryland, School of Nursing which also has my graduate program available.  I'm hoping that by graduating with my BSN from the same school, I'll be given higher consideration than a transfer student would recieve to get into the program.

The CRNA program is sooo competitive.  There are only something like 2000 seats available a year in the entire country.  I really want to pursue this line of study though.  Ideally, in ten years or so, I'd love to find myself working as a CRNA in the Orlando area of Florida in either a maternity ward or for a cosmetic surgeon.  Although at least a year of intensive care experience is required to be accepted into the program, I really don't want to work in a trauma environment.  I'll happily take a pay cut to have a more reliable, 9-5 type of work atmosphere.  If being on call is a requirement, I'm looking for a job where it's very infrequent.  Preferably only once or twice a month.  I know these kinds of jobs exist because they are heavily advertised on the job sites that cater to CRNA. 

I don't think I'd be interested in going into a private practice.  I know that's where the real money is for the job, but that's more responsibility than I want.  I think that making the lowest possible income that a CRNA makes is still a ridiculous amount of money for our family considering what we live on right now as a family of six with only my husband working.  I feel like we live a pampered life as it is so money isn't the motivating factor for me, although it doesn't hurt.

Basically I'm 30 (as of a few weeks ago) and I have yet to accomplish anything with my life beyond marriage and kids.  For some women that's all they want and they are satisfied with that.  I need something else beyond that though.  I'm not unhappy, don't think that.  I love my family and as I said before, we don't want for anything.  My husband is a wonderful man and a great provider.  If I had to live the rest of my life in this situation, I'd be fine.  It's a good life.  I just wouldn't be satisfied.

The thing is I know I'm a very intelligent woman.  And I don't mean that in a egotistical way.  That's just how it is.  Grades and learning are easy for me.  I've been able to maintain a 4.0 GPA with minimal effort on my part.  If I don't screw it up with the computer class I've blown off so bad that I'm completely behind in it, that is.  I really should have gone to college after high school, but I just didn't have any educational goals.  No one in my family had any schooling past 12th grade and we were so poor that it just didn't seem like a realistic option to me.  Of course, now I realize that there are piles of money sitting around and I think pretty much everyone can go to school, but at the time I didn't know that.

Instead of college I got pregnant and married and divorced and married again.  I joined the Army for a couple of years and started having more kids.  All this by the time I was 21.  I've had a lot of life experiences, but I haven't bothered to develop my mind.  And I wouldn't have if my husband and I hadn't gotten into a heated debate about sending the boys to school.  He wanted to pay for their tuition and I told him that there's no way because if we can't afford for me to go to school then we can't afford for them to go to school.  So he told me "then go to school and quit bitching about it".  Not his words, but that was basically the gist of it.

So here I am.  I started school in June by taking two 5 week (a total of 8 credits) algebra courses.  I got the highest grades in both classes and evidently ended up as a Crimson Scholar because of it.  I'm currently taking a full courseload online with the intention of doing the same next semester.  In the summer I hope to take the required CNA class (certified nurse's assistant) and finish up the last of my pre reqs in the fall.  If I get into the classes I need and do well in them, I should be eligible to apply to the nursing program in Spring of '10.  Luckily for me, this school takes applicants based on a points system.  Some schools do it by lottery which means that no matter how much you study, you could still be beat out by students who did the bare minimum grade-wise and just happened to be picked by luck of the draw.

This has got to be one of my most boring posts to date.  My husband doesn't even care about this topic and he's the one who's going to be helping me pay for graduate school in another 5 years or so.  Oh well, sometimes it's good to just reaffirm your goals and hold yourself accountable.  Like the fact that I need to bust my ass and catch up in my computer class before all my well intentioned plans come crashing down.  I could lose my financial aid if I fail this class.  Not to mention what it would do to my GPA.  Maybe one class doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but it would devestate me, personally.  So yeah, better get motivated.

I've been almost forgetting to post all weekend so I'm going to take care of that early this morning. 

Today is going to be awful.  I have to run the kids to the dentist this morning at 7:30am because Thing 3 (the 5 year old) pulled the crown/spacer off his teeth.  And of course my husband really felt like it was urgent to schedule this two minutes past the asscrack of dawn.  Grrr...  And then there's speech this afternoon.

I had tons of issues with Fable yesterday.  My Xbox evidently scratched the disc.  I didn't even know that was possible, but there was a circular groove almost all the way around the whole disc.  So I had to return it, but luckily they took it back and exchanged it.  But not before I erased my saved game because I thought it was a system error.  So that sucked.  On the plus side though, I'm making smarter choices this time around so by the time I'm to the same point in the game, I'm going to be a lot more successful.

I'm going to put in some time in the studio today.  I have tons of ATC swaps coming up and only a few cards waiting to be mailed out.  I also have a bunch of cards for the kids' ATC swap I'm hosting to adhere to cardboard backs.  My son couldn't just make one or two.  He has to make entire series of cards.  I think I have something like 15 that he expects me to help him with.  I'm just going to have to use a gluestick, I think.  For my own, I usually use my Xyron machine to stick the fronts to cereal box backs, but 15????  Jeez.  That's asking a lot from a loving mother.  Especially given how much I rely on my Xyron for sticking stuff together.  If I were to run out of adheasive and not have a back up cartridge (which currently, I don't)...  I might have to hurt someone.

Which is a good segue for making a list of some of my favorite tools for my art projects.  My art consists mainly of collaging into books (some altered, most aren't), scrapbooking (very non-traditionally), ATCs, and postcards.  I do other things, but those are the things I do on a daily basis.  So the tools I use the most are related to those outlets.  My list isn't in any particular order, these are just things I use and love.


Xyron machine-  I have the mini 150 version and the bigger 5", 500 version.  I use both ALL THE TIME.  I love them and can't imagine doing paper crafts without them.

Cropadile Big Bite-  This tool is super handy to have around.  I could live without it if I had to, but I don't have to so I use it whenever anything needs a hole punched in it or an eyelet set.  It's an eyesore though.  If possible, I'd wait to get this baby until they come out with a better look.

Bind it all-  Probably the least essential of all my tools, but it makes up for it in the coolness factor.  I've wanted a binding machine for the last 5 years and it has the potential to be the driving force behind a great many projects if I can ever get caught up with the time intensive projects I've already committed to.

Generic stamps-  I've been collecting a lot of "generic stamps" as I like to think of them.  Generic because they don't have any particular theme.  I try to avoid themed stamps as much as possible.  I find that holiday, new baby, sentiment stamps all stifle me.  I like stamps that have simple geometric shapes, lines for journaling, date stamps, birds, arrows, faux stitching, background textures... things of that nature that you can use as easily on a page for a boy as for a girl or for a child as for an adult.  I'm all about versitility and freedom. 

Dymo label makers-  I have both the older, embossing kind and the newer electronic version.  I prefer the look fo the embosser, but there's definitely something to be said for the ease of the newer one.  I use these a lot.  I consider these to be one of my more important tools.

Old books for found text and definitions-  I'm not sure if these can be called "tools" technically, but these are totally on my list of must haves for the stuff I do.  It just pulls a page together and I think I use found text of some sort on at least 85% of my projects, if not more.

Texture making "tools"-  Again, not necessarily a tool per se, but still very important to the way I work is my texture collection.  These are just objects that I've found around the house and repurposed or bought specifically for the job.  Some of my favorite things are sponges, bubble wrap, round lids of various circumferences (for making rings.  I most often use the lid of whatever color paint I am using), the mesh bags from produce, leftovers from punching out game pieces, a bit of latch hook mesh, plastic canvas, cheesecloth, and punchinella.  I've used all sorts of things though and just kinda played around with what I had laying around with varying success.  It all adds interest though, you just can't go wrong with texture.  And if you do, there's always more paint, LOL.

Recycled boxes-  I save every box that comes into our house.  Cereal, crackers, and poptarts boxes are the best bet for ATC blanks.  Soda boxes are usually a little too "denty" for that purpose, but I save those for inserting into envelopes to keep my ATCs safe.  It's only embarrassing when no good brands of soda are on sale that week and we're stuck drinking store brand stuff.  How cheap does that look?  :P

Punches-  My feelings are the same as with the stamps.  The more generic the shape, the more often I can use it.  I have several circles, squares, and flower punches.  I've also got a folder tab, a tag, and a photo corner punch.  I'll probably never own something like a teddy bear or specific animal shaped punch.  It just wouldn't be useful to me more than once or twice.  If I could only keep a couple, I'd choose a big square and a big circle.

Office supplies-  I spend almost as much time browsing through office supply stores as I do through craft stores.  I love tags and lables of all kinds.  Staples are one of my favorite ways of sticking things to a page.  Graph paper is such a great addition to any piece of art.  I refuse to live without masking tape.  Because they are soooo blank and open to interpretation, I think that office supplies might be the best art supplies ever.  If I had to live without other supplies (and thank God I don't), I could be happy enough with only the things I could find at Office Max.

Acrylic paint-  I just use the cheapy stuff that you can buy at Walmart or wherever.  It comes in a billion colors.  I use it on pretty much everything I make.  I might start with a patterned paper or a layer of collaged scraps, but I always end up coating it all with at least one layer of paint and sometimes several.I'm just into the drips, splatters, and page curling that you get from painting.  It's messy and it just feels real.  I love it.

Gesso-  Not as much fun as paints, but it's a workhorse.  I use it to prep pages for painting and to tone down patterned papers.  I buy bulk sized jars of the stuff and go through it at a good clip.  Luckily it's not ultra expensive.

Ink-  I'd recommend that everyone have at least black and brown on hand.  It's necessary for stamping, of course, but also handy for distressing things and for edging things for a more coheasive look.  I like the Stampabilities brand the best, but I've had good luck with the Tim Holtz stuff too.  Stay far far away from the Martha Stewart crap or anything you can get at Walmart really.  I've picked ink up to use in a pinch and have been really let down every single time. 

Golden Gel medium-  It has some sort of artsy use with acrylic paints, I think, but I just use it as a liquid adheasive and it works great.  You can also seal your work with it, but that will make the pages stick (just FYI).

Embroidery floss-  I use this all the time for securing things or if something needs some hand stitching.  I'm pretty weak at that particular skill, but even so, I feel like embroidery floss is the way to go for that particular need.  I keep lots of red, black, and white around and a few other colors just for fun.

Tiny clear baggies-  You won't see this evident in my art (but you will if you get a stuff swap from me), but these guys are completely necessary for me to keep even a tiny bit of organization in my studio.  I put everything into tiny baggies. 

Black pen-  Right now I'm in love with Faber-Castell PITT artist pens.  I keep a huge variety of pens around though.  I have Sharpies, Flair, and gel pens taking up space around my room. 

So that's my list.  There is so much more I could add, but I tried to limit it to just the basics and just stuff that might be loosely defined as tool.  I always like reading lists like this since it almost always turns me onto something new to try.  Maybe I'll do a list later about embellishments I love.  That would be almost as long.  I wish I took the time to scan or photograph my various art projects.  It would be nice to have visual landmarks to go along with these kinds of posts.

Another day I almost forgot to post.  It's getting to be a habit.  Suck.