Artsy Fartsy Time: Expandable Cards

 Hey crafty friends,

Today we're bringing you a segment I haven't done in a minute, Artsy Fartsy Time, because I am artsy and fartsy. Yes I know a woman who's admitting it, it's unheard of I know, but here I am.

So today's Artsy Fartsy surrounds expanding cards I made last month.  So last month was Valentine's Day and my Mom's Birthday, and at some point prior to these events that I saw a aPasos' Easy Love Expandable Card. Both cards featured today use these instructions. I love cards like this, and it looked super easy to make. Since it had been posted for Valentine's Day I thought why not make one for Fangirl for Galentine's Day? So I did, but my card is less cutesy, and more Supernatural. I thought I'd warn the squeamish it does show what's suppose to be a bloody heart, but you can't tell it really what it is with my mini drawing skills, not good at drawing little things. Fangirl is a big fan, and the reason I gave the show another shot.*see this post for more on that*. So I decided to go SPN with hers:

Fangirl's Supernatural Expandable Card

 When you take the card out of the envelope it's flat like this. It's a black card with some anti possession symbols on the pull tabs, since this is a SPN themed card. The first picture is a drawing of my friend that says "All I need is your warm, kind, sweet heart for Valentines":

Pull the tabs to expand and reveal the inside of the card, which features a were wolf me with a heart meal that says "Thanks for the pick me up Galentine! Love ya!", and then I finished with my artist signature:

 

Did she she like the card, yeah but between her being half asleep and the crappy miniature drawings, she didn't get it at first.

Mom's Birthday Card

My second card of the week was for my Mom's birthday. I went more cute with this one. I used my Mom's favorite colors of red, white, and blue for the color scheme. We have a cake made to look like her favorite cake, strawberry flavored. It says "Happy Birthday!" at the bottom  :

Upon expansion you'll see a drawing of me holding my arms out for a hug. It reads "I Love You Mom!" with the date and my artist signature:

Now every car need an envelope so I took to Pinterest (check out my Pinterst page link. It's in my links section the right *points*). I found a pin that led me to this Mini Envelope Pin tutorial, I sized them up and presto easy envelopes:

A Purple Envelope for Fangirl's

 

I gave my Mom's card a white one

Yeah they look wonky, but they worked, and it's the thought and your attempts that count right?

And so we close out today's post. Hope this inspires you to make your own cards if does let me see it in the comments or one of my socials. I hope you have a good week, craft on, and God bless.

*Thrifty Geek*

Thrifty Geek's Library- When We're in Tough Situations

Hello Friends,

How's the weekend going? I hope all is well for you guys. So today I decided to hit you with a long overdue Library post. Of course I've not had many books to write on lately, but I've finally managed to read enough to warrant a post. I'll go in more depth about that later. Today's post is themed around people in the tough situations. 

 

Getting Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next Book Two) by Jasper Fforde

So I'm continuing the Thursday Next series now that my digital library provider got book two! We once more go into the alternate 1985 universe of Thursday Next, where extinct things have been brought back to life, airships are common, and time travel and going into your favorite books are possible. Well you can go into your favorite books if you have the skill, or your uncle makes a device to do so. Well Thursday finds herself dealing with old foes and relatives of foes from the first book. It's a mess and their all out to kill her, or at least make her life a living nightmare. You know usual day in the life of a heroine. Well Thursday has had her husband taken from her for ransom, and her father warning that the world is going to end, all of which she's gotta solve.
I love how we get to see the world of books, basically how our favorite classic characters live when their not being read. We have a whole group in charge of keeping the literary world running smoothly. I love how the author breaths life into the written word. There's actually a funny battle between two characters in the real world that takes place in like a black Friday of book sales. I love this world has people who are fanatics of books and/or authors. I mean peoples lifestyle and looks surround their favorites.\Now I know this is a series and you leave some things open to keep the series going, you can do that with a series, but in my mind there was two main problems our character faced that I figured would be solved this book, well one was, but the other wasn't. Plus the end of the book ended with the main character still kinda in the middle of the adventure we've been on this book. I mean like in the first book we had illusions to more minor mysteries that you feel would play bigger parts in future books, but all the main issues for that book were tidied up and given a proper book ending. With this one I felt like this book was just part one of the story we were on.
Another thing we have a minor event that gets brought up off and on in the book, then suddenly during the last fifty pages or so we find out that event is actually a major problem, then next chapter we're fixing it. I just felt like it all just happened too quick. Seems like that background event and the true problem it involved should have been introduced earlier then made part of the mysteries needed to be solved in the book, not tossed at us toward the end of the book after we're getting to were we should be solving the problems that have been in the books already, I mean it's okay to do if it is part of surprise twist and it turns out it's part of one your stories problems all along and didn't know it, but this twist didn't really have anything to do with the problems we've been trying to solve in this book. I mean awesome twist, but I felt like it didn't really do anything to the big events that'd we'd been working on in the story, just  this atmospheric event, is that a thing?
But if you love book based literature check this book out. I'll definitely be continuing the series, because I gotta see it she fixes things, and mainly cause it's a great series.
 

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher

I'm not sure how this one ended up on my radar, and I didn't know it was a children's book, well older children's book until I started reading it. It's the story of Mona a 14 year wizard baker who's powers only work with bread products. The story opens with Mona discovering a dead body in the kitchen of her aunt's bakery when she comes in to work one morning. Soon Mona finds herself in a plot to rid her city of all magic people and to overthrow the ruler.

As I mentioned earlier no clue this was a children's book, but it actually proved a good book to get me back into reading. In the latter half of 2020, my attention span due to my anxiety, or we are thinking could be ADD/ADHD, started falling off. I missed my Goodreads goal that year. I started with a goal of thirty then I lowered it to twenty went I saw I was struggling and missed completing by one. Then last year I tried 20 again and only managed five books. So this was a good book to ease me back in to the swing of things and remind me of why I love reading.
This was a really good book. It was Funny, thought provoking.  I was making notes of so many great quotes. I definitely recommend this for an older child, or the young at heart. My only thing was the fourteen year old protagonist kept referring to herself as a a child... I could see her saying she's a teenager, but not a kid, I mean what parent hasn't had the being called a kid argument? But that's just me. Though this could be cause they want to keep this aimed at kids. I definitely had some Shrek 2 vibes with the wizard being able to animate bread.
But it was a short sweet read, definitely gave me confidence and hopefully the willpower to try to focus my attention to reading again.

The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling

You know how they say the first line should grab your readers? It's very true, especially this book. When I read the first line "Never mix vodka and witchcraft", I knew I was in for a good time with this book. It is the story of Vivi,  one of the magical women of the Jones family of Graves Glen, Georgia. Vivi is going through a break up with Rhys Penhallow, a magically gifted man from Wales who's ancestor founded the town and made it a haven for witches, apparently all magical people, men and women, refer to themselves as witches, the term warlock for men is only used by older generations, specifically Rhys's father who refuses to let go of the old ways.
Well, Vivi and her cousin Gwyn the night Vivi breaks up with Rhys, decide to make a vodka induced decision to "hex" the guy. It was never meant to be an actually curse, no real magic, as Gwyn would say, was involved, more like just a bunch of mumbo jumbo to help Vivi feel better. Of course, they'll learn why their matriarch's advice of never mixing magic and vodka is very true, especially when Rhys returns to their town nine years later and they learn how fake drunken spells can lead to magically drunken consequences.
I'm happy to report this book was a good time. It hit all my marks magic, romance, and saving the world, well town. I love the characters, they made me smile as I read it. I couldn't put the book down. I now see why there was a waiting list at the library to get this book. I love magical families who have a long history, like Charmed, Practical Magic, or The Good Witch, this book fulfills that nicely. It also fulfills my love of strong magical women families.
There were great memorable quotes in this book that made me laugh. I always love a good book you want to remember the words from. I'm totally adding this to books to add to my permanent library, because I'll definitely want to revisit it in the future.

I'm So (Not) Over You by Kokoso Jackson

This is the first contemporary romance by the author. The book book follows the escapades of Kian who is approached by his ex of three months Hudson to go to his cousin's wedding. Seem he's neglected to tell his family they'd broken up.  Hudson sweetens the deal by offering him a glowing recommendation to a job he recently had been looked over for. What could possibly go wrong.
I had to give this a three on Goodreads. It wasn't like Robin Sloan's Sourdough that was just average and kinda forgettable. It was more of mixed bag of feelings about it. I liked the main character was a fellow North Carolinian, and suffers from similar mental health issues I do. I also loved when his geeky side came out. There was parts of this book that made me laugh so hard I had to tell my mother about it.  It also had very humorous and humorously quotable moments.
That being said I don't know why but it was hard to warm up to the characters. I sometimes found that they grated on my nerves for some reason. It was hard to love them, even the ones we're suppose to like, such as the main character. I get having an irritating secondary character, or a villain, but when a good portion of the characters, including the main character has me cringing in annoyance most of the time, yeah hard to really enjoy. Keep in mind though this is just me and how those personality types came of to me when I read. It could be you read them and will find them delightful, so don't pass the book up just because I'm not crazy about the character types.
If you love a gay Romantic Comedy I totally recommend it. It's funny, has a gay leading couple, and a hint of the geeky, we love the geeky here. If that sounds like your thing then give this book a read.

So we came through those tough situations to reach the end. I hope the rest of you weekend is good, read a good book, and God bless.

*Thrifty Geek*

Legend of Vox Machina Part 3: The Review Part 2

Hey Critters,  

Percy's demanding I finally finish this post

Happy 7th Anniversary Week of Critical Role, well a couple days past it! At long last I've gotten around to try to finish this series of posts, and I find it fitting it's done during their anniversary week, or at least started to write it then, will see if my anxiety and internet cooperates. So if you haven't already read parts one and two, so you're no lost here, and let's get this wrapped up! As always I'm trying not to do major spoilers, but some minor things will be talked about, so if you want to be completely spoiler free on even minor things skip this post.

Scanbo-

The De Rolo kids at school. I was bored in class like Cassandra but still a good student like Percy myself. Though none of my teachers made me worry they we're plotting my demise.

Inspiration from dreams. I've been inspired by dreams too, though if one for a weapon comes calling may be wary.

Keyleth and the Sun Tree, wish Matt could have done his Sun Tree for this, that was the best part of her talks with him, also wouldn't be attempting to put a fire out with ale make it worse, or am I mistaken on that front.

Poor Scanlan, sucky thing about being the funny guy of the group, no one takes you seriously when you have a serious plan. Uh poop shot, followed by Scanlan saying the word over and over, gross yet funny. Plus him coming across guards playing Dungeons and Dragons it seems. 

Talk about your burning indigestion. I can't remember if that's how the fire happened in the original, and we have Triceratops Scanlan!!!! I was getting worried at first when it hadn't happened I thought they weren't going to do it and they did! So happy! I also love the magic hand to sword combat.

Scanlan is the example for everyone that you can be the hero no matter who you are. All people are vital to an operation, even the small, wise cracking, sex driven ones. 

 

A Silver Tongue-

I think this is a great example of why we school need to keep the teachers of the world happy.  Can you imagine all of them suddenly turning against society? *insert Gir from Invader Zim's "Doom Song"*

Don't you guys just love witty banter between enemies? You know before you have to take them out or be killed. Grog being the tank man, amazing. He may not be able to read, but he is a magnificent fighting force, just add ale.

Beautiful animation on Keyleth's morph into Minxie form, I think I spelt that right, and bless her trying to take out the living armor. 

Can we talk about the professor's tongue action? I've heard of a golden tongue, but silver. I cringe when he moves his tongue like he does. Reminds me of a frelling jerk back in high school who would do tongue motions similar to that. It was disgusting. Plus that tongue of his can charm you to kill you friends... another reason to loath it. Although I thought half elves were immune to being charmed? 

Keyleth's sky writing is cool, even cooler is when it happened in real life, the look on Marisha's face is priceless.

I like the Everlight's words about walking the path true to you, and in doing so that'll being righteous to you. 

Hate when your trying to warn people and you can't get your words out, even worse when they assume you're talking dirty.

The Tide of Bone-

The villain backstory that adds a bit of humanity to them, or I guess in this case how one became inhuman, although how much humanity Lady Briarwood has left in her is questionable too.

So yay more scarily animated undead... really don't like living dead, cause they are hard to defeat and just keep coming at you, sometimes even when they're in pieces.

I see we have thry intense back to your wall looks like we're going to die situation, but does it meet the check list?

Big Bad We Surely Are Going To Die Battle Checklist *WARNING MAJOR SPOILERS*

1.Hysterical Character getting slapped to snap them out of it. Check.

2. Characters asking someone to speed a plan up. Check.

3. Beloved character dying horrible death. Check. 

4. Impassioned speech to rouse the masses. Check.

5. Ill timed love confession. Check.

6. Character getting peeved at ill timed love confession. Check.

7. Epic miraculous rescue. Check.

8, Oppressed people getting their revenge in a disturbing way. Check.

Why is Percy blaming himself for leaving his sister, he thought he saw her die by that arrow. If that had happened to me I would have thought that too.

Depths of Deceit-

Talk about your inner demons, Percy's really have manifested into a scary thing. Speaking of scary things, nothing worse than having to fight the undead, worse when their your family, even more worse  is your friend dancing in a shower of their broken remains.

Yes! Heavy metal Scanlan, playing in a magic hand over and acid pool, while a stark naked Grog dives into it. There's you a rock show

 

Whispers at the Ziggurat-

 The Ziggurat looks beautiful, but creepy. That green glow effect is amazing. 

 My sister and I have had some cut throat sibling rivalry, but these siblings take the cake.

Scanlan's heart dice eyes are so cute when Pike saves him. Grog fighting with his eyes shut, I think he did that at one point in the original series, I seem to recall it. So Grog.

Keyleth's epic light shown is another example of the beautiful animation in this series. I know I've mentioned that so much, but I can't help it, it's so amazing.

So yeah Ziggurat glowy, eerie, beautiful, green outside, dark creepy den of death and purple glowing eyes inside...

The Darkness Within-

 So I feel there's a lesson on the timing of things here.

Scanlan's incantations are as hilarious as his songs.

Ah the inner struggle with an inner demon, I know that pain well. I really sympathize with the guy having a dark force kicking your butt.

Eh seeing a death from the dying perspective unnerving.

And we end as many season finales do with a cliff hanger... 

 

Final Conclusions:

This show is amazing. It captures the heart and sole of the campaign. It was beautifully animated, voiced, and soundtracked, I know it's not a word, but it is now. The only faults I give it is that some of my favorite parts didn't make it, but I understand sometimes you gotta cut your darlings, especially when you have 300 hours to whittle down in 12 episodes. If you find yourself aching for more, or are curious about the original material then I highly encourage you to watch Campaign One. If you don't want spoiled for what I'm almost sure will be season two, just watch the episodes that lead to the point we left off in the animated show. If you find you can't find the time to watch it, then try the podcast they offer, especially good if you have a long commute to work.

I do hope you have enjoyed my Vox Machina posts. Sorry it took a minute for this one, but I'm glad to have done it. I hope your week is good, adventure on, and God bless you!

*Thrifty Geek*

Monthly Randoms: Of Gals, Cakes and Sandwich Boards

 Hello Friends,

I was hoping to start posting regularly again, but I'm very rusty, and the usual issues with the, which saying it at this point is making me a broken record, Mental Health Hydra B----. Well today I'm bringing you the late February Monthly Random. I know it's very late, but at this point I feel like I'm scrambling to do everything cause I feel like I'm behind on everything. I also know what your thinking: Where's the third part to the Vox Machina post? Sorry I over estimated that project a bit, I know I said I'd do it last week, but yeah I had crap happen. So that will come out at some point. Hopefully soon, but no promises. But I did want to go ahead to get this Random out instead of doing a combined February and March one. So here is the Randoms of February.

Random Name Change:

Did she change the blog name? Why yes I did change the name. When I moved my blog here it was called "Once Upon a Bologna Sandwich". I forget when I decided to change it, I had fallen out of love with Bologna sandwiches and changed it to Backwoods Geek. Well sometime this year, I felt the name of my blog was too boring, and I missed the whimsy of my first name. So I revamped it with a sandwich I never have gotten tired of and now it's "Once Upon A Turkey Sandwich".

Random Doings:

Week of the February 14th- 19th-

I was going to make a post about this last month, but then the Vox Machina posts took precedence.  So I'll start with Valentine's Day. I spent this day of love with the fam, cause I got no man to speak off. I gave my folks a parents' Valentine's with three pieces of candy each, the rest of their gifts came after I went out with Fangirl the next day. I received a card, a box of chocolates, and a bag of assorted Hershey's™ candy. Mom baked us a heart cake:

The frosting is strawberry. The cake is a plain cake.

 

Galentine's Day and my Monthly Granny Outing-

Fangirl and I hung out on the 15th, which became our Galentine's Day. I gave her some flowers and made her a Supernatural themed card. We hit our usual haunts such as Morgan's Comics in West Asheville. Morgan the owner is an amazing artist, not only does she sell her art, but you can find it around the shop like on her Sandwich Board:

Grogu is so cute!

 

I ended up coming across another cute sandwich board while I was out with my Granny the next day at Vale123Pizza:

Mom's B-Day-

The week rounded out the 18th with my Mother's Birthday. For the celebration my Mother made another cake:

 

It was Strawberry all the way through, my Mom's favorite. I know what your thinking: Didn't you just have cake four days earlier, yup. Still had some of it left too when this was made. Mid-February is the time of Strawberry flavored cake. You're also probably wondering why my Mom baked her own cake. Well my Dad I don't think knows how to back and I'm not allowed to. There was a Mom birthday cake related baking disaster when I was 16 my Mother has yet to fully forgive and definitely not forget.

Favorites From My Socials:

Reddit has some great video game themed artistry last month that got my upvote. This first was this Samus Metroid 3D Artwork that u/Wizyakuza created, you can purchase it here. The next piece of art is this cute crocheted Celeste, from Animal Crossing, done by u/EntertainTheDog. Lastly u/Shinamus shared this Uncharted fan video by Allan Ungar, which stars Nathan Fillon! 

There was strong  musician vibes last month on Instagram. Firstly, is from SJ Tucker, showing off a birthday present made for her from her song "In The House of Mama Dragon". It's a great song about this woman Sooj knows, even if you're not Pagan, you'll love it, I'm Christian and I love it. Second one is from Patti Smith featuring this beautiful spiral stone.

Doctor Who started Black History Month on Twitter with a throwback to their episode "Rosa", it was a powerful episode, one of the best not only of Whitaker's but I dare say the whole series. @KP11Studios shared this nerdy meme that totally explain why I am the way I am, and since Supernatural is part of that, you shouldn't be surprised I liked Chester the 67 Impala.

The like I'm showcasing from Tumblr was posted by What Greater Gift Than The Love Of A Cat called Snow Lovers. Reminds me of that snow scene in Garfield's Christmas Special from the 80's.

The cat content continues with TikTok. I follow 3 Southern Cats and Momma, and her cat Willow is a huge Reba McEntire fan. In this video, Willow gets a surprise when a certain red head songstress comments on a post.

Things To Watch:

I love the YouTuber LaurenzSide. As all her fans know she is a fan of bread. She is, after all the bread queen. Well Lauren discovered canned bread recently. When I saw the title I thought of Squidward in that one Spongebob Squarepants episode. Even Lauren mentioned that episode. I actually remember after seeing that show wondering if that was a thing, well apparently it is. 

Things I Wanna Get:

So this past Christmas my Great Aunt, in her generous nature, put together a bunch of gifts for me. Well one of those gifts was a box filled with assorted bags of candy. One of those was a candy I'd never tried before Andes Cherry Jubilee. I figured it was going to be Cherry flavored chocolate, but it was all that and better. It tasted like those chocolate covered cherries my Dad used to get at Christmas, but easier to eat.  

Things I've Found:

1. Since I heard about Maya Angelou's Quarter I wanted to get it when it was released. Well while I was out with my Grandmother she got two of them in some change she got back. I'm so happy to have gotten one. 

2. While out the same day I was perusing the Easter section, which I guess is utilized for Ostra too. I saw a selection of different light up eggs. I guess night egg hunting is getting big. The ones that caught my eye were these unicorn eggs:

 

My Mom would love these, she loves unicorns. I think they're cute.

3. I came across this shirt abandoned in Wal-Mart:

I feel like this is a good reminder we all need to try to do if we can. I said try, even I'm not nice all the time. 

4. So I was Mod the Sims looking for some Sims Custom Content, and I came across this custom lot designed to look like a Monopoly board. That alone was funny, what is even funnier is the description of it. I downloaded it, don't know how I'll use it. 

5. I think the Captain is responsible for this next, she shared this on her Facebook wall.  It's an article form Media Chomp entitled "Apparently People Don't Know How to Boil Water". It's talking about a  comment thread that starts with a discovery about hot tea, that leads to a debate about how to heat water. Now all this is all funny enough, but the cherry on top of it is the last comment where someone turns the thread comments into a Shakespearean play... I encourage you to read this guys, it's great.  

Well that is February's Randoms completed. I hope Your week is well, try to be kind, and may my God bless you!

*Thrifty Geek*