Miller March 2024 Update

Our baby Sherlock enjoying her new bed.

Another month gone already? We did pretty well this past month considering how we were at this point last year. What an improvement! We stayed busy as much as we could, while being much more aware of our current limits. Things have been greatly improving.

Although there are multiple stressful situations up in the air as we waited this month out, we've adapted by finishing projects around the home in between our 'must-do' steps.

I mentioned having a format I was going to follow for each monthly newsletter... I already forgot last month's idea and the one before that. Why have a format when everything we cover changes so frequently anyway? Please bear with us as we figure out what works best for us. Thanks!

We tend to have work cycles when we can hyperfocus. Due to frequent interruptions such as activities that keep us alive. Typically, mine can last from 3 days to a week and with John about 3 days with constant pulls to try or do other things. We have been testing out various methods to work with our ADHD that allow us to be creative and rest when need be, while keeping up optimal productivity. With that, we are excited to show you a few things we have allowed ourselves to enjoy creating.

This crayon melt project has been sitting for a while and it had been way too long since I made any business cards. Since I had two goals to accomplish with this, it became a higher priority. It gets really messy and requires a lot of setup and cleanup which is why I don't do this often. So I spent a few days chipping away at about 6lbs of crayons. Most of these will be used to make our ATC business cards.

Aren't they so pretty? We have quite a few varieties. Most of the crayons were melted into new crayons, while the stuff in the pot— not enough to make a full crayon— were soaked up on these little cards. This also helped me switch from color to color by removing most of the previous color I didn't want bleeding too much into the new color. (Is the word 'color' starting to sound weird to you?

Aren't they cute? I ran out of the proper paper for this so I opted for recycled cardboard from clean product packaging. They did pretty well too!

John has been continuing his project of making his own paints from natural materials we have around us. When we go out for a walk to the park near our home, we pick up rocks, acorn caps, moss, old bugs' nests, etc., to make our own watercolors. We are excited that we will host a class on this process in the summer if we can figure out a few details (i.e., one of the processes requires about a week to dry out).

What do you think? Representing our local Colorado Color!

This is the finished pallette (below) John made to show off the different colors he found. The pallette was hand-carved out of wood, painted, and sealed with UV resin.

Not all colors are shown. But all from 100% natural materials.

We are planning on hosting a class on how to make your own this summer or fall.

If you are interested, please send us a message!

Midway through the month on a snow day I woke up OBSESSED (that had been building for about 4 days by this point) with this idea of making shelves or displays out of cardboard. After seeing our cardboard pile grow for a few months and less and less time to actually get to it, this obsession can build pretty quickly. We have the skill and talent to do things...but so little time and we physically can't do things like we used to! On our one day off a day and a snowstorm kept us in...why not get started? This was the furthest stage we could get to that day since we oddly didn't have any newspaper.

It took us 2 weeks to come across something newspaper-like that we could use and will have to wait at least a few weeks before we can get back to the project. What do you think so far? We are planning on making more of these as each didn't take too long. But later. These shelves and sections will help immensely sectioning off materials and tools from being buried in our home. They will have a prominent use when done.

We...are very much like those weird scientist/inventor types. But more with craft materials due to being in a small apartment. Our biggest flaw is that we struggle to keep ourselves alive (eat, drink, sleep, exercise, etc). You know, regular human survival stuff. This year we are learning to balance our work and rest so we don't end up in the hospital. Once we have our finances sorted out, we could make and show you the crazy ideas we want to do! (As well as host more fun classes based on what we have discovered and created!)

Stamps. Yes, stamps. No not those but we like those too. But rubber stamps! Every so often we get hit with the "I wanna make my own stamps". We happened to have picked up a pile of cheap erasers a while back when that urge hit but we ran out of time. I had not made my own stamp for quite a few years now (not that I made many before) so I was quite pleased to have made this in about 2 hours. It was based on our cat Sherlock.

Here are the other ones we made! Can you guess who made what? We maybe spent an hour or two over the course of 3 days. Normally when the mind is slow but the body still has energy and wants to do something but not too much. It's an odd body/mind combo we have to wait for to help minimize accidents. (i.e., ADHD and mind racing could increase the chances of nicking or stabbing ourselves).

John did the Bee and the little Cityscape!

Quick Sherlock break because she is absolutely adorable. She has so many great pics that we want to share! She has been much more interactive and wanting to be where we are or taking a nap in her new little tent by our bed. Right after she eats about half of her meal, she has to sit in a spot to see what we are doing. If it's nothing interesting, she goes back to finish her food. Here she is shortly after we fed her, keeping an eye on me.

Sherlock wanting to be a part of the ATC Event prep process.

To know more about ATCs! We would've had more for the event but also worked on completing the 50 kits for WGAS the night before. That took about 4 hours to realize the next morning... they were closed!! We honestly forgot it was Easter Sunday and that many businesses close. So I stressed for nothing. Ah well, we had quite a few ready to drop off at Who Gives a Scrap for that following Tuesday. I forgot to take pictures of us refilling and updating the display. We will take a picture when we go back Saturday. I also made quite a few more kits to drop off. With spring almost here, we are really wanting to up the amount of monthly kits available. So far two new ones will be out this month: S19: Mosaic and S21: Pencil Test. S20 is on hold and will be released in June!

Last month's Crafty Card Collective event went extremely well! Had a lot of fun with a new person who stopped by. I apologize, I already forgot her name, but she got a new binder, started making some cards, and had something to take home with her! It's great to see more people enjoying this with us. Hope to see her back next time!

Tools, Storage and Displays! We got to play around with various materials again!

This month's theme is Shaker Cards, one of the most popular. Make an ATC with glitter, embellishments, and little accents to shake around inside! It will be held on April 28th from 11 am to 1 pm at The Next Us in Colorado Springs, Colorado. These events are free and open to anyone and everyone. We do recommend that adults bringing children keep in mind their volume and cleanliness. Other businesses are operating at that time, and many visitors have health concerns. So if a child is sick (or if their sibling is sick), please stay home!

We can arrange a makeup shaker card class if necessary. Our goal is not to spread any sicknesses but to spread cheerful fun! We appreciate your cooperation.

Thanks with love!

More that we are up to:

I'm also pleased to present our Lord's Prayer pop-out book that goes over the Lord's Prayer! This was made for Fathers in the Field Ministry to help the boys learn the Lord's Prayer in a more visual and interactive way. They, of course, receive it for free. If you would like to help support us in creating Biblical resources for children, please consider donating through our Ko-Fi store or sharing the link with someone you think would benefit from this!

Take another look at it here on our KoFi shop! (It's really cute, please at least take a look!)

More like that...

Guess what?! John's Bible Sticker Timeline is out on sale at The Road at Chapel Hills church! We have heard from the Children's pastor that quite a few have sold already~

We are so pleased with how it turned out! John has been working on fixing any details he wants to adjust for our future product (we stuck more to what was being commissioned and what they wanted for this release shown above). John is writing his own Biblical curriculum to go with it as this one was based on someone else's curriculum. So this project will take another couple of months to complete. That's 16 lessons with 3 to 4 in-depth lessons with a Children's version and an Adult/Parent Version to help them guide the children along.

Onto the next thing!

Another ATC design John is in the process of: 3D shadowbox ATC kits. These would be paid kits that come with a small cutting mat and xacto knife. Still on pause but wanted to show off the completed prototype sample!

Social crafty time~ We did not go out to socialize as much as we would like to, but we already did more than last year! So though it may not seem like we went out at all, we already have done 100% more than last March so we will celebrate the progress we have made!

We made some fun St. Patrick's Day hats at Crafter's Clique this past month! I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I may make more for the fun of it since we have plenty of empty rolls. Would you like one if I made a few? We got no space for them! lol

I wasn't ready for John to take a picture.

Swing by The Next Us during the Next Crafter's Clique event to take a look at some of the projects that have been done so far this year and get a calendar to see the upcoming crafts. It's all free and more for adults as there may be adult conversations (a lot of us attending use art as art therapy so the process of creating helps reveal more about ourselves which could turn some conversations over to trauma topics). It's a very welcoming and understanding group for anyone wanting to start this with us!

John tested out this Fluid Paint Pen we had rolling around in our stuff for years.

We had this tool in our x-acto knife container for a few years, completely unsure of what it was (but we liked the look of it and knew we could find out at some point on what it does). I think John came across a video on Instagram or YouTube of someone using that tool! So he had to try it out and it makes the paint look so VIBRANT! This is the same paint that gives such pale results on plain white watercolor paper I used a few months back. This was a regular piece of black cardstock. Exciting discoveries. John goes back and forth playing with this tool. Videos on that later.

And we keep going on~

We've been trying to do more 'photoshoots' while on our walks to encourage us to go out more while collecting fun pictures of what we have been making. Its kind of working? I wanted to take some pictures of these Bluey characters I made that are magnets! I made them for my little sister but have had trouble remembering them when I go to their home. So they are still in my possession. Hope she is still surprised when she gets them. I loved how these turned out and the photos I took were a lot of fun.

I hope I can drop it off before she possibly reads our newsletter.

Thanks to (I think the lady's name was Heather?) who visited Crafter's Clique and brought some amazing old Ideal magazines. I was really eager to make some junk journals from them. The pages were so pretty!! Also thanks to Sally from Who Gives a Scrap for some awesome cutouts I added in these. The rest I didn't use are still at Crafter's Clique you may be able to use when you stop by to create with us!

With this, I am prepped and ready for Paper Day at Who Gives a Scrap! That'll be April 6th from 11am-1pm at their store. $5 to go in and make as much as you want for FOUR HOURS!! We had to miss last month's (or was that the month before?) because our car was still frozen to the ground during the time they were open. But this time, we will do our best to make it!

I also got into cleaning up some of my sticker scraps. Blank white sticker edgings around other stickers previously used up. I doodled on them and turned them into new stickers for future projects. These will be used either on other ATCs or Junk Journals.

I really loved how these turned out. I was thinking of putting some on the cards I made for one of the WGAS free kit instructional video.

Whelp I think that kind of summarizes what has been going on. There is still a lot in the background going on but feel free to ask us in person. Please also clarify if you want the nice summary or in-depth reality info. We can't really tell what level of information people are expecting when asked out of the blue.

With some financial issues still backed up, we are also asking if you could help support us or share our Ko-Fi shop link! We have had some necessities put off for +3 months that are becoming more and more needed. Thank you for your time!

So much in the works this past month and more ahead. We are excited to share what we discover or create with you and hope to still see you again!

Sherlock is ready to go back to sleep. Have a great day!