I Would Love to Start a Stamp Line

Hello my fellow crafters!!! I hope the New Year will be good to you!  Does anyone have any New Years Resolutions?  I will tell you what mine are, I have never gotten past the first day before, but I hope that this year will be different So here goes, and I hope if you feel that I am cheating, please call me out on it!!  My First one is :

1.  I am going to loose weight! I don't have a choice, I really, really, really NEED to lose weight!
2.  I am going to try to faithfully go into my craftroom everyday, and try to make at least 1 card, anything more would be a bonos
3.  I am going to try to get a stamp line going! I don't even know where to start, but I am going to try! Everyone that has one, is less than thrilled to help anyone (or at least me) figure out how to begin.  I have asked a number of fellow crafters that have started a stamp line within the past few years, if they could just tell me where they found their manufacturer, or what kind of material do they use for their stamps, or just how do I go about just starting!  I am not trying to steal their designs, or take away from what they are doing at all, but I got NOTHING! The thing that kills me, is one of the people that I have asked, is someone that I chatted with pretty frequently, and it is her daughter, who technically has the stamp line, and I think that she is like 12, she was probably younger back then when I was asking about it, amd do you know what she said?? she said (this is the mom) she said that her dad was sick, so she couldn't tell me cause she was so busy taking care of him,  He was not seriously sick, I think he had a cold.  I asked her to get back to me when he was feeling better, and guess what, she never did!! I really don't want to steal someone else' designs, I just need a little help.  I really get depressed, because I always am happy to help someone else out.  Like I met a girl at a scrap booking sale that I had at my house, and she was living with her Aunt, while she and her hubby were saving money to buy a house, so I helped her and gave her some things that I wasn't really using, and quite a bit of stuff, I gave her a Sizzix tower filled with Dies, there were 4 sides, and each side held about maybe 20 dies, unless they were the big ones, then they went all the way through, anyway, I also gave her paper, flowers, everything, and I wanted to, she was sweet, and I wanted to help, and eventually she bought her house, and I was needing one of the dies that I gave her, and I asked her if I could borrow it, and do you know what she said?? Yup, she said NO, I can't remember why, but she said NO.  Then there was another woman, that was looking for jewelry making supplies, and she was talking about her husband was in charge of the money, and she didn't have much, so I showed her what I had, and I sold her about $2000.00 worth of jewelry supplies for $100.00.  I was just trying to help, and on that same day her husband bought a keyboard stand and bench for $10.00 from my 10yr old son.  Do you know that after they put everything in the car, they left without paying my son the $10!!  And they had the nerve to come back the next year and asked if I had any more jewelry supplies for sale, and when I mentioned the money that they owed my son, she said, "Oh my gosh, let me go get it for him" do you want to know what happened? Yup, they got in their car, and sped down the street, over $10 for a child!! Well sorry I have been ranting,  I was just looking for some info from some of the people that I have helped, I have my own ideas, drawings, ect. but people don't want to help you, if they think that it might hurt them, which is farther than the truth of what I want to do. My Lupus has not been very kind to me the past few years, but lately I have been feeling pretty good, so I thought I would get back to it, I have asked some of the girls that have stamp lines, but they don't want to tell me even the name of the manufacturer that they use for the stamps.  I do understand where they are coming from, but I have no intention of copying what they have already done. I would like to do my own drawings, ect.  So I have noticed that the crafters that I have seen so helpful, are a little less helpful when it comes to their own stamp line.
 So I am going to stick to these 3, anytime I make a big list, I usually only read the top 3, so it makes sense to only start with 3.  It is about midnight as I am posting this, and my rational side is telling me to wait till the a.m. when I could read it all the way through, but I am gonna be a risk taker, and hope that I didn't ramble to much, or I will be re-writing this again! Happy New Year! I hope it is a safe and healthy one for you all!      Karen♥

Altered Candles

Hey Everyone!! I also wanted to share with you a very easy gift to make last minute for a friend, Mother, sister, ect.  I gave my sisters, mother, and my Great Aunt Nellie, the same canvas bags that I gave my daughter Amanda's room mates for Christmas.  I wanted to change what I gave to my sisters, mom, and Aunt, from what I gave Amanda's Room mates, so in these bags. I put an ornament, an atltered bar, and small Altered Bars for each of their children, and Hubby's.  I also made stocking chocolate lollipops with the kids names on them, but I forgot to take a picture of them, and they were eaten before I could even get out my camera! lol I guess I should be happy that they were such a hit with the kids. he other thing besides the ornament (That I will take a picture, and post it soon) was a candle.  I peeled the label off the glass on the candle, and then I took my dimensional paint, and I painted some, and stenciled  some, and then I put my heat gun on the Dimensional paint, and it quickly did it's thing, and puffed right up! I like using technique, because it is fast, and after you hit it with the heat gun, it is dry!  I hope you like, and give it a try for a quick and inexpensive gift.   Karen♥

 These are 2 of the candles that I made, I think the picture is a little blurry, My new camera and I are not getting along yet!

These are 2 more pictures, the bows got a little squished in the gift bags.  I guess if I were a perfect person, I would have fluffed them up a little, but we all know the answer to that! Karen♥

The mommy and Daddy's of my little snowmen

Hey Guys!!!
I thought that I would share with you the Mommies and Daddies of the little snowmen made of the little Crunch bars. These Mom's and Dad's are made out of full size Crunch, and Hersey bars.  Their faces are stamped with Peachy Keen stamps, I will get the names of the stamp sets that I used. For their clothes and hats, I used some scrap fleece material that I had lying around. Anyway, here they are!! karen♥

The rest of my Christmas goodies .........

Hi All, I know that you are all shocked by the amount of posting that I have been doing, but if I showed you the sad state of affairs that is my craft room, then you would see that I might be gone for a year or two, just trying to find my crafting table!! Anyway, thees lollipops that I made out of chocolate, I forgot to take pictures of my Santas before I wrapped them in plastic, so the pics are not that great! These Santa lollipops I made by taking a mold, and making colors by combining different colored chocolate's (you know the kind that you get at Michael's, or Joann's.)  Anyway, I started by painting the eyebrows, the beard,mustache,fur on the hat with white chocolate.  Then I took chocolate that I made into a pink color, and I painted the nose, and cheeks. Then I filled in the face with a beige color to fill in the rest of the face. The last part was to color the mouth and hat with red. when that was all done, I filled the rest of the mold with white.  The end result was this:   I am so mad that the pictures that we took, we picked up the Santas that I poured the white chocolate to soon, and the flesh color was not hardened yet, and it ended up pushing the flesh color into the

beard, don't hold that against me, please!!!    

 The Santa in between the 2 trees, is a better example of what it should look like,  unfortunately the only ones that were left to take pictures of were the duds that I brought for the kids to eat, so a bummer, but I will make them again, and remember to take pictures!

 The trees were easy, I just poured the green chocolate into the mold, and then painted on the red balls after the green chocolate had set.

If you look at the Santa on the left, he actually came out pretty good, I just wasn't thinking when I took the pictures.  I hope you like!! karen♥

Merry Christmas

Hi All, Merry Christmas!
I had a great Christmas, and one of the things that I got, was a new camera.  I didn't think to practice with  before Christmas, so as you will soon see.  I decided to make these cake pops to bring to my sisters for Christmas Eve, and what a project it was.  When you look at videos of people making Cake Pops, you think, I can make those, but I feel like I ran into one problem after another.  first I ran out of white chocolate, then the stores were out of red frosting, and normally I make my own frosting, but I was so busy, that I wanted to buy it, and then the little bit of chocolate that I did have just wouldn't melt, no matter what I did, it was just was gloppy, that is the word that comes to mind, gloppy. So here they are, I think under normal circumstances they would be a lot better, so I hope you like!  Karen♥

Gift Bags for Amanda's Roommates !!!

Hey All, I don't want anyone to have a stroke, but I have another post!!! These are the things that I bought, and made for my daughter, and her roommates.  I made these earrings, Santa, and a Snowman, with  the Santa and snowman from Peachy Keen Stamps.  I stamped them on Shrinky Dinks, and colored them with my Copic Markers.  Then I punched a hole using my Cropodial, from We R Memories.  I then put them on my heat reactant mat, and used my heat gun to shrimk them down.  Then I just attached the earring part and some jump rings to the Santa, and Snowman. These were so much fun to do.  I just colored them while I watched T.V. (That is my favorite craft to do) Anyway, here they are....

Then I asked my hubby to pick me up some full size candy bars, but he thinks that quantity is better, so he brought home a bunch of  bite size candy bars, cause he thought that I was just putting them in a gift bag.  So  I couldn't complain, since he did the grocery shopping, so I had to work with what I had, cause there is no way I was fighting Christmas shopping traffic just to get full size bars!! So anyway, I made these little snowmen wrappers for the "bite size bars"!! So I hope you like them!!!!

So here they are, don't they look like best friends???  I just covered the candy with white cardstock, and used felt to make their hats and scarves.  I used these black half pearls for their eyes, mouth, and buttons.  They were fun, and so easy to make.

So that is it, these are some of the contents of the gift bags, that I made for these girls that I love as if they were my own.  The last picture is the bags that I bought with their initials on them at the Christmas Tree Shop, and if you don't have one of these then you are missing out!! Sorry, there is no way to sugarcoat it!!  So anyway, the bags were $1.99, the xmas scented liquid soaps were $1.00, the candy guys were under $1.00, the earrings I have had the Shrinky Dink sheets, I had, along with the fleece, so they were just about free., and the last thing that I have to put in are Mrs. Prindable Apples, and if you don't know what they are, then, you are TRULY missing out!! They were about $3.00 ea So for a total of $7.00 I made nice little gifts for my girls!! I hope you like them!! Karen♥     

Christmas Cards

Hey Everyone!! I am assuming that you have all of your cards made, presents bought, tree decorated, cookies made, presents wrapped, just like me!! I wish! Obviously since it is December 16th, and I am just now starting my card making. These cards that I made, are all different, with different paper, colors and techniques.  The first one is dry embossed, and I am not sure that you can see the embossing on the card, but believe me it is there.

I used a brass stencil from Anna Griffin, I love working with stencils, I also like that I can sit on my comfy couch, watch T.V. I know that I can use the brass stencils in my big shop, but it really relaxes me to do it and not have to think, I can just become comatose and emboss away!!

This next one kind of happened by accident. I was on the phone, and was basically playing with my Copic markers, so the image was already embossed, so I placed the brass stencil back on the embossed image, and used a couple different color greens, and filled in the pot with a couple browns. I wished that there wasn't the smudged spots, on the tree, and in the end of the Christmas, but what can you do. I will just send this one to one of my sisters that can't even stay in the lines, while they color! haha  

This one I made with  a product called Textured Magic. It is usually used to make things like brick, stones, ect., but after fooling around with it one day, I heated it with my heat gun, and it puffed up, and dried instantly.  When it dried, it was hard, and it had dimension. It is really fun to play with.  I got it at Michaels, and it comes in a ton of colors.  I did a video on this on my Youtube channel. My Youtube is under karenskrafts1, I would love for you to check it out, and fell free to let me know how you liked or disliked it, I can take it, critique away!!

These next couple were also made with the Textured Magic, and a brass stencil.

Glass Bulb and Cording Ornaments

Hey All!! Couldn't sleep last night, so I decided to make some ornaments for my x-mas tree.  These are made of glass ornaments, they can be any size.  You just take the cording, that I get a Michael's and I always wait till after X-mas, because it is a little expensive, but like everything else after X-mas, it is usually 50-sometimes 75% off.  So to make these, rune a bead of Hot glue, around the bulb, but don't put it to far, so it won't get hard on you.  Start at the top, and start wrapping it around the bulb, adding glue as you go. It is very simple, and when you get to the bottom, on this cording, there is two strands of cording, with 1 strand of gold beads that are all twirled together, I cut a little piece of the gold bead off so you can twirl the cording tight to the inside of the coil that will be the end. The only other thing I should tell you, is that these get pretty heavy, so if you have a tree with thin branches, it will pull that branch down. I have found that they work great for filling in holes, or putting them deeper in on the branch than you usually would.  I hope you try it, it is easy and fun, and they even make great gifts, Thanks for looking,  Karen♥

I am not very happy with the ribbon on some of these, so I will probably replace it. I think that the thin ribbon, doesn't really do anything for these, and I think that the thicker stands out a bit more.

Little Ornaments/ Gift Tags

Hi all, I just wanted to show you what I also did with the ornament stamps fro Stampin Up! I glues 3 ornaments together and and before I put the last side I put in a ribbon to hang it, or to attach it to a gift. I have also just stamped 1 and wrote the to and from on the back. Just is something different for your packages.  The ornaments are something else that I will give to Great Aunt Nellie to put on her tree like this one that I gave her a couple of years ago, and make ornaments for each season. I hope you like  Karen♥Hi all, I just wanted to show you what I also did with the ornament stamps fro Stampin Up! I glues 3 ornaments together and and before I put the last side I put in a ribbon to hang it, or to attach it to a gift. I have also just stamped 1 and wrote the to and from on the back. Just is something different for your packages.  The ornaments are something else that I will give to Great Aunt Nellie to put on her tree like this one that I gave her a couple of years ago, and make ornaments for each season. I hope you like  Karen♥

 

Ornaments

Hi all, I was playing around with my new stamps from Stampin Up, and was copying their ornament that they have on the Holiday catalog.  It is a really pretty catalog and I love all of their inks, and here are a few versions of the ornament that I came up with, I hope you like. Karen♥

I would also like to say that although these were fun to make, they take FOREVER,  Hahaha this is not to say that say that I wouldn't make more, but if you like them and intend to make them and decorate your tree with them, I would start now for Christmas 2015!!! LOL I will be one of you making these for my tree that year!! I also wanted to say that the set of stamps that this came in also comes with smaller size ornaments. There is also a set of dies that matches the ornaments to cut them out so perfectly!! No friends, I did not cut each of these out by hand, you could, but I would then plan for Christmas 2020!!  haha  Merry Christmas!! Karen♥

Thanks to my sponges

Thank You so much Jenny, I can always count on you to brighten my day, and have kind words to share. Some days I just don't want to even speak, and I know that if I put a post up, I can count on you or one of my other buddies on here to scoop me up off the floor, and out of that big puddle I was wallowing in and wringing  me out!  I do have 2 projects to share with you, I will post them later tonight, or tomorrow, Thanks again Jenny, you are my sponge!! haha Oh I wanted to post a picture from last week!

My best friend Kim surprised me for my Birthday with tickets to see "Buddy" the Cake Boss, at the Providence preforming Arts Center!!! We had a great time, and met Buddy after, and he was so great, and SKINNY, I might add!! He really lost a lot of weight, and he had on skinny jeans, and they were baggy!!! Kim also took me to see the one night showing of the Bon Jovi Movie, and out to dinner!!! She is such a great friend, I hope she feels the same about me!!!    Karen♥

Update

Hey guys, I just wanted to update you on what has been going on with me.  First I want to say that I have missed you all so much!!!  I have been having problems with my hip, and my back, so I finally went to have an X-Ray, and the Dr. called today, and told me that I have arthritis in my left hip, and my lower spine.  I am just so tired of health problems, and especially health problems that no one can fix.  I know that a million people have Arthritis, and I should be thankful that it is nothing more serious, but I was really hoping that it was something that they could fix.  To know that I will have this unbearable pain for the rest of my life, just kind of bums me out.  So as soon as I am out of the funk that I am in, I will be back, and I love all the things that you all have been working on!!! You are all amazing, and I hope to chat with you all real soon!!    Karen♥

Water and Pictures Don't Mix!

Hi Everyone, I am writing you in bed.  I pulled a muscle, and I have a muscle spasm, or my muscle is in spasm, frankly I did not really listen to the Dr. I just wanted it to go away!  Anyway, while looking through some pictures, I found some pictures from some of the deepest, darkest, places that I have ever been in.  I had depression after my youngest child.  On top of that we had a fire in our home, and water damage, but my point is, that I came across these pictures, and they are every scrappers worst nightmare!! After a pipe burst in our basement, and we had just moved into this house, and a box of pictures that should never have been down there in the first place.  Anyway, somehow these pictures of my wedding, and others were wrecked, and these are of me trying to save the only pictures that we have of our wedding.  I am making a Scrapper Public Service Announcement:  Never Store Pictures in Your Basement!!!

Halloween Layouts

Hey Everyone!  I hope that everyone had a great Halloween!  Halloween has always been my favorite holiday from making the costumes, to taking a lot, lot of pictures, seeing the kids, how cute they all are, and then there is the candy!!!!! This year was a little sad, my youngest who is 16, did not go trick or treating, I know he is 16, he shouldn't even be letting him go out, but I would get all those older kids come after 8:00, and I never mind, and I actually think that we all know that, they all know that they are pushing the envelope by even going out there, but the way I look at it is that they are considerate enough by going out after the little, little ones go out and are probably in bed, because Halloween is on a school night, and they do put a little effort by putting on some kind of mask, I saw 1 kid that had stapled leaves, yes real ones, onto his green sweatshirt, and went as the Hurricane Sandy!! I thought it was cute!! Anyway, I also think that by giving them some candy it is a couple less kids that could be getting into trouble on that night!! Anyway, he didn't go, and he went to his girlfriends house to give out candy! :(   My daughter is away at college, and my middle son was working, and then went to a friends house! So I was a little sad this year, and I was looking through some pictures, and I thought I would share a couple of layouts I did for Halloween a couple of years ago.

 This first one is a picture of my Amanda at age 1-1/2 ys old. I don't remember if I posted this or not, but I was doing a swap a few months ago, and one of the things that I got in my package, was this Magnolia stamp, which would have been great, just because it is so cute, but if you look at the picture next to it, that is a pic of  Amanda  20 yrs ago, and they are doing the same thing. Now this would have been again great just for those 2 things, but the name of the little girl is Matilda, and Amanda's nickname that we call her is Matilda !!! I think it is Amazing! (and weird) haha   These are pages I did a while ago, and I love the title, the ghost, and the journaling pumpkin, were all from a DVD that I had that was from I think Creating Keepsakes, it was so great, it had all the holidays for journaling, titles, it had everything, but I think that I lended it out to someone, and never got it back, and I miss it so much!! So if any of my friends are reading this, and you have it, I am offering a reward to the person who finds it and it is identified to be the above said DVD!! Anyway I hope you all a great Halloween!! karen♥