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♥