Crafts with the Stinker

So I started playing with magnets and bottle caps, I've always thought that bottle caps were neat, but all I've ever seen them on are hair bows for kids. Don't get me wrong, bows are cute, but EVERYONE makes them!
This is what I came up with:

My only complaint with the second set of bottle caps is that they have holes in them. My son decided that he wanted to help as I was carding earrings, it is however not easy to card earrings with a 6 year old. So I had to get creative. 

The whole project is fairly simple, the original bottle caps with magnets I think I found on a clearance rack at Michael's. The set with the holes I also found at Michael's, on the aisle with the feathers. If you can't find bottle caps with magnets its simple to put them together. You need magnets, as crazy as it sounds the ones from Walmart and Hobby Lobby work the best, while the ones from Michael's will work they just don't seem as strong (by the way, its the magnets that look like little hockey pucks, they're maybe the size of a nickle). I used E6000 to glue the magnets to the bottle caps, has worked very well so far. Keep the E6000 handy, you'll need it later! You'll also need the epoxy stickers (Hobby Lobby has them with the scrapbooking supplies) a 1 inch circle punch, and a sheet of white scrapbook paper, you could probably also use card stock, but all I had was white scrapbook paper.

I've always tried to encourage creativity in my son, he got a lot of arts and crafts things for Christmas. I used my 1 inch circle punch to make a bunch of little circles,

CJ decided that he wanted to draw on the circles, he asked what to draw and I told him he could draw whatever he wanted

Unfortunantly it's upside down, but I believe CJ said that this was supposed to a person getting rained on with ice cream. Yeah, I think someone may have seen Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs a few to many times! We haven't quite finished them yet, I need to get some more bottle caps, but they should make killer birthday or Mother's day presents!

We hope you had a great Christmas!

We at Crafting for Sanity hope you enjoyed your Christmas with your friends and family and we hope Santa was good to each of you.

I spent Christmas with Amanda and her family this year and although it started off rough, things quickly turned around and many laughs were had. We woke up Christmas morning and CJ (Amanda's 6 year old) was upset that Santa didn't leave Mommy anything in her stocking. I tried to tell him that Mommy had already gone through her stocking.. I'm not sure how successful it was but he was quickly distracted by Skylanders Giants and Angry Birds Jenga.

This year Amanda got me a Loops & Threads Knit Quick long loom so I am sure I will have a ton of flops (and hopeful successes) to post for you soon. I've started playing with it today but I wasn't having much luck. From what I've heard I also have a circle loom waiting for me at home too.

Stay Crafty,
Rebecca

Crafting for Sanity would like you to meet the Guin family...

I got a phone call from my husband (yes, we are separated but I still call him my husband) this morning asking me to meet him at the hospital that my 6 year old step daughter Ella was being taken in because she had to be picked up from school early yesterday not feeling well and had progressively gotten worse throughout the night and early morning so my in-laws brought her home and my husband took her to the Emergency Room and her older sister had to go with him since I wasn't home. He needed me to pick the oldest up since he didn't want her sitting in the ER all day. You know how long it takes these days..  A few hours later poor Ella was told she had the flu.

Ruby and I had made a trip to Game Stop, I really wanted to get a Bejeweled game for my Wii.. unfortunately it is made for every system except Wii of course. We ended up with Purr Pals and Mini Desktop Racing. Purr Pals is a game that allows you to care for/adopt kittens and raise them. You get to feed, groom, play with, and clean the litter box (not even kidding). Mini Desktop Racing is a racing game in a mini Mini Cooper around a desk that has obstacles ie: paper clips, keyboards, pencils, etc.

Later in the evening Ruby comes out of the office with a stack of papers "Rebecca can we make these?" 'Um , okay.. sure... what is it?' "Christmas Ornaments" 'Um.. sure.. how are we going to make Christmas ornaments out of paper...' "There are the instructions right here, you cut them out and glue them together" 'Awesome, I think I have some glue sticks'. We search for glue for around 30 minutes until I finally just go and get my stash of Modge Podge (insert 'Franks Red Hot Sauce' parody here) I use that shit on everything.

So, while watching Beauty and the Beast we begin making the Guin family.

The whole family, including Madam Ruby's bunny ears

I believe this is Ken Guin (father)

I believe this is Ben Guin (son)

Ken and Ben Guin

Gwen Guin (momma)

They also come with gift tags so you can give them as gifts so I don't exactly think they are Christmas ornaments..They have accessories so you can dress them up too!

Here is the print out to make your own! My mother in law found these at Right @ Home.

Stay Crafty and have a great holiday. I can't believe Christmas is like a week away.
Rebecca

Recovering from the day, and tons of Da Fuq?

So Rebecca and I spent the day at the Belmont NC National Guard Armory for the Yuletide Bazaar, I realized going in that it would be small so I didn't really expect much. The good surprise was that we were inside!

                        

 

Here's Rebecca watching the tables =) She made the sign, it came out very colorful!

So as we're sitting in my living room recovering from the day, both of us were going through our stores prior to turning them back on and seriously wondering if there needs to be a Regretsy for Storenvy. As I'm sure everyone knows Regretsy is a blog run by voice actress April Winchell where she and a few others post and blog about the craziness that is posted on the Etsy site. Anyway, we believe that the same might need to be done for Storenvy. Needless to there were a lot of "Da Fuq?"'s earlier here are a few of the best ones:


                                         

Don't get me wrong, I love Snow White as much as the next girl but the dwarf in front is giving new meaning to the phrase "having wood".

                           

I honestly can't tell if this is polymer or real bacon dipped in resin. That being said, I don't think I would want pieces of pig hanging from my ears.

                                         

I openly admit that I love this one. Considering my age I'm old enough to recognize the original Nintendo game cartridge.

                                          
Sometimes I wish that I had eyes in the back of my head so that I could always see what my 6 year old is doing, this isn't quite what I meant. Rebecca said that there were earrings to match as well.



                                            

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm not a fan of Kewpie dolls, they just sort of scream "Chucky" to me for some reason.

                                             

I actually found these to be cute, kind of redneck, but still cute. This is actually earrings on a display, but I thought it was a bracelet right at first. You have a choice of Coke, Pepsi, Campbell's Soup, (here's where redneck hit me) Coors and Schlitz.

All of the pictures should have functional links, just click the picture, or right click, not sure which. I know that not everyone is going to think the same thing that I did and that's cool, everyone has there own opinion. I can be a snarky bitch, I'm pretty sure that Rebecca will remind me regularly of the 7 dwarfs ring, but like I told her, there are much worse ways I could have put it.

Amanda

Math Classes, and Finals, and Festivals Oh my!

Oh the joys as Christmas approaches! As the end of the semester quickly gets here it is that time where I seriously start to wonder "What the HELL was I thinking?!?!?!?!?!" and "Why the hell did I take 5 (yes, 5) classes?" once again math class is starting to trigger insane tension headaches. If I pass this math class it will be a miracle. But anyway, I'm sure I'm not the only person that was insane enough to be at Walmart on Thanksgiving, the things we do for our children, I went to Walmart to get this:

As hard as we tried to keep the Stinker from finding out about this, he still did. Damn Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network! Oh well, he'll still love it, it has a giant!

Rebecca and I are doing our last festival of the year on Saturday, we'll be at the National Guard Armory in Belmont, NC for the Misfit Sanctuary Yuletide Festival (By the way, if I haven't said already and someone hasn't figured it out, I'm a Pagan. Please don't blow up my inbox with messages about this, not only is it rude, it's also very irritating and I would rather not have to start contacting police departments about people embarrassing me. Remember everyone, the 1st Amendment is our friend!) If any is interested you can get details about the festival here: http://misfitsanctuary.org/yuletide-bazaar/
They are also collecting coats for the needy, so if you do come out please think of those less fortunate and if you have a coat you don't wear, please think about passing it on to someone that can use it, we had an absolutely crazy winter last year and I get the feeling that we will pay for it this winter!
I have some new goodies that I'll be bringing with me I'll see if I can get some of the pictures up,

  

 

 

Rebecca will have coasters, including this set:

(Yes, this is the one that illicited the cease and desist order)

as well as hot/cold packs, and something else I think. She told me what she was bringing and I've totally forgotten already!

It's been fun but it's time for me to go study some more! Hope to see some of you this weekend!

As always, Stay Crafty!

Amanda

I've never been big on reading blogs...

...but there are a few that you just have to follow.

Yes, I co-author a blog but I have a hard time getting into reading others. I have tried blogging in the past... it has typically been posts filled with teenage angst and how much my life sucked (okay it still sometimes ends up that way but you understand.) Amanda and I occasionally browse the World Wide Web Internet for craft ideas (HELLO PINTEREST ARE YOU THERE? IT'S ME REBECCA) I also enjoy reading blogs about how others have  made failed attempts  gotten less than spectacular results.

Which is essentially what we strive to do here at Crafting for Sanity. Although we are both working on items for the Yuletide Festival in Belmont, NC we are still crafted out and a lot of our inventory will be things we have taken to the other festivals. That being said, we have not had any crafting fails or successes aside from Amanda's feather earrings that I absolutely ADORE.

              

Back to my original post... I did a search this morning for "Top Craft Blogs" on Google and I got a nice list of results. My all time favorite blog, although it is not crafting related but is still hilarious is HaHas for HooHas  my second favorite is Pintester.

I discovered some new blogs from my search this morning and I will let you check them out for yourself.

• Craftbits
• CraftFail
• Dollar Store Crafts
• Make and Takes
• One Pretty Thing

We would love to know what blogs you follow! 

Stay Crafty!

Rebecca

Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, Part Two

DUM DUM DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!
(sorry, just thought that needed to be there)

     So Rebecca told me earlier that I would have to continue as she was way to wasted to continue her train of thought. I can be thankful that I no longer work in retail, however I was one of the people crazy enough to be at Walmart on Thursday night. Everything seemed pretty well under control at my local Walmart, although in retrospect the fourteen cop cars parked outside might have had something to do with that ( I really need to find my camera, the picture would have been worth it). On Thanksgiving my in-laws decided that they wanted to play the whole "What am I Thankful for" game over dinner, and I admit I was a smart ass and said that I had a feeling I would be thankful for Shout later on but in reality I suppose that what I'm really grateful for is a husband that despite my short comings treats me like a queen and is at least usually reasonable. I know that sometimes I complain about him, especially when he's sick (sick men *shudder*) I didn't anticipate going into the last two weeks of class before finals and for him to develop kidney stones. I may bitch, and I may complain, but that fact of the matter is that in the year and a half since I lost my job he hasn't once said anything about me getting another job. When I decided to go back to school he supported it, even still when I changed my major after the first semester. And aside from a spat about housework the only thing he has ever said is "we will figure it out".

       The cease and desist on Rebecca's coasters sucks though, those coasters are cute as hell! It make me want to put something Hello Kitty on mine for the hell of it! Aside from the slime and a little bit of jewelry I haven't done a whole lot of crafty stuff of late, most of my time has been spent trying not to fail any college classes that I really can't afford to fail! The Yuletide Bazaar is coming up in a little under two weeks, and anyone interested can find out about it here: http://misfitsanctuary.org/yuletide-bazaar/ I need to get off my butt and make some candles for this!

Everyone try to stay warm, and as always,
Stay Crafty!

Amanda

Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday

Being as I work in the hell that is retail, I had to work Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday (go figure). I'm 99.9% sure that the only time my place of employment will close is if the store burns to the ground. I had put up a discount in my shop hoping to get some more views and some buys, well.. I got views but the buys were lacking.

Fortunately, I had some super nice customers who thanked me for working Thanksgiving but the majority of them were too far gone into their turkey induced comas to care about me. It was really depressing seeing as I had to family to really spend Thanksgiving with. Black Friday was kinda slow fortunately, I had a good bit of down time but then Saturday, DAMN YOU POWERBALL WITH YOUR $325 MILLION JACKPOT. We were busy as hell everyone wanted a Powerball ticket. Now with it being $425 Million, I'm glad I don't have to work Wednesday. I encourage my customers to buy their tickets beforehand and not bombard the poor gas station employees on second shift the day of.

Cyber Monday did not really hold a ton of deals that I was looking for... or maybe I just wasn't really paying attention (not like I had the money to buy anything anyway..)

On to a more crafty note? I received an e-mail today while at work  using the bathroom and playing on Facebook on my phone at work. It was a e-mail from Storenvy telling me that they had received a cease and desist letter from the creators/makers or whatever of Hello Kitty and that they had to hide my Hello Kitty coasters because they violated the cease and desist letter. I was saddened by this.

Rebecca

It's the BLOB.......................

Just kidding. It's slime that I made at the kitchen table. I'm getting a bit of the creative side for an upcoming show that I missed last year, and as I am letting my Pagan flag fly this year there is no way I will miss the Yuletide Bazaar again! Giving credit where credit is due, I found the recipe I used at http://kimmccrary.blogspot.com/2011/10/halloween-fun-magical-monster-slime.html 

 My friends on facebook (including the group that follow us at https://www.facebook.com/crafting.for.our.sanity) may have gotten a really colorful mental picture when I said that I had a pink bowl of snot. The picture doesn't really do the pink justice, it looks good in the picture, the cups next to me look like pepto. I was really disappointed with the set on the right, it was suppsed to be black, but it came out more of a dark purple. The answer there would probably be 1) if you use white glue, add more than 6 drops of food coloring, or 2) make sure the glue is clear. 

It's fairly simple to make, water, glue, glitter, borax. Yes, I did my homework on this one. there isn't enough borax in it to hurt anything. Each batch will fill 12 2oz cups, and there is only 1 tsp of Borax in the whole thing.

 

                               

My son totally flipped out when he saw the slime, but as you can see he thought that lifting the spoon up and letting the slime ooze off was loads of fun! He also said that it didn't smell very good, but he loved playing with it. He also stole one too. Next color, green!

Stay Crafty My Friends! 

And to my Pagan and Wiccan Brothers and Sisters

It's hard being a girl...

...and trying to do crafty things for guys. Being a 21 year old female, I typically drift to the pink/girly/summery  fabric and scrapbook paper. I realized that I only have a few papers and fabrics that are really "male species appropriate" so I went to Hobby Lobby because they had a sale on a venture to see what I could find. I found some really girly scrapbook paper for my coasters (as usual) but I finally found some hunting camouflage paper that looks quite nice. My quest for fabric did not turn out as successful.

I was going through my stash of paper yesterday with my neighbor and found paper I forgot I had, one of which was military camouflage, it looks interesting on a coaster as well but I like the hunting camouflage better.

Do you ever find yourself having this problem when you are making things for others? Being a small business owner it is a huge down fall because all of my items are marketed towards women since my taste for manly designs is severely lacking.

Here is a conversation between a friend and I the other day-
Me: OH MY GOSH THIS IS SO CUTE!
Friend: Yeah, it's seashells, I really like it.
Me: Me too!!! I've got to get it, it's 50% off.
Friend: I thought we came for manly stuff.
Me: Guys would like this...
Friend: ...not so much, but okay.

Yeah, this is why I am horrible at buying things for men. "Cute" and "Adorable" should not be used when describing fabric/paper you plan on using for guys and that is my downfall because I like cute things.

I'm a girl, bite me.

These are the newest coasters I've made with the new paper I got, it's still girly.



Be sure to check out Crafting For Sanity on Facebook along with my page and Amanda's page.

Stay crafty my friends,
Rebecca

Craziness happens when the two of us are in the same place......

So Rebecca is here spending the night at my house and we realized earlier that the two of us think so much alike that is fucking scary hilarious. This maybe a less then crafty post, sorry.

By the way, I made this for my cousin Lynn. She seems to have an affinity with Dragonfly's, so now she'll always have some!

So as I was saying, Rebecca and I think disturbingly similar. I appropriate situations and not......
After the wireless net card in her laptop died we ended up having to go to Best Buy so that the Geek Squad could give her a new USB wireless card, we also hit the local Dollar Tree. I will be the first to admit that I am addicted to the Dollar Tree. Needless to say there was a good deal of joking going on as we went, and then we made it to the end of the Health and Beauty Aids section. That's where we found this:

I always thought that pregnancy tests were bad enough. But as Rebecca put it, the Dollar Tree is there to see you through all of Life's Stages. An ovulation predictor to help you get pregnant, the pregnancy test to confirm it, drug tests to see if the bundle of joy is partaking of the wacky weed, the menopause test, the diabetes test, then one for the ever popular UTI. I'm not sure if I should be scared, shocked, or just go with it. Although if the Dollar Tree now has drug tests for weed then maybe my former employer will actually start testing for drugs, but probably not.

This is here just for the sake of I think it's a damn good idea. Rebecca says that life would be more tolerable. 

Rebecca agreed to make a key chain for a lady we both know, however she started cutting the cord for it on the spare bed next to my cat, Beltane. I swear I haven't seen that cat react to something like that in months! I really need to clear out some of my extra supplies!

As always, Stay crafty everyone!