Not quite crafting, but still really cool!

So a friend posted something on Facebook posted this one, then I found it on Pinterest and had to try it! I found the recipe at Six Sisters' Stuff, I have to browse around there and see what other good stuff I can find for the Stinker!
Any way, it's simplicity in itself, 1/3 water, 3oz box of Jello (it can be done with Sugar free, but the sugar free seems to make it a lot more tart!), and a single packet of Unflavored Gelatin. I have a rather large amount of unflavored gelatin from a crafting fail that I haven't taken pictures of yet (Bad Ariadne, Bad bad!) Your supposed to be able to pour this in ice trays and such, I used hard candy molds I found at Hobby Lobby. If you have a child you know how expensive fruit snacks are! Being a stay at home mom now I'm trying to find less expensive ways of doing things and healthier as well! I have at least one doctor still on my back about my weight due to a medical condition (that ironically would most likely clear up, most likely being roughly a 97% chance statistically, if I got off my tail and lost weight, not to mention we would be able to have another child which would make my mother in law ecstatic!).  I know we call this Crafting for Sanity, so please don't hate me if I through in recipes from time to time!
For followers of the main blog that are on Facebook we do have the spin off page there, and both Rebecca and I admit that it is a lot easier to update Facebook then this!
Crafting For Sanity on Facebook can be found here : https://www.facebook.com/Crafting.for.our.Sanity

Feel Free to follow us there as well, we try to make a note there when there is an update here.

Epic Fail: Our First Festival!

So we had talked about not posting this, basically since both of us forgot to get pictures. July 4th was our first festival, and as you can tell from the title, it was an epic fail! Ok, let me state this first, if you don't have a sense of humor, like really heavy metal music, or are a devout Democrat, you may want to leave know. I generally try to keep the snark to a minimum, but for this case I'm not going to bother.
All in all everything got off to a good start, we got set up, said hi to a shit load of people who for the most part totally ignored us (retail flashbacks *shudder*) and started hoping like hell that people would buy stuff. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to sound greedy. I'm still a bit on the miffed side. We ended up on the end of the festival with the live band stage, the car show, and the most obnoxious group of Democrats rabidly trying to get people to register to vote so that they can pray that Barack Obama gets a second term. First, before anyone decides to flame me in comments, I have every respect for the office of the President. However I don't believe that the current President should have ever been elected. I personally would have rather seem John McCain get into the White House, die, and Sarah Palin, a first term Governor become President then, to see a first term Senator become President. Before anyone says I'm a rabid republican, I'm actually a registered Independent because I seriously think both parties are full of it. Needless to say I got asked about being registered twice, one guy even asking who I was going to vote for, the look I got when I said Mitt Romney was priceless.
The cars from the car show left around 2 and then our end of the festival pretty much died. Rebecca, My Sister-in-Law Joy, and I all came to the conclusion that the bands should have been screened a little more thoroughly. Between our commentary of the emcee (we weren't sure what her deal was) who was beyond obnoxious. I made a comment about needing tomatoes for target practice and made Rebecca laugh so hard she started snorting, which got me laughing too. The last band to take the stage before the storm moved in was a heavy metal group, and I mean HEAVY metal. I actually like metal music, until you get to the groups that sound like the singer is about to swallow the microphone. This was this band. Right before my brother pulled rank (would LOOOOOOVE to see my husband try that) on Joy, she had actually called him to ask him to bring ear plugs because the music was so bad. 
Basically it seems that it all came down to a really bad spot. The couple next to us didn't make squat either. However I've read through a group I help admin on Facebook that people on the other end (where all the food was) did pretty good. So while they were all happy, every time I think of how I spent this July 4th I hear the music from the old game shows when someone lost (did anyone ever watch Whammy? That music that played when someone hit a whammy and got wiped out, that's what I hear). So despite the lack of pictures, I hope I summed up the suckage well.

And now for something completely different...........

Oddly and amazingly this didn't come off of Pinterest. The screens either came off of clearance racks at Hobby Lobby or from Walmart, and I don't think I paid more the $10 for any of them. I feel a little silly because I do have a Yudu machine, and I've never used it! The reason for that may simply be that it only comes with one emulsion sheet for the screens, and I don't want to have to continually clean the screen, I want to be able to keep my screens and re use them. Which is why I love the screens I've picked up, I've had my share of false starts and goof ups, I have to replace one of the screens from Walmart because of something dumb that I did.

Not a great picture, I know. This is a screen I got off the clearance rack at Hobby Lobby and been itching to try. Wasn't sure how well the three color print would come out, but it doesn't look to bad, I just wish I'd gotten more pink in it!

This is the screen that has to be replaced. The mistake was that I tried to do both
shirts back to back without cleaning the screen, the hope was that the paint would still be wet enough to not clog the screen. Wrong. At least it's not difficult and fairly inexpensive to replace.

Can We Say Ariadne is a total Anime/Sailor Moon Geek?

The heart in the left picture is actually a stencil I picked up at Michael's. But between the two the first thought that ran through my head was Sailor Moon. D'OH! My wish, that I was actually small enough to wear this shirt! 

Father's Day Gifts... from Pinterest

So for Father's Day, we decided to make homemade oil lamps for Steven. It was relatively easy to make, all you need is olive oil, lamp wicks (which I couldn't find at Michael's but ended up finding at Wal-Mart for 97 cents [go figure]), and two mason jars. The hardest part was getting the sticky from the price tags off the top of the jars.

I used a permanent marker to draw a line to show where I needed to cut the hole for the wick and then used two screw drivers (I couldn't find the hammer) and ran the large one across the line I drew a few times to "weaken" the metal and then used the small one to actually punch the hole by hitting the top of it with the large screw driver (kinda like a hammer and a nail).

I had a hard time getting the girls really into it but I was able to get them to hold the jars while I punched holes...

From what I have read online, you have to pull the wick up after you burn it to be able to relight it- since this one does not have a screw to pull the wick up, you have to do it yourself.
Here is the link from Pinterest http://putitinajar.com/craftarticle.php?id=1

I hope he enjoys it, it was relatively cheap to make around $3.50-4.00 (JoAnns) for both jars, 97 cents (WalMart) each for the Wicks, and $5.48 (WalMart) for the Olive Oil.

Pinterest posts and Demented Ideas

So while looking at Pinterest (the wonderful time killer that it is) I found a post from Craftster.org where some inventive person had taken Perler Beads. How many people remember these? I remember playing with these in elementary school, my mom loved them and I'm pretty sure that we had most if not all the boards you could get at that time (it was the 80's, there weren't that many). Anyway, they had taken the beads, put them in a cake pan, and melted them in the oven. In retrospect I may have used the wrong beads from what they were talking about but it didn't turn out so bad =)

This is the picture from Pinterest, looks pretty good. from looking at this and what I ended up with it would appear that I should have used Pony Beads and not Perler Beads. Perler Beads won't work as a wind chime because they have no sound. Next time I'll have to try it with this.

This is what I made, don't mind my cluttered work table, it's always this way. The gold parts are clock arms, I added a clock motor to the piece. The advantage to doing this with the perler beads is that once cool it would be infinently easier to put the hole in it, an exact-o knife did the trick here, with the pony beads it would have had to have been a drill.

Going into the oven........

20 mins later.

All in all it's a fairly simple process heat the oven to 400 and put the pan(s) in for about 20 mins. I heard a lot about fumes from the melting plastic, always make sure that you have proper ventilation! I had a window next to my stove open, but there wasn't much by way of fumes from the melting perler beads, I'm sure that's different with pony beads.

Epic Fail: Dollar Store find, or was it?

     I will fully and freely admit now that I am wholly addicted to dollar stores, my favorite: my local Dollar Tree. There is no telling what you can find there. Case in point, the crystal growing kits I found a couple of weeks ago. I ended up buying two of each of the three sets they had because I knew the moment that my son saw these he would want to do some.

       Yeah, I know, not a very good picture. I tried to get a picture for them off of the Dollar Tree site but who would have thought they wouldn't have one? Anyway, so after almost 3 weeks of procrastinating we finally did the kits. I wish I had gotten some progress shots, alas I forgot. A piece of advice now, if you try this type of kit, won't hurt to put it in a disposable foil pan or something (which ironically is also available at the Dollar Tree) to help keep the mess down, you'll see what I mean in the next pictures. 

My son was fascinated with them and for the first day every time I turned around he was on the step stool in the kitchen looking to see if anything had grown. 

These are both "after" shots, and had been sitting on my kitchen counter for about two and a half days. This is where the pan would have been good. The kits got knocked around several times, either from my son pushing them or my husband throwing things on the counter. A fairly significant part of my counter is now stained pink, the purple and green cleaned up pretty well, the red however left a pink stain that I don't even want to imagine how long it will take to get off. The purple one looked like it may have grown just a little bit but nada on the others. All the instructions said was hot water, next time I think I'll heat the water up in the kettle!

Edited to Add: I'm still trying to get the stains out of the kitchen counter, my cousin Tiffani said that she also tried these and her's didn't work either. I still have one more set so I might give it one more shot or I might just toss those and go for the good ones!

Sorry for the Interruption.......

  Yeah, sorry about that. The life that makes Crafting for Sanity necessary sometimes seems to get in the way of the crafting, like finals. *shudder*. So Finals are over, thank heavens and Rebecca and I are trying to get everything situated. Rebecca has run into some personal problems so how much she will be here I don't know. As for me, Ariadne will be spending another fun filled summer at home with my spoiled Stinker! That is a good thing for me, I spent to much time working in retail and I missed so much of my sons early years, so even though he drives me crazy sometimes, I very much enjoy the time I get to spend with him.

  Upcoming on the blog are a few fun things that will be even more fun as soon as I remember to take pictures (lol, I have such a terrible memory!) including, but by no means limited too:

• Crayon Wreaths
• Pool Noodle Light Sabers
• The first edition of a Crafting Fail: Ariadne's Glitter Ornaments ( I need to take another look at these because it may be more then simply a craft fail, as an Epic Craft Fail)

  I'm slowly getting ready for my first festival in July so I'm sure there will be no shortage of crafts, fails, and flops to share. By the way, anyone wanting to contact us, ask about anything, or simply check out stuff can find
myself or Rebecca on either of our facebook pages

 https://www.facebook.com/MystikDragons for Ariadne
or
https://www.facebook.com/RebeccasCozyHandmadeTreasures for Rebecca