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! 

Crafting to save our sanity... from all the political madness

Cue the choir of angels, the political commercials are finally gone and the television debates are over although since Fox News has PROJECTED the winner to be Barack Obama, I've seriously thought about removing people from my Facebook friends or at least banning them until after January. The Electoral College does not cast their vote until December and the real winner will be announced in January. Although the television debates are over, the real debates surely are not. I'm not saying this just because I support Romney honestly, I didn't want either one to win but I had to vote for someone. I am saying this because since Fox News has projected that Obama will be in office four more years, the people on my friends list are acting like morons. I'm not going to be that person and call you out on it, but you know who you are. 

I haven't exactly had the chance to do any crafting although crafts encompass 95% of my dreams with the other 5% being invaded with dreams about how people might actually come into my work and not act like morons/assholes/some variation of this.

I have been perusing through Pinterest lately but the Food & Drink category has been catching my eye more than the crafts although Amanda has found  few cool craft things. This goes back to how Pinterest should be invite only. But for the most part, Pinterest has been my escape from all the Political madness.

I've been doing some serious thinking about craft shows and if we really want to attempt any more, what I'm going to work on when in reality I need to get some of the stuff out of my house I really want to make a quilt so I've turned on a 15% discount through the end of November in my STORE! Amanda has turned on a 40% discount in her STORE! We also have items in a few auction groups on Facebook but we would still love to take your custom orders :)

How have you been staying sane from all the political madness?

Stay Crafty My Friends,
Rebecca

What are YOU thankful for?

I've noticed a trend on Facebook since November 1 that people are now typing a status each day of what they are thankful for and those who didn't jump on the boat on November 1st have posted enough to make up for their fashionably late arrival to the party.

The way it works is since Thanksgiving is November 25, it is essentially 25 things you are thankful for leading up to Thanksgiving. Seeing the majority of my friends flooding my news feed with these posts have gotten me thinking (which I think is the point?) what exactly am I thankful for?

I'm going through a rough patch in my life right now but honestly, compared to other people I still have it pretty good. I'm currently trying to stop a separation between my husband and I, since he has two daughters that we have on the weekends, while we are trying to work things out he wants me to stay somewhere else on the weekends and come visit so we don't confuse them.

So, this weekend I am staying at my friend Bri's house and we were talking last night about different things about how maybe we are the weird ones. Our idea of a party is sitting at home with a few friends, a few drinks, in front of our sewing machines or watching Netflix and perusing Pinterest while our other friends idea of partying is getting so drunk you are peeing on yourself. We actually care about our future, we don't use our prison identification card when we get carded for buying alcohol or cigarettes, we have never been arrested.

You can browse Twitter or search the hashtag #firstworldproblems, you would be amazed at what you see. I know I complain a lot just like the next person but when we sit back and think for a minute, we have a lot to be thankful for although we are usually ungrateful. While going through the separation with my husband, we have started talking about the problems that we are having and why the separation is needed. One of his complaints is that I'm ungrateful for the things he has tried to do for me, and when I go back and think it is true I've complained about a lot of things that I should be grateful for. We are by no means "well off" we struggle each week to pay bills and put food on the table. I drive a 2005 Chrysler Town and Country that is considered a "luxury vehicle" and literally has all the bells and whistles including a butt warmer. He had it before we got married and I've done nothing but complain until the last few months because it was huge and I wanted something different or I didn't want to drive a van but in all honestly, it's a whole lot better than what I had when we got married.

I had a 1988 Honda Prelude Si that I LOVED but it was a piece of crap. He drove it back and forth to work while I took the van so I would have something reliable. My Prelude was a death trap, the window was broken, no heat, no a/c, the radiator was busted, the speedometer didn't work, if you locked the door from the inside you had to crawl out the window to get out, the knob for the headlights and turn signals was broken so you had to stick the thing into the slot and turn it to make them work, one headlight wouldn't stay up on it's own, etc. We traded it in for a 2005 Jeep Liberty for my birthday that we ended up losing because we couldn't afford it anymore and I wasn't grateful that my husband had tried, he tried to save it and he tried to make me happy but I couldn't see that. All I cared about was the fact that I lost my Jeep. When we got married I got really sick and he told me to quit my job because it wasn't worth me working and when he asked me to start looking for work before he lost his job, all I did was complain that I didn't want to work and I completely regret that.

I should have done it willingly not moaning and groaning about how I didn't want to go back to work or I didn't want to do xyz job. I should be grateful that I found a job to help us survive because his unemployment wasn't going to be enough.

This post is totally not going where I had planned but I'm going to run with it. 

My birthday present this past year was a sewing machine that he bought for me with HIS birthday money. If it hadn't been for that I would not be as big into crafting as I am now. No matter the problems we have, I love him more than ever and I guess through this post that has taken a turn from "what are you thankful for" to explaining and pouring my heart out about how I've been such an ungrateful bitch for the last year I've realized that I have a lot to be thankful for and I need to change my attitude.

I know this blog is supposed to be about crafting and keeping our sanity but sometimes you just need to roll with the punches and do what has been laid on your heart and our your mind.

I know my husband will never read this blog and gets frustrated by my crafting and the amount of money I spend on craft supplies and craft shows, so some of you may wonder why I typed all this out. There is a big difference between talking about something and actually typing it out. When I talk I sometimes stammer and stutter but when I type the words just flow from my fingers like nothing can stop them.

I think I can go ahead and summarize what I'm thankful for right now and I will try and narrow them down to 10:
1. I am thankful that God has a purpose for my life and although I do not always see it I know there is a reason I am still here. I was born with severe heart problems and my parents were told that I would not survive, I am now 21 years old.

2. I am thankful for my husband and step daughters. Although we have rough patches, I know in my heart he loves me and they love me and things will work out. I am thankful that he has put up with my ungratefulness this long.

3. I am thankful that I have friends that I can count on even if there are just two or three of them.

4. I am thankful for my ability to craft that I inherited from my grandparents. Crafting helps save my sanity and provides a little bit of income.

5. I am thankful for my manager, he gave me a job when my family was struggling and getting ready to lose everything. Although we are still struggling and on the verge of losing our house, at least I am bringing in some income. He is also a great person for me to talk to and has helped me through a lot lately.

6. I am thankful for having gone through the abuse that I have been through. It may seem weird to say I am thankful for it but since I have gone through the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse I have been able to help others.

7. I am thankful for our fans and followers. Without you, we would have empty walls to talk to and share our creations and failures with.

8. I am thankful for my customers at work who try their best day in and day out to brighten my day and make me smile when they know I am having a day from hell.

9. I am thankful for the opportunities I have had thus far and the experiences and memories I have made. Without those, I would not where where I am today.

10. I am thankful that I live in United States of America and that I have the freedom to do most of what I want. If I lived in another country, I might not  be able to have a blog and share my thoughts with the world or share and sell my crafts.

Now back to the original question... What are YOU thankful for?

Let us know in the comments, we would love to hear it.

Until next time, Stay crafty my friends...
Rebecca