A Holiday Stack of Goodies!

1. giant gumball machine
2. etch a sketch ipad case
3. handmade leather football
4. native shoes
5. spool scarf
6. mumford & sons cd
7. best made first aid kit
8. fuji 3d camera
9. land carpet
10. photo day planner
11. balloon dog toy

An amazing holiday stack of goodies from my favorite wedding photog and stacker of all things stackable Kella MacPhee

Upcycled Gift Tutorial Week # 5 - Repurposed Rubber Stamp Jewelry

If you are a crafty mama, you have probably rubber stamped a scrapbook page or two or rubber stamped something or other and now have a bunch of stamps gathering dust in a drawer somewhere.

(or maybe things in drawers don't actually gather dust, but you get the idea)

I recently made this little bat necklace for a vampire freak - although I do know that today's vampires do not actually turn into bats (the vampire freak loved it anyway) and that the bat thing is just an old vampire myth that real vampires, like my girl Sookie (and yes, again I realize that Sookie is not really a vampire ... yet) are busy dispelling.

Anyhoo, this is a very quick and easy jewelry gift idea for those rubber stamps that you would like to use in a new way!

This would also make a great keychain with a keychain ring in place of the neck chain!

You will need:

1. an old rubber stamp
2. permanent markers (easiest) or paint, chalk, sealer
3. washers and eyehooks
4. drill for starter holes
5. some sort of chain, cording or ribbon, some beads and baubles



1. you can either permanent marker the stamp 'picture' or paint or chalk it (if painting or chalking you will need to seal it with a clear sealer) - you may also decide the back of the stamp is where the really amazing picture is and use it backwards
2. drill a starter hole
3. screw in your eyehook and washer
4. add beads and baubles
5. add chain or cording

Making Decisions Without My Magic Eight Ball or how choosing one thing means letting go of the other thing and maybe that's why it's so hard - Part I

2010 is almost over folks and I for one am totally ready to let it go.

(bye bye 2010, don't let the door hit ya ...)

I am determined to make 2011 the year where I actually make some decisions rather than letting life make them for me through my amazing ability to procrastinate and "settle".

(ugh)

It could be all over in 2012 anyway according to the gazillion books in the 2012 section - yes, there is an actual 2012 section, I've seen it - at the Barnes and Noble, so we better get crackin' with all this 'make our lives what we want them to be' stuff.

(but I wouldn't run up your credit cards deciding that is going to happen)

The word 'decision' comes from the Latin ‘decisio’ which means “to cut off" and when we make a decision, we cut off that other option and this is where the deciding thing gets tricky and sometimes scary.

Like if we decide to eat that chocolate cake, we lose that time on the treadmill (a small thing) and if we decide to buy that new car, we lose our access to that money we saved (a bigger thing) and if we decide to quit that job we hate, we lose our steady income (maybe) and at the very least our ability to have an actual job title when we fill out one of those forms that requires it (a much bigger thing, trust me).

Deciding is about being strong enough in our choice to allow a 'cutting off' of those other options.

Our lives are literally made up of all the decisions we have ever made.

(remember that song about "years of bad decisions running down her face" - ugh, that's a depressing one, but yeah, those bad decisions make us who we are, too)

I usually make decisions with my gut and intuition. I don't think I've ever made one of those pros and cons lists that hubby is so fond of.

(he even weights the pros and cons on a lined yellow notepad and tries to calculate the value of every outcome - what fun is that, I ask you and it works no better than guts and intuition anyway, believe me)

Once we reach the point where a decision is needed, the game changes. This is when we move out of discomfort and into plain old fear. This is also when the universe sends things at us to test our commitment to our decision.

So, let's talk about deciding as we start 2011. What decisions have we been putting off? What do we need to decide to say no to, so that we can say yes to the important stuff? What is the 'important stuff' anyway? What are we 'settling' for because we are afraid to make that decision and cut something off? Is our comfort zone making us a little too comfortable?

Part II - The Game Changer

Decisions, decisions ... photograph by Urban Pink Photography

*FINAL CHRISTMAS SPECIAL - 12/15-12/19 ONLY - will bump up all U.S. first class shipping to priority mail plus a 10% discount with coupon code DECIDE in my Polarity shop and my Uncorked shop*

Whining Wednesday - or a Christmas fable of a girl, her dog and the smelly guy at the post office

Actually, I know it's Tuesday because Tuesday is stinky guy day at my post office

(I send Olive in and look how excited she is about it)

Her sense of smell is, of course, about a gazillion times better than mine, so this is especially cruel

(please don't report me)

No clue how anyone could possibly cultivate a stench this powerful and still remain unaware of it.

This is not the smell of hard work and sweat - a totally relatable smell to us makers during the holiday season as we rush to get our goods into the mail

(so they can get smashed and lost just in time for the holidays)

No, not a hard work kind of smell just a very bad smell and somehow no matter how I time my Tuesday shipping I always meet up with this guy.

(the smell is what I would imagine it would be if dead animals threw up on his clothing and then he filled the pockets full of hard boiled eggs and left it all in his car trunk for a year ... in the desert)

On the other hand, I do get freaked out if a gigantic bodybuilder kind of guy smells like fabric softener.

(maybe the holiday rush is making me punchy)

When I was unemployed

(and that should narrow it down to, um, most of the time between 2001-present)

there was this huge guy at the gym.

He had a tattoo composed of about 50 human skulls inked on one arm and it was of lesser quality, if you know what I mean, like it could have been done over the course of a short prison term - say breaking and entering maybe - using a ballpoint pen and a thumbtack.

And, it was always unnerving to me when I'd see him throwing up in a trashcan after he'd dead lifted the equivalent of a Ford dealership and he'd still be smelling like a Care Bear ... yes, the pink one.

So, I don't like guys who smell bad and I don't like guys who smell good. No clue what this says about me. Luckily hubby is a kind of non-smeller who rarely even needs deodorant, but maybe this is too much information ... sorry.

(like I said, the holidays are making me punchy)

So, for everyone out there who is spending these last couple weeks leading up to Christmas running around like a maniac getting everything done and working up a sweat, I just wanted to tell you that I'm right there with you, I can feel your pain and frankly Olive can smell you from here ....