Crafty Carnival

FU TRU

I'm sorry but I have to vent.... TRU is what we call Toys R Us.  And I'm so frustrated with them and thier attitude.  Here's the deal... TRU has had some toys made exclusively for them... you can only buy them at their store or on their website (mostly Barbie and Polly Pocket toys) and these toys are heavily advertised.... they say they are sold out online... but if you go to the store there is tons of them.  So it's like they sell them at the store to make you go there and then I'm assuming they want you to buy more stuff... so it works in their favor.  Since you're there, you'll buy the end cap items or the dollar items or what ever, so it's a nice little upsale for them.  Well this is frustrating because I'm a stay at home mom with 2 little kids and my dh works very long hours, so it's hard to get there to buy my kids gifts without them knowing about.  That's not so bad, BUT  now they've  changed their policy to match Target's policy of no return or exchange without reciept.  This frustrates me because if you are going to buy a gift for a child... where do you go????  One of 3 places probably... Target, Walmart, or TRU.  Well, I can understand Target having the no reciept thing because they advertised it heavily before they actually enacted it.... and they sell more than just toys.... BUT TRU sells A LOT of GIFTS! Things that may need to come back!  They try to say that they do it to reduce theft.  Well I don't believe for one minute that this policy is reducing theft at TRU.  All it is doing is making you keep duplicate gifts that you don't want and keeping money in their pockets.  My kids got about 50 bucks worth of duplicates this Christmas that I can not return.  So my kids are out the gifts, and I know I can re-gift them at another birthday party or whatever... but still..... What ever happened to good customer service.  I brought these things back to the store in PERFECT condition...and NOTHING!  Nobody was even nice in the explination of it all!  I'm so tired of being treated like a criminal or a loser by these people... and then being forced to deal with them due to their "exclusive" products that my kids see on TV every 5 minutes!!!!!  So... from here on out... I'm saying FU to TRU and it's just too darn bad for the little ones.  They'll have to want the toys that are at Target and Walmart (and don't even get me started on Walmart... LOL)  So do you think I should get bumper stickers made?  LOL!.... just a simple FUTRU.   I'd buy one!  LOL!  Okay... I'm done venting now... sorry.

Gift Exchange!

My husband is one of 4 boys, and then 3 of those 4 are married, so that makes 7, so we have all decided that is just too many people to buy for!  So we are doing a really fun gift exchange this year!  Each person brings one gift valued at about 25-30 dollars, and it has to be unisex, and then we will do the normal swap and steel game.  It's going to be so fun!  These are mine and Bryan's entries for the gift exchange.  One is the Pirates of the Carribean dvd board game.... I wrinkled up a grocery bag, and then Gracie helped my by drawing the map on it.  We tied it with a red ribbon, and added a felt pirate flag with the words "dead men tell no tales..." on it!  SO FUN!  And the second one is Talledega Nights dvd, and some mint chocolate Hershey's kisses (because they are wrapped in checkerboard foil, so it goes with the theme).  We (meaning Gracie and I ... as if Bryan would wrap anything let a lone pick it out!) put the DVD and the candy in a shoe box and wrapped it in checkerboard paper.  Then we added a blue ribbon and a pipe cleaner flag that says "Pick Me!"  I think it's going to be really fun!  I know the wrapping kind of gives the gifts away...  but it's still fun!  At least you know if you like pirates or racing you should pick one of these gifts!  LOL!  I won't keep you in suspense any longer... here are the pics!

Snow Bunnies

  I was thinking about how cute all these fleece  hats are that I see everywhere, and I wanted to make some for my two little cuties!  One thing that blogging has really inspired me to do is to make more things for myself, and not always gear everything I make toward selling! 

So I decided I wanted to make fleece hats that had LONG bunny ears that the girl could wrap around their chins to stay warm!  I used some cheap fleece I got at JoAnn's on clearance, and then some cotton calico I got there too!  So nuthin too expensive.  I made both of these hats in about an hour for less than $5 total!  I made the pink one first, and then I got a little cocky on the blue one and so the pleats are going the wrong way.  OOPS!  LOL!  But you get the idea!  I wish I would have had some cute calico flannels on hand to make the inside of the ears from flannel, but I didn't and for the spur of the moment project... you have to go with what you got!  I also wanted to put ribbon bows on the ears... but that idea was vetoed... Gracie said NO BOWS MOM!  So it is what it is!  :)  (Oh and we had the perfect rainy day back drop for these pics!)

Everyone should have a BEST FRIEND like mine!

I got the biggest bestest box in the mail ever yesterday!  My best friend, Nicole, sent me the cutest Santa Raggedy Ann doll, and some adorable little ornaments made from vintage images.  (You can see how some of these and how she made them in her blog!)   I also got a really cute winter garland, but I couldn't get a good picture of that... but I'll still post the bad one!  Click the pics for a bigger view. LOL!  THANK YOU, BFF!  I just can't say it enough... she's the best!

 

And all about the bears...

I really need to order business cards for Mohair Circus... I have a bear show next month here in the Sacramento area and then another one in April... plus they are just nice to have to put in orders... so I was racking my brain about how I could do something to make the cards cute and different... so here's what I came up with... it's a new slogan... "Please don't feed the bears, but hugs are okay!"  Now I just have to make the graphics for it.  I'll get right on that this next week or so, and I'll post here when I'm done.

But in the mean time... here is some more eye candy for ya!  This was a bear I made for the nicest customer... Krista!  It was for a dear friend of hers that loves boots, jackets, and kints scarves... and she collects teddy bears of course!

These are the four little bears I made for my space on grunge this month.  (Click the pictures for a bigger view.)  Don't forget to always check out Glitter and Grunge on the first and the fifteenth for the most fabulous collection of hand made goods anywhere!  Thanks so much for taking the time to check out my blog!  Please sign up with your email in the upper right hand corner to recieve updates when I make them!  Thanks again!

~ Missy

Wow! Busy Time!

I wanted to post on here so many times this last week... but I have seriously had NO time!  This is what I did this week:

• Found out my husband had been a victim of Identity theft, filed 2 police reports and made hundreds of phone calls... plus played P.I. and supportive wife... LOL!
• Started the ball on the re-fi for our house... hence the finding out about the I.D. theft...
• Designed, ordered (from Shutterfly... they are awesome) and mailed out our Christmas cards including a letter (this is huge for me... I don't normally do the letter thing)
• finished my Christmas shopping, and even bought a few things for myself (fabric, no duh, and a Hello Kitty waffle iron, pictures to follow)
• Made 5 bears
• and I managed to catch my 2 year old's runny nose, (thank you, honey, and yes Mommy still loves you and always will!  :)

So here's some background on why I ended up with fabric in the few weeks before Christmas (bad girl!)  My BF Nicole went to Jo Ann's and was telling me how she got some cute things that she hadn't seen there before, (there are pics on her blog) and I had to go anyway because I needed more green felt for those cute pencil toppers I made in my last post.... So I thought... cool!  I have to go anyaway, I'll go look around!  So I went with a $20 dollar bill thinkin I would get lunch for me and the girls and my felt.... YA RIGHT!  I found some really cute fabric that I couldn't live with out... some more Christmas decorations, and tons of ribbon.   I want to make a little dog with a cute dress with that bone print.  The skull fabric is to make swirl skirts for the girls.  (They are really into pirates and they picked it out!)  I think I'll layer it with some black and white gingham and lace... very cute!  Or I might just hand it off to my mom because she is really really good at making children's clothes... she does it in half the time!  The light blue is a fleece that I think would be cute to make some snuggly bears, and the rest was just must have dainty florals... you can never have too much of those!!  and by the way... they had NO MORE of the green felt I originally went to get.  They had lots of other colors of green but not THAT green... and I didn't want another color... I wanted THAT color... isn't that always the way the cookie crumbles!!??  :)