Happy Holidays!!

Hello my crafty friends!!  I would like to take an opportunity to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  My household has had a lot of ups and downs this year, but we have made it through and we are looking forward to 2014 being a great year!  My husband lost his job this year and started with a new company that moved him out of state.  He did the best he could, but we just could not maintain two households, so he has moved back home today!  So, let the job hunt begin again!  We've been through tough times before and we can do anything together!  But any prayers would be appreciated!  We also celebrated the marriage of our oldest son Kevin to the love of his life, Katrina!  The ceremony was breath taking and we danced the night away at the reception!  Katrina has graduated college this year, Kevin has graduated college and will start his teaching career in January (the apple didn't fall far from the tree with this kid!)  2014 will once again bring changes for our family!  Kevin and Katrina and their daughter Khloe (often my scrapbooking muse) are looking for their own home and will be moving out after spending 3 years with us.  My youngest son Don will be graduating college in May and will go where the wind blows him!!  Jim and I wish them all the best as they leave our nest and create their own nests!!  (and grandma will get her craft room back ;) )

This is my grandaughter Khloe Marie.  She is the light of my world!  It's hard to believe she will be 3 in the spring!  We had so much fun with her this Christmas!!  Our home was visited by a silly little elf that Khloe named Magic!  Magic played all kinds of silly tricks and hid all over the house!  And Khloe finally understood "Santa" and was so very very excited to leave reindeer food in the front yard and homemade cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve!!  It's been a long time since we've had "Santa" age children in our home!  Next year, they will be celebrating Christmas in their very own home!

Christmas is a tough time of year for me.  It was always my Dad's favorite holiday.  He's been gone 13 years now.  I have always done well in dealing with his passing, but Christmas is always hard for me.  I would have been happy to not even put up a tree, until Khloe was born!  It is still tough for me, but little Miss Khloe is the reason for my season!  Her smile and her joy are helping me to get my Christmas back on!  Thank you Khloe for always putting a smile on Grandma's heart!





So, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!  I hope you all enjoy what ever holiday your families celebrate!  I wish you all peace and happiness in this coming year.  Thank you for all your love and support you have shown me since starting this blog!  I look forward to a great 2014 with all of you!!  God Bless!!

Leslie

Merry Christmas from the McGrath family

Wood Mounted Stamps & Storage

Hello my crafty friends!!  Today it is my pleasure to share over on She’s A Sassy Lady!!  A heartfelt thanks to Sheila for inviting me!!

I can’t believe it’s December already and Christmas is just a few short weeks away!!  For me, that means a TWO WEEK break from school, which mean TWO WEEKS of crafting fun!!  I just love my CTMH stamps, but I have tons of wood mounted stamps that need to be re-organized to take up less space.  

So, that means that this gallon size bag of wood mounted stamps (which is just 1 bag of many lol!) needs to be un-mounted and still remain useable!  This is such a fun and easy project!

First, using Stazon Jet Black ink, I stamped each stamp onto a sheet of sticky backed foam.  (I got this at Michaels for just .89 each).  Be sure to leave space between each stamped image so you can cut them out!

Here is an example of just a few of the wood mounted stamps from my gallon size bag, stamped onto the foam.  As you can as see, I left an ample amount of space around each stamped image.

After stamping onto the foam and cutting them out, I removed the stamps from their wooden blocks.  I then removed the foam from the back of the stamps.  If removing the foam gets difficult, simply put the stamp in the microwave for 20-30 sec. and that should loosen any glue on the back of the stamp, and allowing you to pull the rest of the foam backing off!

I made sure to clean off the back of each stamp with “Un-Du” and carefully scraped off the excess glue with my cricut spatula.  I then wiped them off with a baby wipe.  I just purchased some Goo-Gone to see how that works as “Un-Du” is a bit pricey and can be hard to find.

Now I peeled off the back of the sticky foam and held it up to a light and lined up the actual stamp with the stamped image on the foam.  Once I was confident the images were lined up nicely, I pressed the stamp down firmly to ensure that the stamps were nicely stuck to the foam.  I used scissors and on some stamps I used a hot-knife to trim away any excess foam from the stamp.

And here you have it!!  All those wood mounted stamps hae been removed from their wood blocks and remounted onto foam.  Now, not only are they ready to be used on my stamping blocks, but they take up much less space to store!

Here are the before and after pics!!  Can you believe it!! 

They now fit into a sandwich baggie!!  Once I get all of my wood mounted blocks unmounted and put onto foam, I will put them on laminated sheets for even easier access and storage!!

I hope that this tutorial encourages you to get those stamps out, get them organized in a fashion that saves on space, and gives you easier  access to them!!  You won’t use them if you don’t see them!!  I am hoping to do my very first video tutorial using this technique!  I want to get that accomplished on my two week break!!  Thanks for hanging out with me today!!  Keep on crafting and from my family to yours, have a safe and wonderful holiday season!!