We got bumped from our flight home from the CHA Super Show

Flying standby is a risk, and for the first time, we didn't make the flight home from Long Beach to SLC. It had to be because of the sold out flight of Californians traveling to the Sundance Film Festival. We understand that even the jump seats were filled with employees of the airline. Luckily, we were able to squeeze into the vehicle LeeAnn's family drove to the show, but what a long, long drive home.

Within 18 hours of arriving home Sunday evening, we were busy at another daughter's home making blankets for the Linus project. I had never done one of the quilts made from polar fleece where you cut l" strips 4" in depth all around the outside and then either make a knot at the top of each strip or make a tiny slit at the top and pull the 4" length through the tiny slit. I purchased a wonderful tool to make these slits where the rotary cutter is guided in perfectly aligned rows, but of course I couldn't find it, so we made do with a rotary cutter, cutting mat, and clear rulers.

One of my fun toys purchased at the CHA Super Show was a freehand cutter that is made by Purple Cow. Shaped like a computer mouse, it made the tiny slits perfectly with simply a push in the right spot. It probably would have worked well to cut the 4" strips if I'd thought of it. Now I'm anxious to buy more polar fleece and do more. It was a lot of fun once I got the "hang of it"

Another fun tool I purchased at the show was a chenille maker. I haven't had time to try it out yet, but it will be fun to be able to use up some of the tons of fabric in my stash. I was a seamstress long before I became a stamp maker. To make the chenille, you put about 7 layers of fabric on top of each other and sew rows of stitching side by side completely quilting the entire project. The tool slices through the top layers between the rows and when it is washed, they fray and form the chenille. It reminds me of the large letter openers, but they don't work! Believe me, I tried before spending money on the real thing. They are a bit pricey, but there are always coupons!

Website coming down for an overhaul

I honestly don't know how long the web site has been there (halosrubberstamps.com) but I want to thank two really nice people who put it up for me--Mark and Jodi Hansen. I know it was before they became parents. I took an html class to try to learn how to update it, but I just don't "understand" computers.

On the other hand, my kids showed me how to do this blog, and there's not much I can mess up here. I am anxious to learn how to put pictures up, but one thing at a time :)

My daughter LeeAnn, the oldest of my six kids, is going to take over HALOS and we need to clear out lots of inventory. The site doesn't have a fraction of the rubber we make, but there's still a lot! Make notes of any stamps or sheets of stamps that interest you and we'll make you a deal you can't refuse. We can do grab bags also for $10 and up and you may choose at least one stamp that you want for sure. It may be like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but we'll try. We can put a lot of stuff in the flat rate mailers for $4.85 postage, including a free idea book.

CHA Craft Supershow - 2010

The first day of the show was quite slow. I'm sure that a lot of people were working on Friday and also the weather may have kept people away. My cute grandchildren, four-year old Charity and six-year old Dallin, had a wonderful time in the Kids Craft area. They may have even enjoyed it more than the Craft Discovery Museum or the beach.

LeeAnn and I enjoyed meeting crafters and showing them our clear acrylic mounts and mounting system. We gave away hundreds of idea books featuring Azadi's wonderful stamps. We feel so thankful to have the unmounted rights to these timeless images. We found that most of the new generation had never even heard of this amazing artist, who's art was the inspiration for many a company. We also noticed how many of the people at this event did not stamp. Because we only had a small space (8 foot table), we were unable to teach them the wonders of embossing and the exciting things you can do with stamps. Hopefully the make-it take-it samples will get them started.

In order to make stamping affordable and enticing to newcomers, we sold grab bags that included 5 stamp pads (some dye ones and some embossing ones), a bottle of embossing powder and 2 ultra fine glitters for $10, and we paid the tax. We certainly didn't make any money, but with the multitude of companies giving things away for free, it seemed the least we could do.

On Saturday, the sun came out and so did the crafters. It was exciting and exhausting, but we found time to do a bit of shopping as well. I will post about my purchases another time. I learned to use items I'd purchased months earlier and that had intimidated me. There are still some things that I spent a fortune on and have never used, but they will remain nameless, because there are tons of crafters who love them. I don't know anyone who doesn't love to stamp once they learn the basics.

We want to make stamping affordable and fun for everyone--that is our mission!

Our journey to the CHA Craft Supershow

As I mentioned, we didn't have a lot of time to decide whether we could pull this trip off. LeeAnn was a busy pre-school teacher as well as working at Costco. She also has two teenagers, and two little ones. We enlisted the teenagers to help do our make-it-take-it projects. For days they used the die cut machine to cut out clear lids for the tiny matchboxes (cut out by me while tending baby Wyatt). In the boxes, we put a l" clear acrylic stamp mount (manufactured by Gary) and 3 mini stamps on HALOS hook tape. I froze up the gears on one die cut machine and actually ended up using my little Zip E Mate for most of the boxes. I "cooked" rubber every day. My rubber was actually "old" and required that I squish it really hard in my vulcanizer, but I was happy not to waste it. Sometimes rubber "cures" just sitting on the shelf for a couple of months.

LeeAnn's family wanted to drive in order to get all the stuff there, and Gary and I wanted to fly because we had free flights, thanks to two daughters who work for Jet Blue. The time to go arrived really fast, and reports of bad weather made us very nervous. We got a report that the airport had closed from flooding. It was too late to ride in the truck because they had already taken off. They hit storms in Cedar City that delayed them hours, arriving at their hotel in Nevada at 2 a.m. Thankfully, we were able to get there the next evening on our flight. As I exited the plane, I noticed David Archuletta in the front seat. No one else even recognized him! I didn't see him again for over a half hour as we waited for each piece of luggage on the completely full flight to be unloaded one by one because of a power failure. He must have gotten tired of waiting for his companions and came looking to see what caused the delay. I couldn't resist telling him how "darn cute" he is, and I'm sure I embarrassed him. I didn't have a camera, but Gary said after I left a lot of people recognized him and he graciously posed for pictures.

It had been 10 years since we exhibited at the big CHA show and while this was not that show for retailers, but a smaller show for the general public, it was still a scary thing and I didn't sleep much. The rain did not stop all night it seemed and continued throughout the entire day, which I'm sure affected the show turnout.

To be continued.........

Back from CHA

Until the recent CHA Craft Supershow, it had been years since HALOS exhibited at any shows. Gary is busy in a second career (so we can have health insurance), after retiring from 27 years of teaching high school. We have also been busy with grandchildren, and aside from filling orders from customers of years past, we were mostly retired!

We were way ahead of our time with our mounting system. We loved the years we traveled all over the country (even Hawaii) demonstrating how to use our system, which used thick black loop tape on the stamps, and the opposite hook tape on the mount. It allowed people to have rubber stamps galore, store them in a fraction of the space, find them easier, and see where they stamped. One "issue" was the lack of companies who would sell unmounted. We acquired many wonderful images over the years and and I loved "cooking" them up in rubber. We had so many images, we never ever got them all online.

When the economy changed, we decided to slow down.

None of our five daughters had time to continue our business... until now. Our oldest daughter LeeAnn, (mother of six also), now has teenagers that need jobs. She is excited to take over!

Our decision to participate in the CHA Craft Supershow was one we heard about one day and only had the weekend to sign up and less than a week to prepare for and travel to Anaheim. The weather did not cooperate for those of us who flew, and those who drove, but we made it! More later.............

Original HALOS and HALOS II

These two systems are exactly opposite of each other. Original HALOS has hook strips in the recessed grooves and loop tape on the stamps. Loop tape is thick and provides more cushioning. The first time you cut out the stamps, there are "fuzzies" which some people did not like, which led to the development of HALOS II.

HALOS II has loop tape in the grooves and clear hook tape under the rubber.
The clear hook tape on HALOS II has a number of advantages over original, most importantly, no fuzzies. It also is easier to clean the stamps because it does not absorb water or ink.

Many customers still prefer the original HALOS as there is more cushioning. As a result, we have continued both lines.