Glue guns are capital investment for 'Doodads' in Liberty Ky.

For two friends who love operating glue guns as much as Malory Wesley Coffman and Lori Carmicle, both of Casey County, it was only a matter of time before the duo would join forces.

Neither one remembers exactly how it happened. One possibility mentioned was a joint trip to Hobby Lobby. Another possibility could have been during the 127 Yard Sale in August 2010, where Carmicle had set up with another friend.

“Malory stopped by and we saw some old stuff; said ‘that’d be cute with’ something or ‘you could do’ this and this to it,” Carmicle said. They ended up leaving with others’ “junk,” she said, and began to try their hands at creating their own “doodads,” which ultimately became the name of the business.

Carmicle said they wanted a name that wouldn’t limit them to just one type of thing. So, after looking up ‘trinkets’ in the thesaurus, they settled on Doodads.

That worked perfectly for the duo, who continually tries new crafts. According to Coffman, that’s the beauty of the business.

“You can try anything. If it flops, it flops,” Coffman said with a smile.

Some of those early crafts included polymer clay beads, which they crafted into jewelry; repurposed baskets, for Easter; and even hand-painted bowling balls.

“We’d be out in the yard painting and the neighbors would come by and say ‘I’ve got bowling balls in my garage that I’ve been trying to get rid of, come and get them.’ And we would get all excited,” Coffman said, laughing.

She still has extra bowling balls stored in her basement. The bowling balls would be transformed to ladybugs or bumblebees in most cases, and sold to be used as yard decorations.

“They were cute, but really heavy,” she said.

Even though some of the ideas change, there were certain staples that they opted to continue with, such as hair clips. The clips vary, some involving flowers, some involving fabric, always using glue guns. The glue gun seems to be their favorite way to accomplish any craft.

“Give me a glue gun, and I could build anything. I could build a house,” Coffman said with a grin. All that glue gun use would create massive callouses on their hands, they said.

“We could burn ourselves and not even know it,” Carmicle said.

Now that both have begun working, Coffman, as a social worker for Lifeline Home Health and Carmicle at Tarter Industries in the sales department, they said they don’t suffer the dangers of crafting as often.

However, they still have some interesting stories to tell.

When Coffman found out she was pregnant with her daughter, Layla, she hadn’t yet told many people. They were prepping for an event one weekend and she spilled a box of seed beads, which are extremely tiny and difficult to pick up. Although she wouldn’t tell her why, Carmicle didn’t yet know about Layla, Coffman said she asked Carmicle to pick up the beads.

“I couldn’t bend over or I would get sick,” she said.

Carmicle begrudgingly picked up all the beads, but while she was doing so, Coffman’s husband came in. They began carrying on a wordless, motion-only conversation, regarding whether or not she should tell Carmicle about Layla.

“He was like ‘tell her’ and I’m was going, ‘should I?’ and he would then go, ‘well, I don’t know, should you?’ and the whole time Lori was picking up beads. She would look up and we would just stop motioning,” Coffman said laughing.

Eventually, as they were carrying stuff to the car, Coffman said she realized she had to tell Carmicle, because of the stuff being carried.