YOU HAD ME AT CRAFT: September 2011

Friday, September 30, 2011

Guest Designer Lala- Palooza with AMANDA

Hey Everyone!

It's Amanda from My Scrappin Obsession, and I am so very excited and honored that Alex chose me to be a guest designer on her blog! I have been away from the crafting world enjoying my new house, getting through classes, and going through my second pregnancy (another girl!). That leaves very little time to craft but I feel this post is a great excuse to get back into my daily sharing.

Now that I own a home I can decorate without any restrictions and so today, I want to share a home decor project. Halloween is quickly approaching and I made this art project to semi-spook up our entry. I say semi-spook because Halloween is still cutesy when a 17 month old girly girl is running around! :). Hope you enjoy!

I kept it simple because honestly, a lot of my scrap stuff is still packed :(. I wanted to add twine, buttons and glitter but that will have to wait! I think it still turned out pretty cute. Thank you again to Alex for letting me be today's guest designer. If you would like to see more of my crafts please visit my blog My Scrappin Obsession!

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Guest Designer Lala-Palooza with LAURA

Hi, it's Laura from Makin Pretty Things!

First, I want to thank Alex for

my Guest Designer spot! :)

Now, if you've been out at craft fairs

or trade shows, you may

have noticed a big trend this year

is the Primitive Folk Art.

The pretty willow tree, the rustic houses,

the misshapen stars...it's all so pretty!

I noticed there wasn't anything really

like the Prim/Folk on any Cricut

cartridges or online SVG stores,

so I created a set that I'll be giving
away for FREE on my blog!
I want to share some
projects made using the

"In the Country" SVG set!

The first is this 5 x 5 card (sentiment from
Scrappy Moms Stamps "All in the Family").

An altered gift bag with little house tag...

And last but not least, this wall art.

I purchased a plain wooden sign

at a local value store for $2.

It measures 15 x 7.

There was an image on the front of the sign,

so I used the 12 x 24 Cricut mat and

the 12 x 24 DCWV adhesive paper to stick on top,

but you could use Terrifically Tacky Tape

or any other strong adhesive.

I used Pop Dots on the house

and Zig 2 Way Glue for everything else.

Here's the entire SVG set!

If you'd like this SVG set, come on over to my blog and

comment on this post with

a way to email it to you!

~Laura~

Monday, September 26, 2011

Guest Designer LALA- PALOOZA with Madison and Week 16: Made It Myself Mondays

Welcome to You Had Me At Craft

My name is Madison and I am so excited to be the guest designer today at You Had Me at Craft!! I am a 16 year-old crafter who has been designing and blogging for almost two years now. My blog is Funky Cards by Madison. I love paper crafting, but I also enjoy painting, sewing, and creating altered item art projects. I have been busy "re-doing" the rooms in our house one by one and I will be sharing my latest project with you today:)

My brother Aaron just left for college and I wanted to turn his room into a guest room (with his blessing). It was Dodger Blue to start with and in need of a new paint job anyway.

Here is a before shot after the room was cleared of everything but the bed, desk, and TV. You can see there was a chair rail separating the Dodger Blue and white paint.

The room appeared very dark with this color paint. I really wanted to lighten up the room with a different color choice.

I chose a warm, tan color and painted the walls floor to ceiling. It does look much lighter in person. The shelves were also repainted but it is hard to tell in the photos.

I made the curtains out of a sheet that I bought for $10 at Big Lots. To get the panel effect at the top, fold the top edge over approximately 18" but sew together only at the top edge to make a casing for the curtain rod (at about 1", depending on the size of your curtain rod).

The frame over the TV was purchased at Michael's with my 50% off coupon. The piece is a collection of artwork made by my brothers and I when we were in elementary school. My mom has folders of our artwork for each of us that I could pull from. It is a great way to store children's artwork. This took me just moments to create and it was really fun to do. My mom loves it!!

These paintings are hanging over the bed. I painted them with canvases I purchased at Michael's when they were on sale. I found a painting online that looked just like this and I loved it. I wanted to use it in the room. I decided that for my painting, however, that I would paint it on three canvases instead. I started this part of the project before Aaron left, but hid it in the closet!!

My dad and Aaron left on Thursday evening at 6:00 p.m. When my dad returned on Saturday night the room was finished. He had no idea I was going to start it while he was gone!! He didn't know the colors or anything that was happening in the room:) He LOVED it!! I love that my parents trust me to re-do the rooms in the house. It is so much fun!!

Thanks for stopping by today! If you want to see more of my work, please stop by my blog anytime at Funky Cards! I would love to see you there.

~Madison

Now it's your turn to get your craft on and LINK UP!

Never partied here before? Check out the deets below...

1. Link any crafty project NEW or OLD.

2. Link UP to 3 projects.

3. Place the party BUTTON on your post.

4. Visit and Comment on at least 2 Other Blogs

5. Lastly, leave a comment HERE!

Here's what's up for GRABS this WEEK! All comments

with link up entries will be entered to win this...

Friday, September 23, 2011

Guest Designer Lala Palooza with EMILY

Hello everyone! It's Emily here from Create Serendipity! I'm so excited to be a guest designer for Alex today!

Since today is OFFICIALLY the First day of Fall, I decided to get out my new DCWV Harvest Gathering stack and make a little something. This paper is so beautiful, I just love fall colors! Makes me want to have a nice warm cup of apple cider! MMM! ;-)

Anyways, enough from me... here's my project for today!

For those of you who know me, you know that I love to create from found objects in my home. For one, it's much cheaper, and two, it's fun to see what you can create out of random objects! This particular album is made out of empty toilet paper rolls. Cool, right? I love using toilet paper rolls because I can stick little tags into the ends for extra photos/journaling.

And that's my project for today! I hope you all like it! If you want to stop and visit my blog, you can do so at http://www.createserendipity.net

♥ Emily

Thursday, September 22, 2011

So Much FUN to look FORWARD to !

~ Hi there ~

It's me Alex! I know, you probably were expecting a GUEST DESIGNER, huh! Well, I couldn't stay away from my blog another minute! I just had to tell all of you...THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU ! For all the AMAZING submissions I received for the GUEST DESIGNER SPOTS!

Somehow, I managed to pick 18 out of 113 submissions! I WISH I COULD PICK ALL OF YOU! You're BLOGS are AMAZING! There is SOOO MUCH TALENT out there! And I love that you are so willing to SHARE what you do !

I won't be revealing a list of who I've choosen, because

I LOVE SURPRISES!

And because, I might choose a few more of you, just in case my PACKING and MOVING doesn't go as planned and I can't get my CRAFT ROOM up an running as soon as I hoped !

STAYED TUNED

every MONDAY, WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY thru OCTOBER

for MY GUEST DESIGNER LALA-PALOOZA

here at YOU HAD ME AT CRAFT!

While I'm packing here are a few reminder tid-bits:

MADE IT MYSELF MONDAYS will CONTINUE thru my hiatus! YAY!
I have some WINNERS to PICK of My Pink Stamper Stamps, but I accidentally packed them away, YIKES! But I PROMISE to pick winners and mail them out as soon as I arrive at my new house and open the box :)
PLEASE continue to leave your awesome COMMENTS and SHOW my GUEST DESIGNERS some BLOG LOVE ! They are all working really hard to SHARE some AMAZING PROJECTS!

The parade of Guest Designers KICKED OFF YESTERDAY! If you MISSED IT ! QUICK... CLICK HERE!

You won't be sorry you did !

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Guest Designer Lala-Palooza ! Caution: The Monkey is Loose!

Hi, my name is Ellen and I'm otherwise known as the CardMonkey. I'm usually hanging out in my PaperJungle over at www.cardmonkey-business.blogspot.com, though occasionally I'm allowed out to feed on the blogs of others.

Today, it's my pleasure to be one of Alex's first Guest Designers during her hiatus as she gets ready to follow her dream to move to the beach. Not to worry, she'll be back soon ... until then, grab a banana and join me!

Alex gave us GDs the "open door" to do whatever we pleased, and it pleases me to tell you about how much I enjoy Alex. I happened across one of Alex's UStream video sessions and inserted my Monkeyness on her during the open chat -- that is, a free-ranging instant message session. I learned a lot and had a super-amount of fun, especially making Alex giggle!

So for my guest stint, I decided to make ALEX a card, to celebrate her Happy New Home. Here it is!

To make this card, I used October Afternoon's Modern Homemaker "Suppertime" shaped paper as the base. I embellished the window boxes with leaves and flowers punched with my Punch a Bunch punches. A free-hand cut the pennants from an assortment of paper scraps, and used Making Memories' tiny alphas "pink ledger" letters to spell out Happy New Home. Baker's twine threaded through the card serves as the pennant strings; I added brads just because it seemed to need them. The most fun: I added fussy-cut pictures of Alex and her hubby Jamie to the front window. I lifted these off of Facebook and printed to fit. I ♥ making my cards super-personalized, and think this does it. Do you agree?

Here are a couple of close-ups:

Aren't they the CUTEST?!

Banner with letters ... plus the sweet little flowers

Thank you for the opportunity to post on your blog, Alex! Happy packing!!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

September's Pink Designer Post

Hi There ~

It's not a TRICK but a TREAT in store for you as all the My Pink Designer's have been crafting for your viewing enjoyment today !

All things SPOOKY are in order!!!

Our assignment was to create a project using

My Pink Stampers newly released set.....

Spook-a-licious

I made my project for my grandkiddos Ethan and Chloe to send along with some grandma treats!

Is that the cutest upside down bat you've ever seen?! LOL!!!! Deets :Card Base 5.5 x 5.5 inches using Craft Cardstock Green Layer 5.25 x 5.25Purple Dots Paper 5 x 5 Bat Tree and all layers cut @ 5inches from the Simply Charmed Cart Extras : Gogglie Eyes, Baker's Twine, Inking, Chalking, Doodling w/ Sakura Gel Pen and Stampin Up PunchesSentiment My Pink Stamper's Spook-a-licious Set Check out ALL of the newly released

MY PINK STAMPER STAMP SETS!

There are TONS of FUN SAMPLES and IDEAS on Robyn's BLOG! Go ahead, check it out! You know you want to LOL!

Monday, September 19, 2011

WEEK 15 : Made It Myself Monday with Guest Designer

~ Hi There ~

OOOO! Does my GUEST DESIGNER have a TREAT for you today!

Seriously, my jaw dropped when I first saw her project posted on my

linking party a few weeks ago! I knew I had to invite her here to share it

with you today!

You'll see exactly why I was drooling!

Take it away...Suzanne!!!

I am so excited that Alex has invited me to be a guest designer on her blog today. She wanted to highlight my monkey diaper cake that I entered in the I Made it Myself Monday Linking party. I feel very honored as each week I see so many wonderful creative projects so I am thrilled to share my diaper cake. I wanted to do something different for my third grand daughters shower. (We have had 3 grand daughters in 18 months.) The theme for the shower was monkeys so I got the idea of making a tree with monkeys hanging from it. This is a project where I just started creating and this is what I came up with. I realize you wouldn't have the exact things I had in my garage but it gives you an idea of what you could create.

Remember you can click on the pictures to make them larger.
1. I started with a cake circle round I had. I sprayed it with green glimmer mist to make it green.
2. I used a cardboard cone and scissor rack I found in the garage. I added a paper cone on top to form the tree.
3. I placed diapers newborn around the scissor rack in a circle. I used most of a 90 box of diapers. I tied them tightly. It really helps to have someone help with this. You need to tie diapers so they are usable afterwards.
4. I covered the string with a brown strip of paper.

5. I then measure the circle at the top and made a cover for the center. Later I topped this with little blue stones to make it look like water.

6. I cut scalloped borders 12 inches long and 3 inches high and then cut down the valley so I could wrap them around tree and turn down to give it the palm tree look.

7. I used Life's a Beach and cut palm tree top to fit to page. I think I ended up with 3 each of 2 different greens. I then folded them in the middle and glued them to cone. I added coconuts.

8. I cut 3 inch monkeys from Create A Critter and then reversed to have three backs. I hung with thin thread and added google eyes.

The last thing I did was add a grass border and then a name banner using Storybook font and some monkey ribbon.

I also used Create a Critter for the matching invites, goodybags, banner and made a monkey cake.

I hope you enjoyed my monkey themed diaper cake and party. Thanks again Alex for allowing me to be your guest designer today and thank you for the "I Made It Myself Mondays' linking parties. If you enjoyed my crafts and tutorial please drop by my blog and see my other projects. Happy Craftin!

Was I NOT KIDDING OR WHAT?!!!

Now it's your turn to get your craft on and LINK UP!

Never partied here before? Check out the deets below...

1. Link any crafty project NEW or OLD.

2. Link UP to 3 projects.

3. Place the party BUTTON on your post.

4. Visit and Comment on at least 2 Other Blogs

5. Lastly, leave a comment HERE!

Here's what's up for GRABS this WEEK! All comments

with link up entries will be entered to win this...

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Seeking Monday, Wednesday, Friday Gals or Guys

~ Hi There ~

Have you heard? I'm moving! Not my blog of course, just where I live, LOL! And you all know how stressful moving can be!

So here's my plan to keep my

blog fresh, updated and full of creative ideas while I'm packing...

How about being a GUEST DESIGNER on my blog ?!

For the latter part of September, and all of October, I would love your help in posting ANY TYPE of CREATIVE PROJECT you whip up!

It can be sewing, paper crafting, home decor, party ideas, cooking, baking... you NAME IT!

I'd love for you to SHARE IT here on my blog!

I have 18 SLOTS open for GUEST DESIGNERS during my moving hiatus and frankly, all my craft stuff will be packed away, so I really could use your help! Yikes!

This is how it will work...

CLICK HERE to my CONTACT ME page
SEND me a message letting me know you are interested in a GUEST DESIGNER SPOT
Include a link to YOUR BLOG
Include a way for me to contact you, email etc.

I will take a peek at your craftiness and choose

18 GUEST DESIGNERS to join me here on my blog YAY!

hint : I love a variety of craft mediums, so if you do something out of the ordinary, you will definitely catch my eye :)

PLUS! If you are chosen you will be entered to win a CRICUT CART of my choosing, along with a set of

MY PINK STAMPER STAMPS! YAY!

note : I will choose TWO WINNERS out of 18, so your chances of winning are pretty good :)

DEADLINE for SUBMISSIONS will be next

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21st midnight PST!

You have a WHOLE WEEK to RESPOND !

I will CONTACT YOU, if you are chosen and let you know when you will be FEATURED as a GUEST DESIGNER...either a Monday, Wednesday or Friday during September or October! As well as fill you in on HOW TO proceed to prepare your SPECIAL POST!

note: project posts need not be new, just something awesome you want to share, so you may have a project all ready in your crafty vault :)

I'M SO LOOKING FORWARD TO HEARING FROM YOU !

Monday, September 12, 2011

Week 14 : MADE IT MYSELF MONDAY with Guest Designer

Hi There Everyone !

I'm so excited to have a GUEST DESIGNER join us for our LINKING PARTY this week, so without further ADIEU, I present to you SHELLEY of CARLEY'S CLOSET

I guarantee she's gonna ROCK your CRAFTY WORLD!!!

Take it away SHELLEY...

I'm so excited to be the Guest Designer over at You Had Me @ Craft today! Thank you so much Alex for this opportunity! I hope everyone visiting enjoys my blog and you are inspired! I'd love to have you as a follower or subscriber....and I always love, love, love to read your comments as they also inspire me! So onto my newest projects.....

I recently created two baby nursery banners for some friends of mine.....first was for baby girl Adalyn and the second one is for baby boy Isaiah! Adalyn is already here and is healthy as can be, but we are anxiously awaiting on Isaiah....but it won't be long! :) (I have another banner I'll soon be working on for a friend who is having twins! So exciting!) :)

But for Adalyn, her mommy did her nursery in a Cherry Blossom theme with pinks and browns....so beautiful! I could not wait to make this banner for her when I found this lovely paper from S.E.I. at Michael's. I also found a coordinating 'shimmery' pink paper that I used for letters and flowers which you'll see below.

I cut these banner 'pennants' from the Frame1 image on pg 61 of the Songbird cartridge. I LOVE this frame and use it a lot for my banners. When cutting the chipboard for these, this is an easy shape to sand/distress the edges in order to ink them. I inked the edges of the pennants in brown ink after distressing them. On the backs of the pennants, I just used a plain brown paper.

So then I found some awesome cherry blossom stickers from Jolee to add to this banner as well. I used the Flower6 image on pg 55 of the Pagoda cartridge to cut the cherry blossom shape to go underneath the letters and I inked these in pink to make them stand out.

For the letters in A-d-a-l-y-n, I used the Cindy Loo cartridge, which I also LOVE to use this font. I cut several layers of these letters since this paper was so thin and just glued them together to get a thicker letter.

I adhered the letters and the flower blossoms with foam tape for dimension. Below is the flowers cut from the 'shimmery' pink paper which I used on the first and the last pennants of the banner.

Then to put this all together, I simply tied them together with brown satin ribbon and beige tulle.

I think this was my most favorite banner so far! :)

Nancy, Adalyn's mommy also loved it and has already hung it in Adalyn's room! Yay!

(Sorry the lighting is not the greatest in my pics!) :(

Next, I created this cute and fun banner for baby boy Isaiah which is due in a less than 2 weeks! His nursery bedding is the Ahoy Mate set (found at Babies R Us). Isn't it cute? I love the banner curtain valance with this set, which of course I had to reference this 'banner' in my banner that I have made! :)

Courtesy of BabiesRUs.com

For Isaiah's banner, again I used the Songbird cartridge for the pennant shapes and the Cindy Loo cartridge for the letters, I-s-a-i-a-h. I cut several layers of these like I did on Adalyn's banner but on this one, I layered a blue letter with the cut-outs over a solid brown layer of this font. I liked this look on the patterned paper I used. Also, I inked the edges of the pennants in brown ink after distressing them.

I found this patterned paper at Michaels from Deja Views...it's called Skinny Stripes. All I had was the picture above from the Babies R Us website, and I thought that the colors worked really well with the bedding from what I could tell. (Fingers crossed!) :) On the backs of the pennants, I just used a plain brown paper.

I cut the "little" banner image from the Everyday Pop-Up Card cartridge and used it on the first and the last pennants of this banner. (Told ya I loved that banner curtain valance in the picture above!) :)

I used the Create A Critter cartridge for the Monkey, Whale, and the Palm Tree images. For the sailboat in the picture below, I used the Going Places cartridges and cut several images from different papers to create the mulit-colored sailboat and 'wave'. All of the image edges except the whales are inked in brown and the whales are inked in blue. Also, I adhered the letters and all the images with foam tape for dimension.

You can't really tell from my picture (sorry), but I added Glossy Accents to my little 'wave' under the sailboat which added a nice touch to this image. I also added a little dot of Accents to the monkey's noses too. :)

You can kind of see the Glossy Accents in the picture above....can't ya? :) Then to finish off this banner, I tied them all together with a dark blue satin ribbon and some brown tulle. The patterened paper didn't have quite enough of the dark blue I thought that was found in the bedding, so I'm hoping the dark blue ribbon will balance it all out. :)

I'll be giving Isaiah's banner to his mommy, Kali soon at her baby shower and I cannot wait to see her reaction when she opens it!! Every banner I create, I fall in love with and it's so hard to give them away....even though I've made them for someone else to begin with! Ha!

Stay tuned for more banners coming soon! :)

As I mentioned, I need to create the Twins' banner really soon as they will be arriving in a couple of weeks as well.....or at least that's the doctors thoughts anyway.....but we all know, they'll be here when they are good and ready! :) They do not know the genders of the twins so I know that will be an exciting surprise for them....but it has certainly been a challenge for me in planning out this banner! :)

Well I hope you enjoyed these banners I've made and come back to visit my blog often for more creations from time to time! Hope you have a blessed day!

Shelley (Carley's mom)

Didn't I tell you this was going to ROCK?!

Now it's your turn to get your craft on and LINK UP!

Never partied here before? Check out the deets below...

1. Link any crafty project NEW or OLD.

2. Link UP to 3 projects.

3. Place the party BUTTON on your post.

4. Visit and Comment on at least 2 Other Blogs

5. Lastly, leave a comment HERE!

Here's what's up for GRABS this WEEK! All comments

with link up entries will be entered to win this...

This is one of my favorite My Pink Stamper Sets!

Now go ahead and get your CRAFT ON and LINK UP

your latest project!

Friday, September 9, 2011

September's Pink-A-Licious Blog Hop

~ Hi There ~

I'm so glad you are here checking out the ALL of the fun projects made using

My Pink Stamper Stamps! DON'T FORGET to begin at
ROBYN'S BLOG so you don't miss a thing!
Today's BLOG THEME & CHALLENGE features the SCHOOL DAYS STAMP SET. Truly a MUST HAVE SET if you have school age kids/grandkids!

Let's get right to my project...A Mug-A-Licious Teacher Appreciation Gift!

Turn this...