Halloween Party Treat Box

My Cricut Craft Room has turned pink! From September 18th - October 15th, all of the design team's project will feature pink to honor those who have suffered from breast cancer. Even if it's covered up, all of our cards, layouts, and projects will have pink on them somewhere. What a great tribute to those who have lost their lives or are suffering from breast cancer.

This week's Theme Day Thursday is all about Halloween parties! Invitations, decorations... you get the idea! I decided to make a 3D treat box for each of the party-goers to take home, sort of like a goodie bag, only a box instead. :)

That dang side just wouldn't stay closed! Sorry!

I thought it would be really hard to use pink on a Halloween project, but luckily I had some Halloween paper that actually had pink on it! The paper is from the DCWV 180-sheet Halloween and Fall paper stack. Because the paper is very light cardstock, I cut the template for the box on Kraft cardstock (which is much heavier) and then cut it again with the striped paper, and adhered the striped paper to the Kraft with my double-sided tape runner. 

Each of the candy pieces are cut from the Mini Monsters cartridge at 2" and were all made with solid colored cardstock by Recollections. The box was cut from the Artiste cartridge and is about 3" by 3"

Stop by My Cricut Craft Room to see what other pink Halloween projects the design team has made to share with you!

Gatefold Card Challenge

Our technique challenge this week at Made Especially For You is all about creating gatefold cards. They're super easy to make and are so versatile! For my challenge creation this week, I created the following Halloween gatefold card:

Closed card

Close up of the 'Stickled' windows

Inside of the card

Half of the "gate"

Close up of one of the 'Stickled' skulls

The papers are from the DCWV Fall & Halloween 180-sheet paper stack. The haunted house image was cut from the Pumpkin Carvings Cricut cartridge at 4.5" and the skulls were cut from the same cartridge at 2" - I used Diamond Stickles to glitter the windows of the house and the entire skull. The Trick or Treat and pumpkin stamps are from my stash, I believe I found both of them in the $1 stamp bin at Michael's. :)

Our sponsor for this week's gatefold card challenge is Paper Piecings by Nikki! The winner of the challenge will receive a $15 gift certificate to her store.

Stop by the Weekly Challenge page to see what other gatefold cards the design team has "built" for you to use as inspiration for this week's challenge. :)

Cupcake Wars Blog Hop

Welcome to Cupcake Wars!

No bloodshed here, just plenty of sugar! If you didn't start at Janet's blog, please do so! She's giving away a Cricut Lite Cupcake cartridge! How sweet is that?!

We don't want you to miss any of the scrumptious projects, and some of them have even left recipes for you to try! As we head into the holiday season, you might just find a new family favorite! If you've come from Janet's blog, you're in the right place! I'm so glad you're here so you can see what I've cooked up for you today. :)

One of my coworkers had a birthday yesterday, and just in time for the hop! I decided to make some cupcakes to bring to work that I could share with you all as well... that is, visually of course. :) I found this AMAZING Oreo Cookies and Cream Cupcake recipe that I was so excited to try! I love baking (especially cupcakes) and wish I had the time to do it more often.

If you're an Oreo-lover, then these cupcakes are to DIE for. There's Oreos in the batter, crushed and garnished on top, and even an Oreo on the bottom of the cupcake liner (take a look at the photos on the site where I got the recipe). You could even mix Oreos in with the frosting if you wanted to. They were a huge hit at work! I will definitely be adding them to my recipe book. :)

Your next stop is Amanda's blog!

 

Thanks for stopping by! Now on to more yummy ideas!

Fall Ball Blog Hop Winners!

Thanks so much to all those who participated in our Fall Ball Blog Hop this past weekend! 

Here are the winners from the hop:

Paper Piecings by Nikki

$15 Gift Certificate

WINNER: CHRISTINE

Scraptastical Kreations

$20 Gift Certificate

WINNER: JENNY

Please email Ashley at especiallymadeblog@gmail.com no later than Tuesday September 25th to claim your prize.

Thanks again to all our hoppers! See you during next month's hop! :)

You're My Mane Squeeze!

Happy Monday! I am coming a crazy busy weekend and am SO glad I scheduled this post in advance. :) Today's Letter of the Day is L at My Cricut Craft Room! And what better critter to represent the letter L than a lion?! :)

The lion is cut from the brand new Create a Critter 2 cartridge (one of my new favorites) and the stamp is computer-generated. If you look closely at the last photo you can see the lion's mane is embossed with the D'vine Swirls Cuttlebug embossing folder. :) I inked the edges with Tim Holtz Vintage Photo distress ink and tied some raffia around the corner for a "jungle" look. Make sure to stop by My Cricut Craft Room to see the other projects the design team made to share with you today! 

I also have some exciting news for you! Erica from My Cricut Craft Room has released a 78 page FREE handbook for Cricut Craft Room! It is AMAZING and can help you with just about any issue you may be having! Here's all the info and the link to download the guide:

When you open Cricut Craft Room now there is a GREAT video that pops up and welcomes you to Craft Room. If you have ever been intimidated by the idea of Craft Room…. NOW is your chance. There is a 4 minute video that welcomes you to Craft Room and will help you get aquainted and NOT intimidated by Craft Room!
It really is great, no matter what your computer skill level is. Please take the first step and try Craft Room if you have not taken that step yet. I have done a few Ustream tutorials to help with Craft Room, but no one can do it better than Provo-Craft themselves! Here is the welcome screen now when you go to Cricut Craft Room.
Here is the link to ALL of the Craft Room tutorials that Cricut has made! *Erica

This guide came from www.cricut.com and was assembled by
Erica’s Craft Room™ My Cricut Craft Room™
and Affordable Crafting Concepts™ Copyright 2009-2012

Visit the blog for 6-10 Cricut made projects each weekday.
http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com



On Hello Thursday visit Erica’s blog for the projects made with the newest cricut cartridges and the Cricut Craft Room files to go with them.
I will have a project made with them and all of the Cricut Craft Room files for them to make your crafting easier and less frustrating.

Never pay more than $34.99 for a Cricut Cartridge EVER again…..

www.shop.ericascraftroom.com

ALL Cricut cartridges $34.99 or less the DAY of release from Provo-Craft.

Create a Critter 2 & Suburbia, Now shipping

$34.99 each or $65 for both (September Bundle)

Click HERE to download this help guide.
Any suggestions are ALWAYS welcome!

Have a great day!

Ashley

Have a Moovelous Birthday!

For this week's three balloon challenge here at Made Especially For You, I decided to do something a bit unique. One of my friends has a birthday later this week, so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and make a card for the challenge that I could also give to her for her birthday. When I make cards for good friends or family members, I try to personalize them as much as I can. Two of my friend's favorite things are cows and mustaches, LOL. So... I made a card with cows and mustaches!

I'd like to say thank you to Stacy from Vampire Craftin' for my fabulous new watermark! I'm so glad to finally have one, I love it!

As silly as it looks, I know she's going to love it! I can't wait to see her reaction. :) The cow is cut from Create a Critter at 3" and the balloons are cut at 3.25" from Stretch Your Imagination. The tiny mustaches are cut at 0.25" from the Artiste cartridge and the sentiment is computer-generated. The card is also her favorite colors... red, white, and black. :)

Our sponsor this week is The Stamping Boutique! This week's winner will get to choose three images from their store.

I'd love for you to play along in this week's challenge! Just make sure to use three balloons on your card - they can be die cuts, stamps, embellishments, etc.

Happy Monday!

Ashley

Go Fish 1 Year Anniversary Challenge!

Looking for the Fall Ball Blog Hop? Please click here.

Congratulations to the Go Fish Challenge Blog on their one year anniversary! They have had some great challenges this past year and I'm so excited to keep designing for them! In honor of their anniversary, their current challenge is to create an anniversary card... CAS style (clean and simple). 

Using my Cuttlebug, Cricut Expression and the Artiste cartridge, I created this simple anniversary card.

I never realized how challenging it could be to make a clean and simple card! Not that my cards are usually overflowing with details, but still! After making embellished cards so continuously it was hard to resist throwing on some pearls and flowers, but I succeeded. 

Come play along with us!

Ashley

Fall Ball Blog Hop

Welcome to the Fall Ball Blog Hop, brought to you by the design teams of Made Especially For You and I Heart {ippity}!

Today we're happy to share with you all sorts of fall-themed projects to get you in the mood for a season full of crisp leaves, bountiful pumpkin patches, warm apple cider, and all those other things we love that make fall such a wonderful time of year.

If you're just starting the hop then you're in the right place!

For my fall project, I created some cute and easy magnets using clothespins and stamps from the {ippity} Fall For You stamp set. These were so fun to make!

To decorate the clothespins, I found some fun autumn paper and cut it the size of the clothespin, and then used mod podge to adhere it. I applied a coat on both sides so that it really sealed the paper down. I cut some shapes with the Elegant Edges Cricut cartridge to stamp the images onto, and then inked around the edges with Tim Holtz Vintage Photo distress ink (the leaves are cut from the Artiste cartridge). I hot glued magnets on the back of each clothespin so I could put them on my fridge!

I chose to keep mine fairly simple, but you could really have some fun with these and go all out if you wanted to. :) They're inexpensive to make and they can be used for any sort of season/occasion!

We also have some wonderful sponsors giving away prizes to those who comment on every stop of the hop!

Paper Piecings by Nikki
$15 Gift Certificate

Scraptastical Kreations

$20 Gift Certificate

The winners of the blog candy will be announced on Made Especially For You on Tuesday September 18th. Please make sure to leave your contact information when commenting to be eligible to win!

Your next stop is Heather's blog. Here's the complete lineup in case you get lost along the way:

Ashley - http://.especiallymade.blogspot.com

Heather - http://www.iheartippity.com

Kristy - http://www.scraptasticalkreations.blogspot.com

Gerry - http://www.gerryscrafts.blogspot.nl

Cyndy - http://www.arcyscraps.blogspot.com

Amy - http://www.abstractsmixedwithextracts.com

Eileen - http://www.scrappingactuary.blogspot.com

Karen - http://simplyfrenzied-karen.blogspot.com

Jeannie - http://polkacabana.wordpress.com/

Pam - http://scrappinfabpam.blogspot.com

Robin - http://www.thecricutscrapper.blogspot.com

Heather - http://www.papercrafteranonymous.com

Jessica - http://craftinandstampin.blogspot.com

Laura - http://scrappinaroundtheclock.blogspot.ca

Happy Hopping!

Fun with Create a Critter 2! :)

I am so excited to share with you the first card I made using the new Create a Critter 2 cartridge! It is for this week's Card Creating Tuesday at My Cricut Craft Room. :)

Create a Critter 2 was released by Provo Craft last Thursday (September 6th) but for some reason Joann's had them on their shelves a week early! I was so excited to hear it, and when I called my local Joann's to see if they had it in stock, I almost had a heart attack when they said it was there! I hung up the phone and got in the car to go pick it up. :) It was on sale for $34.99, and I don't normally pay that much for cartridges, but this one was so, so worth it.

The cartridge contains some of the favorites from the original CAC, along with a few new critters as well. This one is much more seasonal than CAC, and a lot of the critters have cute outfits/accessories that go along with the seasons. I just can't get enough of it! For my first card, I used my favorite critter... the penguin!

My 3D item is the flower/asterisk shape cut from the Artiste cartridge. For the center I cut an image from Elegant Edges (the same one that's behind the penguin, just smaller) and stamped it with a CTMH stamp that goes along with the Artiste cartridge. This is one of my favorite cards I've made! 

Come see what other cards the design team created for this week's Card Creating Tuesday!

September Sketch Challenge

It's time for another Made Especially For You sketch challenge sponsored by Bugaboo Stamps! I just love using Bugaboo images, they are so fun to color and all of them are so adorable! I'm always jealous of the winner who wins 7 images from their choice from Bugaboo, which is the prize for this week's challenge!

This week's challenge is to create a card inspired by the following sketch:

You are more than welcome to flip or rotate the sketch any way you'd like, as long as the sketch is still visible on your card

I chose the Fall Turtle image from Bugaboo to use with this month's sketch, and I'm so happy with the way it turned out! I colored him with my Prismacolor pencils and then paired him with some fall paper by DCWV. I was at Joann's last week and they had a 180 sheet DCWV Fall & Halloween paper pack for only $9.99... I couldn't pass it up! I've already used it on so many fall projects and can't wait to get started on Halloween. :) Enough with my babbling, here's the card: 

The leaves in the corners of the card are Cuttlebug die cuts that I cut with patterned paper that already had leaves on it. The 'happy fall' sentiment is from the Fall For You stamp set by {ippity} and I distressed the edges of the card, the background for the sentiment, and the background of the digi with Tim Holtz Vintage Photo distress ink. I love the way it turned out!

Stop by the Weekly Challenge page to see some more sketchy inspiration from the design team!

Pinterest Inspired Blog Hop

Welcome to the Pinterest Inspired Blog Hop! We're so happy you could join us. :)

Are you addicted to Pinterest? Do you have several boards with pins that you've said "I've got to try that!"? Well here is your inspiration to create those projects you've wanted to try but have not yet done so. All of our hop participants have created one or more projects they found on Pinterest for today's hop.

If you've arrived from Tonya's blog, you're in the right place! If not please start at the beginning with our fabulous host Ashley. 

There are literally HUNDREDS of ideas I've found on Pinterest I'd like to try. Since it's been a very busy past couple of weeks, I decided to try out a couple of the simpler ones. My first project is a tag I made to tie around a jar of peanuts. My dad loves having something to crunch on (whether it be chips, nuts, etc.) so along with a birthday gift I usually always get him something to snack on, and this year it was peanuts. I saw this adorable picture on Pinterest and knew I had to make something like it for my dad's birthday last month!

And here's my take on it!

I found a template for the tag online and typed the sentiment before printing it. I attached the tag around the jar using blue ribbon and distressed the edges with yellow and orange ink. The little peanut is from the Create a Critter cartridge and cut around 1.5" in or so. The letters on the top were cut out of golden rod cardstock using the Artiste Cricut cartridge and then inked with orange around the edges. It was super quick and easy to make! Definitely a nice touch for a gift.

The second project I made for the hop is a pencil/pen holder and a craft tool holder for the desk in my craft room. I have been trying to come up with an idea for these FOREVER and finally found the idea on Pinterest - gems on a can! Who would've thought?!

You can see my cute, polka-dot iPhone case in one of the gems! :)

I love the makeup holder idea but just couldn't pass the pencil holder idea up. I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a bundle of clear gems (only $2.99) and after painting each can with acrylic paint, I hot glued the gems onto the can. How easy is that?! Unless you're going for a metallic look, it's important to paint the cans underneath because some of the color does show through. Although these match the colors of my craft room perfectly - maroon and gold. :) 

**BLOG CANDY GIVEAWAY**

I will be giving away the following 6x6 paper pad by My Mind's Eye to one lucky hopper! All you have to do is become a follower (if you aren't already) and leave a comment on this post with your contact information. I will randomly choose and announce a winner on Wednesday September 12th. Good luck!

Your next stop is Madge's blog! Here's the complete lineup in case you get lost along the way:

Ashley - http://thebloghopprincess.blogspot.com

Maria - http://joyfulstamper.blogspot.com

Jamie - http://scrapqueen141.blogspot.com

Esther - http://forthejoyofcreating.blogspot.com

Tonya - http://ittybittyladybugs.blogspot.com

Ashley - http://especiallymade.blogspot.com

Madge - http://www.thescrappinlounge.com

Claire  - http://scrapmyway.blogspot.com

Robin - http://scrapandchat.blogspot.com

Cicily - http://pinkdalmationscrapper.blogspot.com

Jamie - http://www.jamielindstromdesigns.com

Teresa - http://freshandrenewed.blogspot.com

Jennifer - http://www.craftycardgallery.blogspot.com

Liz - http://scrapiliciouslife.blogspot.com

Jessica - http://thecreativestamper.blogspot.com

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

P.S. If you've never used Pinterest before (I definitely recommend setting up an account) you can check out my Pinterest tutorial here to learn how to get started. :) You can also follow me on Pinterest by clicking on the 'Follow Me on Pinterest' button on the right hand side of my blog, under my followers. :)