Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! It's been such a busy past few weeks I've only had time to think about what I would like to craft and not actually craft, lol. I thought I'd share a quick card I made today before all the holiday festivities begin!

I've been admiring this cute little gingerbread man and his home in the Create a Critter 2 handbook for quite a while now and thought it was time to finally bring them to life. :) 

I sort of went Stickles-crazy with this card... there are days when I am such a glitter girl! I used Christmas Red, Green, and Baby Blue to accent the gingerbread house, the gingerbread man, and the sentiment. The house was cut at 3.25 inches and the gingerbread man was cut at 2 inches. The 'Happy Holidays' sentiment is one I found in the $1 bin at Michael's a while back. I also distressed the edge of the background paper (which is from the Recollections Jolly Jamboree paper pack) with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Walnut. 

Since there's so many Christmas challenges going on right now, I thought I'd enter this card into a few of them. My first time linking up to multiple challenges, woo hoo! :)

Di's Digi Designs - Christmas
Glitter n Sparkle - Christmas/New Year
House of Gilli - Add Sparkle

Kaboodle Doodles - Christmas/Holidays, or New Years

Lawnscaping - Make it Shine
One Stop Craft - A Christmas Carol

Peachy Keen Stamps Challenge - Anything Goes

Stamp and Create - Sparkly Christmas

The Pink Elephant - Anything Goes

There She Goes - Last Minute Christmas

 Have a very Merry Christmas! I hope Santa is good to you. :)

Oh Christmas Tree Blog Hop Winners

Thanks to all who participated in the Oh Christmas Tree Blog Hop this past weekend! Here are the winners from the hop:

Paper Piecings by Nikki

$15 Gift Certificate

WINNER: SARAH

SK Digis

$6 worth of digital stamps

WINNER: MARIANNE

Winners - Please email Ashley at especiallymadeblog@gmail.com to claim your prize no later than Tuesday Sunday December 23rd. At that time another winner will be chosen.

Thanks again to all who participated!

Anything Goes at Go Fish!

This week's challenge at Go Fish Challenge Blog is anything goes! Create any project you'd like and submit it for a chance to win a Darice embossing folder!

For today's anything goes challenge I created an exploding box using my good ol' Peachy Keen Stamps.

The snowmen are cut from the Stretch Your Imagination at 3" and the snowflakes are cut at 2" from the Winter Lace cartridge. The actual exploding box is cut from the Artiste cartridge to fit a 12 x 12 piece of scrapbook paper. I embellished the snowflakes with Stickles and also added some ribbon, pearls, and bling to give their bases some flair.

Hope to see you join us in this week's challenge!

Oh Christmas Tree Blog Hop

Welcome to the Oh Christmas Tree Blog Hop, brought to you by the design teams of Made Especially For You and Red Carpet Studio!

Today the design teams of Made Especially For You and Red Carpet Studio have teamed up to share with you all sorts of Christmas tree projects to help you get ready for the Christmas season!

 If you're looking to start at the beginning of the hop,
 you're in the right place! 

For today's hop, I made a Christmas tree with rosettes! I saw this idea on the Cricut website about a month or so ago and thought it would be really cool to try. I'm really happy with the way it turned out!

The tree is about 6 inches tall and a perfect accent to my crafting table! The rosettes were made using the Artiste cartridge and Recollections paper from the Jolly Jamboree paper pack. The star topper is a star-shaped wood piece that I painted red and sealed with red glitter. :) In between each of the rosettes are wood circles that I hot glued together to make mini stands. The directions originally said to use empty ribbon spools, but I didn't have enough of those so I decided to make my own bases with wood pieces. The bottom of the tree is an empty ribbon spool, though. 

You can find the directions for this project: HERE.

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

Paper Piecings by Nikki
$15 Gift Certificate

SK Digis

$6 worth of digital stamps

Participants have through Sunday evening to hop. The winners of the blog candy will be announced on Made Especially For You on Tuesday December 18th. Please make sure to leave your contact information when commenting to be eligible to win!

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

Ashley - http://especiallymade.blogspot.com
Tonya - http://scrappingfunwithtonya.blogspot.com/
Cyndy - http://arcyscraps.blogspot.com
Tara - http://craftindesertdivas.blogspot.com/
Kristy - http://scraptasticalkreations.blogspot.com
Beverly - http://creationsofmykind.blogspot.com/
Robin - http://www.thecricutscrapper.blogspot.com
Candice - http://stampinpearls.blogspot.com/
Pam - http://scrappinfabpam.blogspot.com
Sandra - http://crea-sandra.blogspot.com/
Eileen - http://scrappingactuary.blogspot.com
Dawn - http://dawnsworldnz.blogspot.com/
Anneliese - http://queen-of-the-crop.blogspot.com/

Laura - http://scrappinaroundtheclock.blogspot.ca

Jessica - http://craftinandstampin.blogspot.com

Happy Hopping!

600 Follower Giveaway WINNER!

Before I announce the winner of my 600 Follower Giveaway I'd like to sent out a HUGE thanks to all of those who have found interest in my blog and became a follower from the very beginning, and to all those who became followers to support my blog and giveaway. Made Especially For You wouldn't exist without you!

Drum roll, please.....

The winner of all these crafty goodies is....

#19 - CraftyGirl!

She said "Just became a follower good luck you are almost there."

Congratulations! I will be emailing you so you can claim your prize! If I don't hear back from you within one week, another winner will be chosen.

Thanks again to all that participated! Now it's time to start planning a bigger and better giveaway for when I reach 700 followers! Yikes!

Birthday Cake Shaped Card!

Before I get to the project I created today... I'd like to announce that this is my 300th post! How crazy is that?! I can't believe I've done this 300 times already... that's just so surreal. To celebrate my 300th post, I made a birthday cake shaped card (hitting a monumental amount of posts is sort of like having a birthday... right? :) for this week's Peachy Keen Stamps Challenge! The challenge this week is called "Shape It Up!" and is to create a shaped card. My favorite!

I won a spot in the top three in the last Peachy challenge I entered, so I'm super excited to enter this one! Here's what I made:

This cute little cake was cut using the Simply Charmed cartridge at 4.75" and of course I used my Peachy Keen Stamps! Here's a complete list of the supplies used to make the card:

- Cricut Expression w/Simply Charmed cartridge
- PK-493 Every Day Face Parts Stamp Set
- PK-573 Paper Doll Faces Stamp Set
- Pink, yellow, blue, green, and white colored cardstock from Recollections
- Polka dot paper from the DCWV Dots, Stripes, & Plaids stack
- Cuttlebug w/Divine Swirl and Polka Dot embossing folders
- Glam Pink Stickles
- Star Dust Stickles

Thanks so much for stopping by! Make sure to check out the PKS Challenge Blog for more inspiration for this week's challenge, the design team has some gorgeous cards!

Go Fish Christmas Challenge!

As much as I know I'll regret saying this give or take a few weeks... I just love making Christmas cards! This is my favorite time of year and I love having the opportunity to use all my fun Christmas-themed embellishments and cartridges that I anxiously wait to use all year. I've been making Christmas cards like crazy lately and know that it will burn off soon and I'll be anxious to create other projects... but until then I'm enjoying it while it lasts!

I didn't own the Create a Critter cartridge last Christmas, but when I got it this past spring I knew I just had to make a card using the adorable reindeer! I thought this week's anything goes Christmas challenge at the Go Fish Challenge Blog was the perfect opportunity. :)

The card is 4.5" by 6" and created with Kraft card stock, patterned and solid colored paper from Recollections, pop dots, and Stickles (Christmas Red, Green, and Frosted Lace). The 'Happy Holidays' sentiment is one I picked up last year at Hobby Lobby and the accent its on is cut from the Elegant Edges cartridge. I love the added sparkle from the Stickles!

I've also entered this card in this week's Inspired By Stamping Inspiration Challenge. The challenge is to create a project using red/green/white as the main colors, inspired by this gorgeous photo: 

Time for me to go finish up some more Christmas cards!

Don't forget to join us in this week's challenge! :)