Card Chaos

Here's a couple more of the cards for this months Card Chaos Class. Sarah is working on the last one!! Hope to see you all on either Jan 15th or Jan 22th. Make sure to sign up early to reserve your spot!!

January Card Chaos

Kimberlie just gave me some of the cards she had come up with for the next Card Chaos Class- and they're adorable (as always!) So I had to post the pictures right away. Keep checking back to see the rest- and make sure to sign up soon for one of the two January classes because they fill up fast.

Christmas Floral...

With Christmas being so close it's time to decorate. We have Christmas wreaths, swags, and centerpieces in a variety of styles. We have used different Christmas signs and figurines in our arrangements for something fun and different. You can use our pieces to get inspiration and create something of your own also! In most of our themed rooms (Victorian Christmas, Gold Tidings, Classic Holiday, Candy Cane Lane, Candy Wonderland, Winter lodge and Copper Traditions) we have floral arrangements to match the colors and styles. We also have bows made up in our Christmas ribbon that you can use to decorate your tree or arrangements!

Card Chaos

Check out these adorable cards that were made at the last Card Chaos Class! I can't decide which one is my favorite (but it's probably one of the penguin ones.) I wanted to post these pictures to inspire all of you to make your own cards, and also to encourage you to sign up for our Card Chaos Classes. We have two of them scheduled in January- Visit our events section of our website for more information.

Cricut USB Cable

The USB Cable is an addition for the Cricut Machine to make it compatible with a computer. Many people have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of this product & I am happy to share Crafts Direct will have them by Christmas!!! The estimated ship date is Dec. 7th. So add it to your wish list and point your shoppers to Crafts Direct!!

Day after Thanksgiving TWO DAY SALE!

Click here for a super sneak peek at our Day after Thanksgiving ad! Plan your shopping extravaganza early and get in on our great door buster sales between 7:00 - 11:00am.

Thanksgiving Mini Album!!

I hope you all have fun plans for Thanksgiving this week! I wanted to share an idea with you to capture the memories from the holiday! It is another super cute mini book by our expert sample maker Nicole using Basic Grey's chipboard bracket album. Have a great Turkey Day!!

Holiday Gift Guide & Party Planner

We have teamed up with Style Magazine to bring you a Holiday Gift Guide and Party Planner! It is filled with holiday checklists to keep you organized plus project ideas and recipes! It is definitely a must to get you through the holidays without the stress. You can find it in the latest issue of Style Magazine or pick it up for free at our store!

All Day Scrap is ALL NEW!

Our monthly All Day Scrap is coming up on Saturday the 17th but it's not the same old All Day Scrap anymore. For $20 you can enjoy 7 full hours of scrapbooking fun (9:30am - 4:30pm)! Lunch will be provided, along with snacks all day. Those who would like to continue scrapbooking after 4:30 are invited to use the classroom until 8pm. Prizes will be awarded for completed pages, best layout and of course plenty of door prizes. Make sure to sign up and reserve your spot for Saturday the 17th at Customer Service! For more information on upcoming classes check out our events calendar on our website!

GLITTER ORNAMENTS

Give your tree a little GLAM this year with some glitter! Check out this project to take your everyday plain bulbs that you already own and turn them into new and fresh ornaments for the season.
SUPPLIES:
• clear or plastic ornaments
• glitter of your choice
• double sided tape
• self adhesive rhinestones
(we used Kaiser scrapbooking
rhinestones)
• your choice of ribbons
• wedge sponge or foam brush
• tacky craft glue
DIRECTIONS:
1. Prepare your ornament
by wiping the outside with
a damp cloth and letting it
dry. If your ornament is colored
make sure you choose a color
that is similar to the color of
glitter you have chosen. Place
a newspaper on your work surface to catch excess glitter.
2. If you choose to have a stripe of glitter begin by placing your double sided tape
onto your bulb in the areas you want the glitter to stick. Shake the desired color of glitter
onto your newspaper then roll the taped portion of your bulb in the glitter. This will
create a clean line for your glitter to adhere to.
3. To fill the remainder of your bulb with glitter cover the areas with craft glue using a
foam brush or wedge sponge to get an even application. Sprinkle glitter onto the glued
portion of the bulb before the glue has dried. Make sure to sprinkle on a lot of glitter
so all the spots will be fully covered.
4. Accent your stripe using self adhesive rhinestones evenly spaced along the
edge of the stripe you created.
5. Hang your ornament using coordinating ribbon, we used 2 different ribbons to
add variety.
For more project ideas visit our website!

Holiday Open House

Happy Monday Morning! I wanted to give everyone a heads up about this weekend if you haven't heard already...Saturday is our Holiday Open House! You definitely don't want to miss it because we will have FREE tasty treats from Coyote Moon Grill, if you were here last year you know how amazing their food is! We also will have three chances to get in on our Holiday Seminar (10am, 12pm, & 2pm). We will be making holiday ornaments and cards using Cosmo Crickets new Be Good line. Make sure you sign up soon because our morning seminar is already almost filled up! To get signed up go to Customer Service with your $2.00 donation to our local food shelf. Here is a peak at what you will be making!

{note} worthy journal

I am in love! I just had to share this super cute journal that one of our talented customers made for the store. Her name is Nicole and she rocks! You can be inspired by more of her work by checking out her personal blog. This journal will definitely get your ideas rolling on how to create personal handmade gifts for the holidays for friends and family. The journal was made using the KAISERCRAFT tabbed journal and makingmemories new line {note} worthy (one of my favorites right now). The new line comes not only with coordinating double sided paper but tons of fun embellishments to match. If you want to see it up close and personal come and give us a visit at the store!

Bonus Bucks Weekend!!

Prepare yourself for an event filled November! We will kick things off with Bonus Bucks Weekend to celebrate the Deer Hunting Opener. For every $10.00 you spend at Crafts Direct November 2nd through the 4th you will receive one Bonus Buck to be redeemed November 5th through the 21st. You might also want to take a sneak peak at what's happening next weekend for Holiday Open House!

Make a Blanket for PROJECT LINUS!

Join us on Tuesday Oct. 30th from 10am - 3pm and make a blanket to donate to Project Linus! Project Linus is a 100% volunteer, non-profit organization working together to provide warmth and security to children who are seriously ill or traumatized. We will have fleece for purchase (30% OFF!) and sewing machines available for you in our fabric department to make and donate a blanket. If you are in a hurry you can purchase the fleece and we will sew it for you. For more information on Project Linus you can visit the website.

Check out our New Spectacular Holiday Theme Trees

We now have our themed Christmas trees up!! Each room has its own theme with fun accessories of ribbons, ornaments, wall decor and figurines. The themes for this year are;
the Candy Cane room: the tree is decorated to look like a candy cane and it has other fun red and white decorations.
the Gold Tidings (gold and red), the Classic Holiday (gold and burgandy): has a decorated mantel to give you ideas for your home.
the Candy room (pastel colors):has some good ideas for a kid's room with all the fun colors.
and the Victorian room (cream, rose, green, and coral): this theme is very warm and romantic and has unique ornaments and decorations you can use for your home. Come and check out our themed rooms and get ideas to decorate your home for the Christmas Holidays!
And soon to come we have our Copper and Brown theme, Northwoods/Lodge theme and Little Bit Country theme.

Beading Class

Check out the super cute necklace Stacy will be making in our Beading 201 class! I am always amazing at the fun ideas she comes up with. Make sure to check out her projects and many others on our Events page, click on the info buttons to see pictures. Sign up soon for the Beading 201 class coming up this Monday it is filling up fast! We also have spots left in our All Day Scrap class this Saturday. Hope to see you all there!

Purse Auction Starts TODAY!

Thanks to everyone who participated in donating a handmade purse for the purse auction, we received some amazing purses. Now we all have the chance to bid on these purses starting today! The auction will run online today through Oct 29th so make sure you visit the site to pick out your favorites, here are some of mine!Proceeds from the auction will benefit Anna Marie's Alliance a private non-profit corporation dedicated to providing safe shelter, support, and referral services for battered women and their children. To find out more about this organization you can visit their website.

Vinyl, Vinyl, Vinyl!

We just can't seem to get sick of finding fun projects for vinyl! We have quite a big selection of holiday vinyl in right now for Halloween, fall, and Christmas. Make sure you stop in to check it out! We thought we better show you some of the fun samples that we have made with the Halloween vinyl. It is perfect for making home decor pieces that you can use every year or you can use the vinyl to make your existing decor more festive for the holidays. The nice part is that you can remove the vinyl from any surface without destroying it. It makes a great addition to your walls, mirrors, or windows for the holidays. Make sure you sign up in our store for our mailing list for more ideas on how to decorate with vinyl for Christmas. We will be sending out our next Crafts Direct newsletter soon, they always include exclusive coupons so sign up soon!!

World Cardmaking Day winners!

Congratulations to Pam and Karen the winners of our Card Making contest, the actual cards will be on display in the store at the scrapbooking counter this weekend so make sure you check them out. Here are the four cards that were entered. We are hoping to have a larger turn out next year so make sure you keep some of your cards to enter next year!

Purses for a Purpose deadline!

Just wanted to give everyone a quick reminder that Friday is the last day to drop off your purses for Anna Marie's Alliance. They just stopped by to pick up a bunch of super cute purses yesterday! If you would like more information on Purses for a Purpose or to bid on them check out Anna Marie's website. We are also having our card making contest this weekend so make sure you get your entries in by this Friday! We will be posting entries as we receive them on the blog.

Crazy about Vinyl

I just love using the vinyl words. They are so easy to use. I have made a couple samples for the store that I just wanted to share with all of you. I know they are both Halloween ones, but this is my favorite time of year. There is a project sheet for the paint can it is on our website but you can access it by clicking th link below. Enjoy!

http://craftsdirect.com/project_sheets/paper_crafts/pumpkincan_PC15.pdf

Make a messenger bag out of plastic bags

This was found at whipup.net and we had to share it with you. This is a super cool idea for all those left over plastic bags you have sitting around. Enjoy!

World Cardmaking Day!

World Card Making Day is Saturday Oct. 6th. To celebrate we are hosting a card making contest! Enter your handmade cards Oct 1st - 5th, at Customer Service, for a chance to win a Crafts Direct gift card! We will award a $25.00 gift card to the winners of each category. All cards will be displayed in the store on World Card Making Day and also on our blog as we receive them. Make sure to stop in the store on Oct. 6th to vote on your favorites! For more information on what you can do to celebrate visit the World Card Making Day website!

Get paid to CRAFT!

Crafts Direct is looking for talented crafters to help us with our store samples! There is just so much to do we can't keep up, that is where you come in. We provide the materials and we will pay you in gift cards for your hard work. We are looking for high quality craftsmanship since we will be selling them after a period of time so be prepared to show us a few examples of your work. If this is something that you are interested in you can drop off your contact information and a list of the crafts that you enjoy doing. If you can, also include pictures of your examples otherwise we can just give you a call and schedule a time for you to come in and show off your goodies! You can also email your information to Tiffany@craftsdirect.com. We are still looking for knitting and crochet instructors, if that is something that interests you please fill out an application at Customer Service. We hope to hear from you soon!

Happy Birthday John!

Hard at work on his birthday, Crafts Direct owner John is handing out fliers in preparation for the Little Falls Craft Sale this weekend! Make sure you stop in to tell him Happy Birthday today!

Crazy for Vinyl!

I wanted to give a big congratulations out to all of our winners last week from the seminars! We are hoping to have more seminars in the future so if you missed them, keep your eyes peeled! I have a fun project idea to share today! It would be great for a fireplace mantel or shelf and you can customize it to the decor of your home.
SUPPLIES: 1 - 4X6 frame, 3 - 5X7 frames, 2 - 8X10 frames, 3 - 12X12 scrapbook papers, "family" vinyl set. DIRECTIONS: 1. Begin by cutting out your scrapbook papers according to the size of your frame (1 - 4X6, 3 - 5X7, 2 - 8X10). Place your decorative paper inside each frame the way you would a photo. 2. Adhere the vinyl to the outside of the glass on your frame using the directions in your vinyl package. (Adhering it to the outside gives it a more 3 dimensional look when it is displayed.) 3. When displaying your frames, stagger the letters to add to the 3 dimensional feel. There are tons of options with this project to make it your own, you can use different styles and colors of frames. You can also hang the frames on your wall and add photos of your family around the phrase. Check out our vinyl display at our store for all the supplies you need to get started!

PRIZES!!

Don't forget to stop in this week to sign up for our many prizes that we are giving away each day. Today you have the chance to win a Baby Lock Creative Pro Sewing Machine, from the Vacuum Center and Sewing Room, valued at $450.00! There is still time to sign up for our seminars this week, they will be going every day through Saturday. For more information check out our events page on our website or stop in our store!

Samples for Sale!

I just wanted to give everyone a heads up about a change that we have made in our store lately. We are now selling our store samples!! We want our samples to inspire people to craft but we realize that sometimes you just don't have time or maybe not the ability to create your own. Now you are able to purchase the samples that you see hanging in our store. They will be marked with a tag and the price. Hopefully this makes things a little easier for those who are on the go and also a unique gift for the upcoming holidays!

More new magazines!

Okay so we finally got in the rest of our new magazines! I get so excited for new books and magazines because they are the source of my creativity. If you are like me I can't come up with fun ideas and projects out of thin air. I like to take things from books and magazines and mix them together to create something that is unique. I am especially excited to share with you my personal favorite magazine (that we have been trying hard to get in) Domino. It is a fairly new magazine but is already getting much attention from places like HGTV. The great thing about it is that everything you see in the magazine is something that you can purchase for yourself, and they will tell you exactly how to get it. For someone like me, the price tags are usually a little out of my budget so I just take the ideas and get to crafting my own piece. They also have super fun sticky tabs so you can mark all of your fav's for referencing later on. I also wanted to share with you my wall art project that I made from Do It Yourself. You should look at their's, it is a little cuter than mine, but you get the idea!