Happy Easter!

Happy Easter from all of us here at Crafts Direct. 

We hope you have a wonderful day celebrating with Family and Friends! So our employees can do the same we will be closed Easter Sunday, but will be open again on Monday morning at 9am.

1000th POST!!

This week on the blog we hit a BIG MILESTONE...we have now made it to our 1000th post!!

Obviously we write and post on this blog to share projects, information, and our store with all of you- so we wanted to share the celebration with you too. We will randomly be drawing a winner for a $25 gift card to Crafts Direct as a THANK YOU- and all you need to do is post your name in the comments below.

Thank you so much for stopping by our blog and for your continued support of Crafts Direct!


(The winner will be drawn and posted on Tuesday April 2nd.)

TWO Free Make & Takes: 5x5 Tile and Bunny Tails Tube

In honor of National Craft Month we will be offering free Make & Take projects every Saturday throughout the month! ...And this Saturday we will be offering TWO!

Join us between 10-12pm at the Paper Crafts Demo Counter to make one of these Vintage Bliss 5x5 Tiles.

And then between 1-3pm at the Beads & Basics Demo Counter to make a Bunny Tails Clear Tube.

More information about this weeks project and the schedule of Make & Takes during the entire month of March can be found here: http://www.craftsdirect.com/events/

Hope to see you there!

New in Paints & Basics.

Our Paints & Basics department has received in a lot of new products the last few weeks - today I wanted to share a few of the new pieces we are very excited about!

First, we have these fun wood letterpress blocks. Great to use as a single letter or to spell out a word.

I also spotted these new Melissa & Doug activity books. The pages come with printed activities or starting prompts and then you fill in the pages with either the chalk or stamp markers that are included. These would be a great addition to an Easter Basket if you are still needing an idea!

We have a couple additional sizes available now of chalkboards.

On a middle endcap in the Paints&Basics department you will find a complete line of these bottlecap items. They come in variety designs, colors and sizes - as magnets, necklaces, bracelets, etc. They not only can be used as projects themselves - but the pieces also work well as embellishments on other projects too.

We have a lot of requests for small wood numbers - and now you can find them here! In addition to the numbers we also have the & and @ symbols available too!

And finally, some plastic containers in a variety of shapes and sizes. They make great little favor containers and would also be good little storage containers for items as well.

Project Ideas: Wood Suitcase

Happy Monday Everyone! 

I have so much to share this week! Today I am going to share some project ideas with you - but be sure to check back later this week because I also have lots of new products to share with you from our Paints & Basics department AND we will be doing a BLOG GIVEAWAY this week as we celebrate our 1000th post too!!

First up though are these amazing samples Megan created for us using the Wood Suitcases we have available here at Crafts Direct.

I love how she created pieces that are so different from each other, yet both such great uses of the piece. First she created this "Cards Suitcase" - which would be perfect for a bridal shower or wedding - or of course with a little different styling you could create the same type of piece for a birthday party, baby shower, or graduation party. You can find a project sheet for this project HERE.

For the second project we used the wood suitcase to create a little Game Box. With just some paint and vinyl and you have all the pieces for a game of tic-tac-toe, dice, cards, checkers, etc. Plus you could use the suitcase to store additional games/game pieces also! A project sheet for this project can be found HERE.

Easter Baskets.

I feel like Easter has surprised me a bit this year! It is earlier on the calendar in terms of date this year, but also the amount of snow we still have on the ground here in central Minnesota and the cold weather has definitely prevented me from being in Spring mode.

The snow and the cold however, does not change the fact that Easter is already next weekend!  As I have been looking around the store the past week I keep seeing so many great basket ideas- and thought I would pull together a couple baskets with just a few of the fun products you can find here at Crafts Direct in case you need some ideas too.

The great thing is that you can find most of these products all displayed together by our front registers. Any pieces shown that aren't on that front display you can find in our Paints&Basics department.

In the 'boy themed' basket I included: a new Beanie Babies Ballz Viking player, a water gun, some travel bingo cards, gardening (or more realistically playing in the dirt) gloves, a foam football, sunglasses, bubbles, a yo-yo, some robin eggs candy, bubble yum bubble gum, and a few other small toys.

In the 'girl themed' basket I have: a picture projector flashlight, a jump rope, a Dora Beanie Baby Ballz, Hello Kitty lip gloss, a small Pearler Bead project kit, a chocolate bunny, a ribbon wand,  and that small pink bag with the clip actually contains a floppy hat that can easily be clipped on a purse or bag and then put back into the bag when you aren't using it.

Craft, Stamp & Scrap.

Mark your calendars now for our next Craft, Stamp & Scrap event coming up this May 3rd-5th! A perfect weekend retreat to work on all those projects you have yet to finish up - or to start something new for the spring and summer. We would love to have you join us at this very popular crafting event.

Registration for the Craft, Stamp & Scrap opens at 7pm on April 7th, and will take place online only.

You can read more about the event, and also find links to the FAQ, directions, and registration pages HERE.

Free Make & Take: Spring Hello Card

In honor of National Craft Month we will be offering free Make & Take projects every Saturday throughout the month!

Join us this Saturday between 1-3pm at the Paper Crafts Demo Counter to make this Spring Tree Hello card. 

In addition to the Make & Take from 1-3pm we will be offering Free Samples of some of the new Wind&Willow Mixes. In the Kitchen Display room you will be able to sample the Triple Berry Twist, Old Santa Fe, and Lemon Cheesecake flavors.

More information about this weeks project and the schedule of Make & Takes during the entire month of March can be found here: http://www.craftsdirect.com/events/

New Floral/Glass Displays.

Today as I was walking through the floral department I noticed some fun new displays they had put together and thought I would share them here on the blog too.

I always love to see what they pull together and what pieces they use! The best part is that the combination of the entire display is great - but if you don't have space for all the pieces or are just looking for an accent or additional decor piece you can take small parts of of the display and recreate them as well. These are also great ideas for your Easter table, Mother's Day brunch, or even a spring or summer wedding.

You can find all three of these displays in aisle 4 of the store.

Project Ideas: Wire Boards

Hi Everyone.

Hope you are staying warm and surviving this last push of winter that arrived yesterday!

Today I wanted to share a couple new project samples we have created using a new product to the store. Recently we received in these metal wire boards - they do come with the jute and the clothespins - so with just the addition of a few pieces they can really turn into something awesome!

For the first sample we used pieces from the My Mind's Eye My Girl line and a vinyl saying and decorated it with embellishments and photos. This would be a great piece to add to a kids room - You can easy change out the embellishments and photos since they are just attached with clothespins. Also My Mind's Eye also has a Boy Crazy line that you could definitely use in place of the girl line if you need something a bit more masculine. You can find a project sheet for this piece HERE.

The second sample we made is even more simple. For this project we added some Washi Tape to the board and the clothespins, added vinyl to the top, and then attached a metal basket using ribbon. The tasks on our bucket list were written on kraft tags and attached using the clothespins. A project sheet for this project can be found HERE.

The Wedding Fair.

For those of you that didn't have a chance to visit us at The Wedding Fair last weekend I thought I would share some photos of our booths and various displays we had set up for the event.

If we did see you there thanks for stopping by - it was great to chat with all of you and we had such a fun day sharing our store with you! We hope to see you here in the store soon - where you can find all the products and ideas you found at the booth - plus much, much more!
 
Thanks for such a great event!

Free Make & Take: Washi Tape Hanging Jars

In honor of National Craft Month we will be offering free Make & Take projects every Saturday throughout the month!

Join us this Saturday between 1-3pm at the Paper Crafts Demo Counter to make one of these Washi Tape Hanging Jars (candle and candy are not included).

More information about this weeks project and the schedule of Make & Takes during the entire month of March can be found here: http://www.craftsdirect.com/events/

St. Patty's Day.

Since St. Patrick's Day is right around the corner (it is already this Sunday!) I thought I would show you a few of the different products we have available in store to help with your festivities.

We have items to decorate you home...items to decorate yourself (necklaces, scarves, hats, etc.)...crafting and paper crafts supplies...and some treats too!

You can find items from these first two images by our front registers:

Some fun felt and foam crafts (perfect for kids!) can be found on the front endcap by aisle 22:

You can find some paper crafting supplies for making layouts, cards, or other paper projects on a display by our Scrapbooking Demo counter:

And you can also find supplies to make some fun St. Patrick's Day treats in our Baking/Floral department too:

**We also have some great St. Patrick's Day themed projects and decor ideas posted on our St. Patty Pinterest board too - you can check them out HERE.

Fairy Gardens.

One of the biggest things to hit our Seasonal Department with the arrival of our Spring products has been our Fairy Garden products.

There are really so many ways you can set up these little gardens- in a glass container, in a pot, in a glass block, on a stand, etc. In addition to endless options when it comes to where there are equally endless options when it comes to what to include! We have many different houses, fairies, accessories, and decorations to use together. To help spark some of your own creativity and share just how adorable these little gardens can become our Seasonal department has set up some sample spaces using the Fairy Garden products - I have posted most of them below, but you will definitely want to come in store to check them out soon too!

(These would also be a fun project to create in anticipation for the arrival of some leprechauns this weekend!)

You can find all of these products and displays in aisle 7 of our Seasonal Department.