A special deal for you + another giveaway!!

We are so excited!! Sillycone Inc. (the maker of the silicone trays we used during Day 2 of our craft week - pictured above) wants to give 6 of our readers each a set of: Alphabets, Number and Symbol trays!

To enter in the giveaway, just leave a comment below or email us with the subject "Sillycone giveaway" and we'll be drawing 6 lucky winners on Feb. 3rd! Spread the word and tell all your friends - this is an awesome prize, we love these trays!!

They are also offering an amazing deal for our readers - Buy 1, get 1 free! You must mention Elle's at checkout and this offer is only good until Feb. 3rd! Check out their store here.

We made ice cubes with them before we made our crayons, but I had no idea how many more things you could make with them! Butter, cheese, chalk, soap, candles, and more! Click here to see some of their recipes. Here are some pictures to inspire you:

That butter looks so cool - I love it!!


They also just launched some single number trays - these would be perfect for birthday parties! Pour some melted chocolate in them and make number toppers for your cupcakes - don't forget the sprinkles!
These trays have so many uses, my wheels are turning now on what to create next :) I hope you all enjoy the giveaway and make sure you take advantage of there amazing offer of buy 1, get 1 free from now until Feb. 3rd at Sillycone Inc.!

Winner!

The winner of the grand prize for our "Handmade With Love" week is Drumroll...............................................................................
arlsmom aka Lynda said...
OMG...this is the cutest!!!

Congrats!! Please email me your address and we'll get your prize out asap!


A big huge thanks again and lots of hugs to everyone for making this fun little week of crafts so much fun! You are truly the best!!


We have one more thing for you because the fun just can't be over yet! We'll be announcing it today, very soon, so stay tuned!

XO, Elle

Handmade With Love - winners and inspiration!

I cannot even put into words how fun this week was for us! Getting to share our projects and read your comments was amazing and I am so thankful for all of our readers :) You made this week so much fun! I'm feeling so inspired, probably the most inspired I've every been! Thank you all so, so much for stopping by!

Here's a couple pictures of our tree on the table:

I added some of our paper tags! Turned out cute :)

And, I ended up making a little felt doily for under the vase!

We have some winners to announce! I really wish everyone could win! It's so hard to draw only one name out of each dish for each day!

The winners are:

Day 1:

Stephanie said...
How adorable those are! And what a great idea to put wax paper on the back.
January 17, 2009 9:45 AM

Day 2:

.charity.sorrells said...
What a great idea! TFS Elle!
January 18, 2009 4:59 PM

Day 4:

jennie said...
mine would have to say a month of no laundry!
January 20, 2009 5:51 PM

Day 5:

Tracy said...
If i were to win..I would either make this for my awesome husband or my 2 yr old son..who makes me laugh everyday!!
January 21, 2009 10:19 AM

Congrats, ladies!!! If you could email me with your address we'll get your goodies out asap! We are still leaving the last giveaway open until January 28th - so there is still one more chance to win something :)
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We also had some awesome suggestions and good questions from our readers!

Day 1 – cupcakes:
Margo suggested these would work great for bridal showers!

Q: Did you make icing or use store bought?
I usually use a store bought cupcake mix and make buttercream icing. Buttercream tastes so good and goes on nice and smooth. It’s also super easy to make! TIP: You don’t have to have a piping bag to pipe icing. You can use a plastic “sandwich” bag and cut one of the corners off and pipe the icing through the hole!

Day 2 – Handmade Crayons
Lynsey suggested the heart crayons would even work as a decoration! Put them in a pretty bowl on the coffee table or as a centerpiece on the kitchen table for Valentine’s Day!

Jen suggested these would be an awesome idea to make the crayons to fit inside an Easter egg! They could hunt for eggs and have fun crayons along with their candy and money!

Erin H suggested these crayons would be a great idea for stocking stuffers or kids parties!

Joli mentioned she bought Lego silicone molds for her boys! (those crayons would looks so cool! I'd love to see pictures!)

Q: When you melt the crayons do they let off fumes? And, can you re-use your molds for food?
I didn't notice any smell coming from the crayons when they melted in the oven. If you have anyone in the house that is super sensitive to smells you might want to turn on the fan just in case. I would not recommend reusing the molds for food once the crayons have been in them. Tiny bits of wax do get left behind when you pull the crayons out of the molds.

Q: Wow the baking tray is gorgeous! Where can I find that?
The bird tray in the giveaway is from Target! And, I just found out that Target also has heart silicone molds in there $1 section! The metal heart tray came from Michael's Craft Store.

Day 6 – Felt Love
Judith suggested these hearts would work great as scrapbook embellishments!

Day 7 – Heart Tree
Q: Is your name pronounced “el?” I have a dd named Ellie, and she was wondering, but I told her it was probably different but I would ask!
It’s been pronounced both ways - the correct way to say it would be “El” but most people say it "Ellie". It's actually a nickname that came from the last four letters in my real name, Danielle. People started calling me Elle in grade school and it stuck ever since!

If anyone else has any questions, please feel free to post or email them :)

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I'm really excited about some fun things coming up! One fun thing is that we recently got to participate in is Fred Flare's Valentine's for charity! Here's the one we sent in:

Those pictures aren't the best but I promise it looks better in real life! The inside has a little pocket for the two coupons and I added scallops to the envelope! All the valentine's will be on sale for $4 each starting this coming week and everything will be donated to charity! I can't wait to see what everyone else created!!

I'm also super excited about this:
A HUGE congrats to these ladies - they are amazing and I love everything they do! I can't wait for their online shop to open :) I bet they'll have lots of fun stuff!!

I'll end this post with some of my recent favs on flickr, I love, love, LOVE these photos!
1. v day photoshoot, 2. _MG_3517-web, 3. WTJ Day24 around the world, 4. Untitled, 5. a figure of speech, 6. peppermint s'more ♥, 7. I love you!, 8. If I were mother nature, 9. Pink patchwork cloud
1. the new happy bed, 2. Candy Button Tutorial Coming Soon!, 3. Eat cake, 4. http://flickr.com/photos/_sugar/3112302391/, 5. Untitled, 6. topper, 7. Ribbon Heart, 8. front porch, 9. pretty girls

Lots of fun eye candy! I hope everyone has a great weekend! I've got my to-do list going and it's getting long, LOL!

Love you all and thanks again for makng this last week the BEST ever!!!
XO, Elle

Handmade With Love - Day 7 - Heart Tree

Today is part two of our felt heart and tree tutorial! We'll work on the tree (display) part today :) After you have made your hearts {shown above, patterns here} you can get started on the display!

You'll want to find a tree branch that has quite a few branches on it, but is small enough for where you are putting it on display. Ours is going to go in the center of our dinning room table!

Bring the branch inside and you could choose to leave it as is or paint it. We painted ours white. We also didn't clean the branch and painted right over the mossy parts. This gave a great effect! You can use any type of paint, we used just regular craft paint.

You'll need some sort of vase to put your tree branch in. This red one below is from Michael's Craft Store and cost 3.99! Quite a deal :) Get the branch in the vase the way you like it and fill it so the branch will not move. You can use rice or packing peanuts - this time we used tissue paper and packed it in there very tight! Make sure you leave a little extra space at the top!

Feel the extra space with something fun, like candy! We choose little candy conversation hearts.
Besides decorating your tree with the fun hearts we made yesterday, you could also add some birds or butterflies! When we went to the craft store we couldn't find any in the right color - so I decided just to glitter them red!

To glitter any object for your tree you'll want to use a good paint and apply a thin layer over your item.

Sprinkle the glitter over the glue. We worked in parts so the glue wouldn't dry before we got the glitter on! Martha Stewart's glitter works wonders! It has so much sparkle!!

Secure your birds, butterflies or other objects on your tree and add your felt hearts.

We also got out the pipe cleaner and added it for some extra fun! You can wrap parts of the branches in it and then curl the ends!

Or, make some hearts and hang them on the tree, too! Take two colors of pipe cleaners and twirl them together before shaping to get the effect seem below.

And, ta da!! You now have a beautiful and fun decoration! We love the way this turned out and we'll have to post photos of it on our actual table because it looks so cute!!
Time for the giveaway!

One person will win all the items pictured above - this is our biggest giveaway EVER! There are a bunch of items for Valentine's Day there - include two boxes of candy and that adorable teddy bear! You'll even receive a bunch of our tags! Just leave a comment below and you'll be entered to win! The winner from this post will be announced next week on Wednesday, January 28th so everyone can have plenty of time to enter :) All the other giveaway winners, from the other posts, will be announced tomorrow night!! Make sure you check back to see if you're a winner from those - if you haven't entered the giveaways below, do so now!!

PLEASE NOTE: Because of recent spamming we've had to turn anonymous comments off. If you'd like to enter any of our giveaways please email us and put the title of the blog post for the giveaway your entering in the subject of the email! All anonymous comments made before this will still be counted.

Handmade With Love - Day 6 - Felt Love

Today's project is going to be done in two parts, part one involves making little hearts out of felt! Now, I'm not the best sewer but I do have some tips that will hopefully help :) Tomorrow we will show you how to display your little hearts in a super fun and cute way!

Supplies:
Felt
Floss or string for sewing
Needle
Disappearing Ink Marker
Our free pattern download
Stuffing
Ribbon for loops for hanging...

You'll want to start by printing your patterns on cardstock and cutting them out of the cardstock to make stencils. This will allow you to trace them easily on to the felt! We used a "Simplicity" disappearing marker and it worked great, plus it was only 2.99 at the fabric store! That purple ink will be completely gone in 24 hours! You could use a regular marker, but then you'll have to be sure you cut all the marked parts off or use the back sides.

Another thing to think about - if you plan on stuffing your hearts, you'll need to cut two of the same heart to stitch together!

Once you have your patterns traced you can either cut the pattern out and then sew or sew around the marked line and then cut (if you do it the second way you'll have to use a disappearing ink marker - otherwise the line will show!!). Just make sure if you have a two piece pattern that you do it the same way for both pieces!

{Photo above: stitching first, Photo below: cut second}

A couple tips on sewing - Simple stitches look great! Use two needles, one to sew and one to help secure the felt so it doesn't slide around while stitching!

Stitch the ribbon loop between the felt pieces as your going along

Just as your about to finish up your stitching you can stop and add a little stuffing! This will give it an little extra poof.

For the heart and arrow pattern, first stitch the arrow, then sew the arrow in between the two heart pieces!

Create a two layer heart...

Or just leave the second layer off!

Add buttons and tulle for extra fun!

Make your heart fly by adding wings!

Or, add a banner! You could also make this banner say things like: love you, honey, mom, dad, my love, etc. Use your disappearing ink pen to write the letters and then stitch!

Add some cute scallops!

All of the hearts shown below are included in our FREE pattern download today! They are color coded so you'll know what pieces go together. If you want to share your creations with us feel free to upload them to our flickr gallery!

{the free download is a pdf file that requires Adobe Acrobat to open. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader you can download it here for free}

I hope you all enjoy the patterns! If you have any questions please post them here and I'll answer them on Saturday :) And, make sure you check back tomorrow to see part two, how to display the hearts! And, we'll also be doing our biggest giveaway ever!!

Happy Creating everyone!
XO, Elle

Handmade With Love - Day 5 - Count the Ways!

We often tell the special ones in our life "I love you!" but we rarely tell them how much or why we love them the way we do! Here is some fun inspiration to create a fun "Let Me Count the Ways" mini album that will do just that!

You could use any type of number stamps and cardstock you have already, but for ours we used our So In Love Journaling Tags, Cut Outs: So In Love and Cut Outs: Count The Ways Numbers. They all coordinate perfectly! For the front cover I used the American Crafts heart paper, which I love!! And then just some simple cardstock on the inside.

I covered each side of a small (4 x 6 inch) chipboard album, rotating between the 5 cardstock colors I picked out.

Here's a look at the cover - the flower embellishment (and heart paper) is from American Crafts and the journaling sticker is from this set.

On the back I added the "Handmade for you with love by:" journaling tag that comes in the same set with the tag as above.

Then, I cut out all the "Cut Outs"

And, started laying things out! You can put a photo on each page, along with a number and then a little journaling spot. Examples could be "You're always there for me", "You always say the right things", "For always taking care of me", etc!

At this point I was going to start adding photos... but then thought "Hey! I could give the mini book away with the other goodies" So, this little mini book above is included in our giveaway today! I didn't glue anything down on the inside so you will be able to add your photos, numbers and journaling spots wherever you choose! I hope you like it :)

We love hearing about what you'd want your coupon to say in yesterdays post, so today we want to hear "Who is the someone special in your life you'd finish the mini book for?" This could be anyone, don't forget about parents, grandparents, kids, nieces, cousins and more!

One winner will receive all the goodies pictured above! There are lots of supplies there to finish the mini book, plus a little candy, too! The winner will be announced January 24th, so make sure you check back then! If you haven't entered the other contests, please feel free to do so! All close on the same day, January 24th :)

P.S. Tomorrow we will be starting part one of our last project and it will include a free download! Part two, on the following day, will include on of our biggest giveaways ever! It's over a $80 value so you won't want to miss it!