April Craft Challenge Poll

The April Fool's joke is on me this month, and April totally fooled me and is showing up tomorrow. The poll for the craft challenge is up now, and since it's late, I've shortened the time for voting. Voting ends Sunday at midnight, and as always choose up to 3.

How are you doing on the March challenge? I confess that I have not made any flowers, but I did take some arty photos yesterday, and will post them tonight in the Daily Sweets Pool (or at least one of them). Don't feel bad if you didn't get to the challenge because there are always more challenges around the corner. And we all know that sometimes it's a challenge just to get our own craft taken care of.

~Elle
Jenna Belle Designs

Spring is in the Air- More Beautiful Creations from the Daily Sweets

February Bonus Craft Challenge -- Drink Up

I wanted to post the results of the Bonus Craft Challenge For February... decorating porcelain mugs with special pens. Ten of us dedicated some time and resources tracking down Pebeo pens, and some appropriate mugs to discover an easy, and thoroughly addicting new craft. After experimenting with another kind of pen that says it is designed to write on ceramics, Kila found out that yes, indeed, the kind that require baking in the oven to achieve permanency are what you need. Any type of porcelain mug will do. Deb discovered that Pebeo pens are not food/beverage safe, so her mug, with a beautiful sun on the inside, has become a pen holder.

I think Sue made the most mugs, making one for everyone in her family for Valentine's Day. Take a look at some of our efforts:

Well done, Deb, Elle, Kila, Kim, Meagan, Melissa, Sarah, Sue, Wendy and Kylie! Click here to see the larger versions of the pictures, so you can see the great quotes, and to see some other views of these mugs.

 Have you started on your paper flowers yet or checked out what's blooming with some great spring photography? I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

February Craft Challenge -- The Knotty Results

We were all in knots over the crocheting craft challenge, what with the short month of February, and all our other responsibilities! Ten of us took on this challenge and as far as skill levels go, we had beginners who had never held a crochet hook before, to one of us who has been crocheting since she was 3! Actually, I should say that there were at least 11 of us that did the challenge, and maybe more. Some, who will remain nameless, wouldn't post their pictures, and one hasn't found the perfect picture spot yet. Melissa, Karen and Ginny are veteran crocheters, and they chose new projects to test their skills. Take a look at our gallery of yarn (names will follow in the order of the pictures, left to right)

Fen (2 scarves); Ginny (coin purse); Heather (neck warmer); other Heather (felted purse); Karen (purse); Kila (cowl, and 2 adorable kid's scarves); Melissa (bear); Sarah (neck warmer and hat); Vee (stress ball happy face and scarf); and me (dishcloth and scarf). It seems that some of us liked crocheting, we made more than one thing!

I believe the send off for crocheters is...

Happy Hooking!

~Elle

March Craft Challenge Poll Results

 photo from Our Fun Life

The results are in, and we can see that making paper flowers is the clear winner for our challenge this month. Ginny has graciously done some research for us, and found us lots of fun tutorials to choose from. These include tutorials from Dozi; Imagine, Create, Inspire; Folding Trees; Balzar Designs; Our Fun Life; It's in the Details; rebecca sower's weblog; Honestly Speaking; plants blog; another one from It's in the Details; A Fanciful Twist; and finally, one more from Folding Trees.

Thanks so much, Ginny, for doing some work for us, so we can just jump right in!

Finally, every month, as we chat, we come up with new things to add to our challenge list. So I made an executive decision to add a second bonus challenge like we had last month. This way, we can cover more crafts, and if one thing doesn't appeal, or is more cost prohibitive you can still participate. Of course, all participation is completely voluntary!

Anyway, two things came in second in the poll, decoupage and art photography. I made an executive decision to make the art photography our second challenge, because I know we all have cameras. The challenge here is to step away from your light boxes and items, and release your inner photographer. Kids, pets, sunsets, melting snow. I have a feeling that we'll all come up with some spectacular photos. Post as many as you want to your personal flickr accounts, but limit your challenge submission to one or two favorites.

You still have time to post your crocheting and mug challenge pictures. I'll do the round up of those at the end of this week.