Crafty Blogger Links!

Check out what the Crafty Bloggers are up to this week!!

About Family Crafts
September is National Sewing Month! Why not celebrating by making one or more of these easy sewing projects.

Aileen’s Musings
Have you heard the term Altered Art or Altered Artist and wondered what exactly that means? Aileen has given her explanation of what Altered art is and how YOU too can become an Altered Artist!

Alexa Westerfield a.k.a. Swelldesigner
It’s the return “Terrorific Tuesdays” on Swelldesigner’s blog! Learn about how you can participate in all the fun, spooky Halloween action!

Cathie Filian
Melt up some soy wax and make some easy candles with Cathie.

Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world
Craftside’s got a fun skull quilt tutorial inspired by a quilt in the new book Quilting Art, how-to’s on painting rocks like skulls, eyes and more for Halloween, tips for re-purposing in the studio and the correct terms for the parts of a book.

Crafty Princess Diaries
Tammy shows the beginnings of a baby blanket in progress, a super easy crochet project to consider for those who make charity items.

CraftyPod
Check out Sister Diane’s newest ebook – Creating a Blog Audience: An Unconventional Marketing Guide

Cross Stitch at About.com
Do you find solace in your stitching? Vote in the poll, read the comments, and share your own experiences.

Farm Girl Roots, City Girl Style
I may have to tackle a t-shirt quilt—I’m getting ideas from all directions.

Mixed Media Artist
Cyndi has a copy of “The Art of Fabric Collage” to give away!

Naughty Secretary Club
Jen is in the midst of wrapping paper week with clever how-to idea, uses for wrapping paper that have nothing to do with gifts & a Wrapagami book giveaway.

Stefanie Girard’s Sweater Surgery
How to make a Cone Candy Holder Candelabra inspired by a pretty project from Paperie for Inspired Living by Karen Bartolomei

The Artful Crafter
Do you know how to make a secret box book? It’s not hard – well – except on your fingers. Eileen shows you how. She took lots of photos since she won’t be able to type for a while. LOL.

The Crochet Dude
Check out Drew’s super cool Crochet Word Search that he has as a free download on his blog! I wonder how quick I can finish it!

The Impatient Crafter
Get your teens ready for Back to School with these recycled denim book covers from The Impatient Crafter for I Love to Create!

Vickie Howell-Craft.Rock.Love
Join Vickie & Lands’ End for a Twitter Party to celebrate the FeelGood campaign to benefit the homeless!

Crafty Blogger Links

Check out what the Crafty Bloggers are up to this week!

About Family Crafts
Do you paper mache? Share your projects and stories!

Aileen’s Musings
This week Aileen’s been busy altering cabinet cards. Check out her newest funky cabinet cards and download more freebie images for you to alter yourself.

Cathie Filian
Cathie and Steve spoof their love of Mod Podge in their latest video.

Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world
Craftside has a fun mixed-media cupcake jar topper project, a how-to on making bottle cap bookmarks, a tutorial on painting over a photo to create a multi frame effect, and a fun beaded fan design. And the tables are turned, leave a question and you are entered to not only win a free book but also a Wrights SideWinder bobbin winder!

Crafty Princess Diaries
Re-purposing crafting materials is a great way to make sure you don’t waste your wonderful stash of supplies.

CraftyPod
Sister Diane shows you how to embroider on a perforated metal beading disc!

Cross Stitch at About.com
A saying from the Bard inspired Connie’s latest free pattern. Stitch the saying alone or combine it with floral motifs for a larger sampler.

Mixed Media Artist
Sometimes a jolt of new-ness is just what vintage imagery calls for. Learn how to combine cartoons with vintage pictures, digitally!

Naughty Secretary Club
Jen takes everything from a vintage clock to an Etch a Sketch and coverts it into a funky picture frame.

Stefanie Girard’s Sweater Surgery
The scissors are set aside this week and a vintage green marble gets re-purposed into a cool modern necklace with a technique from the book Contemporary Copper Jewelry by Sharilyn Miller

The Artful Crafter
Read some suggestions for preventing your polymer clay projects from cracking.

The Impatient Crafter
Madge transforms a Kraft paper lampshade from Target into a sophisticated accent piece for a teen’s room in this post for I Love to Create.

Vickie Howell-Craft.Rock.Love
A no fuss, no muss t-shirt project for the kiddos!

The craft blog thought process

I really enjoy writing my blog and sometimes I am super, super inspired to post a new project or something cool I experienced, but there are times where (like now), it is 11:37pm on a weeknight and I have no clue what I’m going to write about for my daily blog post.

As you probably notice, I really try to come up with new content that’s somewhat interesting (at least I hope it is for your sake…ha ha). When I was thinking about what I was going to do tonight, I had an idea…why don’t I share with you the randomness that comes into my head when I develop a blog post (esp. a last minute one). I’m fascinated by how people formalize their ideas and how an idea gets from point a to point b…so, with that in mind, I want to share with you my thought process behind my a post…so here’s the inner dialogue straight from my brain.

You are now entering Alexa’s Brain

“Oh, no. I really need to think of something for my blog. What kind of project can I do in 30 minutes? Hmm…maybe I can do a post on a 30 minute craft and it become a regular feature. But what if I flake out and it doesn’t become a regular feature. Ugh, I can’t make a promise to do a regular feature and not pull through…I don’t think I’m going to do that.

Hmm…hey, I could do a contest and give away some fun stuff from my craft stash. Let’s see…I have this charm, a cool goblin bead, and let’s see, I have some paper clips. Ugh, I can’t give away paper clips. That’s dumb. OK, I do have this tin. I could fill it with beads, charms, and stickers.

lemon drops

But I kinda like it. I don’t want to give it away. Um, and I don’t know if I would ship it right away. I’m going on vacation and it would be several weeks till I would get around to mailing it out. Ugh, can’t do that idea.

Hey, what project do I have around that I could post. Let’s see…oh, there’s that Creative Techniques project I did…people prob. won’t remember it, but I don’t want to have to go and find the instructions in my e-mail. That would take longer than rewriting them from scratch. Can’t do that one. Oh, wait…I do have this John Mayer frame. It has a cool technique on it…

jm frame

But I don’t really like John Mayer like I used to. He’s too Hollywood now and not as cool. I guess it looks cool and that they are my own photos that I burned on the frame, but I don’t want to have to write instructions and think of how to explain it.

OK, let’s see…hmm, there’s that vase of colorful buttons I could blog about…

buttons

Um, yeah, it’s a vase of buttons. That will make for a real exciting read!

Hey, what about if I show off the project that I created just for my blog? I’ve been waiting to feature it…

canvas detail

Ugh, but I’m not entirely finished with it and again, I’d have to write instructions. I don’t want to be up for an hour and a half finishing it and writing instructions too.

I’m at a total loss. I don’t know what the heck to blog about that people actually will want to read about…hey (looking down next to keyboard), I could do something cool with this measuring tape. It would make a super cool vase or bracelet or something.

wrapped

I don’t have a surface to start with. Hmm, I need to go to plan Z.”

Wait, why don’t I do a blog about how I decide how I choose what to blog…yeah, I think I’ll do that. That won’t take too long and it will be easy to write. I’ll just snap a few pics and I’ll be done in no time. Yeah, I’ll think I’ll do that.

You are now exiting Alexa’s Brain

Hope that made sense and was somewhat easy to follow. I’ve never been one to be perfect about grammatical phrasing. I need to study up.

Hope you enjoyed this little venture inside my head and thinking up a crafty blog post. I promise, it’s not always this hard or this much of a stretch. Some days it just comes, other days it is a little harder, but it’s all worth it. I do enjoy it.

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa