Halloween Crafting Ideas

If you are looking for some great new Halloween crafting ideas, you should check out AllFreeHolidayCrafts.com!  If you are looking for trick or treat bags, costumes, home decor or even recipes for your Halloween gathering you will find it all in one spot!

Here is a sampling of some of the newest projects.  That is my Donald Duck Inspired Shirt project in the upper right hand corner of the image below.

Getting More Traffic to Your Blog

As a craft blogger, one of the things you think about is how much traffic is coming to your blog.  One great way to increase your traffic is to connect with other crafters and share your projects . . . get involved in a challenge, blog hop or link up party.

Over the past year, I have been submitting a lot of my projects to places like AllFreePaperCrafts.com

When their editors are looking to put a new collection of project together, maybe a collection of birthday cards, they will link them together in a newsletter that goes out to THOUSANDS of people on their mailing list.  If one of your cards is featured in one of these collections you will see a HUGE increase in the amount of traffic to your site that is all going towards that one project.  It is also fun when you get the email for the newsletter and open it up to see one of your projects . . . like I did with my Pop Up Birthday Card highlighted below.

My Pop Up Birthday Card on the AllFreePaperCrafts.com site . . . click HERE

You can check out my Paper Craft Designer page by clicking HERE.

AllFreePaperCrafts.com

Have you checked out AllFreePaperCrafts.com recently?  I was just over there and saw this . . .

Yep, that is MY NAME in the number one spot on the What's Hot list!  If you have not checked out my Paper Craft Designer Page on there site you can see it by clicking HERE.  Below my photo and bio, you will find links to all of the projects I have listed on AllFreePaperCrafts.com

I also have a page over at AllFreeChristmasCrafts.com . . . click HERE to see that page.

Cricut September Mystery Box

Have you purchased your September Cricut Mystery Box yet? If not, there is still time . . . just click on the image below.

 

















I did a little research, and I was able to find out that this box includes 5 rolls of the NEW Cricut Faux Leather!  What a great way to add the look of leather to your projects!  It also includes 3 cartridges - Home Decor Vinyl Wall Art, Home for the Holidays Fall and Winter, and Simple Cards.

Be sure to check out all of the newest products at Cricut

New Products - Faux Leather, Elmo's Play Day Digital Cartridge

Candy Corn Banner

September is here . . . the kids have gone back to school and that means the end of summer and the beginning of fall.  Along with the "pumpkin spice" products that start to show up everywhere, that also means it is time to bring out the candy corn crafts!  I have seen some adorable wreaths made with candy corn, and I did a Candy Corn Wine Bottle project last year that you can see HERE

Over the weekend I created a candy corn banner to attach to the hanging basket on our front porch

To start off, I used some cardstock to create a template for the banner pieces.  I had some cardstock that came in a paper pack, and there were a few sheets that I did not really like the pattern . . . so I use those sheets for making patterns/templates or for test cuts when I am trying to determine what size I want my die cuts to be for any project.

I penciled in some dimensions on the template . . . that way if anyone wants to make this I don't have to try and remember what size I cut this at.

Place the template on top of some white fabric.  I used Smart Fab since it is a great indoor/outdoor fabric and it cuts so nice and clean and will not fray!  (I did not want to have to finish off the edges of the banner)  I also like to trace around the template with a piece of chalk since it is easy to remove when you are done cutting out the shapes.

I included a little "tab" at the top of the template to use for folding over to create a casing at the top of each banner piece.  You could probably fold this over and glue it with a fabric glue, but I just did a quick straight stitch at the top of each banner piece to form the casing.  

Now for the color!  I cut some more Smart Fab in 2" wide pieces.  Since the overall banner piece is 6" tall, that made for easy math to divide the three sections off  . . . 2" each color.

I used some tacky glue and just placed the colored pieces over the top of the white base.  Once the glue dried I trimmed the colored pieces off at the edge of the banner piece.

Once the glue is dry on all of the pieces, use a safety pin to feed some ribbon or twine through the casing you created at the top of each banner piece.  Make sure to leave enough ribbon/twine on each end so you can tie your banner when you hand it up.

Here are some links to Smart Fab in case you would like to use it for your next crafting project.

Smart Fab website // Facebook page // Twitter // Pinterest

Halloween Supplies

Are you looking for some good deals on Halloween supplies?  Have you looked at Dollar Tree?



Spooky Savings on Seasonal Supplies at DollarTree.com

Or how about some deco mesh or glow in the dark paint for a Halloween crafting project!


  Halloween Decorations at DollarTree.com. Where everything is a $1 and  you can get FREE* Shipping To a Dollar Tree Store! Pick It Up At Over 5,000 Locations! *Restricitons may apply.

Use the Store Locator to find a store near you!

Blog Rankings

I have my blog listed on a couple of directories, and I have a button on my right sidebar on my blog to promote these directories.  The fun thing about the code inside these buttons is that as my blog traffic goes up and I move higher in the ranking on the directory, the number that shows up on that button changes too . . . so then I can look at my blog at any point and see where I rank.

Yesterday I shared a blog post I did about making my own Mickey Mouse embossing folder in a few groups on Facebook . . . click HERE if you would like to see that post.  After I did that, my blog traffic when THROUGH THE ROOF!  It was pretty cool to go to my blog this morning and see these numbers for those blog directories . . .

I have always felt like Disney projects are my "thing" . . . those seem to be the projects that turn out the best for me and also bring in the most blog traffic.  Maybe that is because when I am crafting Disney projects I am really doing something that I love.

If you would like to see some of my other Disney projects you can follow the links below

Mickey Mouse  //  Disney Pixar  // Disney

You can also follow me on Facebook  // Pinterest

Also, I gather a group of crafters together for Disney Pixar Blog Hops.  We pick one day, and we all post a Disney or Pixar themed project on our blogs, and then we list all of the other bloggers at the end of the post . . . then you can hop from blog to blog to see the magical Disney projects we have created.  Sometimes we even have prizes you can win.  If you would like to be the first to know about future blog hops, you can join the Facebook group that I have just for these hops

Shawn's Disney Pixar Blog Hops Facebook Page