Wee Little Elements!

HELLOOOOOOO crafty friends! Leah here, posting what will PROBABLY be the last Elements Challenge before our Doll Karen takes over this here spot for a while... So I'm goin' out with a bang!

The winner of our October Elements Challenge prize will be announced within the next couple of days - we're just trying to iron out all the little details so things will continue to run smoothly around here, so thanks for your patience, everybody! We figure this is a better alternative than shutting down for a hiatus - wouldn't you agree? Gonna keep things running and hoping to inspire you every week as usual! :D

I had fun setting the challenges this month, and our participants will again be playing for a $15 credit to shop at Scrap-A-Doodle-Doo, our regular sponsor for the Elements Challenges! Check out Steph's store and see all the WONDERFUL products she carries - there's loads of new/current stuff and pre-orders, as well as some old faves, whether you're looking for papers, ribbon, embellies, adhesive or tools. You WILL find something you simply MUST have at Scrap-A-Doodle-Doo!

So let's kick November off with your first Elements Challenge, shall we?

Our theme:
WEE LITTLE ONES

This is OPEN TO INTERPRETATION! This could mean little tiny people, very small embellies, something wee in your photos/images, mini ornaments or mini cards, or whatever. just stick to the theme and you'll be all set.

Here's the Dollie work:

CHIQUI used a photo of the wee little hand of her daughter when she was born - is this not a GORGEOUS simplistic page, perfectly showcasing the photo?!

KAREN put this fantastic little set of mini holiday cards/tags together using some wine glass charms that she saved from one of last year's magazines:

and I, Leah the Orange, have been laboring over my holiday cards, so I've put together some minis using lots and lots of scraps and little holiday charms:

SOOOOOO, you can go LOTS of different places with our theme this week, and you can combine it with yesterday's Color Challenge if you like (in which case your link must be submitted by SUNDAY at midnight EST), but be sure that your project is newly created (no backlinking) for our challenge, link back to the Dollhouse in your blog post, and HAPPY CRAFTING! :) For just this one, submit by Monday, November 8th at midnight EST for your chance at the store credit.

another new month with the Design Dollies - new colors and new NEWS!

WELCOME to the Dollhouse, friends! We are kicking off November in STYLE, and throwing some supah-fun new challenges your way for the month...

I want to thank EVERYONE who played around with my October Color Challenges - I know some of them were a bit tricky, but those who played TRULY impressed us, and we're always so pleased when our challenges INSPIRE you! Some of you left us some terribly sweet feedback, for which we are very grateful. Your kind words keep us going, and going, and going, so you won't be rid of us Dollies for a while! :)

That said, we have a couple of announcements to make...

First of all, my apologies, because with my frantic schedule, I am not able to draw a winner from the October Color Challenges yet, but I will get to that as soon as I can. Thank you all for the patience you show us when we run into these little (annoying) snags!

Second, I know I mentioned it last week, but a very heartfelt MWAH to Andrea, who rocked our Guest Dollie spot last month! She gave us some incredibly inspiring pieces, and it was an absolute JOY to have her in the Dollhouse!

Third, we give a warm Dollhouse welcome to KAREN WRAY, who will be joining in the November Challenges as our next Guest Dollie! If you haven't been to Karen's blog, DO check it out HERE - the girl's got MAD SKILLZ, and we're thrilled and totally honored to have her! You'll get to see her stuff very soon, so get ready to have your socks knocked off! :D

Fourth, the next Dollie-Call will be up VERY SOON (yeah, I also mentioned that last week) - we're looking for some dedicated crafty folks to hang out with us from January through June 2011, and we're SO excited to see what fabulous applications we'll receive for the upcoming term! I will warn you though - our current team is gonna be a SERIOUSLY tough act to follow! :D

Fifth, our Adina-Dollie is taking a little hiatus. No worries folks, she's doing fine, and the family is happy and healthy; she's just a gal with a whole lot on her plate right now. So she'll be popping by when she can, and she'll still be watching, and she WILL be back when the time is right!

Sixth, we needed someone to step in for Adina-Dollie, as there's just no way Kristy and I can handle it ourselves... So we have invited our very own KAREN to be a Dollie admin in the meantime! She'll be hosting the Elements Challenges and entertaining you while Adina deals with life and stuff, so please be kind, and if we run into any snags, don't be afraid to leave a comment or send an email to let us know (like when our InLinkz isn't up or running, or if you catch some strange error, or whatever else might be concerning). We're QUITE confident that Karen's going to make an awesome admin, so we welcome her with giant long-distance hugs and lots of appreciation! :D

So now it's time.... let's DO IT!

This week's Color Challenge:

RED, YELLOW, AQUA and BLACK

You might wanna sit down for this, 'cuz holy WOWZA,
our Dollies' projects will take your breath away!

DANA's gorgeous bathing beauty card gives us a nice warm spot
with this cold weather upon us:


KAREN's beachy page just SCREAMS summer fun
(and brrr, it's not swimming weather here in New Jersey right now!):



NICOLE TOTALLY rocked this travel-themed layout
(the girl sure gets to see a lot of the world - I'm so jealous!):

And I (Leah the Orange) am still pounding out the winter/holiday cards for the upcoming craft fair, so I couldn't resist with this cute little snowfella:

And that's how it's done! I know that sometimes the colors may seem intimidating, but if you REMOVE one of the colors from the combo and think of it strictly for accents, it often makes things a LOT easier, as you can see by the awesome Dollie talent above! So do you want to play?

Create a NEW project for this challenge. Link back to the Dollhouse in your blog post (or in the forum where your photo can be found, so others can come by for a visit). Link up below using the little froggy dude. Do all of this by next SUNDAY, November 7th at midnight EST and you'll be entered to win some scrummy crafty stuff! I will post a picture of this prize when I announce the winner from the October Color Challenges (but ask anyone who's ever won a Dollies prize - they don't suck!). Go get your craft on! :D

Sketch time :)

Welcome back! Our last challenge for the week (and month!) is upon us! We hope you're gearing up to play with this weeks Elements and Color Challenge but now I have this weeks sketch

Of course our Dollies are here to inspire you! :)

Dana

Kristy

Chiqui

There's a whole lot to work with this week, lots of space to make this sketch YOURS! Let's see it! Link it up by Wednesday Nov 3rd to get in for this months draw! Or if you are uber inspired try your hand at our Trifecta by Sunday night!

Mixin' it up with new ELEMENTS CHALLENGE!

So you wanna win a gift certificate from our fantastic sponsor, Scrap-A-Doodle-Doo?
Well this is your last chance to get your entries in for our October Elements Challenges, so GOOD LUCK!

This week, we want to see...

MIXED MEDIA!
You need to mix it up, and use different types of media on your project, so that could mean anything like paint and canvas and collage and decoupage and wood and fabric and cardboard, etc. You get the picture?

Here's some inspiration from our Dollies:

Nicole made this fun wooden sign and added paint, ink and iron-on decals she printed on her computer - her daughter is going to LOVE hanging this in her room!

Karen made 'canvas' out of cardboard, added some paints and metallic wrapping paper, doctored it up and made it a functional piece of scrappy art!

and in case you still need something to give your mojo a boost, here's something Leah (me!) made using wrapping paper as a base, coated it with scraps of paper, then stamped and embellished with lots of bits and bobs - it's a full-sized accordion file:

Are you up for this? We know it might be a bit more of a challenge, but remember that you can also create cards and scrapbook pages (and bookmarks and ATCs and lots of other things!) using mixed media, so the sky's the limit!

Feel free to combine this with yesterday's Color Challenge, or wait until Thursday's Sketch Challenge posts and combine all THREE for this week's TRIFECTA! On its own, this challenge closes next Monday, November 1st at midnight EST, but remember to have your entries uploaded by Sunday at midnight for any of the combinations, because the new Color Challenge will post next Monday. Don't forget to link back to the Dollhouse in your blog post, no backlinks, and GOOD LUCK! We'll have some winners to announce next week!

OOPS! Important update!

My apologies, folks! Not only to you, our fabulous friends and visitors to the Dollhouse, but to our wonderful (and horribly patient) Guest Dollie for October, ANDREA! She'd sent me her project for today's challenge several days ago and I had mixed it up with this week's upcoming Sketch Challenge, so her talent was sorely missed on the blog today!

Here's Andrea's Black, White and Purple project
(and CLICK HERE to see the updated challenge post!):

Is this not the CUTEST little pea pod you've ever seen?! :D

Andrea, thank you VERY MUCH for playing with us in the Dollhouse this month - you've been a fantastic addition to our team, and we've all loved seeing your gorgeous creations! I'm so sorry for the mix-up today!