Congratulations to Talela of Atlanta, Georgia and Mahshed of Victoria, BC, Canada, winners of Joan Gorman's Stitch Village E-book. Thanks to everyone who entered, and be sure to check out Joan's blog, Nini Makes.

Felt Me a Smile by Toyoko Sugiwaka

It's impossible to open up Felt Me a Smile by Toyoko Sugiwaka and not smile. I dare you to try it. With pages upon pages of some of the cutest felted animals, you'll enjoy the art of felting while making these adorable toys, ornaments, home decor accents, and more. How cute is the cover project of the hanging Bird Tent? This felting book is great because it covers both the technique of wet felting as well as needle felting. I enjoy doing both but as a beginner I find it hard to come up with ideas on what to felt. This book gives it all to you including step-by-step photos and templates to complete each project and includes lots of tips for beginners.

I love the photo spreads in the book. I could just flip through each page and soak in all the pretty pictures.

See more photos and enter the giveaway after the jump!

Congratulations to Becky from Pittsboro, NC, Elsa from Portland, OR, and Enid from New York, NY for each winning a copy of Mason-Dixon Knitting by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne from our recent giveaway. Thanks to everyone who entered!

There are so many amazing entries to the Crafty Chica Love Shrine Challenge. I keep checking the flickr pool every day to see the newest projects. This piece by CollageContessa is just filled with layers of meaning, and she even documented her step by step process. I love that she talks about the difference between collage, assemblage and diorama. Don't forget to add your project to the pool. There's still time to work on it this weekend!

Mason-Dixon Knitting By Kay Gardiner & Ann Shayne

Now in paperback, Mason-Dixon Knitting by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne is a entertaining jump into their world of knitting with hilarious attitude from the ladies who speak their mind on their blog of the same namesake. The book is filled with stylish and sophisticated patterns for you, baby, and your home. I am dying to try out the striped mitered square blanket (pictured below)because I love the color blocking and how I can just spend my time knitting up small blocks to build up this great looking blanket! (What a great way to use up my scrap yarn!) You'll also just enjoy reading this book for all the beautiful photographs and the tongue-in-cheek jokes.

Mietered Square Blanket and Nina Shawl

See more photos and find out how to enter the giveaway after the jump!

CRAFT is celebrating love, glitter, and craftiness with the Crafty Chica Love Shrine Challenge. Preserve your memories and tell your love story by building a shrine that creatively reflects your personality and expresses your hopes and dreams.

I've been going crazy making these shrines! They are such great ways for me to use my ephemera and this project in particular includes some great memories. I heart NY, and my Travel Love Shrine is a like a three dimensional scrapbook of my time in the city.

How-To: Make a Love Shrine
How-To: Make a Wedding Love Shrine
How-To: Make a Woodland Love Shrine

For even more inspiration, check out the amazing entries in the Crafty Chica Challenge flickr pool. Once you make your own, please add it in, with a short description of your process. There are some great prizes, but if you make a shrine, you've automatically got the best prize there is!

Some of you contacted us regarding problems with our comments while trying to enter this contest. We are happy to announce that all is fixed now. Because of this, we're extending our Built By Wendy Dresses Book Giveaway until this Wednesday, Feb 24th at Noon PST. Good luck!

(Please click the link above and leave a comment at our giveaway post.)

Update 2/24: This giveaway is now closed.

Built By Wendy Dresses by Wendy Mullin with Eviana Hartman

Nothing says spring or summer more than dresses and this season you'll be ready to make your own with Wendy Mullin's new book, Built By Wendy Dresses: The Sew U Guide to Making a Girl's Best Frock. This book is your 101 guide to making your own dresses. Mullin, along with Eviana Hartman bring you three basic patterns, the Sheath, Shift, and Dimdi through which you can piece together and sew up to 25 different dress combinations. From a sundress to a shift dress, you'll find that sewing up the perfect dress is easy! Not to mention, the step-by-step instructions with accompanying line drawings are easy to follow too. The front section of the book gives you quick sewing lessons as it relates to the projects -- helpful stuff like how to sew a variety of pockets, zippers, and instructions on how to line a dress. These little sewing nuggets are great to jump start your inspiration on how you can alter the designs and make it all your own.

See more photos and enter the giveaway after the jump!

CRAFT and Ilovetocreate present The Crafty Chica Love Shrine Challenge. This is the third in my series of three Love Shrine tutorials. Please join in the fun and create your own unique and personal shrine and add it to the challenge flickr pool. We have great prizes for the winners, but we all know the real prize is the love, right?

I live in the redwood forest. My home is a tiny cottage in a literal cloud forest. The ground is covered in vines and flowers, and there is wildlife all around me. I truly love my woodland wonderland. The lichen, bark and spring colors inspired this shrine, and I think it's my favorite yet.

CRAFT and Ilovetocreate present The Crafty Chica Love Shrine Challenge. This is the second in my series of three Love Shrine tutorials. Please join in the fun and create your own unique and personal shrine and add it to the challenge flickr pool. We have great prizes for the winners, but we all know the real prize is the love, right?

My wedding was a casual picnic in the country. Modest and lovely. My husband's ring is steel with rubber grommet inlays. Mine is a dark green checkerboard-cut gem that looks like a cocktail ring. So, when I started collecting elements for my Wedding Love Shrine, I was suprised how I was drawn to a pallet of silver sparkles and diamond rings. But, I think it must have been The Crafty Chica speaking to me as my muse. I went with it. I poured on the glitter and love the result.

These cute mascots are all about cheering on the actual Winter Olympics, but they also could serve as inspiration for the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is challenging knitting "athletes" to push themselves to the limit of their abilities and to take up a new knitting project that they can complete in 17 days. I would love to see someone make a real life version of Sumi's hat, Quatchi's earmuffs, and Miga's scarf!

CRAFT is celebrating love, glitter, and craftiness with the Crafty Chica Love Shrine Challenge. Preserve your memories and tell your love story by building a shrine that creatively reflects your personality and expresses your hopes and dreams.This type of project is all about personal self expression. I began by digging through my collections of postcards and love letters. I sifted through my memories, photo by photo, reveling in the nostalgia of my drawings and notes from days gone by.

Certain things caught my eye, and whatever inspired me was set into a pile. Then I collected all the little treasures that I've gathered over the years — things like old wooden letters from a printing press, the tiny ceramic deer that my grandmother gave me, and a little gift box with a perfect bow. Finally, I went through my craft supplies and pulled ribbons, fabric flowers, pieces of bark, feathers, and seashells. Distill the materials that you've collected into themes. Look for common threads in your items that tell a single story. I didn't have any expectations for an outcome, and I started by just pairing up colors, textures, and associations. I found three distinct stories in my materials, and then selected the core "anchor" pieces for each shrine. Everything went into a big pile on my work surface, and I sat down with a drink and my current favorite playlist on the stereo.

This week I will share each love shrine and my step-by-step process for creating it. I hope that you will join our challenge and make your own individual shrine and add it to the Crafty Chica Challenge Flickr pool. Be sure to include a little story that describes your intentions. The reward is the beautiful shrine, but winners will be chosen to receive great ilovetocreate prizes too.

CRAFT and iLoveToCreate.com have teamed up to present to you the Crafty Chica Challenge: Love Shrine!

Kathy Cano-Murillo, the Crafty Chica, has been making love shrines for the past 15 years. Using everything from mint tins to cigar boxes to even kitchen drawers, she transforms them into colorful art assemblages filled with objects, trinkets, mementos and phrases she loves. Her themes range from exotic lands to her kids to her Mexican culture. But her favorite love shrines to make are themed around romance!

In Kathy's new crafty-themed novel, Waking Up in the Land of Glitter, her main character, Star Esteban, makes a magical, glittery love shrine for her ex-boyfriend, Theo as a way to woo him back. Readers will not only have a peek at how Star made her love shrine in the story, but at the back of the book there are directions to make your own. You can also try one of Kathy's Love Shrine workshops in a Box - or start from scratch!

Here are her tips:

Let your heart guide you. Think of all the things that give you goosebumps (or that you want to give you goosebumps!) and make you happy! Your shrine can be exploding with sparkle and shine, or it can be soft and subdued. Start by laying down a foundation and background, and then adding a focal point, and then add accents to round it off. While Kathy likes to use creative containers for her love shrines, you can use what ever you want - anything is fair game! Kathy believes by setting out your love shrine in a place where you will see it everyday is a great way to bring happiness into your life!

Enter in this Crafty Chica Challenge for a chance to win crafty prizes. This challenge will run for 5 weeks, and the deadline for entries is 11:59 p.m. PST on March 11, 2010. The Prize winners will be announced on Wednesday, March 17, 2010. Because Kathy feels that love shrines are oh-so-very personal, the winners will be drawn at random. There will be one (1) grandprize winner, and three (3) runners-up. For more information and official rules, visit the Crafty Chica Challenge: Love Shrine contest page.

• The Grand Prize is a Crafty Chica gift basket, a copy of the Crafty Chica's first novel Waking Up in the Land of Glitter and a $50 gift certificate to the Maker Shed.
• The Runner-up Prize is a Crafty Chica gift basket as well as a Crafty Chica bobblehead.

To enter this Crafty Chica Challenge, please submit photos of your love shrine to the Crafty Chica Challenge Flickr Group, and include a description of your project, inspiration, and materials were used in the process. (250 words or less please).

If you're joining in on the contest, here's the code for the badge to display on your site or blog.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/ccc_loveshrine/"><img src="http://cdn.makezine.com/make/craft/CZ_CraftyChica_LoveShrine-Badge.gif" width="162" height="171" border="0" alt="Crafty Chica Challenge: Love Shrine" /></a>

Kirsten Rask of Plush You! fame is organizing a rad plush contest around the winter olympics (full disclosure: I'm a judge):

As you all know, or most of you should, the Winter Olympics are coming soon. I am not really a sporty person but I think because they are so close to home, I am more excited this year about it all. I was thinking it might be fun to do a little Olympic Challenge.

You'll make plush in a certain olympic category, and take photos for submission. Sign up by January 22nd, and pictures are due by February 26th. Check out the complete description for more info on how to win a gold, silver, or bronze medal in plush!

Thanks to everyone who entered our Crafty Chica Challenge: Deck The Halls! Here are the lucky winners of the fantastic Crafty Chica products featured above.

Grand Prize Winner

Flickr user, Bleufly, transformed her office cubicle into a winter cabin.

The items used in the project include: two rolls of white duct tape, two pallet size cardboard boxes, two rolls of woodgrain contact paper, 42 ft. of pvc, and batting for the snow. I also stole two of my dogs' toys, a chipmunk (located on the roof) and a bunny.

Runners' Up:

Flickr user, homebodylynn, took inspiration from a favorite wrapping paper she'd saved from a few years ago and created custom holiday bedding.

Flickr user, heartwares, created this fun and festive paper and ribbon wreath.

Flickr user, bethanycr, made this simple and beautiful advent calendar.

We've extended our Crafty Chica Challenge: Deck the Halls where you can enter to win lots of Crafty Chica prizes. You can now enter in any pictures from New Year's decor too!

• The Grand Prize is a Crafty Chica gift basket, an advanced copy of the Crafty Chica's first novel "Waking Up in the Land of Glitter" and a $50 gift certificate to the Maker Shed.
• The Runner-up Prize is a Crafty Chica gift basket as well as a Crafty Chica bobblehead.

To enter this Crafty Chica Challenge, please submit photos of your crafty holiday or New Year's home décor to the Crafty Chica Challenge Flickr Group, and include a description of your project, inspiration, and materials were used in the process. (250 words or less please). For contest rules and more details, visit the Crafty Chica Challenge contest page.

• The Grand Prize is a Crafty Chica gift basket, an advanced copy of the Crafty Chica's first novel "Waking Up in the Land of Glitter" and a $50 gift certificate to the Maker Shed.
• The Runner-up Prize is a Crafty Chica gift basket as well as a Crafty Chica bobblehead.

Special opportunity to be featured on Crafty Chica's blog!
Want to have the mic all to yourself on Crafty Chica's blog? She is inviting guest bloggers to share a holiday project tutorial. All projects submitted to this Crafty Chica Challenge Flickr group before December 20th, will also be considered for this opportunity! If you're interested in this this additional opportunity (in addition to entering to win in the Crafty Chica Challenge) make sure to include your project tutorial in the description field of your project photos!

To enter this Crafty Chica Challenge, please submit photos of your crafty holiday home décor to the Crafty Chica Challenge Flickr Group, and incude a description of your project, inspiration, and materials were used in the process. (250 words or less please). For contest rules and more details, visit the Crafty Chica Challenge contest page.

If you're joining in on the contest, here's the code for the badge to display on your site or blog.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/ccc_deckthehalls/"><img src="http://cdn.makezine.com/make/craft/CZ_CCC-DeckTheHalls_Badge.gif" width="150" height="144" border="0" alt="Crafty Chica Challenge: Deck the Halls" /></a>

The winners for One Yard Wonders from our recent CRAFT book giveaway are Jessica from Fayetteville, AR, Kristin from Seattle, WA, and Jen from San Diego, CA. Congratulations!

Contests and challenges like the current Crafty Chica Deck the Halls Challenge are great ways to stretch your imagination, and push yourself to try something new. When I was thinking of an inspirational project that would capture the Crafty Chica spirit of color and sparkle, I decided to approach a technique that was easy and familiar — stringing garlands — but to challenge myself to think of a more interesting material than the standard popcorn or cranberries.

Gumdrops. Glittery and bright, they bring back holiday memories of making gingerbread houses and playing Candy Land. Little did I know that they would also present the challenge in methods that I was hoping to avoid! I gathered my materials, and started shooting my step by step. The formula was going to be exactly the same as my Fall Flower Garland: cut the paddle wire, string the gumdrops, add the ribbon. But, after stringing 3 gumdrops onto the thin wire, the wire wouldn't pierce the tiny gumdrops without bending. So, I decided to poke a hole in the gumdrops with a needle, but it was too sticky and didn't work. Then I stuck the needle in a cork, so that I could push the needle into the candy. Didn't work. Then I got a long nail, and poked holes in the gumdrops with a long nail and tried to string them, and that still didn't work.

What follows is the tutorial for the process that DOES work. It is a result of being forced into finding solutions, working with unexpected materials, and having a ton of fun doing it. I hope that you will push your boundaries and have similar learning moments, and enter them into the Crafty Chica Deck the Halls Challenge. You most definitely will have a great craft to show for it, and you might even win fabulous glittery Crafty Chica prizes!

After reading all the comments to last week's post about this awesome offer of free tickets to the Metropolitan Opera, I seriously considered calling them up and asking for 55 or so pairs of tickets. But I don't want to shoot my own foot (or the feet of our readers), so we picked two winners to see Hansel and Gretel this Thursday, and hopefully we'll be able to offer more ticket giveaways in the future!

The Comments really exemplified the feelings of the holiday -- people hoped they'd win the tickets for their sisters, their BFFs, their children, and their hubbys. Others were struck by the nostalgia of reading the book as a child or seeing a similar production with their own parents, and hoped to relive the experience.

I wish everyone could have won (including myself), but maybe next time! Congrats to Chloe Hennesy, who's giving the tickets to her sister, Sonja Eklund, and to Carol Brendler, who tells us her husband loves the opera while she loves NYC.

Happy Holidays, lucky winners, and be sure to let us know how the show was!

Congrats to Alicia from Cuyahoga Falls, OH, Lora from Virginia Beach, VA, and Marci from Drayton Valley, AB Canada for each winning a copy of Klutz's Super Simple Sewing from our giveaway! Thanks to everyone who entered.

We're giving away two sets of tickets for the Thursday, Dec. 17th showing of Hansel and Gretel at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City at 7 p.m.!

Our readers living in the New York area, or visiting there for the holidays, are invited to leave a comment below and we'll randomly pick two winners this Friday at noon. Hansel and Gretel is part of the Met Opera's annual series of English-language holiday presentations for families. This production is a "fanciful vision of the beloved fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm," composed by Engelbert Humperdinck. The costumes and sets look amazing, with giant, over-sized tables. a band of pig-faced chefs, and men dressed as trees.

Happy Holidays! To enter, just leave a comment in this post and tell us why you need these tickets. Please make sure you include your email address in the comment form field (won't be published). All comments will be closed by Noon PST on Friday, Dec. 11th. The lucky winners will be announced next week on the site. Good luck!

Here's what you'll win:

• Signed Copy of Seams To Me
• Four Anna Maria Sewing patterns
• Sample cuts of all of Anna Maria's new lines, including Little Folks & Folksy Flannels
• Pair of blank AM journals + boxed notecards
• Anna Maria Horner Apron & towel set

Find out more about Anna Maria Horner in this month's Crafter profile by Rachel Hobson.

• The Grand Prize is a Crafty Chica gift basket, an advanced copy of the Crafty Chica's first novel "Waking Up in the Land of Glitter" and a $50 gift certificate to the Maker Shed.
• The Runner-up Prize is a Crafty Chica gift basket as well as a Crafty Chica bobblehead.

Special opportunity to be featured on Crafty Chica's blog!
Want to have the mic all to yourself on Crafty Chica's blog? She is inviting guest bloggers to share a holiday project tutorial. All projects submitted to this Crafty Chica Challenge Flickr group before December 20th, will also be considered for this opportunity! If you're interested in this this additional opportunity (in addition to entering to win in the Crafty Chica Challenge) make sure to include your project tutorial in the description field of your project photos!

To enter this Crafty Chica Challenge, please submit photos of your crafty holiday home décor to the Crafty Chica Challenge Flickr Group, and incude a description of your project, inspiration, and materials were used in the process. (250 words or less please). For contest rules and more details, visit the Crafty Chica Challenge contest page.

If you're joining in on the contest, here's the code for the badge to display on your site or blog.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/ccc_deckthehalls/"><img src="http://cdn.makezine.com/make/craft/CZ_CCC-DeckTheHalls_Badge.gif" width="150" height="144" border="0" alt="Crafty Chica Challenge: Deck the Halls" /></a>

• Crafty Chica Charm Necklace
• Crafty Chica Little Chica Paint Pack
• Crafty Chica Reusable Stencil
• Crafty Chica Iron-On Flocked Transfer Skull
• Crafty Chica Market Tote
• Crafty Chica Iron-On Appliqué Chihuahua
• Crafty Chica PaintWriters
• Crafty Chica Glitter
• You'll also get one of Kathy's new handmade scarves! (pictured above)

Just sign up for the CRAFT Newsletter to be eligible to win. If you are already subscribed, you're already entered! We'll let this one run all weekend so entries will close at 9am PST on Monday, Dec 7th. Good luck!

Also, the winner of the Yudu from Tuesday's giveaway is Diana from San Jose, CA. Congrats!