Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Here's a Really Fun Album and Calendar Ideas!

With October being Breast Cancer Awareness month I thought I would show you a really fun album! Just when you thought that you had seen it all, along comes a scrapbook bra! This bra was modeled at a CHA fashion show a couple years ago to raise money for hurricane Katrina victims. The fashion show had a French theme and when they asked for something outrageous and fun for the finale, Vicki Chrisman from our design team went to work using our Wonderful Women Stickers and Girlfriends Cotton Scraps and 2 empty ribbon spools. When the model got to the end of the runway she pulled on the Velcro tabs and let her pages come tumbling down!

One of my biggest disappointments was after taking a full roll of film at the San Diego Scrapbook Expo Show to win an exhibitor 'best show album' contest, but the instamatic camera they gave me was faulty and NONE of the photos turned out of ALL MEN WEARING THIS PINK SPOOLIE ALBUM BRA! I was so sad! They all ‘posed’ to get a free sheet of stickers (encouraged by their wife’s and girlfriends of course). My volunteers included retired pensioners, young fathers, a Hells Angel model, I even had Dave (the announcer at Scrapbook Expo) lay across the table wearing that bra! You can only imagine my disappointment! I planned on scrapbooking them in a Spoolie Bra Album. Gee… I so wish I had even 1 photo - the guy in the Hells Angels leather jacket wearing the 40D pink spoolie bra, it would be…priceless!

Spoolie albums are made from empty ribbon spools and after Vicki came up with the idea (at 1 AM and bored) we featured 9 of her Spoolie Album projects in our book called Get Round! You can see a sample on the right side of the book cover. The Get Round Book ($5.75) also includes a CD calendar project which was created from 6 old AOL Cd's. The other book in this series Get Creative has a calendar project that uses a plastic CD case easel style.

This is the time of year that everyone starts thinking of calendars, so don't forget you can download the FREE pages from our Crafty Secrets website. We update it every year so you don’t have to throw your calendar away. You can simply print the 12 months on 1 sheet of light colored paper or cardstock, cut your months out and glue over the previous year or create a new calendar project!

Here is the link to our 2009 calendar page as shown below.

Here is the link to our Blank Month Template that you can stamp or write numbers in

I love this calendar that Linda Duke (a past design team member) created using our Calendar Stamp set! She used a Stampin Up Calendar template plus all sorts of images from our Seasonal Booklet, Cotton Scraps and a mix of stamps. Cindy, our graphic designer designed a vintage style blank template you can stamp or write numbers on and it's free on the link above.

Wow - look at her December! You can also see Sept and October HERE on Linda's blog and get all the details and the supplies she used.

Our Seasonal Booklet is the most popular product people use to decorate their calendar months with because it covers the entire year. It has over 90 different vintage images starting with the seasons and ending with 16 great Christmas images!

I also really like this handy little purse size calendar cover that Lisa Zappa created using an image from our Vintage Seasonal Booklet and some paper from our Earthy Paper Pad.

Remember those old advertising calendars that businesses use to give out with the tiny calendars? To make a card in July, I cut the last 6 months from our 2008 calendar page, inked the edges, stapled them and used a hi-lighter to mark my friend birthday. The paper is from our Classic Paper Pad and the image is from our Childhood Image & Journal Notes Booklet. I got a little carried away with my Sakura Clear Gelly Roll Pen!

I adore this fridge magnet dress calendar that DT member Pam Hooten created using one of our Sweetchips Little Girl Outfits that she covered with paper from our Radiant Paper Pad and added a mini calendar she had and a magnet. If you missed her Girlfriends Pink calendar from our last design team challenge you have to see it HERE on her blog!

We also have a perpetual calendar in our Classic Paper Pad that includes all the tiny months and it works from 1864 to 2064, so you can look up the day your great grandparents were born on or see what day your 100th birthday will fall on! Vicki used a piece of that perpetual calendar page here on this sweet little ATC created

I hope you enjoyed all these fun little samples.

Wishing you joy & creativity!

Sandy Redburn

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Monday, October 27, 2008

Yippee - News Stamps are Here and More!

I'm so excited that our new stamp sets have arrived! SM 21 Snow Bunnies and SM 22 Christmas Joy are shipping to stores and will be available online here on Shopatron (on pg 10) NOW! I just came back and changed this as I had the date wrong. No one has had a chance to make anything with Christmas Joy yet as it just arrived today, but here are two adorable cards created with the Snow Bunnies stamps!

The chalk colors and combo of papers Vicki used on this card make it so fresh and fun. She just emailed it to me tonight and I wanted to show it but I’m sure she will post the details and supplies on her blog. I can see she used her trusty tracing wheel to distress some edges and I love the glitter!

I love the way Marisa from our DT created a scene on this card below using 2 of the bunny stamps! She also stamped the snowflake over her 'cloudy sky'. I asked her how she does those cool clouds. She said: “I just cut a scallop oval from cardstock (or transparency) and use a sponge (household sponge that I cut up into pieces). I start from the bottom of the sky and work my way up sponging from lighter to darker blue shades of ink."

I also wanted to announce the new winner for our Free Double Girlfriend Give Away Pak. This time I asked my husband to pick a number and he picked his hockey jersey # 8, so the prize goes to: Juliana who said: I would definitely choose my friend, Shelly. She is a sucker for vintage stuff and I would LOVE to see what she would do with it!!!

Pammy over at Splitcoast Stamps was hosting the last challenge to use any of our products in a ‘Black & Orange Combination’. Here is a an adorable Halloween ornament she created using an image from our Vintage Halloween Cuts. You can click on the Gallery here to see some of the other samples.

Plus here is a link to the new challenge that Joanne from the UK is hosting here.

I thought I would mention to anyone that owns a set of our Support the Girls stamps, that Splitcost Stampers is doing a ‘Cards for a Cause’ challenge to encourage people to create cards for an organization called Chemo Angels. It’s such a sweet idea and you can read more about it here

Heidi from our DT taught a Halloween class last week at Scrapping on the Go, a new store on 1428 W. Main St in Albert Lea MN. The owner Tammy and the ladies who took part all had a great time creating some fun cards and a Tussie Mussie Halloween cone. You can see more here on Heidi's blog.

In Case You Missed the link to the Free Vintage Roses & Poem Link here it is again

Plus you can see some great Girlfriend samples our design team created in the same post!

Lastly, I have to share a couple of photos that my 21 year old daughter Chelsea took today of our dog Otis. He is almost 8 years old but is still like the baby in our family. Here he is having breakfast. I guess he was trying to beg for some shredded wheat, so she sat him at the table.

He usually loves to sleep on his back with all 4 feet in the air. Here he is after breakfast all tucked in for a cozy nap.

Wishing you all a wonderful day!

Sandy Redburn

Our Online Store Locator
Our Shopatron Store

Crafty Secrets
Toll Free Phone or Fax 1-888 597-8898
Local Phone 604 597-8817

Head Office
15430 78 A Ave., Surrey, BC V3S 8R4

USA Warehouse
250 H. St., #436, Blaine, WA 98230

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Free Printable Vintage Roses Image & Poem!

Here is the beautiful free vintage rose printable I promised you!

UPDATE March 2015 I've reposted this as the link was from 2008 and broken. It’s from one of my favorite old embossed cards I have from the late 1800’s. I had our graphic artist Cindy add the sweet little poem so they would match. It has amazing detail! Watch for more of these beautiful floral images coming to our online store this Spring!

To save the large image, just click the right side of your mouse until it's as large as possible (it's big) and save it to a picture file or on your desktop. You can open and print it later on paper or cardstock. Almost any picture program will let you print images smaller or larger in size, depending on what you wish to create. These would look stunning on cardstock, attached and hanging with pink or blue satin ribbon.

Here's a link to our other free printable images! Our Free Printable are for personal use only please as a thank you gift for your support.

Wishing you joy and creativity!
Sandy Redburn
Owner

Crafty Secrets
www.craftysecrets.com
Visit our craftyvintagegirl.com storehttp://heartwarmingvintage.blogspot.com/

Contact us: Toll Free Ph or Fax 1-888 597-8898
Local Ph or Fax 604 597-8817
Crafty Secrets Head Office
15430 78 A Ave., Surrey, BC V3S 8R4

USA Warehouse
250 H. St., #436, Blaine, WA 98230

Monday, October 20, 2008

Hello Girlfriends! Samples, Printables, Prize & Shows!

Hello Girlfriends!

* Please Note: I posted this a couple of days ago but the link to the free printable wasn't working, so now that it's finally fixed I'm letting the newsletter go out to subscribers.

This big pink inspired post includes:

* Links to FANTASTIC Samples by Our Talented Design Team and Others!
* A Free Printable Vintage Image and Poem
* A Chance to WIN a Girlfriends Prize Pack for You and a Friend!
* Upcoming Consumer Shows I want to Invite YOU to Come See Us At!!!

I will warn you – this is long winded (I got carried away) and took ages to put it together but it’s worth it! I had dreams of having this ready by early afternoon, then Nicole was off sick, our hot water tank died and I forgot I had to take my van in to be fixed after the plumber left today…Geeeezzz, I hate it when time gobbling life gets in the way!

I posted the winners to the Childrens and Christmas Give-Aways yesterday HERE in case you missed it! Winners were: Denise and The Squared One

In honor of October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month and to celebrate our new Support the Girls Clear Art Stamp set, of which we donate $1.00 from each set to help woman afflicted, our design team has created some fabulous samples to celebrate the joys and priceless value of friendship, girlfriends and the ‘sisterhood’ we share as women!

I’m also going to donate a small portion of sales this month from all of our girlfriend theme products in our Booklets, Stickers, Cotton Scraps and Glamour Girl Clear Art stamps to one or more women’s charities. I’m currently reviewing my favorites and will announce next month. I also sponsor a little boy in Africa and a girl in Argentina (more details another time) and I love kids – but this time it needs to be for women helping women – who in turn help their children!

So for all you ladies that already own or plan to purchase any of our girlfriend/women’s theme products and you are WONDERING WHAT to CREATE??? – Here are some Super ideas from our Design Team!

Vicki Chrisman (This Art That makes Me Happy)
Come see all these great cards Vicki created!

Anna Wight (Sweet Miss Daisy)
Anna is the ‘Queen of Coloring’ as you will see here!

Heidi Blankenship (Embellished Dreams)

Check out this adorable gift set for a girlfriend!

Marisa Grossman (Marisa-isa)
This card Marisa created is super FUN!

Pam Hooten (Iris Garden)

A fantastic project with a link to our Printable Calendar

Vivian Peters (Vivlyn Design)
Look at the colors and sweet embellishments used here!

Lisa Zappa (Shabbychick Junk)
Lisa couldn't participate in this challenge but she has created so many girlfriend theme projects and she is a breast cancer survivor! She's busy teaching this weekend at a big Crop for a Cure here and see this cool sample!

Here are even more samples to inspire you!
These samples below are all in our Online Gallery (with more details and supplies) if you use the 'Search Box' and type in words like Support, Girlfriends, or Woman

This mini album that Vicki created is so popular at every show. It’s made from 2 of our long rectangle chipboard album pieces that she cut in half and decorated with images and journal spots from our "Summertime" Image and Journal Booklet. Stickers are from the "Wonderful Women" sticker sheet. You can see more inside pages and get the details HERE.

Marisa embellished this wonderful journal using paper from our Radiant paper Pad, Support the Girls and our Artsy Alphabet Clear Art Stamps.

I love the way Anna did this random stitching and colored the bra and garter belt on this card and popped them up! Stamps from Support the Girls Clear Art Stamp Set.

Lisa's card is so eye catching here with the pink & green paper and ink combo she used to stamp the background words and add the lady on top with the ribbon and flowers ties it all together.

Pammy-Jo's card has great contrast and I love how she stamped and cut out the bra and sentiment and did her bottom scallop with the ribbons, button and pearls! Support the Girls Stamps and Radiant Paper Pad used.

Betty (alphabetty) posted this adorable album she embellished using our Wonderful Woman Stickers. I really like the way she did the lacing on the side and fed paper 'ribbon' through both our garter stickers. Our graphic designer, Cindy, used actual garters from her aunties old corset and these stickers are die cut on cardstock - so you can feed real ribbon through them!

I've shown this card by Linda Duke (past DT member) before but it totally shows off the legs and sentiment from our Girlfriends Homespun Cotton Scraps, the cute Wonderful Women garter stickers, one of the retro ladies from our Coffee & Tea Stamps, plus the pink & black paper from our Radiant Paper Pad!

Here is the free printable I promised you! It’s from one of my favorite old cards I have from the late 1800’s. I had our graphic artist Cindy add this sweet little poem so they would match.

Click this: LINK to our Free Vintage Image & Poem. The small image below will not pop up larger so we had this link added to download it from our website.

You do need Adobe Reader to open up PDF files but it’s free and you can download it here.

After clicking the link to the large image, just click the right side of your mouse and save it to a picture file or on your desktop. You can open and print it later on paper or cardstock. Almost any picture program will let you print images smaller or larger in size, depending on what you wish to create. These would look stunning on cardstock, attached and hanging with pink or blue satin ribbon. CLICK LINK HERE To Printable Image & Poem

Here is a photo of the Girlfriends Gift Prize Package that I will draw a random winner for and announce next Monday! I already gave one of these double sets away last month, but I know there are more of you that would love to win this blog candy for you and a friend! To enter, simply leave a comment HERE on this blog and tell me what friend you would choose. Please don’t forget I need to be able to contact you, so register with Google or leave your email!

Upcoming Shows!

Oct 24-25/08 Scrapbook Expo Show, Ontario, CA

Don’t miss Judy from Scrapyard 329, who will be at this show selling our products. Go find her booth early has she will have limited stock. This is one of the biggest shows that Scrapbook Expo hosts!

Nov 7 & 8/08 BC Creative Expo, Vancouver, BC, Canada!
Yippee - This is a local show for us, so I will be bringing everything – except the kitchen sink! Sorry, no classes this year but we will still have TONS of samples, wonderful make-n-takes and inspiring demonstrations by myself on Friday and by our talented DT member Marisa on Saturday! Of course I will post more info soon but you can get the show details here: at BC Creative Expo.

Nov 14 & 15/08 Creating Keepsakes Show Bellevue, WA
If you live in the area I hope you will come see us at this show! It’s one of my favorite shows to do every year and I just got word today that our head sample designer Vicki Chrisman can come to the show and run our demo table! Come discover Vicki’s secrets to adding vintage charm to your cards, scrapbook layouts and keepsakes!

Here are some photos from our booth at past shows we attended

Whew! I think I'm finally done! Don't forget to enter HERE for the Girlfriends prize Package! and tell me what friend you would pick

To find our products, please visit our Online Store Locator HERE

The Online Shopatron Store is HERE

Wishing you joy & creativity!

Sandy Redburn

Owner

Crafty Secrets
Home of the Heartwarming Vintage Collection
http://www.craftysecrets.com
http://www.clearartstamps.com
http://heartwarmingvintage.blogspot.com

Toll Free Phone or Fax 1-888 597-8898

Head Office
15430 78 A Ave., Surrey, BC V3S 8R4

USA Warehouse
250 H. St., #436, Blaine, WA 98230

Scrapbooking, Stamping & Paper Arts!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

We Have 2 Winners!

Hi, this is a quick post to annouce the two winners of the Childhood and the Christmas theme prize give-aways. We had 181 entries but for some reason (starting Saturday morning) it was really hard for many people to post and then some posts showed up twice or more. Has anyone ever had this problem and do you think it could be that my photos ate up too much space and caused it???

We had a big family dinner here tonight and I got my daughter Chelsea to pick the winners afterwards.

The Childhood prize package goes to: Denise, who said:

"So love both sets, I think I would go for the childs set A, but it is hard becuz I love Christmas and they are both wonderful....But I would so graciouslyoverwhelmed if I could win choice A"...Denise

The Christmas prize package goes to: The Squared One, who said:

"Wow, gorgeous gorgeous as usual. I would go with Prize B since I have a few things from A group already :)"

Thanks to all of you who entered and for all your wonderful comments!

Watch for a Great Pink Post later today, with another Give Away and more great samples to inspire you from our talented design team, plus a FREE DOWNLOAD!

Sandy Redburn
www.craftysecrets.com
www.clearsrtstamps.com
http://www.heartwarmingvintage.blogspot.com

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Win New Stamps & Prizes, See Great Samples & Get News!

Hi Everyone,

I’m back from vacation and recovered from the flu bug that hit pretty much everyone in our family, but I guess it’s that time of year again. Speaking about colds, I’m announcing 2 FREE GIVEAWAYS today and I want to include some of our Feel Better Stickers in one of the prize packs – so read on!

To WIN 1 of the 2 prize packs all you need to do is post a comment here on our blog and tell me which one you would like to win if you are picked. I will announce the winners this Sunday night Oct 19. Be sure to leave your email or check back to see if you won.

Win Prize A – Children’s Theme Giveaway
1 Birthday Kids Large Clear Art Stamp Set
1 Story of Me Small Clear Art Stamp Set
1 Childhood Vintage Image & Journal Notes Booklet
1 Feel Better Heartwarming Vintage Sticker Sheet
1 Family Homespun Cotton Scraps

Prize B – Christmas Theme Giveaway
1 Snow Bunnies Medium Clear Art Stamp Set
1 Christmas Joy Medium Clear Art Stamp set
1 Christmas Vintage Image & Journal Notes
1 Christmas Memories Sticker Sheet

1 Winter Homespun Cotton Scraps

First, I have to show you some fabulous cards that have been created using our new Birthday Kids Stamps set using some of the 22 separate stamps in the set (included in Prize A pack) .

This is one of the latest cards created by our Design Team member Marisa and it's so layered and has so much WOW factor it made my jaw hit the floor! You can get all the details here on Marisa’s Blog.

I also LOVE these boy and girl card sets that DT member Lisa Zappa created using the same stamp set. You can get the details here on her blog. The colors are bright and cheerful and show just some of the ways you can stamp the different children. The cute kids can hold the party horn, ice cream cone, presents or balloons. The kids from the side can also blow the candles out on the cake and you can stamp any number of candles. You can create birthday cards, invitations, scrapbook pages and party keepsakes.

Plus, look at these adorable pink cards that Shari Morris created for her granddaughter! They are so cute and girly and you can get the ‘how to’ details here on her blog.

If you subscribe to this blog, you already know from the last post that our graphic designer Cindy finished our 2 NEW winter theme stamp sets. See them farther below
The new Snow Bunnies Stamps have shipped to us and will be available to order in 1 week! The Christmas Joy Stamps needed a couple of minor changes and should be here in 2 weeks - BUT I have 1 of each from the proofs to put in Prize Pack B. Both sets turned out super fun and have lots of creative possibilities! Check out this IDEA SHEET below that Cindy put together to show how you can bulid from 1 stamp set:

Here is the Christmas Joy medium Clear Art Stamp set shown in the Idea Sheet above

Here is the Snow Bunnies medium Clear Art Stamp set

I’m also including some Stickers, Cotton Scraps and a booklet in each prize. You can check out these cool Christmas boxes on Vicki blog here decorated here with a Santa image from our Christmas Image & Journal Notes Booklet and using Glimmer Mist!

I also wanted to let you know that Darlene has posted a new challenge for creating background paper over at Spiltcoast. Here is her sample and you can see more samples HERE that other people have created and get all the details HERE if you want to join in! It's fun and free!

Our gallery was acting up and not letting everyone post, but you can see some NEW Halloween inspiration from DT members Vivian Peters HERE on her blog.

Pam Hooten HERE and Lisa Zappa HERE and over 75 more Halloween projects here in our Online Gallery!

Don’t forget to enter this free giveaway by simply posting a comment here on our blog and telling me if you would rather win the Children’s or the Christmas Give Away! Two random winners announced Oct 19th.

In closing, I thought I would share a photo from our vacation so you can see why I caught a cold. We went on a little 4 day cruise from Miami while we were in Florida and we didn’t catch any hurricanes but it rained in the Bahamas – boo-hoo! It was still super fun and relaxing!