Friday, December 26, 2014

Boxing Day Sale Until Jan 1st Save Extra 35% Off Sale Prices!

Check out our Happy Boxing Day and Save an Extra 35% Off Sale Prices Until 12 Midnight Jan 1st!  Valid on all items (including digital) in our craftyvintagegirl.com store except our Sale Packs.


 I just came across this Christmas Riddle Game I posted back in 2010 and it has been so popular I wanted to re-post it for anyone going to a party over the holidays. I was given a copy over 10 years ago and I'm not sure of the author but have included the answers below and tried to fix some of the graphics that were damaged.  Divide into teams or make a copy for each person and see who can guess the most Christmas Carols and set a timer.

 Here are the answers

 Be Joyous for Merry Christmas is Here card by Darlene Pavlick using our Vintage Santa Set, sentiment is from Deer Christmas Set, paper and ticket are from our Vintage Christmas CD 
which is on sale for $10.37 until Jan 1st at midnight. 


Also, another sweet card by DT Leader Kathy Clement using an image from the Deer Christmas Digital set as well.

I was born on New Years day 1958 so to celebrate my birthday I decided to have our sale last until 12 midnight Jan 1st.

Hope you had a great Christmas and Many Wishes for a Fabulous 2015!


Sandy Redburn
Owner

Crafty Secrets

Visit Our Online Store
www.craftyvintagegirl.com   


Toll Free Ph or Fx 1-888 597-8898
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Blaine, WA 98230

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Christmas House Tour, Cool Ideas, Links and Samples

Hi Everyone, I have a bunch of fun things to share today including a little Christmas tour of my house, crafty ideas I'm doing, funny letters to Santa, the best letter ever by a mom with truth about Santa, wonderful new samples by our talented DT Ladies and Sale News!

 This is one of my fave Christmas decorations, our nativity set we bought over 30 years ago on a trip to Mexico.

 These aren't Christmas but I wanted to show you the darling fairies my dear friend Debi use to make from Fimo with little outfits and hair.

We often look for some trinket to remind us of our vacation and or buy ornaments to mark milestones so the tree is full of memories and fun to decorate each year.


 View from my dinning room so you don't see the treadmill, bouncy ball or junk I need to put away.   I struggle with too much stuff.


 This looked way more 'Christmasey' when I took the photo but the snowflake lights don't show up and you can see the stuffed Rudolph head better below. Pretty ornaments can get buried on the tree so I hung some from the kitchen light. 


I bought Rudolph at a craft fair over 20 years ago and I need to go in the backyard and find him some new antlers. I still love him and think they would be a great seller with the 'deer craze' if you could make a pattern. UPDATE:  I love Google - it can find almost anything and I thought I would type in Deer Head Pattern and look I found a FREE one from charmingdoodle.com and she has a tutorial! She did two and they have fabric antlers but you could modify it if you wanted to use branches. The original branches looked so much better.


 My husband is a sucker for buying ornaments when they go on sale and I didn't know what to do with these because they are so big. I hung them over the sink but I need to re-do my valance with good velcro as the dollar store stuff is junk. You can also make these with glue and different size balls. Do you like my piggy pic from the late 1800's?  I was going to scan it and sell prints as they are so cute.


 I like this Ikea star light which also shines through the window over our door. It's hard to beat Ikea for unique  inexpensive lighting. That's my niece Arissa who comes weekdays while my brother is at work. She's a great helper and super crafty.

 I came across these hilarious letters kids have written to Santa and had to share the link.  I also heard a great tip on the radio to not make all your most awesome presents for kids from Santa because other less fortunate children may wonder why they get such a little gift from Santa when the other kids at school get 3 or 4 amazing presents.


 If you still have little children around the house I thought this idea to make Santa footprints with a wet boot dipped in flour would be fun. 


Okay, this is the best explanation I've ever read on the truth about Santa Claus letter written by a mom to her daughter who asked for the truth. I wish I had explained it like this when my kids found out!

 The whoot.com, an Aussie site has some fantastic ideas for hand and thumbprint art (not all Christmas) but all really great for creating some special family keepsakes. I'm making one of these with my niece and nephew today.


I love these ice candles by Oh My Creative and have fresh cranberries and the greenery to make some but it's so warm right now they will melt real fast. I'm going to do some and hope it gets colder in the next couple of days or save them for our new years party.

  
I thought this recipe sounded yummy - Cranberry and Rosemary Christmas Sangria and it looks so festive I'm going to make a pitcher for New Years. 


 Look how cute this card turned out that DT Leader Kathy Clement made with our Deer Christmas Digital Stamp Set


 I decided to include the PNG files I colored for my Christmas Card Tutorial in with the stamp set. If you bought our Deer Christmas set you can log back in and get the colored postcard and mouse. I'm also going to try and look up the emails of the people who ordered it and send them.


 I love seeing the ideas the DT ladies come up with using our new sets and Darlene Pavlick has been busy making a bunch of cool cards like this one using our Deer Christmas Set. I posted some in our store when you scroll down under each set.


 DT Member Melody Clement created this lovely Christmas card using our Vintage Santa Digital Set and popped up Santa for dimension.

I like this idea DT Member Shantaie Fowler used reverse embossing with white embossing powder to create faux snow on her wreath card. The wreath is from the Deer Christmas Set and if you shrink it the 'deer mouse' can also hold it.


DT Member Diane Hoover created this pretty Christmas card using theDeer Christmas Set as well. Love how she did the holly.

 If you like you can read the list I posted last year of Festive Healthy Holiday Treat Ideas.

Wishing you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas! Come back for our Big Boxing Day SALE starting 12 midnight Christmas Day until Jan 1 at 12 midnight and save up to 35% off sale price stock!
 
Sandy Redburn
Crafty Secrets

Visit Our CraftyVintageGirl.com  Store
Join Us on Facebook!


This Blog: http://heartwarmingvintage.blogspot.com
Our Website: http://www.craftysecrets.com
Toll Free Phone or Fax 1-888 597-8898
Local Phone 604 597-8817


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


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

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Christmas Inspiration from the Design Team

Hello, Friends!

It's Kathy here, and I'm just popping in to share some great last minute Christmas inspiration from the design team.  We've been busy creating with two beautiful new digital art stamp sets from Sandy's workshop: Christmas Tree and Deer Christmas.

The Christmas tree set is huge!  There are 39 black and white images in this set along with 29 colorized images.  One of my favorites is the delightfully rustic tree and truck image that DT member Darlene Pavlick worked up into this vintage beauty:

I love the inking she's added around the edges, and the way she colored the images.  The Christmas tree in the bed of the truck is soooo pretty!

Diane Hover created this fun card with Santa on the telephone (calling to check on his parcel delivery, maybe?) using our Vintage Santa Digital Stamps.  I love the pops of red she added to her coloring and the great paper she selected from our Retro Christmas CD.





Diane also had fun creating a window card with the festive wreath in the Deer Christmas Stamps.




 I used this same wreath along with the adorable dancing mice.  When Sandy and I were previewing this stamp set, I fell in love with her adorable "deer mouse."  I asked her to make another one, wearing a tutu, and I was thrilled to find the concept in the final set.  I think you will agree, these are the cutest "mousies" ever!


I added lots of sparkle to their fabulous antler "tiaras."  Don't you just love them?

I'm sure you've noticed the popularity of botanical themes this Christmas season, especially those that use deer.  Look at this chic black and white Christmas card that Dar created with Deer Christmas:



I love the way she's combined the postcards, deer silhouettes and deer in the woods on this card.  All these wonderful images are part of the Deer Christmas set! Black and white is also a big trend in Christmas decor this year.

Everyone needs thank you notes after the holidays, and Darlene's design would be great to use for those, or as a masculine winter birthday card.  So many of the images on Deer Christmas can be carried over right into the winter season, which is always nice! Simply change the red accents to another color, and you have an almost instant card.  The sentiment medallion is also part of this wonderful stamp set.


So, how about you?  Do you have all your Christmas cards sent and all your preparations done?  Not me!  I've been so busy tying up loose ends with design team work, and planning fun events for the 2015 Linky Parties that I still have TONS of prep to do.  The shopping is done, and I've made a good start on decorating...but no baking...and we won't even talk about cleaning!  Yikes!  I'll share a photo with you of my little botanical Christmas tree.  We went to a smaller table top tree this year, and while I was worried that I wouldn't like it, I have to say, this is one of my all time favorite trees!



Here's hoping your Christmas and Hanukkah are filled with joy and creativity!

Cheerio,
kathy, Design Team Leader, Crafty Secrets



Monday, December 15, 2014

Christmas 2014 Free Printable, My Cards Tutorial, Dec Linky Winner and More!

Hi Everyone,  I have some fabulous things to share today like our Free Christmas Printable for 2014, my Christmas Cards Tutorial,the Dec Linky Party Winner and other samples!  Congratulations to Gail Scott who was lucky #5 and won our Crafty Secrets December Linky Party!

For several years we've posted free printable images with each season as a thank you gift for our supporters and I thought these adorable kids would be a hit this year. You can see past printables here. Left click the image until it becomes as large as possible and then right click to save it to a picture file.  Please Note our vintage images under go several changes, are copyrighted by us and are no longer in public domain. For personal use only please. 

 
 Gail won a $40.00 Gift Certificate plus free shipping and everyone else will receive their choice of 1 of these 3 Digital Stamp Sets - Bedtime Kids,   Deer Christmas  or  Christmas Tree.  Thanks to everyone who entered, there were some great samples!


I stopped designing to get crafty and make a couple of Christmas cards and a hanging postcard using our new digital Christmas Sets. My Tutorial shows 2 easy ways to change black digital PNG stamps to any color using Photoshop Elements or the free Paint programs. Once printed, I treated them just like regular stamped images, adding paper, embellishments and a little chalk to color the truck and mouse cards.  
Note: On my previous post I showed how to invert a black PNG stamp and make it snowy white and I also used the Gradient Tool to add color but I think this method is a faster way to change color.

I will show you how to add color using Photoshop Elements first, then how to using Paint or Paint.net. I have PSE 10 - (Photoshop Elements 10) but this method works with any PSE version. You can find the 2014 PSE version #13 for $59.00 on amazon.com and Costco has it, or I also saw a new version #11 for $44.99 with free shipping on amazon. If you want a free program, the 'Paint' program is pre-installed on many PC's or you can download Paint.net from www.getpaint.net and it's is excellent for the zero price tag!  Mac and PC users can also download Gimp.

Step 1 - Using Photoshop Elements  open the PNG Black stamp (jpgs won't work) and click on the Edit Tab on the top, then 'Fill Layer'. A box will pop up and you just check the 'Preserve Transparency' Box and click on the 'Color' button and a a box will open with a slide you can adjust to pick a color. Simply move your mouse over the color area to change the hue. Once you say okay, your stamp will become whichever color you picked.  I used the truck and tree stamp from the Christmas Tree Digital Set.


Step 2 Optional - You can add other colors digitally using the lasso tool - but I'm a dummy and forgot how, so I cheated and just used the Paint Bucket Tool to color the tree, ornaments, red lettering and tiny green designs. Just click on colors in the palette and really zoom in to click right on any tiny lines or areas to change the color. If you miss and click outside the line or where it's all joined it will fill in too much color but just go under the Edit tab and click 'Un-do Paint Bucket' to step back.

It's a bit tedious but I love that I never wreck a project (like past blotched ink stamping I'm guilty of). I can always click undo and when I'm happy I can print multiple copies and just add a bit of color, paper piecing an embellishments!

  
Step 3  Save your color image with a new name and print it on your fave medium. I printed on white card stock and a buff color for the postcard.  You can easily change all the digital stamps in a set to various colors and save the original black set. They cost less than buying regular stamps and you don't need so many color ink pads!

Tip: If you have an inkjet printer and and want to use Copics or other pens to add more color and are worried about the ink running you can use a heat tool or hair dryer to make sure your printed image is bone dry before coloring it.

After printing the truck, I used chalks with a Dove Blender Pen to color part of the truck, tires and  windows. I also added Glossy Accents to the windows, Faux Snow, Copper and Green Stickles, ribbon and a tiny piece off a green garland to my bow. Red Polka Dot Paper is from our Radiant Papers and Brown Paisley is from Earthy Papers.


This 'deer mouse' was fun to do and is from our Deer Christmas Digital Stamp Set. I changed her to brown and used the Paint Bucket Tool to change Happy Holidays to red. I printed her on white card stock and colored her and the background with chalks using a Dove Blender Pen for small areas and a make up sponge on the background. Added Copper and Green Stickles, piece of a white lace doilie, scrap of embossed red paper. Pattern paper is from our Radiant Collection. Red ribbon, twigs, piece of green garland.


Step 1 Using Paint or Paint.net to change Black to Color can be done by using the Paint Bucket in Photoshop Elements, the Paint Program or other similar editing programs.  I have a previous tutorial here showing how  as well as coloring words in different shades - so I decided to show a sample with a mix of colors and shades for fun instead of the plain red lettering.


 This is the postcard I made using the design from our Deer Christmas Digital Stamp Set and it was  easy as the design is pre-done. I just changed the the postcard from black to brown and used the bucket tool to make a few parts red. I also cropped the Happy Holidays lettering from a sign, changed it to red and pasted it on the postcard. I printed the card on buff card stock,  cropped the little deer stamp and printed it on white card stock to add with pop dots.


You can see below that distressed or broken lines take a bit longer to color as you have to click on each separate piece. I embellished with Copper and Green Stickles, Faux Snow, distressed and inked the edges and added 2 eyelet stickers from our Hardware Sticker Sheet over the punched holes and gold elastic to hang it. It could hang over a bottle of wine, on a gift, a tree or wreath.  
TIP: I used my lemon zester to distress the edges!


Now I have some cool DT samples like this Christmas Silhouette card by DT Member Darlene Pavlick using our Deer Christmas Digital Stamp Set. It looks so striking in black with the red contrast. You can see details on Darlene's Blog.


DT Member Melody Clement created this wonderful Christmas Toast card using our Vintage Santa Stamp Set and paper and images from CD 6  Creating With Vintage Christmas.


Look at this cute purse style gift bag by DT Member Diane Hoover using printable rose paper from our Radiant Paper Pad. Diane has more photos and details on her Blog. I also love the side view.


Lastly after all that talk about our Deer Christmas and Santa Stamps I have to share a photo of a little Christmas Deer and Santa Devil Dog who stayed with us Saturday night. Otis use to be our family dog but our youngest daughter Chelsea and her husband Anthony kidnapped him. He's almost 15 years old, blind and diabetic but he's still going strong thanks to their care. Now the devil dog Fred belongs to our middle daughter Holly and he howls so much when she leaves he has to wear a citronella collar. They both stayed over Sat night so it was dress up time Sunday morning!


Wishing you joy and creativity
Sandy Redburn
Crafty Secrets

Visit Our CraftyVintageGirl.com  Store
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This Blog:
http://heartwarmingvintage.blogspot.com
Our Website: http://www.craftysecrets.com
Toll Free Phone or Fax 1-888 597-8898
Local Phone 604 597-8817

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

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

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Fun Tutorial Using Deer Christmas and Christmas Tree Digital Sets, Plus...

Hi Everyone.  our last Digital Christmas Stamp Sets are in store now and I've done a little tutorial below showing some easy ways you can change black stamps to white for the holidays - or change them to full color.

If you missed our Dec Linky Party and DT Challenge there are some amazing samples and Tutorials - and you have until Monday, Dec to enter the Linky Party and you can receive either of these new Deer Christmas  or Christmas Tree sets or our Bedtime Kids Digital Set - just for joining in!  This is a great offer and the rules will change Jan 2016. 


I'm  going to enter this card  here for Marion from the UK who doesn't have a blog to post it on. Some people link to a gallery site like Splitcoast Stampers. If anyone else wants to enter a sample and they don't have anywhere to post it - you can email it to me (craftysecrets@telus.net )and I will add it. Marion used birds and printable papers from CD #6 Vintage Christmas on this pretty card. I adore the way she cut the birds across the front of her card.
What is it with Deers being so popular? I also love them and have been collection images from old books for several years. Now we've cut them all apart and made them uniquely ours and I'm loving this set!  The samples on the red texture paper below are from the Deer Christmas Set but have been inverted so they look like snow on the red.

I know I've shown you how to invert a black stamp before but I will also show how to color it below.
I really love the white inverted 'snowy look' for the holidays! I used Photoshop Elements but Paint.net is free and safe to download from the link and it has an invert button.


This method works best on designs that are bold and have enough black that will become white when inverted.

Then when I was playing around I found I could change my black stamps to color by playing with the Gradient Button which is just above the 'Invert Button' in Photoshop Elements.  I've tossed out so many dried up color ink pads over the years I love that I can change color this easily!
UPDATE: This method works fine but I also I did a better tutorial on coloring stamps with 3 finished samples here on Dec 15/14 and posted our Free 2014 Christmas Printable.


Adobe Photoshop has tutorials and I copied their explanation of the Gradient Map Filter


Here are are all our Deer Stamps with the sizes.  It all started with the little Deer Family Set in the 3rd row and morphed into 2 Sets. It's too hard to pick a fave from this set but I love the mice with the little antler hat, the Postal items and Peace designs.


Then our Christmas Tree Digital set grew as Cindy my graphic designer scanned a lid off some little vintage ornaments she has and started coloring them so the color and black/white designs are included.  The chalkboard paper below has a mix of inverted stamp samples from this set and I also added some of the color ornaments.


 I am in love with the way the old truck with the tree turned out. I was inspired by this cute truck past DT Member Vicki Chrisman bought at a craft show we sold at last year.


Here is a map of all the stamps in this set with the sizes at 300 dpi/ppi.  Some of the tree ornaments are only between 1 to 1.5" but they work great on the trees and garland.



 I love the large size photo holders included in this set like the tree and this window. A decorated tree would also look awesome behind the window.
I wanted to show you the green color garland included and how you can add the ornaments to it

Our Design Team just received the new stamp sets and I will post samples ASAP but I have some other great samples to share.

DT Leader Kathy Clement created this pretty Christmas card - her first digital collage card after learning how to add a PNG of the birds to a background (a PNG file means the birds are all cut out and transparent). She still uses all sorts of 3D embellishments and techniques after she prints images and used CD 6 Creating With Vintage Christmas on this card.


DT Member Michele Kovack designed this cute Christmas card using our Christmas Mail Digital Stamp Set with Spellbinders dies and colored with her Copic Markers.
.

DT Member Melody Clement made this sweet snow kids card and I love the matching inside she made using a sticker from our Heavenly Christmas set with similar artwork by Nister


 I also wanted to show you this fun retro Christmas Bingo Banner by Vicki Chrisman she made using images and paper from our Retro Christmas CD. She is teaching a class to make it in Nebraska!


 Lastly, look this pretty butterfly card by DT Member Sheila Rumney she made using our Altered Fairy Scraps

Don't forget to be brave and submit and sample you have created using our product(s) in our December Linky Party and you can pick on of the 3 Digital Stamp Sets I showed at the beginning of this post.

Wishing you joy and creativity
Sandy Redburn
Crafty Secrets

Visit Our CraftyVintageGirl.com  Store
Join Us on Facebook!

This Blog:
http://heartwarmingvintage.blogspot.com
Our Website: http://www.craftysecrets.com
Toll Free Phone or Fax 1-888 597-8898
Local Phone 604 597-8817

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


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