Big News Sale, Free New Years Printable and Linky Winner

 UPDATE: Our Crafty Vintage Girl Store is only selling Digital items at this time and currently talking to a couple of possible buyers and will announce the new owner as soon as possible!

 Hi Everyone,  it's me, owner Sandy, and I have some BIG News and a 2016 Free New Years Printable Gift as well as past Christmas Printables you can grab now if you missed them in the past. The Big News is sadly after January 2/16 our online www.craftyvintagegirl.com Store will only sell digital items as all remaining stock will be sent to a buyer(s). I will post details ASAP but if you wish to stock up we have 25% off every item at checkout and FREE Shipping on orders over $25.00!

 

 Now that I've moved it's become too difficult to warehouse stock in the USA when I live in Canada. Plus I will be losing my amazing USA shipper Lyssa who has been an invaluable help!  Lyssa was so  swamped at her new job orders got behind and we apologize - but she's caught up and can fill any new orders placed up till Jan 2/16.

The Digital Store will likely move to Etsy, so I'm very sad to say our fantastic and talented Design Team will be closing down as well.  DT Leader Kathy Clement has worked so hard at running the Blog and she and the DT ladies have created 1,000's of beautiful and inspiring samples over the years!  Kathy recently created this cool layered card using our Vintage Christmas CD . 

 Here's a new sample by DT Member Michele Kovack who has been on the Design Team for so many years she has posted over 370 beautiful Crafty Secrets projects!  Michele used an image from our Retro Christmas Digital Cuts on this sweet ornament. 

Many ladies on the Design Team will also be starting on new and exciting adventures and I'm so immensely grateful to all of them (present and past DT members) and wish each of them the very best!  You can also see photos and links to all their inspiring samples just by scrolling through this Blog over the past years but huge thanks to the current and talented members Sheila Rumney, Diane Hover, Ginny Nemchack , and Shantaie Fowler!

Congratulations to our December Linky Winner Heather who posted a couple of samples including this adorable Christmas treat bag using an image from our Retro Christmas Cuts. Big thanks to all the participants for joining in!

 Here's a NEW 2016 New Years Printable Gift for you. I didn't add the year so it can be used again and even cropped to create a card or tag for any occasion! Just left click to get it as large as possible and right click on it to save. All our Free Printable are for personal use only please.

I'm also posting past Free Christmas Printables below to make it easy to get these if you missed them in the past. I posted this cute postcard in 2014 after repairing it and adding new words. The postcards are great to send by email.

This Christmas postcard was our free gift in 2013

I've always had a soft spot for this adorable Santa card we did as a free gift in 2011

Here's a 3D sample I made and added some snow and glitter.

This fun Christmas Rebus Game has been a hit over the years. Just print copies off and try and guess all the names of the Christmas carols on your own or divided into groups.

 

Here's the answers for the game above. 

We sold our big house after 21 years, moved my mum into a wonderful apartment by the beach and we bought a townhouse that we love so much I don't even miss the big house a bit.

I will be back with all the details once I know who is buying all the stock for sure. Please contact me at craftysecrets@telus.net if you are interested in buying cases of any printed stock or remaining Clear Stamp Sets.

Thank you to both old and new readers for your support I want to wish you all love, peace and a joyful Christmas and the most wonderful year ahead in 2016!

Sandy Redburn

Owner

Crafty Secrets

www.craftysecrets.com

Visit Our Online Store

www.craftyvintagegirl.com   

See Our Blog for Ideas, News & Giveaways!

www.heartwarmingvintage.blogspot.com

Toll Free Ph or Fx 1-888 597-8898

Head Office

14877 58 Avenue

Unit 86

Surrey BC V3S 8Y9

USA Mail

250 H. Street, # 436

Blaine, WA 98230

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas:

 Last Minute Inspiration from our Design Team!

Hello, Friends!

Can you believe we are just 15 days away from Christmas?  I bet your homes are all looking cozy and festive in preparation for the Big Day!  If you're still trying to get Christmas tags, cards, or presents ready at the last minute, our fabulous design team has some great inspiration to share with you here today!  

Michele has used the tiny dots paper from Retro Christmas Digital Paper Kit to make this elegant Pink Poinsettia Card.  She layered the dots paper with a panel from our Merry Christmas Vintage Scraps and I love the soft effect this created. 

 

When you're short on time, these Vintage Scraps are a fabulous resource for cards, gift tags or Christmas tree ornaments.  The double-sided Merry Christmas Creative Scraps can be best described as wonderful vintage to adorable retro. This is a colorful collection of Christmas themed images and sentiments. The sheet includes 22 great images printed on a medium weight cardstock. We still have some of these available in the online store, and best of all they are on sale!  

 

So many of us give and receive gift cards or cash gifts during the holiday season, and it's always nice to have a way to "dress up" the gift.  Ginny has a great idea for making a pocket card that is stuffed with adorable tags.  The images are from our Creating with Retro Christmas CD, and the pretty blue and white papers are from our Creating with Vintage Patterns CD.  I love the way the pops of red in the clothespins, flowers and burlap string pick up on the cutie pie image!  This little project really is "snow much fun!"

 

Sandy has reduced the price on the Retro Christmas CD, as well as on the Vintage Christmas CD.  She has also created a super bundle deal where you can get both the Retro and Vintage CD's at a special low price.   These are such great resources to add to your crafty stash as they contain dozens of beautiful digital papers, templates, card sentiments, printable images, ephemera and more!  You simply choose the paper or image you want to use and you can print it out on your home printer, sizing items just the way you like.  Or, you can use them to create digital layouts, Christmas letters, e-cards and more!  Even though the price in this photo says $26.75, the actual sale price for both CD's is only $22!  

 

 Both CD's have great Christmas tags and Post Cards that allow you to make an almost "instant" card.  Michele  used some of the tags from Creating with Vintage Christmas to make this super sweet vintage Christmas card.  I love the rusty jingle bells tied onto that gingham bow!

I think interactive cards are soooo much fun, and I just love this great Pop Up Box card that Shantaie made using beautiful papers from the Creating with Vintage Christmas CD.  This would be so pretty displayed on a Christmas mantel or side table.  The snowflake stamps are from our Vintage Christmas Digital Stamp set and Shantaie cut them out with her Silhouette machine.   This is such a stunning project, and I hope you'll pop over to Shantaie's BLOG to see how she put it all together. 

 

 

If you haven't seen our Vintage Christmas Digital Art Stamps yet, you will want to check those out in the store.  They are gorgeous!  This has been one of our most popular clear acrylic stamp sets for years, but now that we've introduced them in Digital format, we think you are going to love them even more!  The images are now considerably larger than in the original set, giving you lots of options for larger sized cards, layouts and mixed media projects.  And, you can have them in your hot little hands as soon as you order them, as they come via a digital download. No waiting!  You can order them now and get your craft on today!  How great is that?  There are 18 images and sentiments in this beautiful vintage set.

 

Shantaie also created this pretty Vintage Santa tag using a lovely Santa image found in our Seasonal Image and Journal Notes booklet.   I love the way she used a gold foil doily to frame our jolly Santa image, and that white poinsettia is the perfect accent piece!  This festive tag would look great hanging on your tree, and would make even the smallest gift really special!

 

You can find our Seasonal Image and Journal Notes Booklet ON SALE HERE along with the rest of our Heartwarming Vintage Booklets.  These are such gems, and contain beautiful vintage images, journal notes, and sentiments.  They would make fantastic stocking stuffers at their clearance price of just $2.95 each!  Or get a bundle pack containing 9 Booklets for just $19.99!  

 We get so busy making everything ready for the holidays that we often forget to take a moment just for ourselves.  Sheila reminds us of how important it is to refresh our own spirits by creating beautiful moments in this soft, feminine digital layout.  She used digital papers from our Creating with Vintage Christmas CD along with her own beautiful photography.  Wouldn't this stunning project make a great screen saver on your computer?

I love to hang handmade Christmas ornaments on the tree, and these cheery tags Ginny made with our Retro Christmas CD would be fabulous tree ornaments!  She used the tag images from the CD along with pretty papers and the result is very merry, indeed!  You can find all the details on her lovely BLOG. 

 

Sometimes, a card is so special it is a gift all on its own, and this shimmery, sparkly card Ginny made combines papers and images from both our Retro Christmas and Vintage Christmas CD's.  I love the fresh color palette and pops of glitter, don't you?  You can read all about how she made it HERE on Ginny's Blog. 

 

Wow!  What amazing projects from the team!  It makes me want to break out my Crafty Secrets supplies and get my craft on!  Since we have our house on the market, it's been challenging to create, but I have some goodies that I'll be sharing here soon.  

In the meantime, I'd love to invite you to play along in our December Linky Challenge and Blog Hop. We have a beautiful digital paper and image for you to use in your creation, or just use any Crafty Secrets goodies that you have in your stash.  Create a card and link it up on the Crafty Secrets BLOG by midnight PT this Sunday, December 20th, and you could be the lucky random winner of a $25 Digital Shopping Spree in the Crafty Secrets online store.  You can find all the information HERE.  

I'll be back next week to announce the winner...and to share more inspiration from the team!

Thanks for stopping by today!  I hope you were inspired, found some great last minute Christmas ideas and some great gift giving ideas, too.  If so, I'd love to hear from you in the comment section below.

On behalf of Sandy Redburn, this is Kathy Clement/DT Leader wishing you JOY and CREATIVITY!

Cheerio,

kathy

December 2015 Linky Challenge & Blog Hop with FREE downloads and PRIZE

Hello, Friends!

It's the first Monday in December and that means it's time for another inspiring Linky Challenge and Blog Hop.  The Design Team has been as busy as the elves in Santa's workshop, and we bet that you're also caught up in all the wonderful holiday preparations, so this month we decided to make things easy on everyone and have an "ANYTHING GOES as long as you use Crafty Secrets" challenge.  That's right!  Feel free to enter any card, layout, canvas, mini book, home decor, altered art or what have you where Crafty Secrets is the star, and you're good to go.  Let's take a sneaky peek at what the design team has cooked up for you this month.

I spent a fun afternoon trolling through the hundreds of papers, printables, templates and images found within our amazing Creating with Vintage Christmas CD.  Oh, what a treasure trove of goodies I found there!  I created a fun new version of a pocket card with the cutest Christmas poem and some surprises tucked inside.  You will find some tips on how to alter chipboard and a step out on how to create the pocket on my blog, Kathy by Design.

Ginny took full advantage of our "anything goes" theme and created a stunning winter birthday card using papers and images from both our Creating with Vintage Typography CD and our Creating with Vintage Patterns CD.    She'll share a really fun tip for adding texture to a project.  You can find more photos and her tutorial on her beautiful blog, Polly's Paper Studio. 

 

I don't know about you, but I'm a huge fan of the "rustic" style that is trending right now.  There's just something about that aged, rusty look that creates a wonderful feeling of nostalgia.  Michele tapped into that vibe and created a gorgeous rusty Ball Canning Lid ornament using this Old World Santa image from the Creating with Vintage Christmas CD.  She'll tell you how to make one of your own on her amazing blog, Thoughts of a Cardmaking Scrapbooker.  

 

Sheila welcomes Christmas with a  digital layout that is so fresh and pretty and Christmassy that I can't stop looking at it!  If you are new to using digital products,  I highly recommend that you follow her blog as she shares amazing tutorials in her PhotoShop Friday posts.  Sheila also used our Creating with Vintage Christmas CD, and I just love the fact that it looks totally different from both my project and Michele's project.  That's the beauty of these CD's: they are so loaded with goodies that you can create and create and create and each project can have its own unique look.  Sheila will show you how to change the opacity of digital papers in a clear, easy to follow tutorial on her blog, Sheila Rumney Design and Photography.  

 

Shantaie always has such fun and fresh ideas to share with us, so I've dubbed her "the funnest kid on the block."  This month, she dazzles us with a sparkly Christmas tree ornament that has a great Retro vibe.  And of course, she used our Creating with Retro Christmas CD.  If you'd like to learn how to make your very own Retro Styled Snow Globe ornament, be sure to pop by Shantaie's fun and fabby blog, Inking Pink. 

 

Diane never fails to delight us with her Linky Challenge projects, and this month she has created a very clever 2016 Calendar Gift Card.  I would never have thought to combine images from our Little Blessings Creative Scraps  and papers from our Retro Kitchen Digital Kit with our FREE 2016 Calendar download, but she did and the result is nothing short of fantastic!  These would make such great gifts for co-workers, Secret Santas and friends near and far.  You will definitely want to visit Nellie's Nest to get the scoop on how to make these clever and innovative cards.

 

And, here's some exciting news for you: Sandy has bundled our Creating with Vintage Christmas and Creating with Retro Christmas CD together at a special price of just $22.00!  You can find this special Christmas Bundle in the online store.  We are still working on emptying out our warehouse and prices have been reduced on dozens of your favorite Crafty Secrets goodies.  So after you finish the hop, you might want to take a little shopping trip and visit the store.  You've all been very good this year and deserve a little Christmas treat!

Come Play with Us!

Now, here's the really fun part!  Each month we invite you to play along with us in the Linky Challenge.  Since this month's theme is "anything goes" you can make anything you like as long as it features Crafty Secrets in the design.  Just link your project up below, and we'll be popping by to see what you've made.  And one of you will be randomly chosen to win a $25 digital shopping spree in the online store!  Just link your Crafty Secrets project up before MIDNIGHT on Sunday, December 20th.  The winner will be chosen on Monday, December 21st and announced on the blog on Wednesday, December 23rd, just in time for Christmas!  

And to thank you for playing along, we have a couple of free downloads to share with you.  These both come from our Creating with Retro Christmas CD, and you can use them in your Linky Challenge entry if you would like to do so.   But please note: these images are for PERSONAL USE only and cannot be shared, reproduced or sold. They are intended for those who are joining the fun this month.  Feel free to invite your friends to visit the blog, download their own copy and join the party.  Thank you! 

 

This cute Christmas Patchwork Quilt paper is loaded with creative possibilities!  I just know you all are going to create some fabulous projects with this one!  To download, just click on the image until it is full sized, then choose the option to save it to your computer.  You can print this out as 8x8 paper, 6x6 paper, or you can even crop the individual squares out and use them that way.  I can't wait to see what you make with this clever paper!

And how about this cutie pie retro snow couple?  I love that he is holding the mistletoe over her head, hoping for a Christmas kiss!    To get all the goodies on this  fun Retro CD, you can order it HERE. (PS: It's on Sale!!!) This CD includes all our Retro Designer Papers, Images, Ephemera and Templates! If you love Christmas and fun retro images like Santa, whimsical snowmen, adorable children and animals, festive frames, embellishments, words and more – you will love this series! A labor of love, this collection is packed full of a wide variety of over 170 fun Retro style images and festive embellishments for the holidays.

I'm so glad you stopped by today and I know you'll be inspired by the wonderful projects and tutorials our designers have prepared for you.  This is such a busy time of year, filled with hustle and bustle and long to-do lists.  We hope you'll take a moment or two for yourself: to be creative, to be inspired, to reflect and to ENJOY the holidays.  That's our Christmas wish for you!

On behalf of Sandy Redburn, I wish you JOY and CREATIVITY!

Cheerio,

Kathy Clement

Design Team Leader/Crafty Secrets

ADD YOUR LINKY CHALLENGE PROJECT BELOW: