All You Need is Love for the February Linky Party and DT Challenge

Hello Friends!

Welcome to the Crafty Secrets February Linky Party!  This month we're throwing a virtual Valentine Party and you are invited along as our guests of honor!  Create some cute Valentines for friends and family,create a romantic layout, or make “off the page projects”for home décor. Incorporate music or words to a song somewhere in your project.  (Songbirds would work here,too!) You do not need to follow this theme to play along, but it's always fun if you do.

Before we get to the fabulous projects that the team has prepared for you, I have some great news to share with you! Sandy Redburn, owner of Crafty Secrets has been doing some cleaning in the warehouse and found some items that she thought were out of stock, and then she got out her red pen and slashed tons of prices in the Crafty Secrets online store.  Take a look:

I don't know about you....but I feel a shopping spree coming on!  LOL  Now, on with the Linky Party!

We have a special Guest Designer this month.   Our dear friend, and former DT leader, Vicki Chrisman  created these elegant Valentines using papers and images from our Vintage Valentine Digital kit.  Ooo-la-la!

Chocolate and Valentines day go together like love and marriage!  That's why Darlene Pavlick created this gorgeous candy box using the Vintage Valentine Kit. Dar will show you how she made this pretty box in the tutorial on her blog.

 Diane Hover put on her thinking cap and designed this really fun Valentine Party Hat that would make a great  decoration for your Valentine table. Diane has a fun tutorial showing you how to alter a grocery container into a great project like this.

 

Elizabeth Lincoln supplied the musical entertainment for our Virtual Valentine party. She combined our Party Cats digital stamps with the Vintage Valentine kit.  This darling concertina card is loaded with fun details, and Elizabeth's tutorial will guide you through the steps so you can make your own.

Sweet romance and lovely layers will have you falling in love with Ginny Nemchak's vintage Valentine made with load of our beautiful Creative Scraps and our Pastel Papers. (Watch for the digital version of these lovely papers coming soon!) She has a fun Snap Guide tutorial that will show you step by step how she created all those luscious layers!

Gloria Stengel used beautiful images from our Birds and Botanicals booklet and our Be My Valentine digital stamps to create this soft and pretty Valentine. Gloria will be sharing the tips and techniques she used to make this soft, pretty card.

DT Leader Kathy Clement   (that's me) altered a wooden heart frame using images and papers from the Vintage Valentine Kit.  This would be so pretty on the mantle or table. I have a step by step tutorial showing how she put this wall hanging together.

I am in love with these adorable kraft treat bags that Melody Clement created with images from the Vintage Valentine kit.  Melody will show you how to make these darling little treat bags on her blog.

Michele Kovack used the pretty musical note paper from the kit to alter these Jelly Belly Boxes.  How cute are these?  I love the sequins! I can't wait to read Michele's blog and find out how she made these!

 

This striking black and red Valentine from Shantaie Fowler was made with our beautiful Heart to Heart Digital Stamp set.  Isn't it classy? Shantaie always shares great creative tips in her blog posts.

Sheila Rumney's soft romantic Valentine uses images from our Birds and Blossoms Creative Scraps and our Be My Valentine Digital Stamps.  I'm sure Sheila will be sharing a look at how she created this beautiful card.

Owner, Sandy Reburn has a great TUTORIAL on creating a Dry Erase Board Digitally and has 2 different samples using the CD 3 Creating with Typography and this gold frame from CD #1 Creating with Vintage Patterns she used here.

Now, we have a Valentine present just for you!  To encourage you to play along in this Linky Party, we are giving you one of the beautiful papers and a printable image from the Vintage Valentine Kit.  Simply click on the image to make it full sized, then right click to download to your computer.  You do not have to use this image in your project...you can use any Crafty Secrets goodies you have in your stash, and create any kind of NEW project to play along. 

One lucky participant will be randomly selected to win the entire Vintage Valentine Kit.  Our Vintage Valentine Digital Kit contains everything you need to create fabulous Victorian, Retro, or Vintage Valentine Projects.  Loaded with 9 papers, 2 printable sheets of full color images, 2 sheets of printable shabby chic tags, ticket strips, cupcake liners and heart toppers, 2 styles of party invitations, and lovely frames,and so many more wonderful elements...you can create beautiful Valentine projects to your heart's content!  Many of the papers in this beautiful collection are great for use year round, too. And, if you already own the Vintage Valentine Kit, we will be happy to let you select any other digital products of equal value. Here's a peeky at the prize!



Now it's your turn:


Create a NEW project of your choice featuring ANY Crafty Secrets product and link it up to the blog no later than 11:59PT, Sunday, February 15th.  You do not need to follow this month’s theme to play along. If you do not have any Crafty Secrets goodies, check the FREE DOWNLOADS located on the  Crafty Secrets blog.  Be sure to link to the Crafty Secrets Blog inyour post, and let us know what Crafty Secrets product you are using in yourproject.  We'll announce the lucky winner on this blog on Monday, February 16th.

Well, I don't know about you, but I am blown away by these fabulous design team projects!  We'd love to hear from you in the comment section below, so take a moment and leave us a little note.  We can't wait to see what you make!

On behalf of Sandy Redburn, I wish you joy and creativity!

Cheerio,

Kathy Clement/DT Leader, Crafty Secrets

LINK YOUR PROJECT HERE:

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
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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

Welcome to Our June Linky Party, DT Challenge, Giveaway and Sale!

Welcome to our June Linky Party and Design Team Challenge! 

We also have great Doggie GIVEAWAY, some further markdowns and Our Digital Golf Time Set!  First check out all the fantastic projects and tutorials by our Design Team.  Vicki Chrisman isn't feeling well so she's opting out this month. 

Kathy Clement

Michele Kovack

Darlene Pavlick 

Sheila Rumney

Elizabeth Lincoln

We have a Great Doggie GIVEAWY for both our Large Dog and Small Dog Digital Stamp Sets as well as our Puppy Printable 5 Card Set. Just leave a comment here on the Blog and you have until next Monday, June 9 when I will announce the winner.  The Winner  can also pick $25.00 in any product if they prefer.  

Here's our Free Online Gift when you place any order until June 15/14 in our www.craftyvintagegirl.com store. Just add it to your cart ' Best Father Printable - T-23 '. It looks great as an iron on T-shirt transfer.

 This is a layout I made of my dad who passed away in January. I called him Daddy-O, which he seemed to get a kick out if.  This will be our first Fathers Day with out him and we all miss him immensely as my he lived downstairs with my mom for over 25 years. I used paper, designs and a font to journal all from CD 3 Creating With Vintage Typography.

This is the alphabet page I cropped all the letters from for the title.

I also added a drop shadow to each of my letters which is easy to do if you go under the Layers Style Tab and then Style Settings. When you hover your mouse over a letter you add you can click 'Send it Backwards' to layer them and tuck parts of a letter behind another. I also tucked most of an envelope I used under the photo to add the name and dates.  

I added the leaves, so in total I used the background paper, blue paper to mat, alphabet paper, journal card, one of the fonts, a swirly designs and a envelope to add my dad's name.

I also like using the warp text tool to curve text like the 'Dear Daddy-O' in the top of the journal box or the way the text is waved like a flag and you can control the levels from just a little bit to crazy.

Our Golf Time Clear Stamp Set has sold out and become a Golf Time Digital Download and we made some changes and improved it.  There is a new crown and heart design added and the images are much larger but re-sizeable. It's a medium set and should be $4.95 but it's on sale until Father's Day for an introductory SALE price of $2.95!  

Here's the preview sheet with all the sizes and you have to be sure to check our DT Member Elizabeth Lincoln's Golf card she created for our June Challenge.

Our Favorite Fella Clear Stamp Set (originally $24.95) has been marked down further to just $9.95 for this large CLEAR Stamp Set

  Also - during June all of our Card Stock Stickers are on SALE for just .99 cents  The were originally $2.35 for many years so .99 cents is great as they are die cut so intricately with no white edges. 

 Okay, here is where you can enter our Linky Party and post any sample you have created and receive a $6.00 gift card.  Also, 1 lucky random.org winner will receive a $50.00 Gift Card!





Lastly, I have to share a photo of our oldest daughter Katie (on the left) who won a Leo Award with 2 co-workers Saturday night for the TV Show she is a writer for The Liquidator. A Leo is like an Oscar for TV in British Columbia Canada and I'm are so freaking proud of her I could burst!

Don't forget to leave a comment to be entered to WIN our Doggie Gift Package Giveaway with both Big and Little Dog Digital Stamp Sets and our Puppy 5 Card Printables - or pick $25.00 worth of any product if you prefer. 

Wishing you joy and creativity

Sandy Redburn

Owner

See Our BIG SALE at CraftyVintageGirl.com 
Visit Our Facebook Page with 6780+ Fans!

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

New 5 Card Printable Puppies Set, Tutorial and New Samples!

Hi Everyone,  I have our New Puppy Cards Set plus some great samples to share and a little tutorial.

Our new printable Adorable Puppies 5 Card Set that includes 5 print and fold style cards and a page with 2 birthday and 2 general card sentiments you can print on the inside of the cards digitally or mat and glue them inside. It's a $3.50 download and the puppies are big and designed to print on half a piece of 8.5" x 11" card stock so you can simply fold it. You can re-size them at 200 dpi and each puppy will be 7" x 9" a great size to mat for a 8 x10 frame - which is what I made below but they would also be cute as mini charms.

Some parts of these cards look so #3D I knew I wanted to make a 3D paper pieced sample as a wall art picture for my dog loving nephew's room. So I cropped the Boston puppy and enlarged it by changing the dpi to 200 from 300. This makes the image over 7" x 9" and it prints great on a full page of regular card stock.  Print 2 copies so you can cut out the sweater and hat.  

 NOTE:  If you are worried about the cost of printer ink please consider using compatible ink from a reputable ink company like www.InkFarm.com   We have been using their ink for a few years as well as most of the Design Team and it is far less money!  Plus - they have a deal for Crafty Secrets customers with 15% off compatible printer ink and Free Shipping and it doesn't expire!  Just use the code:  craftyink

I also wanted to make a pom pom for the hat so I wound some red wool with sparkle fibers around a ruler, slipped it off and tied it in the middle and cut through the loops to make a fuzzy pom pom to add to the hat.  I used the text tool to type my nephews name on the sweater in Photoshop Elements and used the arc tool to curve it slightly. 

I need to buy a frame for it and maybe mat it on blue or leave it with the white background depending on the frame. 

I showed a peek of this cute dog card last week by DT Leader Kathy Clement before she had even posted it and now it's on her blog with instructions. She used stamps from our Little Dogs Digital Stamp Set and I adore this sweet image of the girl and her doggie.

DT Member Elizabeth Lincoln also fell for this same image and created this sweet 'Thinking of You' dog card for her sister who loves dogs. Elizabeth has been going 'dog crazy' with both dog sets and also made a Hound Dog Birthday card and a fun British Bull Dog card.

Love this doggie layout by Victoria Warren Mears she created with her dog Pearl using our Big Dog Digital Stamp Set and papers and roses from CD #1.  Dogs have such great faces and getting close of photos can really capture their personality. It's one reason digital cameras are so great , you don't need to be an amazing photographer as long as you set your camera to take the highest resolution photos and take several you can zoom in and crop photos to get the best shots. Just save any edited photos with a new name.

Lastly, I wanted to show you this pretty thank you card DT Member Vicki Chrisman created using one of the birdy images from our Birds & Blossoms Scraps - now a 4 page Digital Download, as well as papers from our Radiant Collection.

I actually lost my computer for a few days to have repairs and I'm so happy yo have it back.   Sometimes they are soooo frustrating but impossible to live with out.

Wising you joy and creativity

Sandy Redburn

Owner

See Our BIG SALE at CraftyVintageGirl.com 
Visit Our Facebook Page with 6560+ Fans!

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