Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart: October 2015 Linky Challenge and Blog Hop

Hello, Friends!

It's the first Monday in October and time for a new Linky Challenge and Blog Hop.  Fall is in full swing, Halloween is coming up fast, and Thanksgiving is right around the corner.  With that in mind, the theme for this month's challenge and Blog Hop is "Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart."  We challenged the design team to create a hostess gift, card, wall hanging, mixed media project, altered art or mini album with a Thanksgiving/Thankfulness theme.   I've had a sneak peek of all the different projects, and I can tell you, there's some fabulous inspiration coming your way in today's post.

But before we get started with the hop, we have to announce the winner of our Halloween giveaway.  We had asked you to share your favorite Halloween traditions with us, and you all had so many great ideas to share.  It was wonderful to hear from you all.

The winner of the TRADITIONAL prize package is Susan McMenamin who said,
"I would love to win your traditional prize package.It would fit right in with my favorite Halloween activity-surprising friends and coworkers with cards and treats!"

September 28, 2015 at 8:03 PM

 The winner of the DIGITAL prize package is LeAnne who said, 

"We don't get any trick-or-treaters because we live in the country too, like Margie! So my favorite tradition is carving out jack-o-lanterns and putting them on our porch. Nobody sees them but us, but it's still fun! And I have lots of Halloween decorations that I like to arrange around the house, and that makes me happy! I love Halloween! And I love CS stuff, in fact, I already have that cute little stamp set, to have it digital so I could re=size it would be awesome!"

September 27, 2015 at 5:17 PM

 Congrats, LeAnne and Susan!  Please contact Sandy at craftysecrets@telus.net to claim your prize! 

I wish we could have sent a prize package to everyone who commented.  But the good news is that all these Halloween Goodies are available in our online store and most of them are on sale!  And did you hear the news?  We now offer FREE SHIPPING on all domestic US orders over $35.00!  

Now, let's get see what inspirational ideas our fabby design team has prepared for this month's blog hop.  You'll find a sneak peek of their project below along with a link to each designer's blog where you'll find a little tutorial, lots of pictures and loads of inspiration.

Kathy Clement, Design Team Leader, created a vintage album filled with her family's favorite pumpkin recipes. Visit her blog, Kathy by Design where she shares her method for assembling this keepsake album.

Ginny Nemchak created a fabulous fall wall hanging and will show you how to create the pretty wreath that decorates it.  Visit her blog, Polly's Paper Studio, for more pictures and instructions.

Teresa Horner altered a jar to write down each day the things she is thankful for.  What a great idea and a reminder to be thankful each and every day.  Visit Victorian Paper Queen for more photos and details. 

Darlene Pavlick knows that we all need thank you cards, so she created a cute set of them with our Birds and Blooms Digital Paper Kit.  Visit Dar's Crafty Creations to see how she did it.

 

 Sheila Rumney inspires us with a beautiful altered project and has a great PhotoShop tutorial that will teach you how to use the Color Picker Tool.  Learn all about it at Sheila Rumney Design and Photography 

. 

Shantaie Fowler got out her glitter, chalk paint and pretty embellies to make her altered project.  She'll teach you how to add color to chalk paint on her blog, Inking Pink. 

Diane Hover had this great idea to ask each of her grandchildren (and great-grandchildren!) "What is Thanksgiving?" and then record it in a keepsake journal.  She'll share the process (and hopefully some of their answers!) on her blog, Nellie's Nest. 

 

Michele Kovack has created the most precious card...and you will love seeing all the beautiful details on her blog Thoughts of  Cardmaking Scrapbooker.

What beautiful creations and what great reminders to be thankful!

We'd love to invite you to play along with us this month.  Simply create any project of your choice that features Crafty Secrets Products and link up with the Linky Tool at the bottom of this post.  

You don't have to follow our theme, but it's always fun if you do!  To win the $25 DIGITAL shopping spree, you MUST use Crafty Secrets Products in your creation.  To help you with that task, and to thank you for playing along please enjoy these free downloadable images.  Just right click and save the images to your computer.   These images are ONLY for those who are playing along in the challenge this month and cannot be sold, shared or otherwise reproduced. 

I love the beautiful papers and images in our Digital Thanksgiving Collection.  You'll find 10 designer papers, 34 PNG files (images that you can overlay and layer on other images) Thanksgiving stamps, and 5 full color files with ephemera, place cards, menu card, post cards and more.  It's available for instant download for just $10.99. 

Since our theme this  month is "Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart" I thought you might enjoy creating with one of the beautiful  papers and this lovely Autumn print from the set. 

Link your project no later than midnightPST on Sunday, October 18th.  The design team will be stopping by to take a peek at your lovely creations and a winner will be randomly chosen to win the $25 DIGITAL shopping spree.  We'll announce the winner here on the blog on Wednesday, October 21st and will share the lucky winner's project on our Facebook page and blog.  

We're so thankful for each one of you!  

On behalf of Sandy Redburn, this is Kathy Clement wishing you joy and creativity!

LINK YOUR PROJECT BELOW:

See Us at the Junk Salvation Show in WA Nov 15-16 , Fall, Christmas Samples and New Lower Stamp Prices!

Hi Everyone, I have show news, fab samples and lower prices on our small and medium Clear Art Stamp Sets!

Everything is packed up and ready for the Junk Salvation Show we have a double booth at this weekend Nov 15 - 16 and Vicki Chrisman will be there helping us at the Puyallup, WA Fairgrounds .  Darn - I wish everyone could come! The show opens Friday night from 6 - 9 PM and Sat 10 - 4 PM. Here's a link to a video. There will be over 100 booths and a Sewing and Quilt Show next door!

  We will have all our SALE items in Clear Art Stamps, Scraps, Booklets, Albums, etc - plus small furniture, antique dictionary paper and sheet music, old bottles, greeting cards, postcards, lace, ribbon and more!

This is a photo from our last show in Portland. We still have a bunch of the wood alphabet letterpress blocks as I had about 14 full sets plus oodles more loose letters. People loved buying letters to spell their family name and special words. I still have those big gold framed angel prints. I lowered them to $65.00 for the pair but I think I paid over $150 to have them matted and framed years ago.

 Vicki Chrisman will be at the Junk Salvation Show  this Fri and Sat and she whipped me up these double sided Christmas Postcards that are on our CD 5 Retro Christmas. to display at the show. They are designed so you can print 1 side on card stock and then print on the back side. Great for hanging on a tree or gift and you could punch a out a small photo to add on the back.

Here's the backside of the postcards, which would also make great journal cards on a scrapbook layout. They print 5.25" x 3.5" at 300 dpi but you can re-size them.

 CD 6 Vintage Christmas also has postcards, tags, etc and I will post samples when I get back but here's a preview.

Also, here are some adorable Christmas tags Vicki made also using the Retro Christmas CD.  You can see a couple more tags on Vicki's Blog.

 
You can see more journal tags by DT Member Rebecca Fairies for a Christmas Album she's creating using our Vintage and Retro Christmas CD's.

Here in Canada we already had Thanksgiving (it always seems way too early) but you're just gearing up for it and look at the wonderful Fall colors on this fun card by DT Member Kathy Clement. Kathy's husband just had open heart surgery so please say a prayer for his speedy recovery.

Congrats to DT Member Michele Kovack who had her air brushed tutorial card featured on the cover of Paper Crafts: 18 Free Card Making Ideas, Scrapbook Layouts, and DIY Paper Flowers E-Book!  Michele used our Vintage Silhouettes Stamp Set (sold out now) so it's a  Digital Stamp Set download and the design is larger, re-sizeable and no S&H. PS - if you click on the stamp link you can see a bunch more fabulous samples made with this set!

  
Lastly, I lowered the price on all our Small Clear Stamp Sets  originally $7.50 and NOW $3.50 and Medium Clear Art Stamp Sets originally $14.99 NOW $6.95 so the stamps and printed stock is half price or less now! I had already lowered the Large Stamp Sets to $12.50, originally $24.99.  I will do a Blog Post showing the Clear Stamp Sets left when I get back.

Thanks for your support

Sandy Redburn

See Our  CraftyVintageGirl.com Store

Visit us on Facebook with over 5500 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

Halloween, Autumn and Floral Samples, plus My Spain Photos

Hi Everyone,  

I have some great Halloween and Autumn samples to share today, plus photos below from our trip to Spain and link for the Markets and Shops in Provence France.  DT Leader Vicki Chrisman had a Halloween Crafty Party with her art group and created these cute treat cups for everyone using our Halloween CD and her AccuCut Bow Die. It's fun to have special treats for special people.

First I have to apologize if any of you received a late order from us recently. We had 2 glitches with problems at the Post Office but 'lost' orders have turned up and all is good now!

We recently released our Costume Cuties as a Digital Stamp Download set for $9.95 and I love how much larger the designs are!

Here are some great samples for ideas

Halloween Labels is also a Digital Stamp Set now and it's perfect for printing on orange, yellow and green paper to create quick fun signs and labels for spooky bottles and festive party drinks.  See the sample photos below.

Here's some fabulous samples

 

Here's a pretty card by DT Member Michele Kovack using our Flower Garden Stamp Set

Look at this pretty Grateful and Blessed card DT Member by Kathy Clement created with a matching envelope using papers from our Halloween CD and images from our Autumn Cuts on sale for 75 cents!

We also have a Thanksgiving Digital Download for $10.99 which includes stunning papers, images, templates and a large Digital Stamp Set.  Here are 2 cards Vicki Chrisman created using the Thanksgiving Collection Printable Papers and images from the download Kit.

Here are the rest of the photos from our trip to Spain and you can see my Barcelona photos if you missed them. Tomorrow I will do the final trip post with Provence France and the markets. Below is the view off our balcony in a house we rented in a little medieval seaside town called Tossa de Mar.

Renting a house can be less money than staying in hotels and a great way to travel with friends. I posted some Budget Travel Tips if you missed them.

The quaint town of Tossa de Mar wraps around the beaches and the medieval castle which you can see off to the right side below. We had great weather but the townspeople were getting ready to close down a bunch of stores and restaurants in October. So it must cool off and be less busy.

Here's a view looking from the other way towards the castle.  There are a couple of entrances and a great private beach on the other side

Inside the castle walls there are old cobblestone streets with buildings that have been turned into restaurants and shops. I fell in love it was so enchanting. Look at the vines covering the entire patio in the photo below.  Let's go for lunch!

A street inside the castle walls and you can see the ocean view at the end.

This is the small beach on the other side of the castle which has an entrance in the town. It was less touristy with beautiful water and a little beach bar.

I loved the tile work on this bakery in town

I had to take a photo of this crazy bar we found called Bar Don Juan in the center of town. Yes - those are hams hanging from the ceiling and the little white funnels are to catch any fat that may drip. They are passionate about their ham - Jamon made from Black Iberian pigs and similar to Italian prosciutto is yummy with bread, cold beer.  Super friendly staff!

One of my other favorite places was  Girona Spain which is only 45 minute drive.

There were some beautiful buildings

This gorgeous art nouveau store sold gelato and candy

  
We ate Spanish appetizers known as pintxos (sounds like pinchos). Yummy but I think they may be the reason people in Spain are heavier than France? 

We found it amazing that you can take your jug down to the corner deli and get a refill of wine for as low as 1'65 to 3'30 Euros for a litre of the good stuff! Now I don't know if many deli's sell wine this way but what a deal.

Lastly , it's time to think about costumes so I couldn't resist showing you this hilarious Chia Peet Halloween Costume by Staci from the Flirty Guide, plus you can see a bunch of other super cute costumes her dog Kitai models including The Dog Whisperer costume worn on  the Today Show.  

Do you dress your pets during Halloween season? I admit - we've been guilty but it never stays on long. Otis would kill us if we made him be a Chia Pet.

Wishing you joy and creativity
Sandy  

See Our  CraftyVintageGirl.com Store
Visit us on Facebook with over 5500 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

Giveaway for New Downloads and Linky Winner!

Hi Everyone,

  I want to say Congratulations to # 20 Kristine Anderson who was the Random.org $50.00 Gift Certificate Winner in our Linky Party!  I'm also doing a Giveaway for our new Thanksgiving Kit and Poppy Set and will announce a winner Wed, Oct 17/12. Just leave a comment and tell me what you think of them?

 Kristine entered this cute card she made using our Halloween Stickers with Tim Holtz's House Die.   You also have to see the cute witch card she entered as well. Big Thanks to everyone who entered!  You have each won a small 3" and a large 16 x 20" cotton blank Bag (see Vicki's post here with bags) or this Cat and Dog small Digital Art Stamp set. There were 26 entries and so many great samples you have to go see if you missed them!

We already had Thanksgiving here in Canada last week (I wish it wasn't so early) but when our the Stamp Set sold out I couldn't resist incorporating it into a Thanksgiving Downloadable Kit and it's ready now in our Etsy Store for $10.99 and it will be in our new website store this week sometime!

We added some new digital stamps to this set you can see above on the right side as well as 10 pretty papers and some great images.  I love the children in the field!
The download Kit includes 33 separate PNG Digital Art Stamp files you can overlay or simply print on any medium. Plus – you get 10 different Fall theme Printable Papers and 5 color ephemera files with with 2 postcards, 6 table place cards, 2 menu cards, frame and paper lace blank card.

You can see on this beautiful 12 x 12" layout that Vicki Chrisman created how big the Thanksgiving Day title can be, so you can fit it across a scrapbook page or shrink it for a card.  Vicki used 2 of the papers, added the black Oak Leaf Frame, the wheat stamp, basket card, sentiment and cut a couple of the flowers to add as floral 'buttons'.

Plus - these 2 pages inspiring Sample Pages are included with ideas and more are in the works and will be added to our Thanksgiving Pintrest Board. ! You can dress up Fall and Thanksgiving table decor such as menus and place cards, create invitations, greeting cards and scrapbook pages!

Vicki has some cute Halloween ideas here and will be posting some of these projects on her blog this week as well as who Melissa Bovewill be joining our new Design Team!  There will be a couple of other ladies joining as well but I don't want to spill the beans on all our surprises

Check out this Fun Paper Pumpkin Tutorial by Melissa Bove  made using the kit! 

 
 The samples on the page below were created using the actual Thanksgiving Stamp Set but now that it's sold out the great part about Digital Art Stamps is the designs are re-sizable and will be larger than the stamp sets were .  Watch for tutorials coming soon if you are new to Digital Stamping but here are some Tips on Best Free Software that will help you do amazing things with Digital Stamps!

Our new Poppies Digital Art Stamp Set is ready.  Our Poppy Stamp Set has sold out and our new Digital Art Download Stamp Set is bigger and better with 13 large re-sizable designs!  The original set had the 5 stamps shown on the framed packaging card and 4 new etchings of poppies have been added as well as 4 words/sentiments  taken from old antique books. The bouquet of poppies is now 6.6 x 8.4" full size, the word 'Precious' is 5.5"W, the dragon fly is 2.5 x 3", the new poppies are 3 x 4.5" and the poppy heads are 2 to 3" each.  The lettering on the 4 new sentiments: Praying For You is 4 x 8", Remember is 4 x 7" , Poppies and 'Popping by to say hi' are 6 x 2".

 The larger, re-sizable designs will allow you to shrink them tiny to fit on tags and pendants, medium for card making or jumbo for pillows, scrapbook layouts and large projects.  The download comes with a Sample Sheet (shown in 2 parts) and there will be a Poppy Digital Art Stamp Board created on our Pintrest Boards and displayed on our Blog.

 Of Course, all Digital Sets have Free Shipping for extra savings!

SOLD OUT CLEAR ART STAMP SETS:  LARGE SETS: Vintage Christmas, Halloween Labels, Mustache Men, Antique Trims, Party Cats, Thanksgiving,  MEDIUM SOLD OUT: Seaside, Poppy, Grand Greetings, Fairy Wishes,  SMALL SETS:  Material Girl , Keys to Life. 
These sets will be available soon as digital downloads, as well as Paper Pads and some Cotton Scraps. I will show some of the new T-Shirt Designs this week as well

Here are the prices for our Digital Art Stamp Sets unless they are a kit with paper and color images. .
Large Sets $8.99, 
Medium Sets  $5.99 
Small Sets for $3.99 

My Embarrassing Day: Have you ever pushed a button you were NOT supposed to push, or done something that was totally opposite of what you planned?  I was trying to finish this post and at the same time trying to login to a bank service I use to give a friend some exchange rates.  I accidentally I hit the ACCEPT button instead of REJECT for a test I was trying.   I was looking right at right button and my hand automatically went to the wrong one! $#@^*%;*?!!  I paid for it - 3 hours later of phone hell (wow, security is crazy now). Then my html got messed up on this post. I’ve decided I need to sign up for yoga or stress reduction! 


Don't forget to enter our Giveaway for for both the Thanksgiving Kit and Poppy Set leave a comment and let us know what you think of the new downloads?

Wishing you joy and creativity

Sandy Redburn

Owner

Visit Our Online 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 9823