Quick & Easy Christmas Cards, Ideas and Links!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Quick & Easy Christmas Cards
Other Fun Christmas Projects
Win Some Christmas Goodies

See More DT Samples on Monday!

Happy Thanksgiving! I love this card I found on Spiltcoast that Miss Lucy created using our Autumn Cotton Scraps! This image and the one of the turkeys driving the car with the caption 'Look who is coming to dinner' are two of my favorites on this set.

I must admit, I feel more in the spirit of celebrating Thanksgiving now than I did in the middle of October, which is when we celebrate it here in Canada. It seems too early to do it mid Oct, we still have warm sunny days and flowers in the garden here on the West coast. It feels like perfect Fall weather right now, so I feel ready now - plus it seems like a great time to kick off the Christmas season. So, to all our American friends - have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your loved ones!

Quick & Easy Christmas Cards
With everyone’s busy schedules I thought I would post some quick Christmas card ideas today. Our Christmas Image & Journal Notes Booklet is a big hit with card makers right now because all the images make it super easy to create pretty cards quickly. You can add a little glitter or some bling with embellishments and stamp a sentiment for the inside and you’re done!

Okay, I admit not every sample here is 'quick & easy' but they are all inspiring!

Here is a pretty card that Vivian Peters from our design team made and I love the way she added the pine branches and cones with the glitter ! You can see more details and another card HERE on her blog.

DT member Pam Hooten created this adorable card. The image is from our Christmas Booklet and the paper is from our Earthy Paper Pad. I also see a little border flourish stamp from our Mini Memories Stamp set.

Tanya Ilnicki created all of these fabulous vintage cards and tags mainly using stickers from our HVS – 925 Heavenly Christmas stickers along with a mix of stamps including the ‘Postcard’ stamp from our Journey stamp set. If the image won't click on larger, please click HERE.

DT member Vicki Chrisman and her sister Jan taught a 'Quick & Fun Christmas Cards' class recently using images from our Christmas Image & journal Note Booklet. Here's an adorable snow family card from their class and you can see more cards HERE on Vicki's blog.

Joanne Allison (angelnorth) is also hosting a fun challenge over at Splitcoaststampsers.com this week to create a Christmas card without using any of our Christmas theme products. Challanges like this are a fantastic way to get you to brainstorm ideas and take them to the next level! You can check it out here! and to join in get the details here

Our Seasonal Booklet is still one of our top selling titles with over 90 images covering all the seasons as well as many popular celebrations. There are 5 pages with Christmas images.

Design team member Anna Wight used this image of the Nimble Nicks from our Seasonal Booklet to create this wonderful Christmas card below. I'm not certain of the paper she used but it looks great paired with this image.

These little Nimble Nick kids are so popular, Cindy our graphic designer, added one to our Vintage Christmas Clear Art Stamp set and DT member Michele Kovack used him on this very cute card she stamped with details here on her blog. I love the colors on this card!

If you want to create gift tags to dress up some yummy gifts, these ones that Lisa Zappa created using our Little Chef Clear Art Stamp set are adorable! This is one of our small stamp sets but it has lots of creative possibilities for adding personality to cards, tags, scrapbook layouts and recipe books!

Janel Brown, one of our talented past design team member, made this sweet little tree decoration with a photo of her granddaughter matted on fishing line sandwiched between 2 pieces of mini chipboard from our SweetChips Mini Frames.

Wow, check out this great Christmas wreath I found over in the Splitcoast gallery that Dayna (woollyba_baa) made using images from our booklet and the Santa from our Winter Cotton Scraps!

Here are some sweet little tags from the make-n-take that Marisa Grosson ran for 2 days at the BC Creative Expo last month. I’ve misplaced the photo file for the cards she made right now but I will post them Monday.

Check out this sweet little Christmas outfit that Heidi Blankenship made using one of our Sweetchips Little girl outfits, paper, stickers and the little holly branch stamp from our new Christmas Joy Clear Art Stamp Set. You can see the inside of the dress, more photos and get the details HERE on Heidi's blog.



Our design team ladies are working on some wonderful new samples that they will post Monday and link to each other, so be sure to come back and check them out! You can read more about it and enter to win some Christmas goodies here on Vicki's blog.


Wishing you joy & creativity
Sandy Redburn
owner
www.craftysecrets.com
www.clearartstamps.com
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New DT Member, New Samples, CK Show & More!

A. We have a New Design Team Member!
B. New Stamp Set Samples
C. Check Out This Fun Challenge
D. Come See Us at the CK Show in WA this Weekend!
E. Otis – Our Mascot – again!

We have a New Design Team Member!
I’m so happy to announce that we have a new design team member! It’s Michele Kovack who was a past guest designer for us and she has continued to create so many wonderful samples. She really earned a spot on our team!

Michele has two children, an eleven year old son and a 13 year old daughter. She’s been married 14 years and has a pug named Bruno. She’s been teacher for 11 years and is currently teaching 5th grade. She is also on a few other design teams and keeps super busy between her family, work and addiction to paper crafting!

Check out some of these fabulous samples Michele has created! You can see more of Michelle’s work on her blog here and get more details on our blog here soon, as she will be posting them and the details shortly.

I love these two cards she created using our Coffee & Tea Clear Art Stamp set. I think she may have also used the cherry from the Kitchen Classics set and added some clear embossing, which looks really cool!

Michele made this adorable card using an image from our Childhood Image & Journal Notes Booklet

New Stamp Set Samples!
Our talented design team has been busy creating some really wonderful cards using our two NEW Clear Art Stamp Sets Snow Bunnies and Christmas Joy

Anna Wight stamped this sweet card and you can see more close up samples and get the details on her blog here. Anna also sells our stamps in her ebay store!

Pam Hooten from our design team created this little masterpiece with the Snow Bunnies set and it looks like she had a dark photo day but you can see the glitter looks fantastic on this card! You can get the details and see more on Pam's Blog HERE

I Love the warm colors of this card that Vivian Lynn from our design team captured in this card she created with the Snow Bunnies stamp set. You can see it and a very pretty card she made on her blog HERE!

Check out this fun card design team member Lisa Zappa made using the same Snow Bunnies set. I love the way she stamped the mittens across the bottom of the card! You can see more details on Lisa's blog HERE

How about this wonderful card that Heidi Blankenship made using our New Christmas Joy Clear Art Stamp set. This set is so versatile, allowing you to build and create so many combinations. The embossing on this card and the snow accents she added make it pop! You can see more close up photos and details HERE on Heidi's Blog.

Marisa Grossan from our design team used also used the Christmas Joy stamp set to create this beautiful card by stamping the small holly branch over and over to create a wreath. I love they way she matted it and gave the berries a 3D finish. You can see more details and other cards on Marisa's blog here.
Darlene, over at Splitcoast has issued a new fun challenge to create a card using any of our products with punches and not only can you see the great gallery of samples HERE, you can join in the fun and get the details here! Michelle Woerner submitted this beautiful card using the snowman from our Winter Homespun Cotton Scraps and I thought it was perfect for my post today.

Come See Us at the CK Show in WA this Weekend!
I hope to meet some of you this weekend at the CK Scrapbook Show in Bellevue WA if you can make it to this show! It’s a big, busy FUN show and Vicki Chrisman from our design team is flying in from Nebraska to run our Make-n-Take table! Come create a Christmas card with her using our vintage Christmas images or one of our new stamp sets!

We are bringing lots of everything to sell and TONS of eye popping – inspiring samples that our design team has created!

Here are a couple of photos from this past weekend when we attended the BC Creative Expo here in Vancouver BC. I was so lucky to have two fantastic ladies run our make-n-take table! Theresa was our teacher on Friday and Marisa (you can see at the table in the photo below) taught on Saturday. Everyone’s cards turned out FANTABULOUS!

Here I am at the demo table getting to play. See what I mean - lots of inspiring samples from our design team fill our entire booth!

Otis – Our Mascot – again!
Lastly, I had to share another photo I came across that Chelsea recently took of our dog Otis, who adores car rides. He looks so nostalgic and blissful! Let’s hope she wasn’t driving the car when she took this shot!

In my next post I’m going to do a big spread on Quick & Easy Christmas Card Ideas. So, come back and join us!

Wishing you joy & creativity
Sandy Redburn
owner

Our Online Store Locator
Our Shopatron Store

Crafty Secrets http://www.craftysecrets.com/
Toll Free Phone or Fax 1-888 597-8898
Local Phone 604 597-8817

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

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

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

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