Win a $50.00 & $100.00 Gift Card in Fav Fellas Contest & Giveaway!

Hi Everyone,


I have so many things to tell you about, I made a list of Quick Highlights

Enter Our Fav Fella Contest and Win a $100.00 Gift Certificate!
See More Free Give-Aways and Blog Candy Here!
Print Our Free Men Images and Tie Template for Fathers Day
Check Out These Great Cards & Ideas for Men!
Visit May Guest Designer Joanne Allison’s Blog!
Come See Us at the GAS Show in TX June 6, 7 & 8th

Enter Our Fav Fella Contest and Win a $100.00 Gift Certificate!

Fathers Day is coming June 15 and I wanted to share some fabulous ideas and encourage you to enter a card, layout or keepsake you may have created, or you may now be inspired to create to honor your father, husband or other father figure in your life. You can WIN a $100.00 gift certificate from us to spend on any of our products! Please email all projects to: contest@craftysecrets.com



The winner will be chosen from best design and use of our products. Please list what supplies you used and some simple tips, in case other people wish to re-create it. The entry deadline is June 9 and a winner will be announced that night.

You can also enter here on our blog to Win our FREE Blog Candy Giveaway! You just have to post either a favorite memory you’ve had with your father, or tell us a great idea you have for celebrating and honoring Dads on Fathers Day here at the end of this blogpost. Make sure you add your email or check back to see if you’ve won!

Plus – Vicki Chrisman is giving away an adorable altered fairy she created HERE on Vicki's blog. Each day she has been adding extra goodies, so you can make your own altered fairies using photos of your kids - or add wings and a party hat to your pet! Vicki has used the wings from our Earthy Paper Pad and party hats and crowns from our Radiant Paper Pad.



You can Print Our Free Men Images and our Tie Template for Fathers Day on June 15, or use either of them for a man's birthday.






The Big Fish and Golf image are part of a page from our Wacky & Wonderful Book and I'm sad to say it's almost all sold out, so I'm posting it here free because our design team has made some great cards I want to share below.



Later this year we are doing a Men's theme Journal & Image Notes Booklet and these images will go into that book.

This TIE TEMPLATE is a free printable that our graphic Artist Cindy whipped up today as I thought it would be fun for kids to decorate for Dad, or use on a scrapbook page. You can print it onto color cardstock or pattern paper and add photos of dad, messages of love, stamp on it and all sorts of fun embellishments. Simply cut your tie out and add ribbon to tie around dad's neck. Gee - you could make ties for all the men you know and if you have some yellow paper, make them 'King for the Day' crowns to wear as well!

Just put your mouse over the image and click on the left side of your mouse, then when the image is larger, click it with the right side of your mouse and save the tie image and then save the poems to one of your picture files, or on your desktop. Later you can open each of them and print them on paper or cardstock. You can use almost any picture program to size the images to print them smaller or larger in size, depending on what you wish to create.

Our contest will close on June 10 and I will announce the winner for the blog entries and projects submitted. If you have more than one project or Fathers Day idea you can post extras!

Check Out These Great Cards & Ideas for Men!
Our talented design team has created a smorgasbord of samples perfect for men. Some of these are birthday cards but they they could easily be adapted into a Fathers Day card. Iwas going to try and link to our online gallery but the samples were under too many different searches. If you type in: Favorite Fellas, Father or Dad in the search bar you will be able to get more details and see other great samples!

Many of them are created with our Favorite Fellas Large Stamp set shown here and I love the way this set turned out and how versatile it is! The inside comes out of the TV so you can add whatever you like, plus the #1 comes out of the trophy cup as well, in case you want to add something else.

This cute tie card was created by DT member Lisa Zappa when she stamped our tie stamp on six different paper pattern scraps from our Earthy Paper Pad. She also matted it on Earthy Papers.

This would 'tie' in great if you used the big printable tie template and also made a tie for

Dad to wear.

I love the way Pam Hooten from our design team stamped this card. Stamping images on cardstock pieces is a great way to help guarantee the success of your project. If you mess up, you can simply stamp a new card.

Pam also did an amazing job here lining up our diamond border to stamp 4 in a row. If something doesn't look right, you can always add a button!

You can also draw a line down the center of your acrylic block with a fine tip permanent marker, or score a line and use the line as a guide to line your long stamps up straight.

Anna Wight from our design team really captured

the radiant colors with the fun image on this card! The image is from our Wacky & Wonderful Book and we literally only have a couple left and it will be sold out (boo-hoo) - but this is one of the free printable images in this post! The paper is from our Radiant Paper Pad.

What man who loves fishing hasn't dreamed of this kind of catch!

Everyone LOVES this fun card Linda Duke created using one of the guy stamps from our Favorite Fellas stamp set, paired with paper and the shaving ad from our Earthy Paper Pad.

The shaving cream is actually Liquid Appliqué from Stampin’ Up and it's totally 3D!

Linda used Prismacolor Pencils with her baby oil technique to color her guy. I HAVE to get her tutorial posted ASAP on how she uses the baby oil to blend her pencils. It's very cool!

Lisa Zappa also created this Auto Log Journal, which think is such a cool idea for a gift! She found the notebook in the $1.00 section at Michael's. She loved the black diamond design that it looks like a racing flag and combined it with stamps from the Favorite Fellas set.

She stamped the car on an oval frame sticker from the Altered Office Sticker set, and she also used the OK, Paper Clip and pointing hand sticker. She used an old vintage map from an old road atlas that she paid .75 cents for at a junk shop. She stamped "Auto Log" with our "Adore" Alphabet stamps. She also added 3 'file folder tab stickers' from the Altered Office stickers and wrote "Mileage", "Tune-Ups" and "Oil Changes" on each one.

The same stamps used above, were also
used here by Michelle Wooderson from our design team to stamp this quick fun birthday card and envelope using our Favorite Faellas stamp set.

This same ideacould easily be turned into a Fathers Day card if she used the Happy Fathers Day stamp from the set, or some of the other sentiments.

Julie Ebersole is a past alumni member of our design team and she created this card last year that I wanted to share with you as it was buried so far into the gallery, you may not have seen it.

Plus the

'Lean Mean Swinging Machine Golf Guy' is the other free printable image in this post!

I ve the paper blocking Julie did using papers from our Earthy Paper Pad

Visit Our May Guest Designer Joanne Allison’s Blog! Joanne is from the UK and as our guest designer this month, she has created several WONDERFUL cards and vintage paper crafts using products from our Heartwarming Vintage Collection and Clear Art Stamps. I adore this sweet baby card she just created with a faux quilt design! You can get more details - plus see more fantastic samples on Allison's blog here at http://angelnorth.blogspot.com/

Come See Us at the GAS Show in TX June 6, 7 & 8
If you are coming to the Great American Scrapbook Convention next week you have to come by our booth and see all fantastic samples we are bringing, plus come meet our design team leader Vicki Chrisman and check out her daily demos, see the truck load of products we are bringing, and create our 3 great projects that will be offered at the Make-N-Take area at the show across from our booths 418 & 420. If you come to the show - tell us that you want our Texas Freebie to get our little gift with any purchase and if you spend over 25.00 you will also get an extra gift!

See Us in Mary Engelbreit’s Home Companion and Stampington's Stampers Sampler Magazine!
I’m thrilled to announce we are now advertising in Home Companion and Stamper's Sampler Magazine! I’ve always loved both these magazines and the incredible, inspiring projects and articles they both continue to publish with every issue. Our first ad is in the current issue of Home Companion and we’ve had a tremendous response! We also have an ad coming out in the next issue of Stampers Sampler and their Stampington online store stocks some of our products.

If you wish to find our products please check our Online Store Locator Here, or ask your favorite retailer to contact us! You can also buy our products online through our Shopatron Store Here and either a retail store near you or we will fill your order.

You can also always come browse 100's of samples in Our Online Gallery Here

Heartwarming Wishes!
Sandy Redburn
Owner

See Us in Puyallup WA, Samples & My Family!

Here is a quick run down on this post:

Stamp Show in Puyllup WA
Scrapbook Show in TX
Mothers Day Re-Cap and My Family!
More Great Samples from guest designer Joanne Allison & our Design Team!!!

If you are in the area and you want to go to a great stamp show, we have a booth this weekend, May 20 & 21 at the Puyallup Fairgrounds in WA, south of Seattle.
Heirloom Productions is putting on this show and last year was our first time ever attending a stamp show and we were thrilled with how crazy busy we were and how much fun we had! I wasn’t sure what to take, so we just took everything and those crazy stampers loved it all. Maybe it was because so many vendors focus on stamps and stamp products (duh – it’s a stamp show) but we had so many other things besides our stamps, everyone seemed excited to see ‘new blood’ – ha-ha!. We also have Diane Radischat, who teaches in the Seattle area coming to help us at the show! You can get all the details HERE. This photo is of our booth at a recent show

This year, we have way more stamp sets, plus our new Image Books, Chipboard Albums, and I went a little nuts and ordered TONS of other really cool items to embellish, my fav sparkle pens, mini pom poms, mini birds nests, geez I can’t list it all! This is because we are also getting ready for our biggest & busiest show of the year – next month (June 7, 8, 9) at the Great American Scrapbook Convention in Arlington Texas!

I hope you all had a wonderful mothers day; as a mom, with your mom, or remembering your mother. I was invited by my oldest daughter Katie (25) and her boyfriend Ryan (since they were 17) for brunch and then to go bike riding around the seawall at Stanley Park in Vancouver. My youngest daughter Chelsea (21) came, but Holly (22) was in Saskatoon visiting her best friend for the weekend. Katie is holding George, their cute boxer.

It's hard to believe that this photo I took of

Katie & Chelsea is along the seawall at Kits

beach in Stanley Park in Vancouver in May!

Look at the palm trees!

They have palm trees all the way along this

stretch, so it just shows you, we are not the

great white north as some may think. It was

a warm sunny day, thank goodness

Did I mention, I haven’t been on a bike in at least
15 years! Plus, I’m so busy with work, I’m a sloth

when it comes to exercise – so every inch of my

body is SORE and in PAIN, but it’s OK, because

every time I think of the fun we had and how good it felt to breath in all that fresh salty air – I just want to get back on that pink bike and ride into the wind again! It was $9.95 for each of us to rent bikes for 2 hours, long enough to ride around the park and stop for photos. They treated me to a yummy double scoop gelato ice cream cone afterwards. Too bad my DH, Scott had to work.

After our bike ride, we came back here to Surrey to celebrate Mothers Day with my Mom and all of us. This is a photo of mom with us 'kids'. My sister Wendy and my brother Russell. It was also my Mom & Dad’s 52nd anniversary on Monday, so we ordered in a Chinese food to celabrate both events and had a big feast - but with paper plates, so no dishes to wash!

My Dad was being camera shy.

I never talk about my personal life too much but

I want to tell you a little about my family

because I'm bursting with pride and love for them! I know I work too much and I realize how

blessed I am. They help me affirm why I need to slow down and enjoy and savour it all! My husband Scott (almost 30 years) is always there to lend a hand and help in my business.

This family photo was taken last summer

Katie, (green top) our oldest is graduating next week from UBC (University of British Columbia) with a Bachelor of Arts Degree and she is smart and passionate about helping the world and our enviromental issues. She has been a vegetarian since grade 6 and she is a fantastic cook! She started walking last year every weekday morning and has now lost 30 lbs. Holly, our 22 year old encouraged her to train for the Sun Run Marathon this year and they just completed it recently and I'm so darn proud! They inspire me to get off my butt

Holly, 22, (holding George) couldn't make it to our Mothers Day bike ride, as she went to visit her best friend this weekend in Saskatoon. Holly has been having some health issues and between tests and waiting you realize how we can get so busy living life, we need to spend more time cherishing the people and things that matter most. We just found out she has a cyst and thyroid problem (like me), so we are relieved that we know what to deal with. Now we are both going to a special thyroid clinic together. Holly is a personal assistant to 2 multi-million $ owners of a big company, so we are all jealous of all the perks she gets! She is a self starter and has already bought a condo as an investment that she rents out.

Chelsea (on right) just turned 21 and she has grown into a beautiful woman and person. She has always been so worried and self conscious about acne scars she had from a teenager but I looked at her the other day and couldn't even see them. I wish she new how pretty she is inside and out! She loves 'old people' and is in a 4 year collage program in therapeutic recreation. She works part time at the seniors home near by and runs the exercise classes, dives them in their bus to the mall, gets to play and do arts & crafts and plan fun activities for them.

Okay, I'm getting all sappy here. I just feel so happy and blessed to have so many people in my life that I love! I could go on and tell you how much my mom and dad help in the business. Cindy and Nicole who I couldn't run the business without. Plus our design team as been together for ages and they are sooo good and soo nice and have all become friends!

Joanne Allison is our guest designer this month and she has created so many great samples! Here are a couple more for you to enjoy. I love the retro feel of these! You can get more detail here on Joanne's blog

I love the way the internet lets us all connect - even globally and share! Joanne lives in Engalnd

Our talented design have also been amazing me with their cool ideas and creations! I can't show you all my fqavorites here, but you can see everything posted in our DT Sample Gallery and if you visit their blogs, you can often see more photos and details.

Janel decorated cards for her ATC

holder using images, stickers, stamps and our paper!

Liza Z. used an image from our Birds & Botanical Image & Journal Notes Booklet and some of our stamps.

See more details here in our gallery

We are working on new stamp designs, 4 new Image & Journal Note titles, kits and other surprises for later this summer! I will keep you posted.

Please check our Store Locator Here for a local retailer

All of our producrs are also sold online HERE at Shopatron

Hugs,

Sandy Redburn

http://www.craftysecrets.com/

Win More Booklets and See More Cool Samples!

Yippee – Pam Hooten is another one of our talented design members who creates great samples with our products and this is her turn to give away some of our Heratwarming Vintage Image & Journal Notes! She is doing 2 draws May 12 on HERE on her blog Iris Garden for a full set of all 4 booklets, and for a set of 2 books to a second place person.

All she wants you to do is leave a comment on her blog telling her what she should do with these 2 old chairs she got. She can’t decide if she should paint them, or just sand off any flaky paint and add a clear sealer? Don’t forget to leave your name, or be sure to go back and check if you won! Plus – you have to see the adorable samples she has created on her blog using our images!

Here are a couple of other samples Pam has
created that I adore!

Ooops, after I picked them I realized they both have birds!

She stiched the fabric bird from our 'Flowers' Homespun Cotton Scraps. She used our Bird Lover Stamps

Don’t forget to check out the more samples on Our Website Here that design team have been creating!

Plus here is another great sample by our guest designer this month; Joanne Allison.

Joanne said:

"A jar of something homemade is always a nice gift but it’s even nicer if you dress it up a little. A stamped label looks sweet and the lid cover takes advantage of the fact you can curve polymer stamps to fit different shapes – I curved the cherry border onto a large block and stamped three times to make a complete circle. I chose mulberry paper as it’s soft enough to ‘drape’ a little over the lid and make a pretty frill.
A linguistic note: I’m British so it’s ‘jam’ to me, ‘jelly’ would fit on the label just as well :o)
Stamps: Kitchen Classics and Adore alphabet (Crafty Secrets Clear Art Stamps)

Ink: Brilliance Graphite Black
Other: Prismacolor pencils/OMS/stump, gingham ribbon (Bazzill), sticky mailing label, white mulberry paper

In case you missed my last blog post HERE, I posted some poems for Mothers Day from my collection if you want a poem for a card or layout to honor your mom. You can copy and paste them into a word document and change the font style and size.

Please check our Store Locator Here to support a retailer near you but call first to make sure they have what you want in stock!

You can also shop online for all our products here at Shopatron and one of our retailers or we will fill your order!

Have a FUN Weekend and be sure to take the time to honor yourself if you are a mother!

UK Designer Joanne Allison and Mothers Day Poems!

I'm thrilled we have a new guest designer Joanne Allison ( Angelnorth) this month from the UK! Joanne entered a couple of Easter cards for a contest we ran and won first place! you can see all the entries if you scroll to April 25. Joanne's blog is approaching 10,000 hits, so to celebrate I sent her some of our products to give away on her blog http://angelnorth.blogspot.com/ with a chance for people in Europe to WIN! She will be posting the details for the draw later today.

Here is a little more info on Joanne:
One way or another, Joanne has been crafting since she was about three but has only discovered stamping in the last year or so. She was raised to believe that in crafting most 'mistakes' are simply creative opportunities and even now hears her mum's voice saying "Well, can you make a feature of it?" when something at the craft table goes awry.

When she's not playing with paper and ink, Joanne is a freelance proofreader and copy-editor and is married to a man who is very supportive of her hobby but has zero visual imagination - dinner table conversation about imagined crafty projects gets interesting!

Here is a pretty keepsake she created using a photo from her wedding day 10 years ago.

SUPPLY LIST:

Crafty Secrets Sweet Chips Heart Album and mini frame
Stamps: Sexy Numbers, Frame It and Rosy Wishes (Crafty Secrets Clear Art Stamps)
Ink: Versafine Vintage Sepia, Tim Holtz Distress Ink Shabby Shutters and Peeled Paint, Versamark
Other: Other: Cream/Brass Hardware Stickers (Heartwarming Vintage), Prismacolor pencils/OMS/stump, 1" silk ribbon, gold lustre powder, white, gold and copper gel pens, pearlescent watercolours.

Mothers Day is coming and I thought it would be nice to include some old poems from my collection that honor and celebrate Mothers. You can copy and paste any of these poems into a word document so you can change the style of the font and the size to use in a card, on a scrapbook page or even paste it in an email to send to your mom.
Please scroll further down to see more samples, cards and layouts

For those of you who have lost your Mother, this first poem is for you

Remembering Mother

Feel no guilt in laughter, she knows how much you care.

Feel no sorrow in a smile that she's not here to share.

Remember the good times, the ways you each cared.

The days you spent together, all the happiness you shared.

Let memories surround you, a word someone may say

Will suddenly recapture a time, an hour, a day

that brings her back as clearly as though she were still here

And fills you with the feelings that she is always near.

For if you keep these moments, you will never be apart

And she will live forever locked safe within your heart.

Dear Mother
God sent the birds and Sunshine to gladden all the world.

He sent the foliage and flowers in radiance unfurled.

He sent the June, the Stars, the Moon, the pearly dewdrops sweet

and then He sent you, Mother dear, to make it all complete.
- Maurine Hathaway 1924

M-O-T-H-E-R
"M" is for the million things she gave me,

"O" means only that she's growing old,

"T" is for the tears she shed to save me,

"H" is for her heart of purest gold;

"E" is for her eyes, with love-light shining,

"R" means right, and right she'll always be,

Put them all together, they spell "MOTHER,

a word that means the world to me.

-Howard Johnson (c. 1915)

Mother
Because I feel that in the heavens aboveThe angels, whispering one to another,Can find among their burning tears of love,None so devotional as that of "Mother".

~Edgar Allan Poe

MOTHER of MINE

A mother's heart
holds many charms
And love is ever in her arms,
And in her eyes a faith divine;
And home is you, O mother of mine!
- 1917 Volland

Here are some fantastic past samples made for mothers I wanted to share again! Just click on the photos to see them larger.

Lisa Zappa from our design team created this Mothers Day Card as a gift card holder for last Mother's day. She used a Bazzill

Library pocket for the holder and added crackled wood paper from the "Radiant" pad to the bottom of the holder. She

mounted the seed image from the "Seasonal" booklet so that it hides the gift card behind it.

"Mom" is stamped with the letters from the "Artsy Alphabet" stamp set. The white flowers are colored in with a Sakura gelly roll clear glitter pen. She added Making Memories Pink Glitter around the edge of the seed packet image. She also used May Arts Ribbon, a corner punch and a slit punch for the insert inside the pocket.

I love this pretty card that Denise Dilman, a member of Spitcoast Stampers created, using an image from our Homespun Cotton Scraps on the Family sheet.

She said she frayed the edges of the cotton image before she matted it and added Prima flowers randomly with gold brads for the centres.

She found the perfect paper clip with a red rose to match our paper!

Design team member Vicki Chrisman decorated this mdf frame from Darice with letters from our Divine Alphabet Book to spell MOM when it first came out a couple of years ago but I still love it! All of our Heartwarming Vintage Alphabet Books are ON SALE NOW HERE to make room for new products. She cut the word 'Wonderful' from the images at the back of the book.

I think the paper was from K & Company.

Vicki created the scallop layout using pattern paper from our Pastel Paper Pad. The 'white lace trim' is actually paper she cut from the pad. The photo turns, ribbon holders and sentiment are stickers from our Greeting & Sentiment stickers.

Vintage Samples and More Blog Candy Give Aways!

Wow - I have some great samples to share and
2 places you can enter win more our of our new Vintage Image & Journal Notes!

Anna Wight from our design team is also an amazing photographer and the photos she has taken on her farm in Texas are such a wonderful mix of breathtaking, funny, amazing and so fascinating that I’m in total awe every time I visit her Photo a Day Gallery HERE! This is a photograph of some newly hatched chicks.

Daisy, one of their prize cows recently gave birth and Anna has been posting the news and photos on her blog but she still found time to make a couple of adorable cards using our new Childhood and Summertime Image & Journal Notes Booklets.

Anna says she loved how fast and simple this card was to create and just look how adorable it turned out! She chose the little fishing boy with his puppy from our Childhood Booklet and picked multiple papers to layer it with.

She loves the texture and dimension that sewing on paper adds and when she doesn't use her sewing machine, she often pulls out her serrated edge tracing wheel to add faux stitching to her cards.

Check out the other card Anna made on her blog, which she created using a sweet image from our Summertime book, plus you can get the details on how she created it and also ENTER to WIN her FREE BLOG CANDY in a full set of our 4 Image & Journal Booklets she is drawing a winner at 8 pm Central Thursday May 1, 2008.

You can see how great the tracing wheel worked on the edges of this Sweetchips dress that Anna jazzed up! She says if you are trying to add faux stitching to plain paper, just put a piece of chipboard under your paper to add some cushion.

The rotten part is someone stole Anna's wonderful little dress album from our booth last year at the CHA show! I was so sad, because it was like a little piece of art, all stamped inside and sooo pretty!

Try clicking your mouse on the dress and - hopefully it will get bigger so you can see the faux stiching detail around the edges. The papers are from our Earthy Paper Pad and the flourish stamp is from our Cherub Stamp set.

Michelle Wooderson from our design team has also created two stunning cards using our Birds & Botanicals Booklet and she is doing a double draw!

You can enter here on her blog HERE and she will pick a winner this Saturday. Don't forget to leave your name and check back. I'm still waiting to hear from Lois who won HERE on Janel's draw! Lois, if you read this please email or call our toll free number 1-888 597-8898. We need your address!

Here is one of Michelle's cards but you can see her other tulip card and more photos, plus get the supply list and details on how she created the cards on her blog.

There was also a challenge over at Splitcoast Stampers to create a card using any of our supplies and use some type of flowers on the card to celebrate the coming of Spring! Lori Washburn has been super sweet to volunteer and create a weekly challenge. The 6 samples these ladies posted were each so nice I had to add a link to see them HERE!

Now Lori has posted a new card challange on Splitcoast and the only rules is to keep your card square shaped and use some of our Heartwarming Vintage products. You can see the 5 awesome samples posted so far but anyone can join in the fun here!

If you are wondering what Splitcoaststampers.com is you MUST go visit this site and check out the galleries, tips, techniques and helpful resources. Once you get digging, you will find so much inspiration and information here: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources

The design team has also been posting new samples you can see in our ONLINE GALLERY like this enchanting layout

Vicki Chrisman did using a page from our Childhood Booklet!

If you don't have a local retailer with our products, Anna has a great Online Store HERE

and she stocks lots of our products!
You can also check our Store Locator HERE.

We have LOTS of really fun projects planned for May,
so be sure to come back and visit!