Exciting News, Birds and Blooms Printable Papers, DT Samples and Show Photos

Hi Everyone,

APRIL 1/15 UPDATE:  I guess I got carried away as I was excited and didn't explain the details with the store where we will have our items for sale and consequently I've had nothing but grief since with getting across the border as the Dept of USA Immigration now feels I am moving to the USA illegally to run this store.  Lyssa, my shipper will be working at the store filling all our online orders and selling left over stock as well as the vintage items that were at the Lynden Craft and Antique Show. The store is Red Barn Jewelry and Stacia the owner has been so wonderful about having our products in her store and Lyssa will be selling Stacia's beautiful Jewelry as well. The photo below is of the store and I digitally pasted our logo to cover up the Christmas tree in the photo. We will have a Crafty Vintage Girl Sign hanging over the door with Stacia's Red Barn Jewelry Sign. I hope this will clear up the misunderstanding with the USA Immigration Dept.  As many of you already know I live and work from my home office in Canada and USA orders have always been sent from the little warehouse space I rented in Blaine, WA by Shelley (my old shipper) then for the past year by Lyssa. I have no plans to move to the USA or work in the store! 

PS - you should check out Stacia's wonderful jewelry and read the story about how she donates 15% of all her sales to help children in a village in Thailand

Orginal Post:

I'm so excited to say we are moving from my dumpy and tiny warehouse to a store in downtown Bellingham WA until the end of June and I will post all the details and photos next week after we move in!I also have a bunch of wonderful samples by our Design Team Ladies and some photos from the show we attended last week.

Here is our NEW Printable Paper Collection ' Birds and Blooms' designed by our very own DT Member Sheila Rumney!  This beautiful set includes a great mix of 24 pastel hue papers with birds and flowers and will sell for $7.95.

The papers are saved as 300 dpi jpg files and the download is divided into 2 folders.

Here's a preview of all 24 designs.

Sheila also made this sweet card in a series of sewing theme cards she created using our Sew Nice Scraps

Check out this very cool chicken card by DT Leader Kathy Clement created with our new Farm Chicks Digital Stamp Set. It includes the same designs as the past Clear Farm Chicks Set (which has sold out now) but there are 16 NEW designs added and everything is larger, so much more fun to color and play with.

How about this adorable Easter card by DT Member Michele Kovack she created using our Bunny Hop Digital Stamp Set. The pretty blue paper is from our CD #1 Creating With Vintage Patterns and I love the flower and eggs she added.

It looks like this bunny in the 'egg balloon' design attracted DT Member Shantaie Fowler as well as she used the same design and I love her bright colors and sky!

I adore this pretty set of 4 floral birthday cards DT Member Melody Clement created using our CD # 2 Creating With Vintage Illustrations. You can see the other cards and details on Melody's Blog.

 Here's a few photos from the Lynden Craft and Antique Show we sold at last week.  The booth was so packed most of the time so I forgot to get good photos before many things sold. I'm down to less that 4 trays of letterpress wood letters now from the 10 trays I had. My mom's blue Victorian planter sold for $75.00 as well as many other items. I loved the ladies who run this show Judy and Trudy. They fed us chili dogs on set up day, had live music and coffee and toast for vendors each morning!

The Lavender House had a fabulous booth and they are having a Vintage Market Show July 24-25 in Lynden, WA

As well, Up Junk Creek had a great booth as well as so many vendors who went all out.

There were a bunch of booths selling plants and funky garden art, perfect for Spring

Lastly,  I will be introducing a new DT Member next week and the next item to be added is our Hardware Digital Stamp Set which has sold out and is going to have some amazing BIG hardware added in knobs, hinges, keys and more!

Have a fantastic weekend!
Sandy Redburn

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
250 H. Street, #436
Blaine,WA 98230

Giveaway, New Digital Birds and Blossoms, Art Blooms, Tutorial and Fab Samples!

Hi Everyone,  we have a Fun Spring Giveaway that includes a mix of items below so leave a comments to be entered and a winner will be announced this Wed, April 30/14.

Our Birds and Blossom Scraps have sold out and become a 4 Page Digital $3.75 Download! Click the preview below to check out the 4 new tickets that have been added. This Giveaway includes our last sheet of Bird and Blossom Scraps as well as the New 4 page Digital Download ...plus BOTH the Clear and Digital Art Blooms Sets, plus our Garden Style Digital Stamp Set , our printed Garden Scraps and Birds and Botanical Booklet! or trade for $40.00 in other products.

Between the 4 pages shown above there are over 40 re-sizeable images  as well as a stunning collage page filled with layers of bird and botanical designs.  Dress up birthday and greeting cards, gift tags, scrapbook pages, altered art projects and keepsakes!  Digital means you can crop and re-size the images and print them on a variety of mediums in papers, card stock, fabric, iron-on transfer sheets and more! Sample Idea Sheet included with purchase.

Check out this amazing Flower Boots Card that DT Member Elizabeth Lincoln designed for her MIL for Mother's Day using our Garden Style Digital and Art Blooms Stamps both Clear and Digital Stamp Sets included in this Giveaway.

Elizabeth used our Garden Style Digital Stamp Set to print the boots which are 5.5" tall at 300 dpi but can be reduced tiny to make a border or printed. The garden aprons and gloves are also big and make great folded cards  This set included in Giveaway.

The flowers and leaves in the top of the boot are from our Art Blooms available as a CLEAR Stamp Set on Sale for $12.50 or as a Digital Stamp Set $9.95 Download.  Also, here's a cool digital Art Blooms card our graphic designer Cindy van Koll made. 

DT Member Sheila Ramsey has a great Tutorial on Creating Magnets Using Photoshop Elements using designs from CD 3 Creating with Vintage Typography.  You can see the art frame magnets I made using Cd #1 if you missed my 14 Budget Art Ideas Post

 Sheila also made this lovely thank you card using our Little Blessings Scraps on sale for $1.95.  The glitter looks so pretty on the flowers.

Check out these other fabulous samples by our Design Team!  Here's a great Mothers Day card DT Leader Kathy Clement created using an image from our Childhood Booklet on sale for $3.50 , and adding different layers and techniques you can read about.
 

DT Member Michele Kovack made this fun How Old? birthday card using our Party Animals Clear Stamp Set on sale for $12.50. Love this card but the entire set is so freakin cute! Paper is from CD 1 Creating with Vintage Patterns.

Michele also made this Kewpie thank you card using our Digital Kewpies Stamp Set
Love all the pink and shabby embellishments.

How about this cute girls pinafore card by Darlene Pavlick that she made for a neighbor expecting a baby girl soon.  Dar used our Chipboard Girls Outfit on sale for $2.95, baby Stickers and paper from CD #1.

Be sure to leave a comment here to be entered to win this Giveaway Package!  A random.org winner will be announced this Wed, April 30/14. Winner can trade for any other items with $40.00 total value.

Wishing you joy and creativity
Sandy  Redburn

Crafty Secrets 
 
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 9823

Decoupage Vintage Birds Tutorial and How to Edit Images

Hi Everyone,

I'm back today with 2 tutorials and I said I would use Paint, a free image editing program that's pre-installed on many windows based PC computers. It offers a great way for beginners to learn how to crop, re-size and change printable papers, images, digital stamps and photos.  If you don't have the Paint program you can download the upgraded version Paint.net for free.  I came back and added a quick cheater way for #2 at the end.

  Tutorial #1
First I will show you how I used Paint to print papers from our CD 2, Creating With Vintage Illustrations to decoupage on 2 plastic plates and light switch covers.

I went to my CD 2 Folder and opened the Papers and clicked on one of the papers I wanted to use and opened it with the Paint Program. 

Instead of repeating myself, please scroll down to read my mini tutorial near the end of this post on how I used the Paint Program to crop, copy and paste to re-color parts of our printable Fairy Bridge Cards download.

 Flat surfaces work best unless you working with a super thin material like tissue. These plastic plates are perfect as they don't have hardly any curve. Look around your house for boring or ugly flat surfaces to decoupage. Dresser tops or drawers, stools, small tables, trays, wood boxes and more.  Dollar stores, flea markets and thrift stores are filled with inexpensive possibilities!

I printed all my papers and images on inexpensive 20 lb (75 gm) copy paper and I use generic compatible ink from www.InkFarm.com  or www.InkGrabber.com  Just give them your printer model and you can save a bundle on ink. Be sure to use compatible ink made for your printer model.  

I didn't think the middle pattern paper looked that great when I tested them together on the wall, so I printed a floral paper (from CD 2).

If you have a inkjet printer you need to set the ink so it doesn't run when you get it wet.  When coloring digital stamps I've printed I often just use my hair dryer to heat set or leave the image for a day before coloring it. But with decoupage I know I'm going to get the paper really wet, so then I go in my garage and give any printed paper 2 sprays with Krylon Matt Sealer first.

Here's my first plate, which I ended up gluing 2 plates together and did the light switch covers but I'm not sure if they are too much??? Please tell me what you think.  We have so many outlets on our telephone desk I thought this might look good but are they too 1980's?

Tricks I learned - Lay your plates and switch covers down on the back of your printed paper. Use a pencil to trace the inside hole and around the outside of the light covers. Cut your paper larger, outside the line so you can fold it over the edge. You can trace on some scrap paper to test how much extra paper you need. My light covers were more curved and needed at least 1/4". 

Use a blade to cut the center traced area out out of the light switch covers.  I snipped a bit off the corner tips so they folded over better.  Decoupage one piece at a time. I used a foam brush to spread the gel medium all over each surface and painted it on the back of the paper I wanted to attach. Use your fingers and a damp sponge to press out any air bubbles. Don't rub too hard.

Here's a close up after of plate #1 and the switch covers.

Here's our telephone desk from farther back. I was trying to match the colors on the glass cupboard

My second plate I did.

You can tell I'm in love with this paper Cindy made for CD 2 with the nest, birdies and eggs.  Here's a link to when I used it before 3 different ways and in 3 different sizes printed on canvas, on paper for a card and small for a 1" pendant. I cropped the little bird again from the top corner of the paper and pasted him closer to the nest for the card. Then I cut him out of the canvas, attached him with a bit of glue and gave him a twig perch.

TUTORIAL # 2
This is a quick little tutorial showing how you can use the Paint Program to color over the text on our Fairy Bridge Tally Cards, a new Printable for $1.99 - but they are also our Free Gift this month when you place an order in our online www.craftyvintagegirl.com  
Store. This method shows how you can color over certain areas.  Scroll to the end to read the FAST CHEATERS METHOD.

Don't worry - they don't have the red printing, I just used this sample. First, open the file with the Paint Program.  Then go to VIEW and click on the ZOOM icon to see everything closer.

Then click on SELECT and use the EYE DROPPER to pick a color. I used the background beige color. Then click on a brush and pick a size. I used the Marker brush with the largest size to color over the printed bridge tally lettering on the first card.

Then click SELECT  again and COPY and PASTE the colored box over the other cards.

Then you can keep pasting the same colored box you have copied.  If you make a mistake just click on the first BLUE ARROW on the top to go back.

See it's easy!  Just be sure to SAVE your file with a new name (so you still have the original if you want to use them with the text).   Note: Paint usually saves as PNG but you can click on the little drop down menu to save as a JPG file.  

To type and journal on your new blank cards you can click on SELECT again and click on the TEXT 'A' Box and use your mouse to make a text box where you want to start typing to journal on your cards.

FAST CHEATER METHOD:  I came back and added these You can simply crop a white box or copy a cropped piece of paper using Paint and COPY it,  then open this file with Paint again and PASTE it over the area you want to cover. See samples below I cropped and also made a box using the SHAPE Tool.  I just don't know how to color inside the box except for the method I showed farther above using a brush. I bet there is a way with the Paint Bucket Tool. If anyone knows, please leave a comment and explain - thanks!

Please leave a comment and tell me if this tutorial was helpful or any questions you may have?

Thanks and don't forget to come back this Monday for our week long Linky Party and Design Team Challenge with 2 NEW Members and a NEW FABULOUS GIVEAWAY! 

Sandy

See Our  CraftyVintageGirl.com Store
 Our Online Shopatron Store  (sorry No digital downloads)

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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
250 H. Street, #436
Blaine,WA 9823

Welcome to March Linky Party & Spring DT Challenge

Hi Everyone, 

It's our March Linky Party and our Design Team Challenge and this month the theme is Spring. You don't need to post a 'Spring' sample to enter our Linky Party.  You can post a photo of anything you have created using a Crafty Secrets product and enter it below.  All we ask is that you tell us what you used to create it and please add a link if here possible.  Also scroll below to see winner for all 5 Easter -Spring theme Digital Stamp Sets!

 Come see what fabulous creations our Design Team ladies have created and then come back to see my project below.

Vicki Chrisman -Team Leader

Michele Kovack

Darlene Pavlick

Melissa Bove

Rebekah Faries

The lucky winner was #48 Brenda Evans.  Brenda, you can have all 5 Easter-Spring theme Digital Art Stamp Sets or pick any digital items of $40.75

I used CD 2, Creating with Vintage Illustrations to make a few samples using the same image three different ways

I printed my image on canvas and added it to a 6" embroidery hoop. I wanted to use the cute bird from the corner of the paper so I cut and added it but then for the card I pasted the bird at the top of the nest and added the roses. I think I like the twig and need to stitch it on across the bottom.  The nice thing about embroidery hoops is that you can easily switch the image out to suit an occasion and the seasons.

I love the pop of color the pink roses add.

This is a little gift tag below I made.  I used the oval shaped icon on the Paint program to make a brown circle and just cut around it.  If you own any of our CD's and you have Photoshop Elements; each CD has a fantastic step by step tutorial by digital expert Patty Debowski from thedigitalscrapbookteacher.com   The tutorial is the same on each CD and covers all the basics. Patty included thumbnail photos and easy to understand instructions on:  Making a Blank File, How to Change Colors, Building a Layered Project, Adding Text, Adding Drop Shadows, Cropping a Scrapbook Page, How to Use a Paper Pattern Overlay, Using Blending Modes, and Adding Texture.

I hung it over our telephone desk in a little bare spot.  I wanted to add some little copper color seed beads to the nest last night but couldn't find a needle skinny enough.Has anyone ever done seed beading and is it easy?  Is there a trick to it or do you just stitch them on? Hey, I just remembered I can ask my friend Google how to seed bead.

Now it's your turn to add a sample you have created using any of our products!  You have all week to submit anything you have created using our products. A random.org Winner will be announced next Mon, Mar 11/13 to WIN a $50.00 Crafty Secrets Gift Certificate.  Don't be shy - come play because every person that enters will receive a $6.00 coupon code to use in our www.craftyvintagegirl.com Store!





Wishing you joy and creativity

Sandy Redburn
See Our  CraftyVintageGirl.com Store
 Our Online Shopatron Store  (sorry No digital downloads)

Visit us on Facebook with over 4900 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

Happy Valentine's Day, Moxie Fab Stamp Giveaway and New Samples!

Hi Everyone, Happy Valentines Day!

I have the new winner listed below, plus a link to a great  BIG Clear Art Stamp Giveaway at Moxie Fab  by Cath for Cherish, Sing For Joy, Mini Frames, Price Tags and Lacey Patterns.  Just leave a comment there (not here) to be entered to win all 5 Clear Art Stamp Sets

 Cindy van Koll, our graphic designer made the bouquet above and card below with our Heart to Heart Digital Art Stamp Set. She just shrunk the hearts down smaller.

Congratulations to #18, Sylvia from Little Treasures who was the 2nd random.org winner to win all our new printable items I showed all the themes.

DT member Darlene Pavlick was so sweet and sent me a digital card she colored using our Garden Girl Digital Art Stamp Set.  She said she used her new Spectrum Noir alcohol markers but she just got them recently so is still practicing.  I think it looks fabulous.
 She says she didn't pre-treat her image but she heard that these papers work best with alcohol markers for blending: Neenah, GinaK Pure Luxury, and Cryogen White. 

I planned to come back and add my test results using Copics with our Digital Stamps but all the Copic Markers are at Cindy's house, so Vicki tested this Valentime image she printed last week with no problems. She's waiting for an order of ink so can't test a 'freshly printed image' but I would use a heat tool or hair dryer if you want color right away.  Each printer and ink is different but I also own a Canon Pixma ix6520 and use 'no name ink' from www.inkfarm.com  without any problems using water colors on my Valentine Mini Album.   

 Here are some super cute new treat samples that DT leader Vicki Chrisman made with our new Adorable Easter Egg Printables.  You can see samples with the Victorian Eggs on this post if you missed them

 Look at this super pretty birdie card Joan Ervin created using our Bird Lover Stamp Set. She also used some other stamps and you can get her supply list through the link. I adore the fabric rose and twine she added.  This is one of the stamp sets in the Moxie Fab Giveaway.

We are hooked on Downton Abbey, the UK TV series, that is Scott, myself and my mom who I call upstairs to watch with us. It's starts out in 1912 and the mansion decor and characters are fascinating! Past DT member Julie Campbell told me about it but I had already missed a season and wanted to start from the beginning. Then our daughters gave it to me for my birthday in Jan. We are on season 3 now and I don't want it to end!

If you still need a Valentine card, here's our Free 2013 Printable and links to past ones. Plus, a link to yummy Valentine recipes on skinnytaste.com  Owner, Ginny, has the best recipes and weight watcher friendly.  I want the chocolate parfait! 

 Don't forget to enter the Big Stamp Set Giveaway over at Moxie Fab!
 
 Wishing you joy and creativity  

Sandy Redburn

See Our  CraftyVintageGirl.com Store

Our Online Shopatron Store  (sorry, No digital downloads) 

Visit us on Facebook with over 5200 Fans!  
Join This Newsletter on: 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