Well, Spring has sprung in North Carolina! My miniature daffodils are waving their pretty yellow heads in the plant pots on my front stoop. The cherry trees have burst into bloom. The Bradford Pears that line are driveway are swelling with buds, birds are singing…even the spring peepers have started their happy chorus! Even though I’m not a gardener, this time of year always reminds me of my mom. She could not wait to get out and dig in the dirt after our long New England winters. She would get the laundry hung on the line, and head right out for her flower beds to give her precious posies some TLC. When I found these adorable aprons in the Garden Style Digital Art Stamps, I knew that I had to make these paper pieced apron note cards to share with you.
These are standard sized 4.25″ x 5.5″ note cards on a kraft card base. I printed out the gorgeous garden paper collage from the Digital Garden Papers and stitched it onto the pretty peach diamond papers. I love the color combo! It just says SPRING!
I printed the apron onto 4 different sheets of paper from the Garden Papers, cut them apart, and then paper pieced them back together again. Color was randomly added with alcohol markers. I pleated the ruffle a little on each card and popped the pockets up onto foam tape to add some fun dimension, then touched it with a little bit of Diamond Stickles for glitz and glam.
These would make such great hostess gifts…or just a flirty, fun way to send a little thinking of you note. They are simple to make, so you could do gobs of them in and afternoon. Besides, paper piecing takes me back to playing with paper dolls. It’s just plain fun!
Praying for You Card with Crafty Secrets Bedtime Kids Digital Stamps
Hello, Friends!
Hope you are having a good weekend. We finally have some sunshine after days and days of grey skies, and it is a real boost to both my mood and my creativity! I got inspired to play a little with the adorable Bedtime Kids Jumbo Digital Stamp Set from Crafty Secrets, and because one of my goals for 2015 is to work on my coloring skills, I pulled out my Spectrum Noir pens and made this sweet “we’re all praying for you” card.
Kathy by Design for Crafty Secrets/Bedtime Kids Praying for You Card
My background paper is from the Vintage Valentine Kit, printed out to 8″ square. I used Scor-Tape to create a sort of “rug” with yarn, and then stitched around the card. This set has 55 stamps and sentiments to choose from, but I settled on the praying kids, bedroom scene and cute little doggie. I layered all the images with foam tape to add dimension, and then computer journaled my sentiment.
The inside of the card uses a scrap of the same paper, and a hand written sentiment. There’s room to write a little note of encouragement. Sweet and simple!
Here’s another look at this darling stamp set.
In addition to the original 55 stamps, Sandy colorized some of the images and included them in a bonus download…so this is an amazing deal for just $9.95!
We featured these stamps in our January Linky Party and there’s still a little time left to join the fun. We included 2 free downloads (for personal use only) in the Linky Party Post and you can use those to create a card or a layout for the challenge. Or, just use any Crafty Secrets goodies you have in your stash. You have until midnight tonight to link up your project, and one lucky participant will receive the entire set pictured above!
I hope you’ll play along! Let me know what you think of the new Linky Party format, and how you would use this cute set of stamps. I’d love to hear from you!
Hello Friends! I have always loved Beatrix Potter. There’s something about little “critters” all dressed up in fancy clothes and behaving like humans that captures my imagination and makes me happy. So when Sandy Redburn, owner of Crafty Secrets released the brand new Deer Christmas stamp sets, my fingertips began to itch and visions of cute dancing mice began to prance in my head. I finally had a chance to bring some of those ideas to life today in this Dancing Deer Mouse card for Crafty Secrets.
The wreath and the two adorable deer mice are from the new set. The music paper is from the Creating with Vintage Christmas CD. On the CD, it is brown and beige, but I used the color changer tool to turn it green for this festive card.
Sandy and I were previewing this set before the release, and when I saw the little mouse with the gift in his hand, I just melted. I think he is soooooo stinking cute! I said to her, “You should make another one with a tutu,” and to my delight, she did! I love that they are wearing antlers that are strung with holly, berries, tinsel and stars. Beatrix Potter would be proud.
I colored the wreath with alcohol markers, metallic chalk and chalk pastels. The holly berries were all dotted with Christmas Red Stickles. The tutu and garland are treated with a little Diamond Stickles. I added a little gold metallic string bow and some red jingle bells, just for fun.
These little cuties make me feel like celebrating! How about you?
Hello, Friends! Can you believe it is already December? Where did this year go? It’s time for the Crafty Secrets December Linky Party…the last one for 2014. Our theme this month is Cooking, Christmas or Calendars and the design team has prepared some wonderful projects to inspire your creativity. We hope you will play along with us and link your own project using Crafty Secrets products to the Linky Party BLOG. If you don’t have any Crafty Secrets products, you can find dozens of FREE PRINTABLES by clicking on the link. Just download and print so you can play along. Everyone who plays along wins a little prize, and one lucky participant is randomly chosen to win a $40 shopping spree in the Crafty Secrets store. No reason not to play along!
Hostess Gift Recipe Box Tutorial
The holiday season brings on lots of parties and occasions where you need a little hostess gift. I’ve used papers and images from the wonderful new Kitchen Memories Digital Kit to alter a kraft gift box. My family loves appetizers, and every Christmas Eve we have a fun party where I make all our favorite appetizers and that is all we have! So I filled my little box with a bunch of my favorite appetizer recipes. This would make such a sweet hostess gift at a holiday party. It’s cute, it’s useful and could be used all throughout the year.
I’ve had this little box in The Closet of Shame forever. It measures 5 1/4″ x 3 3/4″ so it’s the perfect size for standard 3″ x 5″ index cards.
I printed my papers and the recipe cards from the kit. I used the clipping tool in PaintShop Pro to trim around the decorated recipe card so that I could size it to fit my box dimension. Then, I copied and pasted 6 of them into Microsoft Word to use as recipe dividers sized to 5″ x 3″. The 7th one, I sized smaller so that I could add layers of paper to my box top. You know how I love my layers!
All the edgses of the box were inked liberally with Black Soot Distress Ink. I cut the vintage grocery paper to fit inside the lid and bottom of the box, inking them liberally with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.
Here’s a look at the cover “in progress.” I sewed around the edges of the Red Tweed paper and matted it on a slightly larger piece of black cardstock. I also stitched around my cute vintage recipe card, then matted it with red and black cardstock. I love the vintage vibe you get with this red, black, cream and white color palette! I free-hand cut the little fishtail banners and glued them in the top right corner of the box.
I love this project because it is so simple to make and comes together in just a couple of hours. It would probably take you even less time to make, as part of the time I spent was in searching for the images, and figuring out how to bring the concept together. I added some vintage metal corners, some cute buttons and a perky bow made with Micro Red Gingham. Quick and easy, but very, very cute!
Here are the recipe cards I printed and cut out. I used my trimmer to go around the straight edges, so there’s very little fussy cutting involved. I thought about computer journaling the text, but in the end, I decided to use my own handwriting. It just seemed to fit with this vintage project.
See how perfectly the cards fit into the box? This will be so much fun to gift to someone during the holidays!
I just had to show you this adorable cherry ribbon I found to line the sides of the box. I ran 1/4″ Scor-Tape around the perimeter and then pressed my ribbon down. It holds like a dream. I did the same thing on the bottom of the box, using the red micro gingham to tie in with the box cover. Quick and easy…because the holidays are busy!
Oh, the only other thing I did was print out the sentiment, cut it, ink the edges and treat with UTEE to age it. When the UTEE cools, you can bend the paper and create all those cool hairline cracks. I popped the sentiment circle up on foam dots to add a little dimension.
Here’s the links to the rest of the design team. We have TWO guest designers joining us this month. The fabulous Glenda Brooks from Magpie’s Corner joins us with her eye for vintage loveliness, and my very crafty friend Birgit Norton from Crafting While I Wait is sharing another of her fun, fresh designs with us. Lots of ideas and crafty inspiration await you as you visit the team:
Once you’ve visited all the designer blogs and left them some love, head on over to the Crafty Secrets BLOG and link up your project to the Crafty Secrets December Linky Party. You need not follow the theme, but it’s always fun if you do! You have until midnight Pacific Time on Sunday, December 14th to add your project to the link and have a chance at winning that fabulous shopping spree!
Hello, Friends! I’m very excited to be sharing a couple of Christmas cards made with the new Crafty Secrets Vintage Santa Digital Stamp Set. This is a big set…30 images! All beautifully vintage and very easy to make up into pretty Christmas cards. You’re going to love them!
For this first card, I changed the color on the digital stamp from black to sepia using the color changer tool in PaintShop Pro. Then, I changed the background color to this pretty vintage green.
I layered on the vintage Santa collage paper from Creating with Vintage Christmas CD #6 and added some fun embellies, some stitching and distressing. I love how antique this card looks.
This sentiment is in the set, and I just love it! The other elements are printed from the CD.
I have a “thing” for Christmas stockings, probably because my mom made all of ours when we were kids, and they were so beautiful. She also made them for our kids when they were little. So this scene from the set called my name for sure!
I cut out the image with a Spellbinder die, but cut around the stockings so that they could hang outside the frame. They were colored with watercolor pencils and then treated to some Diamond stickles.
The background “paper” is actually washi tape that I’ve had in my stash for some time. I’ve never used it like this on a card before, but it was so fast and easy, I’m sure you’ll be seeing me use this idea again soon! More of the same pretty ribbons…because they just match this set so well.
Another snippet from the Vintage Christmas CD and a handwritten sentiment finish off the inside. Simple, rustic and homey….just the way I like it!
Here’s a sneak peek of this wonderful set!
Sandy has this wonderful new set loaded up in the online store so you can pop on over and just load it in your cart and download it instantly. No shipping…no waiting! It doesn’t get easier than that! Watch the Crafty Secrets blog and Facebook page for more great samples from the design team.
Meanwhile, I want to take this opportunity to wish each of you a very Happy Thanksgiving! I’ll be spending the day with the family, and I just can’t wait to get started on baking my pies! Sophie and Julia (aka “The Grandgirls”) will be here onTuesday for our annual Pumpkin Pie Date. Oh, what fun! May you be blessed with a thankful heart, the warmth of friends and family and lots of yummy food!
These are standard sized 4.25″ x 5.5″ note cards on a kraft card base. I printed out the gorgeous garden paper collage from the Digital Garden Papers and stitched it onto the pretty peach diamond papers. I love the color combo! It just says SPRING!
I printed the apron onto 4 different sheets of paper from the Garden Papers, cut them apart, and then paper pieced them back together again. Color was randomly added with alcohol markers. I pleated the ruffle a little on each card and popped the pockets up onto foam tape to add some fun dimension, then touched it with a little bit of Diamond Stickles for glitz and glam.
To finish off the flirty look, I added a simple square knot bow tied with shimmery Sheer Iridescent Peach Ribbon.
