Crafty Secrets Home Decor

The Crafty Secret Girls have been sharing with you some ideas this month using our new CD #2. I've made a kitchen shadowbox, and used it to highlight an old spoon that I painted shabby white. I added vintage buttons around the frame for more interest. The red paper on the interior of the frame is one of the black and white PNG images , simply printed on the paper color of choice.

Please be sure to check out the Crafty Secrets Blog for more inspiration!

Highlighting Your Images with Sakura Crystal Lacquer

I love vintage images, and am always looking for new ways to play with them. Today, I'm going to show you how to spotlight an area of your print (or stamp) with Sakura Crystal Lacquer and a metal frame.

I am using an image from Crafty Secrets ( Mini- Vintage Scraps). You will want to use something that you have two of the same image. For the base picture, I cut it out, and used the Lacquer to add dimension to some of the flowers in the garden.



Next, I took my metal frame, and drew around it on the 2nd image to mark the area I wanted to spotlight, and I cut this out. (Trim inside the lines so it will fit in your frame). Glue this down using the Lacquer. I also cut my sentiment from the Mini-Vintage Scraps and glued this onto the image. I filled in the whole frame with Lacquer, and with tweezers, added a little bit of the Gem Particles in green around the edges. Let this dry completely.


I placed the frame over the same area that it was cut from on the full image, using dimensional foam to raise it up. I "framed" my layered images with Metallic Peel-off stickers from Crafty
Secrets. I filled in the spaces using Sakura Lacquer in Fawn. It was really a nice color for a vintage project.



I hope you will be inspired to try this technique out!

Challenges:
Card Patterns: sketch
Woodware: Anything Goes

Crafty Secrets DT Challenge "Retro inspiration"

Don't you love anything retro?!! I do, so this month's designer challenge from Crafty Secrets, was a fun one for me. When I saw this pink oven in the Homemade Images and Journal Notes, I knew I wanted to incorporate it into my card. We recently sold my grandparent's house, and it still had the original turquoise oven in the kitchen! How's that for retro?

All of my papers were printed from our Creating With Vintage Patterns CD. There are new CD's in the works, and I know they will be as big a hit as the first one! Did you notice how my cherry border that I stamped from the Kitchen Classics set matches the paper? So cool! My adorable domestic diva is from one of our new sets, Let's Hang Out. I even sneaked in our newest stamp set, Mini Frames, by stamping around the sentiment form the Journal Note Pad, cutting it out, and then restamping and mounting the sentiment on top. I love how the cherries on the patterned paper, look like a tassel coming out of the sentiment tag.


I know you are going to want to see what the rest of the design team came up with, so here's a list of everyone, so you can check it out! Keep your notepad handy, cause I'm sure you are going to want to start your shopping list! So when you finish, you can head to the Crafty Secrets website and get some Crafty Secrets goodies delivered to you! And to make sure you don't miss anything, why not subscribe to the Heartwarming Vintage Blog? There's always lots of inspiration, announcements and giveaways.

• Amy Teets


• Debbie Marcinkiewicz


• Fauve vanMaanen


• Gini Cagle


• Heidi Blankenship


• Jan Hennings


• Julie Campbell


• Linda Duke


• Michele Kovack


• Pam Hooten


• Tammy Roberts


• Vicki Chrisman


• Victoria Warren-Mears


• Viola Mahr

Sakura Hobby Craft Design Team

I am so excited to say that I will be designing for Sakura Hobby Craft for the next six months. They make the most wonderful 3D Crystal Lacquer - and I've been adding it to everything!

Here's the very talented design team, that I will have the privilege of working with:

• Jessica Griffin
• Leslie Rahye
• Becky Conley
• Gini Cagle (me!)
• Aileen Roberts
• Karen Myer
• Gloria
• Terri Sproul (DT Leader)

I've got a quick little necklace that I made using an image from Crafty Secrets/Heartwarming Vintage Mini-Vintage Creative Scraps. I trimmed my image to fit in the finding, and added a little Crystal Lacquer to glue it down. Then I filled the bezel full of the lacquer and sprinkled a tiny bit of Art Institute Glitter around the edges. I left it to dry, and came back to find a gorgeous medallion.

If you haven't tried Crystal Lacquer, go grab some! I know you are going to love it. And , it comes in pearlescent and glitter colors as well as the clear.