Crafty Secrets March Linky Party and DT Challenge

Welcome to the Crafty Secrets March Linky Party and DT Challenge! This month our challenge is: GO GREEN! We are to create a Spring, Gardening or Botanical themed project with an upcycling twist. Basically, we are to create a springtime project, plus use something that we'd normally toss in the trash!

I created an accordion fold home decor piece. This little beauty if 6" x 21" and is packed with garden goodness! I used digital paper to cover my project, plus some Crafty Secrets images to make the project pop!

Accordion folds are simple, but tricky at the same time! To create this home decor piece, you need two pieces of dark brown cardstock, cut to 6" x 12" each.

Score both pieces of cardstock on the long side at 3" and 6".

Fold both pieces on the score lines. Flip one piece of the scored cardstock over so that the 6" x 6" panel is on the left, and place double-sided adhesive on the right-most 6" x 3" panel as shown.

Flip the cardstock back to the front, and join two of the 6" x 3" panels to form one continuous piece that is 6" x 21", scored at 6". 9" 12", and 15". You will have one 6" x 6" panel at each end, with three 6" x 3" panels in the middle.

Now, it is time to decorate! I printed digital papers (see the supply list below) to cover all five panels. I inked all the edges with brown chalk ink, to give that vintage look. I added an image and some flowers to make a pretty springtime project.

Crafty Secrets offers FREE printable calenders every year! I tucked the March image behind the flowers on my first panel.

I used Copics to color-ize one of the flower images on my second piece of digital paper. Since I print the paper onto high quality cardstock with an Epson photo printer, the ink dies not bleed when I color with alcohol markers. For the third panel, I used another digital item. I also stamped directly onto the digital papers with dye ink.

The image for the fourth panel is a premade image, rather than a digital one. But the paper is digital. I printed the paper at 8" x 8" so the prints are the perfect size for this project.

I love the digital paper, Forget Me Not, which I printed onto ivory cardsotck. I stamped the Scripture with brown in, and then added the premade image below...because the Gospel of Jesus Christ (or the Good News) really IS the sweetest story ever told! 

My one piece of "trash to treasure" used for this project, is a stack of 4" x 3" cardstock swatches. This is an old swatch book, which has been replaced by an updated one. Rather than toss it in the trash, I have been using the cardstock pieces to make mats for my various projects! I used a few for this particular project! The swatch cardstock is the same weight as the "real" cardstock, making it a shame to just toss these out!

My other trash to treasure secret...I save the flower stems from my various flowers and use them to make spirals to decorate my projects. Once I snip the flower from the stem, I wind the stem around my quilling tool to make a "spring." I glue these to my flower clusters to look like vines.

Here you can see a few of the spirals peeking out!

Hop around and see what the rest of the team has made! I am sure they will knock your socks off!

Crafty Secrets Design Team

Kathy Clement - DT Leader

Karen Letchworth - Guest designer

Darlene Pavlick

Diane Hover

Elizabeth Lincoln
Ginny Nemchak
Gloria Stengel - YOU ARE HERE
Melody Clement

Michele Kovack

Shantaie Fowler

Sheila Rumney
Sandy Redburn - Owner

Vicki Chrisman

Crafty Secrets Blog

To play along, create a NEW project of your choice featuring ANY Crafty Secrets product and link it up to the Craft Secrets Blog by 11:59 PT, Sunday, March 15th. (You do not need to follow this month’s theme to play along.) Check the Blog as we have included one free digital stamp and paper to get you started. Feel free to use these images, or any Crafty Secrets goodies in your creation. Also, check the FREE DOWNLOADS located in the sidebar of the Crafty Secrets blog. 

Be sure to link to the Crafty Secrets Blog in your post, and let us know what Crafty Secrets product you are using in your project. One lucky player will be randomly selected to win this lovely prize package from Crafty Secrets valued at more than $25:

• Digital Garden Papers: 18 sheets of designer paper including 2 collage sheets of gardening seed packets, vintage gardening text sheets, a garden maze and beautiful botanical papers.

• Digital Garden Printables: 16 images, ready to print in a re-sizable format.

• Garden Girls Digital Art Stamps: 18 digital stamps taken from vintage etchings featuring 3 sweet garden girls, images for building scenes and sentiments.

• Bunny Gift Bag and Tag set: Printable Bunny Bunny Kids Bag with Gift Tag can be re-printed to make adorable mini purses to hold greetings, money, gift cards and small gifts.

Crafty Secrets products:
Forget Me Not Digital Paper
Garden Digital Paper
Radiant Digital Paper
Vintage Patterns CD
Free Calender printable
Pastel Paper Pad
Mini Vintage Creative Scraps (retired)
Love Mail Creative Scraps

Other products:
Cardstock: WorldWin Smooth Cocoa, swatchbook scrap pieces
Flowers and leaves:Wild Orchid Crafts, Prima, Kaisercraft
Doily: Wilton
Ink: Memento Rich  Cocoa, Clearsnap Colorbox Chalk Creamy Brown
Dies: My Favorite Things Fishtail Flag Stax and Layers
Stamps: Our Daily Bread Designs Scripture Collection 1, The Good Seed
Markers: Copic
Quilling tool: McGill
Adhesive: Scotch 3M ATG tape; Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L 3D Foam Squares; hot glue