Get ready to soar with these vintage design hot air balloons!
Ready to use with blend modes so that they melt into your paper background making them a perfect addition to your junk journal or scrapbooking project.
Sized at 8" in print resolution on a transparent background they'll work well in any paper craft design.
Happy Crafting
Shawnna
After selling my templates exclusively on Etsy for 6 years I have finally launched my own store front and best of all it comes with a built in affiliate program!
So why now and why did it take so long to get my shop setup? I've been an Ety seller since 2008 with my other shop Lovelytocu (now closed on Etsy). When I started Terrific Templates it was side avenue income and I really didn't give things my full attention until a few years in.
Today, Terrific Templates is my primary product line and I am just loving the niches and product types that I'm working with everyday. Because it has my full attention now I'm playing catch-up and putting in place all.the.things that are really beneficial for any business to have/do.
Etsy has also changed a lot over the past 4 years and its never been more important for online sellers to have their own space online that is not controlled by greedy over-lords.
I'm really happy to have found a shopping cart provider that works for my needs and I'm finally able to offer additional payment methods than just paypal (my Etsy shop only offers Paypal). I'm using Payhip here and so far everything is working really well, I hope you'll check it out!
Happy crafting
Shawnna
Because I've been engrossed with junk journaling lately my font requirements took a different turn last year as I sought out more complex and antique looking choices.
Really good quality fonts loaded with glyphs can usually cost quite a lot. But being the frugally minded designer that I am I try to seek out resources that a bit more budget friendly. Which is why I'm sharing the gold mine of resources I found on Creative Fabrica.
Ok, so if you're in the know already CF isn't exactly a secret. I'm way late to the party. But I wanted to highlight the site specifically for fonts. Because in certain circles, CF is getting a bit of a bad rap as THE place where unscrupulous POD sellers are downloading mass amounts of graphics to upload product en masse to sites like Etsy. It's also filled with loads of low quality AI graphics.
However, the font selection is fantastic. And with the subscription price being incredibly low it's worth it just for the fonts.
The font featured above is one of my favourites - The Victorian. Here are a few more choices that I've been playing with lately.
Happy Crafting
Shawnna
please note :: I often recommend resources I love, some I receive an affiliate commission for at no additional cost to you, but all are resources that I personally use. I am not otherwise paid to promote.
Back in late 2022 I wrote a post about a particular con that was
proliferating on Etsy that had to do with scammers diverting customers
away from Etsy to their own fake websites for the suspected intent of
harvesting customer data while under the guise of selling copyright and
trademarked digital graphics.
Thankfully, Etsy seems to have finally managed to get this particular ruse more or less under control.
Unfortunately, Etsy accounts continued to be taken over by 'hackers'. Most of the affected accounts are shops that aren't currently active allowing for the hackers to get up to mischief using the account without the original shop owner noticing for quite some time.
This particular problem has been going on for a few years but ramped up more significantly in 2022-2023.
Etsy is finally taking some action to protect the platform and sellers from this by setting a time-frame for closing inactive shop accounts. But only for shops that have been inactive for 4+ years - and by inactive they are referring to whether the account has been logged into or not. Personally I think they should be a bit more robust with this given that cyber crimes are rising exponentially.
My advice for anyone who has paused their Etsy shop for any length of time would be to keep a close eye on it. And everyone should ensure that they are using strong passwords as well as the two factor authentication option. Because Etsy has been a security risk of late I've made sure to use a unique password for my account, one that is not used anywhere else. (a lot of 'hacked' shops were likely accessed through stolen data via scams such as that mentioned above)
If you've been paying any attention at all you're probably also aware of the mass proliferation of scam messages being sent through Etsy's internal convo system. Because this internal messaging system is not setup with the same robust programming as actual email it was a very soft target that has had a huge impact on unsuspecting sellers.
Scammers are still targeting new seller accounts pretending to be Etsy asking for account verifcation. I'm not going to go into all the details of each version this has propagated as there are just too many. You can find very specific details in the Etsy forum simply by searching for the word 'scam'. How this generally works though is that the scammer, pretending to be Etsy, scares the brand new shop owner into thinking there is a problem or that they need to take a particular action to keep their account open. They direct the seller off of Etsy through cleverly cloaked pages and one way or another convince the seller to willingly hand over money on the basis of a verification process.
So many people have come forward admitting to be caught out by this and being taken for hundreds of dollars. It's both sad and scary. A terrible lesson to learn the hard way and probably devastating for those affected.
Etsy has been taking measures to slow the
scammers down although they have yet to eliminate the problem
altogether. While it did take them longer than anyone would have liked
to proactively deal with the situation, they are currently testing
several measures to assist sellers in identifying scam messages, while
also dealing with the scammers directly.
One of the more useful changes Etsy has made to help us out is to label messages that are coming from a buyer account - a message pretending to be Etsy labelled as "from a buyer" is therefore obviously a scam. They are also ensuring that any legit messages from Etsy can be cross referenced for authenticity by looking for it in the new 'From Etsy' folder in your message portal via the website (it's not currently available via the app).
There are two key pieces of advice for anyone unsure of the messages coming into their Etsy inbox. The first is - don't panic! This is exactly what the scammers are trying to get you to do so that you make poor decisions without thinking things through. Press pause on your reactions to any message and stop to think it through, nothing is going to blowup on you in the 10 minutes it might take for you to assess the situation!
The second piece of advice is this... no platform, anywhere, regardless of what it is, will have you go off their site to complete any actions. Any requirements you might need to take for verification or otherwise will be shown directly in your account dashboard right on the site in question. Etsy is no different in this regard than any other platform - this is standard security. If you get a message about a problem with an order - go to the order tab in your account - if there is legitimately a problem it WILL show up there.
This is the same for any banking or identity verification - on any site - that request will appear right in your account dashboard. If it doesn't, it's most likely not real. If ever a platform is using a third party (Etsy uses third parties for the actual verification process) that information will be provided in your account dashboard. It will not be a surprise! And it will be integrated into the site's pages directly, not sent via a message where you click a link to somewhere else.
ALWAYS check inside your account for information to verify the validity of the request.
And if you are still confused or worried, reach out in a forum to ask others for input :)
Creating free printables for your blog or email list is a fantastic content strategy that offers value to your audience while boosting your audience engagement and reach.
The most common choice of free printables might range from planners and checklists to worksheets and decorative art, but you are only limited by your imagination for what is possible to offer.
Always keep in mind the niche you serve and generate free content that your audience will appreciate. By providing these resources for free, you establish yourself as a generous and knowledgeable, fostering trust and loyalty among your followers.
Coming up with ideas for free content is one thing, actually making the content is quite another. If you are a non-designer or just a complete beginner it might feel a bit daunting or time consuming to get started and offering free content on a regular basis may seem like an extra burden. But there are ways to streamline things and make it super quick and easy to do.
I've been designing templates for the past 10 years. And while the templates themselves have always made the job easier for non-designers the technical challenge was still very real for many beginners.
With tools like Canva and generative AI though, the playing field has evened out a bit and now most people can be a 'designer' with ease. So making free content to give away to your audience should be a breeze. Or is it? As a professional with loads of experience it's sometimes hard to know where the sticking points are for beginners. Drop a comment below and let me know what you struggle with most when trying to create digital printables.
I think templates are just as useful today as they ever have been and I have a comprehensive bundle for whipping up fun printables with ease. With every size of circle, square, oval or rectangle you can make stickers, labels, atc cards, craft supplies, bookmarks, gift tags or business media. And I offer a range of file formats that make app compatibility a breeze. Whether you want to work in Canva, Cricut or MS Word I've got you covered. And of course if you work in something like Adobe the templates save you setup time and all you have to do is insert your design.
Making free content really couldn't be easier! Checkout my beginner tutorials if you're technically challenged as the stencil template allows for easy design in any program with almost no skills required.
Visit my shop for even more great template ideas that will get you going with loads of free printable ideas for your audience!
Happy designing
Shawnna
These fun graphics are generated by AI to replicate the vintage victorian style. Combine them with grungy textures or creative overlays for fun additions to your junk journal or scrapbooking projects.
Happy crafting
Shawnna
PIN ME
Beautiful authentic vintage illustrations. These come from antique magazine adverts and are scanned at high quality. These backdrops are extra large at approx 18' and 300 dpi, perfect for any project at all.
Happy crafting
Shawnna
PIN ME
These vintage scans are authentic antique photography cabinet cards from various American states. Both sides are scanned in high quality and left in original condition - no touch ups. Sizes are roughly 4x6.5".
Happy Crafting
Shawnna
PIN ME
Following on from my last tutorial where I showed how to insert an image into a shape using the clipping mask in Photopea, I'm going to now create a repeating printable page from that one tag I made.
This tutorial is useful if you want to quickly make a page of duplicates from one image with having to make each one separately.
Please bear in mind, there are many ways to use the tools in Photopea and I am showing just one method here. This is what I consider to be the easiest choice using my templates and having added an image into a shape using the clipping mask.
To begin open Photopea in your web browser.
Step 1:
I left off in the last tutorial with my gift tag template and I had inserted an image into the first tag. Now let's repeat that tag across the page in place of the blank ones.
To start, I want to close the tag folder just to make things easier to view. I'm also going to turn off tags 2 - 4 by clicking the eye icon for each layer.
With the tag layer selected in the layers palette, I'll use a keyboard shortcut and click Ctrl + J.
Alternatively you'll find this command from the top menu bar under Layer>Duplicate Layer.
Step 2:
After hitting Ctrl + J you'll get a duplicate layer in the layers palette but the new tag layer on the canvas is stacked on top of the first tag. Let's drag that to the right while holding down the shift key.
Holding down the shift key keeps the layer moving only in a straight line while dragging it. Place it directly inline with the blank tag below it.
Repeat this step two more times so that you have a full row of tags. As below.
Step 3:
To create to more rows we're going to do a similar action, this time by duplicating the whole row.
Close row 1 and ensure it is selected, turn off rows 2 and 3, then repeat as above clicking Ctrl + J to duplicate the row. Holding shift drag each row down into place on the canvas.
And you're done. A full printable sheet of the same tag in a few simple steps.
To save, go to the top menu File>Export As and choose your file type. To save as a PNG file with a transparent background just be sure to turn off the background layer before saving. If saving as a PSD file make sure to re-name it so you don't accidentally save over the original blank template.
Happy Crafting
Shawnna