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Friday 26 September 2014

"Adrift" Birthday card

Hello crafty peeps, welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all looking forward to the weekend. We're picking the girls up from school tomorrow afternoon then having them over night which we're really looking forward to.

I've only made one card since my last post - a sweet sixteen birthday card for my lovely niece Charlie who's celebrating her sixteenth birthday next month, using Santoro's "Adrift" stamp set and the Clearly Besotted "Mini Banners" stamp and die sets.


I stamped the main image in Memento Tuxedo Black ink on white cardstock and coloured it in using Pro Markers then fussy cut the image out. I added glittery highlights using a clear Wink of Stella brush marker. I took a sheet of 6" by 6" coordinating  cardstock from a Santoro card stack and trimmed the edges slightly as the card blank I had was slightly smaller than 6" by 6" and curled all four corners using a thin paint brush handle then stuck it down onto the kraft card blank using red liner tape. I stamped the star and moon detail at the top of the card and also the boat image, then coloured the star and moon using Pro Markers in yellow tones. I then stuck down the coloured in "Adrift" image and coloured in the flowers which I found too fussy to cut round. I stamped the Happy Birthday in pink ink using the Clearly Besotted mini banners stamp set and cut it out using the coordinating mini banners die. I stuck it over the moon detail using sticky pads, and carefully wrote "Sweet Sixteen" on the boat like a boat name. Finally I stamped out a verse sentiment inside.


close up of sentiment
Card for Charlie




  
 I'm really happy with how the card turned out and I hope Charlie likes it too.

I shall write another post once I've made some more cards, until then - keep crafting!


Love and crafty hugs,
Sarah xxxx








Tuesday 23 September 2014

Pro-Marker colouring

Hello crafty peeps, welcome to my crafty nook. I've not done a lot since the last time I posted on this blog but I have been colouring in some images using Pro Markers. My favourite images to colour are DoCrafts Santoro Simply gorjuss stamps which I always stamp in Memento Tuxedo Black ink as it doesn't react to the alcohol.

This image is called "Black Star" and you may recognise it from the Pop Art inspired card from my Cardmaker of the Year Entry. Both these photos are of the same image I just changed the place where I took the photos.






If  you have any questions about the Pro Marker colours then please leave a comment below. I'm planning on doing a couple more Simply Gorjuss images in the next few days and I'll post them as I finish. Until then, keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,
Sarah x x x

Friday 19 September 2014

*DRUM ROLL PLEASE* The Big Reveal...

Hello crafty peeps, welcome to my crafty corner! A little later than promised I'd like to share with you all my entry to the National Cardmaker of the Year 2014 competition.











My first card is a homage to pop art and is deceptively simple in design but I think it is rather striking. I used the docrafts Santoro's gorguss "The Black Star" stamp set and stamped the main image six times in different coloured inks (Tim Holtz Distress Inks in Dusty Concord, Peacock Feather, Salty Ocean, Scattered Straw, Fired Brick and Spiced Marmalade) then punched them out using a square Woodware punch. I cut out a piece of black card just large enough to hold the six images with a thin black border and stuck them down using tape runner as shown above. I stuck the panel towards the top portion of the 6" by 6" card blank because I wanted it to mirror an exhibition in a gallery and to help with that effect I stamped the "simply gorjuss" sentiment that comes with the Black Star stamp set in Memento Tuxedo Black ink on white card, and mounted it on foam tape before sticking it under the focal image on the right hand side in the manner of artist information at a gallery. I then rounded the bottom corners to add a little more interest.

















My second card also features a Docrafts Santoro's gorguss stamp set, this time "The Fox". Because my first card is so colourful, I wanted to colour this image in a slightly different way so I decided to colour it in shades of grey using Pro Markers and then with an adapted spotlight technique, I coloured the fox ears and tail in using warm browns and orange Pro Markers. I highlighted the image using a clear Wink of Stella brush marker which is quite hard to see in these photos, but on the smaller image on the right you can just about see the shimmer on the tail, boots and also on the brown leaves. I cut the leaves out using three different X Cut punches (Docrafts) and used white card which I then coloured in using Pro Markers using autumnal shades. I fussy cut the foxy girl image and mounted it on a black card oval using foam squares then stuck the coloured leaves out round the edge using a Zig two way glue pen. I took a 8" by 8" scalloped edge card blank and after trimming a few centimetres off each side stuck down a sheet of striped paper taken from a DCWV "Travel" themed scrapbook stack. I then centred the main image and stuck it down with red liner tape. I decorated the inside and the envelope with the remaining punched leaves and stamped out a verse inside the card. I coloured some white pearls to match the leaves using Pro Markers and added them to the top left and bottom right of the panel.


I think I've left the best until last or at least the most unusual! My final card is a craft plastic gatefold card with belly band in a clockwork theme.



This card took me all night to make (about six hours) but was totally worth it. The hardest part about it was getting the craft plastic to score sufficiently enough to fold into the gatefold shape - I had to repeatedly score and fold on both sides of the craft plastic. I embossed two panels of holographic mirri board using a cuttlebug embossing folder called clocks (I think) which were mounted on the front panels using red liner tape. I then cut panels of the same holographic card to fit the inside of the panels to cover the fact that the tape was very visible from the outside panels - I kept miss-aligning it so in the end I cut a thinner strip of the same card then once that was lined up on one side added a strip of black holographic glitter card from the other, I stamped out some clock faces with different times and covered them with dome stickers so that they looked like pocket watches. I added these to the inside panels. I added another panel of the holographic card to the centre of the main inside panel and stamped out a greeting onto white card then stamped around and off this panel using clock faces and cogs. I then mounted this onto the holographic card. A further panel is mounted onto the back of the card so you can't see the red liner tape through the craft plastic. I stamped out a final clock face and added a dome sticker over it then mounted it onto a holographic circle. I stamped out a Teresa Collins happy birthday ticket sentiment and cut it our and secured it using the clock face. I made a belly band out of black card and added the circle embellishment over where I'd used the adhesive to secure the band. As the photos above show the belly band can be removed to allow the card to be displayed open or left on so the embossed panels are showing.

I hope you've liked sharing my creations, I'm hoping to make some more cards soon and in fact there are another two big card making competitions coming up shortly, both of which require two cards and a paper project. I'm a bit nervous about the projects as I'm primarily a card maker and a very occasional scrapbooker - projects are not my forte!

Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions about the cards shown or anything else and also please check out my little survey that's currently running - I'd love to know what you'd like to see in future blog posts.

Until then, keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,
Sarah xxx

Thursday 11 September 2014

Bargain Tunnelvision

Hello crafty peeps. When is a crafty bargain not a crafty bargain? Answer: when you are so fixated by the price you fail to realise the item you've just ordered isn't exactly what you wanted. Yep I'm a victim of BT otherwise known as Bargain Tunnelvision. The ZIG Wink of Stella pens I was so excited to buy turned out to be markers not the brush markers I was expecting. The black ones arrived today and I'm so disappointed! Checked my email and the clear ones are markers too. I can see myself using the black ones for writing but I'm not sure how much use I'll have for a clear marker, it's not like you'd be able to see what I'd write with it lol. Anyway that will teach me to check the details on Amazon in future.


It's Chris and I's wedding anniversary today - three years have just whizzed by yet at the same time it seems as though we've always been together. In reality we only met each other on the 17th May 2010. Soulmates I guess....

Well just a quick update. Will write again soon and until then - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Wednesday 10 September 2014

Clearly besotted Haul :)

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! Well I can honestly say I am SERIOUSLY IMPRESSED with Clearly Besotted Stamps www.clearlybesottedstamps.com. My order - the one I placed YESTERDAY! - has already arrived. I can't say who's impressed me more, Clearly Besotted for processing my order so quickly or Royal Mail for delivering it so quickly - I've had letters posted first class from the town I live in take longer to get to me! If you are a fan of the colour pink then you're going to love this company, even the plastic outer packaging is pink and the order itself is wrapped in hot pink tissue paper. Everything is packaged beautifully and has a matching tag and little thank you card included (both stamped in one of the new releases - Eastern Promise I think *UPDATE* stamp set is actually called Eastern Delights).
                                                                       Isn't that cute!

 As I said in my last post my lovely hubby gave me £30 for our Anniversary and as you get free postage if you spend £50 or over I put some money towards it, to be honest £50 is a lot of money so I wont be doing it very often (hmmm it is my birthday next month though!) and it was hard to get it to exactly £50 (I could easily have spent a lot more!) so I went a bit over and bought £51.10 worth of stamps and dies. Quite a few of the stamps sets I purchased were in the clearance section of the website so in total I got 11 stamp sets and 6 dies, all but two dies match one of the stamps sets ordered. I've never had matching stamps and die sets before so I'm really looking forward to trying them out. I'll be upfront with you the stamp sets aren't huge at approximately 7cm by 9.5cm but you do get a lot of stamps in each set and even the most expensive item I ordered was only £4.00. They do sell bigger sets which I'll probably order next time.
                                                         My Clearly Besotted Stamps order

My order consisted of:- Hello Word Die £2.00, Set the Scene Die (snow globe) £3.50, Mini Basic Banners Die £2.50, Mini Basic Banners Stamps £4.00, Good Times Die Collection (bicycle and basket) £3.50, Good Times Stamps £4.00, Butterfly Wishes Die Collection (two sizes of butterfly) £3.50, Butterfly Wishes Additions (also available Butterfly Wishes) £4.00, An Apple A Day Stamp Set (coordinating die available but out of stock, unfortunately) £4.00, Blast Off Die Collection £3.50, Blast Off ll stamp set £4.00, Blast Off stamp set £2.00, You Said It! stamp set £1.60, Love Quotes Additions stamp set £1.00, Just my Type stamp set (really cute manual typewriter) £2.00, Boo To You stamp set (pumpkin/Halloween theme) £3.00 and Ahoy Matey stamp set £3.00.

I don't want too many photos in this post or it'll be pages long, so my plan is to make some cards with my new goodies and add photos of the relevant stamps/dies when I add them to my blog.

I am really pleased with my order and can't wait to try them out. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,
Sarah xxx

Tuesday 9 September 2014

Seriously Impressed...

Hello crafty peeps, welcome to my crafty nook.  Well I've got to say I'm seriously impressed with Clearly Besotted Stamps, I placed an order with them at about 1am and I've already had an email from them saying it's been dispatched! If the stamps and dies are as good as the dispatching then I can see myself becoming "Clearly Besotted" with this company! Lol I'll have to get my hubby to give me more housekeeping at this rate as I'll still want to shop at my top two websites www.everycraftsapound.co.uk and www.inspirecreationz.com. I've been trying a few new online shops but these two remain my favourites.

I've also had an email confirmation from Amazon saying my order of two black Wink of Stella pens have been dispatched by Monochrome Solutions, again very impressive as I ordered that in the early hours of today too! I also ordered two clear Wink of Stella pens from a different supplier (not sure who at this point) at the same time but they haven't been sent yet. I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me to try Amazon for Wink of Stella pens before now, I suppose I wanted to stay loyal to my original supplier (not yet mentioned on this blog) but I emailed the company nearly 6 weeks ago asking them to let me know when the clear Wink of Stella became available again and although I got an initial email saying that they'd inform me when they next came in I've not heard anything since. As a result I've been hoarding the one pen I have got and my cards and projects have been a lot less sparkly then I'd like. Dare I say that the suppliers I chose on Amazon are quite a bit cheaper too! The black pens only cost £2.96 with £2.65 P&P and the clear pens were £3.79 each with free p&p. My first Wink of Stella pen cost £4.99 plus £1.75 p&p which I thought very reasonable at the time.

Crafting goodies aside, the next crafting project I need to start is an Anniversary card for my lovely hubby and as usual I have a complete craft block! What is it about men's cards that makes them so hard to do? I suppose things are not helped by the fact that most of the craft stuff I buy is cute or girly - or worse glittery! Thank goodness for baker's twine and buttons, otherwise I wouldn't have any embellishments for men's cards. As the third Anniversary is leather I may try the Sheena Douglass 'faux leather' technique using kraft card and glycerin. I've done it before and it turned out ok but a word of warning to anyone who tries this technique themselves (check You Tube for tutorials) when you've finished with the glycerin/water mixture don't leave it in the bottle for weeks like I did because it gets black balls of mold floating about after a few weeks. I ended up throwing the spray bottle away! When I've done the card I shall put up a couple of pics on this blog. If you click on my profile I've uploaded a couple of photos of cards I've made which I hope you'll enjoy. If you want any details on the techniques or supplies used please comment either below or on the relevant photo.

That's all my crafty news for now so until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,
Sarah x

Monday 8 September 2014

It's that time of year again....


Hi crafty peeps, yep it's that time of year again - Cardmaker of the Year Competition time! Quick Cards Made Easy and Cardmaking and Papercraft magazines are currently running a national cardmaking competition which closes on 19th September 2014. Last year I vowed not to enter again as it cost me nearly £15 in postage not to mention the time and supplies I used and I didn't even place *sad face*. However, they've changed the rules this year and you only have to send a single entry consisting of three cards unlike the multiple entries for about 12 categories you needed to enter in previous years. This method seems a lot fairer and more about quality rather than quantity. Saying that I still might not place this year.  The photo above (yes I've finally worked out how to upload my photos from my Kodak mini camera!!) is my entry for this year's competition, I want to show my in-laws the three cards before I post them on here so you'll have to wait a little while before I blog them - I know you can't wait! lol.

My other little bit of news is that my darling husband is planning on giving me £30 to spend on craft goodies! It's our third anniversary on Thursday 11th September and although leather is more traditional I know what I'd prefer :). Isn't he a sweetie? I shall let you know what I buy once it's arrived, I'm fairly sure I shall be buying my goodies from Clearly Besotted Stamps, a company I've not tried yet but I've heard good things and it seems very reasonably priced.

Well that's about all my news for now, I shall post another lil' update soon - with pictures! Until then, keep crafting.

Love and crafty hugs,
Sarah xxx


Friday 5 September 2014

FREE P&P

Hello crafty peeps, just a quick post to let you all know about the amazing deal on the Every Crafts A Pound website www.everycraftsapound.co.uk. If you are in the UK and you put in an order for £30 or more you'll get free P&P a saving of £4.95! The offer runs out 8am Monday 8th September 2014 so if you want to take advantage of this incredible saving pop over to the site as soon as you can. I would be joining you if I had the money  but don't get paid until Tuesday :( esp as they have some gorgeous new ribbon in at only £1.00 including some very lush gemstone butterflies and hearts (each separate not a mixture!) but hopefully they'll have some of this ribbon left on Tuesday and I'll happily pay the P&P. Well that's all I have to tell you, until next time - happy crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,
Sarah xxx

Thursday 4 September 2014

Crafty Goodies

Hello crafty peeps, I'm sorry I haven't posted a blog for a while, I've been busy making cards for a couple of cardmaker of the year competitions and time has gone passed quicker than I realised. I'm experiencing a bit of a crafty block at the moment so I thought a change of gear by blogging would refresh and inspire me. I'd be interested to know what you do to break a craft block so please leave a comment below if you'd like to share.

I had a couple of parcels arrive on Tuesday, one from Every Crafts A Pound (www.everycraftsapound.co.uk) and the other from Make the Day Special Stamp Store (http://makethedayspecial.co.uk). Every Crafts A Pound have loads of Christmas stuff in and even though I've probably got more Christmas themed stuff than I could use in a life time I bought more (hangs head in shame) though with the exception of a few items, most of the stuff will be going into my everyday craft stash as they don't scream Christmas. The items which will definitely be going in my Christmas stash are 4 sheets of Red Tartan Card, 4 sheets of Green Tartan Card, 2 packs of Crafters Companion "The Snowman" epoxy stickers and roughly a half of a pack of Dovecraft "Back To Basics" Modern 8x8 paper pack because a lot of the papers are more generic designs which I'll probably use all year round. These 8x8 papers were a total bargain at only £1 instead of £4.99, I just wish you were allowed to order more than 1 pack but I can understand why you're restricted to just one per order - this is the first time I've come across any such restrictions on this site, usually you can order as many as you want. The rest of the Christmas items in my order were 2 packs of "Back to Basics" Modern Gems, Dovecraft "'Tis the Season" resin flowers, BTB Modern Twine, Dovecraft "Santa's Workshop" resin flowers, SW twine, Dovecraft "Winter Wonderland" twine and SW red washi tape. The rest of my order consisted of Crafters Companion Fairyoplis rub ons, Dovecraft natural adhesive gemstones which turned out to be green (I was expecting them to be clear!), 2 packs of Scrapbook Adhesives 3 Photo CD pockets (in sale for 50p each), a pack of 468 pastel adhesive gemstones and a small bottle of Anitas Tacky PVA Glue. My order came to £21 plus £4.95 shipping.

My second order from Make the Day Special Stamp Store is a lot smaller and consists of only 4 items. I was hoping to get the "Time Warp" stamp which matches the "In a Galaxy far,far away" stamp mentioned in a previous post, but it was out of stock so instead I got Avery Elle " #Smile" stamp set priced £5.95 which is a really cute Polaroid Camera stamp with various # sayings included. I have a Kaisercraft stampset in the Captured Moments range which has a Polaroid Photo stamp so I'm planning on using them together at some point. This is the first time I've purchased an Avery Elle stamp so I'm looking forward to trying it. As it happens all the items I purchased are by companies I've not used in the past. The other stamp set I purchased is one from Unity Stamp Company and is called "Get Well Soon" it's designed by Nikki Sivils Scrapbooker and was in the discontinued section of the website priced £6.00. It's obviously aimed at an American market with the "My Boo Boo! sentiment but the rest of the images are very cute and I love the little sticking plaster stamp and the germs which could be used as aliens or little cute monsters. My only complaint was the stamp sheet doesn't come with a plastic carrier sheet just a piece of card which I don't like to use with cling mount stamps, but that's easily remedied with a cut down sheet of acetate. The remaining items in my order are two die sets. The first is Lil'inker Designs Spring Flowers Dies priced at £8.95 for two flowers, two centres and two leaves. The flowers are 5 petals and look like they'll be good for layering and shaping to make 3D blooms. The last item in my order is WPlus9  "Love Notes" die priced £4.95 which consists of two different sized closed envelopes and a jean pocket with a heart motif on each die. Not very big but very cute all the same.

I hope you'll check out the two websites mentioned in this posting, so far I've had brilliant customer service from them and if you want bargains then Every Crafts a Pound is a fantastic place to get cheap quality (for the most part) craft items and if being on trend with the USA is more your thing then Make the Day Special is a site I'd highly recommend (FYI if you're into the whole sequin trend then I'd recommend checking out places such as Boyes and Yorkshire Trading shops as they sell sequins for a fraction of the price of the ones crafting companies are bringing out, they may not be mixed colours like the collections you can buy but the ones I bought from Yorkshire Trading were 90p for 110g * make that 10g compared to £2.50 for a pack of mixed at MTDS store - not sure how many in a pack because it doesn't say but it didn't look many).

Well that's all my crafty news for now. Until next time keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,
Sarah xx

*Note: just realised I'd added an extra 1 to the 10g making it 10 times the weight! Sorry about any confusion and I hope any blog readers didn't rush to Yorkshire Trading for the sequins. Sarah x