{Chris} You Complete Me Anniversary card

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook. I hope you're having a brilliant week, mine's been rather mixed but the highs have outweighed the lows which is always good. I've had a couple of orders arrive including 3 Sheena Douglass stamp sets from Create and Craft, I've wanted these particular ones for a while as they are fantasy stamps featuring an angel, a city in the cloud with planets and a phoenix. I'm hoping I'll use them and not just look at them. My second order came today from Crafter's Companion which was a bit of a shock as I only got the email saying it'd be delivered in 3 - 5 days this morning! CC have been celebrating the 8th birthday of CC USA last week and had free P&P plus a load of special offers, I also had £10 off if I spent £30 or more after they took ages sending out a previous order (wasn't much quicker than this order if I'm honest!) I put all these elements into good use and bought some items I normally wouldn't go for due to price etc. Annoyingly a lot of the items I wanted weren't in stock but it's impossible to tell until you try to add the item into your basket, then you have to mess around to get back to where you were - I wish they'd remove the items they can't actually sell instead of cluttering up the website and getting crafter's (well my) hopes up! I did get a distress ink in antique linen which I've wanted for a while and a couple of embossing folders that are lovely. Also got some Fran-tage crushed glass glitter in Champagne, I wanted clear but that was one of the non available items so this champagne colour was my next choice. One of the biggest items in my order was a Die'sire Christmas Fancy Edge-ables. I have that much Christmas stash (and it's growing thanks to the free gifts with magazines) that I'm a bit leery about buying more but this one is called Twinkle Twinkle and is stars - you can use stars all year round! I also bought 4 packs of Snow White Centura Pearl card stock that was supposedly a multibuy but I've a feeling I was charged full price, I'm not sure if that's because I got two packs of the hint of silver and two packs of the hint of gold instead of 4 of the same shade or if it's just the website messing around. Having the £10 money off voucher means I pretty much got the die for free - which is nice!

It's hubby and I's 4th wedding anniversary on the 11th September so I decided to get ahead of the game and make his card. The theme of the challenge on Passion for Promarkers this week is animals and it can be found here if you'd like to join in http://promarkerchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/week-311animals.html. I found a really sweet stamp set in my stash that I've had for years called Country Companions "Lover Lane" with cute little hedgehogs and tiny ladybirds. I decided to combine making a card for the challenge with the anniversary card for my lovely husband. One of my husband's pet sayings is "You complete me!" so I was thrilled to discover this sentiment on a Crafter's Companion Sentimentals stamp set, in fact it's the main reason I bought the sentiment set.

jigsaw easel card

Close up of main image

Happy Anniversary easel stopper

Hedgehog Jigsaw Card

For Chris x

The hedgehogs were stamped first in Memento Tuxedo Black dye ink then masked off with post-it mask, the bench was then stamped over the mask with the same ink so it looks like the hedgehogs are sitting on the bench. I added the smaller stamped images and coloured them in with Flexmarkers. I stamped the little sign again using a scrap of card and cut it out. Once the image was coloured in I put it in an embossing folder by Darice called "Jigsaw" but upside down so the image was debossed rather than embossed once I'd run it through my Big Shot. I followed the lines with a silver gel ink pen and added the "You Complete Me" sentiment and the cut out sign which is raised on a foam pad. The jigsaw piece was matted on silver pearl card and added to a panel of decorative paper, which was also matted onto the silver pearl card. I made a square easel card and added the front panel as shown. I made a simple stopper out of more card, paper and a sentiment. I punched out two jigsaw pieces out of decorative paper using a Xcut punch. This is a simple card but one with a lot of texture - as I've probably mentioned before I like to use embossing folders on my cards so Chris can at least feel it if he can't actually see it.

I really enjoyed making this card and I'm sure Chris is going to love it! If you have any comments or questions then please leave them in the usual places. I shall be working on my POTY entry but hopefully I'll have some cards etc to share with you soon - I really should start working on Christmas cards and gifts. I hope you all have a wonderful bank holiday weekend, Every Craft's A Pound is having free P&P on orders over £30 so it's a great time to check them out here www.everycraftsapound.co.uk. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx