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Tuesday 28 February 2017

MIA update.

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all well. You may have wondered where I've been the past 2 and a half weeks - in perfect misery is the answer lol. My husband downloaded what he thought was an update to our internet anti virus and it turned out to be some kind of TTI (a textually transmitted infection!) It did something to the Windows Defender and the internet connection so we couldn't go online, though Chris did manage to play his football manager game ok I noticed! He then did his usual let's put off today trick and only took the computer in to be fixed yesterday. We've had windows 10 installed instead of Vista so it's  a lot quicker to use and apart from not finding my save folders in where I would have expected them to be i.e. in the pictures folder, it seems to be working ok so far.

I just wanted to let my lovely loyal readers know what was happening and I should be writing a proper blog post in the next day or two.

Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxxx

Tuesday 7 February 2017

A Couple of Cards for my Niece

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I can't believe it's been over two weeks since my last blog post - part of that is down to the fact that my craftroom is living up to it's name and is a very cruddy crudy, the other part is because I managed to misplace my camera so I haven't been able to take any photos of my recent makes. Luckily I found my camera last night and got it charged so I could take some photos of some cards I've made.





I used a couple of stamp sets to make this card for my mum to give to Millie, the first was a set from Uniko stamps called 'Strike A Pose!' which is no longer in stock. I used the dotty Polaroid photo from this set and stamped it onto white smooth card using Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I stamped the girl panda from the free set of stamps that came with issue 142 of Papercraft Essentials magazine - the next issue comes out the 9th of this month so there may still be a copy or two available in the shops if you haven't already picked up this super cute stamp set. I added a horizon line using a Memento marker then coloured the panda and photo as shown using alcohol markers. I diecut two x 1 out of glitter cardstock using the Creative Dies numbers and special celebrations stamp set that came free with issue 141 of Papercraft Essentials magazine last month. I used the Happy Birthday sentiment from the same set. I added two strips of glitter washi to the end of the piece of card that the sentiment was stamped onto and cut a fish tail flag end. I then stuck all the pieces onto a black piece of card and added it to a white A6 card blank.





My niece is mad about turtles and even got one for Christmas. Originally I was planning on making a turtle the focal image of the card but in all honesty, after I'd coloured a large version of the turtles in the border strips of this card, I was worried the image would give my niece nightmares as it kind of freaked me out a bit lol. The border images from this No Journey's End - New Zealand & Pacific stamp set by Joy! Crafts are quite cute but the largest turtle in the set really isn't so I'll probably use it on a male card in future. I still wanted to make Millie a water themed card as I wanted to incorporate the Tibetan Silver turtle charm I got from eBay, I also wanted to try out a couple of other stamp sets I've bought in recent months but haven't used before. I blended three shades of blue distress inks onto a piece of smooth white card, starting at the bottom with Mermaid Lagoon then blending Salty Ocean before finishing with Tumbled Glass. I added drops of water onto the blended card, left for about 30 seconds and dabbed it up using some kitchen roll. As you probably know, Distress Inks are water reactive so the colour is effectively leached from the inked area leaving lighter coloured splotches, I squeezed my clear overlay Spectrum Noir Shimmer pen until the brush became saturated and flicked the shimmery fluid onto the card and dabbed it off with more kitchen roll so it left the shimmer but didn't remove any more ink. I used the second largest circle die from the Snow Globe set COL1362 by Marianne Design and diecut a circle out of the card. I diecut the snow globe base out of some teal embossed card from my stash.  I stamped the mermaid using the 'Awashed' Collectable Rubber Stamp by Santoro 'Gorjuss'. I only have the mini version and would love to buy the usual sized one. I also stamped the rocks and weed from 'Dive Right In' by Creative Expressions. Both images were coloured in using Flexmarkers and I added a layer of clear shimmer overlay to the tail of the mermaid. Both were very carefully fussy cut out using scissors and I added the mermaid first to the die cut circle using wet glue then I added the rocks and weed in front of her using thin foam tape. I cut off the parts that overlapped the edge of the circle. I added three clear dew drops using some matt adhesive and put it aside to dry. I stamped the turtle border from the 'No Journey's End' stamp set twice on a piece of deep blue card stock and then stamped a sentiment from my stash on the left side of the bottom third of the card. I added this to an A5 white card blank. Once the glue under the dew drops had dried clear, I added double sided foam tape to both the 'globe' and the base of the snow globe so they were attached to each other then I added the turtle charm to the back of the piece using some baker's twine. I stuck the snow globe to the card front between the turtle borders and above the sentiment leaving the turtle loose so it can move freely.

I really like both cards but I think the mermaid one is my favourite because as I'm sure most of my regular readers know, I adore Gorguss Girls and this one is extremely cute! Millie's birthday was yesterday (the 6th) and she hasn't got her cards yet because she's off school (and missing her mock exams!) and not up to having visitors due to illness. Hopefully she will get them later today though which is why I've added them to my blog. It's rather late now but I'm hoping to make her a quick get well card before dropping the other cards off later today - luckily I've been working on a couple of images and I think I have one that will do very nicely.

I hope you've enjoyed this blog post and hopefully it won't be quite so long before the next one though sorting out my cruddy crudy will have to take priority over crafting for awhile because at the moment it's a bit chaotic to craft and I can't find anything (I can't keep blaming craft gremlins for EVERYTHING going missing!). As always if you have any questions or comments then please leave them in the usual places and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx