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Saturday 29 April 2017

A couple of Get Well soon cards and an Afternoon Tea themed card (Updated)

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a brilliant week and have something wonderful planned for this weekend - it's another bank holiday here in the UK so it's bound to rain at some point lol. We had snow earlier in the week (25th) but luckily it didn't stay for long. My lovely cat Jinx celebrated his 16th birthday on the 27th which makes him 80 in cat years!!! Although he spends a lot of his time asleep, he does have the odd mad moment when he dashes around the flat like a kitten. I made him a card featuring a black diecut cat from the Catitudes range at Crafter's Companion because he's a gorgeous black cat with green eyes (not as common as you'd think as a lot of cats have yellow or orange eyes rather than green) and I added layers of green card to match his eyes and some DCWV glitter card. The cat die is available direct from Crafter's Companion https://www.crafterscompanion.co.uk/collections/catitudes/catitudes-metal-dies.html.


I didn't notice the fingermark on the green foiled card when I took the photo so please ignore.







Our downstairs neighbour (we live on the first floor of a block of four flats) has been taken into hospital for surgery and I made him a get well card from my mum and one from the two of us. The first card is probably my favourite as it's kind of quirky and I like the idea of plasters smiling. The plaster (or band-aid as they are called in some countries) was stamped 3 times onto kraft card using a stamp by Unity stamps - the smiley faces cames from an Avery Elle stamp set called "We go together like..." and has all sorts of small images like slices of toast and glasses of milk and cookies - the small face is separate so you can add them to the different images. I've had this stamp set for a while, I think it was from CraftStash.co.uk and in all honesty the excitement on finding a cheap(ish) Avery Elle stamp set blinded me to the fact that is just not something I'll use very often which is why it's languished in my stash since I bought it. The face is tiny but very deep which made it a challenge to stamp it without it wobbling probably not helped by the fact that my acrylic block was far too large for it. I fussy cut the plasters out as I don't have a die to go with it. The stitched panel was diecut out using a stitched rectangle die from eBay and I cut it out of Centura Pearl hint of silver white card. I layered this on top of a piece of the glitter DCWV card that I used on the 16th birthday card. The card is smaller than one of my usual card at only 3" x 4.25".

The second card was made using a stamp set that came free with Creative Stamping magazine a few months ago and I added some diecut clouds above the umbrella in grey card stock. The cloud die was from a nesting set of three from eBay and only cost about £1.39 or similar. I used a smaller stitched rectangle to die cut the sentiment and added the panel onto the wide layer as shown. I made a card blank using the same grey card stock as the clouds and sentiment and added the finished panel to it with tape runner.







My final card isn't for any particular occasion but because I'd bought some afternoon tea themed die from (you guessed it!) eBay and I wanted to try them out. These dies cost me £2.83 and while it's true they take anywhere from a couple of weeks up to three months to arrive, eBay dies from China etc are amazing value. This was really brought home to me when I saw the exact same dies on the products page of Diecutting Essentials magazine for a staggering price of £12.99!!! A mark up of over a tenner is quite frankly criminal in my opinion, even if the 'branded' dies are in packaging and on a small piece of magnetic shim. I freely admit I like to keep my dies etc in the original packaging just so I don't have to waste my time re-labelling something that's already been done (this is why Tatty Twinkle stamps vex me - they aren't the cheapest of stamps yet never have any 'proper' packaging or labels so I have to add my own so I know what I'm using for blog posts etc) but for something as cheap as the eBay dies and stamps, I don't mind adding them to a magnetic shim (you can buy an A4 sized one from ECAP and cut it to the right size - I usually cut it into quarters so have four sheets to mount my dies onto for only £1!) or add a card behind the stamps so I can see them clearly because just knowing they are from eBay is enough information - it's not much point listing the seller/price as these details change all the time as newer stock becomes available - plus the stamps and dies from eBay don't come with an invoice or anything so it's hard to work out who the seller is especially as I've already said, they can take quite a while to arrive. Anyway enough whinging about Rip Off Craft companies (notice I haven't actually named and shamed them but maybe I should - let me know if you want to know.) I added decoration to the cup and teapot though in actual fact I think a tall pot like this one would usually hold coffee instead of tea - I inherited my Grandma's coffee service (not sure why she had one as both my grandparents were tea drinkers) and the coffee pot is tall and thin like this one. Teapots tend to be short and squat so the tea leaves can circulate properly but I don't suppose anyone would mind the difference on a card (apart from pedantic peeps like me!). Again this is a smaller than usual card but I rather like the unusual size. The brown spotted background paper came from my scraps so I've no idea of the brand - I did add a bit of blended black ink to the edges to draw the eye in to the scene. I made an envelope using my EPB from WRMK and a sheet of Dovecraft paper. I should point out that there is a matching knife to the fork added to the inside of the card but I dropped the diecut and couldn't find it again. I also added some AB gems to the tiered cake stand, cup and teapot - they are actually nail art gems (need to use glue with them) and I bought them from eBay.

I hope you've enjoyed my cards - I certainly enjoyed making them. Feel free to CASE any of the designs but please link your makes to this blog (or mention where you got the idea from.). As always if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them in the usual places and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Monday 17 April 2017

A couple of cards to share

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter Sunday and if you are blessed enough to have a day off today, are having a wonderful time today too. We had my mum over for a roast chicken dinner and it was fantastic. (Hope that doesn't sound too boastful!) My lovely hubby even prepped some of the veg which made things a bit less stressful for me - once I'd left the room that is! As you may know my husband is severely sight impaired - he's been blind in his left eye since birth and his right eye has very little sight as a result of scar tissue - and the stubborn so-and-so refused to use a veg peeler and insisted on using a small kitchen knife to peel the carrots and potatoes. My hands were itching to take the knife off him and do it myself not only because I was dreadfully worried he'd cut himself but because he was wasting so much of the veg that he had to peel an entire 2kg bag of potatoes just so we'd have enough for mash and roast potatoes (if I'd done it myself or if he'd used a peeler we could have used half the amount!) In the end I went into another room and wasted veg (and oddly squarish potatoes which were 'interesting') aside he did a good job and I was able to prep the cauliflower and get the chicken in the oven so it worked out okay.

Another thing I managed to do was make a very quick Easter card for my mum because Chris and I have been on a bit of a Game of Thrones bender the last few days and we've been watching series 6 together, two episodes at a time (*sobs* we've finished it now!) which really ate into my crafting time so I hadn't made any cards apart from the very first Easter Egg hunt card I shared a few posts ago. Although neither of us go to church anymore I wanted to make my mum a faith based card so came up with the following card.


I am a huge fan of eBay dies from China and this ornate cross was one of my earlier buys. It die cut through the gold mirror card perfectly even though I was using my Sizzix Sidekick which is past it's best and not designed for thin dies. I stuck it down on a piece of purple card and cut around it. I got an C6 sized piece of white card and ran it through my Big Shot machine in an embossing folder called Bubble Explosion from Crafter's Companion. I adhered the cross to the embossed card using plenty of tape runner (normally I'd use wet glue or red liner tape but I couldn't find any and I was in a hurry.) and stamped a Happy Easter sentiment from one of the stamps that came with Creative Stamping magazine during the past few months on a non-embossed area of the card. I then added this panel to a pre-scored card blank from Dovecraft.












The second card is my favourite. Men's cards are always a challenge for me so I'm very pleased with how this one turned out. The motorbike die for this card came from eBay (are you noticing a pattern) and embosses the card stock as well as cutting it out. I die cut it three times out of silver mirror card, metallic red card and black card. I kept the red die cut shape in one piece (though some inner parts did fall out and got lost) and added parts of the silver and black to the top of it as shown so that the wheels and the chrome areas were the right colour - it's probably not all that accurate as I'm not all that familiar with motorbike design but I thought it looked pretty cool. The crash helmet was diecut out of the same metallic red card as the motorbike and I used one of the dies from the Icons die set from Mr Mister collection from DoCrafts, the map paper also came from the same collection. The Route 66 sign was made using a die from the same collection but is actually a Best Dad shield die. I cut it out using the die out of black card and carefully removed the Best Dad words so only the thin black border remained. I traced around the die itself onto white card and carefully cut it out. I added the black border onto the white shield shape with glue and once it had dried added a thick line using a black marker across the top as shown and wrote out ROUTE and US. I coloured in two die cut sixes from my stash with the same pen and added them to the shield. I found a thin strip of Kraft card in my scraps and cut it to the right length to use as a pole for the sign. I made a double Z fold card using Kraft card (see my Easter Egg card post for details on how to make one or check YouTube for a tutorial) and decorated as shown. The stamped Happy Birthday was yet another eBay buy from China. I made the envelope using my WRMK envelope punch board and decorated it before sticking it together  using some stamps from my stash - the tire marks stamp is a roller stamp which doesn't have a brand and only cost 29p quite a few years ago, it's actually the first time I've used and I'm really glad I didn't purge it at some point as I really love the effect. Once it was decorated I stuck the sides etc with tape runner.

I hope you like my latest makes - I had a lot of fun making them and the motorbike card was very time consuming but worth the time, whereas the Easter card was a lot quicker but still quite a nice card. As always if you have any questions or comments then please leave them in the usual places.

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Sunday 16 April 2017

Happy Easter Everyone!

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! There's not a lot of crafting going on in my crafty nook today just a whole lot of cooking so I wanted to pop in and wish all my lovely blog readers a very Happy Easter!

Love and Easter hugs,

Sarah 

Thursday 13 April 2017

Oh, Baby.

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all well and had a good weekend. It's not long until Easter - have you made all your Easter cards yet? I've still all but one to make but I'm planning on keeping them simple so hopefully they won't take me long to make. Our family has been blessed with a new arrival - a beautiful baby girl was born on the 8th April 2017 to the Cornish part of our family. I've made a new baby card to send as soon as I have an address. I got some sweet little stamps off eBay yesterday so I decided to team them with some baby dies also from eBay to make a 6" square card.











Aren't these sweet images??? I'm a bit leery about buying stamps from eBay as the first lot I ordered were faulty but these stamps stamp beautifully. They are very small less than an inch square for the most part but are very cute. I coloured them in using a mixture of Flexmarkers for the main image and some fine point markers (can't remember the brand) for the small details in the background just because it's hard to colour in something that small using a Flexmarker - even a regular Promarker would be too large for the tiny hearts and stars that appear in the backgrounds. I fussy cut around each image after I coloured it in leaving a small white border as some of the images poke outside of the line borders and it looked better with a border than without. I punched out 8 1" squares using a Woodware square punch out of pink heart paper from my stash and stuck the cutout images onto the squares with tape runner. I made a 6" square card blank by cutting a 12" x 12" piece of Bazzill Vanilla cardstock  in half and scoring it at 6". I cut a piece of DCWV Glimmer card from a 6" x 6" paperpack that I've been hoarding for years (lol) to 5.5" square and added it to the front of my card blank. I cut a piece of paper decorated with glittered paws taken from Dovecraft's Bazoo by Helz Cuppleditch (this collection came out about 5 years ago or more but there are still some paperpacks floating about out there - they are perfect for baby cards) to 5" x 5" and then cut a piece of funky foam slightly smaller and stuck it to the back of the paw paper with double sided tape. I added this panel to the glitter paper panel using Tombow Mono adhesive as wet glue is advisable when sticking anything to a glittered card. I added the 1" square panels as shown using tape runner and die cut a baby bottle and a rattle using the scrap of glimmer paper that was left over after cutting out the first mat. I added these to the card using more Tombow Mono adhesive. The card lacked something so I added faux stitching around the toppers using a white gel pen and then added black faux stitches using a .7mm Promarker fineliner pen to the paw paper and the card blank which tied the card together. I added dots of black glaze pen to the bears eyes and noses to make them raised and shiny. I added a strip of the paws paper to the inside of the card and did some more faux stitches in black above it. I stamped a sentiment from a We R Memory Keeper's baby stamp set (it's a mini stamp set featuring this sentiment and a pair of baby footprints - so cute!) I made an envelope using my WRMK Envelope punch board and stamped some bunting on the front and on the flap as shown. I coloured these in pink using a coloured pencil.

I think this is one of my favourite baby cards I've made, the images are really cute and because they are so small you can use all of them without the card looking too fussy. At some point I'll probably use these stamps to make a waterfall card as they are the perfect size for one. The stamp set only cost £1.59 and took just under a month to arrive from China. The dies were from a set of 8 dies in total (4 baby related items and 4 cute insects) and cost £2.39, again they took nearly a month to arrive. I won the DCWV papers quite a few years ago so the glittery layer and die cut embellishments were either free or very little cost and the Bazoo papers were from ECAP and have been in my stash for at least 3 years so again cost very little. My biggest expense for this card was probably the Bazzill Vanilla card which cost 90p a sheet and I used half of it so all in all this was a really economical make 😄

I hope you like my latest make, as always if you have any questions then please leave them in the usual places. I'm not sure if I'll be adding another post before Easter as I've got a few things planned so I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter - and that you get lots of Easter eggs!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Thursday 6 April 2017

A couple of birthday cards

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you all had a brilliant week, it's been lovely here on the east coast - bright with a crispness to the air. I was supposed to do my spring cleaning two weeks ago but kind of lost heart in it when my mum-in-law wasn't able to come for Mother's Day and these bright days are making me wish I'd done a bit more than I ended up doing for just my mum visiting. (It's not that I don't make an effort for my mum's visits but she knows what a untidy moo I can be and she's seen me at my worst but I wanted to make a good impression on my in-laws!)

It was my mum-in-law's birthday last Sunday and it was my Gramps-in law's birthday Tuesday so I thought I'd share the cards I made for them.








The first card features the wonderful Verity Rose from Crafter's Companion. She was coloured in using Promarkers and Spectrum Noir Shimmer markers. I added details with a Sakura stardust pen on her hat and beads. The layering piece was die cut out using a Tonic Studio die and I ink blended over it using Salty Ocean and Tumbled Glass Distress Inks.

The second card was inspired by a card made by Christine Smith AKA CraFTiPoTeNTiAl  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl_yNA4vpuo - please click the link to see the original card that inspired mine. Like Christine I used the hobby themed stamps that came free with Creative stamping Magazine a couple of months ago. I stamped them onto 200 gsm card and coloured them in using Flexmarkers then I fussy cut them out which was rather challenging for the pinchers/pliers and the screwdriver because the thin parts curled up on themselves after I cut them. I die cut the pinboard frame out of white card using two stitched rectangle dies from eBay and I held them in place using some washi tape so the dies didn't shift as the card went though the machine. I also stamped out the tool box and coloured it in using the Flexmarkers and then stamped over it using the small wood grain stamp from the set and the Happy Birthday sentiment. Again it was fussy cut out and I used a scalpel to cut out the inner part of the shape so I could add some extra tools. These tools were cut out using a set of dies from the Sara's Collection of Just For Men dies. I cut a piece of adhesive backed cork to just slightly smaller than the frame and layered the two together as shown to form the pin board.I added the tools with tape runner to the board and added foam pads to the back of the tool box - the tools were stuck to these so that they peeped out from the tool box. I used papers from Papermania Mr Mister range and added them to a Dovecraft A6 card blank using a tape runner from Crafter's Companion. I added the board to the 'wall' of the shed and the tool box to the 'floor' using extra glue on the tools that covered the sticky foam pads.

I did make another card for my mum-in-law on my mum's behalf but forgot to take any photos of it so I can't share here. As always if you have any questions or comments about my latest cards then please leave them in the usual places and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx