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Wednesday 28 June 2017

A couple more cards to share

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you're having a wonderful week, it's very nasty weather here on the Yorkshire coast (I said the nice weather wouldn't last!) and it's been that cold that we actually had the heating on - at the end of June, can you believe it??  It has been a tad chilly in my crudy but not enough to prevent me from crafting. Michele Coffey and I have both finished our challenge cards and I'll be sharing what we made on the 30th.

It was my sister-in-law's partner's birthday today so I made him a card, I didn't realise until today (28th) that he was actually turning 40 so I'll be adding a road sign to the card later.





This card was made using unbranded dies and all but the car came from eBay, the car die was the free gift with Die Cutting Essentials magazine. It's not very big, to get an idea of the size of it - the front panel of the card is just under A6 size. I don't tend to make many A6 cards unless I'm bulk making (at Christmas etc) but the car is that small that I was afraid it would get lost on a bigger card. The car, sun and the clouds were cut out of Sheena's stamping card and the rest of the elements were cut out of scraps of Centura Pearl card stock. I coloured the car and the sun in with Promarkers, the hubcaps for the wheels were coloured in using a Docrafts Metallic brush marker in silver and I also added some to the door handle.  The sentiment inside the card was taken from the free die and stamp set.





The next card is  for a little girl, this horse die and stamp set called 'Happy Hooves' came free with Papercraft Essentials magazine and again the horse is a lot smaller than I was expecting so the card is only an A6 size. The stitched oval and stars were made using another couple of unbranded eBay dies - I can't remember which stamp set the sentiment came from but it was a freebie from a magazine. The backing paper came from a paper pad from The Works and the carousel and horse/unicorn were coloured in using Spectrum Noir Sparkle pens and silver brush pen.

I hope you like my latest make, I shall add another photo once I've made the 40 speed sign for the first card. 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

Monday 26 June 2017

A few cards to share...

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a brilliant weekend, it's been very quiet here in my crafty nook - it's a bit too hot to craft much so I have some cards to share that I've made in the past month or so, I hope you like them.


















As there are a lot of photos, I'm not going to add a tutorial for any of them. If you have any questions about the products used for any of these cards then please leave a comment below.  I'll have a card and a tutorial to share with you in a day or two. 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

Tuesday 20 June 2017

Wonky Tonk Girl birthday card

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a wonderful weekend and if you're in the UK (or elsewhere) have managed to take advantage of the beautiful weather. If it's too hot for you, just think it's only four weeks or less until the summer holidays so it's BOUND to be grotty weather for then 😉

I thoroughly enjoyed doing last week's challenge over at Passion for Promarkers so I've decided to follow along this week too - it's a sketch challenge and as it's my husband's cousin's birthday tomorrow I decided to use the sketch to make a 16th birthday card.







Probably for the first time ever, I actually chose the patterned paper before I coloured in the image. I used almost a full sheet of 8" x 8" Pick 'n' Mix premium paper by First Edition - there are some gorgeous papers in the pack including two foiled designs, two glitter effect designs and four spot UV designs, the rest of the papers are double sided like the one I used and there are three of each design.  After I had chosen the patterns I wanted and cut them to the right size, I glued them to a 5" x 7" card blank in the positions shown on the sketch. I got a scrap of card out of my stash and stamped a border on it from the 'Georgina' Wonky Tonk stamp set from Which Craft? I coloured over the image completely in Pale Pink then I went over the hearts and the flowers with either Cocktail Pink or Rose Pink Promarkers. I stamped the main image in the stamp set and coloured her in using Blush and Vanilla for her skintones, Violet for her eyes and Pale Pink, Cocktail Pink and Rose Pink for her hair. I edged around the panel using the darkest shade and added it to the card front.

Below is a souped up version of the card which I've sent off, I added a couple of layers of Clear Wink Of Stella to her hair and diecut a 16 out of speciality card which I added to the bottom right of the card- it's actually a coppery colour but I went over it using an Antique Pink Flexmarker so it has pink tones to it which change as you tilt the card. For this souped up version, I also added a stamped sentiment inside which reads "Wishing you a FANTASTIC BIRTHDAY" it's a Sentimentals stamp by Crafters Companion, I stamped it in VersaMark Onyx Black ink and sprinkled it with a holographic embossing powder which turns the letters into rainbow colours after it's been heat set and if you tilt the card into the light. I also stamped the Georgina character inside using Memento Tuxedo Black ink which I left uncoloured.







I really enjoyed this week's challenge over at Passion for Promarkers please click the link for more details http://promarkerchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/week-400sketch.html .

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 xxxx

Sunday 18 June 2017

A U-Fold Box card for Father's Day

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you have all had a wonderful weekend, we've been enjoying some beautiful weather here in the UK which is lovely apart from my tiny crudy is very stuffy and almost too hot to craft in! However, I managed to spend a couple of hours in there last night to make a special Father's Day card for my dad-in-law. I saw this new to me card fold on YouTube about a month ago and originally I was planning on making one for  a baby card with the flap part becoming a changing table but ended up making a double Z fold card instead. I still wanted to make one of these cards though and what better occasion than Father's Day. Men's cards are quite difficult to make but I've noticed that kinetic cards are popular with men  especially so I try to make them for my dad-in-law time permitting. My dad-in-law is a very keen gardener and loves his shed so I thought I'd make him a potting shed card. I have a set of cacti dies by Spellbinders called Succulent Garden which has a plant pot die included so I combined this die set with some paper from the Mr Mister papers and diecut collection to make the following card.

The card folds flat for posting

The top middle panel is should be pushed down when the card is opened to form the work bench

The card opens to form a U and the front panel rests on a card bracket

Closer view of the work bench area


Close up of the succulents
I'll have to admit that this is quite a tricky card to make - I followed the instructions of the YouTube video and a blog post carefully but my first attempt just wouldn't fold flat and even my second attempt stubbornly refused to stay flat enough to put in an envelope so I ended up tweaking the measurements a bit.  Here is a link to the original video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI1y-Es7rN8&t=75s - I think I went wrong because I used the measurements provided on her blog post which had one of the pieces as being 5cm by 19.5cm (on the video she gives both metric and imperial so I went on her blog just to jot down the measurements because it was getting a bit confusing) whereas if you watch the video it should be 5cm by 21cm and believe me that 1.5cm makes a huge difference! Before I checked both her blog and video for the measurements I just left my strip longer than I needed and cut the excess off. Anyway it was third time lucky and the card turned out fine. As there is already someone else's YouTube and Blog post already out there I won't bother adding a tutorial on here (to be honest it's so hot I just want to finish this post as quickly as possible so I can lay somewhere cool), if you click on the link it will take you to Ink Responsibly's video and there is a link to her blog in the description - it doesn't take you directly there so you'll have to scroll down a couple of pages - not a hardship though as she has some cute puppy photos on her blog posts 😍

I nearly forgot to say - the flower pots were die cut out of kraft card and edged with some walnut stain distress ink, for most of them I die cut them twice and cut off the top part to layer on the rim  to give it more dimension but I ran out of kraft card so I couldn't do them all. The succulents were die cut out of white card stock and coloured in using Flexmarkers, I also used one of the brown shades (think it may have been rosewood) to go over the edges of the card as the white card base showed through especially so when the work bench is folded down, I think I'd use kraft card stock for card base if I make another one. The sentiment was one out of the pack of Mr Mister papers and die cuts.

I'd like to enter this card for the Blog Challenge over at Passion For Promarkers  http://promarkerchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/week-399add-sentiment.html - the challenge this week is Add a Sentiment and I coloured in the succulents with Grass, Bright Green, Herb Green and Forest Green (I think!) I also used Rosewood Flexmarker.

I hope you like my latest make, it was a lot of fun to make and it's great to have such a dimensional card that folds flat enough to post - it fits in a 4 1/2" x 8" envelope, I made my own using my WRMK envelope punch board. 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

Saturday 17 June 2017

Blog Challenge Cards and a new challenge!

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all well and looking forward to the weekend. I was planning on adding this blog post on the 14th but after the tragic events in London, it didn't seem appropriate so I decided to leave it for a few days out of respect for those affected by the fire. (The victims and their families are in my thoughts and prayers.)

A few weeks ago I announced a challenge that my lovely crafty friend Michele and I were going to take on and I invited my readers to join in if they wanted. Sadly nobody expressed an interest but perhaps you are all shy and just followed along in your own crafty nooks *winks*. The challenge was to use the free gift with Quick Cards Made Easy magazine which consisted of nautical themed papers, cards and embellishments, we could add a few extra items and use basics from our craft stash but the kit itself needed to remain the main focus of the card. Here is the gorgeous card that Michele made.

Best Fishes Side panel stepper card by Michele Coffey
Isn't it fantastic? I love the way she combined all the different elements together and the addition of the Card Candi makes it pop - she's certainly inspired me to make some more cards with the kit.

Here's my card.

My card for the blog challenge

I kept my design fairly simple and used only three items from the kit. The first thing I used was one of the A6 sized card blanks which I turned into a patterned card piece by cutting off the blank card back. I knew I wanted to wrap stiff baker's twine around the front of the card but I didn't want it to show inside the card. Before I wrapped the twine, I distressed the edges of the card using a pair of scissors so it looks weathered and adds some texture, the card did rip a little but that just added to the worn look. I wrapped the twine around the card and tied a knot near the top, I threaded one of the embellishments (an anchor) onto the twine and finished it in a bow. I added the 'You are my anchor' sentiment to the panel using double sided foam tape and then added the whole panel to a card blank using more double sided foam tape. I've made this card for my lovely husband Chris just to let him know how much I appreciate him.

A close up of the tied anchor embellishment
I love the way we've come up with two very different cards using the same supplies.

Michele and I are planning on challenging each other twice a month, on or around the 1st and 15th of each month. One of challenges will be to use a freebie from one of the magazines we both get and after this month the second challenge will be a mystery challenge (but not a magazine freebie challenge) - this could be a stash raider challenge, a sketch challenge (maybe one from a magazine as I'm not really very good at coming up with designs myself because I don't really have the tech know how at present), a take one stamp set and make 3/5 cards challenge or a mystery package challenge where we send each other bits and bobs and challenge the other person to make something AMAZING out of it. I'm even considering a sort of crafty bush tucker challenge where we each have to make a card using a technique we usually avoid - for me that would be card kits (ironic considering that's what this challenge was lol) CD crafting (not much fun with my printer!) or Decoupage (hate trying to line everything up!) I know Michele doesn't like to stamp so that may end up being her first crafty bush tucker challenge 😁 We would be delighted if you joined in, some challenges will be easier to join in than others but you are welcome to get stuck in to any of them. If it's the mystery package challenge then obviously I'll need contact details and I'd have to keep the numbers down to a reasonable level just because of postage costs (I don't have a lot of  money left once I've fed the craft monkey that 'forces' me to spend any spare cash on craft supplies - bad monkey!) or I'll assign swap partners so everyone has a different mystery package.

I've talked a lot about future challenges so I think it's time to announce this month's second challenge - as you may have guessed unlike future months we are having two magazine freebie challenges this month and the second one features the lovely Family Ties dies and stamps free with issue 164 of Simply Cards & Papercrafts which consists of a set of four dies (3 nesting Russian dolls dies and a tiny flower die) and a whole family of Russian Doll stamps which even includes a baby and a cat (no dog though) there are also two sheets of downloadable images for those of you who hate colouring *shock face*. There are some beautiful examples in the magazine and online if you are stuck for inspiration. This has got to be one of my favourite free gifts of the year because the dies and images are a really good size - not huge - but they certainly won't get lost on an A6 card or even a bit bigger. The challenge is to use the free gift, basic craft supplies and up to three additional items to make a card any size, shape and design as long as the Family Ties set is the main focus of the card - colouring mediums count as basic supplies as does a printer to print out the downloadable sheets but if you use another die set that counts as an additional item (out of three) as would a paperstack but you can use as many elements out of that paperstack/die set and it'll only count as one item. However if you then use another die set or paper pack that counts as another item (so you'll have used two out of your three extra items). We're not going to be super strict as this is just for fun (no prizes apart from the satisfaction of creating something you might not have) so if you use four we won't mind - however more than five additional items isn't really playing fair unless you really really needed to use them of course. 😏

I hope you'll all rise to the challenge and take part - we'd really love it if you do. Please leave a comment in the usual places if you have any questions or comments and of course if you're planning to join in. I don't know how to add a link gadget so if you want your cards to be featured in the Blog Challenge Card post (should be up on the 1st of July) then please email me a couple of photos with your details and a few brief details on your make so I can add them to the blog post - please email them to me by the 30th June, my email is craftynook@outlook.com.

I hope you've enjoyed this blog challenge, I'll have some new cards to share either over the weekend or on Monday - I've still got my Father's Day card to make - gulp! Until next time - keep crafting!

Crafty love and hugs,

Sarah xxxx

Thursday 1 June 2017

A Few Labours of Love part two

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! As I mentioned yesterday there were two very important events in May, the first was my sister's wedding and the second was the arrival of my beautiful new God-Daughter on the 17th of May. I don't want to share any personal details without her parents consent but I'm sure they won't mind me sharing the card I made to celebrate her birth. Like my sister, they've had to wait a few weeks to receive the card but thanks to a lovely email from them I know they've got it and love it which pleases me no end. *huge grin*








This card was a huge undertaking but very fun to make. I'd seen a slightly similar card on Pinterest and loved the idea of having the second Z of a double Z-Fold card at the top instead of at the bottom and I loved the idea of having a pop up cot element but didn't own  a cot die. However when I looked at the cot I realised I could make something similar using tag dies and a fence die. The heart die cut at the very top of the card was made using a Crafter's Companion die but all the rest of the diecut images and elements were made using dies purchased from eBay. The lacy border of the top Z was made using a Tonic Studio punch, the footprints and sentiment stamps were a WRMK mini stamp set and the chest of drawers were stamped then coloured and fussy cut out - I can't recall what brand the stamp set was but if I remember I'll add it to the post at a later date. The metal knobs on the chest of drawers are actually nail art pieces from eBay - I've discovered that a lot of craft supplies can be sourced cheaper if they are classed as 'beauty products' such as pear shaped sponges, mini glue brushes (made for adding false eyelashes but brilliant for adding tiny dabs of glue to thin die cuts) and dotting tools which can be used for adding paint details to projects or even better to use as embossing ball tools!The wall paper is taken from the 'Sweet Paris' 8" x 8" paperstack by Dovecraft. The pink strips and hearts were made out of Centura Pearl card stock but everything else was made using plain white card coloured with Flexmarkers. I went over the footprints on the front piece with Dovecraft glitter glue. The card does actually fold down to fit into a 5 1/2" x 7" envelope but I forgot to take a photo of it folded flat.

I'd like to enter this card into the Kinetic Card challenge over at Passion for Promarkers blog (Double Z-Fold card with pop up cot and baby mobile elements - coloured with Flexmarkers)  http://promarkerchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/week-397make-kinetic-card.html

I hope you like my latest make, as always if you have any questions or comments then please leave them in the usual places and until next time - keep crafting!

Crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

p.s. here's a link to the card that inspired me on Pinterest via Google Images  https://goo.gl/images/8lmQ05