ARGGGGHHHH!

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all have a good week so far. I'm just writing to let you know that I may be MIA for a while. We had the gas engineer come today to inspect the boiler and our gas cooker and to be honest I was half expecting him to condemn our cooker which is rather old and has developed a few small holes in it's base inside the oven (so convinced was I that this would happen, I went and ordered a mini oven from Aldi so if the worst came to the worst, I'd still be able to make some kind of Christmas dinner in a few months time!) however what I wasn't expecting was for the boiler to be condemned in it's place. In it's self that's not a bad thing in fact it'll be great to actually have boiling water without having to waste 20 litres of water before it even gets warm and if the boiler had to be replaced now while the weather is still relatively warm is a good time to do it but unfortunately the boiler isn't the only thing that's going to be replaced, the entire heating system is going to be. That means every radiator in the flat has to be easily accessible and an asbestos survey has to be carried out prior to that. That probably doesn't sound like a big deal but we have a heck of a lot of stuff in a fairly smallish flat with very little storage - in fact the one room that does have the storage space is the utility room where the boiler is located. I have two days to get all the radiators accessible ( at present there's the one in the bathroom free and that's it - even the hall one has the laundry bin in front of it!). The kitchen's not too bad, all I've got to do is move the table from one side of the room to the other (and clear any crap that's hidden itself underneath there - not literal crap, I'm not that BAD a housewife!!), the hallway stuff can go in the bath for now but the two biggest challenges are the two bedrooms. My side of the bed is currently covered with the contents of the airing cupboard which I'll transfer to the sofa for now, but the radiator is under the window at Chris's side and that's going to involve some serious furniture humping and trying to figure out where it can all go (on the communal landing is one option - our next door neighbours certainly have enough stuff out there!) but the worst room is going to be the second bedroom, my craftroom AKA The Crudy! I've been crafting for many years and I'm a craft hoarder - I have a heck of a lot of stuff and it's all crammed into a space barely big enough to fit a single bed and a set of drawers in. I have stuff in boxes stacked on top of other boxes and I really don't know where I'm going to put it all and still leave the radiators exposed. So instead of spending my birthday crafting, watching DVDs and having a home pamper session like I'd planned, I will be running myself ragged more than likely with not even a nice birthday meal or even cake to look forward to.

The asbestos survey is on Friday between 9am and 11am (originally they wanted to do it TOMORROW!!!) and the gas fitters are also coming to measure up the radiators etc at some point on Friday too. I'm not sure how long everything is going to take (if they find asbestos we may have to move out for a bit - I'm praying hard that they don't!) and even once the work's been completed there's all the aftermath to take care of, we might need to re-decorate some rooms depending on how much damage is caused by them replacing the radiators and pipes which will mean even more delays. It's not really practical to try crafting with my supplies scattered to the four corners of the flat so I'm not sure when I'll be making stuff again. It's a real possibility that I won't be able to take part in this month's challenge but I will blog Michele's makes if she's agreeable.

I hope you'll stick with me and keep visiting my blog for any updates. Not sure when I'll blog next but until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

A couple of cards to share

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all well and have had a good weekend - it was very blustery here but it's calmed down now thank goodness. It's been a couple of weeks since my last post but I've not been up to a great deal craft wise. One of my niece's celebrated her 19th birthday on the 16th and my lovely crafty friend Michele sent me some gorgeous planner stamps and sticky note sets through the post which was a wonderful surprise and I'm still at the stroking and smiling stage (I can't be the only one who takes forever to use new goodies because if you use them they won't be new anymore??) and haven't used them yet though I'm 'planning' on using them soon! I made Michele a thank you card which I'll be sharing in this post. First of all let me apologise if any typos slip through, I'm writing this in the early hours of Monday and my beloved cat has decided that he can't sleep anywhere but in my arms which makes typing very challenging - still it makes a change him sleeping this close to the floor as he's taken to jumping on top of the lounge door and going to sleep up there. It would be cute if it wasn't for the fact that he's 16 years old and sleeps very deeply - the daft thing keeps going into a deep sleep then falling off the door which is rather scary and I'm terrified he's going to break something! I'm sure the only reason he goes up there is so he can look down on his inferior humans (cats rule!)

Anyway enough of high Jinx *winks* let's get back to crafting! The first card I'd like to share is the one I made for my niece. I wasn't really sure what to make her as 19 is one of those between ages if you know what I mean plus she's going to have a baby in December and a lot of the teen stamps I own just didn't seem suitable. In the end I decided to use some Forever Friends papers which included some cute cut apart images in the A5 paper pack.

Love the Rose Gold Foiling that's on the cut aparts.

Forever Friends cut apart and backing paper with added bling

Inside of the card with die cut Special sentiment - stamps are CC

The back of the card featuring another of the cut apart images and a handstamped warning lol

Envelope made with Trimcraft Pick n Mix papers and WRMK envelope punch board

The front of the card seemed a little 'meh' so I added some Autumn sequin mix from Craft Stash, where I was a bit messy with the glue I added blobs of Dovecraft glitter glue in Rose.

Here is the Thank you card I made for the wonderful Michele.

Love this stamp set from eBay but it needs some bling!

Blinged up using Gold paint and a very small brush!

Isn't that a lovely sentiment?

Michele is a star so I added some to the inside

Envelope made using the WRMK envelope punch board and Trimcraft Sweet Paris paper

I really like the stamp set, it's an unbranded one from eBay and has some sweet sentiments with it as well as the two large floral stamps used on this card. Although it looks great just in black and white, I wanted to 'bling' it up a bit so added some highlights using Kuretake Gansai Tambi Starry Colors (sic) paints - I think I used the third from the left out the six gold paint pans. It's a very pigmented water colour and adds just the right touch of glitz to the front. I had some left on the paint brush so painted a couple of die cut scribble stars to add to the inside as shown. I stamped everything using Versafine black ink which is waterproof but more importantly,  a really dark black.

I've had a bit of lovely crafty news this week but I'm not sharing it until after Christmas (aren't I a craft tease! lol) Hopefully I should have a few cards to share with you later in the week, one unfortunately is a sympathy card but the other will be a cute card for a three year old as it's my youngest niece's birthday on Friday. I may even have a few craft goodies to share as it's my birthday on Wednesday and I'm hoping for some birthday money (I've already been lucky enough to be given some from my lovely mum) I'm torn between getting some Nuvo alcohol ink pens which are exceedly cheap at Craft Stash or buying a couple of items from the new Christina Griffith Card Making Magic Collection which is gorgeous and exclusively available at Craft Stash. I've already got my present from my wonderful hubby (a new Sizzix Big Shot machine which I don't want to use until Wednesday!) and I'm very grateful for it because my old one is really hard to use (it doesn't cut through in places unless I use shims). 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

News and a couple of cards.

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a brilliant weekend - it was International Card Making Day on Saturday - did you make any cards? I didn't actually make any on the day but I did have an overnight crafting session last night.

First a couple of bits of good news, to start with my card featured in the last post was shortlisted for the competition I made it for. I didn't win but I'm absolutely thrilled to bits that it was shortlisted as there were some really good entries. My second piece of good news is that my lovely wonderful husband has treated me to a brand new Sizzix Big Shot machine (£55 from Amazon) and it arrived today!! I am very excited and looking forward to finally being able to use my intricate dies without having to shim it to death! It's a different colour to my original machine and has a tabbed extended platform rather than the solid platform with a removable plastic shim which might take some getting used to, I'm going to try and mend my old machine and see if my mum in law would like it, she's not a papercrafter as such but likes to sew and make things for a doll's house that my dad in law has made for her. I know you can get dies to make quilting shapes and other stuff which might make her life easier otherwise I might get some replacement cutting plates and offer it to a craft group/charity in the area who may be able to use it. I am really grateful to my husband for getting it for me, it was £55 which doesn't sound like a lot but is probably more than we spend on electricity in a month and we don't have a lot of spare money especially at this time of year. #feelingblessed

Apologies for the long delay in adding the last blog challenge cards - Michele sent me photos of hers weeks ago but I've had real trouble making the cards this time round, part of it was my usual procrastination but part of it was down to things going wrong with my projects. I decided to colour the Gnomes in with a combination of alcohol markers and Spectrum Noir Shimmer pens and I had a lot of bleeding outside the stamped outlines even though I was extra careful and used a card suitable for both mediums then I'd make a card and absolutely loathe it so had to start again about a dozen times.

Here are Michele's gorgeous creations.

Aren't they fantastic? I love the way Michele spelt out XMAS by nestling the letters in the Gnomes' beards and the Anniversary card is so sweet! I really like the heart shaped tree slice in the background.

Here are my cards.

I hope you like my cards, again apologies for the delay in getting them made and up. If you want to know how my card was made please leave a comment below. This month's blog challenge is to use the card kit that came free with issue 175 Cardmaking & Papercraft magazine to make as many items from it as possible. You can use additional card stock from your stash and any dies, embossing boards, embossing folders as you want to make tags, ATCs, boxes, bags and of course cards! You can also use other embellishments like ribbon and twine etc to give the items a finished look but the challenge is to be left with only tiny scraps by the end. Because this is a big challenge it's running until the 31st October and as always please feel free to join in - there's no prize apart from the satisfaction of having done a job well done and freeing up a tiny bit of space in your crafty nook! I'm really looking forward to seeing what Michele comes up with this time and I'd love to see your creations too. 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