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Friday 29 December 2017

A belated Merry Christmas and an early Happy New Year!

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a brilliant Christmas so far and are enjoying the snow if you have been 'blessed' by it! I love it when it snows as long as I get to stay cosy and warm inside lol. We haven't had any this time but it's still rather cold and I am very grateful for the new central heating system even if it did cause a lot of mayhem having it fitted a few months back. It's been a quiet but exciting Christmas for us here in my crafty nook. It started with some sad news - Quick Card Made Easy announced on Facebook that their January issue of the magazine would be the very last. I think I've got the very first issue or at least  some of the very first of the publication in a cupboard, I probably haven't got every issue as I missed some when I damaged my back about ten years ago and I wasn't able to get to the newsagents to buy QCME but I have been subscribing ever since (some may have got lost or damaged during various moves too) so it's an end of an era really. It's made even more poignant by the fact I've finally got to take part in the sketch challenge (I've been applying for nearly a year!) and my card is featured on page 69. The magazine went on sale yesterday and it would be great if as many people as possible purchase the magazine not just because my card is in it (though feel free to do so - I'd be incredibly flattered!) but to show our support of a wonderful publication that has given years of inspiration and helped me (certainly) and many others become better crafters - who knows if enough new people buy the magazine then they may change their mind and start it up again.

As usual, I was making cards until Christmas Eve but I think most people actually got Christmas cards made by me (though they may not have got them yet - I was late posting them!) and those who didn't will hopefully be getting New Year's cards instead. Christmas was a quiet affair at home with just my husband, my mum and I enjoying a roast chicken with the trimmings. Things took a bit longer to make then expected and in the rush to get down to the taxi in time, my mum didn't put her glasses away properly and has now lost them - I think she kind of blames me for not being more organised with the meal because she was decidedly frosty with me when I rang her this evening. I've not felt very well since Christmas Day - no I didn't give myself food poisoning though I may have over indulged when it came to the stuffing! - so I've not done much apart from feeling sorry for myself. I've not even been online that much and as a result I didn't find out my youngest niece on my side of the family finally had her baby girl on the 27th December (she was due on the 16th!) Isabella-Rose (isn't that a lovely name) is beautiful and is my second great-niece born this year!

One of my best presents (and I got some great presents this year) was from my lovely mum and dad-in-law who bought me a gorgeous Polaroid iG128 digital camera (purple one of my favourite colours!) so I've no longer any excuse if my cards look rubbish on this blog - yep the card's naff, it's not down to my old camera anymore - saying that the photos I'll be sharing soon were taken using my old camera because (a) most were made before Christmas and (b) I've not been able to use it before now because it won't take photos without a memory card (now purchased and installed). I may still use my old camera from time to time but that's just because I can charge it via a USB whereas my new camera requires AAA batteries and I've a feeling it maybe a bit of a battery hog - I may have to buy a charger and re-chargeable batteries if it goes through them quickly. I'm hoping to make YouTube video tutorials but not sure at this point as I couldn't get the sound on the video playback on the camera, it might not have sound on the camera but does once it's uploaded, I'll just have to wait and see. I'll also have to rig something up in my crudy (challenging as there isn't much space!)

Here are a selection of my recent cards including Christmas cards, Baby's first Christmas card, birthday cards and A New Baby card. As this is already a huge post I won't be adding any details - if you are curious about products or methods used then please leave a comment in the usual place.















 
These are only about half the cards I made because I didn't take photos of the rest of them. I think my favourite of this lot is the 10th birthday card I made for my nephew who turned 10 today (29th December), it's always a bit hit or miss making sure he gets his card on time because of the Christmas post so I was extra pleased that he got in time for his birthday. I'm not sure if he does like to dress up as a robot but I bought this Personal Expressions stamp with him in mind about six months ago. I did try to colour it in using metallic pencils on kraft card but preferred it on white card and using ProMarkers. I used the kraft piece to make a pocket inside to hide some money - I know you're not supposed to send money through the post but a bank transfer to his mum's account seems a bit impersonal (yes I know money is too but at least it's there for him on the actual day - better than waiting until he sees me in person!) Anyway it got to him ok and I think he likes the card. Charlie hasn't got the card from us for Isabella-Rose so it's a bit naughty of me to share it on here but tbh I don't think Charlie reads this blog so she won't see it before it arrives at her home.

I hope you've enjoyed my latest makes, sorry it's been so long since I've added a blog post, the run up to Christmas always goes so quickly and I've not really had time to blog until now. Hopefully now the Christmas frenzy is over for another year (but this isn't the last of my Christmas makes - I'm going to make at least two Christmas cards a month!) I should have time to blog more often and with my snazzy new camera, I don't have any excuses! 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 9 December 2017

A card to share...

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a brilliant week and are ready for a cold weekend ahead - at least the wintery weather is a good excuse to stay indoors and do some crafting. Well so much for my plan to make and share a card every day using the dies from my Crafter's Companion advent calendar - I forgot to take one little thing into consideration when I made that plan - I don't actually like a lot of the dies that came free, eek! In themselves they are quite sweet but most of them are really not to my taste, are quite small and fiddly to use because they have lots of die cut inlaid parts to them like bows and things, and I couldn't even work out what the die was on day two (I thought it was a pineapple to begin with!). There are a few dies that I probably will use, a flower garland, a very pretty butterfly and the word 'celebrate' but the first die the snowflake remains my favourite up to the 8th anyway. I've not really had a lot of time this week to make Christmas cards because I've been concentrating on making a steampunk Gorjuss Girls card for my sister who celebrates her birthday tomorrow. It probably doesn't look like it but her card took me around 3 days to make on and off mainly because there was a lot of die cutting involved.









The images are from 'The Hatter' Gorjuss Girls stamp set and they were stamped onto Sheena's Stamping card using Memento Tuxedo Black ink and coloured in with Pro Markers. The top hat and hearts were diecut out of the same card stock and coloured in with Pro Markers. The hat was die cut four times before being layered together with wet glue to form a thick embellishment - the gears on the hat were die cut from the same card and coloured with Papermania Metallic markers. The gems were added using blobs of wet glue to keep them in place. All the other die cut gears and cogs were cut out of scraps of holographic and plain silver card. The flowers were die cut out of the white card and coloured with Pro Markers (crimson and burgundy). The 6" square card front was made using white card ( Bristol Board in this particular case) and ink blended with Fired Brick Distress Ink and Black Soot Distress Ink, it was further distressed using a distress spray bottle. The card blank is a twisted easel card blank from Every Craft's A Pound, £1 for a pack of 3 with envelopes, they aren't quite 6" square so the front piece over hangs at one side and at the top.

I really like this card and it looks a lot better in real life (my camera is really rubbish!) I just hope my sister likes it. As always if you have any comments or questions then please leave them in the usual places and until next time - happy crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx



Friday 1 December 2017

On the first day of December Crafter's Companion gave to me...

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you have all had a good week - hasn't December come around fast! We had snow yesterday (in fact our town made the 6 o'clock news on the BBC) but most of it has vanished after a spell of heavy rain.

Yesterday I was thrilled to receive an unexpected gift from Crafter's Companion - an Advent calendar! I love Advent Calendars but I don't tend to buy them just for me, so I was especially pleased to have one filled with small dies and not the usual chocolate - though crafting and crafting do tend to go together well.


What's behind door No.1?

A pretty snowflake die! 

Here are three cards I made using the lovely snowflake die that was behind door number 1.









The first two cards are both A6 in size and although they are very similar there are a couple of differences. The blue square panels were made using a Woodware square punch and I punched out three squares for each card out of blue star holographic card (1) and blue glitter card (2). The snowflakes were die cut out using the first free die from the Advent calendar and one is of plain silver card while the other two are diecut out of holographic card. The snowflakes were adhered to the square panels using wet glue and a gem was added to the centres to finish them off. The A6 card blanks were made from a hint of silver Centura Pearl cardstock. The sentiment is one from a stamp set from my stash and was stamped onto Sheena's Stamping card using Versafine Onyx Black ink before being cut out with a fishtail banner die. The panels were added to the card blanks as shown using d/s foam pads and the sentiments were either added flat or using thin foam tape. I added 3 cup sequins to one card and 3 flat sequins with gem centres to the other.

The tall skinny card was made using the same supplies but I used Sheena's Stamping card for the card base (4 1/4" x 7") and flicked dark blue Spectrum Noir Shimmer brush marker over it first. I heat set the splatters before adding the square panels. On this card there are two holographic squares with plain silver snowflakes and one glitter square with a holographic snowflake in the centre. I added three flat sequins and clear gems as shown along with a sentiment.

I hope you like my latest makes - I love this snowflake die (it's my favourite from the Advent calendar so far lol) and I'm really pleased with the cards I made using it. It doesn't use alot of supplies and in fact apart from the card blanks, everything was made using scraps of card so it's a good way of using up those scraps that end up taking so much room! This card style is a good one for making lots of cards because you can make them in batches and either keep them identical or ring the changes with a few additions such as sequins, gems or even splatters. If you do add splatters make sure they are totally dry because it is very frustrating to nearly finish a card only to realise you've smudged it.

I've no idea what else is in my lovely Advent calendar and I'm hoping to share a card made using the contents each day up to Christmas Day (there are 25 windows to open but I can't promise to have time to make a card every day and it's especially doubtful on Christmas Day itself as I'll be busy cooking lunch for my mum, husband and myself) hopefully I will have shared lots of quick makes perfect for anyone else who's as unorganised as I am this year (and last year, and the year before that...) before the big day itself.

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