Happy News and other stuff

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! Things are rather chaotic at the moment as we've my sister-in-law's cat staying with us for a few weeks while she gets her new house sorted out. I love cats but Treacle is rather challenging to say the least as she growls and scratches anyone who goes near her. She shredded my hands this morning when I tried to put Frontline on her (don't want little visitors of the jumping kind) so she's not exactly my most favourite animal at the moment!

 I hope you've all had a brilliant weekend, I had a fantastic Saturday filled with happy mail :) I got three of the magazines I subscribe to and a Tatty Twinkles kit from Create and Craft that my lovely hubby treated me to just because (isn't he lovely?) I liked all the stamps in the USA collection to some degree but didn't think I'd get much use out of the military set or the one with an army Tatty so went for the last set which features a Cheerleader and Tatty with mouse ears on. Bethany has started doing Majorettes along with her older sister Millie so I can see the cheerleader being used a lot and my mum-in-law and an auntie on my hubby's side of the family both love either mice or Minnie so again I can see myself using this stamp set a lot. It came with 10 sheets of stamp card (A4 size) and a My Craft Studio CD ROM that matches the stamps. I'm not a huge fan of digital crafting but there didn't seem to be a way to buy the stamps without the CD and I'm sure I'll use it at some point - who know it may even convert me to digital crafting!

One of the things that made my Saturday even better was when I started to read the magazine I saw this in Simply Cards and Papercraft Magazine.

My cards and email on the letter page!

As you can see from the caption on the above photo, my email and photos of the cards I made using last month's free gift appeared in the letter page of the magazine! Not sure if I'll get a prize like it says on the header of the letter page as I didn't include my home address but I'm thrilled just to see my cards in the magazine. I've had quite a few appear on the Reader's Galleries in magazines and of course I had my card appear in Quick Cards Made Easy but this is the first time I've had a letter printed. It gave me a very happy glow that even Treacle couldn't spoil lol.

My eldest nephew Chris has passed his driving test so I've sent him a card to congratulate him.

New Driver card for my nephew

I did make a card for Chris a while ago but put it in a safe place so of course I haven't a clue where it is now. I coloured a Dimension forth stamped image using Flexmarkers and added glossy accents to the indicator lights and the double headlights. It's rather a simple card but I didn't have a lot of time to make it as I wanted him to get it as soon as possible.

Cardmaker of the Year 2015 update - I've finished my second card and I'm really pleased with it, I'm not going to put them on my blog until I've send them off (hopefully next week). The first two were relatively easy because I knew sort of what I wanted to achieve, it just me a long time as I either re-jigged it or made new versions of it until I had exactly what I'd envisioned. However the only thing I know about my third card is I want it to be suitable for a teenage girl. Although each card is completely different I wanted a sort of theme to link them so my first card is a New Baby card, the second is one for a little boy (ages 5-10) so the natural progression is a teenage girl card (girl, boy, girl). It's quite hard to decide what to do though, Tatty Twinkles seems a bit babyish for a teen (yet for some reason it's great for women!), Santoro Gorguss Girls again are probably a bit too young for a teen and Scruffy Little Kitchen -pmsl!!! make that Scruffy Little Kitten not kitchen! - is a bit too sexualised for a teen though there are a couple of demure images in the stamps I have. I think the Santoro Willow stamps would be perfect but I don't have any yet and as I want to get the card made and sent by next week I'm not sure it's feasible to order some to use. The first two cards have stamped images so maybe I should make a card without any stamped images just shapes or something? Argh sometimes you can have too much of a good thing! Anyway enough thinking out aloud, I'll share the cards I come up with once they are made so in the meantime if you have any questions comments or helpful tips on how to apply Frontline on a demented cat then please leave them in the usual places. Until next time  - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx