Perfect Ten

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a crafty weekend and are raring to go for the week ahead. It's been rather quiet here in my crafty nook but I have made a few cards and unpacked a few goodies from a couple of internet orders so it's all good.

The first couple of cards I'd like to share with you are two 10th Birthday cards for my niece who celebrated her birthday on Saturday. My mum isn't very well at the moment so asked me to make a card on her behalf which is why I made two.

10 today card featuring S.W.A.L.K belle of the ball stamp

Close up of the die-cut 10 today

Inside card featuring die-cut sentiment and stamped verse

The Happy Birthday die came free with a magazine ages ago and the numbers and today die-cuts were made using a Sizzix die that I recently purchased from Hochanda. The stamp set is one that was licenced to Crafter's Companion but I don't think they hold it anymore as the stamps aren't available on the website, I seem to recall that I purchased them (I have loads of different ones) from Every Craft's A Pound either last year or the one before but you may be able to pick up the stamp on Ebay (in fact I've just checked and it is available in a set of 4 stamps for £4.99) or similar.

Clearly Besotted Best Birthday balloons with balloon 10 added

Crafter's Companion verse inside card

I combined two stamp sets to make this second card, the first set was the fabulous 'Best Birthday' from one of my favourite stamp companies Clearly Besotted Stamps with a Katy Sue Designs 'Shaggy Dog Tails' stamp set called balloons which is currently out of stock on the Katy Sue Designs website. I coloured both stamps using a combination of Promarkers and Flexmarkers. I really like the squirrel balloon on the second card.

I've also been lucky enough to have a couple of orders arrive this week which I'd like to share with you.

These dies were purchased from Icon UK a fantastic low priced crafting website which has really fast service and free delivery on most orders (I've not had to pay any p&p for any of my Icon UK orders).

I purchased this Sizzix die from the shopping channel Hochanda, it's my first purchase from them and the delivery time is good though at £3.95 for purchases under £20 it's rather pricey and postage goes up the greater the value of your purchase. The die cuts beautifully as you can see from the 10 today card above.

I couldn't resist these Echo Park 'Pirate's Life' papers from Craft Stash, they had nesting dies for only £5 so I also picked up this set of nesting stars to bulk up my die collection (not that it needs bulking up after my Icon UK splurge!) and finally bought this lush Tim Holtz Retro Carnival stamp which is the perfect size for ATC's.

Lastly I took advantage of the final few days of the Crafter's Companion sale to buy some new stamp sets. The Scruffy Little Cats were a huge bargain as they were heavily discounted and I paid £2.55 for all four of the stamps which is less than the current price of a single set on the website. In fact because I'm a Gold Member of Club Inspire my order only came to £5.10 with free priority posting.

It may seem like I've bought lots this week and indeed I have lol but all the items were either low priced to begin with or in the sales so although I got lots of new stuff I've paid a fraction of what it would normally cost.  I hope you've enjoyed looking at my latest cards and value buys - thanks for reading down to the bottom of a huge post! As always if you have any questions or comments then please leave them in the usual places. I've got a couple of men birthday cards to make (eek!) in the next few days so hopefully I'll have some more cards to share with you soon. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs

Sarah xxx