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Tuesday 13 September 2016

Happy Anniversary Card (for my hubby)

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a brilliant weekend. My husband and I celebrated our 5th Wedding Anniversary on Sunday and we had a lovely day together. As regular readers of this blog will know, Chris is registered blind with no sight in his left eye (from birth) and little sight in his right, it's hard for me to be able to judge what he can or can't see which means making a card for him is a bit of a challenge. For example he can see some colours but others (like green) appear grey and he has a large blank area in the middle of his vision so he has to sort of peer around it. One way that I get around these restrictions is to use texture on his card so he can feel the cards and to use larger than normal elements. I was really pleased to see that this month's issue of Simply Cards & Papercrafts magazine free gift is an embossing folder, die and stamp set called 'Home For Christmas'. The embossing folder is a door in between two columns which I knew would come in very handy so I was really looking forward to my subbie copy arriving last week. Unfortunately it didn't arrive on Monday even though I knew the subscription issues must have been posted as people were sharing pics on Facebook, to cut a long story short my magazine hadn't arrived by Thursday and I was panicking a bit because I wasn't sure what card to make for Chris instead. Customer services at Practical Publishing were brilliant and have done all they could to try and get a replacement copy to me and I mentioned on the SC&P Facebook page how helpful they'd been but I was a bit disappointed not to have it yet as I wanted to make the card. Amy Gray the editor of the magazine sent me a private message asking for my address so she could send the folder herself (how nice is that!), she actually sent the entire magazine which arrived on Saturday.

Here is the card I made using the door embossing folder, a brick embossing folder from my stash, a 5 die and a couple of other items from my craft stash.





I embossed the door onto some Sheena Douglass stamping card as it's a good thickness for embossing then fussy cut around it. I cut three side of the door using a craft knife and a metal ruler then used an embossing tool and the ruler to score down the uncut side. I cut a piece of green Centura Pearl cardstock slightly bigger than the door and embossed it in the folder. I trimmed it so that it was the door size and used a small hole punch to make a hole where I wanted the door knob to be. The door knob is a Tim Holtz Hitch Fastener that comes in two parts. The first is a small flat bolt that I threaded through the punched out hole then I screwed the knob piece onto it. I covered the back of the green door with red liner tape and lined it up with the white door before sticking it firmly down. I added a die cut 5 to the front of the door to represent the number of years we've been married. I ran another piece of white stamping card through the Big Shot using a brick patterned embossing folder then blended Fired Brick Distress ink over the embossed card. I needed a sentiment to go on the front of the card and I wasn't sure which stamp set to use as most of my anniversary sentiments are quite small, I found a set of scrolls and matching sentiments in with my stamps from Papermania which I haven't used in years and the Happy Anniversary stamp was the perfect size for this card. I stamped the scroll first then added the words inside - it isn't perfect but it's handcrafted so perfection isn't expected. I fussy cut the scroll out using sharp scissors. I then spend about an hour going through all our wedding photos trying to find one that would fit inside the door way. I cut the photo I chose to use slightly bigger than the door frame and taped it inside the door way as shown. I adhered the door to the embossed brick panel then added it to a white card blank.

I really like how the card turned out and I love the door embossing folder and stamp set - it's really nice to get a Christmas themed free gift that can actually be used all year round. I've been crafting a long time and subscribing or buying relevant magazines for almost as long so as you can imagine I have a huge collection of  Christmas stash - I kind of dread August onwards as I know that I'll have at least 3 if not 4 months of Christmas stuff coming free with my magazines and they soon add up! Most of the freebies are non consumables like stamps or embossing folders so my Christmas stash never gets any smaller and that doesn't even take into account the goodies I end up caving in and buying myself, so having something that I can use all year round is perfect as it means I don't have to buy even more storage boxes for something I only access about a quarter of the year.

By the way another copy of Simply Cards and Papercraft magazine turned up today and I can't tell if it's my original subscription copy or the replacement ordered on Friday so I could potentially end up with THREE 'Home For Christmas' sets. I smell a future giveaway! :)

I hope you like my latest card, this month's free gift with Simply Cards & Papercraft has a lot of potential and would make a fantastic new home card or 18th/21st birthday card - it's quite easy to get hold of small key charms so you could hang one off the door knob if you wanted to and have the door number be the relevant birthday. The stamp set even includes a set of numbers and various door adornments like a knocker, letter box and a carriage lamp.The die that comes with it has separate holly leaves and berries so you could swap them for hearts for Valentines or small flowers for spring and summer cards - the possibilities are endless!

I've made a couple of other cards which I will share with you in my next post, so until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

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Sarah xxx