A couple of Get Well soon cards and an Afternoon Tea themed card (Updated)

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a brilliant week and have something wonderful planned for this weekend - it's another bank holiday here in the UK so it's bound to rain at some point lol. We had snow earlier in the week (25th) but luckily it didn't stay for long. My lovely cat Jinx celebrated his 16th birthday on the 27th which makes him 80 in cat years!!! Although he spends a lot of his time asleep, he does have the odd mad moment when he dashes around the flat like a kitten. I made him a card featuring a black diecut cat from the Catitudes range at Crafter's Companion because he's a gorgeous black cat with green eyes (not as common as you'd think as a lot of cats have yellow or orange eyes rather than green) and I added layers of green card to match his eyes and some DCWV glitter card. The cat die is available direct from Crafter's Companion https://www.crafterscompanion.co.uk/collections/catitudes/catitudes-metal-dies.html.

I didn't notice the fingermark on the green foiled card when I took the photo so please ignore.

Our downstairs neighbour (we live on the first floor of a block of four flats) has been taken into hospital for surgery and I made him a get well card from my mum and one from the two of us. The first card is probably my favourite as it's kind of quirky and I like the idea of plasters smiling. The plaster (or band-aid as they are called in some countries) was stamped 3 times onto kraft card using a stamp by Unity stamps - the smiley faces cames from an Avery Elle stamp set called "We go together like..." and has all sorts of small images like slices of toast and glasses of milk and cookies - the small face is separate so you can add them to the different images. I've had this stamp set for a while, I think it was from CraftStash.co.uk and in all honesty the excitement on finding a cheap(ish) Avery Elle stamp set blinded me to the fact that is just not something I'll use very often which is why it's languished in my stash since I bought it. The face is tiny but very deep which made it a challenge to stamp it without it wobbling probably not helped by the fact that my acrylic block was far too large for it. I fussy cut the plasters out as I don't have a die to go with it. The stitched panel was diecut out using a stitched rectangle die from eBay and I cut it out of Centura Pearl hint of silver white card. I layered this on top of a piece of the glitter DCWV card that I used on the 16th birthday card. The card is smaller than one of my usual card at only 3" x 4.25".

The second card was made using a stamp set that came free with Creative Stamping magazine a few months ago and I added some diecut clouds above the umbrella in grey card stock. The cloud die was from a nesting set of three from eBay and only cost about £1.39 or similar. I used a smaller stitched rectangle to die cut the sentiment and added the panel onto the wide layer as shown. I made a card blank using the same grey card stock as the clouds and sentiment and added the finished panel to it with tape runner.

My final card isn't for any particular occasion but because I'd bought some afternoon tea themed die from (you guessed it!) eBay and I wanted to try them out. These dies cost me £2.83 and while it's true they take anywhere from a couple of weeks up to three months to arrive, eBay dies from China etc are amazing value. This was really brought home to me when I saw the exact same dies on the products page of Diecutting Essentials magazine for a staggering price of £12.99!!! A mark up of over a tenner is quite frankly criminal in my opinion, even if the 'branded' dies are in packaging and on a small piece of magnetic shim. I freely admit I like to keep my dies etc in the original packaging just so I don't have to waste my time re-labelling something that's already been done (this is why Tatty Twinkle stamps vex me - they aren't the cheapest of stamps yet never have any 'proper' packaging or labels so I have to add my own so I know what I'm using for blog posts etc) but for something as cheap as the eBay dies and stamps, I don't mind adding them to a magnetic shim (you can buy an A4 sized one from ECAP and cut it to the right size - I usually cut it into quarters so have four sheets to mount my dies onto for only £1!) or add a card behind the stamps so I can see them clearly because just knowing they are from eBay is enough information - it's not much point listing the seller/price as these details change all the time as newer stock becomes available - plus the stamps and dies from eBay don't come with an invoice or anything so it's hard to work out who the seller is especially as I've already said, they can take quite a while to arrive. Anyway enough whinging about Rip Off Craft companies (notice I haven't actually named and shamed them but maybe I should - let me know if you want to know.) I added decoration to the cup and teapot though in actual fact I think a tall pot like this one would usually hold coffee instead of tea - I inherited my Grandma's coffee service (not sure why she had one as both my grandparents were tea drinkers) and the coffee pot is tall and thin like this one. Teapots tend to be short and squat so the tea leaves can circulate properly but I don't suppose anyone would mind the difference on a card (apart from pedantic peeps like me!). Again this is a smaller than usual card but I rather like the unusual size. The brown spotted background paper came from my scraps so I've no idea of the brand - I did add a bit of blended black ink to the edges to draw the eye in to the scene. I made an envelope using my EPB from WRMK and a sheet of Dovecraft paper. I should point out that there is a matching knife to the fork added to the inside of the card but I dropped the diecut and couldn't find it again. I also added some AB gems to the tiered cake stand, cup and teapot - they are actually nail art gems (need to use glue with them) and I bought them from eBay.

I hope you've enjoyed my cards - I certainly enjoyed making them. Feel free to CASE any of the designs but please link your makes to this blog (or mention where you got the idea from.). As always if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them in the usual places and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx