Get Well Soon Sis

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a brilliant weekend, it's been rather quiet in my crafty nook though I have been making a few sneaky purchases on Ebay and similar. I've managed to order the stitched border dies again from a different ebay seller after my first order had to be cancelled due to it being returned back to the seller by the Chinese Customs! (I suspect a porkie or two was put on the declaration which is daft as dies aren't contraband!) It'll be a while before they arrive but the anticipation of getting an order is almost as good for me as actually getting the craft goodies. I've become ever so slightly addicted to a new to me YouTuber called CRaFTiPoTeNTiAL - if anyone checks out my YouTube history they'll stage an intervention and make me join a self help group for cyber stalking lol. Seriously though this woman is amazing, she uses things in an innovative way (my jaw dropped when I saw what she did using the shaving foam technique with her own personal twist!) and more importantly she gets the same magazines as I subscribe to and makes amazing cards with them. To my shame I more often than not look at the free gift and think wow that's great and then it rarely sees the light of day again. Now thanks to CRaFTiPoTeNTiAL and one of my other favourite YouTubers, Christina Griffiths I'm inspired to take a fresh approach to my craft freebies. I hope that wasn't too gushing - I'll admit to having a bit of a craft crush lol. Here is a link to one of her videos where she uses free gifts from a variety of craft magazines in an unexpected way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6FREUaEmWw

Enough of my craft crush - here is my latest card, a split panel Get Well Soon card for my sister Teresa who's recovering from having knee surgery yesterday. Hopefully she'll be home tomorrow and will get my card through the post in a day or two.

I've made these cards quite often so I'm not going to rehash how to make them, unless anyone is interested in more details. I used a Tatty Teddy chipboard embellishment which I got free with a magazine many moons ago, it also came with a 6" x 6" paper pack and I used some blue and pink spotted paper from the pack to decorate the horizontal panels. The vertical panel was originally plain white card stock but I coloured it with a Cool Shadow Copic marker (I now own two Copics!) I added a few layers of the marker until I had a nice smooth coverage and I added dots with a white gel pen and a Stardust gel pen. I also added dots of the stardust to the centre of the flowers and added black glaze gel pen to Tatty's eyes - I think the eyes  look a bit sinister now lol not exactly the look I was going for! I added some silver thread behind the topper before adding the embellishment to the green panel of card. I really like the effect of putting the thread behind things and it's been something I've wanted to try for a while. I added the sentiments to the inside of the card and decorated it with stamped stars which I coloured using the Cool Shadow Copic marker. I added Clear Spectrum Noir Shimmer marker to the stars and glossy accents to the inner ones.

I hope you like my latest creation and I wish my sister a speedy recovery. It's my niece's 18th Birthday in a couple of weeks time so I'm really hoping she'll be on the mend by then. It would be a strange coincidence if Teresa ended up being in a wheelchair post surgery for her daughter's 18th just like our mum was for hers! *cue Outer Limits or similar music*

As always please leave me any questions or comments in the usual places and I'll get back to you if appropriate. I hope you all have a brilliant rest of the week and I'll be back soon. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Cards for Sad Occasions

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! It's nearly the weekend again, do you have anything exciting planned? I wasn't going to share these cards but I was really pleased with how the Sympathy Card came out and I did my first (I think!) watercolour image for the get well card. I looked on YouTube for some inspiration and to be totally honest I found most of the sympathy cards to be unsuitable - not helped by one person who kept saying "this is a fun card/technique" which seemed a tad inappropriate for sympathy cards, after all it's not like most people would be looking out of boredom or anything I imagine most viewers would be in the same shoes that I was in - looking for some inspiration to make their own sympathy card because someone close had suffered a loss (not exactly a 'fun' occasion!). Others were too fancy or floral for a man so I decided to just work with what I had. I looked through my stash and found some Art Nouveau stamps that came free with Cardmaking and Papercraft Magazine in the last couple of months (not sure when exactly as I don't label which issue they come free with - something I'll try and do in future). Even though I was put off by all the floral sympathy cards I saw on YouTube, I was drawn to these stamps especially the one I ended up using.

Thinking of you Sympathy Card (for a man)

Art Nouveau themed card

As strange as it may seem, I think this design would make a great wedding invitation if you added a touch of silver and changed the sentiment. I personally think white, black and silver wedding invites to be very stylish (kind of wish I'd gone for this colour scheme for my own wedding instead of white, silver and summer sky blue) and the Art Nouveau stamped images are very elegant. I think sympathy cards, especially those for men should be quietly understated and I'm sure you'd agree that this certainly is that.

My second card features a Fizzy Moon stamp which I like but I wasn't too thrilled to discover that half the image shown on the front of the stamp set is actually absent from the stamp! It gives the stamped image a real 'sketchy' feel which I personally dislike and I ended up drawing the missing lines in using a black pen (luckily the one I used was waterproof!). I stamped the image onto watercolour paper and filled in the image before colouring it in using Kuretake Gansai Tambi Japanese Watercolour Paints which I am fortunate enough to own. I got mine from Amazon ages ago and this is the first time I've really used them as I'm more likely to use watercolour pencils. I was a bit disappointed that the seller removed the protective plastic cover from the paints prior to posting it as it makes a brilliant palette (I used an acrylic block to mix my colours). I've discovered why my water coloured images don't usually look exactly watercoloured - I don't use enough water! It's amazing what a difference adding plenty of water to your colours makes. 

Watercolour Get Well Card featuring Fizzy Moon

Very pleased with how this came out apart from that pink for the plasters!

 By using more water I was able to layer my colours to add shading and texture, it isn't perfect but I don't think it's bad for my first attempt, I just wish I'd been able to mix a less vile shade of pink for the plasters lol. The background colour was actually done by a wash of plain water then adding Persian Blue Zig Real Color Marker using the wet on wet technique (first time doing that too!). I die cut the shape and layered it onto a black square of card before adding it to the card blank. Again this is another simple card even if it did take a while to make. I really enjoyed experimenting with my Kuretake Gansai Tambi Japanese Watercolour Paints, the pigment in them is really good so you can add lots of water to them (I did that on an acrylic block rather than in the pans so they don't get waterlogged.)  Although there are lots of variations to the colours on this picture I only used a red, black, white and caramel but got different shades by adding more or less of the white and water to each mix. I hardly used any water on the black noses which is why they are so black and shiny (hard to see in the photo but very apparent in real life).

I've been fortunate enough to have got some new goodies online including some Letraset Aqua Markers from Cowling and Wilcox www.cowlingandwilcox.com  who have got a fantastic sale on at the moment! The Aqua Markers are only 50p each!!! And Tria Markers are only 95p each (RRP is £4.75 each!!!!). I got 9 colours and a blender which was also 50p, I'm really looking forward to trying them out. I hope you'll excuse the overuse of exclamation marks but at these prices who can blame me for being astounded - I saved £2.00 per pen on the RRP which is amazing value. 

As always if you have any questions or comments then please leave them in the usual places. I have a couple of cards to make this weekend so hopefully I'll have something new to share on Monday, if not sooner. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Caught a bug card

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! Hasn't this weekend come around quickly? It's my birthday tomorrow so hopefully I'll have a nice crafty time this weekend. My husband is off for his flu jab today which I'm hoping he'll be well enough to have as he's come down with man flu - poor thing. Illness is making its rounds at the moment my parents-in-law are both poorly and my youngest nephew got sent home with chicken pox just in time for the half term holiday. To cheer him up I made him a card using the Clearly Besotted "Out Of This World" stamp set, although the images are of aliens or monsters I thought they'd make good germs.

I made this card by die cutting the mason jar out of white cardstock using a Sizzix Bigz die. I edged around it using a small amount of Blueprint Sketch Distress ink and applied it with a blending tool. Blueprint Sketch is quite a bright colour but I started blending on my glass mat so that by the time I reached the jar, the colour was considerably lighter than it started as. Ideally I would have used Tumbled Glass Distress ink but I don't own that colour yet. I die cut the fastenings out of crimped silver card and glued it to the top as shown. I stamped the green 'germ' first then masked it off with a paper mask and stamped the other 'germs' around and above it. I coloured the images in with Kaisercraft Fusion markers and added googly eyes to the centre alien. I hand wrote a sentiment on the mason jar itself and stamped a get well greeting on a strip of white card. The Jack word was made up of individual letter stamps which is why it's a little crooked - I'm pretending it's whimsical! I cut some dark blue textured card to the required size and rounded the bottom corners to mirror the bottom of the mason jar, then stuck all the elements together as shown. I made a top folding card blank and rounded the bottom corners too. As a final touch I dotted a couple of the aliens with colourless blender pen so it removed some of the colour and made the germs look spotty. Jack got his card yesterday and really loved the googly eyes - I have to admit they are my favourite part too! I even made a purple spotted envelope to send the card in.

One of the things I love about this stamp set is that even though they are very simple images the critters have lots of character and personality to them, I think the blue spiky one looks like it can't wait to escape the jar so it can come and bite you lol.

I had a lot of fun making this card and it took me a couple of tries to get it how I'd envisioned it. This stamp set is a really versatile one and is great for birthdays, Halloween and as this card proves - Get Well cards too though you will need an additional sentiment. I'm really glad I've finally got to use the mason jar die too, I've had it for a while but haven't known what to use it for up to now. I've a busy weekend ahead but hopefully I'll get time to do some crafting (definitely need to, it's Isobel's first birthday on Tuesday and I still haven't made her card yet!) so all being well I'll have a new post added in the next couple of days.

As always if you have any comments or questions then please leave them in the usual places and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

A card for Alex

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend. It's that time of year again that I both love and fear - no not the school holidays but the Cardmaker of the Year 2015 competition! Closing date isn't until mid September but  I'm determined to get my entry in early this year not that I'm expecting to win of course as there are hundreds of more talented and/or better equipped crafters out there than me but I do like to enter the comps anyway and I've had quite a few cards featured in Readers' Galleries. I love that double take I do when I realise the card I'm admiring is actually my own lol. Has that ever happened to you?

The card I'd like to share today is another pop up box card but this one is a flowery get well card for a man in the USA called Alex. He's about to have a second knee replacement op and fellow blogger Lydia http://understandblue.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/fresco-crack-corn-rock-star-and-derwent.html asked people to send him a card in return for being entered into a blog candy giveaway for some Derwent Inktense pencils which I'd really love to win. I don't have a stock of ready made get well cards as I like to make them to suit the recipient but I was fortunate enough to get "Simply Cards & Papercraft" magazine yesterday and it has a stitched balloon and flower die as it's free cover gift. I thought the flower would be perfect combined with my current favourite type of card blank.

Pop up Box card for Alex

I wanted to keep the box design fairly simple so I chose a pretty grey card stock to make the box with. I also rounded the corners of the flaps which I rather like. I die cut 12 flowers using 250gsm white card and coloured them using Flexmarkers and ProMakers. The centres of the flowers are die cut too and fell out when I removed them from the die so I added "Newsprint" Card Candi to replace them and used the leftover circles to cover the foam squares I used to stick the candi down. I staggered the heights of the flowers by adding the heads to different lengths of acetate, then added a silver get well soon peel off and roses as shown. The middle flower at the back had a tendency to flop about so I added a panel of white card to the back box flap and stamped a verse onto it. This has added much needed support to the back flowers.

Card with supported back panel

Close up of stitched flowers

I hope you like my latest card, I really love the stitched flower and balloon die that I got free and I know I'm going to get a lot of use out of it. I've made a card using the balloon element but don't want to share it just yet as it's for a friend's birthday and I don't want to spoil the surprise. I will be adding it to my blog on or after the 15th.

As always if you have any questions or comments relevant to this post or to craft in general, then please leave them in the usual places. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Cards as promised

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a brilliant weekend, I'm going through one of those pesky crafty plateaux that a lot of crafters experience at some point or another, I want to craft and indeed I go in my crudy and make things or at least start things, but nothing really sparks my imagination at the moment. Maybe it's the weather, the humidity and closeness is physically draining so perhaps it's having a draining effect on my creativity too. As a result I've nothing particularly new to share but I thought you might like to see the cards I made for a couple of friends that I mentioned in my last post. Both cards are very simple in style.

Card for Adam

I actually had the residue of a migraine when I made this card which is the main reason for keeping it simple. I stamped out each letter using a Dimension Forth stamp set that I recently got in an order from Every Craft's A Pound which were only £2 for the set. They are a good size and stamp really well - I'm a huge fan of Dimension Forth stamps unfortunately I've just check the website and they're not selling them at the moment. I fussy cut the letters out and coloured them using FlexMarkers. I made a black card blank and stuck the letters on it landscape as shown. It seemed a bit bare so I added a strip of blue striped washi tape to the bottom and added a panel of white card to the inside to write on.

"Plastered" Get Well Card

The second card I'd like to share is a get well card for a friend's son who broke his arm at school. I thought this quirky plaster covered card would be a fun one to send him as he'd got his arm in a pot (got plastered as it were). The plaster was one from a stamp set by Unity Stamps and has some germ/monsters as well as a couple of sentiments but not a Get Well Soon stamp surprisingly. This stamp was a wood mounted stamp from The Works. I coloured the plasters in using Blush FlexMarker. I really like this card as it's a bit different from the usual Get Well Cards available. If I'm honest I often have a hard time making Get Well Cards for some reason so I was really pleased to get the idea for it quite quickly. I believe Lawn Fawn do a get well stamp set with a plaster or band aid as they probably call it and theirs has a smiley face on it. I think it would be sweet to have this design of card with one smiley faced plaster in the middle, I suppose I could draw one next time but as I lack artistic ability I always find my added drawn embellishments to be a bit awkward looking.

I hope you like my recent creations, hopefully my craft mojo will come back as the weather cools down and I'll have some cards/projects to share with you soon. As always if you have any questions or comments then leave them in the usual places and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx