A couple of panel cards

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! It's nearly the weekend again - have you got any crafty plans? I loved making my dad-in-law card so much from the last blog post that I've made a couple of new ones.

The first card is for my sort of brother-in-law (it's for my sister's partner), I've got some really versatile stamps from Crafter's Companion called Sentimentals I bought them when CC had a sale sometime last year and one of the sets I bought were men sentiments. It has an -in-law stamp which I've never used because obviously when I make a card for my parents/sister -in-law it's from my husband and I, it seems a bit strange to put -in-law on the card as they aren't Chris's in-laws. Plus I'm really close to my in-laws (I'm very blessed in that respect) so like to call them mum and dad.

Steampunk Side Panel Card

I made the panel card in the usual way and used some extremely old Dovecraft Masculine papers that have been knocking around my craftroom for at least 8 years, I tend to be a bit miserly with them if I'm honest because most of my scrapbook papers etc tend to be on the girly side. These panel pieces are from one design but were scraps from a different project. The round metallic elements in the corners are actually white Craftwork Card Candies coloured in using a bronze Papermania Metallic Shimmer Fluid Brush Marker which went on beautifully. However I wouldn't recommend using the markers to colour in super smooth cardstock like I did on the cog elements as I found the coverage to be patchy and it wasn't easy to colour. The cogs were cut out of a scrap of 200 gsm super smooth card stock using some First Edition dies. The sentiment was stamped in Memento Rich Cocoa ink using another of the Sentimentals range - Birthdays. I didn't take a photo of the inside of the panel but I added Brother-in-law to the top and a spare cog and Card Candy to the bottom left corner just to tie the inside with the outside.

Art Deco Side Panel Card

My second side panel card was decorated using some Art Deco themed papers, stamps and toppers from Papermania and like the first papers, they were released a number of years ago. The image on the front is actually a square topper which I've cut in half and added strips of glitter card to lengthen the topper so it didn't look out of proportion on the panel. The paper used is beautifully foiled and I had to really force myself to cut into it because it's so pretty lol. This style of card is quite compact (4 1/4" x 5 1/2") so unfortunately I can't use the stamps from the collection as the images are too big to fit on the vertical panel, I did use one of the sentiments though. This card is destined to be sent to my husband's Auntie next month for her birthday, she's rather a classy lady so I thought this card would be perfect for her.

I'm really loving this style of card, if you don't trim the card down to 28 cm as I suggested in the first blog post, then you can actually make two cards out of one sheet of A4 cardstock (still score at 14 cm though and cut all but two inches off the longer piece of the scored card then cut two 2" panels off the card that's removed) which makes it a very economical make. I know it's a bit early to be thinking about Christmas but after last year's fiasco where the majority of my friends and family didn't get a card from us as I ran out of time to make them, I may make some Christmas themed cards while I'm loving this style. I don't know about anyone else but I tend to go in phases with card blanks, sometimes it's all 8" square cards, sometimes it's something more unusual like a pop up box card. You've probably noticed if you're a regular reader of my blog.

Hopefully I'll be doing some crafting over the weekend so I'll have something new to share with you soon. As always if you have any questions or comments about anything featured in this blog then please leave them in the usual places. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

I'm on a roll - another masculine card

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a brilliant Valentine's Day weekend. It's very cold with wintery showers here on the east coast which makes it perfect crafting weather. I've only got one card to share with you at the moment (there are a few ideas bubbling away in my brain though!). It was my dad-in-law's birthday yesterday and I made him a Split Panel Card inspired by Debbie Henderson's tutorial on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhLD3ZFCWHg - please click the link to see the card that inspired mine.

Birthday Wishes Dad card

To make this card I cut a sheet of A4 black card stock down to 28 cm so it's easier to score exactly in half then cut it into two pieces length wise (cut at 10.5 cm). Although I cut the card down so I could score it at 14 cm it's not actually necessary to do so as you cut most of the front panel off. Just to mix things up a bit I do most of the other cutting in inches (sorry for the confusion). I lined the score line of the card base up to 2 inch mark on my Woodware paper trimmer and cut most of the front of the card off leaving a 2 inch flap. I trimmed the cut off piece down to 2 inches and placed on one side. There wasn't quite enough card left to make the connecting panel so I cut a strip off the spare black card from my first cut so I ended up with a panel 4 1/4 " by 2 ". I cut a panel of white card 13.5 cm x 10 cm (sorry back to metric) and adhered it to the inside of the cut down card blank leaving a small border around the panel. I cut two lots of matching patterned paper down to 4" by 1 3/4" and adhered them on to one of the cut black panels and on the top flap of the card. I cut a piece of white card to the same size and stuck it to the remaining black panel. I used the alphabet die that came with Die Cutting Essentials: Special Edition Kit to die cut the word DAD out of a scrap of the spotted paper and added it to the white and black panel as shown using a glue pen. I lined the patterned paper covered panel with the bottom edge of the card blank and held it in place with a paper clip then added strips of d/s tape to the bottom and top part of the DAD panel making sure that the middle part which goes over the inside of the card was free of tape. I removed all the backing paper from the tape and holding down the top flap, carefully lined the panel over the top and base before sticking it down as shown. I die cut a glittery star using gold glitter paper and a Sizzix Thinlets die "BE THANKFUL" (I think) and adhered it in the centre of the white panel. The gold foiled hearts were left over after using a Crafter's Companion Diesire A6 Create a Card Shining Star Metal Die. I stuck these down using either small foam pads or a dab of glue. I stamped a sentiment in the exposed panel on the right hand side of the card front as shown.

Inside of the card decorated with another diecut star and foiled stars

Card will comfortably stand up on it's own

I really like this new style card and it has a lot of possibilities for decoration, it's my brother-in-law's birthday at the beginning of next week so I shall make him a split panel card too but probably with Steam punk elements to it as I know he likes that sort of thing.

I hope you've enjoyed this card share and tutorial, please check out Debbie Henderson's YouTube to see what inspired me and if you are inspired by my take on it, then I'd love to see what you come up with. Please leave a link or any comments/questions in the usual places and I look forward to sharing another card with you soon. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

A card for a man inspired by a baby card - a CASE card (just found out that stands for Copy And Share Everything!)

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all well and ready for the Valentine's weekend, whether you are spending it as a twosome or on your lonesome I hope you have a brilliant one.

I'd like to share a birthday card I made for one of my husband's friends which was inspired by a baby card tutorial on YouTube by Carissa Wiley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kUVwU4WW1g . I knew I wanted a mustache on the card as I've a couple of stamp sets that feature them and also a Cat's Pyjamas die set (unfortunately now a lot smaller than before I made the card as I dropped one of the dies and it's just vanished - those pesky craft gremlins again!)

I wanted to keep this card pretty simple as "men don't like fussy cards" (so says my husband). I love the Hickory Smoke Distress ink so I used this to stamp a chevron background stamp on a scrap piece of grey card for a tone on tone effect, I also stamped a scrap of white card stock  which I then die cut using a circle die. I edged the outside with the same ink. I die cut a fish tail panel using a Sizzix die and added more Hickory Smoke ink around the edges. I die cut the mustache out of corrugated card and added a touch of ink round the edge to tie everything together. I stamped a Happy Birthday to the circle and added the 'tashe above it using sticky foam tape. I then arranged everything as shown and adhered it all to a 5" square card blank.

I haven't made my dad-in-law's card yet so that's a project for tomorrow. I really enjoyed making this card, it makes a pleasant change not to have images to colour in and I think it suits my husband's friend's personality to a tee!

I should have a couple of cards to share with you after the weekend. As always if you have any questions or comments then please leave them in the usual places and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

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

Oh No! I've got the wantsies!!!

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all well and looking forward to the weekend.There's something about this time of year that makes me yearn to buy more craft stuff, maybe it's because the shine has dulled slightly from my craft goodies I got at Christmas or perhaps it's the post sale blues, I'm not sure but what I do know is that there are some fantastic craft goodies out there on the world wide wonderful web! One company that has really caught my eye is Visible Images. Their stamps are really unusual which is part of my problem, I really want this stamp set  (and the boy version) http://visibleimage.co.uk/product/zombie-dawn-set/ but I'm not sure how much I'd actually use it and as the other part of my problem is the price £12.99 plus p&p I'm having a hard time deciding if it would be a worth while investment or not. If I sold my cards then I wouldn't hesitate in making a purchase as I'm sure that there would be enough buyers to cover the initial cost but I only make cards for my family and friends and fun of course. I'm not sure it would be everyone's cup of tea and you can only send one person so many cards using the same image (tbh I try to make different cards every time!) so it would be of limited use sadly. If you love alternative stamps then please have a look http://visibleimage.co.uk as they have some amazing stamps including a delightfully whimsical collection of "The Wizard of Oz" stamps (I adore Dorothy's ruby slippers!!) and some new silhouette stamps that would look fantastic teamed with some ink blending. I may have a small purchase but probably not the Zombie stamps to begin with, but one that have a more general appeal.

One thing I have purchased today is "Die-cutting Essentials: Special Edition kit" from Moremags.com (please click the following link to view the kit http://www.moremags.com/home-page-scroller/die-cutting-essentials-special-edition-kit ) 


You get an uppercase alphabet and numbers die as part of the'freebies' which seems like a great deal especially as I've just paid nearly ten pounds on a number die set which included the word 'today' on it's own. There is also a rather versatile embossing folder, papers, toppers and a 17 piece stamp set plus the idea magazine for £12.99 plus P&P (£1 in the UK). The only downside I can see if that it gets sent second class so may take quite a while to actually arrive.

I've been taking part in a 30 day colouring challenge but I'm not quite ready to share my creations with you at this stage as they are a work in progress, but hopefully I'll have some new cards etc to share in the next few days. As always if you have any questions etc then please leave them in the usual places. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Last Year's comp entry that I forgot to share..sorry!

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you're all well. It's hard for me to believe but it's nearly the weekend AGAIN! And nearly the end of January!!! I can't believe how quickly this year is going, it doesn't seem like five minutes since Christmas. I've managed to achieve absolutely nothing this month and haven't even started to work on my goals. *hangs head in shame*

I promised a while ago to share the final cardmaking comp entry from last year. I left this entry until the last minute (I am a procrastination princess!) something I'm definitely not going to do this year if I enter the competitions this time round - it cost me a small fortune in postage costs last year and I'm not sure I can afford to waste the money on an obvious lost cause. Anyway here are some photos of my entries, as there are quite a few of them I won't be adding instructions on how to make the two cards or project but if anyone is interested on how they were made then please leave a message and I'll be happy to share them with you.

Box with flush fitting lid - returned damaged (which is why it's bulging at one side)

Zig zag folded mini album with tags inside pockets 

Both sides of album are secured with ribbon and you open it on the right hand side to access the first six months

Tag was damaged when I got it back but I couldn't remake it as I've lost the June stamp!

Each double page covers one month and has a die cut tag in the pocket behind the journalling panel

To access July - December you flip the album to the back and open on the right hand side again

Side view of July to December pages

Now for the two cards.

8" x 8" Rock Star Easel Card with guitar stopper

Alien box card

Close up of Alien toppers

Front flap of alien box card

Back interior panel of card with Saturn image

Outside mail art for the box card

Flap of mail art envelope

Alien surprise waiting for the viewer inside the envelope - love it's evil grin lol

Might not look like much but the topper is on an Action Wobble spring!

 The video above was with the related photo but for some reason it moved to the bottom when I added the second lot of photos. I hope you like the cards and mini album, I shall be using the mini album to record my achievements of 2016 (which explains why January is empty!) Hopefully I'll have some good things to record in it in the coming months. As always if you have any questions or comments then I'd love to see them so please leave them in the usual places. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

A few cards to share

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all well and looking forward to the weekend. Have you got anything crafty planned? I got an order from Every Craft's A Pound yesterday and I'm really looking forward to having a bit of a play with my latest goodies. The main reason I put in an order was to buy some more 300gsm super smooth card stock, they don't sell it all the time so I was really pleased to find they'd got it in again. You can buy a pack of 125 sheets for £7.50 which is really reasonable for a card that is so versatile, I use it for my card blanks and for Promarker colouring. It's also great for distress ink techniques too. ECAP also sells the same brand of paper in 200gsm and 250gsm weights in packs of 250 sheets for £8.99. I find anything less than 250 gsm to be a bit flimsy for card blanks (unless I'm doing a card technique that is backed onto another card blank) but like the 300gsm card, the lighter weights are brilliant for colouring using alcohol markers, however I wouldn't recommend using it for pencils as the surface is a bit slick and I've found that the pencils don't blend very well even using blending solution. I also bought a Santoro Mirabelle 2 A4 Premium paper pack which was £3 - as regular readers will know I love Santoro stamps and the Mirabelle ranges are particularly sweet. I keep hoping that the Willow collection will make it's way to the site because I really like the rather fey images of that range but don't own any yet. Here are some photos of my other purchases included in my order.

Love these bright colours 

Flame embossing folder with free Core'dination card

Victorian Valentine Die cut sentiments

Victorian Valentine paper and diecut A4 stack

It's hard to tell even in real life but these are in olive green

pretty in pink polka dots

an 8 pack of pink striped card

8 sheets of large polka dots card - bargain!

 I also purchased some embossed white card in two designs - tartan and buttons but because it's white I wasn't able to get a good photo of the card, I'm hoping Distress Inks go well on it as I think they'd look amazing on the embossing. I ordered a couple of packs of enamel dots too which I love but refuse to pay the crazy prices some stores sell them for (£3.99 seems to be the average price which is ridiculous when you consider how small they are and how few you get in an average pack) I buy my enamel dots from either ECAP or The Works as they sell them for a pound. Admittedly I may not have a huge colour range but one lot I order are glittery, one is matt and the other is in neutral colours so are perfect for men's cards and although dots are popular now, I'm sure a new trend will come along in a few months and nobody will be using them so it doesn't make a lot of sense to go overboard and buy lots of them if I end up getting tired of using them. (I don't get rid of the things I get bored with though but put them out of sight for a while then view them with fresh eyes at a later date.)

Although I've not blogged for a couple of weeks, I have made a few cards including a New Home card for my friends Adam and Victoria. I've actually made this card twice now but even though I sent the first one a few weeks ago, it's not arrived at their new home yet so I made a second. In a way I'm not unhappy about it going astray as I had lost my camera at the time so couldn't take any photos of it and remaking meant I could take a couple.

New Home Box Card

Close up of the floating (sort of) elements

The houses and tree images were taken from "Get Stamping" stamp sets, unfortunately the magazine no longer exists but as I'm a craft hoarder and subscribed to the magazine, I have all the stamp sets apart from the very first as my subscription didn't kick in until the second issue - most vexing because I seem to recall it was sort of steam punk themed. I coloured the images in using Promarkers and fussy cut around them. I punched out a small square to make the for sale/sold sign then cut a third off a second square to make the sold bit to go on top. The wooden post was made using a bit of scrap kraft card left over from making the packing box card base. The clouds were die cut using a Memory Box Kite and Clouds die. When you fold the card flat for posting, the for sale/sold sign is directly in front of the middle house so I like to pretend that that's the house that my friends have bought lol. I will confess that the middle house had a chimney like the other two houses but I couldn't be bothered to fussy cut around it so just snipped it off.

Here are a couple more of my recent makes.

A Celebratory card for a couple of friends 

A Valentine's card for my husband

One of the many Thank You cards I've been making recently using a Prima stamp set

I have made a few other cards but I can't locate them in my photo file at the moment so I'll have to share them another day. If you have any questions or comments about the cards featured in this post then please leave them in the usual places. I hope you all have a brilliant weekend and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx