Bargain Tunnelvision

Hello crafty peeps. When is a crafty bargain not a crafty bargain? Answer: when you are so fixated by the price you fail to realise the item you've just ordered isn't exactly what you wanted. Yep I'm a victim of BT otherwise known as Bargain Tunnelvision. The ZIG Wink of Stella pens I was so excited to buy turned out to be markers not the brush markers I was expecting. The black ones arrived today and I'm so disappointed! Checked my email and the clear ones are markers too. I can see myself using the black ones for writing but I'm not sure how much use I'll have for a clear marker, it's not like you'd be able to see what I'd write with it lol. Anyway that will teach me to check the details on Amazon in future.

It's Chris and I's wedding anniversary today - three years have just whizzed by yet at the same time it seems as though we've always been together. In reality we only met each other on the 17th May 2010. Soulmates I guess....

Well just a quick update. Will write again soon and until then - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Clearly besotted Haul :)

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! Well I can honestly say I am SERIOUSLY IMPRESSED with Clearly Besotted Stamps www.clearlybesottedstamps.com. My order - the one I placed YESTERDAY! - has already arrived. I can't say who's impressed me more, Clearly Besotted for processing my order so quickly or Royal Mail for delivering it so quickly - I've had letters posted first class from the town I live in take longer to get to me! If you are a fan of the colour pink then you're going to love this company, even the plastic outer packaging is pink and the order itself is wrapped in hot pink tissue paper. Everything is packaged beautifully and has a matching tag and little thank you card included (both stamped in one of the new releases - Eastern Promise I think *UPDATE* stamp set is actually called Eastern Delights).

                                                                       Isn't that cute!

 As I said in my last post my lovely hubby gave me £30 for our Anniversary and as you get free postage if you spend £50 or over I put some money towards it, to be honest £50 is a lot of money so I wont be doing it very often (hmmm it is my birthday next month though!) and it was hard to get it to exactly £50 (I could easily have spent a lot more!) so I went a bit over and bought £51.10 worth of stamps and dies. Quite a few of the stamps sets I purchased were in the clearance section of the website so in total I got 11 stamp sets and 6 dies, all but two dies match one of the stamps sets ordered. I've never had matching stamps and die sets before so I'm really looking forward to trying them out. I'll be upfront with you the stamp sets aren't huge at approximately 7cm by 9.5cm but you do get a lot of stamps in each set and even the most expensive item I ordered was only £4.00. They do sell bigger sets which I'll probably order next time.

                                                         My Clearly Besotted Stamps order

My order consisted of:- Hello Word Die £2.00, Set the Scene Die (snow globe) £3.50, Mini Basic Banners Die £2.50, Mini Basic Banners Stamps £4.00, Good Times Die Collection (bicycle and basket) £3.50, Good Times Stamps £4.00, Butterfly Wishes Die Collection (two sizes of butterfly) £3.50, Butterfly Wishes Additions (also available Butterfly Wishes) £4.00, An Apple A Day Stamp Set (coordinating die available but out of stock, unfortunately) £4.00, Blast Off Die Collection £3.50, Blast Off ll stamp set £4.00, Blast Off stamp set £2.00, You Said It! stamp set £1.60, Love Quotes Additions stamp set £1.00, Just my Type stamp set (really cute manual typewriter) £2.00, Boo To You stamp set (pumpkin/Halloween theme) £3.00 and Ahoy Matey stamp set £3.00.

I don't want too many photos in this post or it'll be pages long, so my plan is to make some cards with my new goodies and add photos of the relevant stamps/dies when I add them to my blog.

I am really pleased with my order and can't wait to try them out. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,
Sarah xxx

Seriously Impressed...

Hello crafty peeps, welcome to my crafty nook.  Well I've got to say I'm seriously impressed with Clearly Besotted Stamps, I placed an order with them at about 1am and I've already had an email from them saying it's been dispatched! If the stamps and dies are as good as the dispatching then I can see myself becoming "Clearly Besotted" with this company! Lol I'll have to get my hubby to give me more housekeeping at this rate as I'll still want to shop at my top two websites www.everycraftsapound.co.uk and www.inspirecreationz.com. I've been trying a few new online shops but these two remain my favourites.

I've also had an email confirmation from Amazon saying my order of two black Wink of Stella pens have been dispatched by Monochrome Solutions, again very impressive as I ordered that in the early hours of today too! I also ordered two clear Wink of Stella pens from a different supplier (not sure who at this point) at the same time but they haven't been sent yet. I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me to try Amazon for Wink of Stella pens before now, I suppose I wanted to stay loyal to my original supplier (not yet mentioned on this blog) but I emailed the company nearly 6 weeks ago asking them to let me know when the clear Wink of Stella became available again and although I got an initial email saying that they'd inform me when they next came in I've not heard anything since. As a result I've been hoarding the one pen I have got and my cards and projects have been a lot less sparkly then I'd like. Dare I say that the suppliers I chose on Amazon are quite a bit cheaper too! The black pens only cost £2.96 with £2.65 P&P and the clear pens were £3.79 each with free p&p. My first Wink of Stella pen cost £4.99 plus £1.75 p&p which I thought very reasonable at the time.

Crafting goodies aside, the next crafting project I need to start is an Anniversary card for my lovely hubby and as usual I have a complete craft block! What is it about men's cards that makes them so hard to do? I suppose things are not helped by the fact that most of the craft stuff I buy is cute or girly - or worse glittery! Thank goodness for baker's twine and buttons, otherwise I wouldn't have any embellishments for men's cards. As the third Anniversary is leather I may try the Sheena Douglass 'faux leather' technique using kraft card and glycerin. I've done it before and it turned out ok but a word of warning to anyone who tries this technique themselves (check You Tube for tutorials) when you've finished with the glycerin/water mixture don't leave it in the bottle for weeks like I did because it gets black balls of mold floating about after a few weeks. I ended up throwing the spray bottle away! When I've done the card I shall put up a couple of pics on this blog. If you click on my profile I've uploaded a couple of photos of cards I've made which I hope you'll enjoy. If you want any details on the techniques or supplies used please comment either below or on the relevant photo.

That's all my crafty news for now so until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,
Sarah x

It's that time of year again....

Hi crafty peeps, yep it's that time of year again - Cardmaker of the Year Competition time! Quick Cards Made Easy and Cardmaking and Papercraft magazines are currently running a national cardmaking competition which closes on 19th September 2014. Last year I vowed not to enter again as it cost me nearly £15 in postage not to mention the time and supplies I used and I didn't even place *sad face*. However, they've changed the rules this year and you only have to send a single entry consisting of three cards unlike the multiple entries for about 12 categories you needed to enter in previous years. This method seems a lot fairer and more about quality rather than quantity. Saying that I still might not place this year.  The photo above (yes I've finally worked out how to upload my photos from my Kodak mini camera!!) is my entry for this year's competition, I want to show my in-laws the three cards before I post them on here so you'll have to wait a little while before I blog them - I know you can't wait! lol.

My other little bit of news is that my darling husband is planning on giving me £30 to spend on craft goodies! It's our third anniversary on Thursday 11th September and although leather is more traditional I know what I'd prefer :). Isn't he a sweetie? I shall let you know what I buy once it's arrived, I'm fairly sure I shall be buying my goodies from Clearly Besotted Stamps, a company I've not tried yet but I've heard good things and it seems very reasonably priced.

Well that's about all my news for now, I shall post another lil' update soon - with pictures! Until then, keep crafting.

Love and crafty hugs,
Sarah xxx