March Blog Challenge

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a good week and if you're affected by the bad weather, you are managing to keep warm and safe. I've only been out in it once on Monday when my husband and I went to babysit our nieces. The youngest two were fast asleep by the time we got there and didn't stir all evening. I enjoyed spending some quality time with my eldest niece on my husband's side of the family, admittedly she spent most of the time playing with her phone but she did give me a big hug when she went up to bed which was lovely. I did manage to catch a bit of a chill while we were out and my hubby did too so we are both feeling very sorry for ourselves at the moment lol.

Michele has set the challenge this month and it's a good one - we are challenged to make two cards this time using mostly magazine freebies and the theme is "seasonal". To reflect the weather here in the UK and the fact that it's still winter one should be a Christmas card (great for keeping on top of those Christmas cards that we'll need before you know it!) but she would like the other to be a lovely spring card - it's Mothering Sunday next weekend and Easter a few weeks after that so it would be great to see cards for those. We'd love it if you joined in, I'm afraid there's no prize for entering just the satisfaction of making two gorgeous cards using your existing supplies - I know a lot of us get almost as big a kick out of buying as we do creating crafty goodness so this is a chance to save some pennies by shopping our stash! Plus it's an opportunity to get some cards made that we might otherwise leave until the last minute like Christmas cards (I'm so guilty of that usually but I've already made 20 Christmas cards!) I'd really like to make Easter Cards for my family and friends who didn't get Christmas cards for the second or even third year running *hangs head in shame* so this challenge is perfect to inspire me to start making Easter cards. If you'd like to join in then email me your photos to craftynook@outlook.com and I can add them to the blog post once the closing date is reached - 16/03/18 which gives us two weeks to complete the challenge. Please include the supplies you used, your name and location (it's down to you how detailed that is, it could just be your country or you might like to say what town you live in) Please only include details that you are comfortable sharing online and feel free to use a nickname instead of your given name if that makes you feel more confident to share your creations. I'm happy to add links to blogs so you can increase traffic  but I will only link craft blogs as this is a craft challenge.

I hope you are all as excited as I am about the challenge Michele has set us - it's going to be a lot of fun making a frosty Christmas card and a lovely bright spring card - it's the perfect reminder that although there's snow on the ground and it's freezing cold, spring is just around the corner patiently waiting her turn.

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 few festive things to share

Hello crafty peeps - welcome to my crafty nook. I'm sorry it's been so long since my last blog post but life has a way of getting in the way of crafting and it certainly has this month! Are you all ready for Christmas? I'm not - eek! I've still got one Christmas card to make and about a third of the presents to wrap - AND I've still the tree to put up. Where has this month gone - it doesn't seem like five minutes ago since I was sorting my Christmas stash out. *Note to self - BE MORE ORGANISED NEXT YEAR!*  Anyway enough gripping - I sound like a grumpy old lady lol, here are a few Christmas cards that I'd like to share with you.

Art Deco Diamond Accordion Fold Christmas Card

Originally I was planning on making all my Christmas cards out of diamond accordion fold card blanks (I spent a few hours scoring and folding them a few weeks ago) but after receiving a gorgeous embossed card from Carolyn at the local craft shop I decide to scrap this idea as being too fussy and time consuming and instead made a load of white snowflake embossed cards with a silver greeting (very classy and extremely quick to make which was great as the last post date loomed!) However this left me with 20 pre-scored card blanks to decorate and I had no idea what design to go with. Vexingly I discovered that 8" x 8" papers were slightly too small to completely cover the centre panel (next time I shall trim a sliver of card off the longest side) and none of the A4 Christmas papers appealed to me so in the end I covered the side panels with Papermania Art Deco style foiled papers and used some "Great Gatsby" glitter card which I bought from Every Craft's A Pound ages ago. The black is especially sparkly and the above photo doesn't do it justice, the gold and silver aren't quite as twinkly but are very classy (warning the glitter isn't encapsulated so gets all over the place!). The Christmas Art Deco panel comes from the Debbie Moore Art Deco Christmas collection which was part of the magazine bumper pack last year. The images are visually stunning so I've kept the cards very simple and some of them don't even have sentiments.

Close up of Debbie Moore Art Deco Christmas Topper

The Silver Glitter Card lacks the "Wow" factor of the black so I've added embellishments

Close up of topper

The other cards I've made are of a similar theme so I thought I'd refrain from boring you by posting them all here lol.

I've still got lots of Christmas stuff to do which I hope to share before the big day but in case I get bogged down by Christmas crafting, cooking and cleaning - have a wonderful Christmas and I hope Santa brings you all that you could wish for. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and festive crafty hugs,

Sarah xxxx