A couple of cards to share

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all well and have had a good weekend - it was very blustery here but it's calmed down now thank goodness. It's been a couple of weeks since my last post but I've not been up to a great deal craft wise. One of my niece's celebrated her 19th birthday on the 16th and my lovely crafty friend Michele sent me some gorgeous planner stamps and sticky note sets through the post which was a wonderful surprise and I'm still at the stroking and smiling stage (I can't be the only one who takes forever to use new goodies because if you use them they won't be new anymore??) and haven't used them yet though I'm 'planning' on using them soon! I made Michele a thank you card which I'll be sharing in this post. First of all let me apologise if any typos slip through, I'm writing this in the early hours of Monday and my beloved cat has decided that he can't sleep anywhere but in my arms which makes typing very challenging - still it makes a change him sleeping this close to the floor as he's taken to jumping on top of the lounge door and going to sleep up there. It would be cute if it wasn't for the fact that he's 16 years old and sleeps very deeply - the daft thing keeps going into a deep sleep then falling off the door which is rather scary and I'm terrified he's going to break something! I'm sure the only reason he goes up there is so he can look down on his inferior humans (cats rule!)

Anyway enough of high Jinx *winks* let's get back to crafting! The first card I'd like to share is the one I made for my niece. I wasn't really sure what to make her as 19 is one of those between ages if you know what I mean plus she's going to have a baby in December and a lot of the teen stamps I own just didn't seem suitable. In the end I decided to use some Forever Friends papers which included some cute cut apart images in the A5 paper pack.

Love the Rose Gold Foiling that's on the cut aparts.

Forever Friends cut apart and backing paper with added bling

Inside of the card with die cut Special sentiment - stamps are CC

The back of the card featuring another of the cut apart images and a handstamped warning lol

Envelope made with Trimcraft Pick n Mix papers and WRMK envelope punch board

The front of the card seemed a little 'meh' so I added some Autumn sequin mix from Craft Stash, where I was a bit messy with the glue I added blobs of Dovecraft glitter glue in Rose.

Here is the Thank you card I made for the wonderful Michele.

Love this stamp set from eBay but it needs some bling!

Blinged up using Gold paint and a very small brush!

Isn't that a lovely sentiment?

Michele is a star so I added some to the inside

Envelope made using the WRMK envelope punch board and Trimcraft Sweet Paris paper

I really like the stamp set, it's an unbranded one from eBay and has some sweet sentiments with it as well as the two large floral stamps used on this card. Although it looks great just in black and white, I wanted to 'bling' it up a bit so added some highlights using Kuretake Gansai Tambi Starry Colors (sic) paints - I think I used the third from the left out the six gold paint pans. It's a very pigmented water colour and adds just the right touch of glitz to the front. I had some left on the paint brush so painted a couple of die cut scribble stars to add to the inside as shown. I stamped everything using Versafine black ink which is waterproof but more importantly,  a really dark black.

I've had a bit of lovely crafty news this week but I'm not sharing it until after Christmas (aren't I a craft tease! lol) Hopefully I should have a few cards to share with you later in the week, one unfortunately is a sympathy card but the other will be a cute card for a three year old as it's my youngest niece's birthday on Friday. I may even have a few craft goodies to share as it's my birthday on Wednesday and I'm hoping for some birthday money (I've already been lucky enough to be given some from my lovely mum) I'm torn between getting some Nuvo alcohol ink pens which are exceedly cheap at Craft Stash or buying a couple of items from the new Christina Griffith Card Making Magic Collection which is gorgeous and exclusively available at Craft Stash. I've already got my present from my wonderful hubby (a new Sizzix Big Shot machine which I don't want to use until Wednesday!) and I'm very grateful for it because my old one is really hard to use (it doesn't cut through in places unless I use shims). 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

Tiny Haul to share

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! It's been very quiet in my crafty nook lately apart from the odd rustling of papers being put away and the odd crinkle of packaging as I've tidied a few things away. It seems as though my crafty mojo has gone on a sabbatical at the moment - I hope it returns soon! I haven't any cards to share with you just a very small haul that arrived today. Craft Stash had free P&P last week for 24 hours only and no minimum spend and as I had a tiny amount of money still in my bank account I decided to treat myself to a couple of items.

As you can see from the above photos, when I say a couple of items I MEAN a couple of items lol. The first thing that leaped into my basket was the taylored expressions "Summer Nights" 6" x 6" paper pad. I've got some Tatty Twinkles USA stamps and I thought these papers which feature a lot of star patterns would be perfect to team up with them and with the little boy Scruffy Little Kitten stamps in my stash. This is a very gender neutral collection which is brilliant. Unfortunately Craft Stash only had one left in stock or I would have bought a second. The second and final item that jumped into my basket was a Sheena Douglass "Flying Dragonflies" stamp. It's already EZ mounted which is great as it's ready to use straight away. I love dragonflies and they are a good alternative to butterflies on male cards.

Sorry I haven't any cards to share this time, hopefully my craft mojo will come back and I'll start making cards again, in the meantime please be patient and perhaps if you're a crafter too you'd like to share a link to your latest makes so I can get some inspiration from you. As always if you have any questions then please leave them in the usual places and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx