Happy News

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all well and looking forward to the weekend. It's rather chilly here on the east coast but that just means it's perfect crafting weather. I don't actually have a card or project to share today, I'm still poorly so haven't been in my crudy much the past week. However, I do have some crafty news to share. The first thing I want to share is I've won a giveaway on Facebook! My prize of a paper crimper hasn't arrived yet but I'm really looking forward to having a play, as you probably know my husband is sight impaired so I try to add a lot of texture to the cards I make him so if he can't see the card (his sight isn't constant) then at least he's be able to feel the different layers and textures to it. This tool will be perfect for adding some texture in a different way so I'm thrilled to be one of the winners.

My second piece of news is even better! A few posts ago I hinted that I'd have some exciting news to share and now I can. I uploaded a Verity Rose Mother's Day card last month on the Crafter's Companion's Facebook page and the following day I got a private message from the Media Manager for Crafter's Companion who'd seen my card and wanted to feature it in the next issue of Crafter's Inspiration Magazine, she asked me to send a photo of the card via email to the magazine which I did. Unfortunately because I only have a Mini Kodak digital camera which only takes small file photos it wasn't suitable for publication (don't really understand the ins and outs of digital camera files - I've never had a problem uploading photos on my blog - apart from blurry images of course - or on Facebook) so I arranged for my mum to give me the card back so I could get my dad-in-law to scan it and email it to me. That didn't work though so my lovely sis-in-law Sue took a photo with her iPhone and emailed that to me. Luckily that was big enough and I've been waiting for the magazine to come out so I could order a copy. I managed to get it ordered on Wednesday and it came yesterday in the post. The card is in the letter page (they cobbled a letter together from my emails!) and it looks really good. Here's a couple of photos of it.

I really love the sweet comments Sara Davies wrote and I'm looking forward to receiving my £10 gift voucher. I've only got Cupcake to buy in the Verity Rose sets (there are some additional dies and a paper pad too) and as they are no longer available to buy as a collection, I might put this voucher towards it or there are some fantastic stamps and dies in the new Men's collection that I might get instead. I've had cards published in magazines before (I've even won a comp or two!) but this is the first time I've been approached via Facebook so I feel very honoured to have the card appear in such a brilliant magazine.

I hope you've enjoyed sharing my bits of good news, hopefully I'll have some cards to share soon, as I said at the beginning of the post I am still suffering from the bug/infection/dreaded lurgy I got nearly three weeks ago though thankfully I'm not as bad as I have been. I'm really lacking in energy and motivation as a result so it's a bit of a struggle to get my bum off the sofa and into the crudy but I will try to get some cards made over 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

A card share and life update.

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! Firstly I'd like to apologise for the long delay between posts - it's been a very busy month. As some of you may know if you follow me on Facebook, we've been having our kitchen done. Although the kitchen has been replaced there's still a lot of work to be done including redecorating the entire room and putting everything back. At the moment 95% of the stuff from the old kitchen is spread out all over the flat and I'm in the process of washing everything before putting them away in their new homes. I'm a bit shocked about how much stuff I managed to cram into half the cupboards my new kitchen has and it's going to be a long process putting it all back. If I'm honest I'm a bit overwhelmed about how much cupboard space I've got now and my desire to have things perfect is making it difficult to actually make the decision about where things should go.

Anyway enough of all this kitchen talk, instead I'd like to share a Good Luck jigsaw I've made for my nephew who's in the middle of exams at the moment and a thank you card I made for the various plumbers, fitters, joiners and electricians who have made my new kitchen a reality (sorry kitchen talk again!)

Good Luck jigsaw for Liam

This jigsaw was made using a pre-cut jigsaw from Woodware and the owl stamp set also comes from Woodware. I stamped the image using Memento Tuxedo Black ink and stamped a speech bubble from a Clearly Besotted stamp set. The shamrock stamp came from a Studio G stamp set called the luck of the Irish and originally came enclosed with a dotted circle but I carefully snipped it out leaving the dotted circle intact. I used a green ink pad to stamp the shamrocks randomly over the area. The Good Luck stamp came from a very old stamp set which came free with Papercraft Inspiration magazine. I coloured the owl, branch, leaves and small four leaf clover using ProMarkers and the painted round the images using Steampunk Galatos (the purple one) and clear Wink of Stella brush pen to make a shimmery paint. I edged the speech bubble and all of a shamrock with a glue pen and once it had dried to become tacky I added some foil on top - it's not perfect but I like the way it catches the light. I added Stickles Glitter Glue in Gold to the owl's beak.

Tools Thank you card

I had a lot of fun making this card. I've recently discovered an online company called IconUK which sells branded dies at a reduced price and doesn't charge any P&P. I've only had two orders so far but I've got to say I'm AMAZED by how quickly the orders come. Obviously the older dies are much cheaper than the latest releases (for example the Die-namics blueprints dies are around £20 a set, set 1 is £19.95 and they are £21.95 at My Mum's Craft Shop. So you save about £2.00) so your savings are better the older the release but you can still get some amazing dies for a fraction of anywhere else. However the Tool Time die that I used to make this card isn't actually any cheaper than it would be to buy anywhere else online as it cost £9.95 inc VAT but I just couldn't resist buying it especially as most places have added P&P under a certain amount. I cut the pieces out three times using my Big Shot machine and a mountboard shim - to cut perfectly I had to add a couple of sheets of card to the shim too and as I anticipate using this die a lot for men's cards (Father's Day will be here before you know it!) I've stuck the shim layers together using washi tape and have it stored with the new die. I used holographic mirror card, dull silver card and kraft card for the tool pieces. The die comes with extra pieces for handles and hammer heads which is brilliant as it means you don't have to throw bits away if you want a layered look. I coloured the handle grips using ProMarkers as shown - the silver and holographic card pieces didn't take the ink well and look a bit streaky but I think it just makes the tools look used, if I'd thought about it I could have splattered the tools with a bit of white acrylic paint for that authentic used tool look lol. I die cut the thanks using a scrap of holographic card and a word die by Clearly Besotted Stamps. I made a top folding card using kraft card and the backing paper is actually sandpaper which I cut to the required size and embossed using the Burlap Embossing folder that came 'free' with the Crafter's Companion Inspiration pack I mentioned in my last post. It gives the card fantastic texture and I really like the way it looks. (it's worth buying the mag just for this embossing folder alone!) I rather like the way the tools go off the card even if it means getting a slightly too big envelope to put it in.

I hope you like my latest creations and again I'd like to apologise for the delay between posts, I can't promise to even blog weekly until after the kitchen is finished so I hope you continue to be patient and visit when you can. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs

Sarah xxx

I've been bad *hangs head in shame*

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you've all had a brilliant weekend, I've not done much crafting as I'm in a bit of a crafty slump. However my slump should be over now cos I've been very bad - I bought some crafty goodies!!One of the stamp ranges that I adore is Santoro's Simply Gorjuss from DoCrafts so I was delighted to learn that DoCrafts were releasing another set of 8 stamps in April. I've been counting the days down so you can imagine how thrilled I was to find that Create and Craft were releasing them early in sets of 4 for £22.98 inc p&p. Obviously I couldn't afford to purchase both sets but luckily the stamps I liked most were in set 1 so I ordered it and it came today! I hope to get the remaining 4 stamps at a later date and there is one especially I like called "Hush Little Bunny" (see below) I really love the bunny it reminds me of something from "The Nightmare Before Christmas".

Hush Little Bunny

The stamps in set 1 included "The Hatter", "The Owl", "Dear Alice" and "The Dreamer". I think the last two are probably my favourites especially "The Dreamer". 

The Owl

The Hatter

Dear Alice

The Dreamer

To add to the naughty purchases I went to my local craft shop and picked up issue 6 of Crafter's Companion's Inspiration magazine @ £9.99, I usually do get these from my local craft shop and although CC claim it has £50 worth of 'free stuff' to be perfectly frank I'm not sure how they've come up with this sum. I think it was the last issue which claimed it contained a 'wire beading set' and when I opened it, it contained about a foot of thin nasty quality wire (probably 30p worth at a push!) and 3 plasticky beads - really not sure what they expected anyone to make with it - a small crappy dream catcher perhaps? However I've been pleasantly surprised this time and the free gifts are at least worth the cover price of the magazine (I don't know about you but I'm often flabbergasted at how much craft magazines claim their free cover gifts are worth, about a month ago I got a mag with a stamp set similar to ones from ECAP and a paper pack which was a third of the size of the same paper pack I'd bought for a pound and the mag "claimed" it was worth a tenner!!) and they are very useable too. I've already got a couple of ideas about what I'm going to make but as we're having the girls on Wednesday I'll might have to wait until this weekend to have a play as I have loads to do before they arrive.

Well now my crafty confession is over I'd better go and do some cleaning in penance before bed. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx