A couple of birthday cards

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you all had a brilliant week, it's been lovely here on the east coast - bright with a crispness to the air. I was supposed to do my spring cleaning two weeks ago but kind of lost heart in it when my mum-in-law wasn't able to come for Mother's Day and these bright days are making me wish I'd done a bit more than I ended up doing for just my mum visiting. (It's not that I don't make an effort for my mum's visits but she knows what a untidy moo I can be and she's seen me at my worst but I wanted to make a good impression on my in-laws!)

It was my mum-in-law's birthday last Sunday and it was my Gramps-in law's birthday Tuesday so I thought I'd share the cards I made for them.

The first card features the wonderful Verity Rose from Crafter's Companion. She was coloured in using Promarkers and Spectrum Noir Shimmer markers. I added details with a Sakura stardust pen on her hat and beads. The layering piece was die cut out using a Tonic Studio die and I ink blended over it using Salty Ocean and Tumbled Glass Distress Inks.

The second card was inspired by a card made by Christine Smith AKA CraFTiPoTeNTiAl  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl_yNA4vpuo - please click the link to see the original card that inspired mine. Like Christine I used the hobby themed stamps that came free with Creative stamping Magazine a couple of months ago. I stamped them onto 200 gsm card and coloured them in using Flexmarkers then I fussy cut them out which was rather challenging for the pinchers/pliers and the screwdriver because the thin parts curled up on themselves after I cut them. I die cut the pinboard frame out of white card using two stitched rectangle dies from eBay and I held them in place using some washi tape so the dies didn't shift as the card went though the machine. I also stamped out the tool box and coloured it in using the Flexmarkers and then stamped over it using the small wood grain stamp from the set and the Happy Birthday sentiment. Again it was fussy cut out and I used a scalpel to cut out the inner part of the shape so I could add some extra tools. These tools were cut out using a set of dies from the Sara's Collection of Just For Men dies. I cut a piece of adhesive backed cork to just slightly smaller than the frame and layered the two together as shown to form the pin board.I added the tools with tape runner to the board and added foam pads to the back of the tool box - the tools were stuck to these so that they peeped out from the tool box. I used papers from Papermania Mr Mister range and added them to a Dovecraft A6 card blank using a tape runner from Crafter's Companion. I added the board to the 'wall' of the shed and the tool box to the 'floor' using extra glue on the tools that covered the sticky foam pads.

I did make another card for my mum-in-law on my mum's behalf but forgot to take any photos of it so I can't share here. As always if you have any questions or comments about my latest cards then please leave them in the usual places and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Christmas is coming...

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all well and enjoyed World Card Making day over the weekend. I did actually manage to make a card over the weekend but as it's for my niece's 17th birthday next week I'm not going to share it until the day in case she sees it on here or Facebook. I was really pleased to get crafting again as I've had a bad case of craft block! I know inspiration should come from things I already have but in all honesty I tend to be most crafty when I have new stash and apart from getting a couple of items last month I haven't bought anything craft related in ages. All I've found myself doing in the last three weeks or so is tidying up, trying different card folds (I love to experiment) and half colouring in images only to think they are rubbish and throw away. So it was quite a relief to make a card for Charlie which I liked and it's sparked a bit of a crafty spurt as well.

Christmas will be here before we know it and up until yesterday, I hadn't made a single card, present or decoration. Clearly Besotted Stamps brought out a stamp set ages ago called "In Print" which features a fingerprint and a range of doodled creatures that you stamp over the fingerprint. I fell in love with them but (typically of me) hadn't got around to using them. Because I haven't done any card making for quite a while I decided to make a couple of very simple Christmas cards and one of the images on this stamp set was perfect - a deer. The stamp set doesn't have any Christmas sentiments with it but one of my subscription magazines "Creative Stamping" arrived on Saturday and had lots of Christmas and holiday sentiments with it.

Oh Deer - Christmas is coming...

I stamped the fingerprint using Memento Rich Cocoa ink and over stamped it with the deer face using Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I stamped the Merry & Bright sentiment in the black ink and added a red glittered enamel dot over the deer's nose. The cards are 3" x 4" and I made an envelope for each one using some 6" x 6" scrapbook papers and my We Are Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board. I used a second stamp from the Creative Stamping set to add a sentiment to the inside of the cards.

A simple sentiment for a simple card

As I had the stamps out I decided to make a little joke card for my husband, he's been watching (and buying!) a lot of trashy B movies recently and one of his favourites is "Big Ass Spider". He wanted me to make him a big ass spider card for Christmas but as I don't find spiders to be particularly festive I decided to make him a spider card just because... The "In Print" stamp set also has a cute little spider so I made another 3" x 4" card base and stamped the fingerprint in Hickory Smoke Distress ink and the legs and face in black Memento ink. I stamped the boo! sentiment in the same ink. Unfortunately I had a bit of ink on my finger as I stamped the legs over the fingerprint body so got a smudge of ink on the card base, I added some light green sparkly enamel dots on the card front to hide my little boo boo. I also added a silk string for the spider to hang from which is also included in the stamp set.

Big Ass Spider card lol

We don't have any children but it would be a great card to make with children for Halloween. To be honest you could make it without the stamp set just use your own fingerprints and add your own critter features with a fine tipped pen, but this way is less messy lol.

I hope you like my little card share, hopefully it won't be quite as long until my next post. I'm sorry for not posting more often but I try to keep my posts craft related and if I'm not producing anything/buying anything I have nothing to share. If you have any questions or comments then please leave them in the usual places and until next time - keep crafting! (Must take my own advice!)

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx