(Early) Christmas Cards 2013 (9) & A new furry addition to the household :)

What a week and what a weekend! Each day of this week brought something new and  each was busy for me one way or the other. The weekend is just passing by. I really don't know where this time is flying. Day after day and night after night and we are already at the end of September. To be honest, I haven't done much this week - just a few cards in the evenings to add to the overall Christmas card collection So I'm showing you the two new ones :) This time a little more traditional take on Christmas cards with lots of green accents. I missed some green shades after such a long time making red and white Scandinavian ones. 

I absolutely love that lacey die cut Christmas tree (Cheery Lynn dies) and the red heat-embossed reindeer from A Muse Studio stamp set. The poinsettia on vine punched border is Martha Stewart's punch.

Little details - tags, strings, borders, charms is what I've always liked :) I'm still in love with bakers twines too. I keep seeing a lot of them on eBay and in craft shops. They add a lot to the festive charm.

And another go at Christmas greens but this time with a bit of yellow too :) The image is comes from a Noolibird stamp I bought last year and this cute folky bird in a festive wreath has always been one of my favourites in my stamp collection. 

This year another punch joined up my collection - a Woodware punch - Large Holly Leaf - how did I do without it before? I find it so useful and I just love the shapely holly leaves it punches. I feel tempted to use it on each of my cards! 

And finally, last, but not least - meet Cookie - our new addition to the household :-)))) We got her yesterday from a woman who apparently saved her life from an outdoor fire. She's full of beans and she's just trying to settle down. She's about 10 weeks old.

I just melted when I saw her photo on facebook. The white whiskers and the "milky" moustache simply captured my heart.

She's so little and so everywhere! I haven't had a little kitten at home for ages! I'm getting used to it again.

She's so sweet and she loves a lot of TLC. She is not liking our old cat Stinky though. She's very distrustful towards him and giving him lots of hissing and growling at the moment. I hope they will make friends in the end because Stinky is a real can't-be-bothered docile cat.

Linking Hand-made Monday no. 136 tonight. I'm really curious what other crafters have been up to.

Dala Madness

I have definitely fallen in love with all my new Dala Horse stamps. I had to have a go at them straight away and here are some of my first cards where my liking for Scandinavian folklore is coming to life :) I've made quite a few of them and today is the first portion of Dalas for you :) For a start I limited myself to the three basic colours Scandinavian graphics often comes in - red, white and blue. I kept it deliberately simple focusing on the design to be as much Scandinavian as possible.

The Dala stamps featured on my cards are from noolibird.com and they should be soon on sale. Keep checking the shop. The small Norwegian star stamp comes from a Polish scrapbooking shop craftfun.pl. I also used Martha Stewart's punches and a leafy border from a Scandinavian stamp set.

All 3 together:

And a cherry on a Dala cake: my first ever Dala mug:

Pretty print, isnt it? And I love the colours too. This mug has been designed by Sarah Edmonds and you can find it here.

Obsession?

I wonder... Is it an obsession already or just my weak spot for Martha Stewart punches? Are you the one to buy them passionately? Well, I am. I guess, I could say I'm a big fan of them now.

Recently I've been into buying paper cutting tools like punches and dies. My punch collection has expanded quite considerably and finally giving me a great variety of designs to use for my cards. I'm soooo happy about it :)

Here are my new MS punches acquired in the last 3-4 months (there's more ;P). I definitely have a thing for this brand now. The designs are unique, the quality of the punches is good, the presentation of the punches is great too - white always gives an impression of cleanliness, softness, neatness.. For most of scrapers or card makers they are the classics and an object of desire. And what's more - I've also recently discovered - Martha Stewart Crafts company tends to bring some designs onto the market and takes them off the sale after a while. So once they are gone, they are gone. Get them while you can.

Remember my post about the snowflake punches? Here is my current winter snowflake punch collection. They are the pupil of my eye now, tee hee! I've had to have a good hunt to be able to collect them all searching for the items on ebay, amazon and online shops in the UK or even in the USA. Some of them are already retiring and won't be available to buy very soon.  I had to hurry up with my searching.

This collection has an extra appealing factor - the punches have intriguing wintry Scandinavian names: (from the top, left) Artic Snowflake, Nordic Snowflake, Glacial Snowflake, Alpine Snowflake, (bottom, left): Himalayan Snowflake, Icelandic Snowflake and perhaps a little less Scandinavian sounding Looped Snowflake. There is only one snowflake missing in this collection - sadly Scandinavian Snowflake punch had been withdrawn from sale before I found out it even existed :-(

I tried searching everywhere but to no avail. I only possess this design in a form of a rubber stamps - my only consolation :)

Anyway, I will definitely be obsessing about snowflakes this year! Roll on Christmas! My toys are waiting!

If you are a fan of Martha Stewart's craft products or collect scrap booking tools yourself, give a shout,  share your thoughts please. I'd love to hear about your crafty stash and crafty shopping. 

Thanks for visiting my place and leaving comments x x x

Martha

All the good news

Isn't it nice when all goes smoothly in our life? When each day is good in one way or the other and after all day you fall asleep with that feeling of happiness inside. The winter seems to be finally gone from the UK and it is getting warmer and it's just... nicer. I feel happier.

I've had a few good days in a row recently and it all started when...

Cross Stitcher - a very popular cross stitch magazine in Britain has unexpectedly tweeted on their website about one of my blog posts! It was about that vintage rose cross stitch key ring I stitched on wood - a freebie to their magazine.

I was very surprised to find out as my Twitter account is usually a quiet one - I don't do much tweeting these days but perhaps I should.:) How on earth they found my blog and my post, I haven't got a clue but it was a nice discovery. 

Later on during the week, some crafty goodies arrived at my door step - I'm always over the moon when a crafty parcel comes! That thrill and excitement when you open a box and you know that the goodies are with you now, safely delivered.

This time it was a long awaited delivery from Martha Stewart's online craft shop. I had to pick it up from the local post office depot. It took about three weeks to come to Britain... supposedly from the USA but as it turned out the parcel came from... a base in Switzerland. Sadly, the parcel was taxed (again!) and I think I'm quickly starting to learn the custom office rules. As it turns out, if you order a product from the USA any merchandise parcel of the value over £15 will be taxed accordingly. This means I have to be aware how much I buy at the American online shops and bear in mind not only the shipping charges but also the possibility of being taxed on my goods. Shame. When all costs add up, the price of the product is really high. No wonder Martha Stewart's punches cost a lot in Britain. An average MS punch is priced between £16-20. Quite costly considering it's only one design you get with your purchase.

Anyway, now I'm a happy owner of these 3 snowflake punches :)))) I love the designs and it looks like this Christmas I'll obsessing about the Scandinavian snowflakes. 

Even more goodies have arrived at my place. This time it's the Scandi-themed embossing folders, and the gingerbread themed dies and a punch. As you've probably noticed, it's all about Christmas! Yes, I do love Christmas crafts and buying especially Christmas craft goodies give me an immense pleasure. I'm dying to start making some new Christmas cards! Recently I've been discovering embossing and de-embossing and after watching some tutes on YouTube I decided that embossing folders can be great fun! I'll definitely have a go at inking them.

There have been some ideas budding in my head - like for example an idea of combining a real cross stitch and a stamped cross stitch on a hand-made card. I want to make some cards on which a cross stitch pattern will have a folksy rustic feel. For that reason I've been on the look out for some cross stitch themed stamps and I managed to find some sets. These two below are my newest gain that arrived last Saturday. They are Viva Decor stamps and I must admit they are quite reasonably priced - £4.50 a set. They are big sets of stamps and they stamp well on card. Sizewise, they are also the biggest cross stitch stamps I've managed to find so far. Very pleased with this buy. And I will be even more pleased when some more ordered cross stitched themed stamps have arrived from Poland. They are clever rubber cross stitch stamps designed for border and background building as well as for the central motifs and I'm sure they will decorate cards beautifully.

Apart from the cross themed stamps, I'm also obsessing about the circus font - I absolutely adore these stylized letters. I've got a cross stitch circus letter garland project started which needs finishing and now I can transfer my fascination with this theme onto the cards using this lovely circus font stamp alphabet  from Indigo Blu. Very excited about it!

Another good news - there have been some off-cuts of hessian canvas kicking around at my workplace. I thought it would be a nice material for trying the cross stitch on. To my delight, I was allowed to help myself to a piece. I brought it home and started trying out straightaway. 

I started with stitching a little swatch for different sizes of cross stitch and in general just to see what it would look like. I have stitched some crosses both over two strands and over one strand. The tiny cross stitches
over 1 strand are really fiddly and minuscule but they give denser coverage. I think I will use both methods depending on the size of a design.

Personally, I think the stitches look good. Well worth trying out. The hessian is rough and coarse in its feel and also it's got a natural colour - perfect for my planned rustic cross stitched cards!

Finally the last piece of good news: a lovely spring table runner arrived last Saturday from Germany. Claudia, of NuNu´s Garn-und Stofflabor blog is a lovely talented sewing and knitting lady. I really like her sewn works and I asked if she could sew me a table runner with some cheery spring tulips just like the one of those she makes for sale and she agreed to take this commission :)

When I had opened the box it turned out that the package included not only the table runner itself but also some lovely goodies- a card and a sewn pouch (a tissue holder I guess, right?) What a great surprise!

So kind of you Claudia, Thank you!!!! 

 Claudia marks her products with a cute label :)

The table runner is 130 cm long - here is what it looks like when folded in 3 parts. Sorry, this is the only way I could fit it in my camera lens :) I'll try taking a photo when it's laid on the table, just need more sunlight inside the room.

And the little pouch Claudia presented me with.

Beautiful makes Claudia. Danke schon noch mal! x x x

It's World Book Day today - I promised myself a short reading session with kindle in bed so I'm taking off then for a relaxing finish of the day.
Take care and thank you for your comments and visits. x x x

Martha