WOYWW #572- The Happy Birthday To Us Edition.

Yes, our 11th Birthday! What a milestone that is, eh? All down to our lovely Julia, over at The Stamping Ground. This is my UFO for the theme, and I thought I'd make it into a Birthday card to us all. The balloons and gifts are both Card-io/Majestix stamps, the 11th is Honey Doo Crafts, and I'm afraid I have no idea where the 'Birthday' balloon came from, may have been a freebie at some time.

This was the envelope I decided to work from, I can't believe how many of these stencilled sheets I have and not used yet.
 I used an assortment of Versafine Clair inkpads for the stamping, and although it's hard to see, I did cover the balloons with a coat of Glossy Accents, and sprinkled them with a little Glamourdust.
 And I learned a little trick that some might find helpful.
 When you're trying to place clear stamps on your background, ready to pick up with the lid, they can be really annoying, as they keep sticking to your fingers, am I right? Well, the 'string' on the balloons above is a separate stamp to the balloons, and was a total nightmare to get to lie where I wanted it, as it's really thin. It was driving me nuts, and I was sort of looking round my desk for a solution. And then I spotted my anti static bag, and the little dish it sits on has a good coating of powder on it. Dipped my fingers into the powder and rubbed it over my fingertips, and Yay!!! no more stamp sticking to my fingers.

 Got the Christmas cards finished, and the Caught in Crystal sheets worked out a treat.


 Nothing much in the Enabling Dept- just a 2" Speedball brayer! Came across these a few weeks ago, but couldn't find them anywhere in the UK. Not sure if they're new, or just not widely stocked. Got mine on Amazon- via Supermart USA, which are really good, as their prices are always competitive, and they ship worldwide for free.








  realised a few days too late last week that I completely forgot to add an And Finally! So this week there's two to make up for it.

So here you are....And Finally.......

Hougie!- and a cool Amazon 'tool' for us crafters

A Christmas present off my youngest son, I have sort of had my eye on one for a while, but I do have a couple of scoreboards, and thought this one was pretty expensive, to be honest. Everywhere I had seen them they were £25-£30, depending on if they had the booklet with them or not. Then just before Xmas I saw them on Amazon for £18.69, so it went on my wish list.I really liked the idea of the score lines being 1/2" apart on one side, and 1/2cm on the other. I often use a tri-fold (like my wedding invitations) but the score lines on most boards don't line up at those folds, so I had to score one line, then turn the card around to score the other. Not a problem really for a single card, but if you are doing a lot, it's time consuming. I like the flexibility this will give me for folds, as well as for embossing detail like lines etc.
          Now, while we are on the subject of Amazon, here is a very, very useful little tool they have added that you may not know about. Its a 'Wish List' button, and there are versions for Firefox users, and Internet Explorer users.
    Bear with me here, because I know you have always been able to build a Wishlist in Amazon, but this version is unbelievably cool! If you download it, you get a button on your toolbar that says 'Add to Wishlist'. The big difference now is that if you find something you would like, on ANY SITE  all you have to do is click on the 'Add to Wishlist' button, and your item will be added to your Amazon Wishlist, along with its location etc. Even e-bay items can be added. This means you can e-mail the link to this wishlist to friends/relatives etc for Birthday & Christmas pressies!! Just how useful is that? You can also add comments to the Amazon list, so you can use it to compile a list of potential gifts for other people too, and share it with your other half/family etc.
 I am so going to have fun with this one, lol.