Birthday Bargains 2018

This is my first post for 2018, I can't believe that we are already over a week in to the new year, where does the time go? I hope you had a lovely Christmas and New Year and you are fueled with lots of creative ideas for 2018? I know I am, one thing I've promised myself that I'd do is to stop watching so many videos of other people creating things and use the time to create more things myself! I can sit for hours watching super talenetd people create and then its time to go do the ironing or feed the hubby and I my crafting 'me time' has gone! I watch for inspiration but one video runs in to another and before I know it hours have passed. I also need to try to blog more and catch up with my crafty friends blogs more regularly than I did in 2017! I have plans, I just have to make them a reality :)

It was my birthday on Sunday and I got spoilt rotten, I got some lovely cards including some from my talented crafty friends, and lots of birthday wishes and smiles over on facebook which made me feel loved :) Birthdays since 2015 (the first after I got in to card making), mean that I get a wadge of cash that I get to spend on whatever crafting goodies I desire. As part of the birthday tradition my hubby has the day off and takes me to some crafty places that I can't easily get to as I don't drive myself, but as my birthday fell on a Sunday this year hubby announced I could have a birthday weekend and not just one day!

The festivities began on Saturday with a trip to Coleman's Craft Warehouse for their first Sale and demo day, at which I picked up all the Tonic Nuvo Brush Script Pens, the Aqua Flow Pens and one of the sets of the Nuvo Glitter Markers. I also found the other Tonic Festive Friends bauble die and stamp all reduced by a considerable amount, and I was chuffed to find the 2017 re-issue Lamp Post Bigz die by Tim Holtz for £7.49 :)

There are few good things about having a birthday in early January, its after Xmas when everyone is skint and the weather is cold, usually wet and dismal and most places are shut until the spring, so there are not many places to visit as there would be in you have a July birthday. But January sales make January birthdays a lot brighter, because it means that my birthday money goes twice as far. If I'd bought all the items in the first photo at RRP it would have cost me £121.37 as it was it cost me £63.51 almost half price!

The experience was similar the following day when I visited the Crafters Companion Store in Chesterfield and got a lot of goodies for just over £40 these included some Yupo paper reduced to £3, the Sheena 'Sown with Love Thin Metal Die' RRP £12.99 for £3 and the Waffle Flower 'Pattern Play' stamp set with an RRP of £12.49 I got for £3. I did buy some full price items but as a member of Crafters Companion Inspire Club, I got 15% off the prices of the non sale items and also off the sale items which made the Waffle Flower stamps for example cost me just £2.55.

I topped the weekend off with a visit to Hobbycraft, as a member of their club they sent me a £5 birthday voucher to get some money off my next shop, whilst there I got the Sizzix dies in the photo above and 4 Faber Castell Polychromos pencils 3 metallics (Silver, Gold & Copper) and White for adding highlights to stamped images. With my voucher the Sizzix 'Animal Portraits' die set was free, its earmarked for making some get well, easter and baby cards and I'm looking forward to playing with the cat die set.

The weekend wasn't all about buying crafting goodies, we went on some lovely walks, ate cake, lots of cake actually and did a lot of snuggling on the sofa watching TV, I even got to have charge of the remote! Also whilst I was in Hobbycraft I met a lovely little girl and her Mum, the girl was just starting out on her crafting journey after being given a card making kit for Christmas and she wanted advice on die cutting machines for beginners. I chatted to her for a while and told her about the difference between pigment and dye inks, how you use a die cutting machine, gave her a brief idea of the wonders of distress ink (she'd seen a YouTube video and was curious) and explained a little about heat embossing and embossing with folders.

As she lives not far from me I've promised to look through my stash and pass on things I think she could use and have promised to be on hand if she has any questions in the future. It was such a lovely feeling to be encouraging a young new crafter that it really made my birthday weekend feel complete. All I have to do now is start using the goodies I got for my birthday, my head is already full of ideas, and 2018 I want to make many more cards to donate to Cats Protection and also maybe sell some myself at Maker Fair events we'll be attending with K9.