Happy New year to everyone - Here are some more freebies to kick off your crafting year. Ten images and papers on the theme of boys birthdays - enjoy

REVIEW : Craftwork Cards Man Made Collection £14:99 P&P £2:99 from Create&Craft.

This is a great kit for those often hard to make mens cards. It contains a 36 page paper pack 190 GSM with 6 designs of checker plate, wood, blackboards, bricks, tartan and newsprint. You also get 10 6x6 embossed cards in brick and wood patterns with envelopes, 12 sheets of die cut toppers and sentiments, and 400 pieces of printed candi to give the finishing touches. With some card stock and some extras from your stash you could easily make between 25 - 30 cards from this kit.

As you can see the colour scheme is very grey and brown so a splash of colour would almost seem essential to  brighten up your cards. Overall a recommended kit primarily because there are not a lot of mens kits out there, but also the quality is very good the die cuts are crisp, the sentiments are varied, and the paper pack is of very good quality.

 Hi All and a happy Christmas to you all, here are the latest freebie images and  since it's Christmas, there are ten images instead of the usual five. Spring is the theme with bunnies, trees and flora and a couple of cute owls thrown in for good measure. Enjoy.

This weekends free images are looking forward to springtime. With all the mild weather at the moment it looks like we are bypassing winter altogether. I'd like to wish all the blog viewers a Happy Christmas and hope you all have a great 2016.

Review - Tinge Art Marker from The Works - 99p per pen

Tinge Art Markers are available in a large range of colours and have both a chisel and fine tip. Also available is a blender pen to give each colour many different shades. I bought eight of these pens and have been putting them through their paces for a few weeks now. I would personally recommend them, colour coverage is good, and it's easy to create professional results  that suprised even me! The blender pen allows you to easily add highlights and blend different colours. Being available singly also allows you to buy only the colours you need, and you don't need that many to create really good results.

As a bit of a Christmas bonus, goodwill to all  an so on, here are five Christmas decorations to brighten up your cards. Only 10 more sleeps to go kids!

Every Crafts A Pound are living up to there name with a range of 6x6 embossing folders for the wonderful price of a pound. You'll find these in the New stock tab, remember there's a £20 minimum spend, but with all the goodies available I've never found that a problem!

http://www.everycraftsapound.co.uk

This weekends freebies should help you out on any last minute Christmas Crafts. Thank you to all the blog readers who have looked at my blog since I started two weeks ago. I've over 800 views so far, so thanks again. No one has left comments though and I would really like to see some feedback. If you would like to see reviews of certain products, share ideas, or suggest what you'd like in next weeks freebies, the please leave a comment.

Some more colouring pictures for a midweek stress reliever. Enjoy the cute little cat, celtic design, and asian elephant.

Review Tonic Studios 158E Tonic 8-inch guillotine

At last, a paper/card cutter that does the job without hassle. Build quality is very good, it feels solid without flexing and the handle is very comfortable. The finger guard is removable for cleaning, a nice touch if you do a lot of inky craft like me. The measurement rulers, top and bottom, are embossed plastic so won't wear away with age. The board is also embossed with the measurements of 1/4th inch which makes quick measuring and keeping your paper square very easy. Overall, a well built little machine, robust and a joy to use. It's good to see a quality product in this throw-away age. £13:40 from amazon

As a bit of a Sunday detox and a break from the maelstrom of Christmas, why not download these colouring pages and find your inner zen!

Every weekend from now on I will be giving away five digi stamps for you to use for free. So to kick off this weekend here are five papers all with a blue theme. Enjoy and check back next week for more stamps.

I went to our local schools Christmas Fair today, selling cards, tags and gift boxes in aid of the muscular distrophy  charity. We paid £10 for the stall, but after three hours of  very quiet trading we we walked away with a paltry £26 in our pockets. Not a great day, and the Christmas stock will be consigned to the loft until next year.
There are a lot of crafters out there, I would appreciate any feedback on what sells best at these events, price points to aim for and any other strategies for selling you may have.

The Works - have started a reward card system that gives you back 5% of your spends as a gift every three months. Next week is there are triple points to be earned, so you get a whopping 15% back!

http://www.theworks.co.uk/