Crafting on a Budget

Today instead of sharing a card I choose to share my June 2017 AliExpress purchases with you.

Here is the Dies I ordered for a total of £36.80.  They were all ordered on the 15th June 2017 and the last one arrived yesterday.  All cut perfectly except the Heart, Spiral and die below, that needed an extra shim.  I also bought a metal shim for £3.13 and that made cutting these 3 dies possibly as the precision plate was not enough to cut them.  This metal shim is small enough to use in my Big Shot but remember not to force your sandwich if it does not go through and remember adding anything not made by Sizzix you do at your own risk.

 I also bought these to Stamp set as I like to add a bit of a colour splash from time to time and they came to £3.11

So in total, I spend £ 43.04 on my spoils and I think I got a really good deal considering what these items normally cost.

I normally store my dies in Document Wallets like these that you can get from Poundland in a pack of 5 for £1, I prefer to get the clear pockets but they are not always available at my local Poundland.

This white cardstock comes at a good weight and makes great card bases. I also use it for die-cutting especially when I will be colouring my die-cuts.  They also from time to time have it available in black and craft card at £1 from Poundland.

Moody Blue

This card is one of my newest monochromatic creations.  The stamps used came as a free gift with a new magazine call Get Stamping.

I created the card using only 3 clear stamps, embossing powder, 4 different blue pigment inks and Shrink plastic).  The background on the card was created using the flower stamp on white card , then embossing with clear embossing powder and rubbing ink over this. 


I then went on to stamp the text 4 times onto a cream base card and added the flourish stamp twice to create and accent for the corner.  I stamps some more flowers on white card, cut them out and shaped them a little.  Then I also stamped the flower in various blue inks on clear shrink plastic, cut out and shrunk them with a heat gun.


I used the Shrinked flowers as centers to the paper flowes and also added some on the flourish.  I even decorated the envelope.


Hope you like this.