You might have guessed from the title but I feel a little grumpy and disheartened this evening. I settled down to make two cards-one for a friend and another for a lady who is leaving William’s preschool. I had a plan; a Disney themed castle card using my Tattered Lace die for my friend and a butterfly card for the lady leaving. The castle just would not cut cleanly so I added a shim and then tried using a rubber mat afterwards, but the Cuttlebug just broke and now won’t cut anything. I was gutted-that machine has done a lot of work in the 6 and a half years that I’ve owned it, including all of my wedding stationery. In the short term though it meant a total change of plan for tonight’s cards.

I had to stop and have a think as I’d got out all the bits I needed for the cards which were in my head and hadn’t thought of anything else. I remembered that I had a Downton Abbey kit from a magazine so I used that for my friend. Luckily the Purple Cows cutter had a Victorian edging blade so I used it to make a gold trim and added my favourite gold edged cream ribbon to complement that and the gold of the Downton Abbey kit. A jewelled brad and more ribbon with some toppers and floral paper finished it off nicely. I hope my friend realises how important she is-I’m a terrible hoarder with some craft items and the jewelled brads are amongst my most treasured embellishments, only used for special projects!

The other card was inspired by Pinterest, with a punched butterfly and map printed paper from the Docrafts MrMister range, brown inked edges and a stamped sentiment. A few domed stickers were the only embellishments I used for this but I was keeping it simple. I am not overly impressed with this one but without my die cutter I couldn’t quite achieve what I wanted. The sentiment was really hard work too as the ink was new and very wet and the recycled kraft card allowed it to bleed so it looked awful. I did the usual cardmakers trick and stuck more card over it before stamping again!

Because today has been a bit rubbish overall I’m not even attempting to do any knitting, goodness knows what I would manage to make! I was going to get a pyrography kit for my birthday but it looks like I might have to get a new die cutter instead. I mustn’t grumble really as I’m lucky to have so much craft stuff accumulated over time; I suspect I am just a bit tired and frustrated after my failed cardmaking attempts. Whilst I am without a die cutter I will just have to get creative with my cards and maybe experiment with the Cricut a bit more (I much prefer my sets of nesting dies for basic cardmaking). I’m sure the challenge will do me good, I might even decide not to get another die cutter and just sell all of the dies!