Pretty card and fingerless gloves

Apparently, according to trend forecasters the next hot craft for 2017 is going to be macrame.  Watch out for spider plants in bead adorned knotted hangers.  I love lots of crafts but I can’t see myself taking up macrame in a hurry.

One of the crafts I love, but have not had so much time for as I have been knitting and sewing so much, is working with paper.  I began scrapbooking back in 2000 when we had to buy almost all our supplies from the US and acid free glue was the holy grail!  Things have moved on a long way since then but a lot of the independent shops have given way to big stores who don’t have the individual touch and the more interesting and quirky stock.  One of the trends that has survived and does still offer that quirky touch is the monthly kit.  I used to get one sometimes from an American company that always included a little sample of flavoured coffee (before we got that over here too).  The smell as I unwrapped it was part of the joy of seeing all the gorgeous bits and pieces.

So, when this arrived this morning,

 

and this was inside it.

 

 

And inside was this..

I was a very excited bunny!

Now I was expecting a paper cut kit.  I was not expecting a pair of handknitted fingerless gloves (which happen to be in my favourite colour), a sparkly tea light (perfect for my silver sparkly tea light holder), a yummy hot chocolate kit, a candy cane to dip into my yummy hot chocolate kit and a scalpel with spare bladses AND lovely shimmer paper to use for my cut outs.  This isn’t a kit, it’s Christmas!

Four styles of paper cut templates, all on the theme of Hygge, one of them is a template for a gorgeous little house.

My paper cutting skills are not brilliant (I once spent an entire afternoon cutting out my daughters’ names in scriptina font for a scrapbook project.  Those were the days before electronic cutters when your only option was by hand, a bulky sissix, or if you were lucky a quickutz.  Scriptina is a fine flowing font that looks gorgeous but is a killer to cut!

 

See what I mean!

So I was relieved to see that the designs look more manageable for a non expert like me!  First attempt will be posted shortly,  I have some time this evening and tomorrow and am really looking forward to getting my scalpel out again.

The lovely kit was from Amy Purdie at Embellish Cuts and costs an average of £18 (there are several plans you can opt for)  with free P&P within the UK.  During the course of the month the templates are exclusive to Embellish Box Subscribers.  At the end of the month the templates will be available for sale on Etsy, however Amy guarantees that the cost of the Box will always be cheaper than the individual templates and you get such lovely little extras too!  You also receive the templates in pdf and svg format so you can use them again and again (I didn’t realise this and scanned mine 🙂 )  Commercial licences are also available.  You can see more of Amy’s work here.

I recieved this box for free in return for an honest an unbiased review.