August crafty haul

So I decided to treat myself this month with a big old haul of stamps and other supplies.

I love House Mouse stamps and I have a few Christmassy ones, but nothing really for other occasions, so I splurged on lots of different stamps.

I got the Daisy Float, Baby Blocks, School Supplies, Hopeful Mouse, Stack Of Books, Musical Mice, Cheesy Gift, So Big, Ballerina Baby, Joyful Noise and Potted Mouse stamps. I've already got plans for a birthday card for my niece with the ballerina (she really likes Angelina Ballerina) and a card for my mom, who's a piano teacher, with the Musical Mice one.

I forgot to take a photo of this one, but with my order I got a free gift as well of a Josephine Wall Project Book with CD Rom. I've had a quick flick through the book and it looks quite interesting - very different  to the sort of cards I usually make though! It could be fun to have a play around with them at some point.

I really needed to get myself some more brushes, because I'd been replying on a tiny travel paint palette set brush for my watercolour pencils. I went into the PaperWrite shop in town to look for some and they had these water brushes in, so I thought I'd try them instead.

They are fantastic! They hold a lot of water, they don't leak, and the tips are lovely. You don't have to squeeze them as you go along because there's a reservoir just below the nib. As you can see on the picture, the nibs have picked up some of the colour from the pencils I've been using, but it's stained into the fibres and isn't transferring on to anything I'm working on. I just wish I'd found them six months ago!

I picked up a set of Derwent watercolour skin tone pencils as well, because I didn't really have anything that was working quite as well in my other pencils. It's a nice selection of colours and I have used some of them, but still have more to do. The quality is lovely though (as you'd expect from Derwent).

My final item was a white chalk ink pad, just because I don't always want to stamp my sentiments in dark colours, and I wanted something to show up on darker paper.

Actually I tell a lie, I picked up some PVA glue in a fine tip applicator bottle as well!