Quilted greeting cards

Last month I bought the Quilt Square Cover-Up die by Die-namics, and this week I had a play with it to see what it looked like. You can't see it in this picture, but the die has stitch detail around every piece and looks particularly good on card or thicker paper.

I kept it simple for these note cards, paper piecing different patterns of paper with brown card and adding stamped and coloured images on top. I will add sentiments as well when I use the cards so I can customise them for the occasion.

I cut down one of the cards to the size of the die - 4"x4" - which looked very effective, and kept the others as the full 4"x6" size to allow space for the sentiment later.

Gardening birthday card

I needed a card for my dad's birthday this week. Usually I go with a vintage vehicle theme, but he also likes gardening so when I saw these papers I thought I'd change things up this year.

I started by matting a piece of welly patterned paper on brown card then tied green and brown baker's twine around the card and secured it on the back with tape.

I cut out the seed packets from another piece of patterned paper and cut a banner from white card ten matted them as well. I wrote 'happy birthday' on the banner and stuck it to the background with double sided tape.

The packets were stuck down with foam tape, and to finish I threaded brown gingham ribbon down the side, then attached the panel to the front of the card with foam tape.

 What I used:

• Card base with holes cut for ribbon
• Ribbon, baker's twine and brown card from my stash
• Papers free from a magazine
• Scissors, foam tape, double sided tape, black fine liner pen

Newton's Nook review

I get most of my stamps online, usually from eBay, but occasionally when there's something I particularly want I go straight to the manufacturer. I love the Newton's Nook stamps (probably because I'm a cat person!) so I wanted to treat myself to some stamps ready for the new year.

I was really impressed when I opened the package and inside were my stamps, wrapped in bubble wrap and sealed with a piece of pretty washi tape. Inside the stamps were tied up with a piece of baker's twine with a little card saying thank you with a picture of the real Newton on it. It was such a lovely little touch, I was really impressed.

There was only one downside to the whole thing, and that was the cost of getting them sent to the UK. The postage was actually reasonable ($6.50) but when they arrived I had to pay a customs charge of almost £15. I did know I'd have to pay something, but I wasn't expecting it to be that much - it was more than the cost of another set of stamps.

But I have found a UK distributor now (sevenhillscrafts.co.uk) so if I get the urge to buy any more then I know where I can go to avoid the customs charge!

On to the stamps themselves, I bought the Fox Hollow, Holiday Wishes and Newton's Christmas Cuddles sets.

I liked the variety of different sentiments on the Holiday Wishes stamp set, which is the main reason I ordered it, but the stocking and bauble strings are cute as well and I've got a few ideas on how to use them.

The sentiments are cute on Newton's Christmas Cuddles as well, but I thought these stamps are a lot more versatile. The kissing kitties and the cats with the intertwined tails could be a Valentine or anniversary card, and the presents and the cat in a box would do for any birthday. The same is true of some of the images in the Fox Hollow set, which I decided to get because I do have some friends who (very strangely?!) don't like cats!