Hana's Birthday Card

OK as promised, here is the birthday card I did last night for wee Hana's birthday tomorrow. We've also got her a lovely pair of Hello Kitty Pj's from Asda - I love Asda for kids clothes, such great value - and lets face it, they grow so quick.

I've taken a wee close up so you can see the glitter flock (what a shock eh??) although I'm still not doing it justice.

Image: Lilly Collection 1 from Grab-a-doodle coloured with promarkers and papermania glitter flock

Papers: Basic Grey - 2 Scoops, 

Swirl is cut using a sizzix die from Papermania Scrumptious paper

Anita's wide pink organza ribbon, papermania silver brads, Anita's silver peel-off greeting

edges inked with colorbox cats eye ink pad, papers shaped with Fiskars threading water punch

charm from Calico Crafts

Clare Curd's Launch Party

Clare's launch party is underway tonight and there's a treasure hunt..... with prizes!!

I've been feeling poop today, woke up absolutely smoring with the cold. Its just in my head though, my body feels fine but my head feels like it is stuffed with snot :(

Anyway, will be back after I have these kids in their beds and I can share some pics of the card I made for wee Hana. Not sure if I'm entirely happy with it, but tough! I don't have time to make another now

Keep your fingers crossed

Willow has a birthday party to go to on Sunday, one of her little friends will be 4 and I want to keep up with making cards for all the kids' wee friends (just so none of the mums feels left out really lol). So.. I have printed off some of my Libby and Lily images from Grab-a-Doodle in the hope that I'll get some time to make a card for wee Hana. Willow has another party in a fortnight's time - I tell you these kids have a much better social life than I do. My best friend Pamela only lives a couple of streets away and I'm lucky if I see her once a week (mind you I do talk to her twice a day on the phone haha). 

So wish me luck that I get time to do this card

No time yet to craft

today is another of my manic days - exactly the same as Monday minus the lego club. The girls have been in wahoo mode all day. So haven't managed to do much else but housework.

One of the ladies who comes to help me with Willow's bowel washouts had a look at the tag I made the other day and was so impressed she's asked me to make a 40th birthday card for her best friend with the stipulation that her "thing" is horses. I've had all sorts of ideas and can't wait to get a chance to play as its a subject I've never done for a card - should be interesting.

I'm also going to use the tag from the other day as a topper for a card and put it in my pile for Kirsty's Cards for Heroes Appeal (details are at the bottom of this post). 

Tag You're It - Week 46

This is the 2nd time I've entered a tag for the Tag You're It challenge blog, the theme this week was Circles and Swirls. Again I used the Willow with Hot Chocolate image as I thought it was most suited to this kind of tag. The circles (theres a yellow one and a green one) and the scallop circle was cut with my nesties and the swirls were cut using a sizzix die. Sorry about the photo - the bright daylight has washed it out a bit.

Papers: Basic Grey -  Two Scoops

Image: Willow with Hot Chocolate - Whiff of Joy, coloured using promarkers (sakura on the flowers and highlights) and my favourite Papermania glitter flock on the jumper and socks

Eyelets: We R Memorykeepers

Ribbon: Anita's

I survived!!

phew!! I made it out alive!

well, as always, the thought of a roomful of 2 year olds is actually worse than the reality. My heart did sink though, when I noticed that snack for today was tomato soup and bread (I had visions of me wearing most of it, and looking like something from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre), but someone was looking down on me as they decided to swap the snack round with tomorrow as there wasn't enough soup for all the classes - yay, so it was yoghurts for our lot instead.

I don't mind doing duty on a Wednesday as there's only 7 kids (8 today including Willow and Faith) and none of them are really wild. And I managed to have 2 cups of tea lol

So all in all it wasn't a bad morning really.

Have come home to quite a few parcels, stocked up on some Concord card and printer card from Caboodle; my Stamps order arrived which consisted of paper storage and ribbons mostly - aren't those Anita's ribbons a bargain at the moment??

I also received a gorgeous wee folder from Meahni containing masses of stamped images - thankyou so much Meahni, I can't wait to get started making with all of those (do you think Mar would notice if I didn't share them? haha)

Stop Press - Brand New Exercise Regime!!!

I have finally figured out an exercise regime for crafters - well, perhaps not lol This afternoon I was chatting on the phone to a friend of mine and I thought I'd ink up my new Whiff of Joy Spring Kit stamps. Managed to get my sheet of Kling-on from Silly Monkey Crafts, so had them all ready to boogie before lunchtime. So, I decided I would be as well stamp a few images of each stamp while I was at it - so I could utilise my new wee stamped image filing system. I stamped 5 each of the 6 main stamps from the kit, 5 of the wee chick, butterfly and basket stamps, 10 of the wee tree stumps. And because I was still yapping on the phone I went and got more of my Elisabeth Bell stamps from Sugar Nellie and Whiff of Joy and stamped 5 each of Claudia the Artist, Rope Swing, Flowers, Pickin' Apples, Willow with Hot Chocolate, Willow with Umbrella; then 5 each of Hamish in Wooly Jumper and Hamish in Kilt and last but by no means least my brand spanking new Party Dragon from LeLo Design which also arrived from Silly Monkey Crafts.

So if my maths is correct that should be exactly 100. And I was knackered! Its surprisingly hard work inking up 100 times and stamping you know!!

Well, I'm going for an early night tonight as I'm on 2's Group duty with Faith at 9.30am and I'll have to take Willow with me too - argh, a room full of kamikaze 2 year olds THAT early in the day, should be fun :{

Nowt done today

well there was no baking in this hoose today unfortunately - Monday is a bit of a nightmare...

1. take Scott to school
2. come home
3. take Faith to 2's group
4. come home
5. pick up Faith
6. come home
7. make lunch
8. take Willow to nursery
9. come home
10. pick up Willow and Scott
11. drop Scott at lego club
12. come home
13. make tea (well G went in for a BK for him and the kids)
14. get everyone organised before lady comes in to help with Willow's bowel washout
15. Willow's bowel washout
16. get hot chocolate for kids and get all ready for bed
17. settle kids (can take a few hours)
18. watch Heroes on BBC2
19. shout at kids for putting the telly back on
20. watch next episode of Heroes on BBC3

So it was all go today, but I took half an hour out this afternoon to make a start on the tag for the Tag You're It challenge. Not sure when I'll get it finished but hopefully before the challenge ends lol

G's away offshore tomorrow morning so prepare yourself for the inevitable nervous breakdown sometime over the next fortnight :{

Willow and I have been baking.....

ok we cheated!! Asda have some great wee bake at home kits which are just ideal for baking with wee ones.

So first we made fairy cakes...

then we made gingerbread men...

although one of them turned out visually challenged (please don't take offence, none is intended) and another one appears to have been involved in some horrific industrial incident.

So I'm in domestic goddess mode at the moment - don't be scared, these brain-farts I take now and again don't last very long haha - and have got all the ingredients in to make banana choc chip muffins, butterscotch spice muffins and individual carrot cakes, so I'll get to them later (NB this is deliberately non-specific, later doesn't necessarily mean today)

Done the other 2 outta 3

We've had quite a busy day today again, Graham's been laying more laminate in the bathroom and done a bonny job - am sure you don't need to see pics of oor lavvy though lol

I managed to finish the card I started making yesterday using one of the new Elisabeth Bell stamps from Sugar Nellie and I really enjoyed it. The image is a joy to colour and I thought I'd try a colour scheme that is well out of my comfort zone... and I also got the chance to play with my favourite thing of the moment - glitter flock :)

                                                     

Card/Paper: Lemon core'dinations card, Papermania Spring Burst paper

Image: "Spring Has Sprung" by Elisabeth Bell for Sugar Nellie

Coloured with: Letraset Promarkers, Sakura Gelly Roll - white, Papermania white glitter flock

Flower: Papermania silk and mulberry, papermania brad

Other: Green organza ribbon - Dovecraft, "Grass" border empuncher

I also made a quick bookmark for Manda, she's borrowing Twilight and New Moon from me and Graham bought them as part of a hardback boxed set for my xmas, and I'm a bit funny about folk breaking the spine of books - almost as bad as Mar is :) Manda's fave colour is yellow so I thought I'd stick with the fresh look and keep it simple...

Card: Yellow Core'dinations

Epoxy stickers: Laura Ashley

Eyelets/Grommets: came with the Crop-a-dile

Stamp: free in Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine

Ribbon: Dovecraft green organza, Dovecraft lemon satin

I've also made a start on the Tag You're It challenge for this week - Circles and Swirls, but I won't post that until I'm finished.

As you know, we live beside the sea just south of Aberdeen, and for the last 3 or 4 nights we've seen a large.... something!?!.... out to sea directly East of us. So I took a wander out the garden gate and down to the next corner to see if I could get a picture of whatever was out there. It looks absolutely huge, all lit up like Blackpool Illuminations at night, but guess what? there's now no sign of the bloody thing :( But while I was out with the camera anyway I took this shot to show you how close we are to the sea - this is taken about 20 yards from our garden gate...

That track takes you all the way down to a wee cove with a beach. Unfortunately, because of my gammy hips, I don't get down there unless its dry enough for me to take the car most of the way down. I think I might make a point of doping myself up to the eyeballs on my pain meds and trekking down there sometime soon just so I can show you all how pretty it is.

And on my way back through our garden I thought I'd try out some nature shots - I know they're not fantastic, I have many talents but photography isn't really one of them lol

Crocuses breaking through

 

Catkins on my Twisty Hazel aka Harry Lauder's Walking Stick

Happy Birthday Cath

My little brother's girlfriend/bidy-in is celebrating her birthday on the 24th so I thought I would use the Sugar Bowl, Challenge 4 - One to make her birthday card. The challenge is: Create a card using only one piece of patterned design paper.

So my one piece of paper was an 8x8" sheet from the Papermania Colossal For Him range, which I used to cover a jump card (if anyone's interested I can post a tutorial as its very very easy) and let me tell you its quite fernickity to cover the card in one go, but I managed.

I inked all the edges of the jump card with a navy Ink It Up pad to give it a bit of definition. I then added a length of cream wide organza from Anita's and used another small piece to tie a wee knot. 

The image is Sweet n Sassy designed by Elisabeth Bell for Sugar Nellie and is stamped with Memento Dew Drops and coloured with promarkers. I used a sakura stardust pen to accent the heart pendant, the belt buckle and the stitches of the patches on her jeans. I used lemon Pearl Pen to accent the centres of the flowers. I then inked round the image with the navy inkpad and matted it onto orange core'dinations card and added a couple of orange papermania brads before attaching it to the card with 3d foam tape. And finally I added a charm from Calico Crafts.

My mum and dad were round at lunchtime and mum was asking what I use to cut shapes for my cards, so I trailed through the X-cut shapecutting system and the cuttlebug and all its paraphernalia and she thought the cuttlebug was fantastic - although she did just about fall in a heap when I told her how much it cost. I also showed her the stamps I've bought this year; all my Sugar Nellies, the Sarah kay's and the Whiff of Joy's including the brand new Spring Kit that arrived yesterday. I had a load of stamped images that I had done with Stazon, so she's away with some of them as she quite likes to use her watercolour paints.

Seeing as the crafty stuff was out, Willow and Faith decided they wanted in on the act too and dad was "helping" them

That's all for now folks, as a certain Mr Bunny used to say.

Woohoooooo new things

At last!! the Whiff of Joy Spring stamp set arrived - and dopey-lugs here forgot she had run out of U-mount, EZMount etc, so I thought I'd take a wee trip over to the Papeterie, but no they didn't have any argh!!

Now I can either leave the sheet of rubber stamps intact and wait for my order to come from Silly Monkey Crafts (as it'll be much easier to cut it all out in a one-er) OR I can cut them all out now and just use a glue stick to stick them to acrylic blocks to use RIGHT NOW!! what would you do?

So, while I was at the Papeterie I picked up some bits and bobs to play with - and Mar is gonna love this.... they have loads of the Smirk range from Trimcraft (which I can't stand) and I actually picked up a couple of their ribbon reels. Yeah yeah, my excuse is they are not printed and therefore it doesn't matter a damn to me what the packaging says on it :)

The Papeterie is now stocking Bo Bunny stuff so I'll have to have another trip over there - mucho yumminess including the Stuck on you tins.

Think I'll have an early night tonight - Graham is not feeling too well and I'm not feeling particularly energetic either.

Some pics at last...

Here, as promised, are pics of my craft space after I tidied it up - yes this IS tidy lol. My craft space takes up one wall of my and Graham's bedroom, Graham likes to tell everyone we have a craft room with a bed in it but that's just not true. So, this first pic shows a deep bookcase from Argos filled with a load of Craft-Tonic (Do-crafts) purple storage boxes in various sizes. They house my ribbons (the ones that aren't on reels), flowers, misc embellishments, shape cutters, 8x8" papers etc. The stripy box holds my cuttlebug and all its dies, embossing folders, cutting plates etc. Above that is an old shelf unit turned upside down and plonked (that's the technical term) on top of the bookcase, and that holds all my bigger punches, button and bead jars and my sticker container.

All the wires and cables are for the telly that Graham decided to hang on the wall above MY craft space, he has some gubbins (another technical term) for relaying the signal from the Sky box in the kids room to our telly.

Next is a view of my desk, which is actually the dressing table Graham bought me when we moved here 6 years ago. Graham put a shelf above it for me and I have cobbled together a makeshift ribbon storage - I just tied a bit of cord between the brackets and threaded on the ribbon reels (If you didn't already know, one of my personal motto's is Adapt and Overcome ). The shelf is usually a complete disaster area as that's where everything seems to end up, but now that its tidy it's home to my wee brad towers, glitter flocks, glamour dust, glossy accents, stazon/versafine/memento ink pads, pearl pens, promarkers, and all my other pens/pencils/markers and tools. The desk/dressing table has 2 pedestals each with 3 drawers. The one on the left stores all my card blanks and the one on the right is home to glues/adhesives/tapes (top drawer), ink pads and embossing powders (middle drawer) and stuff for my holiday scrapbook album (bottom drawer).

And finally I have another Argos deep bookcase on the other side. On top of this I keep my magazine files, the wee drawer unit with stamps/acrylic blocks, my digital radio and lamp. I nipped out tonight and treated myself to a brand new lamp and craft-lite bulbs so that's obviously not in the photo. Underneath that are all my other bits and bobs, peel-offs and scrapbooks. And right at the very bottom is my box of xmas crafting stuff.

So there you go - that was your virtual tour of my craft space, and amazingly its still reasonably tidy :)

So, what else has been going on today? well, Graham decided to replace the carpet in Faith's room with laminate flooring - well the decision was made for him really, after the blue-emulsion-meets-Faith incident! I took the girls round to Pamela's for a couple of hours, then down to Matalan for hair accessory shopping (!?!) while he got on with it in peace. And can I just say he has made a cracking job, am really proud of him....

Faith says she loves her "new room" and we're not allowed in.......

Friends

I have been tagged by the lovely Lainy for this Friendship Award. Thankyou so much Lainy, I feel very honoured.

I am nominating the following people because they are a constant source of inspiration for me and they never hesitate to encourage me, and answer even my most stupid questions:

Kath

Beckie

and Tina

and to my 2 friends that I helped introduce to the world of papercrafting and just because I love them:

Mar

and Manda

Please accept this award and choose 5 of your friends to award it to.

Thankyou all for being a friend - or fiend in some cases lol

Tidy Up Time

I was politely asked to tidy up my craft space yesterday (my craft space occupies the wall at one end of our bedroom) so that is how I spent the majority of today as I decided it was worth having a bit of a clear out while I tidied. I also had to stop for the odd cup of tea and to make macaroni cheese for the kids tea. But its all good and pretty much sorted out now. My order from Crafty Devils Papercraft arrived today, which was pretty good service considering I only placed the order late late on Saturday night.  I ordered a Versafine inkpad in Onyx black as I can't seem to find full size Memento ink pads for love nor money. I also ordered the Do-Crafts January 2009 Goody Bag - they seem to have kept this one quite quiet, haven't noticed any info on the Do-Crafts website about it - but let me tell you its quite a good one. There was a full size pack of sweet nothings 12x12" papers, 12x12" Ten'tations core'dinations card (10 sheets of canvas effect), a full size pack of clear stamps, a pack of pink felt trimmings, a wee box of butterfly and heart shaped gems, a pack of motifations, a loopylou sticky alphabet, a pot of glitter strips, a colorbox cats eye queue and a Marie Curie make-a-card bag. Great value. And I decided to stock up on the Anita's ribbons that are on promotion at the moment, they're a snip at 69p a roll so I ordered a selection of wide and narrow organza, striped, and satin ribbons in browns, pinks and reds. And my last little treat to myself was the xmas selection of Papermania glitter flock powders. This stuff is so easy to work with and has a lovely tactile finish - if you haven't tried it, then you really must.

I also got an email last night to tell me that the Spring Stamp Set by Elisabeth Bell from Whiff of Joy has been despatched, so I can't wait for that to arrive so I can puddle around with it. I've been noseying through the blogs of the Whiff of Joy DT and I see there is an Oakley stamp in the spring collection so I'm quite chuffed to be getting a boy stamp to add to my Hamish's from Sugar Nellie.

Will post pics of my tidy craft space tomorrow, lets face it, it's not going to stay like that for long!! :)

well, 1 outta 3 ain't bad

Only managed to make one thing today, but hey-ho. So here it is, my very first tag for a challenge. And its for the Tag You're It! Week 45 challenge. The theme was Love & Romance, and here is my interpretation of that...

I tried to take some close ups to show the glitter flock I used for Willow's jumper and fluffy socks, and to show the pearl pen on the pink heart and Willow's jeans.

Recipe: I used a sheet of the darker pink paper from the BG Bittersweet 6x6 pad and folded it in half to make the tag. I used the Fiskars threading water punch to shape the bottom edge of the tag, and the crop-a-dile to make the hole and set the large eyelet at the top of the tag.

I stamped 7 blue hearts and 1 pink heart using one of the free stamps from Cardmaking & Papercraft Magazine and cut these out. I arranged the blue ones and stuck down, then used another of the free stamps to stamp the greeting on the pink heart and attached it with foam pads. Adding pearl pen accents.

I stamped the Willow with Hot Chocolate by Elisabeth Bell for Whiff of Joy using Memento ink onto Concorde card and coloured her with promarkers. I used papermania glitter flock in the bright pink to make her jumper and socks (using a quickie glue pen), and sakura white gellyroll to highlight various areas.

Finally I added ribbons and buttons from my stash.

As I've already said, this is my first attempt at a tag for a challenge, so please let me know what you think (and be honest, I can certainly take constructive criticism)

Guess what??

I may actually get some crafting done today - fingers crossed. And I might have something to show you, rather than waffling on about what else has been happening. The kids are behaving quite well for a change and I'm just browning some mince for the spaghetti bolognaise so that I can get a good couple of hours to make stuff.

The plan is (and I don't want to tempt fate here) to make a couple of cards for Kirsty's Appeal and to make a tag for the Tag You're It challenge, so watch this space......

Confessions

My name is Debbi, and I'm a blog-aholic!

Valentines pressies

Didn't get up to much exciting today at all. Nipped out to Staples to get some Concorde card for stamping. I bought the 6x4" size as I thought that was a good size for most of the stamps I have. I also bought a card index box and index cards for keeping them in. The idea is that I can stamp a few images at a time and file them away in their wee box for when I need a particular image for a card or project. I can also have a section stamped with Stazon for watercolouring and a section stamped with Versafine or Memento for colouring with the promarkers. And I can decorate the divider cards ;)

So here's the pressies I got from Graham for Valentine's Day....

This is a box of Momiji stickers, Pamela got me my first Momiji Doll 2 xmas's ago and I have a few more now. Visit the Momiji website to see all about them.

This is Clever Clogs, she likes boys who wear glasses...

This is Lolita, she likes angel cake and bumble bees....

and this is Love, she likes lollypops and love letters...

Aren't they so cute? They have a wee slip of paper for writing a secret message and hiding inside them too. 

Revenge is a dish best served cold....

If you have been following my blog you will know that Mar and I have manged to convert our good friend Manda into a crafter - although a little part of her is screaming at it being an expensive hobby lol. 

Anyway, Manda sent me a card yesterday, and when I opened it I thought - OMG!!! was she drunk when she made it? did she let a toddler colour it in? should I tell her to take her craft stuff back to the shop and ask for a refund. BUT I was torn, I really didn't want to hurt her feelings but I had no idea how to be tactful about it. I was sooooooooooo hoping she had sent me the card as a joke. But she called me and sounded offended when I laughed. I spent the whole day thinking "surely she can't be serious" and I was 99% sure she was winding me up. But there was that tiny 1% nagging doubt. I think, because she had made such a lovely job of her 1st card at Mar's house on Monday, she couldn't possibly have gone so horribly wrong lol

So, here's the offending article...

Manda has now come clean on her blog and admitted it was all a wind-up - and I can breathe a sigh of relief.

Manda, just so you know...... you're going to hell ;)

Parcels Galore

I'm back - the kids all had a great time at the Singing Kettle and I managed to steer them away from the souvenirs lol. 

So now I'll tell you about all the parcels I got this morning. I got 2 parcels from my good chum Mar - one was the crop-a-dile she got for me, which can I just say is fantabulous - I'll be punching holes in everything that's not nailed down from now on. So, thank you Mar for getting that for me and I hope I sent the money to the right account ;~)

The second parcel was from Mar too - this was my slightly belated birthday parcel and cards. The card Mar made is simply stunning - so classy looking. If you can't read the sentiment it says " There's nothing better than a good friend, except a good friend with chocolate". The Cafe Latte colour scheme is just gorgeous.

And here's the other card she sent me - because she just had to. Its so true lol

And these are all the goodies she sent me - thank you again Mar, there really was no need to get me anything at all, let alone so much xxx

There's some Bo Bunny All Stuck Up buttons in Wild Berry, and matching double dot ribbon. Some red grosgrain ribbon from the new Trimcraft Smirk range. I'm really touched that Mar remembered me mentioning that I have a real shortage of red ribbons. She also included a Little Miss Birthday book by Roger Hargreaves - cute as bits, and a box of Dr Samual Carter's Miracle Anti-Aging Elixir of Youth Rejuvenator - you cheeky bugger that you are!! lol It claims to banish wrinkles, revive sagging muscles, restore hair colouring, recover lost youth, renew lagging libido, replace lost firmness, relieve tired limbs, regenerate drying skin, revitalise aching bones and rectify fading memory :D So I'll be taking that in a bath very very soon :D

And my last parcel was from Woodcraft. I bought one of their flower-maker embossing punches at the end of last year and only used it once before I managed to jam the damned thing. So I thought I'd try emailing them to ask if they had any tips for removing the stuck paper. They first suggested I try giving it a sharp tap on a counter or table. This didn't work so the lovely lady in customer services told me their was a problem with this particular design (the ice crystal one) and therefore they had no stock to replace it, but they were quite happy for me to choose another design as a replacement. They didn't even want me to bother sending the faulty one back. So they sent it out yesterday and it arrived this morning - fantastic service. The lady even tried it out herself before she sent it out to make sure it worked fine.

So here is my new Bee's Jubilee flower-maker embossing punch

I also received a lovely card from another of my good friends and blogging buddies, Manda. She bought her very first watercolour pencils and coloured in a stamped image of Rope Swing from the Sweet Ebony Art collection by Elisabeth Bell at Sugar Nellie.

Well, I'm absolutely shattered - its been a long day, but I'll be back tomorrow with pics of the lovely valentines gifts I got from Graham and pics of the cards the kids made me.

Valentines Day

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! was your postie laden down with gifts and cards? Well just for a change, mine was - but more about that later.

I made a couple of wee gift pouches for Graham and filled them with chocolate hearts - one from me and one from the kids, you'll find the instructions for these on the Pink Petticoat Blog, so quick and easy peasy to make. I can't enter these for their February Challenge as I used free papers from a magazine, but I'll definitely be making more.

Have to go get ready to go to the Singing Kettle now, but I'll be back later to let you know everything else.

heatwave!!

according to the temperature gauge in our car, its a scorchio 14.5 degrees C lol

however, the snow's not melting as fast as I would've thought for that kind of temperature so its probably wrong. and the fact the weather on the radio said the max temp for today would be 3 degrees :)

I've been off into Makro to get a couple of chests of drawers. We bought a cheap "solid pine" set for Faith and Scott and both turned out to be crap. Makro stocks the Copenhagen range which matches all the other pine furniture we have in the house and its solid stuff. The bases of the drawers are wooden and not that crappy fibre/cardboard rubbish, so there's less chance of the arse falling out of the drawers. We've also found that the nylon runners are far better than metal runners too. So.... Graham's just finished putting together the first set. Supervised by Foreman Faith....

Makro seem to be expanding their art and craft range with quite a good selection of Derwent pencil sets, brushes, and they now have quite a few card-making accessories - worth a lookie if you have a Makro card. I managed to resist though - although I was seriously tempted by the Derwent watercolour and coloursoft tins.

And finally, did you know how much fun you can get out of a cardboard box?????