Crafting with Mr Thrifty + GIVEAWAY

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED

...

AND THE WINNER IS!

Mr Thrifty and I have been crazy busy this year. Neither of us finish working until 9pm earliest and we've had little or no time to relax of an evening for months and months on end. Things like that start getting to you. 

A few weeks ago we decided to sit down once a week, before 9pm (shock horror) and mess about, play games or craft. It might sound twee-er than Martha Stewart jacked up on heart shaped Skittles but meh, like we care. So we've been playing with Lego, making Christmas cards and on Tuesday we tried out cold enamelling.

I'd been sent out a cold enamelling kit from Homecrafts and if I'm honest taking one look at the kit scared me off and I allowed it to sit on a shelf for a few weeks. However we took the leap this week and it was so much fun and relaxing to boot. I'd never heard of cold enamelling in my life until the PR team got in touch with me but it is basically everything you can do with regular enamelling but without a huge, great big kiln taking up half of your living room.
 

The kit comes with everything you need down to measuring cups, rubber gloves and mixing sticks, so all you have to do is read the instructions and get to work.

How does it work? I have no idea about the technical side but we chose our colours measured them out and added some hardener, mixed well and allowed to set for about 10 minutes. Then you just go to town with adding it to whichever surface you please, mixing colours together and making patterns as you go.

We added our cold enamel to decorative brooch blanks in the hope that they'd turn out nice enough to give to someone as a gift and I was pretty chuffed with the results especially because this was our first attempt. 

Mine is the white and Mr Thrifty's the red, I much prefer his - I definitely need some practise.  What do you think?

Big thanks to Homecrafts for opening our eyes to something we'd never heard of and thank you for allowing us to reclaim another of our evenings back from work or staring at a screen.

Craft Giveaway

If you fancy winning a Cold Enamelling Kit from Homecraft worth £22.99 check out my giveaway below.

Here comes the science bit, concentrate

To enter you must

1. Leave a comment on this blog post telling me how you like to relax of an evening.

2. Follow this blog via GFC or RSS. 

3. Leave an email address with your entry.

For one further entry you may

4. Tweet - " I want to win crafting goodies with @athriftymrsuk and @HomeCraftsUK http://www.athriftymrs.com/2012/11/crafting-with-mr-thrifty-giveaway.html "

PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR TWITTER HANDLE

Rules 'n' stuff

1. This giveaway is to UK residents only.

2. You must be aged over 18 or have the permission of your parent or guardian to enter.

3. You must complete steps 1-3 as laid out above. Step 4. is not essential but will give you one further entry.

4. This giveaway is open until FRIDAY 7TH DECEMBER 2012 at 12.30Pm GMT, with the winner announced shortly afterward.

5. Homecrafts Direct are responsible for delivering the giveaway prize.
6. The giveaway will be picked at random with the aid of random.org.
7. If the winner does not respond to contact within 28 days I reserve the right to redraw.

8. Incorrect entries will be considered invalid and not entered into the draw.
9. Invented methods of entry do not count - for example 'contact me via Twitter' in place of email or Facebooking rather than tweeting etc.

10. No cash alternative will be offered.

11. Step 4 will not count without steps 1,2 and 3.

Good luck!

TTFN,

P.S. I've made some free Christmas playlists and I shared them here earlier today.