Monday 14 July 2014

Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

We had a lovely family day out on Thursday as my Hb and my SIL took the day off work and joined my daughter, myself and darling Daisy at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show.

This post is very photo heavy so if you have come just to see my card challenge entry please just scroll down to the last 7 photos at the bottom of the post.

We have not been to the show for the last 4 years and if I am honest it is not quite the flower show it used to be. It is a very spectacular show but the emphasis seems less on buying flowers and more on buying very expensive furniture, building etc. There used to be several floral marquees now there were only 2. The cost for 2 to get in was also £68 which I thought was pretty high. However we still manged to find some lovely plants and there were still some spectacular floral displays. We were also incredibly lucky as the weather stayed dry all day. My parents who only live about 15 miles from Hampton Court had torrential rain all day.
We spent some time in the floral marquee, the displays were stunning. I love cacti and succulents, these were superb.
 Fly catchers of every kind
 Black and yellow lilies
 as well as the more traditional pinks.
 Flowers and vegetables together, these are tomatoes in the centre of the flag.
aubergines....
 and beans and cabbage.


 Outside I fell in love with this dahlia called Art Deco.

























In the Rose Marquee the colours were bold and themed around the circus. Roses are one of my favourite flowers but they struggle in my tiny garden. I still loved looking at all these beauties.
This is an incredible new rose called For Your Eyes Only and will be available from next year 
It's buds start off like this
Other varieties

some fun circus colours inspired displays





We enjoyed a lovely picnic by the water. Daisy could hardly wait to start.


After lunch we had another wander around and also enjoyed an ice cream again sitting on the picnic mat together, such special family time.
We looked at a few more displays before we headed home.


So what did I bring home then?
I  found a really great bag for sale, it only cost £1.40 and came with a copy of The Telegraph and a jar of jam.
I also managed to find and buy that wonderful Dahlia, Art Deco and enjoyed potting her up on Saturday
 I adore the little flash of pink that is on just a couple of petals....just gorgeous..it reminds me of Fruit salad sweets (if you remember those little square sweets wrapped up from the 1960s and 70s)
I also bought a lovely purple delphinium
 and a selection of alpines for my front garden.
I also decided on Saturday afternoon to make a new Moment for my journal. I wanted to use the colours of my stunning new Dahlia and also the yellows,bright pink and green on the bag. Pink is never in my usual colour palette but I thought they worked really well together.
I wanted to use the embossing resist technique so I used one of my favourite Rose stamps by Visible Image. I first stamped the roses with Picked Raspberry and Spiced Marmalade Distress inks and then added clear embossing powder. I heated with my gun to emboss them. I then chose Picked Raspberry, Lawn Green, Spiced Marmalade and Squeezed lemonade Distress and blended them on. It's fun the way the embossing resists the ink.I also flicked on some water using Tim Holtz's spritz and flick distress technique.
I loved this colour combo. It's so bright, very outside my normal choice of colours but so hot for summer!
Next I added some stencilling with my new Honeycomb T Holz stencil. I was really lucky to be a recent winner at Frilly and Funkie and my package of goodies had arrived during the week.

Once I had this background ready I started to put together my ideas. I wanted to use one of my new TH quotes which was also part of my prize. This is such an apt one. I stamped it using Leaf Green Archival ink

 I also wanted to feature more roses so I used one of Ignacio's Henderson Giants Images which are available on his website. I love these vintage rose images. I also wanted to remember our family picnic together so I decided that I needed a daisy (of the flower not baby version) and some grass.
So here is my finished Moment.
Here are some close ups, a little seed tag and a grass die cut
 and a daisy and leaves


I would like to enter my Moment into the following challenges;

Craft Stamper Take it Make it  the embossing resist technique
A Vintage Journey Dies and Distress
Country View Stencil it
My Mum's Craft shop summer or bright colours
Stamping Sensations summer blooms
Whimsy Stamps summertime
Frilly and Funkie summer heat with a flower
Pan Pastels inspired by Tim Holtz
Fashionable Stamping dreaming of summer
Artistic Inspirations 100th challenge, anything goes

The garden is looking gorgeous as the weather this summer has been a rather mixed bag but with sunshine and showers the flowers are in heaven and are blooming their hearts out.
Today the sun is back in a blaze of glory and it's scorching outside...my bold colours seem really apt for such a hot day.

Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoyed visiting  the flower show with me and my rather bright Moment for Jane's Journal.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

33 comments:

  1. Ah this is lovely, what a great card, I adore the bright colours. WOW I can see why you fell in love with the Dahlia, its a beautiful colour. I think I could spend hours looking at your pictures. I love gardening. Thanks for playing with us on Whimsy Stamps Challenge this month, Love Hazel (Didos)

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  2. Woww Jane,,,,,,,what a gorgeus flower images,,,,on the festival,,,,,and all over so colorful and stunning journall,,,, yeahh,,,,,,,Thanks for sharing it..

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  3. Looks like you had a great day by the photos and Daisy, typical child just wanted lunch lol, but she is soooo gorgeous. Love your journal page, bright summery colours and definitely hot looking.
    Enjoy the week ahead.
    hugs Brenda xx

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  4. Hi Jane,

    Lovely post and I was just telling my husband about that show which I attended when we lived in London for a year (in 2000) I was trying to figure out what was the drink that all the ladies were having...Pimms' I believe?

    I also appreciate you opinion on the show. I had a lovely time but even in 2000, I thought it had little to do with flowers ;)

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  5. Looks like you had a wonderful time at Hampton Court, despite the high price tag! I love all things flowers, so would've been like a kiddie in a sweet shop - I just love that new rose 'For your Eyes Only', I saw it on the TV coverage and thought it was stunning! Great to see the veggies included too as we both love our garden produce (I picked my first cauli today as I couldn't wait any longer for it to get bigger! Delicious!)
    I'm really enjoying your memory pages and as I mentioned before, think it's a fabulous way to record events and special moments. Love the bright sunny colours on this one! Hugs, Lisa x

    And of course, beautiful pics of the prettiest flower at the show...Daisy Jane! x

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  6. Gorgeous photos Jane, what a brilliant day out, just my cup of tea! That mermaid looks very familiar though! ;)
    Your dahlia and your memory page are bright and beautiful!
    And yes I remember fruit salad sweets, I remember that unlike your entrance fee they were extremely good value with 4 of them for one old penny!! :)
    V x

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  7. Lovely! Thanks so much for joining us at the Take It Make It Challenge.

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  8. Oh my what a gorgeous post with all those yummy flower show photos. The dahlia is fabulous. I love your vibrant summery memory page with that gorgeous stenciled and stamped background. Thanks for joining us at Frilly & Funkie.
    Hugs!
    Cec

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  9. amazing photos Jane - and that mermaid one - fabulous xx

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  10. Hello my friend! What an amazing flower show you attended.. I truly ogled all the unique and exotic flowers and bouquets! I'm glad you got that Dahlia.. it's a stunner! I look forward to seeing your new flowers in your garden. Daisy is learning to be quite the lady very young! ((hugs)), Teresa :-)

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  11. Jane I so enjoyed this post! I love flowers and your photos are just gorgeous! Love the succulents and especially the ones with the beautiful mermaid!! ; )
    I never knew there were so many types of fly catchers, so unusual and mysterious. (great pic) And Black lilies, oh how exotic. Do love the color of the Art Deco dahlia, it will look so fabulous in your back garden. The roses are just fabulous and the new one is so delicate, love it! I especially love the banner for the flower show! Love it on the bag you purchased. I'm a bag collector kinda gal, I would have purchased one too!!
    Daisy is a little flower herself, lovely family day, xoRobin

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  12. Hello dear Jane,

    Lovely pictures, all those wonderful flowers and arrangements! And the sweetest Daisy to top of it all. The price tag for entrance was really a bit high but you had a lovely day and found both inspiration and some flowers to take home, not that bad after all?

    Have a lovely day, and many greetings from very sunny and hot Finland!

    Yours,
    Mia

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  13. Hiya Jane - I have so enjoyed looking through your amazing photos before reaching your fabulous artwork - love all the colours, the embossing and the use of stencils

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  14. Such an interesting post, thank you for taking us to Hampton Court Flower Show with you, Jane! I love your special Moment too, it is a really lovely one!!
    Helen xox

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  15. Such gorgeous vibrancy with this page Jane and scrolling down was a pure delight with all your photos.

    Thank you for sharing with us at Fashionable Stamping Challenges.

    Warm crafty hugs from Shirl x x x
    ShirlsCards.

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  16. Hampton is my favourite RHS show and your photos brought back great memories as we decided not to go this year. Love the journal page, so vibrant.

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  17. A stunning make Jane. wonderful colours and layout. It looks like you all had the most amazing time at the flowers show. The photographs are so beautiful.Thank you for joining in with us at A Vintage Journey this fortnight
    Hugs Annie x

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  18. What a stunner Jane and wonderful photos.

    Thanks so much for joining in our Summer Blooms theme at Stamping Sensations challenge.

    B x

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  19. So happy and bright! Thank you for playing with us at Craft Stamper challenge!

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  20. This is such a beautiful page! Quite understandable where the inspiration came from...super take and loved the vibrant colors.

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  21. What a fantastic source of inspiration for your beautiful piece Jane! Full of those vibrant summer colours it's a joy to behold. Thank you so much for joining us at Frilly and Funkie and A Vintage Journey. Jenny x

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  22. Hi Jane.

    I went to Hampton Court on the Tuesday with my sister and Aunts - I agree, it does seem to be more about the sales stands etc than the flowers and I'm always amazed at how few show gardens there are. We, too, had a lovely day though and I brought back succulents and fly catchers for the boys. Glad you had a good time and avoided the rain.

    Bethxx

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  23. Wow, this is stunning, Jane, beautiful colours and gorgeous summer blooms, perfect for our challenge at Stamping Sensations. Thank you for sharing it with us.

    Lynne

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  24. Stunning make! Thanks for joining us in our Inspired by Tim Holtz challenge at Premium Crafts Brands Challenge blog
    Anjie (DT)

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  25. Gorgeous card, thanks for sharing with us at the Take It Make It Challenge. Elizabeth x

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  26. Gorgeous!! Fab mix of colours .... Thanks for joining in with the Craft Stamper TIMI Challenge .... good luck! Linda xx

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  27. Beautiful moment captured for your journal:-)
    So happy you joined us over at the Craft Stamper TIMI challenge :-)

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  28. Thanks for taking us along, Jane. Beautiful flowers and creation for your journal.
    It's been a great year for lilies here.

    Happiest late July....
    Anne D.T.
    PlumCreek22

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  29. I really love your amazing page. I like the design and beautiful colours.

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  30. Gorgeous creation, thanks for joining Stamping Sensations, good luck.
    Happy crafting
    Tracy x

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  31. Love all the bright colours on your page, so much fun! Thanks for playing at CVC xx

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Jane x