The Phoenix ring....arises!

Ta-dah!!!!
 I promised that if I ever found a new stone for my ring I would share it with you. For those of you to whom this blog post title makes no sense I would take a quick detour and read this post first.

I had remade the claw I melted and carefully re soldered all my joints of this ring some time ago and then I put the ring back in my work box until I could find a new stone.
A few weeks ago the same stone seller that I had bought the original stone from last year came to our class. I told him of my disaster and asked if he had anything a similar size but not for similar money. I had already spent a fair amount on a stone which I had ruined and could not justify paying out more. He smiled and said that he did have a similar one, he had the matching pair to the original stone. Not only that but he gave, yes seriously he gave it to me. I did offer to pay but he quite flatly refused. I could not thank him enough. I did a little skip and returned to the work bench where I very carefully tapped the new stone in. I did no fiddling and although it is set slightly high on one side, there it will stay. So my Phoenix ring has finally arisen and I love it.

It's so very hard to photograph but it is a lovely deep purple and sits quite high on my middle finger...quite a talking point. I plan to wear it this Sunday when I am celebrating a certain day ;0)







The week has continued to be totally amazing, more like summer than spring. It reached 22c in my sunny garden and I had to have my door open to my studio to keep a gentle breeze blowing through.


Billy loved it.

He actually had to seek out some shade as he got too hot.

My magnolia is in full flower.

The tulips are out

Just look at the colours....so glorious.

I have been out in my studio every day whenever I can and have heard bees buzzing and birds just singing their hearts out. I even spotted a butterfly this afternoon when I got home from work. We are promised some much needed rain next week but I am just enjoying this bonus time in the approach to Easter. My cards have been mostly Easter themed and I think this one is a lovely reflection of my time in the garden this week. This is my challenge card for today.

This is a new rubber stamp I bought from Lili of the Valley in their Spring Sale called Gift Wrapped. The sweet bunny lends himself to all sorts of celebrations but I though his first outing would be for Easter.

I coloured him with my trusty Promarkers and highlighted with my prismacolor pencils. I used some lovely mulberry paper flowers to compliment the colours of the flowers of the backing paper. I added some glitter to the butterflies wings for a bit of sparkle. I even added a piece of my beloved lace stash..now that's a rarity! A couple of heart buttons tied with Baker's Twine complete my card.




I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;
Lili of the Valley Ideas to Inspire National Craft month
Top Tip Tuesday Easter/animals # 73
Creative Craft Crew Spring #7
Simon Says Stamp anything goes
Scrapbook Sisters Easter #77
Lili's little fairies anything goes
Divas By Design stamp something #28
Paper Sundaes Spring blossoms #113
Squirrel and Fox Easter #14
Stamping for the weekend #6 anything goes
Totally Papercrafts #110 Easter


I am so looking forward to the weekend as my children, their partners and my parents are coming to celebrate my birthday. Yes unbelievable it is a whole year since this day and this celebration. We are returning to the same hotel for Sunday lunch but we have a cosy private room for 8 this time.
I hope everyone enjoys a wonderful weekend and if there is no sunshine in your part of the world I'm sending you some ours. Enjoy ;0)

Bye for now,

Jane x