Blooming marvellous in the garden

Thanks for visiting me on Tuesday and your kind comments about my GD card for Ladybugs Craft Ink. I gave you a couple of photos at the end of the post showing two of my pots in the garden and I thought I would show you a few more as it really is that time of the year where the garden is just singing.

I have some really gorgeous purple petunia

My tomatoes are fruiting,

                                          my heart sings when I see these little fellows growing.

I have planted sweet corn again, this one is in a pot and the ears have appeared already.

I have mange tout growing with my runner beans

 and even in a hanging basket with a geranium

and I even spied a new rose blossom on my patio rose

I had a tidy up out in my tiny garden after work yesterday afternoon and of course my little helper was never far away

 My sweet Billy rolling over and over and getting very dusty

 but loving the sunshine.

The weather yesterday afternoon was much better than forecast which was a real bonus to come home to after work. It's the weekend again, hooray. We have a quiet one planned catching up on lots of things at home and I hope to pot on my tomatoes to their final pots and pot up one last pot of flowers to have down near my studio. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and find time to enjoy some time outside whether in your own gardens or out and about. 

My card today is inspired by my garden and uses one of Ignacio's wonderful roses printed images.This one is from the Henderson's blooms set available here

I decided to use some burlap to give it a real vintage garden feel. My granddad used to have sacks which he stored things gardening things in and even the smell of it transports me back to early childhood in my granddad's garden.

Here are a couple of close ups 

I added a vintage flower charm too. 

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

Emerald Faeries friends

Rhedd and Rosie anything goes

Crafting at the weekend anything goes

Crafting from the heart anything goes

Simon Says Wednesday anything goes

We do doobadoo ribbon

Crafty Catz anything goes

Simon Says Monday I ought to use this more I really think I ought to use burlap more I think it gives such a vintage feel.

Chocolate coffee and cards summer days

My card is for sale here in my Etsy shop

The heavens have just opened here, I hope the garden is enjoying its watering, it will save me one job today ;0)

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Guest Designing for Ladybug Crafts Ink Bloomin' Fabulous release

Blogger Dashboard problems. ****edit 25.6.14, this is all fixed, hooray!

I am delighted to be guest designing today for my great blogging buddy Kerry of Ladybug Crafts Ink. She has another fab new digi stamp release out today called Bloomin' Fabulous. I decided to go for really bold summery colours for my piece and I also wanted to make her an accordion card to showcase my lovely stamp.

Here is my creation and the stamp I used is called Bucket O' blooms. There are 12 gorgeous new floral stamps in this release do check out the website here. They are only £1.75 each and instantly down loadable. There are also lots of prizes over at the challenge blog here.All you need to do is leave a comment on the challenge blog...how simple is that? Do join in the fun and you could win some digis which are perfect for this gorgeous weather. There is also an anything goes challenge to join in with.

Here is a close up of the stamp which I coloured with Promarkers and added some highlights with Prismacolor pencils.

 I also made some floral panels using my distress inks and added some Cheery Lynn die cuts. I also coloured these with matching distress inks.

This is the sentiment I used which I generated on the computer.

and one last shot;

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

Allsorts how does your garden grow?
Totally Gorjuss flower power
Our creative journey flaming June
Emerald Faeries friends
Stamp and Create thank you
Rhedd and Rosie anything goes
Loves rubberstamps handmade flowers
Crafting at the weekend anything goes
Crafting from the heart anything goes

My own garden is blooming marvellous at the moment, my pots are looking so summery.

Thanks for visiting, enjoy the rest of the week. It's Wimbledon fortnight so no doubt rain will feature at some point ;0) It's also my last silversmithing class of the year, where on earth did that time go?

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Footsteps in Seville

Hello I am back to share my first photos from Seville where we spent our wonderful recent holiday. We stayed in such a central location that we were able to visit all the sights on foot. As it is very hot and humid and we had a whole week to explore we were able to go out visiting for half the day and then come back to swim and relax around the cool swimming pool..and sip a cocktail or 2.

On the first day we had a leisurely wander around taking in the beautiful architecture

The Cathedral is the 3rd largest in Europe, only St. Peter's and St. Paul's are larger.

 The inside was quite dark so I knew my little camera would not cope so I just snapped a few beauties which had some light.

 This extraordinary crown is in the Treasury

 We climbed the Giralda tower and were rewarded with wonderful sights on the way up as well as from the summit.

After we came out we treated ourselves to a cool drink in this shady side street.

We also went to an intimate Flamenco show, with just 80 seats and we sat spellbound in the front row. The singer had a voice which made the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. He was accompanied by the most talented guitarist and the dancers had feet which seemed to have speed that I did not know existed. It was a wonderful show. We were not allowed to take photos during the performance but afterwards they posed for a few.

The second day we spent at the Plaza Espana. This was built for the 1929 for the American/Spanish exposition and showcased Spanish industry and technology. The walls are lined with tiles showing the provinces of Spain. The building has a wonderful Art Deco feel, one of my favourite art periods.

 

I have been so inspired by our holiday that  I decided for the first time to try my hand at a piece of mixed media art to make a new "Moment" for my journal.  I bought several Art Deco postcards in Seville and chose to use one for the focal. I had the idea of using some pieces from the paper visitor's map which we used to tour the city. I ripped out a few pieces and added some grunge paste through my grid stencil I won from a recent We do doobadoo's challenge, to look a little like our feet walking around the city and leaving footprints. I also added some tissue paper which I scrunched to give some more texture.

I chose the colours which sing Seville to me; yellow,orange, green and red.

I painted orange flowers with acrylic paint through just the top of the flower from an Imaginations Crafts stencil and then started painting watered down acrylics onto my piece. I had penciled in where I wanted to put my postcard once the background was finished and dry
I then got so engrossed adding textures and colours that I forgot to take any more pictures! Sorry! Here is the lovely postcard;

I added some red lace to remind me of the passion of the Flamenco dancing and the red shoes the dancer wore.

The yellow rose is to remind me of all the gorgeous roses in bloom throughout the city and in the parks. It is a Visible Image stamp which I coloured with Distress inks.

You can see I added lots of layers including some stamping with a leaf rubber stamp using Archival ink and I added some remnant rubs numbers for the year. I also added some Tim Holtz chit chat works. If you look carefully you can see the little bits of the map I used and the grungepaste footprints. 

If you are curious about the little piece of green ribbon....it is from my glass of Kir Royale I sipped at our meal on the first evening at our hotel.........

and here it is on my glass ;0)

so finally the big reveal of my first Seville Moment

This will be stuck into Jane's Journal. I have lots of plans for another couple of Seville Moments.

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

The Artistic Stamper colour it red
Anything but a card summer lovin
Pan Pastel UK flora and fauna
Simon Says Monday anything goes
Craft Hoarders Anonymous spray/ink/paint/smear/emboss it!
Divas by design 3 or more layers
That's Crafty birds

I am off for some inky play again tomorrow in Southampton with Hels Sheridan and I will be able to see my daughter, SIL and Daisy in the evening as they are only 10 minutes away, so exciting. If you have missed how big she is growing, she is now 7 months and can sit alone! Hello from Daisy Jane xx

Back soon, enjoy the weekend, the weather in the UK is looking pretty good.....

I will be back on Tuesday as I am Guest Designing for my buddie Kerry of Ladybug Crafts ink...there is a lovely  new floral digi stamp release coming out , do come back and take a peep. 

Bye for now,

Jane x

Home again with Tim's tags of 2014 Jane's Journal style

Hello everyone, it's great to be back from my wonderful holiday. Most of you managed to guess my destination, it was indeed Seville. If you have never visited this beautiful city I would rate it as a must see along with London, Paris, New York and Rome. We stayed in the most extraordinary hotel, which I plan to write a post about in due course. I took 500 (yes that many) photos and I still need to sort through them. As I have done previously rather than writing 2 or 3 holiday posts straight I will show some of our adventures over the coming weeks.
As a little taster here are just a couple of photos.
The Cathedral

 Our hotel courtyard restaurant

 The view up to our room from my pool sun lounger

and of course lots of oranges

I had a little time at the weekend to get my fingers inky and I decided to make my Tim project for this month. Unusually for me I decided to make a tag and to base it on some of the colours which inspired me in Seville; orange, yellow, blue and green.
This month Tim shared a fun watercolour effect using stencils. You can read all about it here and this is the tag he made.

I don't have his butterfly stamps and I decided that as we saw so many beautiful flowers in Seville that I would use flowers for my stamped images. 2 of the flower stamps I used are very old Papermania and the gorgeous rose is by Visible Image.
These are the Distress Ink colours I used and I also used Tim's Clockwork layering stencil.

Tim showed how to ink up the reverse of the stencil with DIs and then carefully press this onto card.

 I had a play and actually preferred the effect I got using watercolour paper. These were 2 of my favourite prints and I chose the one on the right to work with.

I stamped out my flower images with Archival ink and then using my watercolour brushes I used the DIs to colour them with a sweeping technique Tim demonstrated.

Tim has matching dies to cut out his butterflies but I had to rely on fussy cutting out my flowers.

I decided to give some depth to the flowers and cut into the petals so that I could bend them up a little.I also coloured some crinkle ribbon to match using the same DIs.

 I used Distress paints to alter some TH metal Ideaology foliage.

So here is my finished tag

and some close ups

I used some TH words, most apt for my holiday inspired tag. You can just see how I cut into the flowers and my Visible Image Rose and folded the petals up slightly.

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

Tim Holtz 12 tags of 2014 June

Vintage stamping summer blooms

My Mum's Craft shop ink it up

Crafting Musketeers stamped image

Penny Black and More favourite stamp this rose stamp is one of my fave flower stamps

Crafty Ribbons anything goes with ribbon

A creative Romance anything goes

Stamping for the weekend anything goes

Sweet stampin say it with flowers

We do doobadoo ribbon

Anything but a card summer lovin'

Pan Pastel UK flora and fauna

Simon Says Monday anything goes

The Cupboard Trilogy use yellow

I am hoping to try to catch up with my blog reading over the next few days. I hope you have all been well and for those of you in the UK that you are enjoying the pleasant settled weather. It makes so much difference to come home from holiday and be able to dry the mountain of washing outside. Billy has been our little shadow over the weekend, he is very pleased to be home to his garden too. 

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x