Last days in June

It hardly seems a month ago that I was writing my last days of May post but here we are in the last days of June with July just around the corner. We are now into the second half of the year. Time has just flown by. I wanted to share with you some photos from a couple of weeks ago when we met up with the family for a walk in the country. We met at Frensham Little Pond in Surrey as this is a good mid point us.
The Little and Great ponds were created in the 13th century to provide fish for the Bishop of Winchester. This area of outstanding beauty is now managed by the National Trust. It is such a beautiful spot and ideal for my son's dog Bear to enjoy walking and swimming off the lead.

We met for a picnic and then walked for about 3 hours exploring the many footpaths.
Here are some photos.

My challenge piece today is a nature inspired money wallet I made for a recent birthday present.

I would like to enter my money wallet into the following fun challenges;

A Vintage Journey celebrations Mine is a birthday money wallet

Anything but cute Make it masculine

The Artistic Stamper summer is on its way

Noor! UK here comes summer

Creative Inspirations your favourite crafting item here is it my Distress ink pads....I think I use them on every crafting project

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes

Stamp and create summer fun

Penny black and  more wings and things my birds on the front of my wallet have wings.

Mixed media World fathers day or masculine

Simon says Stamp Monday summer

Crafty ribbons anything goes

I am back on Thursday with a Guest Designer post for the Crafting Muskateers. I have made something very different, do pop back to see it. I will also have a sneak peek of my upcoming giveaway.

Enjoy the end of June and thanks for visiting.  Tomorrow I will be somewhere very special for the day with my Hb.......I am so excited. Would you like a clue.....and yes I will be taking my camera.

Back on Thursday. I think I will need a sunhat this week...it's steaming here and 34c due by Wednesday...phew what a scorcher ;0)

Bye for now,

Jane x

Happy mail and a holiday Moment

I had a great day on Thursday catching up with lots of projects both in the garden and for my crafting. The weather was perfect, warm and sunny and I spent all day out there with Billy.

The door bell rang at 9am and my Postie handed me the most amazing envelope hand decorated from Norway... ..

How cool is this! I really chuckled as I read "Only dull people send dull envelopes"

even the back was hand stamped.

I recently won a prize in Rubber Dance's birthday giveaway . This is my wonderful prize which Bibi sent me, including a couple of extras.

The main plate is the amazing retro beach sheet...I will have such fun using this.

Bibi also sent me these fab extras...a sun, some shells and some circles.

I am still working on my Sicily holiday journal so they were just perfect and they arrived at the perfect time. I decided to use them on a page of my journal which I was about to start work on.

This time I was making a page for the lovely park which my Hb and I used to visit each day to sit and eat or lunch and relax. This was such a haven from the heat and the view was stunning.

 Each bench was cut in the bougainvillea hedge. Such a pretty setting.

On one of the days I sat and made a little sketch of the bougainvillea in pencil and when we got back to our hotel balcony I sat and coloured it with Inktense pencils. I then stored it safely until I got home. I am not an artist, my freehand drawing is pretty basic but I still had great fun trying.

 I wanted to incorporate this little sketch in my holiday journal as a Moment so yesterday I made myself an inky page using distress inks and stencils.Lot of spraying and inking .

I used 2 of Tim's fab new distress ink, fossilised amber and abandoned coral and added picked raspberry.

I loved the blend these colours make...they just shout summer to me.

I  added some stencilling too

And yes my new Rubber dance sun looked just perfect on my page. I stamped it with red archival ink












I made holes for my ring binders so that I could place my elements correctly without making holes in them.

 Here is what I made.

Here are some close ups

you can see my great sun stamp here. (Thanks Bibi x) I have used some Joanna Sheen, Cheery Lynn, Sizzix and Tim Holtz die cuts. I rubbed a little gilding paste on the ivy for some golden sheen

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


PaperArtsy stencils I love using stencils and have used 2 different ones here.

Frilly and Funkie It's summer

Simon says stamp Mondays stamp and mist

A Vintage Journey celebrations I am celebrating my recent holiday by creating a Moment for my Travel Journal.

The Artistic Stamper summer is on its way

Noor! UK here comes summer

Creative Inspirations your favourite crafting item here is it my Distress ink pads....I think I use them on every crafting project

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes

Stamp and create summer fun

Stamping sensations dies and punches


My holiday journal is still very much a WIP at the moment. I  am really enjoying making it but it will still take a couple more weeks to finish. Thanks for visiting me today and I hope you enjoy your weekend. The weather is forecast to be really hotting up here.....a heatwave is apparently on its way and we are being warned of  temperatures hitting 32-34c in the South Of England next week....phew! I am glad my garden is all tidy now, I think we might need to get the fans out for indoors and my studio.We are out and about but tomorrow is day at home....perhaps it will be Pimms O'Clock in the garden ;0)

Take care,

Back soon,

Jane x

Fisher's Farm

I'm still playing catch up with some post sharing some of my Daisy Days I enjoyed before I went on holiday. Today I would like to share with you a super day out I had with my DD and Daisy a few weeks back. We went to Fisher's Farm in West Sussex. If you have children or grandchildren it is a super day out. We were concerned that there might not be enough to interest and entertain Daisy as she is only 19 months but she had a ball. The only thing I would suggest is perhaps to take a picnic. We found the restaurant a little disjointed to say the least.

Daisy absolutely adores all animals and to see her face and to hear her literally squeal when she saw the baby animals at the farm made my heart sing. When I watch her I am seeing the world through new eyes again. My favourite farm animals are pigs and I was thrilled to see there were some Gloucester Old Spot piglets...squeal (from Nanna this time)

and lambs too.

 

There were also small furry babies

There are plenty of play facilities even for toddlers and she went up and down the slide, and played on the swings endlessly.

I wanted to use my day out as inspiration for a some new art journal pages. I also wanted to enter some fun challenges. Scrap around the World have a great mood board to work with and PaperArtsy are working with stencils.

I also wanted to use this sweet photo of my darling Daisy in Jane's Journal...her joy and delight was palpable.

 So down in my studio this is what I created. I found an old atlas and tore out the pages where Fisher's Farm is situated.

 I stuck these into my journal and added some texture using paste through a couple of stencils

 I added some lace and tissue tape too. I made up some paint sprays by adding Fresco paints to water. I chose real "ice cream" colours as these colours always make me think of hot summer days and dripping ice cream (don't question the workings of my mind...you would never survive in there..LOLOL)

 I let the colour run down the pages... Mmmmm melting cholcoate ice cream.

 I love the way it formed drips.

 I also added my pink and cream paint sprays to represent vanilla and strawberry ice cream

This was the base I used for my pages. I didn't take any more photos as I just got carried away with the Moment but this is my final piece.

The butterfly, grunge border and long grass stamps are Visible Image. I used red archival ink for the butterflies and then I outlined them with a black Micron pen. I added lots of doodling again.

In the borders I created I added some more words. I wrote "Daisy Days" with a black Micron pen.

I love the way you can still see the map through the layers of paint and the way the lace has soaked up the paints.

and one final shot.

I would like to enter my pages into the following great challenges;

Scrap Around the World June challenge Below is the fab mood board we were asked to work with,

 I was thrilled last month that the very first time I entered this worldwide challenge I was one of the honourable mentions with my darling buds of  May Journal pages.  This month the board suggested ice cream and happy summer days to me. I was inspired by the pastel colours and the lines...this is how I got doodling my border around my pages. There is lots of texture in the board too so I added the lace on my piece and the stencilled texture paste. The words happiness also make me thing of my family and the happy times we share. My Journal is made by Dylusions with 8x5" pages.

PaperArtsy stencils I love using stencils with my mixed media work.

Frilly and Funkie It's summer

Love to Create anything goes mixed media

Simon says stamp Mondays stamp and mist I misted my background with paints and then stamped on top

Papertake weekly trio-tastic 3 of anything

The Artistic Stamper summer is on its way

Noor! UK here comes summer

Simon Says Stamp work it Wednesdays  refreshment My refreshment is ice cream...mmmm

Creative Inspirations your favourite crafting item at the moment this has to be my Dylusions Art Journal

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes

I had great fun with these pages. It was a super girlie day out. We had a wonderful family day last Sunday and yes I will share some photos from that day soon. We were so lucky with the weather as it turned out so hot and sunny and yet that night the heaven's opened, which my garden liked. I have a rare crafty day at home tomorrow so I hope to get ahead with the projects I'm working on and also do a little gardening. I hope you are all enjoy the last full week of June and the first week of summer. Thanks for stopping by.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x