Excitement on the last day of March

Unbelievably we have arrived at the end of March. My parents celebrated their 61st Wedding anniversary at the weekend. I recently enjoyed lunch at the garden centre with them and as always we had a wonder around afterwards to see what new flowers are on display.

Just look at these beauties.

 These are called ballerina primroses and they are so pretty with their gorgeous frilled edges.

Plus lots of other bold colours

and other gorgeous blooms too.

 As they have received my anniversary card I can now share it on my blog. We always enjoy tea and cake and I thought I would use my Crafty Individuals time for tea stamp, for their card.  First I made a vintage background. I never tire of the combination of stencilling and texture paste to which I added gold embossing powder. I also stencilled some hearts. 

I stamped my image onto a book page and coloured it with distress inks.

The gold embossing powder gives it such a shimmer.

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

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday 1/5 anything goes
Stamps and Stencils Spring is in the air 
Artistic Inspiration  2/ 3 anything goes
Crafting from the heart 2/3 anything goes
Creative Inspirations 1/3 anything goes

I am getting very excited now as tomorrow is cause for a triple celebration; firstly my debut Design Team post for Country View Challenges goes live....and to find out what else I'm celebrating you'll have to pop by and see ;0) Now there's a tease. My post goes live at 6.30 am. If you're up that early why not have a read over your morning cuppa...if note I really hope you can join me at some point during the day.

Back in the morning.

Bye for now,

Jane x

March winds

Wow the weather certainly turned topsey turvey over Easter. From sitting in the heat of the sunshine in the garden on Friday to the tempest of Storm Katie who blew her way in during Sunday and screamed around during Monday morning.

We were lucky enough on Sunday to find a couple of sunny hours in the afternoon to walk off some of the Easter chocolate and to burn some energy off from my son's dog Bear. Bear loved "herding" us along the coastal walk and checking on Daisy sleeping in her buggy, oblivious to the wind.

I wish these photos had a "hearing" part as the wind was really howling

The Marina looked gorgeous in the sunshine

But just look how choppy the water was

But Bear is never put off by the weather

It was a fab walk and when Daisy work she amused us by donning her sunglasses

As the weather closed in we returned to our daughter's home and all enjoyed a wonderful roast gammon dinner cooked by my SIL and shared around the table by my Hb and I and our dear children and their partners. Such treasured family times. 

My card today is another Easter card I made using the same techniques I used for my March Tim's card version of his tag here
I stamped out a whole sheet of sentiment using my Visible Image Bronte senitment stamp

I the added a mixed media die cut page

 and then add some bright spring colours using gellatoes

 I prepared a corrugated front

 and die cut lots of spring flora and fauna

So then it was time to put my card together.
This is what I made

.... bright butterflies being admired by some little birdie friends. I used lots of inks and sprays to create the bark appearance of the card and the birds.

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

Anything but cute crazy for colour
Allsorts  2/3 wings
Emerald Creek Dares Easter Parade
Stamps and Stencils Spring is in the air 
Butterfly challenge M is for margin and/or mint
Artistic Inspiration  1/ 3 anything goes
We love to Create 1/2 anything mixed media #7
Crafty Boots 1/3 spring is in the air
Crafting from the heart 1/3 anything goes

The weather has calmed down again and the evenings are so light now after the clocks sprung forward. I have lots to look forward to this week.... I will share more later this week.
Thanks for visiting,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Hopping by with some Easter Greetings

Hello everyone and Happy Easter. We are heading off to Southampton for a Daisy and Co Day. The weather flipped completely from Friday.....wow what a glorious day that was. It's now gale force winds and rain. Hopefully we can get out for a walk and exercise off some of the chocolate between the rain showers. My son and his GF are joining us too....a perfect family Easter day.

Talking of chocolate these little ones made it into Easter bags for my big babies.

 I made some quick tags as I ran out of crafting time what with making my daughter's 30th birthday cake etc recently.

 Daisy still doesn't eat chocolate (she doesn't like it...but I am sure she will soon) so I bought her some new clothes and a little Easter craft book. Like her Nanna she is a real make and do girl.

I have not share a cutie card from me for a while so I thought today was the day to put this right.  I still love LOTV and I had a pre printed image of theirs which I used for an Easter card for my darling daughter and SIL.

I still love ahhhh cards, don't you?

The chicks are Cheery Lynn, I coloured them with distress inks.  The eggs are Memory box. The paper is from my ancient stash and the sentiment is also LOTV.

I would like to enter my tags into the following challenges;
Creative Corner 1/3 anything but a card

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;
Memory Box blossom and bunnies 
Pixie's snippets playground #222
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday 3/5 come rain or shine These sunny chicks certainly cheer me on such a rainy day!
Crafty Boots  3/3  Easter
Sparkles  2/3 make it girlie
Fussy and Fancy 1/3 pastel colours
Allsorts 1/3 wings
Paper Creator 2/3 spring colours

I would like to extend a very warm welcome to my 2 newest followers. It's lovely to have you on board following my crafting journey.

Have a peaceful Easter day whatever you do. Thanks as always for your visits and kind sweet comments.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

G is for

First of all can I thank everyone who left such positive and kind comments on my last post. I enjoyed my first day of retirement yesterday and after celebrating over lunch with my dear friend Karen I was itching to do some crafting and enter some challenges. The fun continues with the dictionary challenge over at The Craft barn and the letter this fortnight is G. There are also lots of challenges asking for spring and Easter themed projects.

After some deliberation I whittled it down to 2 possibilities...golden and garden. I chose G for Garden and decided that gold would feature out there too, just right for a sunny Easter garden.

I also bought a recent new set of Paperartsy stamps, I had to buy them as the are all about Daisies.

Today is just glorious. The sun is really hot on our patio and I have got the washing out, I can hear the bees buzzing and the birds are singing their little hearts out.

The flowering currant is attracting the bees but I could not get a shot, they were too quick

My acers are waking up with lots of new shoots

 Even Old Choc is enjoying the sunshine

and sunshine can only mean one thing

Time to get out the chairs and sit and enjoy a cuppa or two with this sweet boy under our chairs.

For my journal page I started off adding some texture paste to my art journal page

 I added gold embossing powder to create my golden garden and added a sentiment. I then started blending some Spring garden distress ink colours. The embossing acts as a resist.

I stamped and coloured the Daisies with distress inks and fussy cut them out. 

I also used some bister and die cut CL butterflies from the inky coloured card.

So once I had my background made I got busy with a little more stencilling and adding my embellishments. 

Here is my finished page.

 Here is my definition...my garden certainly is my pleasure ground and I certainly am a gardener according to my dictionary!

It will not be long before I have butterflies there too. 

I would like to enter my Easter garden art journal page into the following challenges;

The Craft Barn  dictionary challenge My G is for garden
Little Claire's  3/3 anything goes
Ribbon Girl  3/3 any image
Whimsy  3/3 spring colours or Easter
Deep Ocean  2/3 Fave colour combo I have lots of fave combos but greens/ golds/ yellows is one of them.
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday 2/5 come rain or shine This page I hope shares my sunny Easter holiday in my sweet garden. The rain bit is to come as the forecast is not looking good!
Sweet Stampin  2/3 Easter
Crafty Boots  2/3  Easter
Penny Black and More  3/3 feature a creature
Stamping sensations 2/3 flower power
Vintage Stamping at least 3 layers I have 5;  the inks, the stencilling the stencilled embossing, the stamping and the die cuts.
Sparkles 1/3 make it girlie
Wow embossing powders March challenge
Creative Corner 1/3 anything but a card

Right I am heading back to the garden to make the most of this glorious day...and I know you are all loving my hellebore photos... so here's  another that |I just snapped.

Just bliss........I'm going to put on the kettle and just sit ;0)

Thanks so much for visiting. Enjoy the Easter holiday.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane xx