The first cut is the sweetest

As you may have spotted on Monday our sweet furry grandson came to stay at the weekend and he helped me in the garden. I was pleased to give my lawn its first cut...how amazing is that smell of freshly mown grass...wow it takes me back through my whole life...from childhood, right through to present times.

I'm not sure if you could really say that Bear "helped"....

 He did a fair bit of broom chasing....

 and gave no help with the sweeping up.

However who can get cross with the gorgeous boy

and he's rather photogenic isn't he 😍

So my lawn is now neat and tidy and all ready for spring.
I also have a garden of flowers indoors as well as outdoors with these gorgeous flowers my children sent me for Mother's day.

So my card to day had to be something bright and colourful.

The stamped sentiment is Lili of the Valley. I white embossed Tim Holtz' Lady Rose stamps and then added distress inks in a rainbow. The butterflies are Visible Image which I black embossed and fussy cut out. The greenery are Tim Holz greenery Thinlets.

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

Frilly and Funkie 1/3 count me in....I like the way this birthday sentiment is in days...365 of them!
A Vintage Journey all aboard
Crafty friends B is for mine is butterflies
Crafty Card Makers spring into spring
Simon says stamp Monday things with wings
Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes
Simon says stamp work it Wednesday 1/3 spring
Deep Ocean flowers everywhere
Creative Inspirations 1/3 anything goes
The butterfly challenge R is for repeat/and or the night sky I have gone for repeat and night sky....you might have seen my night sky I shared on my last post...there was every colour of the rainbow there that night!

Thanks so much for visiting me and for taking the time to leave your kind comments. Enjoy the last few days of this week. The sunshine has disappeared today but we are promised one more sunny today tomorrow, fingers crossed.  I will be back on Saturday, as goodness me, it will be 1st April and time for my next Country View DT post!

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

A mellow yellow Monday

Wow what amazing weather we enjoyed at the weekend.  I have been watching the bulbs sprouting in my pots and my tulips are looking great...the first to bloom was this lovely mellow yellow variety.

followed a couple of days later by these beauties

The eagle eyed of you will have spotted that Bear came for a visit....I'll share some photos later this week. 

My lovely tulips inspired me to go for something cheerful and bright for my Monday Design team inspiration piece for Visible Image today. 

I got out one of my favourite sentiments from the

Where dreams take you set

and used the middle and small sized dragonflies from the 

Live in the Moment set

 I put a circle mask into the centre of my card and repeat stamped the dragonflies using different yellow and oranges from my Distress inks.

You can just make it out in the bottom right larger dragonfly above that I added a wink of stella glitter to the wings.

 I black embossed some extra dragonflies on some inky card and then fussy cut them out.

 I added a wink of Stella glitter and then Glossy Accents for lots of shine and shimmer.

Then it was time to put my card together.

It was very hard to photograph as it is so sparkly IRL!

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

A Vintage Journey all aboard

Noor spring

That's Crafty 3/3 bling it up

Stamping Sensations 2/3 close to nature

Penny Black and More 3/3 anything goes

Uniko spring

Simon says stamp Monday layer it up

Remember that you are most welcome to join Visible Image over on Facebook;

Our friendly Group can be

found here

The main Visible Image page is here; there are weekly stamp giveaways...open world wide!

And the main web site is here; where all these gorgeous stamps can be found.

I really hope our sunny weekend turns into a sunny week ahead. The clocks went forward yesterday and it didn't dark until gone 7.30pm...bliss and just look at the sky as I shut my back door....

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Magnificent magnolia

I am lucky enough to have a magnolia tree in my garden. It was here when we moved in 34 years ago and over the years we have kept it quite contained with an annual severe prune. Despite keeping it pruned, every year I get a magnificent display of flowers. This week I noticed that the flower buds had started to open.

 They are such showy flowers...gorgeous.

As my magnolia was flowering I decided to go in search of the other magnolias I know in my locality. Sadly 1 had been massively pruned this year so had few flowers but another  I I know of looked stunning.

Just look at these beauties.

A neighbour also has a gorgeous camellia in flower.

I also noticed in my garden that the flowering current was also in bloom. What a cheerful sight this is.

This weekend it is Mother's Day so my card today is a Mother's day one I made for Dotty's. I used one of my popular Nicecrane digi images as the focal. My visible image stamped butterfly and gem in the centre of my Cheery Lynn flower die cut add just enough bling to my very vintage scene. The stamped sentiment is Clearly Besotted. I think the backing paper is Craftwork cards...?

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

Pixie's snippets playground #273/274 I used lots of snippets on my card.
Simon says Stamp Monday Layer it up
Simon says Stamp Wednesday more than 1 die I have used 4 here!
Squirrel's not so random challenge spring fever
The Ribbon girl 1/3 any image
Craft Heaven keep calm and love spring
Noor spring
The butterfly challenge R is for repeat/and or the night sky I have gone for repeat...the butterflies are repeated many time on my backing paper.
Crafty Hazelnut's Paper challenge March

Another week is nearly at an end and what a week it has been. After my very sad Monday there was all the trauma yesterday of the terrible terrorist act at Westminster. How my heart goes out to those totally innocent victims and to the brave Policeman who gave his life to protect others.

I am finishing my week off by seeing my darling BF today, Daisy and Co tomorrow for lunch and Saturday; as a belated celebration of my DD's birthday. It will be a wonderful way to end the week on a more positive note and in defiance at those who want to terrorise us here. Life will carry on. Love will conquer hate.

Have a lovely weekend when we get there. Thank you for the really kind comments you left for me on my last post. I so appreciated them.

Back soon.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Life can be tough

I had a lovely weekend, with lots of time to craft, which is good as I have a very busy few weeks ahead. We also managed to get out and "smell the roses" or in this case the blossom and daffs and enjoyed the increasing daylight and signs of spring...it's the first day of Spring today...how wonderful that feels.

Today is a day of rather mixed emotions. It's my darling daughter's birthday and she is taking the day off work with her Hb and together with Daisy they are off to celebrate her special day. Happy birthday to my sweetest girl. I look forward to seeing her on Friday.

However today is also the day of one of our friend's funeral. M died very suddenly a couple of weeks ago and to say we were shocked was an understatement. He is only a few years older than us and the news really did stop us in our tracks.

It is also Monday so it is my turn to share some inspiration over on Facebook for Visible Image.
Do remember you are welcome to come over to join our group, we're a very kind and friendly bunch.
          This is the link here

 I am very much a glass half full kind of girl and I wanted to make something appropriate for today, without being too morose. I decided to use one of the new sentiments that Visible Image brought out in their latest release.

It's just perfect isn't it?

It is available here on their website.
I also used the little flower accent stamps from the Create It set  below available here

I also had a play with the amazing new Oxide inks....they are such fun.
Here are a few process photos;

 I also added Cracked Pistachio into the process.
Once I had a foundation of ink on my card I added some stenciling...

and built up layers of ink, adding water into the process too.









I wanted to keep my sentiment really simple so I added drew a  border around the edge using a Micron Pen. It's been ages since I have had time to draw one of these borders....very much my dear friend Joanne Fink's inspiration.

 I also added some script from the fab Scripted streets set using some archival ink

It added just enough pattern to my card to pull everything together.
You can see one of my stamped flowers peeping out too...I coloured it with gel pens and added some white highlights.







Here is my finished card.

I added some shine to the border with a gel pen.
You can see in the background that I also stamped my flowers using the Oxide inks. Together with the script stamp it gives a very layered textured background.

Here is one more shot

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

A Vintage Journey all aboard
More mixed media anything goes
Sweet Stampin 1/3 special lady/mother's day
Creative Inspirations 3/3 favourite stamp brand and why mine is of course Visible Image. Their designs and words are so unique and they stamp perfectly every single time!
Creative Artiste 3/3 anything goes mixed media
We love to Create 1/2anything mixed media


Thanks so much for stopping by today.  We should all try to live life for the moment. Remember to tell those you hold close how much you love them, every single day.

Life can be tough......but my darling so are you x

RIP MW March '17

Happy first day of spring, we all have so much to look forward to.
Seize the day!

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Wrapping up on St. Patrick's day

Hello and a very Happy St. Patrick's day to those who celebrate it. Today coincides with my 2nd DT inspiration piece over at Country View Challenges. If you missed my first piece do have a look here at my more feminine take on the theme.

Our theme for this month's challenge is "Inspired by Tim Holtz".All the details can be seen here. You might even be lucky enough to win the £20 voucher which is up for grabs to a random winner.

As promised for today's piece I have gone "traditional Tim" with a tag, lots of grunge and brown but as well as a tag I have made some matching wrapping paper.  For the background of my tag I used the number stencil and some distress ink. I then added some letter using gold embossing paste.

I had lots of left over die cuts from my first card so this time I added black paint to my piece of weather clock die. I also added treasure gold to my embossed focal

I then put my tag together, adding a few remnant rubs.

 For the matching gift wrap I used the same stencils and just used distress inks on brown paper. ...I tried to keep to the same pattern across the paper.

and here is the set.

and a close up.

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

A Vintage Journey all aboard
Creative Artiste 3/3 anything goes mixed media
That's Crafty 2/3 bling it up
More mixed media anything goes
We love to create 1/2 anything goes

The sunshine continued yesterday...bliss... however we are forecast that some colder weather is on its way, just in time for the weekend. I will sign of with some more daffy photos I took whilst walking down to Dotty's yesterday with some new Mothers' Day cards.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a lovely weekend whatever the weather.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x