No regrets

Good Monday morning everyone,  I hope that those of you who are in the UK are enjoying a welcome bank holiday Monday? We enjoyed a wonderful family get together in Southampton yesterday when my son got to meet his nephew for the first time.

My garden is looking lush and green and my pots are already establishing themselves really well and showing off their first flowers. Here are some of the bedding plants I showed you last week..potted up.

We could even enjoy our G+T in the garden.

Tosday is also my Monday design team inspiration over at the Visible Image Facebook group and today and I sharing an inky card I made using all the stamps from the brilliant Universal background set available here

 together with the Take Chances sentiment available here

First I white embossed the star and swirl shapes from the set as a resist. I also stamped the sentiment in black. I then started adding distress inks...

I kept dabbing into the inks until I was happy with the base background
 I then blended in some extra ink.

Then I added more stamping using the remaining shapes from the Universal set.

and below is my finished card.

These are all the links for Visible Image

Visible Image group page on Facebook. Our friendly Group can be found here ...it would be lovely to see you over there. You can add work to the "Show and Tell" folder where one randomly chose winner each month win a £25 coupon to spend on the website. There will also be a brand new themed challenge starting on Thursday...come and see what our 2nd theme is. There will be another £40 voucher up for grabs.

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

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

There is also some very exciting news.....there is a pre-launch sharing of the new stamps release on Facebook live at 8pm tonight over on the VI page...don't miss out...this new release is just awesome!

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

                                                      A Vintage Journey use a quote

Artistic Inspirations 1/3 anything goes
Crafting from the heart anything goes
We love to Create anything creative/mixed media

Thanks so much for stopping by today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave. Enjoy the new week ahead and let's hope that the sunshine remains.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Welcome rain

We have been threatened with a hose pipe ban in the South of England this summer unless we have some more rain. We had the driest April for many years and until last week no real rain fall. However there were a few days last week when we finally had some rain for my parched garden and I really want to share these photos today.

I love the smell in the garden at this time of the year after it has been raining, that gorgeous earthy, green smell...it's as though the ground is alive and breathing. I took these photos

My foxgloves lapped up the rain and are racing away, Old Choc, my Christmas tree was pretty happy too...

I have pink and white foxglove blooms this year, they all self seed and every year I have different shades.  I also spotted a visitor below

Well hello Mr Bumble

How pretty the rain looked on my shrubs

So I was inspired to finally ink up my Lavinia Green Man stamp which I bought at Ally Pally in April and decided to create an enchanted garden scene.

I made an inky background with distress inks. I added some honeycomb stencilling, as inspired by Mr. Bumble.

So I would like you to meet my first Green Man card...

It's a fab stamp and I added lots of his leaves in different shades and types of ink. I also added a border of Lavinia leaves and flowers and gave him a few white pen highlights.

I have put him up for sale in my Etsy shop here

I would like to enter him into the following challenges;

A bit more time to craft 3/3 anything goes
Artistic Inspirations 3/3 anything goes

Creative Inspirations 2/3 anything goes
Fashionable Stamping 3/3 let's go wild
Emerald Creek Dares 2/3 dream a little dream
Crafty Cardmakers 1/3 floral profusion
Fussy and fancy 1/3 flowers

We have enjoyed steaming hot weather this week and yesterday was the hottest day of the year so far. The temperature topped 28c and more sunshine is promised this weekend here in the South, although Monday looks as though we may get some rain. Perfect for my garden, if not for a bank holiday.

Enjoy your weekends and your gardens if you have them. They are such enchanting places at this time of the year and who know, you might even stumble across the Green Man 😉

Thanks so much for stopping by,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Flower power part 2

Hello I am back today with my 2nd DT inspiration post for Country View. Our current challenge is Flower Power and for my first piece I created a floral distress ink tag. If you missed that post you can see it here
Flowers are certainly in full bloom around here and we have had some welcome recent rain.

For today's creation I decided to use the same stamps as my first flower power tag but use distress oxides instead of regular distress inks. These were the colours I chose to work with.

I added some strips of book pages to my tag for some background texture and chose the above 4 oxides. I added some water to them on my craft sheet.

I first added some colour just by dipping in the inks. I then added some floral stencilling.

I added a couple of background stamps too

Onto a separate sheet I added some more inks and then some script using my old Visible Image Bronte Script stamp.

I stamped my Tim flowers and fussy cut them out.

I then put on my creative hat and this is what I came up with

and a couple of close ups

All the details for our flower power challenge are here

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

Crafty Calendar flowers

Double D challenge flowers galore
A Vintage Journey use a quote

I am fascinated how the 2 tags turned out so differently ..using different inks but identical flower stamps.

I have been in Southampton since Monday lunchtime and yesterday's blog post was scheduled. Today, in the aftermath of the outrageous atrocity in Manchester on Monday evening, I think the quote on my tag today is most appropriate;

Live gently upon this earth.....

Oh how I wish this could happen and such hatred could be extinguished. I am sickened to the core that anyone could do this to a fellow human being.

May all those innocent souls rest in peace 😢

More words just fail me.

Bye for now,

Jane x

May brings flocks of pretty lambs

I finally bought some bedding plants for my pots at the weekend. My bulbs have been so beautiful this year that I didn't want to tip them out until they really had spent. I bought this box of beauties

 and a box of gazania

I even managed to start to pot them up on Sunday. First though it was the job of emptying and washing the pots. Much as this is a real chore I am a firm believer that this really helps with getting pots of gorgeous summer flowers as it removes bugs et al.

I will share some more photos soon. 

I also wanted to enter some challenges before May is over.

I found this great  digi image over at the Graphic fairy and decided to make an art journal page. I decided to try to use the image as the focal but cut out the tree and replace it with a mixed media one of my own. This is what I got up to

I created a sky using distress inks and a cloud mask

I made the grass with distress inks and added some distress oxide daisy flowers using my Visible Image Create it set.

I tore the digi and drew in a line to continue the horizon on my journal page.

I die cut a tree, added some bark texture with my Create it VI stamps and crackle medium and punched out some flowers out of inky mop up card. I added liquid pearls to the flower centres which you will see in my final photo.

I then replaced my tree where the tree from the digi was

 I then put everything together to create my May art journal page.

My art journal page was made for the following challenges;

The Craft Barn calendar challenge May

Crafty Calendar flowers

Double D challenge flowers galore
The Ribbon Girls 2/3 use any image

Simon Says stamp little critters
Pile it on 1/3 animal
We love to create 2/2 anything mixed media

I am coming back from Southampton today where I have spent a wonderful few days in the sunshine with Daisy, Jack and Co.  I hope you are enjoying a sunny week too? Thanks for stopping by.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Where dreams have taken us

Yes unbelievable at the weekend it was the 1st  anniversary of Dotty's opening. Where on earth has the year gone? If you have not been following my blog for long I sell my cards at Dotty's, a Vintage Teahouse in Carshalton High Street since the doors first opened last May. My grand opening post can be seen here

This was the opening day last year which was attended by the Major of Sutton.

I went to the anniversary celebrations on Saturday and shared a post here if you missed it. Yesterday I showed the card which was commissioned by the staff to give to Rebecca, the owner.

As it is Monday it is also my day to share some inspiration over on the Visible Image Group page. Today I am sharing the 2nd Dotty card I made, This one I made from me to give to Rebecca and her lovely staff.  As the theme for the celebrations was WW2  I decided to go with a patriotic red, white and blue theme and I used a very apt Visible Image sentiment from the "Where dreams take you set" which is available here here

 I stamped the sentiment and die cut it

 I found some very apt tea cups paper in my stash.

I stamped and fussy cut out the paper plane from the destination unknown set available here

 I also stamped the sentiment from the same set

and then I put on my creative hat to made this card;

Here are a couple of close ups; the great cup and saucer die is Marianne, the layering dies are all Spellbinders. The hearts are La-la land

I cut the what lies ahead sentiment into 2 parts.

This  last year for me, both selling at Dotty's and designing has been such a great adventure and I do indeed wonder "what lies ahead".  My dreams are certainly taking me into all sorts of new adventures!
Here it is in the window of Dotty's on Saturday, together with the card I made for the girls to give to Rebecca. Such a fun day.

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

Allsorts birthday it was also their birthday on Saturday, but they were 8.. Dotty has some catching up to do!

Crafty Catz anything goes with a twist of more than 2 layers I have at last 5 on my card!

Creative Inspirations 3/3 anything goes
Lil patch of crafting friends 1/3 anything goes
Crafty Hazelnut's patterned  paper May

All the links for Visible Image can be found here;

Visible Image group page on Facebook. Our friendly Group can be found here and it is where you will find our first themed "Express yourself" challenge...it would be lovely to see you over there. There is a £40 voucher up for grabs if you are the randomly selected winner.  You can also add work to the "Show and Tell" folder where one randomly chose winner each month win a £25 coupon to spend on the website.

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

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

Thanks so much for stopping by today,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x