Exciting new Visible Image products

Good morning, welcome to the last Monday in August. It's a bank holiday here in the UK and as a double bonus the sun has shone all weekend and it might reach the dizzying heights of 26c here in the South of England. 

Today I have a bit of a red white and blue theme going on here....

red tomatoes

 my white geraniums

 and the gorgeous blue skies we have enjoyed.

So if I'm thinking red, white and blue I might be suggesting a theme for my Monday DT card for Visible Image....hmmmm...something patriotic,

like the Union Jack...

yes Visible Image have brought out a brand new range of stencils and the first I have had the pleasure to play with is none other than the brilliant Grungy Union Jack which can be pre-ordered for September release here

Isn't it gorgeous...I love those grungy drips. These have been designed by Mark and made for Visible Image by Tando Creative. They are fab quality and thickness, a generous 6X6" size and are available to pre order here There are 10 designs, all are awesome, do check them out.

As soon as I saw this stencil I knew just which stamp would go perfectly with it...

yes the bowler hatted man from the

ahead of our time  stamp set

I kept to the red. white and blue of the flag and inked it up using Distress inks.

I then stamped and embossed the man and added the flying birds...I had been up to London the day before and it got me thinking of Mary Poppins and "feed the birds"...yes I know it's quite scary inside my head sometimes! I also used the very apt creativity sentiment from the 

Express yourself set

Here is my first DT card using this awesome stencil.

Meet Mr Union Jack 😉

and here he is in close up

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

Simon Says work it Wednesday 3/3 Favourite stamps This is one of my favourite male stamps

Addicted to stamps and more 3/3 anything goes

Deep Ocean 3/3 fave colour combo I love using a red, white and blue colour palette

Craft heaven 2/3 anything goes

Noor UK anything goes

All this week we will be sharing the new stencils over on the Visible Image social media pages.

All the Visible Image links can be found here;

Visible Image group page on Facebook. Our friendly Group can be found here ...it would be lovely to see you there. You can add work to the "Show and Tell" album where one randomly chosen winner each month wins a £25 coupon to spend on the website. Our monthly themed challenge is on summer break and will return in September. 

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 purchased. 

You can also follow via:

 Pinterest

Twitter

 Instagram

I am loving playing with these new stencils and have been making more samples for the next Create and Craft TV show on 8/9th September. I will also be sharing another of my stencil makes next week.

Thanks so much for stopping by today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave me.

Enjoy your day off and I hope you have some of this lovely sunshine. If not I will blow some your way. I have enjoyed spending the whole time in the garden and in my studio creating some samples for the next Create and Craft TV show which is coming up 8/9 September.  I will be sharing some of those makes very soon.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Daisy makes

We had such fun having our darling Daisy to stay until Wednesday. Our days were filled with trips to the swings, lots of chats and cuddles, dinner out, gardening and lots of stroking of Billy our cat. We went up to London on the train where we walked across the Millennium Bridge..

marvelled at the size of St. Paul's Cathedral...

rode upstairs on a "double decker" (as Daisy loves to call the buses).

She danced and skipped across the steps of St.Paul's..

 and took the tube to Leicester Square and found herself with Nanna and Dan Dan in the Lego Shop

where pillar boxes were made of Lego Bricks

and dragons hung from the ceiling

But of course one of the highlights of her stay both for Daisy and myself was

crafting!

I am so delighted how much Daisy adores crafting and she cannot wait to get out to my studio. At 3 3/4 she also understands the concept of me entering challenges and I suggested that we made a card that I could enter into a couple of challenges for her. She could not wait to make a start!

She adores glitter, so that had to feature but she also loves drawing flowers. With those ideas in mind she chose some supplies and set to. 

She also wanted to add a baby's bath (as you do) which is the pink creation in the corner. She was going to use a topper but decided to stick that inside the card.

 after drawing some flowers she wanted to stamp some flowers and also test my new Distress Oxide inks which she had yet been able to play with. She really has amazing stamping skills already!

Her ideas just flowed...she also chose some glittery flower die cuts and I helped her put some glitter brads in their centres. That was the only help I gave.

If you look closely at the bottom of the card she also drew a blue person holding a bunch of flowers. I love her creativity and imagination. It is so fluid and totally unrestrained.  She then took the markers again and coloured in the Paper Artsy stamped images.

Then it was glitter time...

Inside she wrote her name, again completely unaided.

 ...pretty good for a 3 year old and then I wrote some words for her which she traced over.

Some last glitter and then we left it to dry

Here she is proudly displaying her artwork.

I then took a "card challenge" photo for her and added a watermark.

Daisy would like to enter her glitter flower card into the following challenges;

Simon Says Stamp Children's summer challenge anything goes with sparkle

 Pixie's snippets playground #295/6

A gem of a challenge Children's challenge

So my card today is not a glittery one but one to remind me how much my darling Daisy has grown up and to remember a fun few August days. Babies really are such a nice way to start people and my Daisy is growing into a delightful little person. I stamped a Lili of the Valley sentiment and made the card around it. I love these fun jungle die cuts. There were in the CVC sale last year. The papers are ancient. This has gone down to Dotty's to sell.

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

Dies R us anything goes

Happy little stampers 3/3  anything goes with dies

Simon Says work it Wednesday 2/3 Favourite stamps This is one of my favourite baby stamps.

Addicted to stamps and more 2/3 anything goes

Deep Ocean 2/3 fave colour combo I am not a huge pink girl but I love using it with green.

That's Crafty 3/3 only cards

Penny Black and More 3/3 all creatures great and small

Studio 75 1/3 bows

Craft heaven 2/3 anything goes

Noor UK anything goes

Daisy went home on Wednesday and the house seemed very quite again. How blessed I am to have the pleasure of my little sweetie come to stay. 

The bank holiday is ahead, we plan a quiet one at home. I have some designing to do and my Hb wants to help our son with some DIY so we will be very busy. The weather looks good, summer has returned so it will be lunch in the garden again...bliss. 

Back soon, 

Enjoy your day off on Monday and the holiday weekend.  I will be back with my weekly Visible Image DT post.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Beach blues and greens

It's time for my 2nd inspiration card for our "Blues and Greens" challenge this month over at Country View Craft. For my first card  here I made a card for my Dad and today I am sharing the female one I made. At this time of the year I still think of the seaside blues and greens from happy family holidays...

  I decided to use a great Rubber Dance beach stamp for my focal and make a sealife frame.

I simply stamped and embossed it on an inky background.
I used my Tim ornate frame and added lots of textures and colour. I over heated the acryllic inks on purpose to get them to blister I added some Treasure Gold to give some extra interest.

 I really liked this effect.

I used blue and green distress inks to create my base card and added some Oxide stenciling. I used some of the stamps from the Dare to swim Visible Image stamp set to create an under the waves scene.

I die cut some sea themed elements and put on my creative hat.

Here is my finished blues and greens card.

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

Dies R us anything goes
Happy little stampers 2/3  anything goes with dies
Simon Says work it Wednesday 1/3 Favourite stamps
Addicted to stamps and more 1/3 anything goes
Frilly and Funkie 2/3 on the cutting edge
Deep Ocean 1/3 fave colour combo
Simon says stamp Wednesday add a sentiment
That's Crafty 2/3 only cards
Penny Black and More 2/3 all creatures great and small
Rubber Dance embossing as well as the stamped and embossed image I also added Frantage embossing powder to the frame.

You still have just over a week to enter our "blues and greens" August challenge over at Country View....you could be the lucky winner of a £20 shop voucher if you join the fun. Here is the link

Thanks for stopping by today.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

The Swan Lake and ballet memories

I met my daughter and Jack a couple of weeks ago at the 10th Hole, a delightful tea house in Southsea. I have shared some photos from previous visits before, it's a great place and very popular.

 Of course we needed to catch up first over a cuppa.  After our delicious lunch we walked to the boating lake via the Rose Garden.

The boats on the lake are most unusual...yes they're swans and ducks.

And swimming right next to them were....real swans!

There was also a whole group right next to where we sat who pruned and preened themselves.

 It was fun to sit so close and watch them.

 We enjoyed a very pleasant few hours, just sitting, chatting and watching the world go by and joked that the lake should be renamed Swan Lake. Such a great day.

 Now today is my inspiration day for Visible Image and "Swan Lake" got me thinking and reminiscing about ballet. My daughter, in her time was quite a ballet dancer and even had the chance to dance a couple of sessions at the Royal Ballet's White Lodge in Richmond as a teenager. Even as a junior doctor she tried to get to a ballet lesson whenever she could. Her young children and busy life as a GP mean that disappearing off to ballet is not possible for now.  I am sure in the future though she will get back to her dancing. My Mum also used to take her regularly to see ballet shows in London,from a very early age right up until she moved out of London.  I have also been to the ballet many times with my Mum. We have seen all the major ballets including Swan Lake.  Most recently I even managed to drag my Hb along.

So I knew just which stamps to use for today's post...

Yes the brilliant Born to perform stamp set

I have made previous cards using the dancer so this time I thought I would use some of the words as a focal sentiment and also the great add ons which come with this set. The little ballet shoes are really fun to work with. I stamped and embossed 3 sets of shoes, 1 in red and 2 in black

which I then fussy cut out. 

There is a great mix of words you can use in this set. I decided to use the words below. I stamped on some the stars and die cut out my focal.

Then I put on my creative hat to put together my card.
Here it is;

I added a Noor star diecut using black card and filled in one of the stars with red glitter for some bling. I also added red brads to the stamped stars and ribbons to the shoes . I used some of my home printed music paper.This card brings back memories of the hours I spent when my girlie was a teenager sewing ribbons into her new satin ballet shoes.
Here is a close up the sweet shoes.

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

Dies R us anything goes
Pixie's snippets playground #295/6
Happy little stampers 1/3  anything goes with dies
Simon says stamp Wednesday add a sentiment
That's Crafty 1/3 only cards
Really reasonable ribbon 1/3 anything goes
Rubber dance 1/3 embossing

All the Visible Image links can be found here;

Visible Image group page on Facebook. Our friendly Group can be found here ...it would be lovely to see you there. You can add work to the "Show and Tell" album where one randomly chosen winner each month wins a £25 coupon to spend on the website. Our monthly themed challenge is on summer break and will return in September. 

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 purchased. 

You can also follow via:

 Pinterest

Twitter

 Instagram

I will be a bit awol for the next few days as a VIP is staying with us until Wednesday......my darling Daisy arrived yesterday and we will be busy crafting, collecting acorns, walking to the park, taking the train up to London, out to dinner..the list is endless.

What a lucky Nanna I am.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x