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. 

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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