Gardener's helper

I promised I would share some photos of some of Daisy's makes from when she stayed with us earlier this week. She adores crafting and makes a bee line for my studio whenever she arrives at ours. 

She also loves pottering around in my garden and "helping" with the watering of my pots.

 She loves finding out about nature and was fascinated to see 2 large spiders in their webs in my garden.

Like me and her Mummy she genuinely loves spiders and called this one Mr Skinny Legs. We watched him repair his web.

So when it came to her first crafty make she wanted to make something with Mr Skinny legs on. I do have a stamp with a spider but remembered I also had a great die so she helped me for the first time do some die cutting which she found magical. There are lots of photos as I like to keep these posts as a record of Daisy's crafting so that she can look back at them when she is older.

For the first time she also wanted to use my stencils. Everything she made was chosen and place by her.

She added other colours through the rose stencil as she thought the underneath looked like grass.

She then added her die cuts including Mr Skinny legs the spider.

her 2nd piece was made from a left over acorn stamp in my bag

but first she wanted to do some more stencilling...... all I did was tape them down, she did all the rest

Daisy then decided she wanted to give it googly eyes..which led on to her 3rd idea...she wanted to make a bus the same as the one I keep her pens in.

so this is what she did...she asked me to draw window in pencil as a guide and then out came her pens...

I can't believe how dexterous she is.... I struggle with these eye and she stuck every set on herself.

So her are her 3 finished pieces.

Mr Skinny Legs

Mr Acorn

The bus

She proudly took them home to Mummy and Daddy. It is so lovely crafting with Daisy and she really has a genuine love for getting inky. Long may it last. So my card challenge entry today had to feature spiders web too and is the first of my Halloween tags I have made. The stamps are Tim Holtz as is the Ornate frame. The webs are Memory Box and the pumpkins Spellbinders. 

I used distress inks and stencils to make the background and lots of textures on the pumpkin with crackle paste. 

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

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes

Creative Inspirations 2/3 anything goes
Crafty cardmakers autumn
Sweet stampin 1/3 autumn
Deep Ocean goodbye summer
That's crafty 1/3 autumn
Frilly and funkie show us your stamps
Mixed media world anything goes

Enjoy the weekend ahead, we have friends visiting today and the rain we had yesterday seems to have dried upand a good day is forecast. Tomorrow I will be getting inky and perhaps even painty in my studio. Thanks so much for visiting me today.

Back tomorrow as unbelievably it is the last day of September today. 

Bye for now,

Jane x

Conker treasure 2017

My darling Daisy went home today after staying with us since Monday. We had the very best of times, she is growing up so quickly. One of the reasons she came to stay was that it was time for our annual Conker Treasure Hunt...and wow we were not disappointed. Conkers (for my international friends) are the fruit of the Horse Chestnut tree and unlike their relative the Sweet Chestnut, conkers are non edible but just such fun to find.

This year the treasure was amazing...so many rich large conkers. We also manged to pick a beautiful mild autumn morning for our hunt.

The joy of finding "treasure" i.e still in their shells, will never leave me. I think I will remain the eternal child who gets such a trill to see them. We found so many this year and Daisy filled her little basket twice over. When we got home we emptied her haul into a pot where she admired them and counted them out.

I thought these photo are perfect for putting in Jane's Journal as a memory of our day.

She also found the world's smallest conker!

Such joy...

...priceless times.

My Hb took the photo below of Daisy and I on his phone. I think it shows how we were in our own little world.

 

For today's post I thought I would share a Lavinia fairy card...it seems so appropriate for such a magical day.

It's a card I made for Dotty's Tearooms and is just the right colours to remember our conker treasure by.

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

Rubber Dance favourite stamp This is one of my favourite Lavinia fairy stamps.

That's Crafty fly away

Allsorts things with wings

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes

Creative Inspirations 1/3 anything goes
Crafty cardmakers autumn

The house seems very quiet this evening now that my darling Daisy has gone home. Before she went she told me it was the best conker treasure hunt ever..bless. We did lots of crafting and I will share her makes very soon. She really is becoming such a great little crafter...her makes for a 3 year old were so imaginative.

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

Back soon, 

Bye for now,

Jane x

A blue Snow Queen

Good morning, wow what a glorious weekend it was here. The sun shone from dawn to dusk in a clear blue sky and on Saturday we enjoyed a trip to the seaside. Blue is my favourite  colour and it was in abundance during our family walk.

 The tide was right in lapping at our feet

People were out sailing, making the most of the unexpected weather.

My DD and Daisy enjoyed watching them.

There was a gorgeous pair of swans with their cygnet

a lovely blue door

blue (and green) beach huts

and even a "Blue" boat aptly named "Blue Monday"

So all these awesome blues and the swans inspired my weekly Visible Image inspiration project which I have called "The Snow Queen".

I used some of the gorgeous new Visible Image Christmas stamp sets
Peace, love and hope

and a sentiment from the Go to Christmas words

and teamed them with one of my all time favourite sets..
Face It!

I also used the mask with my card

I stamped the face and added some Distress glaze to seal the lips.

 I very roughly blended some blue distress inks...making them look quite swirly to look like snow swirls.

I added some shading with Broken China distress ink around her face and gave her some blue blusher too. I stamped and white embossed the small snowflake accent stamps from the Peace, love, hope set. I also added some glitter lipstick and eyeliner

Here she is

I stamped the sentiment with Versafine and added the sweet reindeer and star. The little accents in the Peace, love , hope set are very sweet and I have used them on lots of my Christmas cards.

I also added some DecoArt snow-tex around the edge of my card and sprinkled glitter on top for a really frosty effect.

I love these new Christmas stamps Mark has designed...all the sets work so well together. I have been busy making some other designs too which I will share very soon.

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.

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 would like to enter my Snow Queen into the following challenges;

The Ribbon Girl 3/3 any image
Creative Inspirations 2/3 Seasonal my season is winter
Rubber Dance favourite stamp Face It! is one of my favourite Visible Image stamps.
Penny Black and More 1/3 get ready for Christmas
Artistic Stamper 3/3 take a little colour

Thanks for stopping by today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave. We are rapidly approaching October now and it's time to get those Christmas cards started....only 91 days to go...ho ho ho!!

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x