Mothers' day card ideas

It's another marvelous Monday morning and time for my weekly dose of Visible Image inspiration. The next "event" in my card making is Mother's day, which falls here in the UK on Sunday 11 March.  I needed to make some cards for selling at Dotty's tea house and decided to use the top line of the brilliant "Mother" definition stamp in my designs.

(Next week I will be sharing another card where I have used the whole of this stamp...watch this space)

I also wanted to use some specific words from the written in the stars collection. I used words from the Aries, Cancer and Pisces set but you could easily chose any...I think it is lovely to be able to be so personal.

I stamped and embossed them in white on black card and then fussy cut them out. 

The warmer weather made me also reach for my more summery stamps and 2 sets which I have not used for a while. The original butterfly was a very early Visible Image stamp I bought many years ago and is now part of this fab set. 

Own kind of beautiful

 and Live life now

I also used my fibres stencil

I made my design in 2 colourways and it is interesting to see how different they look.

I used red and blue distress inks for this colour way with some stenciling using purple. 

and for a "hot version" I used yellows and oranges. This was my background mid way..

I then added some red distress through the fibres stencil to really spice it up.

Here is my "sunny" version which I also added a few sequins to.

They look so different don't they?

Here are a few close ups

You can mix and match the extra words....

and a last shot of them side by side

It will be interesting to see which colourway sells first in Dotty's.....

I would like to enter my pink/purple Mother 's day card into the following challenges;

Fashionable Stamping 3/3 one for the girls
Simon says stamp Wednesday make your own background
Sweet stampin 1/3 spring has sprung
Allsorts 1/3 eye spy...something beginning with B..mine is of course butterfly
The butterfly challenge 1/3 #95 spin the wheel with the letter P I have gone for the pink and purple sections of the wheel.  I really like the new format of Mrs A fab challenge and I hope to be able to join in more.
A Inkymess 1/3 anything goes

You can also check out Visible Image via these links;

Visible Image group page on Facebook. Our friendly Group can be found here ...it would be lovely to see you. 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 and stencils can be purchased. 

You can also follow via:

 Pinterest

Twitter

and

 Instagram

Next week I will share some more Mothers' day card ideas using a different set of Visible Image stamps.

Thanks so much for stopping by today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave me. Despite my sunny cards it looks as though the weather is returning to winter this week...brrr it has been so cold and  there may even some snow in the south of England. Keep snug wherever you are.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

A pot of golden daffodils

The daffodils are starting to pop up everywhere and  I spotted these over in the park last weekend.

 There are whole drifts of buds..the first few are showing their gorgeous faces.

In my own front garden I have some Tete a tete in bloom but I don't like to cut my own flowers so I bought a pot from Mark's and Spencer's for just £1.50 and sat it on my kitchen windowsill.  Over the last 2 weeks first, up came the stalks,

then the buds

and then a couple of days ago all these gorgeous blooms appeared.

All in time for my sweet son's birthday tomorrow. 

I can't share his card for now so I will share something else I made using greens and yellow which I made for Dotty's teahouse. Friendship cards sell very well there and this is my most recent make. It's also a lovely one to dedicate to you, my lovely blogging friends.

The sentiment is an old Lili of the Valley one which I won years ago and is one I love.

I stamped and embossed it onto a distress ink background which I added some Tim Holz rose stenciling to. A few die cuts, a brad in the centre of the flower and a few sequins finished everything off.

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

Happy little stampers watercolour challenge 3/3 anything goes

Fashionable Stamping 2/3 one for the girls
Simon says stamp Wednesday make your own background

Have a lovely weekend. We are looking forward to all getting together to celebrate my son's birthday. It's always lovely to have everyone under the same roof for a few precious hours. There will be lots of fun and laughter and no doubt a game or 2. Enjoy your weekend and thanks so much for stopping by.

I will be back bright and breezy on Monday with my Visible Image DT post.

Bye for now,

Jane x

More love in February

We are racing through February. There is so much going on at the ponds with the lovely wildlife. Just look at the love between the swans which I witnessed at dusk last week.

I am here with my 2nd project to hopefully inspire you to join our "anything but cute" February theme over at Country View. Remember that February is a short month so you only have another week to enter and possibly win the £20 crafting voucher to stock up on all the fab new products that have been arriving on the Country View craft website.

For my 2nd card I still kept to the love theme of my first card but this time made a general "love" rather than a Valentine's.
I made myself a metallic background using aluminium tape

and a knitting embossing folder. I used my heart Tim Holtz Bigz die and cut out and removed all the hearts. These will be useful for other projects.

I matted this up on black card

and dded some gilding wax

I then used another of the Tim Holtz hand stamps which I had spare from my first project. I fussy cut it out.

 I infilled a couple of the hearts with red die cuts and one with a little white heart die cut and a sentiment to finish off my card. 

We have seen some lovely anything but cute projects from the entries so far and would love to see even more. All the details for the challenge are here

I would like to join in with the following challenges;

Pixie's snippets playground #320

Crafty catz 2/3 anything goes

Creative fingers 1/3 anything goes

Get creative 1/3 anything goes/use ribbon

Creative Artiste 3/3 anything goes mixed media

Rubber dance stamps 2/3 colour board or hearts I went with the hearts theme

Crafty Calendar 1/3 2 or more layers

That's crafty 2/3 I heart you

Simon says stamp Wednesday add a die cut

Thanks for stopping by today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave me, I really appreciate every single one. A warm welcome too for my newest followers, it's lovely to see you on board my creative journey here. 

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Money, money, money

Good morning it's time for my weekly Visible Image design team inspiration post and today it is all about money....not how to spend it but how to gift it on birthdays without just simply putting it inside a card.

 My "baby" boy is 29 on Saturday and rather than putting his birthday money in his card I have made him a money wallet. If I have the time I love making these as they are so personal to the recipient. 

My boy is a lover of all things scientific, he is an avid non fiction reader and he and my Hb went to one of Professor Brian Cox's lectures last year about the history of the universe and life. They still discuss it..the concepts go way over mine and my daughter's heads!  I knew right away which Visible Image  stamps to choose for the job.

The brilliant new Elemental

and the time swirl and birds from Ahead of our time.  Always perfect for male projects.

His favourite colour has always been green so I added in a little blue for interest and got out my distress inks.

These were my colours. 

I used a piece of watercolour card and inked it up using the wrinkle free technique. I then cut out 2 pieces...one rectangular piece forms the wallet which I folded into 3 sections and the other piece wraps around to form the "gusset" of the envelope inside and also forms a firm base to anchor the ribbon.

Once the background inks had dried I stamped my design using cobalt blue archival ink.

Here is the outside...

undo the ribbon 

(I die cut out a half scalloped circle to make it easier to take out the money)

to reveal the inside.

The sentiment I used is from the fab Own it! sentiment set.

 I cut off the "make" and "a" and put them on the same level as the "wish" as I wanted to keep to a rectangular pattern.

This is the back where the ribbon is glued behind. 

and here is how the money looks inside

 and a last collage

But we just need to keep it as our little secret from my son....until after Saturday 😉 That's OK with everyone isn't it...shhhh....

I would like to enter my money wallet into the following challenges;

Crafty catz 2/3 anything goes

Creative fingers 1/3 anything goes

Get creative 1/3 anything goes/use ribbon

The alphabet challenge 1/3 X for extra special occasion mine is my lovely son's birthday!

Happy little stampers watercolour challenge 2/3 anything goes

You an also check out Visible Image via these links;

Visible Image group page on Facebook. Our friendly Group can be found here ...it would be lovely to see you. 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 and stencils can be purchased. 

You can also follow via:

 Pinterest

Twitter

and

 Instagram

Thanks for stopping by today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave me, I really appreciate every single one. 

 Have a lovely week ahead. It feels so good to be in the last full week of February, the days are definitely starting to get lighter.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Gems in the rain

The weather has been very fickle for the last few weeks. Dismal rainy days followed by glorious sunshine. In 12 hours we can go from saturation to blue skies. British weather certainly is not boring.

I have been trying to get out into the garden to tidy up a little but realistically there is not a lot I can do at the moment. I still love looking around and seeing what is going on in my little patch of earth. I spotted raindrops on my new lupin leaves and thought how beautiful they looked trapped in their centres. I grabbed my camera and took these photos.

 To me they looked just like little sparkling gems..so beautiful.

I have been busy making new stock for Dotty's Teahouse and I finally had a chance to play with a gorgeous new Lavinia fairy stamp I won a few weeks back in the Ink Arts challenge over on Facebook. I made my card and then thought I would add some jewels (gold glitter) to the centre of my flowers and also a few sequins for extra sparkle. Mother Nature gives me so much free inspiration for my cards, even in the rain!

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

Stamping sensations 1/3 anything with flowers
C.R.A.F.T Mother's day/female
Crafty catz 1/3 anything goes
Fashionable Stamping 1/3 one for the girls

The weekend weather is looking pretty good and yesterday was a gorgeous blue sky one so I may well be able to get out into the garden. Enjoy yours and I will see you bright and breezy on Monday morning with my weekly Visible Image DT post.
Thanks for stopping by today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave me, I really appreciate every single one. I would also like to warmly welcome my newest followers, it's lovely to see you joining me here on my creative journey.

Bye for now,

Jane x