Shrinking Alice in Wonderland and my 1,000th blog post

Good morning today there is a real celebration going here....this is my 1.000th blog post ..wow! That is an awful lot of creating and writing since I started my blog 8 years ago.
 It's also time for Monday Design team inspiration for Visible Image and I am here with my 2nd Wonderland sample. This new release is going down a storm and today I am going to share my first make with the lovely Alice. 

After making my shrink plastic seahorse and jelly fish for my seagoddess wall hanging which I shared here I had a light bulb moment that Alice in Wonderland also shrunk when she drinks from the bottle to get small enough to get through the door to the garden. Out came my shrink plastic but this time I decided that I wanted to colour the image so I did this using pencil before heating it.

 Here she is cut out

 and then after shrinking

 I made a couple of shrunk Alice's and this shows her full size and with her shrunken self!

 They are such fun accents to make. 

I also made a background using the brilliant distorted chess stencil as this works so well with the Wonderland stamps.

I went with a black and white version using black soot distress oxide ink.

I coloured my Alice and a slice of cake with Promarkers. I stamped and fussy cut out the key and the potion bottle and added some glitter. I also stamped out her words.

Here is my finished card

with a couple of close ups trying to show some of the glittery finishing touches I added. You can see this more clearly, and all my Wonderland samples in the recent Visible Image video over on their Facebook page here.

 I mounted everything onto foam tape which gives this card a lot of depth.

The wonderful Wonderland release, including 2 fab new stencils, is available to pre order now from the web site here. Shipping is from 1st August.

There is also brilliant money saving offer running at the moment if you buy all 7 stamp sets...check it out 

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

I love Promarkers anything goes
Simon says Wednesday anything goes
Creative fingers 1/3 anything goes
Cute card Thursday 1/3 too cute
Little Miss Muffet 1/3 anything goes
Crafty catz 1/3 anything goes

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. 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 so much for stopping by and for your very kind comments..thanks to your support I have achieved my 1,000 post milestone. There are a couple of my loyal followers who have even commented on most of those 1,000 posts I have written. Bless you. Thanks everyone, I am truly grateful for your blogging friendship and loyalty.

 We had some very welcome rain this weekend, the first since mid June. My lawn might even start to green up again. However our summer heatwave is set to return this week and I shall continue to  enjoy my garden studio creating. Enjoy the new week ahead.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Breaking heatwave records

Goodness me just when I thought it couldn't get any hotter this week it did. My darling granddaughter Daisy came to stay and we had such a fab 4 days. She really is my little crafting partner in crime. Like me, she can think of nothing better than working down in my garden studio. We also had another visitor who has come to stay too.
My darling Daisy with the lovely Bear.

It is Daisy's Mummy and Daddy's wedding anniversary today and so we decided to make some cards.
She finds die cutting absolutely fascinating so she wanted to die cut lots of shapes. I had a stamped Happy Anniversary Lili of the Valley sentiment in my box which she started with. Daisy chose everything for this card I just helped with the die cutting, cutting papers, lining things up straight and sticking.
She colours the edges of her paper with distress inks like a pro.

 whilst Bear kept lookout for us.

She wanted to colour her die cuts with markers (well who says there are any rules in crafting!)Don't you just love that the doves have smiley faces!

Apparently the green one is Daddy and the blue one Mummy. She added some long dark hair to the blue one. Here it is finished.

and I quickly snapped a close up. Not bad for a 4 1/2 year old eh!
I told Daisy I would enter this into some challenges for her.

Pixie's snippets playground #331
Simon says stamp kids vacation challenge

My card today is the anniversary card I have make for my daughter and son-in-law.
I made some alcholol ink backgrounds and I had a first play with lift off alcohol ink.

 I used the background below, made on yupo, on the left and got some watercolour card ready on the right to receive the ink.

 I used my Visible Image seahorse stamp and the seaweed and jelly fish from their Dare to swim set.

After using the lift off ink technique I got these 2 cool backgrounds. On the right is the ghost, the other is the ink transfer. How amazing it is to be able to stamp with alcohol inks!

I decided to use the ink transfer one to create their seaside card. I blended on some yellow and blue distress inks and then added some splatters of water.  I stamped a LOTV sentiment. The seahorses are  Cheery Lynn and cut from alcohol ink mop up card. The leaves are Tim Holtz and cut from distress ink mop up card.

Some close ups

This technique has soooo many possibilities, I can't wait to play some more.
I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Pixie's snippets playground #331

Crafty sentiments 1/3 anything goes

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes

Addicted to stamps and more make your mark

Crafty catz 1/3 anything goes

We have actually had our first rain this afternoon since June 14th...yes seriously.  They have been downpours at last my lawn got some rain. The air has cleared a little and we may get some more thunderstorms today but we are told we are then in for even more heat again! Phew we are breaking the record of 1976.

We plan a quiet weekend looking after Bear now that my darling Daisy has gone home. 

Enjoy yours too.

Thanks so much for stopping by,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Cooling off at the seaside

We are certainly hitting records here and we have had the hottest days of the year this week when the temperature has reached  in excess of 33c. At the weekend we had a wonderful day at the beach with my daughter and her family. We took their kayak out on the sea and had such fun.

 Daisy made more sandcastles

 Ice cream was eaten

 sand was eaten 😊

legs got buried

and I even went out on the kayak...I took a soaking but luckily the water was like bath water and there is no video evidence..I even managed to keep my sunglasses on!

Such a happy family day and such happy memories made...do you think I love my grandbabies just a little bit?

Today's card is inspired by our beach day and is for sale now at Dotty's Teahouse, Carshalton High St, SM5 2AE The stamp is Stampendous and the backgroud a mix of blue distress inks. I highlighted the image with Prismacolor pencils.

Here's a close up

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

 Rubber dance 1/3  black, white and one other colour mine is blue

The Artistic stamper 2/3 distress it

Crafty sentiments 1/3 anything goes

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes

Simon says stamp work it Wednesday watercolour

Addicted to stamps and more make your mark

Today is a very special day, my 37th wedding anniversary and we are double blessed with our celebrations that my darling Daisy has come to stay with us until Friday.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

The Wonderful world of Wonderland

Hello it is time for my Monday Design Team make for Visible Image. They have a brilliant new stamp release...a revisit to their awesome and much loved Alice In Wonderland stamps which were discontinued a few years back.

 So many people have asked for them to return and there is a magical twist. ALL the original 6 characters now have new extra stamps and words and all the words work across every stamp set. Plus there is one brand new character....the Caterpillar who I absolutely love. Do check them all out on the website here  

I have been beavering away in my studio over the last week making some samples, which you may have seen on Mark and Helen's Facebook live video. You can check that out and see the samples we made here

Today I am delighted to be sharing my first sample I made using the amazing Mr Caterpillar. I know we shouldn't have favourites as they as all amazing, but I have such a soft spot for this cutie.

I love colouring images and decided for my first samples that I would get out my much loved and well used Promarkers.
I stamped Mr Caterpillar and his amazing toadstool onto smooth card stock and coloured them. We laughed during the live Visible Image Facebook video as to whether this should be called a mushroom or a toadstool. I have always called anything bright red and poisonous looking a toadstool, My colouring takes me back to my Enid Blyton, The folk of the Faraway Tree, childhood reading. So I decided to look this up and Google states that the term mushroom and toadstool are pretty interchangeable, they are both used to describe types of fungi. However the term toadstool tends to be used when the fungus is one that is poisonous and therefore inedible. I think my toadstool looks pretty inedible to me!

I then highlighted my images with Prismacolor pencils to add some shading (you can see this further down in my finished card).
I fussy cut them and then made a background using Hickory smoke and Candied apple distress ink sprays to create a smokey background for him to feel really relaxed in 😃

I stamped and cut out the words  and added glossy accents to make his glasses shine as well as his spots.
Here he is

with some close ups

Hmmmmm...I think any more relaxed and he would be falling off his toadstool!

And one last shot

I really love this new stamp set and I think he is going to go down a storm in the crafting world.
Pre release orders for all the Wonderland stamps and also 2 brand new stencils can be make now via the website here and for a short period of time there is a very generous multi bundle saving if you buy all 7 stamp sets.
 Release date is 1st August.

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

I love Promarkers anything goes
Craft Stamper take it make it July
Fashionable stamping 3/3 use those inks any way you want
Passion for Promarkers vibrant colours
A bit more time to craft 3/3 anything goes
Studio 75 3/3 summertime
Crafteezee summer
Simon says stamp Monday add a little sparkle I used my glossy accents
Try it on Tuesday 1/3 add a quote
The artistic stamper 2/3  distress it

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. 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 so much for stopping by and for your very kind comments. Our summer sunshine continues as does my garden studio creating.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Mermaids and gin

No I'm not being sent mad by our scorching heatwave (well not yet). My son recently bought my Hb a bottle of gin (yes we are gin lovers in this family) and I was thrilled to see that it was called Mermaid Gin and was made on the good old Isle of Wight. And no I have affiliate links this this company at all, I wish I did! The gin was great but the bottle was even better...take a look at this

the label has a cut out and the mermaid is viewed through the bottle, which is why my image is a little blurred

It's not only a gorgeous bottle but delicious gin too!

So of course I had to make something mermaid related and I dug out an old Stampendous stamp which I took to Majorca with Daisy on our recent holiday. These are a couple of the lovely pages she made in her holiday journal..not bad for a 4 1/2 year old!

I decided that for my card today I would make a distress inky background and then paint mermaid with my lovely Stardust paints. I kept it quite CAS as I wanted the mermaid to look translucent, so that the distress inks flowed through her,  just like the one on the Mermaid Gin bottle.
This is the card I made;

It's hard to see the sparkle from paints, this shows it a little better.

She is up for sale now at Dotty's Teahouse, Carshalton, SM5 2AE

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

A bit more time to craft 1/3 anything goes
Studio 75 2/3 summertime
Crafteezee summer
Crafty calendar 2/3 totally girlie
Simon says stamp Wednesday use a die and/or a punch my seashells are dies by Marianne
Simon says stamp Monday add a little sparkle


Today we have some cloud, which is a good respite from the heatwave, but no sign of any rain and next week again is getting even hotter. This is now a repeat of the summer of 1976...I wonder if we will beat any records?

I am back on Monday with such a exciting card..... Visible Image are launching their Alice In Wonderland  collection on pre release and I will be sharing the first of my samples...here is a very sneaky peek

but there is a Facebook Live tonight where you can see him in all his glory. Just click the link here

 Have a lovely weekend, keep cool and carry on enjoying the summer. 

Bye for now,

Jane x