The witching hour draws near

Good morning, in 2 days time it is Halloween, when ghouls and ghosts are the order of the day. Since the birth of my grandchildren I have thoroughly embraced Halloween fun.  I also enjoy making special tags and then giving them on treat bags to my big and small babies.

You will have seen most of them over the weeks on my blog and today, for my Monday Visible Image design team inspiration,  I have a final one to share. These are the four Visible Image stamped ones I have shown so far.

So this is what I got up to with my final one:

Again I used the  brilliant skull stencil

I cut a black card tag and stencilled the skull using silver ink. I outlined it with white pen and red embossed the small "splat" from organics

into the eye socket.

I stamped out and coloured several poison bottles from Alice in Wonderland

 and I teamed up the small skulls from
Mr Bone Jangles

with a die cut spider.

I also used Alphabetical

to stamp the word BOO and also red embossed a small cat from Curious cats

I red embossed a pair of hands onto black card from You are not alone.

and fussy cut everything out.

I then put my design together;

with a few close ups

and one last shot

and here it is on my Son's treat bag.

For my big children (average age 30 (!)) I make up their treat bags with Halloween chocolate but also some other non sweet goodies, as my son is not really a sweet eater.

This is this years offerings.

On the chocolate front;

 Also some nuts and savoury crunch

 and a Costa voucher each to treat themselves to a drink and pastry. 

I buy my small babies (age nearly 5 and 17 months)

books. This year Jack has

and Daisy

I also made them Halloween gift wrap..I often make my own gift wrap for family presents. It makes a gift very personal.

I used Mr Bone Jangles  again to stamp onto brown paper.

and yes you will spot another tag above....this one is Daisy's using the Dark hearts stencil , Into the woods stamps and part of the sentiment from the Queen of hearts set.

Below are a few of them all ready to be opened on Wednesday...made with lots of spooky love!

I would like my BOO red/black tag
into the following challenges;

Simon says stamp Monday Halloween/spooky
Simon says stamp Wednesday Halloween/spooky
Sweet stampin 1/3 humour
Crafty catz 1/3 anything goes/Halloween
Moving along with the time Halloween
Emerald Creek Dares 1/3 all things in the night
Try it on Tuesday 3/3trick or treat/Halloween

All the Visible Image links can be found here;

Visible Image group page on Facebook. Our friendly Group is here ...it would be lovely to see you. You can add work to the new challenge album where one randomly chosen winner each month wins a £40 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 their gorgeous stamps and stencils can be purchased. 

You can also follow all the latest news and inspiration via

Pinterest

Twitter

and 

Instagram

Remember to add your "autumn colours" to the FB album here The challenge
ends on 31st October. It will be great to see them all. 

Thanks so much for stopping by today and remember to look out for the witches on their brooms on Wednesday night....whoooooohooo!

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

The end of the long hot summer of 2018

Well it looks as though autumn is going to properly arrive with a jolt at the weekend and all this glorious sunshine we have enjoyed in the South of England since late June is about to end. Also the clocks go back on Sunday so it will be dark by 5pm.

I thought I would have a final celebration of the mild sunny days we have enjoyed sunshine and also share a couple of awesome photo my SIL took with Daisy at their local beach last week as they watched the sun set.

We have enjoyed sunshine and warmth that has not been seen since the long hot summer of 1976.

I took these photos last week

 and when we visited the south coast to see our family at the weekend I took these shots. 

 Daisy thought it such fun to see how long the shadows were.

She also found a tree which had fairy doors and windows on it. 

and these are the photos her Daddy emailed me at sunset a couple of days ago.

So stunning, the beach looks on fire.

My card today is of course a sunny autumnal one. She's for sale at Dotty's Teahouse, Carshalton High Street, SM5 2AE

I used distress inks to create the background and the stamp is an old Penny Black wooden stamp from my stash, which I love. 

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

Penny Black Saturday 1/3 anything goes/spooky colours

Dragonfly dreams 2/3 autumnal colours

 Addicted to stamps 3/3 autumn colours

Stamping sensations 3/3 shades of autumn

Penny black and more 3/3 autumn splendour

Creative Inspirations 3/3 autumn glow

As you like it 1/3 fave autumn colours/halloween mine are these autumnal ones; yellow, orange and brown. 

CRAFT challenge 1/3 monochrome

Cute card Thursdays 1/3 sparkles

 So it's time to get out those coats and scarves and hats. 

Farewell to the long hot summer of 2018, you have been wonderful.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.

I think the countdown to Christmas is soon to start...it's only 60 days if you're counting like me!

Have a wonderful weekend,

Back on Monday,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Beddington lake back in all it's glory

Beddington Park is another very beautiful park local to me. Last year it received some Lottery Funding to dredge and improve the lake  and for many months the lake has been out of action. I decided to take an extended walk there at the weekend to see the outcome of all the work.

Wow it really does look stunning again.

This is how parts of it looked in the spring. The saddest thing was that all the wildlife had left

I was delighted to see the wildlife have returned.

There trees were showing off their autumnal foliage 

The gorgeous willows reach down to touch the surface of the water.

It is such a beautiful spot.

They have also rebuilt the heritage rockery area, I will share that in another post.

All these wonderful colours inspired my latest  Halloween tag.

I used Carved pumpkin, Cracked pistachio and Seedless preserves distress inks and Tim Holtz' pumpkin stencil to make the background. 

The pumpkin and spider stamps are also Tim's by Stampers Anonymous. The die cuts are a mix of Cheery Lynn, Memory box, Sizzix  and MFT and the paper snippet is Graphic 45.

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

Stamps and stencils 3/3 Spooky fun and or autumnal twist
Simon says stamp Monday halloween/spooky

A vintage journey 3/3 autumn splendour

Memory Box halloween or candy themed my spider's web is a MB die.

Try it on Tuesday 1/3 Trick or treat it's Halloween

Addicted to stamps 2/3 autumn colours

Dies R us 2/3 anything fall I have used several dies; Cheery Lynn and MFT leaves, Memory box spider's web and a Sizzix bat
Dragonfly dreams 1/3 autumnal colours
Pile it on 1/3 black /purple/orange/fantasy

I think this is likely to be the last week of our Indian Summer, rumour has it that an arctic blast is on its way next week!

Thanks for stopping by today.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x