Birthday celebrations

I am back with my promised photos of the wonderful family day we enjoyed on Sunday celebrating my darling son's 30th birthday.

The weather could not have been kinder, it shone all day from dawn to dusk.

My long term blog readers will know that another crafty hobby I indulge in is cake decorating.

Now my son is like me and does not like icing so I decided to make a topper for his cake rather than ice the whole thing.

I made a fun anti gravity cake topper.

We enjoyed a party lunch with lots of laughter and champagne

My Mum and Dad bought Matt a plant as part of his present as he loves his garden.

 Jack unlike Daisy is very partial to cake and ate most of his Dan Dan's!

Daisy wrote her card to Uncle Matt herself.

Do you think I love my boy just a little bit 😄

and at the end of the day we laughed when the last piece of cake was left...it looked suspended in mid air!

I loved having us all together, fabulous memories were made.

My card today is of course Matt's birthday card, made with all my love.

The background is one of the Gelli prints I made recently with my Art Rebel Visible Image stamps. The other stamps are also Visible Image, I embossed the camera in black and the sentiment in glitter gold. 

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

Try it on Tuesday 1/3 powder your I have used embossing powder on the camera and sentiment.

Creative fingers 2/3 anything goes
Lil patch of crafting friends 2/3 anything goes
The Male room 1/3 anything goes/no DPs
Love to craft 1/3 anything goes
Crafty sentiments 1/3 anything goes
Through the craft room door 1/3 anything goes

Thanks for stopping by and for your very kind and supportive comments you take the time to leave me. Enjoy this gorgeous weather, it is due to cool down by the end of the week but has been an amazing bonus for this time of the year. If you need some sunshine I am blowing it your way. 

I am back on Friday with 2 posts!

Bye for now,

Jane x

Back to the butterflies

Good Monday morning. How was your weekend?
The weather has been amazing. I have been enjoying lunches and a

 a cuppa in my garden.

Billy loved it too. He sat on the back door step and basked in the warmth of the sun.

I noticed the iris are in flower, pushing up between my potted violas.

 We also had such fun celebrating my son's 30th on Sunday...more from that coming up later this week. It's of course time for my Monday Make for Visible Image and I am continuing to showcase their simply gorgeous new mixed media stamps which are taking the crafting world by storm. After sharing my very different Art Rebel piece last week today I am back to the butterflies.
I used
Wings of change

Live life now

and a sentiment from the brilliant new
The world needs art set.

 I made an alcohol ink background mixing and dripping lots of glorious purples and greens

I stamped the flourish of butterflies from Live life now

 I stamped several butterflies from Wings of change and fussy cut them out. I also stamped and embossed the Art is in my DNA sentiment from The world needs art set. I then made a frame for my "picture" and put everthing together.
Here is my finished work.

 with some close ups.

and one final photo. I think this sentiment really sums me up...I have an urge to be creative everyday.....art really is in my DNA and my soul...it's what gives me so much pleasure in my life. I also love sharing it here.

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

The butterfly challenge 2/3 The letter A my is A for anything goes and apple green (in amongst my AI background)
Creative fingers 1/3 anything goes
Lil patch of crafting friends anything goes

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 there. You will see lots of gorgeous makes by the DT and customers to inspire your own creativity.

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. 

As a little heads up Visible Image are returning to Create and Craft TV next week. The first show will be showcasing the Wizard of Oz dies and stamps so watch out for lots more samples and inspiration as well as Mark sharing some fab demos and tips.

Thanks for stopping by and for your very kind and supportive comments you take the time to leave me. Enjoy this gorgeous weather and if you need some sunshine I am blowing it your way. 

Back soon with some party photos from Sunday.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Watch the birdie

A couple of weeks ago I met my darling daughter and Jack at Birdworld for our catch up. We really love this spot in Surrey, it is perfect for children. Out of season it is also incredible quiet, we almost had the place to ourselves. There are birds of all shapes and sizes and I thought I would share a few photos today of our fun day out.

Jack was fascinated by the pelicans.

You can buy pots of meal worms to feed them which he really loved doing. 

There is also a sweet petting farm at Birdworld where Jack saw sheep

the cute resident reindeer

and lots of chickens.

We had such a lovely day together.

My card today just had to feature a sweet creature and is a very spring themed new baby card which goes down for sale at Dotty's Tea House today.

The image is a favourite of mine, a sweet Penny Black hedgehog.
I coloured it with Promarkers and highlighted with pencils. The paper is First Edition (I think) and the dies are a mix of Memory Box, Cheery Lynn and The Works.

I would like to enter it into the following challenges;

I love Promarkers 1/3 anything goes
Passion for Promarkers 1/3 colour it
Crafty sentiments 2/3 spring is springing
A gem of a challenge 1/3 anything goes
Crafty Hazelnut's patterned paper challenge February
Everybody art 1/3 animals

Thanks for stopping by and for your very kind and supportive comments you take the time to leave me. Enjoy this gorgeous weather, let's hope it lasts for the weekend as we will be celebrating my baby boy's 30th birthday on Sunday! Have a great weekend.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Mother's Day 2019

Mother's day this year in the UK falls on 31st March so I have been busy making lots of cards for Dotty's Teahouse where I sell my cards in Carshalton High Street, Surrey.

Recently I have been spotting some lovely flowers in bloom and took these photos on my walk down to Dotty's

and my hellebore at home continues to show off it's glorious blooms

I always think that flowers are a good subject for Mother's day cards so here is one of my first.

The background was make using a paint resist technique and Tim Holz stamps. I then added distress inks over the top. The die cuts are a mix of Tim Holtz  Spellbinders and Memory box. The sentiment is by Clearly Besotted.

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

The butterfly challenge A is for mine is anything goes
Through the craft room door anything goes
The artistic stamper 3/3 heart it
Frilly and Funkie 2/3 let me count the ways I have used 3 die cut hearts on my card
Crafty sentiments 1/3 spring is springing
We love to create 2/3 anything goes mixed media

Thanks for stopping by and for your very kind and supportive comments you take the time to leave me. Enjoy this gorgeous weather and if you need some sunshine I am blowing it your way. 

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

And now for something completely different.

Good morning, we have enjoyed some glorious almost spring like days recently. It was warm enough  to enjoy a cuppa outside in the garden yesterday. The sun had it's first real warmth of the year in it.

My walks to Dotty's were bathed in sunshine too.

It is of course time for my Monday Make for Visible Image and I have been busy designing with the fab new mixed media sets. They have now been released and are all all available to buy on the website here .   Last week I shared my winter butterflies post and this week it is time for something very different from me.

I used the brilliant art rebel set and wow it is just awesome.

and words for the World need art set

Just its name inspired me to get out my acrylic paints and using that awesome big fish pull some Gelli plate prints. I decided to make an art panel. 

I got out my large Gelli plate and I pulled lots....look out for them in the coming months.

Here is the one I used for my project coming off the plate...it's always exciting to see what has happened.

I added some more stamping using the other stamps from the set.

I then trimmed it down.

This is my final background showing a few close ups.

The colours made me thing of Andy Warhol so I decided to something whacky with the Art Rebel.

When I stamped out his hair and gave it tints of red, yellow and blue (why not 😃)

I also stamped and fussy cut out some of the small fish  as I had whacky plans for those too.

I then had such fun putting together my art panel. Here it is.

I'll talk you through with some close ups as there are lots of little details which get missed in the single photo. I cut out one lens from each pair of goggles. For the red rebel I put the fish through and then filled the hole with Glossy Accent to remake the "lens"

 The yellow haired rebel has one of the fish on the Gelli print inside.

and the blue one has the fish eye stamp and a fish in his mouth.

One final shot

You can have such fun with this set and as I said I have lots of fun prints to play with too.

I would like to link up my art panel into the following challenges;

Creative Artiste anything goes mixed media
Addicted to stamps 3/3 anything but square
Penny Black and More 1/3 anything goes
We love to create 1/3 anything goes mixed media
Pixie's snippets playground #346 I used lots of snippets here.
Frilly and Funkie 1/3 let me count the ways, include 3 of something mine is 3 art rebels!
Simon says stamp Monday typography
Through the craft room door 2/2 anything goes

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 there. You will see lots of gorgeous makes by the DT and customers to inspire your own creativity.

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. 

As a little heads up Visible Image is returning to Create and Craft TV in March. The first show will be showcasing the Wizard of Oz dies and stamps so watch out for lots more samples and inspiration as well as Mark sharing some fab demos and tips.

Thanks for stopping by and for your very kind and supportive comments you take the time to leave me.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x