Garden joy

My garden is blooming away now. My tiny outdoors space brings me so much joy. 

The flowers which have really got the "wow" factor again this year are my begonias. Their colours are jaw dropping. I have them in pots and also in hanging baskets.

They inspire me so much in my crafting. I "see" my distress ink colours in them and often name them..here goes;

Picked raspberry

 wild honey,

picket fence

fossilized amber

and antique linen. 

Yes perhaps that makes me a distress ink addict!

I am able to see all this from my studio in the garden and inspired by the glorious colours of my begonias  I decided to make some summery blends using my new speckled egg distress ink.

 Below are my 2 favourites, on the left is speckled egg, antique linen and picked raspberry (how I would love to have the space to grow raspberries!). On the right I replaced the picked raspberry with wild honey.

I wanted to make some artist trading coins (ATCs) as I was taking part in a "circles" ATC themed swap. To add my "circles"I used one of Tim Holtz' mini stencils and use my speckled egg ink.

I recently bought Tim's Entomology and Field notes stamps set which work so well together and I am using them so much. I used the circle date stamps from Field notes and the circular shaped ladybirds, as well as a few ants thrown in for good measure. I managed to buy, after a long search, the matching dies for the insects which save an awful lot of fussy cutting!

 I also added some background text using the Faded type set. 

I painted my insects with distress inks and added Glossy accents to make them more 3D. 

Here they are finished.

with a couple of close ups

and one final shot.

It has finally rained here today, which my garden desperately needed. It did cancel my plans to visit my parents in their garden but I manged to Zoom craft with my sweet Daisy Jane so all was not lost. The sunshine is due to return this weekend.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, stay safe.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x