More birthday celebrations in June

Hello it's time for some mid month inspiration for our June challenge over at STAMPlorations. The theme for June is a fun one.

 and this is the fun sketch

The rules in brief are that you need to use stamping on your projects. You don't have to use STAMPlorations stamps to enter but of course we love it if you do! You can link up 6 times with new blog posts and you need to include the challenge graphic in your post. You can go with the theme, the sketch or both, the choice is yours. There are some fab prizes to be won too! 

This is the link to the challenge with all the info you need.

As always I used the theme and sketch and this is what I got up to. I added some brushos to a piece of card and chose a piece of blue card as my base.

I cut the inky piece into strips as per the sketch and stuck them in place.

I used a sentiment stamp from Birthday bash for the focal and stamped and embossed it in blue sparkle powder.

and I also stamped part of another sentiment onto the middle strip. I matter the focal and back up onto yellow card.
Here it is;

with a close up of the focal

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

Creative artiste 3/3 anything goes

 Creative moments 2/3anything goes

Everybody art 3/3 anything goes

Crafting from the heart 2/3 anything goes
Simon says stamps work it out 2/3 summer vibes

Cut it up 1/3 welcome summer

Remember if you would like to buy these stamps or any products on the website just enter my code STAMPGIRLJANE at the checkout to get 20% off on top of any current discount being offered.This is a direct link to the web site

It would be great to see you joining in with the fun and perhaps you might even be the winner of the $15 coupon code? Once again this is the link to the challenge with all the info you need.

Thanks so much for stopping by today,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

More bugs for June

Good morning I am back with my second dose of inspiration for the June challenge over at Country View. I am delighted to be the host for this month. I chose the theme, "A bugs life" and I am looking for crafting projects which feature butterflies, bees, dragonflies, beetles, ladybirds, ants and any bug you can think of.   All the details can be found here.

I am loving being out in the garden crafting, sharing space with the mother nature. There have been lots of bees around this year and I watched this lovely one busy collecting nectar on my dahlia which has it's first flower open.

I don't have any bee stamps or dies so I have gone with dragonflies again for my card. This time i have included my Tim Holtz bigz die cut dragonfly. I used aluminium strip on card and the added alcohol inks, allowing the layers to dry. 

Here is the first layer drying

I used alcohol inks on glossy card stock to make a really sunny background

and die cut and an oval aperture.

 I then stamped the medium and small dragonfly from my Visible Image live in the moment set

I also die cut some wildflowers using my Tim Holtz thinlits and then layered up my aperture with some foam tape. Here is my finished card

with a close up 

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

Happy little stampers anything goes with dies
Creative artiste 2/3 anything goes

 Creative moments 1/3anything goes

Everybody art 1/3 anything goes

Crafting from the heart 1/3 anything goes
The house that stamps built 1/3 things with wings
Simon says stamps work it out 1/3 summer vibes

You can enter our June "It's a bugs life" challenge as many times as you like and combine with other challenges. There is also a £20 crafting voucher up for grabs to the lucky randomly selected winner to spend over on the Country View Crafts on line store. Remember that UK postage and packing is absolutely FREE! All the details for the challenge can be found here. Even if I don't get time comment I will be around to see every single entry.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Stamps and birthdays

It is the first Friday and June and of course that means that it is time for a brand new challenge over at STAMPlorations.

The theme for this month is a fun one,

 and a really cool sketch if you would like to try that.

The rules in brief are that you need to use stamping on your projects. You don't have to use STAMPlorations stamps to enter but of course we love it if you do! You can link up 6 times with new blog posts and you need to include the challenge graphic in your post. You can go with the theme, the sketch or both, the choice is yours. There are some fab prizes to be won too! 

This is the link to the challenge with all the info you need.

As always I used the theme and sketch and this is what I got up to.
I made an alcohol ink background using alcohol ink pearls. I then cut some pink and yellow card in the same shape as the sketch.

and stuck them in place

I then stamped one of the cupcakes and sentiment onto an oval die cut from the super fun stamp set
Birthday bash

This is my finished card

with close up of the focal. 

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

Love to craft 3/3 anything goes

Lil patch of crafting friends 3/3 anything goes

Through the craft room door 2/3 anything goes
Stamping sensations 2/3 show us your true colours

Remember if you would like to buy these stamps or any products on the website just enter my code STAMPGIRLJANE at the checkout to get 20% off on top of any current discount being offered.This is a direct link to the web site

It would be great to see you joining in with the fun and perhaps you might even be the winner of the $15 coupon code? Once again this is the link to the challenge with all the info you need.

Thanks so much for stopping by today,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

It's a bugs life

Welcome to hopefully flaming June, summer is nearly here and my garden will be hotting up.
Today is obviously a new challenge over at Country View Crafts and I am delighted to be the host for this month. I chose the theme, "A bugs life" and I am looking for crafting projects which feature butterflies, bees, dragonflies, ladybirds, ants and anything bug you can think of. Your bugs must be the feature of your project, not just a little tiny butterfly tucked away at the corner of the card 😁
I have been admiring the busy bees which are everywhere at the moment. 

For my card though I decided to go with a more rarely seen insect, the spectacular dragonfly.

I used the  live in the moment and creative chaos Visible Image stamp sets to make my card.
I used oxides blended across the card to make the background and included some stencilling.

I stamped the flower from the Visible Image Creative Chaos set, masked it and stamped 2 more flowers.

 which I coloured in with oxides

 I also glittered up a spare pair of wings which I overlaid

 Here is my finished card

with a couple of close ups

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

Through the craft room door 2/2 anything goes
Crafty sentiments 2/3 summer
Simon says stamp Monday frame it
Crafting from the heart 2/3 anything goes

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes 
Crafty catz 1/3 anything goes

You can enter our June "It's a bugs life" challenge as many times as you like and combine with other challenges. There is also a £20 crafting voucher up for grabs to the lucky randomly selected winner to spend over on the Country View Crafts on line store. Remember that UK postage and packing is absolutely FREE! All the details for the challenge can be found here. Even if I don't get the time to leave a comment I will be around to see every single entry.

I am back on Monday with my 2nd dose of inspiration. Enjoy a lovely weekend and thanks for stopping by. 

Bye for now,

Jane x

A shout out for June!

Happy June everyone...the longest day and first day of summer is now just 21 days away. 

My plants are thriving as we have had a mixture of sunshine and showers so my garden is looking lush, especially my foxgloves, such tall elegant flowers. Mine just self seed from year to year and I have shades from white to pink.
I snapped these photos at dusk and the busy bees were still humming in and out the flowers.

Today is also the start of our June challenge over at Country View Challenges. For this month the theme is "The written word". We would like to see all your crafty makes where you have added text in some form.

 As always you can enter our challenge as many times as you like and combine with any other challenges. Your make can be anything creative! You may even be the lucky random winner of the £20 CVC voucher.

All the details can be found here

I knew just the set of words I wanted to use, my

Visible Image "Wake up awesome" stamp which Susan has for sale here on the County View crafts website. My inspirational word cards sell so well at Dotty's Teahouse so I decided to make a sunny June card with colours which shout out summer. I chose these Distress oxides for my background colours.

I first white embossed the sentiment onto the less textured side of my watercolour paper.

A little spritz of water gave me the simple bleached look I wanted.

I really wanted the words to pop so I simply distressed the edges and matted up my card with bright yellow and blue card and added some sequins,  just like the sun in the blue sky on a June morning.

I would like to also link up my card with these other fun challenges;

Cute card Thursday 1/3 here comes summer
Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes
C.R.A.F.T 1/3 come play outside
Little Patch of crafting friends 2/3 anything goes
Simon says work it Wednesday 2/3 summer

I hope you also managed to wake up and feel awesome, we all should be....let's have a shout out for the arrival of June 2018! I hope to see lots of you joining in with our "The written word" challenge. There are so many fab quote stamps out there you are spoilt for choice and I am sure you must have some form on text lurking in your stash.
Here is the link again 

My 2nd DT make for Country View is on Thursday and it's a very non clean and simple card with a Father's Day theme.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Sibling love

Good morning, I am here with my Monday morning Visible Image inspiration and for today's project I decided to make another of my Moments for my physical Jane's Journal. Our darling grandson Jack was born 8 weeks ago and I have not yet had time to use one of his photos. When I took these photos of Daisy playing peek a boo with him  I knew I had the perfect one to use..

Peep-bo Jack... 

Just look at the bond already between these 2...so wonderful . Daisy could not love her little brother more.

I decided to use this last photo. I also wanted to add the June lines from the Garden Year poem by Sara Coleridge. I have been making art journal pages for each month since the beginning of this year.

The lines read;

"June bring tulips, lilies, roses

fills the children's hands with posies"

In previous months I have tended to print out the words on my computer but now that Visible Image have a brilliant alphabet stamp set I decided to stamp the lines out myself.

Alphabetical

I also wanted to make a "generic" posy of flowers and I knew just which set would be perfect...

the flowers from imperfection is beauty

 Unlike me I accidently managed to overwrite my prep photos for this project so just for today I will share a write up only of my techniques. 

This is what I got up to;

I used distress inks to make a background, using the wrinkle free distress technique. I die cut my photo and a backing frame to put underneath.

 I stamped several of the flowers onto inky mop up card and fussy cut them out. I made stems for the flowers from die cuts and found some ribbon to match Jack's little toy mouse.

I then hand stamped out the lines from the poem. There are lots of useful doubles in Alphabetical so I was even able to stamp some words 2 at a time. I found it easier to place the letter on my glass crafting plate and then "pick them up" onto my stamping block. It was also easier this way to get the spacing correct.

So here is my finished Moment

with a couple of close ups;

and one last shot

This new alphabet will be so useful in mixed media work....you can of course also stamp out each letter or whole words on pieces of card and build up the words that way too. I must admit I think I was pretty brave stamping straight onto my AJ page...I only got 1 chance to get it right and luckily I didn't mess up!

I would like to enter my art journal page into the following challenges;

The Craft Barn June calendar page
The ribbon girl 2/3 any image

Happy  Little stampers June watercolour challenge
Try it on Tuesday 2/3 Letters numbers or both
Allsorts 1/3 Flower power
We love to create 1/2 Anything creative mixed media

These are all the Visible Image links;

Visible Image group page on Facebook. Our friendly Group can be found here ...it would be lovely for you to join us.  You can add work to the "Show and Tell" album where one randomly chosen winner each month win a £25 coupon to spend on the website. Our 2nd themed challenge, "dimension", ends on Wednesday. You still have a couple of days left to enter. There is another £40 voucher up for grabs for the winner of this. 

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 can be purchased. 

Thanks so much for visiting me today and for all the kind comments you take the time to leave me. You may have noticed I was a little bit absent from blog land last week...because I have been away on holiday and I am travelling back this morning! I have lots of lovely photos and so much inspiration to work with. I will share some very soon. I would also like to warmly welcome my newest follower, thanks for joining me on my creative journey. 

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x