Garden friends

The weather over the weekend has been really was perfect...glorious warm sunny afternoons which we spent in the garden. My Hb and I spend as much time outside at this time of the year and at the weekend eat out lunch and if possible dinner outside ( as well as any tea breaks of course). Daisy and Co came to stay and we enjoyed some R+R in the garden. I have some lovely garden photos which I will share with you very soon.

Whilst we were sitting having lunch recently I spotted a garden friend...a lovely ladybird...on a journey around one of my pots.

 Do you think he/she realised they were going round in circle ;0)

Ladybirds really are our friends in the garden and will keep the greenfly numbers down for us.

I always have my best friend in the garden too....my sweet Billy...

and when it gets too warm in the sun I get the cushion out for the seat..

and he has a snooze.

I have enjoyed making some cards in my studio and the bright sunshine has brought out my glitter embossing powcer. I have seen my first butterflies too and hopefully on a day out will glimpse a dragonfly or 2.

The dragonfly stamp is by Visible Image. The background is glitter embossed using their butterfly stamp. The die cuts are Tim Holtz.

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

Pixie's snippets playground #231 I used tiny snippets of card for my flowers
Simon says stamp Wednesday 4/5 anything goes
Crafty friends 3/3 summer time
Crafting for all seasons 3/3 anything goes
Noor spring flowers
The Craft Barn weekly challenge 2 different papers I created my backing paper myself and used a second to die one of my flowers.
Mod Squad  2/3 use it or lose it  I used embossing powders a lot but I have not used this holographic one for years! I think it will get lots more use now.
Little Claire's 1/3 butterflies
Crafty boots 2/3  butterflies and/or bees

Thanks as always for your kind visits and sweet comments you take the time to leave.

I am back on Wednesday with my first DT post for Country View Challenges as unbelievably it will be 1st June.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Billie Bear with Watering Can - my GD card for the Lovely Ladybug girls

I am delighted to have been asked again by my blogging buddie Kerry to be one of their guest designers for her newest Ladybug Crafts Ink digi stamp release. For those of you who are visiting my blog for the first time may I give you a very warm welcome to Jane's Journal. This new release is called Billie Bear and she is a real cutie. There are no less than 16 Billie Bear's in this collection, one to suit every occasion. I have to be careful to say "she" as I must not get mixed up with the other Billy in my life, my sweet boy cat.

So meet Billie Bear, a sweet girl teddy ................my image is called Billie Bear with Watering Can.

and then meet  Billy, my sweet boy cat.

He was very sleepy the day I made my card so he  just opened one eye to say hello.

Now that we have got that confusion out of the way ;0) I would like to show you how my card came into being. I used my Spellbinders 17 labels to cut out my stamp and then chose my papers. I decided to go for something very girlie. Everyone knows that I am not a pink girl but I do love using pink with other colours, especially blue.

I found this pretty paper in my stash and decided to pick the blue out for matting. I also picked out the green for a few accents.

I wanted Billie to be a more orangey brown to pick up the other colour in my paper so I had play with my Promarker pens and came up with this...

Next it was time to colour up the watering can and flowers so I went for the blue, pink and green in the paper. I coloured the image using my Promarkers and Flexmarkers  and highlighted with my Prismacolor pencils.

and here she is...meet the lovely Billie in colour. I made my card on a very wet Sunday when we could not even get out of the house so I spent hours being creative. I decided to make another stepper card as these are really fun. 

I had an early birthday present of some Cheery Lynn dies from my Mum so I cut out some samples to see which I wanted to use on my card.

Aren't these gorgeous, they really look like real lace.

I decided to use the second border down called Francesca (B159)

I also decided to make some hand made flowers using my very old floral punches.

I also used my fun Marianne watering can and wheelbarrows dies (LRO260) and one of their leaf dies (LRO227)

Lots of fiddly  play here.

So finally I put everything together .....here is my card.

and a side view to show the steps

You can see that I even used 2 of my very special ladybird wooden buttons which were given to me by a dear blogging buddie ;0) I tied them with Baker's twine. You will also see where I used the Cheery Lynn die cut border,  it looks like real lace next to the gingham ribbon, doesn't it. The ribbon border around my image is the MS punch my daughter brought me home from her honeymoon in the States.
The round birthday sentiment is LOTV

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

Cheery Lynn Celebrate #73
Marianne Design Divas At the bottom of the garden
Charizma Cards Die cuts #11
Crafty Katz sparkle with a bow #175
Pretty Little Ribbons Happy Birthday #20
Forever Friends #58 Girls
Bearly Mine Girlie pink #79
Party Time Tuesdays anything goes
Make it Monday weekly linky party #133
Sweet Stamping Many layers

Thanks so much for visiting and thanks Kerry for asking me to be a GD for this release.
If you would like to take your own Billie home to colour just visit the web site.  All the digi stamps are only £1.75 each and are instantly downloadable.
If you would like to see the whole new range do also stop by the Challenge blog here.There will also be an new challenge starting today and runs for the next 2 weeks.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x (and Billy)

A Ladybug (or is it a ladybird?) friend

Us bloggers and craft makers know there is a really friendly bunch of people out in cyber space or the www as it is more commonly known. I have made some really close friends I have met over the nearly 2 years I have been blogging. I met my dear friend Mia out in Finland via Etsy nearly 3 years ago and through reading her blog for about a year encouraged me to jump into the blogging world. I have not looked back.

We often wonder how we meet new blogging friends, they are often via a 3rd party blogger or sometimes we can't even remember...we just meet them! Late last year I was admiring a card on a challenge blog and I clicked on it and was taken to the blog of a lady called Kerry who owns Ladybug Crafts Ink, a small UK company who make lovely stamps. I was intrigued by the name ladybug as here in the UK we call them ladybirds and indeed one of my early blog posts was all about ladybirds. You can read about it here. It turns out that Kerry is from Canada originally which is a clue to her using the name Ladybug not Ladybird.

I decided to follow her blog and she was having a birthday giveaway which I entered. That was just before Christmas. I got behind with my blog reading as I was so busy only to find that I had won it but  I read that as I had not come forward Kerry needed to draw a new winner. I was so disappointed as I rarely win anything. I emailed Kerry mainly to apologise for not catching up with my blog reading.  She kindly told me that if the new winner failed to come forward then the parcel would be mine. She even said that if they new winner did come forward she would still send me a little something. How kind was that?

Well luck was on my side as the 2nd drawn winner did not make contact so  look what arrived in the post last week......

Isn't her wrapping paper wonderful. Brilliant bold ladybirds.

And inside was.................

Not just one but four of her lovely Ladybug Crafts Ink stamps.

These are really good stamps, they cling brilliantly to my acrylic blocks and stamp beautifully.


I have been having a play .....

 I used most of the Promarkers I own for colouring these!












I even made my first few cards and this one is off to a friend's daughter for her 19th Birthday next week.

I used some new ribbons I bought. I love this lush black and the ribbon tape measure I thought was great fun. I fixed the tape at 19 where the sentiment is so that it shows her age.

I would like to enter this into a few challenges.

Ladybug Craft Ink; Bows
Passion for Promarkers 132- humour
Joanna Sheen Celebrations
Paper Sundaes, Choose a favourite previous theme I have chosen a challenge from last year called "How Charming" They are having a fun 2nd birthday blog hop..take a peep.
Party Time Tuesdays Happy Birthday
I love Promarkers Anything goes #100
Creative craft crew Seeing red #2

Now Kerry and I also have something else in common, we both have daughters getting married this year. I have a rare "free" non work day today so I am heading out to the studio to play with the glass lampwork beads I have had made for my jewellery for the Big Day. I hope some sample colours will also be arriving in the post today from another great glass lampwork buddy of mine. We are going to choose the bridesmaids beads from these. All very exciting.  It is also my dear Hbs birthday tomorrow and we are treating ourselves to lunch up in London at a Mayfair Brasserie...that should be lovely and beats work! We have both taken the day off. Must dash then, presents to wrap, jewellery to create.....

Have a great day and a great weekend (and thanks again Kerry, my new Ladybird (Bug) friend ;0)

Bye for now,

Jane x

My retro celebrations begin....

I would not usually make a big issue about my birthday but those of you who know me well may remember that I have a very special  FIVE O one coming up very soon. I hope you will indulge me sharing with you a few posts about  my birthday delights.

Well the day is nearly here and last Saturday I started the beginnings of my "Big" Birthday celebrations. My oldest dearest friend Karen and her Hb came over for a meal at our favourite Chinese restaurant. She had asked me if they could come over a little earlier as she had my birthday present. I was told that I just had to open it in front of her...even though it is a little early; she could not allow this to go unwatched!

They arrived an hour before we were due to go out to eat and she came bearing the most wonderful basket of gifts. Just take a look at this!

Everything was wrapped in blue tissue with gold ribbons, laid in a glorious hamper with more wonderful packaging. It was enough to make a grown (very much now) girl cry.

There was a card to open first ( I have a birthday card too which I will save for the day) and it read inside, ".. enjoy a fabulous retro birthday."

The card gave me a little clue as to what I would find hidden in my basket. Karen and I both love Ladybird books, Enid Blyton, etc etc, they are so part of our childhood. We have known one another since our earliest secondary school days and first became friends in 1972. We celebrate 39 years of friendship this September. We went to Girl Guides together, first discos, wore first fashion trends from minis to maxis and from flared trousers to the tightest fits. Our first loves were cried over and of course we met our dear Hbs. We went through all our school exams together, first jobs, our weddings, first homes, celebrated out childrens' births and more. It is a lifetime of friendship which I treasure.  

  She set out my parcels to open and I just had to show you what I unwrapped.

....on the back of this was a summary which make me smile so much. Have a read and if you are of a similar age it will ring very true to you too.......






How great is that......my children would certainly not understand it!   It was the on the back of a beautiful birthday book shown below.

And yes I even remember wearing party dresses and hair
ribbons similar to this when I was around 6-8 years old. I always remember some of the fabrics used were nylon and itchy.
It was not too elegant having a scratch in your best party frock!

I can also remember my brother sometimes wearing little clip on ties but never a jacket!

My party dress for this weekend will certainly not be yellow and I will not be wearing a pink ribbon in my hair either!

Here are just some of the wonderful presents I found in my hamper.....a real retro delight, the sweetie jar was full of old childhood favourites and it even had a packet of smarties with a "J" on the lid!
And one other of my favourites is this fantastic old retro poster from the days when we all wore "ladybird" clothes...oh my just look at the fashions!

So now I am awaiting my Big Day  and then my Party Lunch on Sunday...just to give you a peep, these are the place names I have made.They are die cut butterflies which I have stuck little sparkly jewels to.

and I have also made some gifts for everyone.....without revealing too much here before the day, these are some in their little spring organza gift bags ready to place at the table.

I shall reveal their contents in a future post, after the event. They were such good fun to make and will give each of my 30 guests a little memento of my special day.

So I will be back soon to reveal both my birthday celebrations and also my party lunch. I will take my camera with me and take lots of photos to show you. I will also raise a glass of champagne to all my lovely blogger friends out there. Thank you for reading my blog, I so enjoy your company. I also want to thank you again for all the comments you take the time to leave, they are such fun to read and are so appreciated.

Cheers!

Bye for now,

Jane x

Ladybird ladybird.......

There are advantages and disadvantages to this summer's good weather. One disadvantage in my garden has been the abundance of pesky black fly, the advantage has been the arrival of so many beautiful ladybirds.

The black fly have been mostly attracted to my runner beans. As we enjoy eating these I did not want to keep spraying chemicals on them to kill them. I decided to wait and see if nature could sort things out.

Amazingly within a short time the ladybirds arrived and started to reproduce prolifically.

I have been fascinated to watch all the life cycle changes of this beetle from egg, through the rather scary looking larval stage until the beautiful adult emerges from its pupa.

There are also so many different colours, from yellow through orange to bright red. They have done an incredible job of eating the black fly and I have a "balance" now.

Watching them also reminded me of the old nursery rhyme. I realised that I could not remember more than the first part;

Ladybird ladybird fly away home,
Your house is on fire your children have gone..


 So I decided some  research was necessary;


Interestingly it appears the old rhyme dates from at least 1744 and  was chanted to a ladybird if it landed on you. It supposedly encouraged the ladybird to fly away as it was unlucky to kill one. Also there was a belief that if you sang it to one that landed on you and it flew away and then came back you would have good luck! I also found the whole verse which made me smile...

Ladybird ladybird fly away home,
Your house is on fire and your children are gone,
All except one and that's little Anne,
For she crept under the frying pan.

Childhood memories.. so now I can remember the whole rhyme.....but who on earth was Anne???!!!!
Have a great day,
Bye for now,
Jx