Cast a clout, the May is out

Yes after all that amazing weather we enjoyed over the bank holiday weekend the Hawthorn is in flower which means the May is out!

The ancient saying "Don't cast a clout til May be out" means the Hawthorn blossom, (May flower) not the month. I hope that we have seen the last of any frosts, especially here in the South of England.

I snapped the May over the weekend. It is such a pretty flower but with a very odd scent indeed!

I had bumper April card sales down at Dotty's Tearooms so I have been busy making some new stock. My card today is one of them. I was inspired by the fresh spring colours around me and created an inky background with my distress inks. Friendship cards sell very well at Dotty's and I used this very old Lili of the Valley sentiment stamp lots.

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

The butterfly challenge spin the wheel and the letter H It is Mrs A's 100th challenge, such an achievement. I am so glad to join her and hope many of you will too. I went for Hunter's green for my plain leaves  and some of my inking and heat embossing, my sentiment was heat embossed.

Crafty catz 2/3 anything goes

Lil patch of crafty friends 2/3 anything goes

Crafty Calender 2/3 Things with wings

Cute card Thursday 2/3 anything goes
Dies R Us 1/3 flowers
Double D May flowers
Sweet stampin 1/3 flowers

Thanks as always for stopping by and for the kind comments you take the time to leave me. I would also like to warmly welcome my newest follower. 

Enjoy the better weather and all the colours of Mother Nature in May (the month!) I even spied some butterflies over the weekend, a sure sign how much warmer it has been.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Flying high with STAMPlorations

Hello I am delighted that all the challenges over at STAMPLorations resume today after Shery's little "Winter" break. I am part of the Theme and Sketch team but just for the first month back there will be no sketch, just the theme, "Things with wings" which is running across all the design team challenges. All you need to do to join is is create something with wings...simples! During May there are also fun blog hops and linky parties.

You can find all the details here
There are certainly lots of things with wings down at the ponds. The ducks are pairing up with mates

and I spotted on the other side a single duckling with it's Mum and Dad!

How woolly is he? 

Everyone was enjoying the sunshine

I decided that despite there being no sketch that I would use an old sketch and used this one from way back in May 2015

My stamps I used are
 Trendy Birds 2 

and "You're forever my friend" from
Fond expressions 2

I used some snippets of card and book pages and added some bird flight stamping.

I decided to use Kraft as my base card. I also stamped and embossed the birds and fussy cut some out. I stamped the sentiment directly onto my card.

Here it is/ I love the trendy bird set, it is in my Top 3 of Shery's amazing stamps. The sentiments from fond expressions work so well too. 

You can find all the details of the challenge here. We would love for you to join in with the fun. You do not need to use STAMPlorations stamps to enter either.


Thanks so much for stopping by today. Enjoy the bank holiday weekend, the weather is looking really super (for a change!)

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

May brings flocks of pretty lambs

I finally bought some bedding plants for my pots at the weekend. My bulbs have been so beautiful this year that I didn't want to tip them out until they really had spent. I bought this box of beauties

 and a box of gazania

I even managed to start to pot them up on Sunday. First though it was the job of emptying and washing the pots. Much as this is a real chore I am a firm believer that this really helps with getting pots of gorgeous summer flowers as it removes bugs et al.

I will share some more photos soon. 

I also wanted to enter some challenges before May is over.

I found this great  digi image over at the Graphic fairy and decided to make an art journal page. I decided to try to use the image as the focal but cut out the tree and replace it with a mixed media one of my own. This is what I got up to

I created a sky using distress inks and a cloud mask

I made the grass with distress inks and added some distress oxide daisy flowers using my Visible Image Create it set.

I tore the digi and drew in a line to continue the horizon on my journal page.

I die cut a tree, added some bark texture with my Create it VI stamps and crackle medium and punched out some flowers out of inky mop up card. I added liquid pearls to the flower centres which you will see in my final photo.

I then replaced my tree where the tree from the digi was

 I then put everything together to create my May art journal page.

My art journal page was made for the following challenges;

The Craft Barn calendar challenge May

Crafty Calendar flowers

Double D challenge flowers galore
The Ribbon Girls 2/3 use any image

Simon Says stamp little critters
Pile it on 1/3 animal
We love to create 2/2 anything mixed media

I am coming back from Southampton today where I have spent a wonderful few days in the sunshine with Daisy, Jack and Co.  I hope you are enjoying a sunny week too? Thanks for stopping by.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Cast a clout the May be out!

Yes the May is in full bloom on the Hawthorn trees and if the old English saying, "Ne'er cast a clout till May be out" is correct it's time to get rid of those outer coats and clothes (clout) and look forward to warm days and nights. Hopefully we will have seen the last of any frosts here in Southern England until the autumn.

I love the Hawthorn, it has such spectacular flowers which although usually white, can have tinges of pink right through to being pure pink.
I snapped lots of hawthorn flowers whilst out and about this week.

here is the lovely pink version.

Fairy folklore was associated with the Hawthorn too. It was known as the "Faerie Tree"and May Queens were decorated with Hawthorn. It's also known as the bread and cheese tree as the blooms, leaves and berries can all be used to make wines and jellies.

I also noticed that the cherry trees are losing their blossom now and it is flying about like fairy confetti in the air.

These cherry trees looked so pretty standing in a pool of pink fluffy blossom.

So yes trees, fairies. blossom and blue skies were the inspiration for my card I am sharing here today. I won some fabulous stamps from Lavinia in April and got them out to play with. I made a card. I have entered it over on their Facebook challenge here. If you remember in April I asked my lovely Blogging friends to go over and "Like" me there. Getting into the top 20 is necessary to get through to the final DT judging. Can I ask you to follow this link here and like me over there. If you want to share my card, please do....but I only get votes if peeps come back and like me on the original  Lavinia page. Thanks so much in advance x

The background was created with distress inks. I embossed all the images. The die cuts are Tim Holtz wild flowers (my favourite flower die of the moment) as is the sentiment.

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

Simon says stamp Wednesday flowers
Anything but Cute celebrate your style yes I have several styles, all of which I love to play with...this is another of mine...and I do love fairies (and mermaids, and Christmas and...LOLOL)
The Ribbon Girl 1/3 any image

Crafty friends 2/3 in the garden

Paper Creator 2/3 anything goes

Fussy and Fancy 2/3 birthdays

Noor spring flowers
Bastel-traum Fantasy
Seven Hills Crafts Embossing I used Hero Arts clear embossing powder for all my stamp embossing.
WOW  embossing powders May challenge

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. Ours was lovely, sunny and warm in our sheltered garden. I have been really busy making cards in my studio. I also bought some lovely bedding plants from our local nursery and will be potting them up once I have hardened them up outside for a few days.

I am back again tomorrow with a GD post for the lovely ladies over at Try it on Tuesday. It would be lovely if you can stop by again and see what I made...here's a clue.....birdsong was my inspiration ;0)

Bye for now,

Jane x

May Design team piece for Country View Challenge, use a stencil

Hello, welcome to May and it's time for my next Design Team  piece for Country View. The new challenge is to "Use a stencil" Now this is a really special month and here is the amazing announcement from our sponsor, Country View....you could win a BIG SHOT AND DIE BUNDLE!!!!

This month alongside our Challenge, we are also running a Blog Hop with a Sizzix Big Shot Machine & Die Bundle as the prize. To enter, you must be a Follower of our Challenge Blog and Hop along to each of our Design Team Members Blogs and leave a comment. We will still be running our normal monthly challenge and those who link their Use A Stencil projects will also be entered into our £20 Voucher draw. The Winners will be picked at random in early June.

Wow I am so jealous that I can't enter.

This is the order of the hop and the links

 Christine
Gabrielle
 Jennie
Rachel
Sue
Evelyn
 Doreen
 Nikki
Monika
Hazel
Brenda
Corrie
Jane........................you are here ;0) 

If you need to go back to the main Country View Challenge blog and start at the beginning this is the link there.

 As you well know I love using stencils in my crafting, the difficult part for me was deciding which to use!  There are lots of inspiring projects over on the challenge page too. You can enter any craft which fits the theme.


For my first piece of the month I decided to make a card, a special card for my SIL's sister who is getting married this month. I wanted to use some bold May colours.

To make my focal I stamped and white embossed my Lili of the Valley sentiment and die cut it out.  I then dripped it through some TH distress inks

 and dried it off with my heat gun

For the backing card I repeated the process....

I then added some hearts through my stencil using archival ink

and then some diamond sparkle medium through my Gothic stencil.

Then it was time to assemble my card and add a ribbon to finish it off.

and one last shot

My second DT piece for the May challenge is on  Friday 27th...I have made a complementary tag for the "set".

I would like to link up my card with the following challenges.

   Creative Card Crew wet or dry embosssing I have white embossing powder for my sentiment.
                                          Simon Says stamp Wednesday anything goes

Don't forget to leave a comment here if you are on the blog hop....and you need to hop along to all the other blogs too if you would like try to win the Big Shot.  Good luck!

For all my other "regulars" thanks for visiting and for your sweet comments. Welcome to May and enjoy the rest of the bank holiday weekend.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Cast a clout.....the May is out!

The spring bulbs are all but finished now but there is still plenty of spring blossom to see. At the weekend I noticed that the may blossom from the Hawthorne is out, so it's time to embrace the last of the cold weather (hopefully). This is according to the old English proverb "Ne'er cast a clout til May be out" and probably refers to the blossom of the Hawthorn (which was also known as the May tree) rather than the month of May. In other words have the jumpers at the ready until you see May blooming on the Hawthorn tree.

I spied May on our country walk on Sunday with Daisy and her Mummy and Daddy. The hedgerows are full of it.

Considering how lethal the thorns are on hawthorn it is such a pretty flower

We saw other gorgeous blossoms too

My darling granddaughter Daisy had such fun on a slide......so much joy in this photo

I must start to clear out my spring bulb pots in my garden as they are all finished now. It's time for some summer bedding.....how exciting. I might get the chance at the weekend to get up to the nurseries to choose some.

My card today is inspired by the ancient English proverb and by the countryside. I can never seen a wood or hedgerow without thinking about fairies too.  There are so many glorious colours around at the moment and unusually for me I used the pink cheery blossom as the backing colour for my vintage garden inspired card. I don't grow tea roses in my garden as I don't have the space but I just love them. I still have a passion for fairies (I will never grow up) and Lavinia's stamps are always my go to as they are classic and non cute and work really well with mixed media techniques. They remind me of Margaret Tarrant and Cicily Mary Barker's (flower fairies) wonderful vintage illustrators work.

The background is created with different colours of  Bister misted with water. If  this is a new product to you have a look here to see what fun it is. The stamp is Lavinia which I have embossed in black. I have inked up some bought mulberry roses and added some Cheery Lynn leaves die cuts. I embossed the pink card for extra texture. I distressed everything with Vintage photo DI.

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

Lavinia use pink or blue or both
Cheery Lynn Roses I have used my leaf die cuts
Anything but cute vintage garden This is a new challenge run by blogging friend Pamellia, do pop on over and support her in her new venture. She is such a talented and kind blogger and has a great DT over there.
Simon says stamp Wednesday colour swatch

Stamp and Create May flowers

Our Creative Corner April showers bring May flowers

Country view simply scenic

Noor! May flowers

Fussy and fancy lots of flowers

The ribbon girl Anything goes with an image

Sweet stampin spring flowers

Allsorts die cuts- more than 2 I have used 5 leaf die cuts

Crafty boots lace or ribbon
Papertake Weekly in the garden
Craft stamper take it make it take a stamp
Stamping sensations flower power

Although we have had some (very welcome for my garden) rain here this morning it certainly is much warmer so I shall embrace the ancient saying and cast a clout 'cos may is out! Time to dig out the summer sandals and get my toenail painted up ready for the great summer ahead.

Thanks as always for taking the time to visit me. I really appreciated all you wonderful comments on my Bluebell wood post.....I am currently working on something else inspired by that walk and hope to post it here soon....work in progress indeed.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x