The 2019 Conker treasure hunt

Last weekend out darling grandbabies came to stay while their Mummy and Daddy went to a wedding. It was the perfect timing as the local horse chestnut trees were raining down conkers for our annual conker treasure hunt. My non UK blog readers often ask what conkers are. They are the fruit of the horse chestnut tree and are the stuff of all our childhoods. Everyone smiles when they see a shiny conker on the ground and even my Mum at 85 will stop and pick up the first one of the season. However as I have been before they are not edible at all, unlike their sweet chestnut relative.

Daisy has been on our conker treasure hunt most years but this was a first for Jack. They had their baskets to gather their finds.

We call it "treasure" when you find an unopened case containing a conker. You never know if you will find a single round conker in there or 2 "cheese cutters". Daisy even found one case with 3 inside.

Jack actually said "wow" as we opened this one.

Treasure!

Expert Daisy showed Jack how to avoid the prickles as you open the case.

There were  thousands on the floor.

We had the best fun.

This is their haul which I will scatter at the park at the end of our road for the squirrels to eat soon.

How much joy can such a simple free activity generate, we made some wonderful memories of a very special day.

I decided that I really wanted to make a "Moment" for my album and some Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) Daisy loves my ATCS and coins, I offered to send one of each of my collections I make to her from now on. She thought it was a wonderful idea and I bought her an A4 file and some sheets of protective card holders. She has asked me to post them to her, this sounds like a really fun thing for us both.

So on Monday, when the house was very quiet again, I got out my distress inks to make some backgrounds, inspired by the colours of that day.

I made 2 sheets of watercolour backgrounds, 1 for my Moment and 1 for my Artist trading cards.

I used my very organic Ink swirls Visible Image stencil and added some more of the same inks.

 I left 1 sheet whole and I cut some of the 2nd sheet into ATC size. 

For my Moment I wanted to try to give the impression of the conkers and autumnal trees and colours without distracting from my photos. I used my Visible Image "the ripple effect" set of background stamps as I wanted to create the memory of the trees and the conkers we collected.I also used , Into the woods for the trees and sentiment.  The ripple effect  represented the tree trunks and the circles the conkers. Some I gave a shine to using glossy accents, just like the shiny conkers we found.

Here is my Moment.

with a couple of close ups;

and one last shot

and these are the ATCs

3 are for a Facebook swap group I belong to, 1 is for Daisy and 1 is for me.

A couple of close ups;

When I look at my Moment and ATCs in my album I will be able to revisit a special day with Daisy and Jack and some wonderful memories.
I think the sentiments were perfect to sum up that day. Family/roots/strength/memories, what can be more important?

I would like to enter my Moment into the following challenges;
Cute card Thursday anything goes
Addicted to stamps and more anything goes
Crafting by Design anything goes

I would like to enter my ATCs into the following challenges;
Fab n Funky 1/3 autumn colours
Creative Inspirations 1/3 masculine or fall/autumn
The house that stamps built 1/3 circles
Through the craft room door 1/3 anything goes

Thanks so much for stopping by, the mornings and evenings have a real nip in the air now. Even with the sunny days mixed in with the rain we had this week, autumn has most certainly arrived.

Have a lovely upcoming weekend,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Magical Majorca

As promised I am back to share some photos of our recent trip to Majorca. I thought for my first post I would show you where we stayed. We were in a 3 bed apartment with a gorgeous rooftop terrace just off the Pine Walk in Puerto Pollensa. A most splendid place to stay. We had a large pool on site which the children loved. 

Our roof terrace had a 360o view and we felt that we were in the tree tops with the birds. 

There was welcome shade for our al fresco dining. 

Down at the pool there were also frog, fish and terrapin ponds, it was such fun seeing these lovely creatures. Daisy was fascinated. 

At dusk the view was so beautiful...red sky at night shepherd's delight.

We could see right through to the marina and the bay.

The ponds inspired to make the card below using distress inks and 2 of my lovley STAMPlorations stamps. I heat embossed the lovely butterfly stamps and coloured them with glitter green ink. I think this is such a lovely quote and yes I certainly enjoyed so many lovely moments on holiday with Daisy and Co. Special family times. 

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

 The alphabet challenge 1/3 Great outdoors
The butterfly challenge V I have gone for vertical pattern and vintage style
Crafty Catz 1/3 anything goes
As you like it 1/3 favourite type of embossing and why mine is always heat embossing as it gives a brilliant resist to all my inking.
CRAFT 1/2 summer
Time out 1/3 warm
Simon says stamp Wednesday bright and cheerful

It looks as though we are at the start of a 10 day heat wave here. The weather has been glorious and the temperatures are due to hit the 30s next week. Summer has definitely arrived.

I'm back on Monday with my weekly Visible Image inspiration. In the meantime have a fabulous weekend. Thanks for stopping by and for your kind comments. I have been knee deep working (in a very nice way) on some magazine designs this week, so I have been rather absent in blog land. I will also share some more of our Majorcan holiday photos very soon.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Into the bluebell woods

A couple of weekends ago my Hb and I went for a walk in our local woods. I shared a post here where you can see some photos of the gorgeous trees newly leaved in their lime green colours. I promised I would be back to share the bluebells that we saw too. This annual spectacle is something I wait for and never miss. It is just magical. 

Whilst we were there we took a moment to sit on a log and gazed up into the tree canopy above us through to the blue sky and sunshine. 

When I got home I decided that I needed to make a "Moment" for Jane's Journal to remember that time. 

I knew that the fabulous Into the woods stamps set from the brand new Visible Image release

would be perfect so I decided to make my weekly DT piece for today using it together with the beautiful new butterfly ink stencil

I started with a piece of watercolour card the same size as my journal and added some drips of Salty Ocean, antique linen and cracked pistachio distress oxides to start off my background. I then used a corner of the stop meshing around stencil 

 as the sun using yellow Distress inks

 I added some more "sunlight" using the take my hand stencil...the hand of Mother Nature perhaps? 

As you can see English bluebells are not blue at all but more a shade of mauve.

so I added this colour through my butterfly ink stencil

I added 5 butterflies around the page using Wilted violet distress oxide and then added some more depth using the circle stamp from the Hummingbird set

Once I was happy with my tree canopy it was time to stamp the woods....first the under canopy in purple, to represent the drift of bluebells.

 Then the top line in green, to show those brand newly unfurled leaves. I took the stamping around the sides of the page as I wanted to give the impression that we were sitting down and gazing up from the floor of the bluebell wood.

So here we are.......let me set the scene again......"It is a glorious blue sky morning. The sun shone out like a ball of lemon fire. 

 It was the kind of day that makes you glad to be outside, hand in hand with Mother Nature.

 Into the woods we went 

to be greeted by the splendor and scent of bluebells, their drifts were everywhere, like a carpet of purple.
We sat down for a moment to pause and looked up through the canopy of the newly leaved trees to the clear blue sky above...a Moment in time to remember. "

Below is my Moment in it's entirety. I think the words I chose to use from the set summed up how we feel about our life. It was a blissful Moment there, among the bluebells.

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

Craft stamper Take it make it anything goes
Stamping sensations close to nature
Simon says stamp Monday stencil it
Simon says stamp Wednesday stencil it
Creative moments 2/3 anything goes
Cute card Thursday 1/3 the great outdoors

All the Visible Image links are here;

Visible Image group page on Facebook. Our friendly Group can be found here ...it would be lovely to see you. You can add work to the "Show and Tell" album where one randomly chosen winner each month wins a £25 coupon to spend on the website.

The main Visible Image Facebook page is here; there are weekly stamp giveaways...open world wide! There is an 11,000 followers celebration running at the moment, you could win a £100 coupon to spend on their website! 

And the shop web site is here; where all these gorgeous stamps and stencils can be purchased. 

You can also follow via:

 Pinterest

Twitter

and

 Instagram

There are 6 new stamp sets and 8 new stencils...all totally amazing and uniquely Visible Image.

I'd also like to give a quick heads up too. Myself and 2 of my VI Design Team colleagues have a stamping feature in this month's (June edition) of Making Cards Magazine. We all used the Seahorse and Dare to swim Visible Image stamp sets to make 3 very different red, white and blue cards

and here is a teeny weenie sneak peek of my underwater card......do check it out!

Thanks so much for taking a walk in the bluebell woods with me. I have so many ideas for using this amazing new stamp set....
I hope you all had a fab weekend, wasn't the royal wedding a total delight and Windsor looked stunning in the sunshine too.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x