Bird spotting with Bear

I am really enjoying Bear staying with us and we have been on some long walks. One lovely park near us is Beddington and we took a long stroll over there. He loves sniffing around in the woods.

 We also took a walk around the lake

 and spotted these cuties.

 Yes 8 fluffy goslings with Mum

and some cygnets too.

There was also Joe Crow looking down at us from a tree.

All these birds inspired me to come home and make some Artist trading coins with a spring bird theme.

I had a piece of paint resist card in my stash made with Tim Holtz' Urban tapestry stamps so I made a background by blending some blue and green distress inks onto it. I also added some Broken china ink through my Tim Holtz bark stencil.

 I added some stamping using my treasured Bronte verse from Visible Image, sadly long discontinued but one of my fave script stamps.

 I die cut some of my CL birds and coloured them with distress inks.

I also used the owls and sentiment stamps from Visible Image's Into the Woods. stamp set. I stamped and embossed a nest using one of the stamps from their Organics stamp set.

This is what I put together.

There are 3 as they were made for an Facebook UK swap group that I am a member of.

Number 1

 Number 2

 and number 3

and here they are as a group.

I would like to enter my A T Coins into the following challenges;

Penny black and More 1/3 going round in circles
Through the craft room door 1/2 anything goes
Happy Little stampers watercolour anything goes
Mix it up 1/5 anything goes
Pile it on 1/3 favourite colour mine is definitely blue
Addicted to stamps and more 1/3 make your mark

Thanks so much for stopping by today,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Wake up awesome

It's that time of the year when Mother Nature is just about waking up. I am spotting more and more blossom on my walks to Dotty's.

 The fowl are starting to pair up too and I am sure in plants surrounding the ponds nests are being built.

My card today is one with a very positive message because at this time of the year we are all beginning to get a little more energy as the daylight returns. 

I used a distress oxide background. The stamp is Visible Image.

It is up for sale now at Dotty's Teahouse, Carshalton, SM5 2EP

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

Time Out unique I love that I was able to make so many unique flowers from 1 set of stamps.

Emerald Creek dares 3/3 Ordinary day

Creative artiste 3/3 anything mixed media

Happy Little stampers watercolour challenge 2/3 anything goes

A gem of a challenge 2/3 anything goes
We love to create 2/3 anything mixed media

I also made something that I could join in with the birthday celebrations over at my friend Brenda's challenge, A Vintage Journey. They are celebrating  their 5th birthday and want us to make something to celebrate our own crafting journey. In the 5 years since their blog started I have embraced mixed media and love incorporating it in my own art work...Jane's Journal Style of course!

They are very hard to photograph but I used a gelli prints background made using my Art Rebel Visible Image stamps and some Tim Holtz paper dolls.
Happy Birthday A Vintage Journey! Thank you for all your wonderful inspiration and thanks to Brenda for being such an amazing friend and artist.
This is the link

I am back on Saturday with my 2nd DT post for Country View. I am off to catch up with my dearest best friend Karen today...we will put the world to right over lunch..I definitely woke up feeling awesome today!

Bye for now,

Jane x

Phew what a scorcher

I always have to smile at the headlines of the tabloid newspapers when we get a period of hot sunny weather. In the 1970s "phew what a scorcher" was a real favourite. 

Well the forecasters got it right and we have had a week, and more to come, of gorgeous hot sunny weather.

There is nothing quite like an azure blue sky with not a cloud to be seen is there?

I spotted that the ducklings are growing quickly down at the ponds.

 When I was walking down to Dotty's I was stopped in my tracks as I saw that one of the fields had been painted up ready for a school sports day

I was reminded standing there that when I was at school we all took part in races on Sport's Day and found out that you could win or lose...and no one died! These days it's all about team work to ensure that no one loses but I think in the real world we should be teaching our children that both winning and losing is what happens in real life. The younger we realise that the better, in my books. Yes teamwork is important but I think it is sad that we seem to think we are protecting children in some way by not allowing winning and losing in some form.

I was a sprinter at school and standing on the line took me back to those sunny school sports days at primary school. Fond memories...on your marks, get set........GO!

My card today was inspired by all this gorgeous sunshine and heat. I used some hot distress colours to make a CAS card for Dotty's using one of the fab new Visible Image quotes. 

I couldn't agree more with these words, good friends are priceless aren't they.

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

Time out 3/3 warm

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes

Lil patch of crafty friends 3/3 anything goes
Creative moments 1/3 anything goes
Addicted to CAS 1/2 girl power
Cute card Thursday 1/3 CAS

This heatwave is set to see out the end of June and into July...for once we are enjoying a flaming June here in the UK. Thanks for stopping by and for your kind comments.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Blooming and growing

Now that we are in June Mother Nature is still busy out there blooming and growing. Flora and fauna are showing off their new growth and new life all around me. The moorhens are on their nests down at the ponds

whilst partners go off in search of food.

I saw goslings at Wisley..so fluffy!

My pots are blooming and growing beautifully

and my tomato plants have flowers already.

It is also time for my weekly Visible Image inspiration and to revel in natures glory I thought I would use the awesome baby bloom stencil to make a baby congratulations card.

The sentiment is from the lovely go to words set. There are all the sentiments you ever need here in this set using a really fab type face.

I wanted to create a rather ethereal backgrond, an almost out of this world one and just accent the beautiful flower the baby contains as a little pop of colour. These were the oxides I used for my background.

I blended them onto some card.

and then placed on the baby stencil and added more of the blue and green inks. I added red ink to the top of the flower.

I outlined the image with white pen and added a mix of glossy accents and glitter to the flower head as my pop of colour.

I then stamped the word congratulations. 

Here it is all matted up and ready for the amazing celebrations that a new baby brings.

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

Shopping our weekly stash 1/3 grad or congratulations card
Craft stamper take it make it 1/3 anything goes
Allsorts baby baby
Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes
Crafty catz anything goes

All the Visible Image links can be found 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.

Thanks for stopping by today and for all your kind comments. Enjoy watching everything bloom and grow around you.

Back 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