Spring has sprung

Well spring is finally here and I am loving these lighter mornings and evenings. There is the sound of bird song everywhere...and I should think lots of little eggs dropping into nests soon too.

The daffodils are exploding with colour everwyere

I visited Standen House last week and the grounds were so pretty.

 with daffodils and primroses everywhere. 

We saw a lovely exhibition in the house too but I will save that for another post. 

My card today sums up how we should all hopefully start feeling in the mornings!

The background is a silver and blue acrylic paint gelli print I made using the Visible Image

Wings of change stamps. I then added some more stamping and a card butterfly together with the rather awesome sentiment!

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

Through the craft room door 2/2 anything goes
Pile it on Favourite colour, mine of course is blue!
The butterfly challenge The letter C I have gone for cadet blue in my gelliplate background.
Cute card Thursday 1/3 spring fever
Allsorts fave stamp mine is this awesome new Visible Image butterfly

My card is for sale at Dotty's Tea House, Carshalton, Surrey, SM5  2AE

Today I have also written a post for the Country View Shop where I am showcasing all the new Visible Image mixed media stamps and stencils. You can see it by clicking here. I would love if you would pop on over and say hello. 

Thanks so much for stopping by today,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Autumn colours and card making

The weather is on the change now but there is still a little last colour to be seen.When we visited the National Trust property, Standon, last month I didn't show you the gardens there.As promised here are some photos of them, such pretty grounds for the house. These are the herbaceous beds outside the wonderful conservatory.

We also spotted lots of bees on these purple flowers in the vegetable garden.

there were fun pumpkins too.

At home I spotted a butterfly in my garden on Saturday,  probably the last of this season

and I really think we had the last of the warm sunny weather at the weekend

I also noticed that there are some lovely big spiders making their webs.This one is right next to my studio. I genuinely love spiders and find their webs fascinating. When little Daisy came to stay she called this spider Big Spider and she said hello to him every time she passed by.

My challenge card today is an autumnal themed birthday card I made for my dearest best friend. I used the same technique I used to make Tim Holtz tag for August. You can see all the details over on his blog.

I used a sunny photo of my pot of gazanias and cut out the flowers

I made a background with inks and Mod podge.

I used some other Tim products too.

Here is my finished card

and a close up showing the details and my metallic paint flicks

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

Country View  add some texture

That Craft Place  mixed media anything goes

Pixie's snippets playground #197 I have used snippets of backing paper in my collage.

We love to create  anything mixed media goes

Allsorts nature

Papertake weekly anything goes

Noor UK halloween/autumn

Frilly and Funkie autumn splendour include an autumn leaf. My flower charm has a leaves,which I have coloured in autumn colours. 

Simon Says Stamp Monday autumn is in the air

The week is racing by, it's Wednesday already and just to really scare you ....it's only 79 days til Christmas....woop woop!

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

A moment at Standen

First of all can I thank everyone for the fantastic comments you left for my Spell Book in my last post. I really loved reading them and for those of you who kindly asked, I have had an MRI scan to see if my scaphoid fracture is healing OK and get the results next week. If you have nipped over from Frilly and Funkie to see my step by step you will find my post by clicking here

Today I leave Halloween far behind to take you back to our recent visit to Standen. We recently spent a wonderful Sunday afternoon with our dear friends at Standen, a National Trust property in West Sussex. Standen was build in 1894 as a holiday home retreat for the wealthy Beale family. It was only ever lived in by this one family and remains very much in it's original state.

Standen is set in beautiful grounds and was originally a working farm. It was the first house in the countryside to have electricity installed and even had central heating. Now I didn't even have central heating in my home until 1986 so they beat me by nearly 100 years!

  The house was designed by Phillip Webb who was the architect for Red House and was decorated with wall papers and furnishings designed by the same William Morris.

If you have missed my post about Red House you might want to read this too. Just click here. there are a couple of posts if you search in my side bar too.

 Such amazing Morris designs

A lot of the papers are repros but recent renovations have revealed some original pieces shown below.

 It was fun seeing all the vintage furniture in the house. The office had its original typewriter

The photo below was the inspiration for the Moment I made of our lovely day out. We enjoyed lunch and afternoon tea in the barn cafe before we said our goodbyes to our friends.
Such a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

The grounds were also very pretty but I will share those another time as I wanted to share with you how I got my Moment inspiration.  I also wanted to enter some challenges so I took various things into account as I started creating.

This is the photo I used for my Moment.

I loved the way you can see a mirror within a mirror. I was inspired by the wall paper colours and design behind and the gorgeous gold/brass Art Nouveau mirror.
I stamped some roses onto vellum and embossed them in white. I then found a old stamp which has a flourish repeating pattern to recreate a wallpaper look.

I embossed first with blue and then added some archival ink on a Tim Holtz flourish stamp

I then added 3 distress inks to my craft sheet

and added some background colours and also some flicks of brown with ink.

I took one of my Dusty Attic chippies and gold embossed this.

I continued the gold theme (from the mirror) around the edge of my Moment

More gold embossing this time of a MB flourish die and a Cheery Lynn heart doily

I made a "mirror within a mirror" with some paper and a glass cabochon

Here is my finished design, with some extra embellies added including a typewriter similar to the one we saw. The stamped butterflies are Visible image and the other stamps are Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous.

So now I have another Moment to put into Jane's Journal and when I look at it I can be transported back to our lovely Sunday afternoon in the Wessex countryside.

I made my Moment with the following challenges in mind, which I would like to enter;

Scrap Across the World September mood board. I was inspired to use the pen nib and whole vintage feel of the mood board. I also used the pink rose in my vellum stamping behind my photo. Their quote that taking time to live  will only inspire you work is so true. Time out really is precious time. My Moment measures 10 X 10 "

Dusty Attic I was inspired by the words journey and escape and I used all the colours of the mood board.

A Vintage Journey home sweet home my Moment is of a home sweet home from a past era..this had such a family appeal.

Penny Black and More anything goes

That Craft Place Mixed media, anything goes

Rubber Dance celebration I used the Dec 2014 colours

Cheery Lynn all about texture

Craft Barn stamping

Craft Stamper take it make it use a stamp I used several!

The Artistic Stamper things with wings

Creative Inspirations vintage

Papertake weekly things with wings

Simon Says stamp Wednesday use a stamp and blog hop

We are having our furry grandson (aka Bear) to stay this weekend which is always great fun and such good exercise. Billy will be living upstairs and going in and out of the back bedroom window so there will be no dog/cat confrontations I hope!

I plan to start sorting out my garden as there is a distinct autumnal feel and I want to get some pots emptied ready for my spring bulbs.....the cycle of life is in full swing.

Enjoy your weekend and thanks for taking the time to visit today and for the comments you take the time to leave me. I would also like to warmly welcome my newest followers, thanks for joining me on my creative journey. 

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x