The start of outdoors crafting

Wow the last few days have been just glorious, the temperature peaked at 28c in my sunny sheltered garden yesterday and today.

It was also time to open the blinds of my garden studio for the first time since last year.
I decided to embark on clearing up the garden and also spring cleaning my garden studio ready for my outside crafting season. I do love working outside. This is as clean and as tidy as you will see my desk until this time next year.

I like to give my workbench, loving handcrafted by my dear Dad, a good lick of teak oil.

It seems to suck the oil in with huge satisfaction.
I love all the imperfections the bench has.

Once upon a time it was a lab workbench in the firm where my Dad worked as a biochemist until the 1980s.

It's a living peace of history where I enjoy being creative at.
My card today is one for Dotty's Tearooms. It's another wedding card as these are selling like hotcakes at the moment

The image is a Lili of the Valley simply print and the stamped sentiment also LOTV. Backing papers are by Craft Consortium. I added some sequin bling and also some sparkly gel pen to the bride's headdress and bouquet.
I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Simon says stamp Sparkle and Shine
Die's R Us springtime
Crafteezee Spring
The ribbon girl 1/3 anything goes
Lil patch of crafty friends 1/3 anything goes
Moving along with the times 1/3 springtime
Crafting from the heart 1/3 anything goes

Have a great evening, the heat is staying here tomorrow but we are heading for slightly cooler, but still lovely, weather for the weekend.

Thanks for stopping by.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Conker treasure

We had such a wonderful family weekend, Daisy and Co stayed and we celebrated my Dad's 84th birthday with lunch on Sunday where we got most of our family together. Precious family time.
On Saturday my DD and SIL went to an exhibition in London so we had a Daisy day and decided it was the perfect day for a conker hunt.

The weather was beautiful, warm and sunny but with enough wind to blow the conkers down. They were literally raining down from the trees....Daisy was enchanted...and so was Nanna ;0)
My darling Daisy found so many ripe shiny conkers that she soon filled her little basket.

and of course the best ones are those still in their shells...real conker treasure.

How much joy can one little face contain?

After visiting the swings and having lunch we returned home and of course she wanted to go to Nanna's studio. She found some leaf themed stamps of mine and had fun making a card for her Mummy and Daddy.

 This her sweet card.

So my card today is also inspired by our wonderful weekend, Daisy's clean and simple cream top and the gorgeous autumnal scenes unfolding around me. It's a very CAS style made to sell in Dotty's.
 The stamp is by Inkyliscious, the sentiment LOTV and the die cuts a mix of Tim Holtz and Memory box

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

PaperArty autumn
Card Mania Earth tones
Rubber dance 2nd anniv 3/3 2nd anniversary challenge I have used the colour board from October 2015 for my card
Crafty boots 1/3  autumn is in the air
The ribbon girl 2/3 any image
The Paper Girls challenge 2/3 nature
Simon Says Stamp Monday powder powder It doesn't show up very well in my photo but I used clear embossing powder on my stamped sentiment.

Thanks for visiting today. I can thoroughly recommend a conker hunt, even as an adult I will never ever outgrow the joy of finding a newly shelled conker shining up from the ground, Real conker treasure.

I will be back on Thursday with my final DT piece for the current Country View Travel challenge sharing my female card I made with the 2nd half of my masterboard..watch this space ;0)

Bye for now,

Jane x

A Daisy necklace

First of all can I thank you all so much for all the lovely comments and best wishes you left on my blog and Facebook on Friday wishing me well with my Designer news for Visible Image. I was so touched by the kindness expressed. I am still buzzing with excitement and looking forward to creating for the Create and Craft shows on TV later this year. Visible Image are also launching on USA Create and Craft this week. If you missed my post you find it here.

We had the pleasure of a visit from Daisy and Co this weekend. As we still have Bear (our son's dog) staying they came up to us on Saturday afternoon. I'm not sure Bear would have been very comfy our car for an hour and a half.

 When I last saw my DD she told me that Daisy keeps putting on her necklaces.  I have made my DD lots of lovely lampwork glass bead necklaces over the years and she was concerned they might get broken. I offered to make Daisy something suitable for a 2 3/4 year old and that's what I planned to have ready for Daisy's visit yesterday.

I have already made Daisy a silver daisy necklace for when she is older so I needed something "beady".
I had lots of different ideas I  knew that it needed to be a long one, 22" to be precise so that it was like Daisy's Mummy's. Also it needed go over her head. I looked a "child" beads like fish, stars etc on Ebay and found some rather nice bright coloured acrylic hearts, which I bought.

I decided not to use the orange...is it just me or is orange a rather odd colour??

I set up these colours and they sat on my workbench for a few days whilst I played with different spacer beads but I really didn't get anywhere...until I took Bear out for a walk. I saw a little girl of about 4 walking to a party with her Mummy. She had a sweet dress on and a pearl necklace. That was it! My daughter has lots of necklaces with pearls in and if Daisy's was like her Mummy's she would also be more like to wear it. In my stash I have some good "faux" pearls and I got them out.

Rather than a fiddly clasp I used one of the fixed clasps I had made in my silversmithing class a while back for my jewellery stash.

I used the round one on the right.

I found 3 beads worked well between the pearls

and here it is

So the real test was would Daisy like it and wear it instead of her Mummy's necklaces...?

I think the cheesy grin says it all. She wore it all the time she was here, even down to my studio.

However she decided to keep it safe whilst she crafted and she put it in its little organza bag next to her.

Just look what she made

Yes we were in Halloween mode...LOL. She got out some brown distress inks too.

When Daisy and Co went home I decided to continue crafting in the same autumnal colours Daisy had got out.  I made a fairy card using my Lavinia stamps I won in the summer. I also wanted to enter some fun challenges which started in September. I created the monochromatic background by blending my Distress inks and made a moon by masking as I blended. I love the sentiment.

This will be making its way down to Dotty's this week as my fairy cards seem to go down well there. I am also starting to change my colour palette as I am so inspired by the changing seasons. So it will soon be out with the summer cards and in with my autumnal inspiration.

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

That's Crafty 1/3 all square my card is 5 1/2 by 5 1/2 " square
Crafty Catz 1/3 anything goes with an autumnal twist
Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes
Simon says stamp work it Wednesdays 2/3 stamping
Mod squad foliage
Ribbon girl 1/3 September card challenge
Card Mania 1/3 earth tones
Time out 1/3 trees/leaves
The Artistic Stamper 1/3 Monochrommatic
The Emerald faeries monchrommatic
Penny Black and more add a sentiment

Thanks for your kind visits to me today. I hope you enjoyed your weekend? We finally had some well needed rain overnight. My garden welcomed it as the lawn was getting quite parched. The sunshine is due to return again mid week so it appears that we are still hanging onto summer for the moment.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Late spring Daisy Days

We had such a wonderful long weekend looking after Daisy whilst her Mummy and Daddy attended a wedding in Edinburgh. My Hb and I felt we had been transported back 27 1/2 years when our daughter was 2 1/2. Daisy is such a clone of our girl, it's just the blond hair which gives her away.
We spent hours playing with water in the garden (the weather was very kind to us) and scooting up and down to the swings. It does not take much to entertain this little sweetheart. She loves blowing dandelions

and of course making Daisy chains.

We spent time each day in Nanna's studio. I was making up some distress ink on a block as she asked for some "paint" when she just picked up the whole thing and stamped with it. She has discovered monoprinting all by herself.

she added yellow in the same way and then some water. My newest Penny Black stamp, which had just arrived from my fried Di also got it's first inking.

She wanted some die cuts and glitter....

Daisy also played with some stencils which fascinated her and also added some brushos.

Here is her finished work

 I loved that she wanted to stamp a Daisy and Daisy words on this one. Bless her she loves crafting.

When she left on Monday afternoon the house did seem very quiet indeed. Roll on her next visit. 

My card challenge today uses one of my favourite vintage "child" digi images. It's a fairly CAS retro birthday card I made for Dotty's Tearooms. It reminds me of my sweet Daisy. The frame is Noor. The seaside dies are MB and the sentiment TH.

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

Allsorts  2/3 7th birthday challenge Happy birthday to one of my favourite and longest running challenges.
The Craft Barn weekly challenge 2 different papers I have used paper from 1 sheet to make the ship backing and also used another sheet ot die cut my crab and shell.
Simon Says work it Wednesday 1/3  sunshine
Deep Ocean shabby chic/vintage
Simon Says stamp Monday 2/5  make a wish
Crafty friends summer time
Paper Creator 2/3 anything goes
Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes
Mod Squad  1/3 use it or lose it my product was the boat backing paper...I found a whole load of unused 12X12 papers when I spring cleaned my studio in April. This is one of them.
Crafting for all seasons 1/3 anything goes

I am back again tomorrow as it's time for my 2nd DT piece for Country View Crafts. I will be sharing a tag which matches the wedding card I made for my 1st inspiration piece. It would be lovely if you can stop by and take a peep.

And just to make you smile, look at this sweetie scooting to the park..yes in her wellies

Thanks as always for visiting and leaving such kind comments.

Back tomorrow,

Bye for now,

Jane x

She sells sea shells on the seashore

Although we have had a rather chilly weekend the weather has been warming up slowly. It is that time of year when I have a grand clear out and spring clean of my studio. It was time to open the blinds and get cleaning. I haven't worked out here since late November.

Check out my freshly oiled desk..you will not see it this clear again this year.

My radio was plugged in and I was ready to go. 

Everything got a sort out and a dust.

My Rascog trolley is now installed in his rightful place.

It is always a good chance to look at stash which has been forgotten and as I cleared things up I found some long forgotten scrapboard size papers.

 Sadly a couple had got their edges creased. I also found some lovely retro seaside Nicecrane images and decided that I would use a sweet girl for my art journal pages for the dictionary challenge over at the Craft Barn plus some other challenges. This fortnight the dictionary challenge is to use the letter S with a little twist to have a shell somewhere too.
I looked through my dictionary and chose the word "she" to use under my vintage girl. I didn't know how to link her to the shells with a quote or verse. I asked my Hb and he came up with the fun suggestion of "She sells sea shells on the seashore.  Once I had this tongue twister in my head I could see my finished piece in  my head.  Isn't it great when that happens.

I added a wash of gesso to my bottom layer and I started stamping some Crafty Individuals and Rubber dance seaside themed stamps around the edge.

 I used my dymo to create the quote as I felt this fitted my retro theme. I used lots of snippets of papers to die cut some Memory Box shells and crabs.

 I also found a snippet of textured "sea" I created using acrylics for an old project. I then put my ideas into place and worked to put my page together.

Here is my finsihed art journal page

I tore the the top page so that my girl appeared to be bursting into the scene and also to let the lovely sea card peep  through.

She certainly has plenty of sea shells to sell....! ;0)

I would like to enter my art journal page into the following challenges;

The craft barn S with a shell my s is for she.
Pixie's snippets playground #226
Noor UK anything goes
The Ribbon Girl 3/3 any image goes
As you like it favourite animal I love all but my favourite here is the dog. We "Bear sit" our son's gorgeous dog and I love him because he is such fun company and gets me out walking, which I also love.
We love to create anything mixed goes mixed media 1/2 #9
Mod squad water
Frilly and Funkie It's not easy being green my whole piece has been made from scraps I found whilst spring cleaning and the backing piece might have been binned had I not rescued it as it was so creased.
Memory Box anything but a card I have created an art journal page.
That's crafty faces


Thanks for visiting, I'm keeping really busy in my studio at the moment building up my card stock for the tea rooms which are going to stock my cards. I have made some using this gorgeous beach girl too as I think they will sell well.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x