More silhouettes for the August Country View crafts challenge

  Hi everyone this is my second design team make for our current August challenge over in the Country View Crafts challenge Facebook group. The link is Here and if you are not already a member just request to join and we will warmly welcome you. It is also be a place you can be the first to hear about workshops, the latest releases etc etc. We have a happy membership of over 400 crafters and we are growing every day. You can enter the challenges up to 5 times as you like as long as you use products from brands which are stocked on the Country View Website. 

The theme for this month is "Silhouettes" and I made this card. I love working with bold backgrounds and striking silhouettes. This one combines regular and pearl alcohol inks on Yupo for a vibrant shimmering effect.

This is how it came together;

I made this alcohol ink background on Yupo using a mix of regular and pearl inks. 

I die cut a couple of gentleman in black card and chose 1 to use.  This die set is in my Tim Holtz stash but Susan has a huge selection of his dies including the new Halloween Classics here. I also used a sticker from his metallic sticker book

I die cut some stacked hearts in yellow card and added my sticker to the larger one. 

I then die cut a couple of mischievous cats and put my design together. My finishing touch was some die cut hearts in white glitter card. 

here is one more close up

and a final photo of my card. 

I have linked the products I used which are available on the website within my post. If they are not in stock just email Susan, who should be able to order them in for you. 

Remember that you can find me most days over on Instagram Here @jane.tyrrell where I share many, many more makes then I have the time to blog.

I hope I may have inspired you to give our August challenge a go. There are still 6 days left to enter. This fab prize below is up for grabs too, for one randomly selected person. You can enter up to 5 different projects. 

Enjoy the bank holiday..the last one before Christmas. Yes I said the C-word"

Bye for now,

Jane x

Visible Image Halloween inspiration

Good morning. Another fortnight has flown by and it's time for my next design team inspiration make for Visible Image.  The September release went live on Friday and is available to buy here on the website or from you favourite stockists worldwide.

 As we are approaching the "Spooky month" I am sharing a Halloween inspired make using the very suave Forever Edward stamp set. He has some awesome accessory stamps in the set too. 

I also used the coordinating dies which make layering up a dream and no need for fussy cutting if that's not your thing.

I absolutely love the fun bats in this sets and have die cut so many! 

This is what I got up to;

I used one of my alcohol ink on Yupo backgrounds from my stash made using Ranger alcohol inks. I added some background stamping using the text and flight of bats stamps and Archival ink. 

 I stamped and die cut Edward, the moon and 7 bats. I coloured the images using distress pencils.

I  stamped some of the small bats on the moon and then started to stick everything in place.

I stamped the main sentiment onto a die cut oval. My idea was the the bats were flying Edward from the moon through the starry night sky to Isabella! Yes my mind works in those ways.

Finally I matted this onto black card and adhered it to a 5" X 7" white card blank,

Here is my finished card

with a close up 

and 1 final shot;

 If you have missed the September release here they are

 

As always there is something for everyone! They are available to buy on the web site here 

 All the Visible Image links are listed below;

 Our kind, friendly and supportive customer Facebook Group is here ...it would be lovely to see you join us.  You will be warmly welcomed and see lots of inspiration from the DT and customers to inspire your own creativity. 

 I also organize a monthly artist trading card swap in the group.  We celebrated 2 years of swapping in May. Whether you are a new stamper or a seasoned one you are most welcome to join us. Over 150 members, worldwide, have taken part since it started. It's been such fun and it's so lovely to receive a unique piece of art from your partner in the post. The details and sign up for each swap are posted in the group on the 23rd of the month. If you are quick, the current swap "Halloween colours" sign up is open until 3pm today.  Otherwise the next sign up opens on 23rd November if you would like to join us.  There is no "monthly" commitment, just join in when you have the time and if you live in the UK can you choose to post to the UK only if that suits you best.

The main Visible Image Facebook business page is here

Visible Image also has its own You Tube channel here where you can see videos and Lives to give you lots of inspiration and ideas. 

Their Instagram page can be found here 

Pinterest here

and their website is here. 

 You will also find me on Instagram here; @jane.tyrrell where I share many more samples than I have the time to blog. 

Back soon, 

Bye for now

Jane x

Thanks to Tim Holtz

As you well know I have been an admirer of the professor of all things inky, Tim Holtz for over 10 years. I use his products on every single thing I make, even if it is just to distress ink the edges of a card. His creativity and enthusiasm for crafting is endless and he has continued to inspire me over the years through all his work; his annual tags he made, his amazing new products and I was even lucky enough to attend one of his workshops in the UK 3 years ago. If you missed that post you can see it here . During lockdown there was one good thing that happened in my inky world, the weekly Facebook Lives which he gave . He so generously gave up his time over 18 weeks to share tips and tricks, 8 of which were Q and As on products which were so useful.  They were a joy to watch and are still available on his Facebook page or website to view now. He also
encouraged everyone to be inspired by his techniques, to get creative and to upload makes to Instagram using the #timholtzdemo. I loved being involved and joined in with thousands of crafters world wide. I had heard Tim mention that each week he would choose 3 winners but that was not why I joined in. As you all well know being creative and getting inky is what makes me me. I needed no excuse to get involved.

What I didn't expect was to be chosen as winner in June. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I got a message from Tim telling me and also letting me chose a stamp set to go with my prize. I was so excited and although the mail during this awful pandemic was a while coming my wonderful prize arrived last week.

Just look at my goodies.

But best of all Tim also included one of the tags he had made during the Lives...and I could not believe that it was my favourite of all those he made. 

I have a " thing" about images of toadstools (as well as pigs, mermaids, the Man in the Moon, Father Christmas, snowmen, strawberries and sea shells, OK now you know all my secrets!). In fact when I saw Tim make this tag it inspired me to buy the gorgeous field notes ephemera pack to go with my field notes stamp set (one of my most used sets of this summer).

I will treasure it.

The stamp set I chose  for my prize was The Professor 2...for me it would be a reminder of such pleasant crafting times.

I decided that my first make with this set would be something I could keep and look back at.

I thought I would also blog and share a step by step for this make to give something creative back.
I chose to work with alcohol inks as they are such a fun medium and I managed to finally buy some more Yupo. WARNING; there are lots of photos so if you just want to see my finished project please scroll to the bottom of the page.

I have shared all my tags and makes over the summer on my Instagram page here. I don't blog everything I make as much as I love blogging it would occupy far too much of my creative time. So if you would like to see what I am up to I would love to see you join me over there.

So this is what I got up to.
I used red and blue alcohol inks on Yupo for my  background as I knew I would get some dark purple in there too. I wanted to challenge myself to do something very different.

I die cut myself a tag from this background and also a plain white cardstock tag. I used the fun lift ink technique (you can check the process out in Tim's videos.) I have always enjoyed this technique since Tim first shared it and the ink a few years back. I knew I would get a dark and light version of my stamping so this sparked my ideas for my pair of tags.

 They would be the "dark" and "light" versions of my crafting. I think Tim heads toward the "dark and grungy" and I head more toward the lighter side!  I got a "ghosted" image left on the alcohol ink background and then stamped the ink taken off onto  my white tag. I  I added a few distress inks to my "light" tag and some remnant rubs to both. My "dark" tag had the No 13 and the "light" had butterflies and the No 12.

 I wanted to add some of my entomology critters too. I have the stamps and dies for this set and it has provided endless fun for me this summer. As you well know I am girl who always loves adding details and stories to my crafting. 

 Once painted with some distress inks and glossed with glossy accents they really come to life. I also like adding some glitter pen to the butterfly wings before glossing them.

 We have also recently finished watching "Dark" on Netflix. We loved it but boy is the plot confusing until virtually the last episode of season 3! I give nothing away but I was inspired to add the concept of time travel so I added some cogs and clock hands.

  One butterfly was playing with the settings !

 The beetles and ants walked onto  my dark tag . I thought the "stamp here" was a fun pun.....but no I would never stamp on such a beautiful beetle, I am also a lover of spiders too!

I finished each off tag with a very apt tiny talk sticker. 

  Here are my finished tags.

My light tag has the butterflies and bee happily making time fly (the hands are movable) 

 However the beetle and ant are busy turning back time. I'm not sure which I prefer!

Here is one final shot of the pair. 

I would like to enter my tags into the following challenges

Simon says stamp Monday grunge it up

A vintage journey tag you're it
Creative artiste anything mixed media

So huge thanks to Tim for his kindness, creativity and generosity and to Mario for all he does behind the scenes. Thank you guys, you really do rock. 2020 will certainly be a year to remember.

Thanks to everyone who read through to the end of this rather long post!

Take care, stay safe.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

A tag and a box of love

During lock down I have had much more time to play creatively just for me. I genuinely love all my designing and making cards for Dotty's and have no complaints at all but I rarely have time to make for me. Lock down changed all this and over the last 16 weeks I watched the inky genius that is Tim Holtz sharing his creativity on his Facebook lives on a Saturday evening. His most recent lives were on alcohol inks, a medium I love playing with and having found that I had run out of Yupo I reached for some cheap foil card in my stash as I knew that I could also use it for a make.

I used gold and silver and made 3 backgrounds for tags. Today I will share the first which I made with gold foiled card stock, nothing special at all, cheap as chips! 

I got out my botanical 3D embossing folder and die cut  and embossed a tag.

I altered it with some green, red and pink alcohol inks but left the gold background as it was as I loved it.

I wanted to make a special tag with this and when I looked at it it screamed Victoriana to me.

I thought about using one of Tim's paper dolls on it but I wanted something even older and more relevant to me and I remembered that I have some lovely old family photos which I had turned into my own "found relatives" embellishments some years back. I scanned my photos, resized them and printed them on glossy photo card.

Meet Florence Emma Alice Didman, born in 1882 in London. I have put my watermark over her as I don't want this complete photo to be copied on the internet. 

She is my great grandmother. I never knew Florence but her daughter, my darling Nan who lived until 1989, did talk about her to me and even wrote down a short family history on a scrap of paper I still have. Florence married John Walter Jones on 25th December 1902 (yes weddings on Christmas day in the 18th and 19th centuries were quite common occasions). My Nan, who was also called Florence but always known by her 2nd name of Lilian, was born 29th November 1905. Sadly her mother died in her late 20s or early 30s and her husband also 6 months later. My Nan said that it was of a broken heart, how true that is we really don't know, but her parents were very much in love. My Nan and her brother were then brought up by their grandmother Alice. 

When I was around 16 my Nan handed me a little heart box

 When I opened it up I found these tiny ruby and gold earrings.

And written around the edge are the words

"My Mother's, written by my Nan as a child.  They were the only possession she still had of her mother's, Florence Didman, my great grandmother who is in the photo. I really treasure them and used them as a prop for my finished tag. 

Here it is;

I also die cut Tim's Wildflowers 2 in gold card and used alcohol inks on those too. I loved the tarnished effect they gave, 

 I used 2 of my field notes ephemera flowers which I added some distress glazes to, washi tape and also one of my ancient adage "Love" tickets

and one last shot.

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

Sweet stampin 3/3 create your own background

Creative fingers 3/3 anything goes

Simon says stamp Wednesday bright and cheerful

Crafty sentiments 2/3 anything goes

Cuttlebug mania 2/3 anything goes my flower dies are Tim Holtz thinlits Wildflowers 2 

Crafty cardmakers 2/3 make your own background

Love to craft 1/3 anything goes

Thanks so much for stopping by today and meeting my great grandmother. I will also show this to my darling granddaughter Daisy. When I am finally able to have Daisy come to stay again I will also show her the earrings (which will one day be passed down to her) and tell her all about her great, great, great grandmother and great great grandmother who were both called Florence and both very much loved.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x