The birds and the bees for my birthday

Hello everyone it's 1 April and my birthday too!

It is a biggy for me this year...today I am six.......ty. Gulp how on earth did that happen? Do enjoy a virtual glass of champagne. It's been in the fridge to chill. 

It's my 2nd Lockdown birthday and sadly all the plans we had cannot take place but we are safe and coming out of Lockdown slowly so I am not complaining. Celebrations will have to wait. Our family have still have not celebrated last Christmas together and we have all our pressies unopened so perhaps I can have a 60th Christmas party in the summer! 

Of course being the first of the month I have 2 design team posts today for our new challenges.  First up is my design team post for Country View where our challenge theme for this month is "The birds and the bees". So we would like you to share projects where the focus is on birds and/or bees. 

As always there is a fab £20 voucher up for grabs for one lucky randomly selected winner to spend on the website.  You can find all the details of the challenge and more examples made by my talented teamies here.

So as it is my birthday I decided that I had to make a birds and bees birthday card. 

This is what I got up to. I made a distress ink and oxide background

I stamped my Visible Image Life is beautiful humming bird and the flower from their Create Chaos set onto inky mop up card and cut them out. Next I stamped the birthday sentiment into the corner and some stamping behind the flower ready to add the flower

I added some colouring to the bird

I also stamped him on the card ready to add the cut out one on top. 

 I stamped some extra small birds from the learn to fly again stamp set in the background. 

I also stamped and die cut some bees from my Tim Holtz Entomology stamp set and gave them a little colour.

It was then time to put everything together.

Here is my finished card;

with a couple of close ups. You can see some extra shading and glossy accents added to the bubbles.

and one final shot.

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

We would love to see you join in with our April challenge. 

I hope I may have inspired you to join in with our "birds and the bees" challenge. You can use any stamps/products, the choice is yours. 

You can enter our challenge as many times as you like and combine with other challenges. There is also a £20 crafting voucher up for grabs to the lucky randomly selected winner to spend over on the Country View Crafts on line store. Remember that UK postage and packing from CVC is free on all orders over £7.50! Once again all the details for the April challenge can be found here.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Take care and stay safe. I will be sharing my 2nd design team project on the 15th.

Back again in a couple of hours!

Bye for now

Jane x

Dreams of sunshine birthdays with Visible Image

Good morning it's time for my fortnightly design team post for Visible Image. For today's make I was inspired by my upcoming "not going to happen big birthday plans". I have a big birthday coming up on Thursday and all the plans we made a few years ago have gone out of the window courtesy of Mr Corona.  

We had planned a celebratory trip and a lovely meal out .

This is a distant memory of a meal out in our beloved Rhodes 2 years ago. 

 but as that is not going to happen I created an imaginary "sunshine holiday" birthday on a canvas. A girl can still dream can't she?  Confused....well that's how my creative brain works. All will be revealed....

I worked with these sets;

the birthday sentiment from Lost for words

Random art of kindness

and the Count me in stencil

This is what I got up to;

I added drops of picked raspberry, squeezed lemonade and crackling campfire distress reinker to a rectangle of water colour card and added water using my distress sprayer. 

Once dry I added these distress inks through  the Count me in stencil

I also machine stitched around the edge of the card.

Next I created a circle frame for my flowers using 3 die cut scallop circle edges. 

I stamped the flowers from 

Random art of kindness onto inky mop up card and cut them out. I decoupaged the centers of the circular ones and adding glitter pen details to them all for extra sparkle.

I then glued them around the circle frame.

I stamped the birthday sentiment onto card and stitched a border. I also did this to a coloured card mat and stuck them together.

I glued this into the centre of the floral circle.

I made a corrugate card base for my canvas by adding a little red ink and then some embossing powders to it for extra detail and texture.

 I ripped off some of the covering and used a brush to add embossing ink to areas around the visible edges only. I sprinkled in the powders and heat embossed them from underneath.

Then I matted the finished canvas onto blue card, adhered it to the base and added sprinkle of sequins to finish.

Job done....

Here it is...you might need sun glasses!

with some close ups showing the details.

and one last shot of my Calypso birthday canvas.

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

The house that stamps built 1/3 anything goes

Fab n funky 1/3 flowers

 All the Visible Image links are listed below

Visible Image group page on Facebook. Our friendly Group is here ...it would be lovely to see you there. You will see lots of gorgeous makes by the DT and customers to inspire your own creativity. 

The main Visible Image Facebook page is here; there are regular giveaways...open world wide. Do check out the Facebook LIVES and videos where you will be able to see lots more samples and ideas. 

Their Instagram page can be found here 

Pinterest here

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

This is the link to the new release. 

 If you would like to follow me on Instagram where I share all my makes, this is the link to my account.

 My Hb and I will obviously not be donning our sunglasses on Thursday and lapping up the sunshine in a tropical hideaway. We will still enjoy a little celebration at home ....and a bottle of champagne is going in the fridge to chill.

The only upside of all this is we that don't have to share it with anyone!!!! Cheers! 

I will be back here on my birthday, as of course being the first of the month I also have my other 2 DT's hats to put on. Time and tide eh!!

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Bye for now,

Jane x

The final day of our 7th birthday celebrations at STAMPlorations

 Wow what a week it has been. Today is the final day of our 7th birthday celebrations. Just incase  you have been out of the loop you can find the details here

Yes 7 years of awesome STAMP products. I have been taking part every day since Monday in a week long birthday celebration.  There are some amazing deals over on the STAMPlorations website. EVERTHING in the store has a 10% discount until the end of October. If you use my unique code STAMPGIRLJANE at the check out you can get an additional 20% off...wow amazing savings! I have affiliate links in my STAMP posts which simply means that if you click on any of the links here and buy something from the STAMP store I will receive a small commission at no cost whatsoever to you 😊. Shery ships internationally at very low cost too. Don't miss out!

A little heads up too that if you use my unique discount code; STAMPGIRLJANE at the checkout  as well as my 20% discount you will also receive a free product in with your order. Details at the bottom of this post.

There are lots of prizes along the way so please check out all the details which can be found here

I saved my favourite make for today and made another slimline card. I really love making this card shape after over a 20year gap. They are so popular again.  and  used the following products;

Trees slimline stencil

Christmas angel cutting die

Let it snow cutting die

and the star stamps from 

Christmas reindeer

This is what I got up to;

I applied green and silver glitter frost through the stencil onto black card.

You'll be able to see the amazing sparkle in my final photos. 

I did not want to distract from this glittery background so I simply die cut the Christmas angel and Let it snow sentiment in white glitter card and added a few stamped snowflakes using the stamps from the Christmas reindeer set.

Here is my finished card

with a couple of close ups (you get an idea of the glitterey shine here)

and one final shot.

Before I go here's the fab heads up; If you order using my unique 20% discount code STAMPGIRLJANE when you check out any orders you will also get this yet to be released (10 mil) stencil  just plaid added to your order absolutely FREE!

Do head off the the website here to top up your stash with some awesome bargains.

So there we are...it's a wrap, 5 days and 5 different makes from me and my STAMP teamies. I do hope you have enjoyed seeing them all? Do you have a favourite? 

Thanks so much for stopping by and for the kind comments you take the time to leave me, I really appreciate them. Remember that just by leaving a comment here you are put into the hat for a chance to win a prize! 

Bye for now,

Jane x

Day 4 of our STAMPlorations 7th birthday celebrations

 It's the penultimate day of our fab week long birthday celebrations. All the details are here.

 Yes 7 years of awesome STAMP products. I have been taking part in a week long birthday celebration.  There are some amazing deals over on the STAMPlorations website. EVERTHING in the store has a 10% discount until the end of October. If you use my unique code STAMPGIRLJANE at the check out you can get an additional 20% off...wow amazing savings! I have affiliate links in my STAMP posts which simply means that if you click on any of the links here and buy something from the STAMP store I will receive a small commission at no cost whatsoever to you 😊. Shery ships internationally at very low cost too. Don't miss out!

A little heads up too that if you use my unique discount code; STAMPGIRLJANE at the checkout  as well as my 20% discount you will also receive a free product in with your order. Details at the bottom of this post.

There are lots of prizes along the way so please check out all the details which can be found here

Me and the STAMP girls will be sharing our makes every day up to and including tomorrow.

Today I used the following products:

Flexi triangle templates

Autumn falling stencil

wanderlust expressions 2 

wonky stitched grid texture plate 

and mocha swirl shakerBlends flat sequins 

This is what I got up to;

I had the idea to make an autumnal outdoors card. 

I used the Autumn falling stencil and distress inks to make a layered inky background.

I then used the 2 largest Flexi triangle templates to cut out the 2 pieces for the sidesof my card.

I made a simple green distress ink background and cut it to 5 1/2 by 5/1/2" and stuck these pieces in place.

I textured some green card using the awesome wonky stitched grid texture plate 

and using the 2 smallest flexi triangles cut out 1 larger and 4 of the smallest triangle to make some "tents" (although they could also have been trees if you add a trunk at the bottom. )

I stamped a sentiment from the wanderlust expressions 2  set and then put my design together adding some  mocha swirl shakerBlends flat sequins as a finishing touch. 

Here is my finished card.

with a couple of close ups

and one final shot.

I would like to link my card up to the following challenges;

Simon says stamp Wednesday  layer it up

Lil patch of crafting friends 1/3 anything goes

Before I go here's the fab heads up; If you order using my unique 20% discount code STAMPGIRLJANE when you check out any orders you will also get this yet to be released (10 mil) stencil  just plaid added to your order absolutely FREE!

So head off the the website here to top up your stash with some awesome bargains.

I am back tomorrow with final birthday celebration make...and it's my personal favourite so I hope to see you then. Remember that just by leaving a comment here you are put into the hat for a chance to win a prize! 

Thanks so much for stopping by,

See you tomorrow,

Bye for now,

Jane x