1 week until Create It, Farnborough.

The Create It craft and hobby show, Farnborough, Hampshire is just a week away now. I will be there both days, 21st and 22nd February demonstrating Visible Image stamps and stencils on the Stampers Grove stand for James Dennison. I have been beavering away getting lots of samples/demos made using the brand new release and some golden oldies, all of which James will have for sale at the show. He has some great show specials on the day which are worth looking out for. 

I will be demonstrating using lots of the wonderful inky products he sells including distress oxides, alcohol inks, Brushos and Infusions.

I thought I would share a few more sneak peeks of the samples/demos I will be bringing with me. 

First up is a set of motivational ATCs I have made using Gellplate backgrounds and distress oxides. I have used lots of Visible Image awesome sentiments stamps and stencils to make them. 

I had the idea to make a card where the words can be taken out and changed by adding photo corners. It could be stood on a desk and the ATC changed each day for motivation and inspiration. 

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

We love 2 create 3/3 anything goes
Stamping sensations 2/3 feminine
Addicted to stamps and more 2/3 anything goes
Alphabet challenge 1/3 A is for anything you wish

I will also be bringing the sample/demo below which I have made with the brand new "Free your imagination" stamp set and the "Broken glass" stencil in the background. 

The background again was made with distress oxides. In real life the gold on the pages is super sparkly!

I would like to enter my Free your imagination card into these challenges.

Love to craft 3/3 anything goes
Simon says stamp Monday crack it up
Through the craft room door 2/3 anything goes
Creative fingers 1/3 anything goes
Crafty catz 1/3 anything goes (optional twist of critters)

It would be lovely to see you if you are planning to come to the show, please stop by and say hi. I will be behind this badge so just......

Thanks so much for stopping by and for the kind comments you take the time to leave me,

Happy Valentine's day to those soppy romantics like me. Have a wonderful day. I am off out to dinner tonight with my sweetheart to celebrate 41 years since we got engaged. 

Have a lovely weekend. My crafting buddy aka Daisy is coming to stay on Sunday until Wednesday so we shall be having lots of inky crafting adventures together.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Finding some sparkle in January

Good morning, January always seems to be a long month. Christmas seems long ago and spring still seems a long way away. As I walked down to Dotty's Teahouse in the High Street of Carshalton I decided to look for some sparkle and shine and even on such a dull, dreary day I spotted some of Mother Nature's sparkle and shine on the plants;

rain sparkling on the winter aconite

on the plucky viburnum flowers

and on new shoots.

For my Monday design team inspiration today I went with the sparkling rain theme using the fab 

Sparkle in the rain stamp set

The background is a stencilled ink one using the 

Grungy union Jack stencil

I added some distress oxides to my card 

 then stenciled salty ocean and squeezed lemonade oxides through the stencil.

These photos are quite dark you will see the true colours in my finished photos.

I stamped the rain in blue Archival ink

and then I added my lady by embossing her in blue and also stamping the quote stamp

dream big

You can see that I masked and split the words. The top words are stamped and embossed in  black 

and the unrivalled in green glitter.

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

Crafty Catz 1/3 anything goes
A vintage journey put your stamp on it

Craft stamper take it make it 3/3 January

Mix it up 4/5 anything goes

Stamping sensations 3/3 fabulously feminine
Card mania 1/3 baby it's cold outside
Happy little stampers 2/3 watercolour
Fashionable stamping 1/3 anything goes

All the Visible Image links can be found here;

Visible Image group page on Facebook. Our friendly Group is here ...it would be lovely to see you there. You can add work to the new challenge album where one randomly chosen winner each month wins a £40 coupon to spend on the website. For December and January the theme is "Christmas/Winter".

The main Visible Image Facebook page is here; there are weekly stamp giveaways...open world wide.

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

Our Christmas/winter challenge on Facebook runs until the end of January a couple of weeks to make something and be in with a chance of winning the £40 voucher to spend on the web site. The winner is selected by random so everyone has an equal winning chance.

 Thanks so much for stopping by and for the kind comments you take the time to leave. I would also like to welcome my newest 2 followers, it's so good to see you joining me on my creative journey here at Jane's Journal.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

The butterfly valley revisited 2018

Every year when we holiday in Rhodes we hire a car. One of the reasons is to visit a couple of restaurants we love which are a little out of the way. The other is to make an annual visit to the butterfly valley. 

We were a little earlier visiting this year and there were more butterflies than we see later in the month. It is also such a pleasant walk up through the valley and a shield from the hot sunshine. 

They are on every surface in the valley, trees,leaves, rocks and anywhere in between. 

We also love spotting the lizards and freshwater crabs which live there.

It really is a place to sit and be mindful in...bliss.

My card also features butterflies.

I created an oxide background using Tim Holz inks and one of his floral stencils.

I then added some more stamping using his Lady Rose stamp set and one of his sticker quotes and finished off with my favourite Visible Image butterflies.

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

Stamping sensations 3/3 something beginning with B mine is butterfly and beautiful (in the quote)

Fashionable stamping 3/3 quote away

The butterfly challenge 2/3  the letter A I have gone with apricot and layers

Happy little stampers watercolour 2/3 anything goes/butterflies
Stamps and stencils it's been a while/ anything goes
Cute card Thursday 1/3 monochrome

Penny Black and More 1/3 make it feminine

Whenever life gets hectic I just close my eyes and can transport myself back to that day in the butterfly valley, they were indeed beautiful moments.

Thanks for stopping by and have a super weekend. We will be collecting more beautiful moments with our kids and grandkids as we are off on a conker hunt on Sunday. I hope you can find some beautiful moments (and conkers!!) too. 

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Happy Birthday Mr A

The weather was kind to us this weekend, here in the South East of England, mild, a fair amount of cloud but some lovely sunny intervals too. We enjoyed drinking our Sunday evening G+T on the terrace as the sun went down.

It's time for my weekly Monday design team post for Visible Image and today is an extra special day as it is the birthday of none other than Mr Visible Image himself , Mark Alexander or Mr Awesome as the design team often call him, designer and co owner of Visible Image stamps. I decided to make him a special card as it is rather special birthday for him...he is joining the 50s brigade....yay! 

I thought long and hard about my design and I know that Mark likes my galaxy inked backgrounds so that was my starting point, together with one of his awesome stamp sets, which I know he is particularly proud of designing.

Ahead of our time. 

It is also one of my favourites (yes I know I keep saying that but so many are!)

I also wanted to add the number 50 so I used the numbers from

Alphabetical

I also used the fab planes and sentiment from

Destination unknown

Here is my card

I don't have any process photos, as I was busy at the time also making my Wonderland samples, so I will talk you through how I made it. I made my galaxy background using distress oxide inks on black card stock. Then I stamped the time swirl in gold ink. I inked up the door for the first time, which is such a fun stamp, onto Kraft card, and embossed it in pale blue. I added a brass brad for a door knob. 

The numbers, planes and falling man and woman were all black embossed and fussy cut out.

 I stamped the happy birthday sentiment from the go to words set and set it off into space propelled by the planes (OK that is a bit of artistic licence there from me 😂).

I also used the fab sentiment, which I white embossed, from "Destination unknown" as I thought it was so appropriate for Mark.

and one more shot

Here it is once more

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

Let's craft and create 1/3 anything goes/lots of layers

Allsorts 1/3 from boys to men
Lil patch of crafting friend's 1/3 anything goes
Let's craft and create 2/3 anything goes
Simon says stamp Monday sprinkles and splatters

Happy Little stampers watercolour 2/3 anything goes

The Male Room 1/3 wild and free

I made it with my fondest best wishes for such a talented man and a good friend. 

So if you would kindly clear your throats and join me to virtually sing.....

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday dear Mark,

Happy birthday to you .

I hope you have a fantastic day with Helen and here's to even more exciting adventures together. I just love being a part of the Visible Image journey. 

All the Visible Image links can be found here;

Visible Image group page on Facebook. Our friendly Group is 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.

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

Thanks for stopping by,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Friends are angels

Good morning it's time for my Monday Design Team make for Visible Image and today I used stamps from the fab 

So much stronger set. There are so many lovely sentiments to use in this set. It has been incredibly popular and having sold out it is now back in stock.

I also wanted to show how well these words work with existing sets. I teamed it up with wings from the 

angels are near set

I made a distress oxide background by adding the inks to my craft mat with water and picking them up. 

I stamped and glitter gold embossed a pair of wings which I then fussy cut out.

I cut the background down into a square 

and black embossed my words, I picked out the "angels" and embossed that part in glitter gold powder, the same as the wings, to make it pop.

I added my wings using foam pads to raise the edges and give some dimension.

I then matted and layered my card.

Here are a couple of close ups to try to show the shine of the gold...

 and one last shot

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

Craft stamper take it make it 3/3 anything goes

Stamping sensations 2/3 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 so much for stopping by today and for the kind comments you leave me. Our friends really are our angels on earth for us...I love mine very much. 

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Choose happiness

It's the last Monday in May...how on earth did that happen? The wonderful realisation though is that summer is very nearly here. I recently potted up my pots in the garden with summer bedding and looking out at them really does make me smile.

 Raspberry ripple ice cream comes to mind and thoughts of long summer days ahead...bliss

It's also time for my weekly inspiration for Visible Image. Today's piece is very apt as I used the new Choose happiness sentiments set. This is one of the 3 fab new release sentiment sets. There are so many great sentiments in this set and also a really fun smiley face both as positive and negative stamp.  It takes me back to the late 1960s, I can remember them as badges in bubble gum machines. My brother and I got so excited when occasionally out came a badge as well as your gum! 

I decided to make ATCs using the sentiments and display them on a wall hanging, using the smileys to decorate it.

This is what I got up to;

I blended some "happy" distress oxide colours onto a sheet of smooth card stock...squeezed lemonade, picked raspberry, fossilized amber and dried marigold . I then stamped using the shapes from the shape it up set to make a masterboard. This set is brilliant for all sorts of backgrounds.

 I stamped using oxides.

Once my masterboard was finished I cut a strip 

and from that strip I cut 3 ATC sized pieces. (An ATC size is 2 1/2 by 3 1/2") 

I then white embossed the 3 sentiments from the set and added some extra colouring using an orange gel pen.

I took a sheet of watercolour paper and altered it using the awesome new collision stencil

I sprayed squeezed lemonade distress spray first onto the blank paper and then added carved pumpkin distress ink through the stencil.

 I moved the stencil down as I worked. 

 I rounded off the corners of my ATCs

I then stuck the background onto a piece of grey board and added some eyelets so that it could be hung as a "Choose happiness" wall hanging.

I also had fun stamping out lots of smileys. I stamped the negatives in the same oxide colours and then added the positive in black. Here are my yellow ones.

This is my completed wall hanging.

I would like to enter my happy wall hanging into the following challenges;

Simon says stamp Wednesday use more than 1 stamp I used 5!
Simon says stamp  Monday inspired by a song my song just has to be "Happy together" by The Turtles, yes I am showing my age, such a fun 60s song when
 these fun smileys were everywhere!
Pixie's snippets playground #327 I made my smileys from snippets of card

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 so much for stopping by and I hope my wall hanging made you smile....choose happiness is a pretty good mantra to have, in my humble opinion.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x