A dragonfly day for Visible Image

 Hi everyone and welcome to my fortnightly blogged design team post for Visible Image. The Summer solstice tomorrow and is officially the first day of summer. For today's make I thought I would share a very summery card; evocative of the long hot summer day's I am still hoping we will enjoy. The last few days have warmed up nicely and I recently saw some dragonflies around the pond in my son's garden. They are such magical creatures. 

 To make my card I used all the stamps in the beautiful Live in the moment stamp set. 

This set is a perfect for summer cards and projects and the sentiment reminds us to make the most of these long summer evenings and warm days we will hopefully enjoy. I also used the uber versatile 

Lava stencil.

 I have used this stencil for so many themes; from alien planets and clouds to shadows on the moon. This time I have used it for the reflection on the water.  I used a rectangle  of white smooth card.

First I stamped the sentiment using Nocturne Versafine Clair ink (used for all the black stamping on this card) and clear embossed it. Then I blended these 3 distress inks through the stencil onto parts of the card.

I placed the stencil in different places around the sentiment.

In the bottom right hand corner I stamped the large dragonfly and clear heat embossed it.

I stamped one medium and 3 small dragonflies in the same way above the sentiment.

I stamped the ripples stamps in the set using Warm Breeze Versafine Clair blue ink and then added some sparkle to the wings using a pink glitter brush pen.

Lastly I added some of my signature sequins as a finishing touch. I matted onto blue card and then a white card blank. 

Here are a couple of close ups

and one final shot.

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. 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 over 3 years ago. 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. So the July sign up will be in the group on 23rd June. 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 

And shhh a little heads up that the awesome new Christmas 2024 stamp collection is launching very soon. Watch this space! 

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

Bye for now,

Jane x

September moments

Good morning, it's time for my 2nd design team project for our "Contrasting (or complementary) colours" challenge over at Country View Crafts. All the details can be found here. For my first project I made a card using the purple-yellow contrasting colour pair. If you missed that post you can find it here. My card was a very in your face one and this time I went with the contrasting colour pair of blue-orange. This time however I made a much more gentle blend of the colours as it suited the mood of the stamps I used. The inks I used are distress oxides, salty ocean and wild honey 

I blended them in this way.

Then I placed the Visible Image Lava on top and using a piece of damp kitchen roll took some of the colour out. 

 I used stamps by Visible Images, Live in the moment and Ripples. 

 I stamped using orange blossom archival ink. 

I stamped the dragonflies in black versafine , clear embossed them and added a little glitter to their wings (which you can see in the final photo). 

Here is my finished card

with a close up showing the little hint of glitter in the wings.

I hope I may have inspired you to join in with our September "contrasting colours" 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 September  challenge can be found here.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

More bugs for June

Good morning I am back with my second dose of inspiration for the June challenge over at Country View. I am delighted to be the host for this month. I chose the theme, "A bugs life" and I am looking for crafting projects which feature butterflies, bees, dragonflies, beetles, ladybirds, ants and any bug you can think of.   All the details can be found here.

I am loving being out in the garden crafting, sharing space with the mother nature. There have been lots of bees around this year and I watched this lovely one busy collecting nectar on my dahlia which has it's first flower open.

I don't have any bee stamps or dies so I have gone with dragonflies again for my card. This time i have included my Tim Holtz bigz die cut dragonfly. I used aluminium strip on card and the added alcohol inks, allowing the layers to dry. 

Here is the first layer drying

I used alcohol inks on glossy card stock to make a really sunny background

and die cut and an oval aperture.

 I then stamped the medium and small dragonfly from my Visible Image live in the moment set

I also die cut some wildflowers using my Tim Holtz thinlits and then layered up my aperture with some foam tape. Here is my finished card

with a close up 

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

Happy little stampers anything goes with dies
Creative artiste 2/3 anything goes

 Creative moments 1/3anything goes

Everybody art 1/3 anything goes

Crafting from the heart 1/3 anything goes
The house that stamps built 1/3 things with wings
Simon says stamps work it out 1/3 summer vibes

You can enter our June "It's a bugs life" 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 is absolutely FREE! All the details for the challenge can be found here. Even if I don't get time comment I will be around to see every single entry.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Late summer sunshine

Good morning, we are actually enjoying some late summer sunshine in the South of England but the evenings are drawing in and the sun is less high in the sky each day. The sunsets seem deeper and more intense at this time of the year .

I have used this as inspiration for my Monday Design Team make for Visible Image. 

I got out some alcohol ink and yupo and made this background.

I worked with 2 stamp sets; Live in the moment

and Into the woods

I stamped the large and medium dragonflies onto card and added some pink and red Wink of Stella for some sparkle. I cut out just the wings.

I also stamped all the dragonflies onto my card base 

I then added 2 layers of into the woods, one on acetate to add depth to my card. I also added the extra wings.

Some close ups

One last shot

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

Lil patch of crafty friends 3/3 anything goes
The ribbon girl 3/3 anything goes
Crafty Card makers 1/3  all creatures great and small

Simon says stamp Monday stamp on it

Simon says stamp Wednesday stamp on it

Lil patch of crafty friends 2/3 anything goes

Crafteezee anything goes
Dragonfly dreams 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. 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 today, remember to try to "live in the moment" as life really does flash by and we need to savour being in the here and now.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Butterfly and dragonfly memories in metal

Happy 1st September!

What a great end to August we enjoyed weather wise.  It has cooled down considerably for the last few days but let's hope we see just a little more of summer before the nights draw in.  Today it is time to share my latest DT creation for our new challenge starting over at Country View.

Remember that you can enter our challenge as many times as you like and combine with any other challenges. You may even be the lucky random winner of the £20 CVC voucher.

The theme for this month is "metal". Now originally I thought of making my first Christmas card of the year but as we had the hottest August bank holiday on record there was no way I could get into a chilly mood. I'm still enjoying my flowers in the garden.

The fuchsia and begonias are still in full spectacular flower

As we sat in the garden eating our lunch on Sunday we saw butterflies and then my Hb noticed a dragonfly followed by a second one. We have never seen a dragonfly in our garden before, only ever near water, so it was a wonderful sight. They flew off too quickly for me to catch them on my camera. Now that got my brain thinking about an idea for my Design Team card for the challenge...how about metallic flowers, butterflies and dragonflies...I kid you not!

Out came my aluminium tape and I die cut some flowers, butterflies and dragonflies.

I also textured a piece for my background.

Out came my alcohol inks

and I started dabbing and playing until I got the colours I wanted

I then put on my creative hat and put my cards together.
Today I am sharing the dragonfly one, I will share my butterfly one later in the month.

These are pretty much the colours I saw as they fluttered around.

I kept everything metallic...the sentiment is even cut in glitter card .

And here he is in close up. I wonder what he was doing in my garden?

I was able to capture the memory in metal!

You can find my talented teamies creations for our challenge and all the details via this link.

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

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes
Shopping our stash favourite season 1/3 I do love all of them but summer is special and certainly inspired my card today
Try it on Tuesday stitiching I have used a faux stitching effect on my oval sentiment plaque


Thanks so much for stopping by today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave me, I love reading every single one. Enjoy the month ahead..autumn really is just around the corner now.


Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x