Welcome rain

We have been threatened with a hose pipe ban in the South of England this summer unless we have some more rain. We had the driest April for many years and until last week no real rain fall. However there were a few days last week when we finally had some rain for my parched garden and I really want to share these photos today.

I love the smell in the garden at this time of the year after it has been raining, that gorgeous earthy, green smell...it's as though the ground is alive and breathing. I took these photos

My foxgloves lapped up the rain and are racing away, Old Choc, my Christmas tree was pretty happy too...

I have pink and white foxglove blooms this year, they all self seed and every year I have different shades.  I also spotted a visitor below

Well hello Mr Bumble

How pretty the rain looked on my shrubs

So I was inspired to finally ink up my Lavinia Green Man stamp which I bought at Ally Pally in April and decided to create an enchanted garden scene.

I made an inky background with distress inks. I added some honeycomb stencilling, as inspired by Mr. Bumble.

So I would like you to meet my first Green Man card...

It's a fab stamp and I added lots of his leaves in different shades and types of ink. I also added a border of Lavinia leaves and flowers and gave him a few white pen highlights.

I have put him up for sale in my Etsy shop here

I would like to enter him into the following challenges;

A bit more time to craft 3/3 anything goes
Artistic Inspirations 3/3 anything goes

Creative Inspirations 2/3 anything goes
Fashionable Stamping 3/3 let's go wild
Emerald Creek Dares 2/3 dream a little dream
Crafty Cardmakers 1/3 floral profusion
Fussy and fancy 1/3 flowers

We have enjoyed steaming hot weather this week and yesterday was the hottest day of the year so far. The temperature topped 28c and more sunshine is promised this weekend here in the South, although Monday looks as though we may get some rain. Perfect for my garden, if not for a bank holiday.

Enjoy your weekends and your gardens if you have them. They are such enchanting places at this time of the year and who know, you might even stumble across the Green Man 😉

Thanks so much for stopping by,

Bye for now,

Jane x

The darling buds of May

The weather over the bank holiday was much better here than forecast and I got lots done in the garden. We decided to get up early on Sunday, as Bear was staying, and I sat on the back door step with a cup of tea in the early morning sunshine. As I sat there I heard the humming of a big woolly bumble bee and watched him carefully going in and out of every single foxglove flower.

Such a great sight. Summer really is just around the corner.

Once Bear went home I decided it was finally studio time and I knew exactly what I wanted to make...some new pages in Jane's Journal. There were some fun challenges I wanted to enter and I wanted to reproduce all the gorgeous pink/purple tones of the foxgloves I had seen and even the buzzing bee. The scrap around the World challenge has a mood board to use and Crafty Individual's wanted some "music to our ears"I also needed a suitable quote to use. I started jotting down some design ideas, also using the challenges requirements and as it was a May holiday I immediately thought of the Darling buds of May....both Shakespeare's sonnet and the old TV programme. Yes my brain does work in the strangest ways. I had thought of using " The buzzing of the bees" as my music but I looked up the Darling buds of May on You Tube and came across the theme music...I had forgotten how sweet it is.... have a listen here It also made me realise how many years ago that series was on. It was actually 1992-93 and Catherine Zeta Jones looks about 15 in it! In it's time it was such a gentle pleasant show and it reminds me of long hot lazy summers.

With that tune in my head I also decided to look up Shakespeare's famous sonnet.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
     So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
     So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

 And of course the May that he is writing about is the May blossom of the Hawthorn but I wanted to also use the pun of the month of May. In Shakespeare' s time May was actually one of the summer months.
I opened my journal fueled with all my inspiration and selected some acrylics similar to those of the flowers. I wanted some texture and thought it would be fun to continue the theme of May so I tore some printed months of May out of my planner diary.I also added some old dictionary pages too in deference to Shakespeare's unique and wonderful use of the English language.
I also took my TH blossom stencil and added some texture paste through it.

  I then had fun dripping down watered down paints until I was happy with the background.

I also sponged some Archival ink through another floral stencil. I also added some splashes of ink

 Next was some stamping using my Claire's designs flower and Crafty Individuals bee and flower stamp; they are 2 of the great freebies that CI enclosed with my last stamp order from them.

 I also added some colour to the stamping using my Inktense pencils and some water.

To add the words "The darling buds of May" I decided to try my hand at writing it myself as I certainly don't have a stamp with those words on and I wanted something more natural than printing if off on the computer. I tried my hand at doodling for the first time last week and thought it was time to up my game!  Once I had written the words I added some other doodling with a black and a white pen. Thank goodness it worked out OK, it's always a moment of trepidation when you take up a pen and start drawing the letters freehand.

So here are my finished pages.

and some close ups

 You can see my lettering and doodles here...these bees are as busy as the ones on my foxgloves.

 Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......................

 I like the way the calendar pages are still visible through the layers.

I would like to enter my journal pages into the following great challenges;


Scrap around the world May mood board for their epic 2nd birthday event

 I was inspired to use the gorgeous pink and purple tones and colours, the flower buds in different shades (just like my flowers in my garden) and also the lettering .....I wanted lettering on my pages too...and the happy quote about life being celebrated.
I also loved the texture of the shoes  and the ice cream and cone so I added lots of texture to my pages.
My Journal is a Dylusions journal;each page is 5"x8" as required by the rules.






Little Claire's outdoors
Anything but cute  vintage garden This is a newbie on the block, do check it out!
The Craft barn holiday (May bank holiday)
Craft stamper take it make it; a stamp
A sprinkle of imagination anything goes The products I have used are Inktense pencils and Black Archival ink.
Crafty Individuals It's music to my ears. My CI stamps are the freebie bee and daisy.My music referenece is the theme tune to the darling buds of May which I then used as my quote.
That craft place shabby chic
The Artistic Stamper Journaling your heart out
Stamping sensations Flower power
Simon says stamp Wednesday stencil it
That's Crafty numbers up my numbers are all the May 2015 dates I used as my texture.
Mixed media monthly May flowers
A vintage journey spring colours
Country view scenic
Noor! UK May flowers
Art with heart mixed media mahem
Sweet Stampin birds and/or bees
Inspiration Journal  pasted
Crafty Calander Things with wings
We Love 2 create anything goes/mixed media

I would also like to link up to my friend Brenda of Bumblebees and dragon flies. This is not a challenge but a way of sharing our visual journals and she would love to see you here #21

Thanks for visiting me and I hope you all had a great holiday weekend too? I have today off as I don't work Tuesdays and my jewellery class in on half term......so what better way to spend it...yes I am seeing Daisy and my DD.....:0)

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Gardener's helper

We've had someone to stay over....the lovely Bear, my son's dog, as my son is at wedding. I needed to get some gardening done yesterday and so I had a furry helper

I sorted through my existing pots of established plants to weed and feed them and also check what might be coming back after the winter. I was about to empty one of my hanging baskets when I noticed this....no it's not all weed if you look carefully......

next to the weed on the left is a fuchsia which has overwintered!
I emptied out some of the old compost, refilled it and added a new friend, a geranium.

They seem very happy and I will share their flowers when they bloom.
I bought a gorgeous pink which will enjoy a sunny spot

and my pot of violas my Mum bought me in the spring are still smiling away. I just keep dead heading them and they just bloom and bloom...simples!

I also have lovely digitalis (foxgloves) coming into flower. These are in my raised bed and just self seed.....free gardening at its most beautiful.

and as I cleared some pots Bear bought me his eel and squid

and then his duck

He had a great time

So today he is just here for breakfast, the sun is shining and I hope to get some crafting time in my garden studio later this afternoon.
This is Bear enjoying the garden at 8am with his beloved bone

My card today is inspired by the colours of my sweet pots of violas. It is a card I made for my Niece's May birthday

If you remember a while back I had a play with my Inktense pencils to make my daughter's birthday card here
I had a spare Uptown girls image so I got out my purples and pinks and coloured up the image above. You can see it in the photo below on the far right



I fussy cut it out and layered it up on my Spellbinders floral oval die cut.
I added some Cheery Lynn leaves and some polka dot pink ribbon. She was going away for the weekend so I added a "weekend" button. I am sure she enjoyed a glass or 2 of wine on her holiday.

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

A sprinkle of imagination anything goes The products I have used are Inktense pencils and Black Archival ink.
Allsorts Happy Birthday they are celebrating no less than 6 years...a real achievement for a challenge and they were the first challenges I entered.
The craft barn holiday these 2 girls are away on their weekend holiday as shown on the button!
Craft Hazel's patterned papers anything goes
Live and Love Crafts Ice cream photo inspiration I was inspired by the colours of the photo board especially the pink and white striped ones!
Craft stamper take a stamp
Penny Black and more die cuts and punches
Bunny Zoe buttons and bows
Cheery Lynn anything goes



I'm off to finish off some pot cleaning in the garden and then hopefully get some playtime in my studio. Enjoy this holiday weekend and thanks for visiting.

And here is the sunshine now.....bliss and Bear is making the most of it until home time ;0)

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Fairytale foxgloves

It's that time of the year when my foxgloves start to bloom...they are one of my favourite flowers and in my garden I just let them self seed at will. The really are the promise that summer is just around the corner now.

They pop up all over the place in my tiny piece of paradise.

I have them in shades from white to the deepest of pinks.

Even after the heavy rain overnight they still stand majestically in my garden.

As I went down to my studio on I could hear the busy bees buzzing in and out of the blooms.

and I even caught at few with my camera

Such industrious little creatures. I also loved to see the drips of rain on my flowers

So this was enough inspiration for my latest card make...pink, flowers, bees...yes you get the idea. I have recently sold several of my birthday cards in my little Etsy shop so I decided that I would make a few new ones. Foxgloves are associated with fairies in folk lore so I decided that I would use a fairy image. I reached for my Lavinia stamps as they have just the right fairy and scene stamps I needed.
I got very inky and created a foxglove inspired backing card with my Distress Inks using the wrinkle free technique. I built up my garden scene using several Lavinia stamps. I made the lavender stamp look like my tall foxgloves using 2 different coloured inks. You can see them peeping out under the frame.

I die cut a spellbinders frame which I coloured with DIs and then added Distress crackle...I love this stuff. I then blended some Walnut stain into the cracks to give a vintage feel.  I also added some frantage as I think that my foxgloves in my garden look as though they have been sprinkled with it.
Here is another close up

I don't have any bee dies or punches so I used a butterfly punch.

And here is the big reveal

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges

Lavinia stamps Birthday girl
Sweet stampin sparkle and shine
Stamping for the weekend Girls
Polkadoodles Things with wings
Country View Natures beauties
A Creative Romance Girlie
Deep Ocean Wings
Premium Crafts UK Pan Pastel Florals
Squirrel and Fox let's hear it for the girls
A little bit crafty flower power
Crafty little fairies in the garden
Bearly Mine flowers
The Artistic Stamper in the garden
Stamp and Create spring colours

and it for sale in my Etsy shop here.

We were very lucky with the weather yesterday, lots of sunshine whilst we enjoyed some special Daisy time in Southampton, but today we have woken up to grey skies and rain. My foxgloves seem to be enjoying it though and I may well get some more inky time in my studio as all my gardening plans need to be put on hold for a little longer. Enjoy the bank holiday whatever you do and I hope my friends in the States have a good Memorial Day. Have a lovely week and thanks as always for visiting.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x