Halloween Eve

Hello today is the eve of Halloween and I have my little Daisy staying with us until Saturday. Until Daisy was born I really had no interest in Halloween at all but since she and now Jack came on the scene I really find this a fun time. We used to dread the doorbell ringing on Halloween, now I wait with excitement ready with my box of sweets for the Trick or Treaters. Daisy will dress up tomorrow night and be my little helper answering the door.

For the last 5 years I have made little treats bags for my big kids and bought  a tiny gift for Daisy and now Jack as they don't really have sweets yet.

I have shared the tags I have made over the last few weeks on my blog so I thought I would show you the finished treats.

My big babies treat bags have these contents.

Daisy and Jack have books.

Our Jack's first word was "tractor" and there are all sorts of tractors and diggers in this wonderful book...he will love this.

I stamped some brown paper (I always do this, so cheap and simple)

using 2 of my Visible Image sets to make my own hand stamped Halloween gift wrap.

and once finished I wrapped the books, adding the tags I had made.

Daisy's

 and Jack's

and here they are with my son's treat bag.

I would like to enter my hand stamped gift wrap into the following challenges;

Moving along with the time 3/3 rich autumn colours
CRAFT 2/3 Halloween/thanksgiving/firework night my paper and tags are for my Halloween treats!
Simon says stamp Wednesday fall/autumn colours

The house that stamps built anything goes
Through the craft room door 1/3 anything goes
Allsorts 3/3 make your own background, no DPs
Shopping our stash 2/3 Halloween
Sweet stampin 2/3 Halloween or black and orange
Addicted to stamps and more 1/3 Halloween photo prompt
Try it on Tuesday 1/3 colours of autumn

Before I close I just wanted to share the last page from this book.

This really is my little Jack down to a tee but he sleeps with his trucks on his bed 😂

Back soon,

Happy Halloween for tomorrow, have fun!

Bye for now,

Jane x

A dedication to Edie

Good morning all and welcome to my weekly Monday morning inspiration post for Visible Image. Today I have got something rather different to share.

A couple of weekends ago we went to the Dedication and 1st birthday party of my niece's little girl, Edie (short for Edith). It was held in Bristol just a week after we got home from our summer holiday.
I always enjoy our time there, it's a very vibrant city right on the river. This was the view from our hotel room.

I had already bought her pressies...one of the fab Julia Donaldson books, "Tabby McTat" and also a little children's bag from Cath Kidston, as I know how much my own granddaughter loves carrying around bags. Her favourite books are by Julia D...Stickman, Super Worm, A squash and a squeeze to name just a few!

 I really like making my own gift wrap, as I can make matching gift tags too. It makes gifts so much more personal. Visible Image stamps are perfect to use for this.

I always use ordinary cheap brown paper which I buy by the roll. I measured out a piece to fit and used the star and swirl from the Universal set of stamps.

I used Distress Oxides as my inks, I found this is an improvement on ordinary Distress inks as they don't soak through the paper. 

and stamped a pattern across the paper.

I love how well these stamp with the D' Oxides. It gives an almost pastel appearance to the paper.

I then used a piece of inky/infusions mop up card to cut a tag, added some stencilling to it and then added  Edie's name using the Alphabetical set.

I also used the square shape as this gives a great border to the letters.

I used red embossing powder.

and I used all capital letters and made these little plaques to stick on. 

and here is the parcel all tied up with a pretty ribbon bow. 

Here's a close up of the tag.

I would like to enter my gift wrap set into the following challenges;

Fussy and Fancy 1/3  celebrations

Cutie pie 2/3 here come the girls
Crafty Calendar anything goes
Really reasonable ribbon 1/6 anything goes
Cute Card Thursday ribbon/bows
Crafting by designs 1/3anything goes
Happy Little Stampers (watercolour) 1/3 July

I hope I might have inspired you to make your own gift wrap? Recipient's absolutely love how personal it is. I make some of my own Christmas gift wrap too, if time allows.

All the links to Visible Image are below;

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. Our 3rd themed challenge, "a splash of colour", is  also up and running until 28 July. There is another £40 voucher up for grabs for the winner of this. 

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 these gorgeous stamps can be purchased. 

Thanks as always for your kind visits and comments you take the time to leave me.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Wrapping up on St. Patrick's day

Hello and a very Happy St. Patrick's day to those who celebrate it. Today coincides with my 2nd DT inspiration piece over at Country View Challenges. If you missed my first piece do have a look here at my more feminine take on the theme.

Our theme for this month's challenge is "Inspired by Tim Holtz".All the details can be seen here. You might even be lucky enough to win the £20 voucher which is up for grabs to a random winner.

As promised for today's piece I have gone "traditional Tim" with a tag, lots of grunge and brown but as well as a tag I have made some matching wrapping paper.  For the background of my tag I used the number stencil and some distress ink. I then added some letter using gold embossing paste.

I had lots of left over die cuts from my first card so this time I added black paint to my piece of weather clock die. I also added treasure gold to my embossed focal

I then put my tag together, adding a few remnant rubs.

 For the matching gift wrap I used the same stencils and just used distress inks on brown paper. ...I tried to keep to the same pattern across the paper.

and here is the set.

and a close up.

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

A Vintage Journey all aboard
Creative Artiste 3/3 anything goes mixed media
That's Crafty 2/3 bling it up
More mixed media anything goes
We love to create 1/2 anything goes

The sunshine continued yesterday...bliss... however we are forecast that some colder weather is on its way, just in time for the weekend. I will sign of with some more daffy photos I took whilst walking down to Dotty's yesterday with some new Mothers' Day cards.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a lovely weekend whatever the weather.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x