Face It...a very special bag charm

Good morning friends. First of all please can I thank everyone, both here on my blog and on the Visible Image Facebook page, for all your kind birthday wishes you left me on Saturday. I had such a lovely weekend...and the sun shone too. 😊

It's another marvellous Monday and I'm here with my latest DT inspiration for Visible Image. Although most of my time is spent making paper crafts many of you are aware that another of my hobbies is silversmithing and jewellery making. I attend a weekly class and I have just finished a new pendant (which I will share with you soon). I was recently commissioned to make some more of my bag charms. Here are a couple of examples of what I have made..and yes over the years I have made just about every theme you can imagine...cat lovers, artists, chocolate lovers, musicians..the list is pretty endless!

My most recent were for; a knitter

 some very girlie ones

and one American lady wanted something very "English" so I made an Alice in Wonderland bag charm...with tea themed charms. 

I use artisan one of a kind handmade glass lampwork beads in my bag charms, made by my talented friends and attach metal charms.

For my inspiration today I wondered how I could incorporate Visible Image stamps into a special bag charm. Whilst spring cleaning my garden studio ready for my summer crafting I found a packet of Shrink Plastic..with one last snippet left inside...which got me thinking....👀

Grab a cuppa and I will share my step by step....

I used my Face It Stamps available here

and the Bold and Beautiful sentiment from the Own It set here. These stamps are now all back in stock, having sold out several times recently. Visible Image will also be at Ally Pally at the weekend...and I will be there on Sunday.

I found that black Ranger Archival ink worked best on my shrink plastic but I did also use a red for the lips.

I die cut out all my "charms" but you can cut the plastic with scissors. I used blue pencil to colour the eyes and added some purple to the lid for eyeshdow.

Try to keep a firm steady pressure when stamping. It's very easy to slip on the plastic. I used an acryllic block rather than my MISTI as I felt I had better control over the slippery plastic surface.

Once die cut I made a hole in the top of each piece.

To give an idea of scale pre heating I have used a £1 coin. I haven't seen the new £1 coins yet..have you? To shrink the plastic I used a heat gun but you can bake it too.

There is no way I could take photos whilst heating the plastic, it does have a mind of its own. One tip I can give is, "Be Brave and don't Panic!" The plastic will crinkle up and appear to stick..just flip it over and gently tease it with a pokey tool. When it finishes shrinking immediately place an acrylic block on top to flatten it out while it cools down.

Here's the after photo....look at those diddy charms... you can see that the eyes are about the size of the £1 coin now.

I thought they looked too plain left white so I had a play with some methods of colouring.

I found that the best method for me was to use Sharpie pens, a lot of other mediums just wipe off.

I even coloured the edges and the backs

So then it was time to wire wrap some gorgeous artisan lampwork glass beads from my stash.












add some jump rings to my shrink plastic charms

and put together my Bold and Beautiful Visible Image bag charm....

and a couple of close ups to show the details

I would like to enter my bag charm into the following challenges;

Pixies's snippets playground week 275/6 I now need to buy some more shrink plastic as I have none left! It just shows how useful our snippets are and why us crafters keep all those little bits and pieces...you never know when you might need them ;0)

Love to create 1/2 #7anything creative/mixed media

Stamping sensations 1/3 anything goes

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes


I hope that you might be inspired to use your stamps to make some charms to use...not just for jewellery but to use in your card making too. It really is great fun playing with shrink plastic ...enjoy 😆 and don't panic when heating it! If you have any questions do email me...my email address is on the right hand side bar of my blog. I'm always happy to help.

Thanks for visiting me today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Writing to Father Christmas

Thank you for all your good wishes for my sales at Dotty's Christmas market. It was a great success and although a few more customers would have been good, those who came liked and bought and it was an excellent advert for my handmade cards and jewellery.  It was also such a lovely festive atmosphere. I only had time to take a couple of photos, using my phone...here is my stall all set up for the day.

I do have some earring and bag charms stock left so I am selling my festive earrings on line reduced from £5.95 to £3.95. The ear wires are silver plated and the charms are lead and nickel free. 

My bag charms, made with one of a kind lamp work glass beads (below), are reduced from £7.95 to £6.95 until Christmas. In the new year I will be putting some more bag charms in my Etsy Shop. I have themes for knitters, sewers, gardeners, girlie handbags etc. I have put my bag charms into hand made crackers in the past and they are also excellent stocking fillers or secret Santa gifts for teenagers and women. 

Not all of these are in stock but if you email me (my email is on my side bar or contact me via Etsy) I can let you know what I have. They make fab stocking fillers. Post and packing to the UK is just £1. 

The earrings and bag charms come in a lovely snowflake organza gift bag.

Today I wanted to share when  Daisy came to stay last weekend, whilst her Mummy and Daddy had a few days away. My Hb and I adore having her all to ourselves and she really was an angel. She even slept in a "big bed" for the first time without any fuss at all. She looked so grown up there...bless her. Time really does fly and it is hard to appreciate that she is 3 already.

She loves crafting so much and it's the first thing that she asks to do when she arrives. It's too cold in my studio so I made up a corner of the kitchen for her crafting area. I also prepared a couple of little projects.

I thought that one important thing to do was to get that letter to Father Christmas written.
Daisy chose some very festive stamps.

She put this together on the back and then I wrote the letter, under her instruction

Yes seriously this is all that she asked for....
After she had gone home and everything had dried I put it into an envelope and posted it off to Father Christmas.

If you have youngsters this is Royal Mail's correct address, just put a stamp on the envelope and get it to Santa by 9 December and he will be able to reply.
My card to day has to be something with a little person waiting for Santa.

The stamp and tags are Lili of the Valley, coloured with Promarkers. My dies are Memory Box and J Sheen
I would like to enter my card into the following challenges.

Pixie's snippets playground #258 I used snippets for my die cuts
Moving along with the times 1/3 anything goes with Christmas
Simon Says Wednesday anything goes
Simon Says Work it Wednesday 2/3 use dies
The Artistic Stamper 2/3 Christmas
Noor sparkle..there is lots of sparkle on her furry outfit and the gold card and papers..hard to see in the photo!
Paper Creator 1/3 Christmas

Dies R Us Christmas

As you like it 1/3 favourite gold or silver mine is gold...so traditional for Christmas cards.

Memory Box marvellous metallics

Stamping sensations 1/3 floral fancies my paper is covered with Christmas roses

Thanks for visiting and for your kind comments,  Today is another important day and exciting day here ..the trees are going up...yes Old Choc is coming in for his annual holiday. Watch out for Billy's blog post soon. Enjoy your Sunday,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Jane's Journal Giveaway

Last year I did not have the time to offer a little something on my blog to celebrate my 300th post. I promised that I would come up with something special at a later date.  Time has marched on and here we are at my 335th post and at last I have finished creating my gift. I wanted to offer something extra special as a thank you to all.

 I have created 2 special necklaces for the occasion. They are summer based so that they can give us something to look forward to.

One is created in copper metal clay and the second is in silver metal clay. In case you have not heard of metal clays, they are very pure metals combined with a binder. When fired they leave behind pure copper and fine silver, much purer that most precious metal jewellery you would buy.  The silver necklace is a flower with a second daisy in the flower which I have textured. It comes with an 18" sterling silver necklace. The copper necklace has a handmade double textured heart and a Vintaj (lovely quality) seahorse charm from my stash. It comes on a red cord 18" necklace. Both pieces can be taken off their necklaces and could be used as simple charms on your keyring if you prefer or they would make a lovely gift as they come in an organza bag. They have been so difficult to photograph, especially the silver flower as it is really sparkly in real life.

I have also been having a restock in my Etsy shop and if you are in a summer mood there are a couple of new pieces there.

This is a mermaid bag charm with 2 gorgeous artisan hand made lampwork glass beads available here .
Below is a  lovely artisan lampwork beach bead necklace. I have silver wire wrapped the bead with 2 Swarovski bicone spacers and it comes with a silver snake chain. It is available here

or if you like pearls and shells there is one more new Summery piece available here

At the moment summer still seems a long way away doesn't it?

I thought today's card challenge entry also needed to be really summery and full of love

I used my newest Lili of the Valley stamp called pots of love which I coloured with my Promarkers and highlighted with Prismacolor pencils.

 The backing card is a hand embossed piece I made with lots of distress inks and some gold metallic gilding wax. If was so hard to photograph this as the lovely gold foil matting card reflects so much. The sentiment is also LOTV from their grunge range.

My card is for sale in my Etsy shop here and would suit either Mother's day or Mum's birthday as it is blank inside.

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

Lili of the Valley Name that tune my tune is the theme tune from Bill and Ben the Flower Pot Men! No I wonder if some of my readers are old enough to remember that one!
2 Sisters embossing
The Artistic Stamper Use Distress
Stamping Sensations wings fantasy or fiction my birdie die cuts have got wings!
Crafty Sentiments anything goes
Papertake Weekly lovely layers
Pan Pastel UK  anything goes
Divas by Design rubber stamps only
Love to Create sparkle and bling
Deep Ocean love is all around us
Rhedd and Rosie love is in the air
Totally Gorjuss lovey dovey
Make it Monday linky party #179
Whimsy stamps love is in the air


My giveaway is open to everyone, I never like imposing restrictions as I am delighted that people read my blog, even as silent readers. You do not even need to have a blog but of course you do need to pop back after the closing date and see if you have won. I will post world wide. Just leave a comment on this post to say you would like to be in the draw.
However I do like to add a little extra for my loyal blogging friends who visit me here week after week and leave such kind comments.
So, if you are a follower you will get an 2nd entry and if you put the photo at the top of this post in your side bar or mention my giveaway in a blog post or on Facebook you will also get a 3rd entry. That means some of you will qualify for 3 entries.Please leave a comment to say how many entries you qualify for and it does not matter if you come back another day to say this as my names go into a hat to be drawn out by my Hb.

Good luck to everyone and again thank you so much for being such amazing friends. This blogging world brings me a lot of pleasure. My giveaway will close at 4pm GMT on Friday 7 March. I will announce the winners soon after that date. The first person out of the hat will have the choice of the necklaces, the second person will have the other.

The sun is actually shining as I type this, long may it last.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Celebrations

I had an amazing trip to Alexandra Palace on Saturday to the Stamp Show and I took some photos as it is a beautiful Victorian Venue. I will come back later this week to show you those and to display my new stash. (Gulp, my Hb had better not read that post ;0)There are a few thing to celebrate her today and first up is the results of my recent jewellery giveaway. Many thanks to those of you who took part either once, twice or three times. It was lovely to see so many of you joining in the fun. My Hb was chief adjudicator and name picker......

First out of the dish...no hats were available so the fruit bowl served the purpose....


drum roll........................it was....

The lovely Susan of Mary Jane's Tearoom

Well done Susan. You can choose the blue or pink necklace.

and the runner up who wins the bee bag charm is .................................................




drum roll again......

my dear blogging friend Helen of Helen Phillips Blogspot.

Congratulations Helen!

I'm so sorry that more of you could not win, I really wish there were prizes for you all. I will have another giveaway soon, they are always such fun.


My other celebration for today is that I finally got out to craft in my studio on Sunday. It was very pleasant in there, 24c with no heating! I even had to open the window at one point as it was getting quite warm.
 I decided that inspired by being out in my garden I would make a few more garden themed bag charms which will be heading to my Etsy Shop. I also needed to make a recent commission for a sewing themed bag charm.

I wired up the beads for the sewing charm and also decided to make another bee charm to put in my shop. I will show you the ladybird bag charm another day.

Here is a close up of the beads I used for the commission and the fun sewing related charms.




And below is the finished piece.

and this is the new little Busy Bee bag charm which has buzzed its way into the bag charms section of my Etsy shop here.

My challenge card for today also has  celebration theme. It is a Silver Wedding card which I made for a friend of my husband's who is celebrating 25 years of marriage very soon.

Yes it features those cute House Mice again. I really love the way this card turned out and I used lots of textures.

I coloured the mice with my Promarkers and highlighted them with my Prismacolor pencils.
 The lattice focal die is a Joy craft die and I finally manged to buy the wonderful Memory Box Precious Hearts die which I "hung" from my Quikcutz numbers dies.
You can also see that I got my embossing folders out again  for the white card.

This card is based on the great sketch by Crafty Catz card challenge this week.



I don't usually follow sketches but I really enjoyed using this one and when you have a card which needs making but not the time to allow the  inspiration to flow they are just ideal.

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

Crafty Catz Sketchie time #178
I love Promarkers embossing #163 my embossing is using my butterfly embossing folder on the white card.
Stamping Sensations special occasions
Penny Black and More Blossoms and bows
Bunny Zoe Fave colour combo
Forever friends fortnight #59 diecuts/punches
Lexi's Creations Challenge #88 add ribbon and/or lace
Cupcake Craft Cute and Cuddly #238
Make It Monday Linky party #136
Natalie and Amy Monochromatic #8


I would also like to give you a heads up that the girls at Ribbon Girl are having a fab pink giveaway here, pop on over and join the fun.

So last of all I think I can safely celebrate that real spring like weather is finally here. Even when it rains it is still mild and I have washed and put away our scarves and gloves for another year. The magnolia in my garden has suddenly sprouted buds and I can almost hear the sap rising out in my little garden. I am hoping to get out to do some gardening later in the week.

Wishing you all a sunny week,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

An Easter Extravaganza and Birthday Giveaway

Thank you everyone for leaving such kind comments on my last post re my latest GD card I made for the Ladybugs. I had such fun making that card. Unbelievably tomorrow is Easter day...it feels more like Christmas Day weather wise as we still have snow flurries and bitter temperatures across the UK. We have escaped the snow here in sunny Surrey but we have not escaped the freezing temperatures. My dear daffodils are bravely enduing the weather and everything out there is coming up so much later this year. Last year by this time my Magnolia was in flower and my tulips nearly out. We were loving temperatures in the 20s and wearing tea shirts! Never mind I am sure Spring is just around the corner.

I have decided that as Monday is my special day (yes another birthday has come around)  that it is time to beat this awful weather and host a summery giveaway for you all. I really do appreciate my blogging friends so much and I would like to send my good wishes to you all. I decided to make something which will make us all think of sunshine filled holiday on the beach...now that is a good thought ;0)

I also wanted to add a "bonus" to my faithful friends who come by and comment every post. I have seen other people do this including my great friend Vivienne of Green Rabbit designs (she also has a fab bunny giveaway running on her blog at the moment but it finishes tonight so hop on over there very quickly if you would like to enter)

This is how you can enter my giveaway and maximize your chances of winning.
Everyone, (I never like excluding anyone at all), who leaves a comment that they would like to be included in my giveaway will get 1 entry. You do not even need a blog to enter.

A second entry will be given to all my loyal followers and a warm welcome to my new ones.

And you can get a third entry if you either mention this giveaway in your next blog post with a link the photo below or you put my giveaway photo into the side bar of your blog (or both if you would like to) If you are not sure how to do this just right click the photo and copy the URL address and hey presto!


So what is the prize then....OK........drum roll......................

I hope you like the prize. The winner will be able to choose either the blue necklace or the pink one. I will then put up the other necklace in my Etsy shop for sale.

I decided that to put us in the mood for a sunshine filled summer that I would make 2 necklaces. I know that some of my blogging friends are blue girls and others prefer pink so I decided to offer both colours.

For the blue necklace I looked through my beady stash and decided on the blue lava beads and the beige shell. There are also some jade hearts in there too.

And for the more pinker shades I found these...

I chose the pink shell, heart mother of pearl beads and the pink rock crystal chunks. I also found some coral chunks too.






Here are a couple more close ups.

The pink necklace has been so difficult to photograph..the shell is a very pretty candy pink, much better than the pictures show. Even using my light tent could not change the fact that there was no decent light around to take these photos.

The blue necklace is 18" in length, the pink is 20". Both necklaces have a quality sterling silver trigger clasp.

I will post worldwide.

If neither appeal they do make fab gifts as they come in a pretty organza gift bag so you could give it to a friend or relative for a birthday or special occasion.

I will also have one runner up prize of one of my bag charms. This also has a summery theme and features a cute glass lampwork bee handmade by my buddy Laney.

There is a pretty swirled handmade glass lampwork bead with the sweet bee.He even has little glass wings. I can't wait to hear the buzz of bees again in my garden.

There are butterfly and dragon fly Tibetan charms with this bag charm. If you would like to see any of my other bag charms they are listed here in my Etsy shop I also love making commissioned pieces.










So my card challenge today just has to be something sunny and cheerful and just right for Easter. I think this one fits the bill.

It is another of my fab House Mouse stamps, this one is called Tails of True Love....isn't it sweet. I coloured them with my Promarkers and highlighted with Prismacolor pencils.

I used my fab Memory box egg dies and you will spot another new die (another early birthday pressie) the lovely
lattice mount is a Joy Lacey rectangle. The springtime backing papers are ancient and I used my La La Land heart border again. The hearts above the mice are the cut outs from the die...there in no waste at all!

You will also spot that I have used an embossing folder too...the first time for me. I used it on the green card, it is a Spellbinders. I also used another stamp from my Whimsy stamps Vintage seeds set.

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

Brenda's  blog celebration over on  Floral fantasies I thought the floral backing papers would be perfect and I am sure that Brenda has lots of little field mice where she lives in the country side ;0) She is off to Paris so the French vintage seed packet stamp in the background was perfect. There are also butterflies in my embossing folder, have a peep at the green card.
Simon Says stamp anything goes
House Mouse & Friends Challenge #141 Easter
Party Time Tuesday anything goes #113
Crafty Ribbons anything goes #42

My giveaway will run for the next 2 weeks, the closing date will be Sunday 14th April at 4pm (GMT). Remember that you can get up to 3 entries, you can either mention how many ways your are entering in a single comment on this post or  you can come back and leave 3 separate comments...I am an old fashioned names out of the hat girl, I won't be using Mr Random ;0)

 I will announce the winner on my next blog post after 14 April so do pop back and see who was the lucky winner and runner up. Good luck everyone and thanks as always for your kind visits and comments here.It is always so good to see you.

Wishing you all some Spring sunshine and a peaceful but chocolate filled Easter ;0)

(Please remember that to enter my giveaway you do need to mention it in your comment)

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x