Challenging times, Mindful Moments 8

Hello friends, here I am with my 8th Mindful Moments post. If you did not see my first post and wonder what these are do check it out here. Thank you to everyone who has been reading them. I can see from my stats that these are getting at least twice the usual traffic of my other posts, which has really inspired me to keep trying to get them written weekly if I can. I really hope you are finding them a moment to make you smile and stay mindful during these very turbulent times.

There have been some very, very small changes in Lockdown rules in England. Essentially we are still needing to stay at home as much as possible. Some workers have returned to work but my Hb is still able to work from home and I am so pleased that he does not have to travel up to London as the only way he could ever do this would be by public transport. We can also exercise outside as much as we want to and even drive to somewhere and walk. At the moment we are staying put as I think a lot of people may be flocking out this weekend, socially distanced I know, but still we need to stay cautious. What I am so pleased to see as I go out and about is that people around here are being very sensible indeed.

My garden is blooming and the sunny weather has returned.

My little potted rose has flowered on my patio.

Billy is loving having me outside in my studio and having both my Hb and me in the garden enjoying lunches and cuppas in the garden.

We even enjoyed our evening meal and a beer outside one evening as the sun was setting.

Everything looks so lush in my tiny piece of paradise but I am needing to water regularly as we have not really had any significant rain for 6 weeks.

My darling daughter surprised us on Thursday by arranging a "Dotty delivery" of afternoon tea...wow this was amazing.

 A whole box of delicious eats! It was so good to see my dear friend David at the door with our box. I miss Dotty's so much but I am so pleased to see that they are surviving  by doing home deliveries in the local area.
What a brilliant card on the front of our box, on the back was a special message from our girl.

There was more than enough for lunch so we saved the scones with jam and clotted til the next day. Oh my everything was am-az-ing. Such a treat and so thoughtful.

.My dino duck babies are down to 6 we think...there were 7 but 1 was tiny. They are such fun to watch growing up, we knew that 12 could never survive and if 6 do it will be just great.

I have found a way of keeping up my crafting with Daisy, not just by post but by Zoom Video. We are managing some weekly sessions and I just love the hour and a half we sit and chat while making. I send her a kit in the post and we put them together. Like me her first love is stamping. I am lucky to have 2 sets of some of the stamps I use to design for Creative Stamping Magazine as I also get a set when the magazine is published. I have sent the spare sets to her.

This was a photo my end with my screen up on an old music stand!

and below is a photo her Daddy sent of Daisy hard at work stamping her end. You can see my face on her computer screen!

Below are the 2 wonderful cards she made. I just sent her the 2 stamped hearts, she did everything else herself. 

I miss her and Jack (and my big babies) soo much.

Daisy and I are continuing to make ATCs and coins to a theme each week and we swap by post. This gorgeous bundle arrived for me this week including the "butterflies" themed ATCs. I really treasure all these makes so much.

I also had some happy mail from my dearest best friend too. We have been best friends from the age of 11 and she recently found some letters from me from nearly 40 years ago which we smiled over when we last met just before Lockdown. It is so good to not just email and message but to get real mail too. I will treasure this.

So my Lockdown project today is something which I was challenged to make on a lovely Tim Holtz Facebook page I belong to. The challenge was to make something using just a single distress ink colour which was randomly selected.
My randomly selected colour came out as Dried Marigold and I must admit my first thought was oh no not orange! However I had the most delightful, fun hour in my studio and this is what I made.

with a couple of close ups

 How apt these words were! Everything other than the black archival was made using just this single ink pad.

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

Through the craft room door 1/3 anything goes
Not just cards 1/3 anything goes
A vintage journey beautiful blooms
Moving along with the times 1/3 Flowers
Stamping sensations 1/3 say it with flowers

So today I am sharing 2 mindful thoughts;

Being challenged in life is inevitable, 
being defeated is optional. 

Roger Crawford  

and

Every morning we are born again, what we do today is what matters most.

Buddha

Lockdown is such a challenging time but I have tried really hard to find ways to help myself. There are so many things that I cannot change and I have to accept that. However my crafting with Daisy is continuing by working out how to use Zoom, videos, messages and letters keep me in touch with my loved one and I even overcame working with just one ink pad! I really hope that life is treating you all fairly and that you too are finding ways of overcoming some of the many many obstacles and challenges we face.

These times WILL pass.

Thanks so much for stopping by and for the kind comments you have taken the time to leave me, they are so appreciated.

Please keep safe, keep mindful, keep washing those hands.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

With love, Jane x

Footsteps in Seville

Hello I am back to share my first photos from Seville where we spent our wonderful recent holiday. We stayed in such a central location that we were able to visit all the sights on foot. As it is very hot and humid and we had a whole week to explore we were able to go out visiting for half the day and then come back to swim and relax around the cool swimming pool..and sip a cocktail or 2.

On the first day we had a leisurely wander around taking in the beautiful architecture

The Cathedral is the 3rd largest in Europe, only St. Peter's and St. Paul's are larger.

 The inside was quite dark so I knew my little camera would not cope so I just snapped a few beauties which had some light.

 This extraordinary crown is in the Treasury

 We climbed the Giralda tower and were rewarded with wonderful sights on the way up as well as from the summit.

After we came out we treated ourselves to a cool drink in this shady side street.

We also went to an intimate Flamenco show, with just 80 seats and we sat spellbound in the front row. The singer had a voice which made the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. He was accompanied by the most talented guitarist and the dancers had feet which seemed to have speed that I did not know existed. It was a wonderful show. We were not allowed to take photos during the performance but afterwards they posed for a few.

The second day we spent at the Plaza Espana. This was built for the 1929 for the American/Spanish exposition and showcased Spanish industry and technology. The walls are lined with tiles showing the provinces of Spain. The building has a wonderful Art Deco feel, one of my favourite art periods.

 

I have been so inspired by our holiday that  I decided for the first time to try my hand at a piece of mixed media art to make a new "Moment" for my journal.  I bought several Art Deco postcards in Seville and chose to use one for the focal. I had the idea of using some pieces from the paper visitor's map which we used to tour the city. I ripped out a few pieces and added some grunge paste through my grid stencil I won from a recent We do doobadoo's challenge, to look a little like our feet walking around the city and leaving footprints. I also added some tissue paper which I scrunched to give some more texture.

I chose the colours which sing Seville to me; yellow,orange, green and red.

I painted orange flowers with acrylic paint through just the top of the flower from an Imaginations Crafts stencil and then started painting watered down acrylics onto my piece. I had penciled in where I wanted to put my postcard once the background was finished and dry
I then got so engrossed adding textures and colours that I forgot to take any more pictures! Sorry! Here is the lovely postcard;

I added some red lace to remind me of the passion of the Flamenco dancing and the red shoes the dancer wore.

The yellow rose is to remind me of all the gorgeous roses in bloom throughout the city and in the parks. It is a Visible Image stamp which I coloured with Distress inks.

You can see I added lots of layers including some stamping with a leaf rubber stamp using Archival ink and I added some remnant rubs numbers for the year. I also added some Tim Holtz chit chat works. If you look carefully you can see the little bits of the map I used and the grungepaste footprints. 

If you are curious about the little piece of green ribbon....it is from my glass of Kir Royale I sipped at our meal on the first evening at our hotel.........

and here it is on my glass ;0)

so finally the big reveal of my first Seville Moment

This will be stuck into Jane's Journal. I have lots of plans for another couple of Seville Moments.

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

The Artistic Stamper colour it red
Anything but a card summer lovin
Pan Pastel UK flora and fauna
Simon Says Monday anything goes
Craft Hoarders Anonymous spray/ink/paint/smear/emboss it!
Divas by design 3 or more layers
That's Crafty birds

I am off for some inky play again tomorrow in Southampton with Hels Sheridan and I will be able to see my daughter, SIL and Daisy in the evening as they are only 10 minutes away, so exciting. If you have missed how big she is growing, she is now 7 months and can sit alone! Hello from Daisy Jane xx

Back soon, enjoy the weekend, the weather in the UK is looking pretty good.....

I will be back on Tuesday as I am Guest Designing for my buddie Kerry of Ladybug Crafts ink...there is a lovely  new floral digi stamp release coming out , do come back and take a peep. 

Bye for now,

Jane x

Delightful Dylusions

Welcome to June,  let's hope it's a flaming one. This is how my little garden greeted me this morning.

 I do love June sunshine, it's so warm and just seeps into your body and soul. I had a great week, my girlies came to stay and Daisy is getting on so well. She is so interested in everything around her. Much to the delight of her uncle she loves giraffes.

and she loves the play bus we have here. 

Of course we enjoyed some drinking time out, this was at Costa's...do you think I  love this girlie just a bit?

On Wednesday I took the day off work to join my blogging buddy Brenda of bumblebees and butterflies for her Dylusions spray inks workshop. It was such fun and yes very messy...we sprayed into pizza boxed which made great sense as those vibrant colours have the potential to get everywhere.
We made a series of  "techniques" tags and worked through 11 different techniques. These are a few of the 18 tags I created. The techniques ranged  from ghosting

right through to distress paint resist

to scribble spray

and adding texture using gesso through a mask

and one of my favourite techniques, Doodle ghosting where we also added some doodles with white pen and ink to parts of the tag

We then made our own 2 tags using any of the Ty techniques we had covered.

I chose inks which are not my typical colours and went out of my comfort zone. I spritzed them onto my tag. I made a ghost copy and added elements to both the tags. I added some texture using distress paint through a stencil and then added some stamped elements by Lynn Perrella, using black archival ink. I stamped a very apt and then went over some parts of my tag with doodles using a white pen which you can see here

Here are the 2 tags

I actually prefer the light one on the left and I would like to enter the one below  into the following challenges

Loves Rubberstamps add some doodling

Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge arty stamps

My Mum's Craft shop Ink it up

Crafty Catz anything goes

Party Time Tuesdays anything goes

We do doobadoo different shapes

You will also have noticed a Dylusions creative journal in my photos. We had great fun making an inky spread in that too and I will share that with you in another post soon. Thanks Brenda for a delightful Dylusions Day.

I am back out in the garden again today planting up my pots for the summer...the bees are humming out there already...bliss. Have a lovely Sunday and week,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x