Hot August moments

|Good morning. August has bounced in and I am here with some new inspiration for our brand new challenge over at Country View.
July turned out beautifully so let's hope the sunshine continues for August.

 My summer hanging baskets have been loving it.

For this month the theme is "Texture". As August should be a hot sunny month and one when for lots of families it will be summer holiday time, for my first make I decided to make a card using the Visible Image Mindful Moments stamp set
I used texture paste through a fab Visible Image stencil.  I love using stencils to add texture and I love the depth of those made Visible Image, they work really well with pastes. Susan has a great selection of m VI stencils for sale on the web site here. The particular stencil I used for this card is called count me in. I used a couple of book pages underneath

 and when dry I added various colours of Infusions and lots of water to move everything around.

I added alcohol inks to acetate, stamped the yoga lady and the 2 sizes of lotus flowers from the set, and cut them out. I heat embossed them to give another layer of texture.

I used Glossy Accents to stick her in place.

  I also stamped one of the sentiments onto card and cut it out, adding texture by distressing the edges with ink and my scissors.

 Here is my finished card

and one last shot

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

Shopping our stash 1/3 Base it on a book mine literally has a base of A tale of two cities!
Through the craft room door 1/2 anything goes
Simon says stamp Monday bright and cheerful
Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes

I hope I might have inspired you to take up our texture challenge for August and join us.

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 is absolutely FREE! All the details for the August challenge can be found here.

I will be back with some more "texture" inspiration  for CVC on 21st August.

I have a crafting buddy staying with me at the moment, aka my 5 year old granddaughter Daisy and we are loving our time together in my garden studio.

Keeping mindful in July

Good morning July is turning out to be a lovely sunny month again this year. Yes we had some welcome rain here in the south at the end of the week but the sun was back the weekend and it's hotting up again. 

My Monday Make showcases the  Mindful Moments stamp set. I decided to be use the summer sunshine and enjoyment of sandy beach holidays for my inspiration.
What is better than the sun shining at the seaside?

We will be back here in September and I can sit and be mindful of the blessings I have in my life.

Our beloved Rhodes.

This is the fab set which has lots of great accesory stamps and sentiments to use both for cards, tags. mixed media and journalling.

  I also used one of the sentiments from the 

Look forward with hope stamp set

I used PaperArtsy infusions to create my background and then stamped the sentiment.

 I added some mustard seed Oxide ink to tone things down a little

 and stamped the sun into the corner. 

 I used the oxide to colour the centre of the sun

I die cut an ornate frame in gold

Next I stamped the main image and some of the flowers onto acetate coloured with alcohol inks and cut them out. 

 I also stamped "let go" onto yellow vellum

Then it was time to put everything together.

Here is my finished card.

with some close ups.

and one final shot.

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

Pixie's snippets playground #357

Happy little stampers anything goes
Simon says stamp Wednesday make your own background
Crafty Catz 1/3 anything goes
The Funkie Junkie boutique blog 1/3 It's heating up
A inky mess 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 there. You will see lots of gorgeous makes by the DT and customers to inspire your own creativity.

The main Visible Image Facebook page is here; there are regular giveaways...open world wide.

And the shop web site is here; where all their gorgeous stamps and stencils can be purchased.

And a big heads up that there is a SUMMER SALE on NOW where some stamps are 30% off, just click on this link. But you need to be quick as there is limited stock and when its gone its gone! Ends 31st July.

I would also like to give a little shout out for my latest work which has been published by Making Cards Magazine. I was asked by Visible Image to make some cards using their Random art of kindness stamp set and I also used the atomic flower stencil. I was delighted to see that one of my cards is the feature card on the front cover of the August edition of the magazine. I called this card my "Pot of kindness".

Inside is a double page step by step of how I made 2 cards for my "Garden of Hope". 

This edition is out now I really smiled when I saw it on the shelves of W H Smiths on Friday 😊

Thanks so much for stopping by today.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

The conker hunt 2018

On Sunday it was our annual family conker hunt. The weather all day Saturday and Sunday morning was rain, rain and more rain and if we could we probably would have tried to reschedule. But armed with wet weather waterproofs we walked down to our local park and could not believe that as we arrived the clouds started to part and out came the sunshine!

Daisy had her basket and was keen to get going.

She was not disappointed.  just look, the ground was completely covered with conker treasure.

Lots were still in their shells as they had been blown down by the strong winds the day before.  Daisy gleefully pulled them out, doubles like below, are especially treasured.

Bear came too and kept herding us up and keeping an eye on us all, including Jack

who had his own little bucket this year.

He delighted in putting his own conker treasures in it.

helped by his Daddy.

So many beauties to find. 

What a wonderful family time we enjoyed and the sunshine was so unexpected. I think the Conker god was smiling down on us 😏

My card today was inspired by the autumnal colours and is a new birthday card just taken down to Dotty's Teahouse to sell.  I used my Visible Image time tunnel stencil and also their elemental stamp to create an inky sheet which I die cut with my Tim Holtz world die and then mounted on some embossed brown card. The little birthday tag is an old Lili of the Valley stamp. The stars are Tim's and the starburst in an old Noor die.

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

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes
The house that stamps built 1/3 anything goes
Creative moments 1/3 anything goes
The male room 1/3 the great outdoors
Addicted to stamps and more 1/3 anything goes
Die cutting divas 1/3 fall colours my world and stars die is Tim Holtz and the star cascade is Noor.
Crafty sentiments 1/3 anything goes
Lil patch of crafty friends 1/3 anything goes
Sparkles monthly 1/3 dies or punches

I have just got back from the south coast as I was baby sitting Daisy and Jack yesterday. This glorious weather persists and today is wall to wall blue skies and sunshine...just look at this as we had a walk along the beach this morning. My daughter and I walked Daisy to school and then enjoyed a coffee, chat and walk which little Jack snoozed away in his pushchair.

Oh my it was just glorious.

Sending sunshine your way if you need some.
Thanks so much for stopping by today.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

April mindfulness

Yesterday I was busy working on a project for a magazine with a very short dead line so I enjoyed a whole day, from 9am, creating. I have not yet got back to working in my garden studio, I am still working from the breakfast bar in my kitchen but I opened the back door as the sunshine was so beautifully warm. 

I was able to enjoy a cuppa outside and as I took a few mindful moments I revelled in seeing how far my garden has come along over the last couple of weeks. I could even hear the low buzzing of a bee,  looking for nectar.

I snapped these photos to share my few minutes of mindfulness. At this time of the year I just sit on my back door step.
 My magnolia is bursting into flower..it appears unscathed by the late snow we experienced.

 What is there not to love about a blue sky and blossom?

How good it was to see the shadows cast by the bright sunshine through my trellis.

I also felt such joy to see the bulbs I planted last autumn now flowering in glorious colour. I love the way daffodils turn their heads to face the sunshine.

and yes my tulips have flowered too.

For those few moments I was able to just still my thoughts and be mindful.  I recharged my internal batteries in that sunshine and appreciated how very lucky I am to be able to do what I do. 

I am going to share a tag I made using Tim Holtz products including a Distress oxide background. The dies are all by Tim and I think his chit chat words are brilliant.

Here are a couple of close ups.

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

Time out inspiration photo

Lil patch of craft friends 1/3 anything goes

Addicted to stamps and more 1/3 anything goes

Crafty catz 1/3 anything goes with optional spring

Emerald creek dares spring has sprung

The sky is not quite so blue out there today but it is still a wonderful spring morning, one to "stay simple".

Have a lovely weekend ahead...I have some very exciting things to look forward including flying...I jest not....and visiting the Stamping show at Ally Pally in London.
Enjoy yours whatever you do and I will try to fit my minutes of mindfulness in too.

I am back on Monday with my weekly Visible Image DT post. I am so looking forward to catching up with Helen and Mark Alexander, aka Mr and Mrs Visible Image at Ally Pally on Sunday. There will be lots of hugs from this delightful pair and a lot of catching up to do. If you happen to be going too I would love to say hello...give me a tap on the shoulder 😃

Bye for now,

Jane x