A last butterfly for summer?

Good morning there are just 19 days left of summer 2019. I thought that today, for my Visible Image  design team make, it would be good to share the card today I made for the Craft Stamper magazine July edition, when summer was still in full swing. It still feels like summer in my garden and my buddleia is still blooming beautifully. I even spotted this gorgeous butterfly at the weekend, which I quickly snapped with my camera.

I was asked by Visible Image to design a summer card for the magazine and I chose to use the Wings of change stamp set. Such a fab butterfly set. I called my card "fragile summer" in honour of how fragile the life of a butterfly is. 

These are some of the colours I associate with summer and I chose for them for my palette.

I added some drips of water to my background and then added some background stamping using the Organics set to make some branches. 

I stamped using green versamark clair ink.

I stamped some more butterflies and coloured them with the same distress oxide colours. I then added a wink of Stella for sparkle and then Crackle Accents to give some more fragility.

I wanted the butterflies to emerge from my card so I stamped and gold embossed the Crack from "How fragile"

and cut an opening for a butterfly to emerge from

I also used some beading wire to fashion a set of antennae

and stamped, highlighted and distressed the words.

Here is my finished card

and some close ups

and one last shot

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

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes

A bit more time to craft 1/3 anything goes
We love 2 create 1/3 anything goes mixed media
Happy Little stampers watercolour 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.

 Thanks for stopping by,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

More texture in August

Hello I am back with my 2nd project as inspiration for the current "texture" challenge over at Country View. You can see all the details via this link. For this make I tried to create my texture using some "alternative" texture methods including dry embossing.

First I made 2 alcohol ink backgrounds on glossy card stock. Susan has lots of colours of the inks I use for sale on the website here

I used the first for the background and the 2nd for die cutting some stitched hearts.

I die cut a world die (an old Tim Holtz). The card had been coloured with Brushos. 

I also got out my pack of Paper Dolls and chose an image. I embossed some blue card with an old bubbles folder.

I stamped one of the sentiments for the Visible Image "Have I told you" sentiment set which Susan has on the website here

There are lots of lovely sentiments in this set and I chose the one below.

I added more texture to the bubbles by rubbing some gilding wax onto the raised areas. 

Then it was time to put together my card design.

here is is. I added some large glitter dome gems for extra texture too.

with a couple of close ups to see the textured glitter balls.

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

Pixie's snippets playground #359
Cute card Thursday 3/3 add a quote

A bit more time to craft 3/3 anything goes

Creative fingers 3/3 anything goes
Love to craft 3/3 anything goes

Lil patch of crafting friends 2/3 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.

 Thanks for stopping by,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

The Newbury Stamperama stamping show with Stampers Grove

Hello I am back with some photos and a little write up of my recent demo day.  I spent Sunday demonstrating Visible Image stamps for James and Emma Dennison of  Stampers Grove at the Newbury Stamperama stamping show. I used mostly distress oxide inks, alcohol inks, Brushos and Infusions for my backgrounds, all of which they sell. 

James kindly supplied some of the photos I am sharing here with me in action (thanks James).

Here I am at 9.55am just before the doors opened. All set up and raring to go.

I made some limited edition artist trading coins for the day and it just had to be horses didn't it. One I made into my badge, two I gave to James.

Here are some of the samples I shared.

There was a constant stream of friendly visitors.

Before I had a chance to look up it was 1.35pm and time for a late lunch. Outside was the calm, quiet race course and the sunshine...just right to recharge the batteries and my voice! I sat and ate my packed lunch and this was my view.

Then it was back for the last 2 hours.

People were so lovely to chat to and so appreciative of any help and advice. One lovely lady had come all the way from near Worthing. She had seen me demo for James in May at the Worthing show and wanted to see me and  my work again. How kind! Can you guess what was the most commonly asked question? It was which inks to use for which purposes, especially black inks. 

So my card to day for my card challenges is the mermaid card I made as a sample for James. This is my favourite set in the new Visible Image release.

I added ink through the fibres stencil to background I had made with Brushos, which had an oval I die cut out.

I used alcohol inks to make an acetate  watery fill for the oval aperture.

I stamped some waves and then built up my layers. I watercoloured Miss Mermaid and her dolphin pets plus some shells and fussy cut them out. I also added some Glossy Accents to the bubbles.

Here is my finished card

with a couple of close ups..

How cute are the dolphins in this set? I used crackle accents on Miss Mermaid's tail and rubbed some gold gilding paste into the cracks. I added some "seaweed" die cuts.

 One last close up

If you would like to buy this set James has it on his website here

He also has a very extensive catalogue of Visible Image stamps here

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

Penny Black and More 1/3 summer colours

Craft Stamper 2/3 July

Pixie's snippets playground #356 

Allsorts 1/3 summer fun

Crafty sentiments 1/3 add a sentiment

Die cuttin divas 1/3 summer /tropical

Through the craft room door 1/2 anything goes

If you came along on Sunday and stopped by, thank you. It really was a joy to be there. There are a couple of shows in the pipe line for next year where I will be demoing for Stampers Grove again, more details nearer the time. 

James takes Visible Image stamps plus other stamp brands and lots of gorgeous products all around the UK. There is a list of the shows he is appearing at here

When he is not at shows he of course has his online shop; here Do check him out.

Thanks so much to Stamper's Grove for Sunday, I had a blast!

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One final heads before I go that tomorrow, Thursday 11 July, I will be appearing at Dotty's Tea House, Carshalton High Street, where my one of a kind cards are sold. I will be there all day sharing some of my secrets of how I make my cards and at 11am and 2pm I will be doing some live inky demonstrations.

If you are in the area just pop in, I should be set up by 10am.  It would be lovely to see you there and yes Dotty's handmade cakes are legendary and the atmosphere there is so warm and welcoming.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Back soon, I will let you know what went on at Dotty's! 

Bye for now,

Jane x

Butterfly artist trading coins

Wow what a glorious weekend it was! It reached 28c on Saturday and Sunday, although a little more cloudy, was nearly as hot. I went up to the nursery to buy my summer bedding plants and came home with a trolley load of gorgeous colour plus 2 tomato plants.

 I planted them up and will share a post soon,

It is also time for my Monday Visible Design team inspiration and today I am sharing something that has become a huge pleasure to me over the last few months..making artist trading coins. I am a member of a Facebook group where we swap our makes. It is such fun seeing other people's art and sharing mine. A lot of crafters find the idea of making these rather intimidating so I hope to show in this post that they are quick and fun to make. For those who are not aware of them artist trading coins are the coin version of artist trading cards (ATCs). Cards are 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" and coins are 2 1/2 " in diameter. They are made to be swapped never sold and can be made in limited editions. I tend to make 3 in my editions. 

For my coins today I used the gorgeous

Wings of change  stamp set

I used some acrylic inks to make a background and die cut several 2 1/2" circles. I used 3 of them.

I stamped on the word "transform"first.

I  added glossy accents to some medium butterflies I had stamped onto some left over Brushos inky mop up card.

Once they were dry I cut them out.

 I also stamped 2 tiny butterflies directly onto each coin and filled some of the circles on the sentiment with Glossy Accents.

I then stuck on my medium sized butterflies and added a little wilted violet distress ink to finish them off.
Here they are;
coin 1/3

 Coin 2/3

and coin 3/3

Here they are together

and 1 last photo

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

Crafty sentiments 3/3 summer
Crafting from the heart 3/3 anything goes

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes 
Crafty catz 2/3 anything goes
Penny Black and More 1/3 blooms, butterflies and/or bugs
Stamping sensations 1/3 show your true colours
Happy little stampers watercolour anything goes
Love to craft 1/3 anything goes
Lil patch of crafting friends 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.

A quick heads up too today. There is a new June release on 23 June available to pre-order from 8th June. The wonderful Faerie Magic set has already been shown and there are more to come!

Do check them out on the website/Facebook or Instagram.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I really hope you might feel confident in making and swapping your own artist trading coins.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x