Last December days

Hello, I have emerged from the other side of Christmas, such a wonderful family time. We ate, drank and made merry with lots of laughter and games around the table. We have not played Cludo for years and forgot just how much fun it is.  The last of our family went home yesterday and I now have some time to sort out my crafting plans for the new year.

Before I say goodbye to 2017 I wanted to look back at some of my seasonal photos from my garden or local surroundings from the year and look at how Mother Nature influenced my crafting palette.

I chose 4 photos from each season.....

Spring 

 Summer

 Autumn

Winter

I have made over 300 cards, 12 calendar pages, 20 Moments, some mixed media 3d pieces and dozens of tags in 2017 so I would find it impossible to share my favourites, as there are far too many to go through.

As you well know I love playing with styles and techniques so I thought I would just share a collage of some of the pieces I made this year.

My last card challenge entry for this year is a card I made for a new baby who arrived on 20 December..just in time for winter and she is most appropriately called Winter! I used stamps and stencils by STAMPlorations and even managed to mask off and use her  name from one of their fab stamps.

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

Pixies's snippets playground #313/14 I used lots of little snippets for this card.
Double D 3/3 baby it's cold outside/ Winter
That's Crafty 2/3 anything goes
Die cut divas 2/3 winter time
Emerald Creek Dares anything goes
Fashionable stamping 1/3 celebrate

We will be seeing the new year in with Daisy and Co and I just wanted to close with this photo of me and my darling grandbabies taken just before they went home yesterday..precious memories were made.

I will be back bright and breezy on New Year's day with my DT card for our 1st challenge of the year for Country View....you might need sunglasses for it if you have enjoyed a heavy Old Year's night 😂. Thanks so much for stopping by and for all you visits and comments you left here during 2017. I hope you are enjoying some down time post Christmas and looking forward to what lies ahead in the new year.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Say cheese....

Good morning again, this is my 2nd post today and I am back with my weekly Monday Design Team inspiration for Visible Image. There is a new challenge for June over on Facebook and our theme this month is to add "dimension".

 As you well know my trusty camera comes everywhere with me and I capture lots of moments with it.

Here are a couple of my most recent snaps.

I took this photo of my daughter proudly sharing her first strawberry crop when we were in Southampton on Saturday.

And these photos of my darling grandchildren. Jack is now beginning to smile..but I didn't quite manage to catch it 😁 more a happy shrug!

But I did capture this precious moment of Daisy with her brother, she loves him so much.

I also snapped my first flowers blooming in my hanging basket.

I have always loved being outside in the garden and I have some treasured vintage photos from my childhood, mostly black and white. My brother and I used to play in our family garden for hours and hours....Sindy Doll and Action Man featured a lot! I decided to use a scanned copy of my darling brother and I in the garden circa 1963. Don't you love my furry slippers 😉

For my card I decided to use the brilliant  Capture the Moment VI set. 

It is available to buy here

I made myself a Distress Oxide ink background

and added some background stamps and stencilling;  I used words from the destination unknown set

and scripted streets set

I also embossed the great Smile stamp which comes with the Capture the Moment set.

I  added some circles using Archival Ink from the  universal set.

 I decoupaged the camera in 3 layers to give a 3D effect. I also coloured the metal parts of the camera silver.

The words from the set were embossed in white and I distressed the edge of the plaque to "age" it.

 The vintage style photo corners added to the vintage effect. I stuck foam under the plaque again adding dimension.

I then put everything together and below is my finished card.

I hope these techniques and ideas may inspire you to join our June challenge over on Facebook.
You might even be the lucky winner of the £40 voucher to spend on the website...and that could treat you to some of the fab 3 sets of brand new stamps.
The amazing new release is being launched on Create and Craft TV this Friday, 9 June..more details to follow later this week. They can also all be pre ordered on the Visible Image website now and if you pre order before 6 June using the code ITSTIME you can get Free UK or International postage! 

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 chose winner each month win a £25 coupon to spend on the website. Our 2nd themed challenge, "dimension", is  also up and running until 28 June. 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. 

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges

                                                         

                                         Happy Little Stampers watercolour 3/3 anything goes

                                           Simon Says stamp Wednesday 3/5 anything goes

WOW embossing powder Summer

Stamping sensations 1/3 favourite stamp...I have so many but the camera from the Capture The Moment set is one of them.
Sweet Stampin 1/3 for Dad's or special men

I cannot end my post without mentioning the latest atrocities to blight our country. My darling husband walks across London Bridge every single work day on his way to and from work. Our thoughts are with those innocent souls who were murdered and for their loved ones left behind. When M goes to work today he faces a more delayed journey....but that is nothing compared to the start of the new week for those involved and their families.  We must however vow to continue to live our lives as normal and not let terror make us cower.

Back soon

Bye for now

Jane x

Cold enough for snow

Our topsy turvey winter weather continues here in the south of  England.  We are back to crisp cold days. So beautiful but so chilly. It is cold enough to snow but nothing more has happened since the short lived appearance of snow last week. This was the view from my backdoor as I let out Billy this morning. Needless to say he didn't stay out long.

More pretty Jack Frost patterns on my studio windows.....brrr

but once the sun came up the light was beautiful...I even managed a bokeh effect in my photos. Bokeh literally means blur and is used to describe the pretty blur//soft/out of focus background effect you can achieve in photography. Some people just call is background blur. I really do appreciate that "real photographers" will correct me and tell me that it is to do with the lens and not the camera but I'm not getting technical here and yes bokeh can be different shapes not just circles. 

I find that if I take a photo into the sun (NB you must never look directly into the sun) I often get a pleasing bokeh effect from my camera. 

It's far too cold to garden at the moment so in my "free"time I decided to combine some fun challenges which are running at the moment and also try out a new technique for me. Over at Darnell's blog she is running a NBUS challenge.This acronym stands for, in Darnell language, "never before used stuff!" And I have plenty. I wanted to use the song "Let it snow" for the challenge over at the Craft Barn. For A Vintage Journey I also wanted to do something new with circles. Frillly and Funkie are asking for winter hues...I used blue and white from their list and Craft stamper just want stamping. After looking at the Bokeh effect in my photos I remembered a fun circles technique I have often admired but never tried..of course.... making a bokeh background! Most crafters just use white pigment ink through a circle stencil but I thought I would make inky circles too!

I added drops of my distress re-inkers onto wet watercolour paper and just played around..... adding more colours, spritzing with water, blotting and drying.  I used the colours I had seen in my garden photo...blue sky, the sun and the green of my lawn.

I carried on until I was happy with my inky circles.

Next I got my NBUS....my Clarity circles stencil I bought last autumn.

I then added white pigment ink to complete my bokeh effect

As the weather has been so cold I decided that I would make my backing into a card as the Craft Barn is asking for us to use the song "Let it snow". To me this song was made famous by Dean Martin. I stencilled the words at the top and then using my tree TH stencil added lots of pine trees.

Another item of NBUS...was inked up. My lovely Inkyliscious cabin stamp sent to me by my lovely friend Di of Pixie's Snippets playground from her recent giveaway. I used a Kraft card blank to mount it on after distressing the edges. I also added some more snow with dots from white gel pen.

I'm calling it a winter card as I rarely make Christmas cards until the autumn 😉

and a close up

I really had great fun making this and in the process I learnt a new technique which I will certainly use again.

I made my card for the following challenges;

A vintage journey going round in circles I certainly did..inky circles, bokeh and even dots for my falling snow. 

Darnells' NBUS surprise challenge #8

Darnell is having an amazing giveaway celebrating her 5 years blogging. For this challenge I have used Kraft card but instead of colouring it with pencils I used it as a card blank. I tried a new technique....making a bokeh background.

Craft Stamper take it make it January anything goes

The Craft Barn song challenge Let it snow to me made famous by Dean Martin...I added his name at the bottom of my card.

Frilly and Funkie winter hues they require us to use all or some of these colours...blues, white, silver or grey. I have used lots of blue and white as well as the other winter colours I saw in my cold wintery garden.

It has been so cold again today....yes cold enough to show. I must admit I do like a little of the white stuff so I will close with a few words from the fun winter song....

Well the weather outside is frightful

But the fire is so delightful 

And since we've no place to go...

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow....

Well actually I do have a place to go tomorrow as it's a very special birthday for my dear  Hb.... we're off to London for a special lunch...so perhaps we'll delay the snow for a day or two if that's OK with you all?

Thanks so much for stopping by today and for all the kind comments you leave me. Keep snug.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x