Time for tea

Hello and welcome to a brand new STAMPlorations theme and sketch challenge. The theme for March is stamps and tea/coffee. This is a fun one for me as I really am a tea addict.
There is nothing I enjoy more that a proper cup of tea, in a cup and saucer in my garden and if the sun is shining it's even better!

I love sitting and enjoying my little garden whilst sipping my tea.

My family laugh that they have never heard me turn down the offer of a cuppa! I do sometimes drink cappuccino but I don't drink instant/filter type coffee at all. I went "off" coffee when I was pregnant with my son (now aged 30!) and never got a liking for it back!

There is also a sketch lovely sketch you can use too.

The rules in brief are that you need to use stamping on your projects. You don't have to use STAMPlorations stamps to enter but of course we love it if you do! You can link up 6 times with new blog posts and you need to add our logo to your post. You can go with the theme, the sketch or both, the choice is yours. There are some fab prizes to be won too! 

This is the link to the challenge with all the info you need.

As always I used the theme and sketch and this is what I got up to.

I used the lovely 

Cup of roses

and Always tea time stamp sets.

Remember that if you use my unique code STAMPGIRLJANE at the checkout you can save an additional 20% to any other offers currently running. 

First I stamped and water coloured the cup of roses.

I used some alcohol inks on Yupo paper to make my background.

I also paper pieced one of the cups from the always tea time stamp set.

I also used one of the sentiments.

Here is my finished card.

with some close ups showing the glittery roses.

and one last shot

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

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes
Time Out unique I love that alcohol ink backgrounds are so unique
Emerald Creek dares 1/3 Ordinary day
Creative artiste 1/3 anything mixed media
Happy Little stampers watercolour challenge 1/3 anything goes
 Craft stamper Take it make it 1/3 anything goes
CRAFT 1/3 Mother's day/female

Thanks so much for stopping by today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave me. They are so appreciated.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Beside the seaside

I had a wonderful seaside day out with my DD and Daisy last week. We met at Southsea, near Portsmouth and my daughter had found a super cafe for us to enjoy our ladies' lunch. I had never visited Southsea, it is a very pretty seaside resort. As I parked I noticed a fun boating lake as well as rose gardens which we also visited. All of this plus the seaside too.....a perfect combination.

When Daisy is bigger we will take one of these fun peddle boats out.

The nearby swing park had baby swings and Daisy loves to be swung gently.

We also took a stroll through the very pretty rose gardens, the scent was intoxicating

We strolled through the gardens on the way to our lunch spot, The 10th Hole, a cafe in a renovated Park Pavilion overlooking a small Pitch and Putt course. It is highly rated on line and it did not disappoint. We had delicious sandwiches followed by cakes to die for.

There is inside and outside seating and it is very child friendly with highchairs and the best baby changing facilities we have recently found. When you have an 8 month old granddaughter these are things which are very important with any ladies' lunches. The decor was very vintage and everything was spotlessly clean.

After our delicious sandwiches we chose a piece of cake to share....there was so much choice it took us a while to decide...this was just a quarter of those on sale and everyone is handmade.

 We settled on a slice of strawberry and cream cake...omgoodness it was cake heaven with fresh cream and strawberries. You can see the size of it as that is my daughter's outstretched hand next to it. Needless to say we shared this.

and Daisy had fun chasing a piece of strawberry around the table

After lunch we enjoyed a stroll along the sea front. There was a lovely cool breeze

and we fell in love with the colours of these beach huts

It was a wonderful day, such precious time together. We said our goodbyes and as I drove home I decided that my next crafting project would be a Moment of this special day and I would use these "ice cream" colours of the beach huts as my base colours. I also had a happy accident with a photo I was printing. I wanted to print this photo out to given to my parents of their granddaughter and great granddaughter

 However my printer ran out of photo ink as I printed it and I got the image below instead. I was going to throw it away but I really loved the blue hazy reflective effect it gave and decided it would be perfect to use as the central focal in my Moment.

The next day after work I headed down to my studio and painted some acrylics onto watercolour paper. I chose blue for a sky plus those "ice cream" colours I saw on the beach huts. I also scratched some texture using my rubber texture tools. I put on a couple of layers, overlapping them quite randomly.

 I coloured some grunge paste and added some texture by pressing it through a stencil

 I also added some more depth with my clock TH stencil and some Squeezed Lemonade DI.

I recently bought some seaside themed stamps from Crafty Individuals and added some stamping with Salty Ocean and Vintage photo distress ink. I cut out my photo and also used some seaside die cuts and  chit chat words to finish everything off. Here is my finished Moment.

Here are a couple of close ups

I love my new Memorybox  crab die and will be using him lots. The shell dies are Marianne (I think!)

I smile when I look it and it brings back memories of a perfect day with my girlies, cake and the seaside; the best of combinations. It will be joining my other Moments in Jane's Journal.

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

Country View Stencil it

Natalie and Amy summertime

Artistic Stamper By the seaside

Anything but a card anything goes

Simon Says Monday start from scratch

Crafty Cardmakers under the sea

Whimsy stamps summertime

A Vintage Journey Dies and distress

I would like to thank everyone for the really kind comments you left for me on my last post. My seaside tag seems to have gone down really well. Thank you, you are all very supportive of my work and I really appreciate your encouraging words.  

Yesterday we had another day of excitement as my Hb took the day off work and we  met our daughter, SIL and Daisy at the Hampton Court Flower show. The weather was looking rather unsettled but luckily it stayed dry all day and we enjoyed a picnic on the grass too.  I took my trusty camera and will be back soon to share a post of my floral day out.  Today I have the day off work but no leisure fun today...I am attending a conference in London and will find out some of the latest research and ideas for treating back pain. It should be very interesting. I must dash as I have a train to catch.  Enjoy the upcoming weekend,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x