Last days of August

Hello and I hope those of you who are in the UK are enjoying a restful bank holiday. Dare I say that this is the last one before Christmas! What a wonderful summer it has been this year. Warm, sunny, blue skied filled days, the best I can remember since the Summer of 1976

I have loved spending time this year at the beach, both here and abroad and I still have our holiday in Rhodes to look forward too. There is nothing quite like sun sea and sand is there?

I'm here with my Monday design team make for Visible Image and I thought it was a good time to share a card I made earlier in the year which was in the June edition of Making Cards. Myself, Pauline and Sharon from the DT made projects with a red, white and blue colour scheme and used the
create your calm stamp set.

I made an alcohol ink sea inspired background

I added some blue archival ink through the fibres stencil

I wanted some seaweed for my seahorse to hide in (they are very shy creatures you know 

😊) and added some red seaweed using the Dare to swim stamp set

I stamped and red embossed the seahorse twice and fussy cut one out.

I stamped out the sentiment and added glossy accents to the bubbles to add some dimension. 

I also stamped and white embossed the jelly fish and added glitter and glossy accents to them too. 

and the inside of the card continued the red, white and blue theme too. 

So here is my finished card.

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

Pixie's snippets playground #333
Let's craft and create 3/3 anything goes/lots of layers
TIME out 2/3 be bright
Lil patch of crafting friend's 2/3 anything goes
Let's craft and create 3/3 anything goes
Fussy and fancy 1/3 anything goes
Rubber dance 3/3  nature

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. You can add work to the "Show and Tell" album where one randomly chosen winner each month wins a £25 coupon to spend on the website.

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 their gorgeous stamps and stencils can be purchased. 

September beckons us and the nights are beginning to draw in. I find that my colour palette changes so much with the seasons so expect to see something more autumnal inspired next week.
Thanks so much for stopping by and for all the kind comments that you take the time to leave. Enjoy your bank holiday.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Breaking heatwave records

Goodness me just when I thought it couldn't get any hotter this week it did. My darling granddaughter Daisy came to stay and we had such a fab 4 days. She really is my little crafting partner in crime. Like me, she can think of nothing better than working down in my garden studio. We also had another visitor who has come to stay too.
My darling Daisy with the lovely Bear.

It is Daisy's Mummy and Daddy's wedding anniversary today and so we decided to make some cards.
She finds die cutting absolutely fascinating so she wanted to die cut lots of shapes. I had a stamped Happy Anniversary Lili of the Valley sentiment in my box which she started with. Daisy chose everything for this card I just helped with the die cutting, cutting papers, lining things up straight and sticking.
She colours the edges of her paper with distress inks like a pro.

 whilst Bear kept lookout for us.

She wanted to colour her die cuts with markers (well who says there are any rules in crafting!)Don't you just love that the doves have smiley faces!

Apparently the green one is Daddy and the blue one Mummy. She added some long dark hair to the blue one. Here it is finished.

and I quickly snapped a close up. Not bad for a 4 1/2 year old eh!
I told Daisy I would enter this into some challenges for her.

Pixie's snippets playground #331
Simon says stamp kids vacation challenge

My card today is the anniversary card I have make for my daughter and son-in-law.
I made some alcholol ink backgrounds and I had a first play with lift off alcohol ink.

 I used the background below, made on yupo, on the left and got some watercolour card ready on the right to receive the ink.

 I used my Visible Image seahorse stamp and the seaweed and jelly fish from their Dare to swim set.

After using the lift off ink technique I got these 2 cool backgrounds. On the right is the ghost, the other is the ink transfer. How amazing it is to be able to stamp with alcohol inks!

I decided to use the ink transfer one to create their seaside card. I blended on some yellow and blue distress inks and then added some splatters of water.  I stamped a LOTV sentiment. The seahorses are  Cheery Lynn and cut from alcohol ink mop up card. The leaves are Tim Holtz and cut from distress ink mop up card.

Some close ups

This technique has soooo many possibilities, I can't wait to play some more.
I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Pixie's snippets playground #331

Crafty sentiments 1/3 anything goes

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes

Addicted to stamps and more make your mark

Crafty catz 1/3 anything goes

We have actually had our first rain this afternoon since June 14th...yes seriously.  They have been downpours at last my lawn got some rain. The air has cleared a little and we may get some more thunderstorms today but we are told we are then in for even more heat again! Phew we are breaking the record of 1976.

We plan a quiet weekend looking after Bear now that my darling Daisy has gone home. 

Enjoy yours too.

Thanks so much for stopping by,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Shrinking seahorses

Phew it has been so hot that most of our minds have turned to thoughts of the seaside. These photos were taken at the coast of Mersea in Essex where we visited a while back with friends, land of oyster fame. We also visited the south coast at the weekend to see Daisy graduate from pre school! Yes seriously..she even wore a little motor board and gown to receive her certificate! Bless. 

There's nothing like blue skies and the sea is there?

It's also time for my Monday design team make for Visible Image. I decided that my garden studio needed a fantasy seaside goddess wall hanging. Now I know that you will say that there is no sea goddess Visible image stamp. Yes I know that too but there's nothing stopping me improvising one. After all I made a mermaid from the leaping Katie stamp! I used the lady's head from the No space for dreams set 

and the seaweed from Dare to swim

I over stamped and embossed them onto some watercolour paper using Seth Apter baked embossing  powders to create my sea goddess. I love the colour mixes in these powders.

 I  coloured the paper with blue distress inks and added some white stencilling using the Time tunnel 

I also white embossed the sentiment from Own kind of beautiful

I wanted my wall hanging to also have a little seahorse...again I hear you say that there is only the one beautiful large seahorse stamp in the Create your calm set...

Correct again but shrink plastic came to the rescue. You can see the cute size after I had stamped, heated and shrunk the plastic when held next to the original stamp. I also shrunk the large jelly fish from the  Dare to swim set.

Here is my finished wall hanging

I made a mixed media frame for it from corrugated card...one of my favourite (and free) substrates. I used gesso, embossing powders, shells, metal charms, pearls and glossy accents.
Here it is hanging in my studio

You can see I used real shells collected from our seaside holidays over the years. I added pearls and glossy accents to give the feel of the sea.

The little fish stamp is also in the Dare to swim set.

 and here is one more inside shot

I would like to enter my wall hanging into the following challenges;

Creative Artiste 1/3 anything goes
Craft stamper take it make it 2/3 anything goes
Crafty Catz 1/3 anything goes/summer fun
A vintage journey get sentimental
Fashionable stamping 1/3 use those inks any way you want to
Crafty calander 1/3 totally girlie
Rhedd's creative spirit July

All the Visible Image links can be found here;

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 chosen winner each month wins a £25 coupon to spend on the website.

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 and stencils can be purchased. 

You can also follow via:

 Pinterest

Twitter

and

 Instagram

Thanks so much for stopping by and for your kind comments.
The heatwave appears to still be with us this week...this is the first real summer we have enjoyed for some years here in the UK. Keep cool and carry on crafting!

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

My Pisces daughter

It's my daughter's birthday tomorrow and she has strict instructions not to read my blog today as I am sharing the birthday card I made for her for my weekly Visible Image Design Team inspiration .

She recently moved to the seaside and although the weather has not yet warmed enough for playing on the beach we can't wait until we can.

The views are so beautiful at any time of the day. These photos were taken last year.

and there is a local tea shop for tea and cake

There is nothing better than gazing out across the sea.

The photo I took below shows my DD and Daisy wrapped up warmly 2 weekends ago.

I knew that her first birthday card in her new home should feature the sea in some form. I also wanted to link in the Pisces theme as she was born the last "day" for Pisces.

She love mermaids and seahorses, as I do and I although Visible Image have a fab new seahorse stamp but not a mermaid I had an idea.....

I would use my "Katie" from the Tomorrow doesn't exist set and turn her into a mermaid..yes seriously..bear with me!

These were the other stamp sets I used;

Make a wish from Own it set

Pisces from the zodiac sets

Universal 

the seahorse

the wings from the angels are near set

and the strobes stencil

So this is what I came up with...

The background was created using salty ocean, broken china and fossilized amber distress oxides, using the wrinkle free technique. I added some sun rays using the rays stencil and gold ink.

I stamped the seahorse and added some white highlights and to make him even more magical I added a wing from the angels are near set. This I gold embossed on black card and fussy cut out.  I love the way the gold rays from the stencil shine through him.

To add some sparkle  and "magic" I used glitter gold embossing powder and stamps from the universal set.

To make my "mermaid" I stamped "Katie" from the Live like tomorrow doesn't exist set but positioned the stamp so that the leg didn't appear. I embossed her in white with a pinch of gold powder too.

I was also able to just use the date from the Pisces set as this is my girl's actual birth date, 20 March.

I stamped and fussy cut lots of fish and had them swimming in and out of the swirls and also between my "mermaid's" hands.

A couple more close ups...

and one last shot

So a very happy birthday tomorrow to my darling girlie. I hope she likes her special seaside Pisces card.

It's supposed to be the first day of spring tomorrow too...hmmm I think Mother Nature got a bit confused at the weekend!

Yes the Beast came back with yet more snow!

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

Penny black and More 2/3 feature a creature

The Artistic stamper 2/3 stencils and masks

Get Creative 2/3 fantasy

Creative artiste 1/3 anything mixed media

Craft stamper take it make it March anything stamping goes

Cute card Thursday 1/3 celebrate

Sweet stampin 1/3 use up your paper scraps I certainly used lots making my little fish!

You can check out Visible Image via these links;

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 chosen winner each month wins a £25 coupon to spend on the website.

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 and stencils can be purchased. 

You can also follow via:

 Pinterest

Twitter

and

 Instagram

Thanks for stopping by and for all your very kind comments you take the time to leave me. Let's hope this mini beast from the East moves on soon. Happy 1st day of Spring tomorrow.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x