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

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

Celebrating my style as a favourite artist for Anything but Cute's first anniversary

Hello and a very warm welcome to Jane's Journal. Today I am absolutely delighted to be joining Anything But Cute's first anniversary celebrations. I had a wonderful email from Pamellia in April telling me that I had been voted one of their favourite mixed media artists of the year! What an honour, I was totally delighted by this recognition. The brief for today was to show my mixed media style to give some inspiration for their newest challenge here.

I have quite an eclectic mixed media style as I love learning new techniques and using new products. I could never just use "one" style and my crafting is constantly evolving. I really love getting inky and using mixed media. I am totally inspired my Mother Nature which influences all my crafting and I particularly love the seasons.

Spring is in full swing here and everything is bursting into life. I take my camera with me everywhere, even into my own garden. Inspiration is all around me...these photos were taken in my garden yesterday

and when I went for all walk blossom is exploding everywhere

At first I thought I would make a spring art journal page using my Tim Holtz tree die as the centre piece. However I decided for this special occasion to make a double art journal page to show my style and all the seasons of the year. I also wanted to share some of my favourite mixed media techniques. I do love adding textures so I decided that I would textured a tree for each season.

I started blending my paints....

I sectioned my pages into 4, 1 for each of the seasons. I made a "path" to "walk" through my seasons with some thoughts along the way.

I used the colours I associate for each season to ink each section. I added texture paste through some stencils and archival ink through others. (Sorry this photo is so dark). The path was created with texture sand which I added a little grey acrylic paint to.

Then I started to add the details, season by season.

Spring: Newly budded leaves and birds. I stamped PaperArtsy leaves onto book pages, others I die cut using inky off cuts. The sentiment stamped, embossed and coloured with Glaze pens.

Summer; hot colours, butterflies, a garden bench with watering can and a daisy. (every garden must have a Daisy ;0)

Autumn; golden colours, spiders' webs, birds, falling leaves

Winter; snow, a starry wintry sky and of course a robin. I painted the stars with silver acrylic paints and the snow is Decoart Snow Tex with some glamour dust added (which does not show in my photo, IRL this has such sparkle).

I added some Tim Holtz chit chat stickers and Remnant Rubs words and images to tie everything in. You can see that each tree has a seasonal colour/ finish too.

Here is my finished piece......4 seasons in one day ;0)

and a couple of close ups

I had such fun making this. I am a crafter who usually makes Christmas themed projects no earlier than September and I would never usually even think about Halloween until September! So getting out my Christmas and autumn dies and inks was delightful.

I would like to enter my seasons art journal pages into the following challenges;

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday stencil it
Pile it on 2/3 garden creatures
Rhedd's creative challenge altered art/mixed media
We love to Create 2/2 anything mixed media
The artistic stamper 1/3 Collage

Memory Box for the birds my crows branch, the butterfly summer flourish and the tiny spring birds are all MB

Our creative corner 1/3 hit the books I used book pages to create some of my spring leaves.
Emerald Creek Dares Use the Bs... I have used blooms, butterflies, bright colours, bricks, bench and birds

I would like to say a big thank you to Pamellia and her talented team over at Anything But Cute for nominating me as one of their favourite mixed media artists of the year and for asking me show my style.
I am very proud to wear this badge in my side bar

Congratulations ladies on your first birthday and thank you for all your inspiring work you have shared over the last year.
ATBC have a brand new challenge to celebrate their 1st anniversary..celebrate your style starting today.

They would love everyone to be a part of it. Please pop on over here via this link to join the fun and to also see what the other favourite artists and the DT have created for this special celebration.

Thanks so much for visiting me here today and a very warm welcome to anyone who is a first timer.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Touchable textures

Last week I attended one of Brenda Brown's workshops. I really love going to them as Brenda always has such unique ideas for the projects. Last week was no exception and the name of the workshop was Taking the rough with the smooth". It was all about creating different textures using Decoart products.  This is Brenda's board and she took us through all the 9 different textures, 1 at a time.

Brenda's board had a French theme but I decided to try a different theme...the season's.
A very pleasant day was spent creating the 9 tiles and I learnt so much.

 Here is Brenda in action

Here is our group in action, well actually eating lunch whilst crafting ;0) 

 I sat at this space on the right next to a lovely fellow crafter called Hazel,

Hazel used pinks and reds for her colours. Here she is finishing up, I loved  her boards.

Below are my spring and summer boards coming together.  

I managed to get all my textures bar 1 finished at the workshop. I need to make the last tile and the backing board at home and I finally got some time to do this on Thursday.
This is the tile I finished below.

I added WOW embossing to the wet texture paste which you will see in the photo below.

I added some seasonal die cuts and remnant rub numbers so that I can check out which technique it represents. I put some rivets through my board, added the string and here is my finished seasons' texture board.

and here are the textures seasons by season.

Spring showing stamped texture paste and stencilled crackle.

 Summer showing textured collage and rusted enamel.

 Autumn showing crinkled low and highlights and layered shapes.

 and Winter showing subtle layered shapes and textured wallpaper

 The centre tile is weathered white....I decided to add some die cuts from each of the seasons to the 4 corners to link my board together.

I will hang my board up in my studio, it will be a useful reminder of the many textures I can use with my mixed media work. It was a really lovely crafty day, thanks to Brenda and I look forward to the next one.

I would like to enter my textures board into the following challenges;

Pixie's snippets playground  3/3 #212 I used a snippets of card for my die cuts flower and a snippet of twine for the hanger.

Crafting from the heart anything goes
Rhedd's creative spirit anything altered art

Crafty friends  anything goes

Simon says stamp Mondays  best friends Brenda is the very best of teachers and also a great blogging friend too ;0)

We love to create  #2 anything mixed media

WOW embossing challenge anything goes  

Anything but cute Ring out the old...bring in the new all these Decorart products are new to me, my favourites are the gorgeous crackle and the blue paints I used for the winter tiles.
Crafty calendar something new these are mostly all new texture techniques for me.
Country View crafts Be inspired by Bottles...I was inspired by dozens of gorgeous Decoart acrylic paints and chose the ones above.
Moving along with the times 1/3 wet or dry embossing I have used wet embossing on tiles 4 and 9
Winter wonderland 1/3 something new my new are all these great Docrafts paints and lovel textures.
Craft heaven 1/3 something old something new old are the die cuts I added to my tiles my new are all these lovely Decoart paints and textures.
Craft your passion 1/3 anything goes

Thanks for all the birthday wishes you left for my Hb on Wednesday. We had an amazing day and lunch at the Shard was just incredible...and the sun shone too. I will have a sort out of my photos I took and will be back with a post (and a Moment) very soon.

 Another weekend is here again and it looks like milder temperatures are returning here in the south. It has been a bitterly cold week so it will good to warm up a little again.

Enjoy your weekend and I hope you get some time to be creative, it's certainly not gardening weather! Welcome to my latest follower too, it's great to see you joining my creative journey here.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x