From spring to winter to spring

What extraordinary weather we have had over the last week. Last Friday I walked down to Dotty's and I revelled in the warmth of the sunshine. I thought that spring had arrived. 

Blossom was out everywhere

and in my garden pots I spotted my first tulips nearly in flower,

However Mother Nature had other ideas and this started  the very next day.

Dumping another lot of snow.

 and just look at my tulips 24 hours later!

Brrrr.

Today's make to share is another of my Easter projects. This time it's an Easter tag.

I created the background with distress inks and some Tim Holtz stamps. The dies are all by Tim including the butterfly frenzy.  The chit chat words work so well for so many occasions too.

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

Rubber dance Colour or theme March challenge I've gone for circles and die cuts.
A vintage journey Treasure my treasure in my tag is my weathered clock die cut. This die is no longer made and it is the favourite die I own and I really do treasure it.
Sparkles spring is in the air
Butterfly challenge L I have gone with layers, lemon and letters
Pixie's snippets playground #322
Try it on Tuesday 1/3 Spring moodboard I have gone with the birds and the greens and yellows in 2 of the photos.

Moving along with the times 2/3 Easter
The cutie pie challenge 3/3 spring cuties

Simon says stamp Wednesday Easter inspired

Noor spring

Simon says work it Wednesday 1/3 inky techniques mine was using distress inks

Yesterday it warmed up enough to melt all the snow but there is still a very chilly Northeasterly wind. Here in the south though I think we have finally seen the last of the snow.
 The first day of spring was yesterday but and I want to hear those birds singing in warm sunshine soon. Thanks so much for stopping by and for your kind comments and especially the birthday wishes you left for my DD on my last post. They were most appreciated.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Love is in the air

Good morning I hope you find yourself under a pile of Valentine's this morning and if not I have one to share with you at the end of my post.

We're mid way through the month of February...such a great month having just 28 days. I am continuing to see so many lovely flowers. These gorgeous primula were in the garden centre...how pretty are these delicate colours?

and there was even a brave Camellia showing its beautiful blooms.

These pretty striped tulips also caught my eye.

and a pot of daffs on my own window sill are nearly in bloom.

My card today is the last of my Valentine cards for selling at Dotty's Teahouse for 2018. It will be time to start making cards for Mother's Day soon, but in the meantime I have my son's birthday coming up soon so I will get that under my belt first.

So I would like to send some Valentine love to all my sweet blog readers...this one is for you.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges

Happy Little stampers CAS 1/3 love

Let's craft and create 2/3 anything goes

Deep Ocean love is all around

Try it on Tueday's 2/3 love is in the air

Allsorts 2/3 love is in the air
Simon says stamp Wednesday it must be love
Die cuttin divas Valentine's day
Card mania 1/3 red and hearts

My special Valentine, my darling Hb and I are off out to dinner tonight...celebrating our engagement 38 years ago.....wow..time really does fly.

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

  Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Spring has sprung

Wow what an awesome week this has been and temperatures are soaring to 22c tomorrow! It's already 21c on my sunny patio...whoop whoop.
My next flush of tulips are now in flower

 My acers are in leaf

and yes the blinds have come up, the windows cleaned and 

 MY STUDIO IS OPEN FOR GARDEN CRAFTING FOR 2017!! Come on in and have a peep................

 You will never see my desk this tidy again until I shut it up in the winter

new shelves to fill (put up over the winter by my darling HB)

 I sit surrounded by some precious art work made by me and some of my dear crafting friends over the years.

 I should really update my noticeboards as these projects are sooo old but they remind me how far I have come over the years and yes there is a piece there by my darling Daisy.

My challenge card is something very springly and fun...

The stamp is from my buddy Kerry and her sadly no longer trading Ladybug Crafts Ink. I love this sheep and her lamp..so cute. I gave them a fluffy coat and a gem for Mum's flower ;0) The papers are ancient from my stash. The egg die and cloud is Memory Box, the frame Noor and the sentiment stamp is Clearly Besotted. 

My card was made for the following challenges;

Dies R Us 2/2 Easter

Allsorts bring on the bling

Crafty calendar April showers/ spring

                                                  Simon says work it Wednesday 3/3 spring

Crafty friends animals or birds 

Cute Card Thursday 1/3 Easter

The Ribbon Girl 1/3 April any card challenge

Crafty Catz anything goes/Easter

Crafty Hazelnut's patterned paper challenge anything goes

So you can guess where I'm heading now...yes back out to my sunny garden with a cuppa. Tomorrow I am off to the Ally Pally Stamping Show in London to catch up with my blogging buddy Brenda Brown and to see Helen and Mark and their amazing Visible Image stand. I am so proud to see my cards on their awesome display. If you are going do say hi! 

Have a sun filled weekend and thanks for stopping by. I will be back next week with 2 posts with photos from Ally Pally!

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

A mellow yellow Monday

Wow what amazing weather we enjoyed at the weekend.  I have been watching the bulbs sprouting in my pots and my tulips are looking great...the first to bloom was this lovely mellow yellow variety.

followed a couple of days later by these beauties

The eagle eyed of you will have spotted that Bear came for a visit....I'll share some photos later this week. 

My lovely tulips inspired me to go for something cheerful and bright for my Monday Design team inspiration piece for Visible Image today. 

I got out one of my favourite sentiments from the

Where dreams take you set

and used the middle and small sized dragonflies from the 

Live in the Moment set

 I put a circle mask into the centre of my card and repeat stamped the dragonflies using different yellow and oranges from my Distress inks.

You can just make it out in the bottom right larger dragonfly above that I added a wink of stella glitter to the wings.

 I black embossed some extra dragonflies on some inky card and then fussy cut them out.

 I added a wink of Stella glitter and then Glossy Accents for lots of shine and shimmer.

Then it was time to put my card together.

It was very hard to photograph as it is so sparkly IRL!

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

A Vintage Journey all aboard

Noor spring

That's Crafty 3/3 bling it up

Stamping Sensations 2/3 close to nature

Penny Black and More 3/3 anything goes

Uniko spring

Simon says stamp Monday layer it up

Remember that you are most welcome to join Visible Image over on Facebook;

Our friendly Group can be

found here

The main Visible Image page is here; there are weekly stamp giveaways...open world wide!

And the main web site is here; where all these gorgeous stamps can be found.

I really hope our sunny weekend turns into a sunny week ahead. The clocks went forward yesterday and it didn't dark until gone 7.30pm...bliss and just look at the sky as I shut my back door....

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

A pot of spring flowers

The first of my tulips are finally flowering in my pots in my garden. Every year I plant a different variety or 2 in with my daffodils. Over the last week my pink edged variety has bloomed. It is so pretty and delicate and the morning dew on them looks magical. 

They look so pretty in their pots and really bring some early colour into my garden. There are lots of spring challenges running at the moment and the next letter for the dictionary challenge...D...is running over at the Craft Barn.

So using my lovely tulips as my inspiration for the challenges I decided to make a new art journal page. I looked through my stash to find my tulip and daffodil stamps and stamped out tulips and daffs.  EDIT; In answer to a question the top tulip stamp is an ancient unnamed wooden one, the middle is PaperArtsy and the daff is an old freebie from Papermania that was a giveaway on a magazine about 5 years ago raising funds for Marie Cure. 

 I then water coloured  them using my distress inks.

 The word I chose for the dictionary challenge was D for dozen, so I fussy cut out a dozen blooms.

I created a spring background using distress inks in my journal

and added some stencilling and a lovely quote.

I also wanted to recreate a terracotta pot, just like those in my garden. To do this I used a Cheery Lynn die cut pot and added some Decoart texture sand for texture. After it had dried I painted it with DecoArt media acryllics. It's such fun building up the colours.

So then it was time to put on my creative hat...................

here is my finished spring flowers page.

 I really like the texture I created on my pot....it really is rough to the touch.  I added my snippet from my vintage dictionary for "Dozen" to it.

 I thought I would also show you what my double page spread now looks like in my journal, if you missed my G for garden post you can read it here..................it just sings spring to me ;0)

I would like to enter my tulip art journal page into the following fun challenges;

Craft Stamper Take it make it 2/3 spring flowers

The Craft Barn dictionary challenge D with pink included my D is for dozen.

Rubber Dance 3/5 spring into spring 

A Vintage Journey spring is in the air

That's Crafty 2/3all things bright and beautiful

Rhedd's creative spirit; April

Noor anything goes

Stamping Sensations 2/3 one for the girls

Mod Squad 1/3 show us your background

As you like it 1/3favourite non card project and why....because I give away or sell all the cards I create making journal pages allows me to keep a library and record of my work and to share it with my family and friends.

Cupcake Inspirations #354 yellow/pink/blue and flowers

Crafty Boots 2/3 spring is in the air

I hope that your gardens and the open spaces where you live are showing off their spring blooms. My 2nd variety of tulips are a really bold colour. I am really looking forward to them unfurling and revealing all. What an exciting time this is in my tiny garden. Mother Nature has so much in store for me. Have a lovely weekend, the sun is shining as I type this but I think we'll have a typical April weekend of showers here. 

Thanks for visiting today and for taking the time to leave your very kind comments. I finally received my complimentary copy of Craft Stamper magazine in the post on Friday.  I was so delighted to see my Birdsong card there. I'm on page 56 if you have one and if not I'm going to share some photos and a step by step of that card here on Monday. 

Bye for now,

Jane x