My August garden and some Wendy Vecchi inspiration

My garden pots have been a source of joy and inspiration for me all summer. My colour palette has been bright and bold and a change from my usual pastels.

I don't often make tags but sometimes as Wendy Vecchi suggests, I just want to "Make Art". I needed an excuse to use the brilliant rose mask stamp again which we were given 2 weekends ago at the workshop.

I also wanted to enter some fun challenges so I went down to my garden studio this weekend and got out some bold bright distress inks .....and a stencil and coloured up this tag.

I used this great PaperArtsy stamp as I think it is a very cool sentiment. That background has a lot of zingy colour in it...I love the fushia pink tones. I wanted a frame for my tag so I used Tim's ornate frame which I bought recently. I added lots of greens and a touch of brown and lots of crackle!

 This is the gorgeous Wendy Vecchi rose stamp we were given at the recent workshop. I stamped it a couple of times on mixed media paper and coloured it with distress inks.

and this is what I put together

 I added an embossed edge which you can just see below

 and some layering to the rose and glossy accents to the centre and on the leaves

I would like to enter it into the following fun challenges;

Rubber dance....August challenge   I think my colours match and I even went along with the theme of in the garden.
 
Artistic stamper anything goes

Mixed  media world gorgeous textures

Allsorts favourite colour this is my 2nd entry so I have used my second favourite colour which is green

Country View Crafts summertime

We love to create anything goes mixed media

Dies R Us the great outdoors

Emerald Faeries favourite colours mine are the green and yellow used on my tag.

Words to scrap by Book inspiration mine is The Good Earth

So this one was just for me...to remind me that whatever is going on in life we need to bloom where we are planted. I really try to. I am very blessed in life, surrounded by a wonderful loving family and with my sweet garden to potter around in my leisure time I can never lack joy from mother nature or fail to be inspired for my creativity.

Enjoy the week ahead,

Remember to bloom where you are planted ;0)
Sending sunshine...there's been lots here this afternoon.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Tim's tags' for 2015, August, Jane's Journal style

It's time for me to share my August version of Tim's tag which this month features a cool inky background and lots of collage.
Here is Tim's tag and you can follow all his great techniques over at his blog here.

I was inspired by the cut out background and the vintage image he used. I own the pen nib embellies so decided to use that too. I also liked the splattered metallic paint effect.
As you well know I make cards not tags for this challenge and decided this month's would be for my Dad's September birthday.
I don't own any of the thinlit words so as usual I had to improvise and used a large and small font happy birthday die.

I cut them out of my card and stuck some paper behind following Tim's techniques.
Rather than using "found" relatives photos I try to use my vintage family photos and just look what I found.

This is a scan of a photo of my dear Dad as a toddler in the 1930s! How cute is his knitted suit and shoes. This photo really made me chuckle. I cut him out and part of the chair.

Next I got inky and inked up my backing card together with some matt medium.

 These are my colours before I got blending once the matt medium was painted on,

Below is the blended background with the collage pieces I chose.

So then it was time for my creative hat to be put on...........
and this is my final card.
It was very hard to photograph as the matt medium seems to reflect even though it is matt!

You will see I added some script stamping using archival ink and some remnant rubs too

 I love the splattered metallic paint although I also end up splattered.

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

Tim Holtz 12 tags of 2015 August

PaperArtsy gels and mediums. I enjoyed playing with matt medium both for creating the inky background and also building up my collaged layers.

Artistic stamper anything goes

Anything but cute making magic I think the photo of my Dad is magical but also I love all the texture and gold in my piece similar to those in their gorgeous August mood board photo.

That craft place anything goes mixed media

Mixed  media world gorgeous textures

Allsorts favourite colour I love colour...any colour but if you have to really pin me down it's yellow, green and my ultimate is blue...this piece has blue, the gorgeous new blue from Tim and blue in the stripey paper glued under my cut out words.

Papertake weekly spots and stripes I have splattered spots of paint and stripes in my blue striped paper.

Have a lovely weekend, we are promised a return to sunshine.....that would be lovely although my lawn has liked the recent rain. England really could not be green and pleasant without the rain could it but I hope you have avoided any flooding in your neck of the woods. A month's worth of rain fell in 7 hours in Brighton on Thursday...eek that's a lot of watering cans!  Thanks for stopping by...and don't worry I have sent my Dad a spoiler alert not to look at this post....LOL!!

Enjoy your weekend,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Bloom and Grow

A couple of weeks ago I attended a mixed media canvas workshop run my great blogging buddy Brenda, of Bumblebees and Butterflies,
I just love getting inky and that day was no exception.
Brenda is such a talented artist and wonderful teacher and we listened intently to her and then started making our own versions of her canvas.

This is how mine came together.

I used lots of techniques to create my  background, here is just a few of the layers. Lots of stencilling, pastes, stamping and more

and this is the finished background once I had drizzled down some lovely distress stains.

lots of lovely texture

Here are the elements in process. These Tim Holtz die cuts are gorgeous. I recently bought the dragonfly myself.  They all started out as plain white card, as the clock is below. I really enjoyed colouring them up using oil pastels for resist and distress inks.

At the end of a happy day crafting, chatting and eating cake 19 of us came up with these versions of Brenda's original.

When I got home I decided to add a few extra flowers to mine so this is my finished canvas

and some close ups

I'm pleased to say that my Hb really liked it and it is now on the top of the bookcase in our dining room.

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

A vintage journey things with wings

Artistic stamper anything goes

Country View Crafts summertime

Anything but cute making magic I think my canvas is a magical English summer garden.  I was inspired by the sunshine in the photos of the mood board and the gorgeous dripping textures

Allsorts inspired by summer

That craft place anything goes mixed media

Mixed  media world gorgeous textures


Thanks for visiting. I'm currently working on my August Tim piece (with my usual Jane's Journal take) and a Wendy Vecchi inspired piece and will be back soon to share them. After some nice sunny days it is tipping with rain here on my day off so I think some crafting would be perfect. Off to my studio..........

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x