Riddle Me Ree June 2011

For those who have read my blog for some time you will remember this post  from last August.

Yes it's that time for us and we will be going on holiday on Monday..yipee!

As always I like to make some new jewellery and this year these pieces are coming with me.

I bought some lovely seashore themed beads from a very talented American lampworker and put them together with some long silver ear wires and blue Swarovski beads.

Here is a view showing the ear wires, I rather like these, they are different to the usual ones I use.












I also bought from the same lady some lovely etched beads, these really look like sea glass. I have made earrings and put the focal bead simply on a bead post to wear on a chain.

I used the same long ear wires for these.

This is the set all together.
They are a lovely peach colour and look good with summer outfits and sunshine!









And lastly being a very greedy girl I also decided I wanted some purple earrings.  So still keeping with the beach theme I had these made

 Which I made into....

.......these pretties. This time I used heart ear levers for the fittings.  Again they are new for me and I felt they finish them off really well.





So there we are, I have my holiday jewellery ready, we are nearly packed and even Billy is going away to stay with my parents.

He will miss his garden for the week but it is much better for him to be there than in a cattery...I just wish we could explain to him what is happening, poor lad does not like change!
Never mind he will be very spoilt whilst he is on his holiday.

Now before I close I would like to have a bit of fun like I did last year...have a guess from these photos where we are off to....we last visited this place in 2009.

Riddle me ree.......any ideas yet...
we usually say answers on a postcard but instead I say answers on my blog!!
Have a guess and I will reveal all with some new holiday photos on my return.






I will be back soon.  I will leave you with a photo taken from the balcony of our hotel room taken in  June 2009

Bliss...I can't wait. 

See you all really soon, take care,

Jane x

Epilogue to stamping heaven

First can I thank you all for your very positive comments on my "Stamping Heaven" post. It's really great to get the nod from everyone and also from some of my very talented artist friends. I know this is only colouring but I really do feel that I have learnt a new skill which will be so useful with my card making.
So finally, here is my epilogue to my day at the colouring master class.

 At the end of the masterclass last Saturday we were given a kit form of a card that we could make up at home. It contained instructions for how to construct the card and we spent the last session of the day colouring the image that was to be used as the focal of the card.

It was the very sweet "Love Grows" stamp and I carefully followed the tutors' instructions and coloured my image using Promarkers followed by some extra shading using Prismacolor pencils to achieve the final image as shown here. The next day at home I carefully cut the image down and made up my card.

And here it is! I really love the details used and I already have mulberry flowers in my "stash" which I had not used very much so I was delighted to see how they can be used. I have also not used the little pearls as accents before so this inspired me to buy some.

So having been inspired by this "recipe" I stamped out the images of some of the new stamps I had bought at the class as shown above. I then began colouring and new card making on  my own, remembering the colouring techniques I had been taught.

This was a birthday cake stamp I bought. I coloured a red variation as shown here and and also a blue variation. I made them both up as cards which I was pleased with.

I added some glitter and some other accents and made these both as birthday cards. I have put the blue version in my Etsy shop for sale if anyone is interested in buying it. They are quite time consuming to make but they do make such unique cards.

Spurred on by these 2 cards I continued my colouring on some more difficult, highly detailed images. These are shown below

I rather like the greens here.

I finally worked on one of my favourite images of "Tea Time" and produced these 2 coloured focals.

As these took me some time to complete I decided I would try to make them into "luxury" sized cards. My normal cards are 5X5" but I noticed that many of the really talented card makers out there tend to use  6X6". I decided to made my own card blanks out of quality linen white card and then I really did go to town! I used mulberry flowers, glitter highlights on the cake tops and shoes, die cut shapes and more.I had SO much fun..mind you they did take me a long time to make.

So here below are my 1st "Deluxe" cards. At moment I am not selling them, as I am not sure if people would pay enough to cover the extra time and material involved, but I will use them for special birthdays and for people who commission me to make cards. Here they are.......

Above is my first effort. I used matching pink and purple accents and I just L*O*V*E the paper flowers. As you all know I am not really a pink girl but I do like green with pink. So for the 2nd card I tried something different....

Now this one I really do like. I found some lovely green backing paper with pink roses and have you spotted my first use of pearls?

What do you think?

I do hope this post has not been too long but I really have been in stamping heaven and I am so inspired to use my new skills in my card making. For now though I will be putting my card making on hold as my garden is calling, my enamelling at jewelery needs completing and we are off on holiday soon. And all of that is before we have our trip to Wimbledon Tennis (and yes I do still need to go to work 3 days a week ;0)  I will be back with one more post before we leave for our summer holiday and I look forward to your visit then. Thanks so much for reading this rather long post! 

Bye for now,

Jane x

Anyone for tennis?

Hello! I have been without Internet connection since Saturday and have really missed my blog friends! We had to have our whole telephone lines,plugs etc replaced. I am thankfully back now and will look forward to catching up with your posts. First of all can I thank you for all the lovely comments I had about my colouring masterclass. I have been putting my skills into practice and will show them to you really soon.
 For this post I wanted to share some great tennis news with your all.
I really do enjoy the annual tennis at Wimbledon. We live very close and can get there by local train in under half an hour. Wimbledon Village is also a home to one of my favourite CK shops and also great for lunches!
This year is a special year for Wimbledon Tennis as it is their 125th Anniversary. I had a lovely surprise which arrived in the post a few weeks ago. My Hb and I have been very lucky and for the last 4 years in a row have managed to be successful for tickets for Wimbledon Tennis in the annual ballot. I thought our luck would run out. However I was delighted to find that we have been successful again.  For this year they are for Court Number 1; the other 3 years we had them for Centre Court. It is such a great summer day out, the atmosphere at Wimbledon is so unique. It really does epitomise an English summer and yes we did drink Pimms and eat strawberries! We always pack a picnic too as it is a long afternoon out and you are allowed to take food onto the courts and drinks in plastic containers.

 Whilst I was having a bit of a spring clean I found the ticket stubs from a couple of the years.

 We have seen Nadal, Federer, Murray, the Williams sisters and many more.

This was the view from our Centre Court seats in 2008............

We really were so near the action. The speed of the play is not really comprehensible until you have sat in the court and watched it. The players athleticism is quite stunning.

Having seats in the main Show Courts also means you get up and can be free to wander around the outside courts too. There is also play going on on about 14 other outside courts which are all open to view. It is always very busy but there is such a pleasant buzz no one really notices the crowds. Now last year I had not started blogging so I did not think to take any photos but this time I most certainly will. There are some great gift shops on site too and each year my darling Hb has treated me to a Links of London silver charm. They produce a special edition set of charms for Wimbledon. In 2008 he bought me a strawberry, in 2009 a replica of the ladies winner's plate and last year a logo of the Tennis club.

I love wearing them, they are such a sweet souvenir of some wonderful sunny days we have spent there.

I have never been inside Court Number 1, it was rebuilt some years ago and from the outside looks nearly as grand as Centre Court. We are so looking forward to our day there later this month and will of course take some "insider" blog photos this year so that I can share my day with you all.

Bye for now,

Jane x