Coming out of hibernation

We woke up to the most beautiful blue skies and sunshine last Saturday morning and found that the raw easterly wind had finally dropped. It is incredible how sunshine stirs your blood and boosts your energy levels.My first thoughts were that it was a perfect day to get my studio out of hibernation and spring cleaned. (For any new readers I am lucky enough to have a garden studio which my dear Hb and Dad installed for me at the end of the garden in the autumn of 2011).  It does have a little heater but I close it up when winter sets in. Last year that happened in early November.

The blinds had been down and there was no one at home ;0) other than my pig on the veranda.

I opened up all the blinds to let the light in and cleared the work surface of the remains of  Christmas projects I I had been finishing off last November.

I then set to with my duster, hoover and window cleaning spray.

As I cleaned I took a new look at some of the special things I have hanging in my studio, many made or given to me for me by my dear crafting and non crafting friends.

I tidied as I cleaned and I felt a great sense of achievement when everything was neat and tidy. I even had a new addition to my studio which my dear Mum made me at her sewing class.

Meet my fun sheep cushion which fits perfectly on my chair.

I also gave my teak workbench, which my dear Dad made and installed for me, a good polish and added my spring coaster for my cup of tea.

I then went to get my radio out of hibernation too.

Perfect.

And all this time someone was watching me intently from the patio sitting in the sunshine.

My sweet Billy. He also can't wait for me to get back out into the garden so that he can bask in the sunshine on the veranda. I will be able to leave the door open and hear the sound of the garden, including the birds singing and the bees buzzing. I just can't wait!

My spring cleaning inspired a very spring themed card for today using one of my sweet Lili of the Valley stamps called Blossom. I bought her last year and I have only inked her up once before. 

Here she is in close up. I coloured her with my Promarkers and highlighted with Prismacolor pencils. The sentiment is also LOTV. I used a new Cheery Lynn butterfly die for the larger intricate butterfly (Exotic butterflies #2) which my daughter and son in law bought me for my birthday. The smaller butterflies were made with my Martha Stewart punch. The lace paper was given to me by my son's girlfriend and the backing paper was made and embossed by me...I have had many wet crafty weekends playing indoors ;0)




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

Joanna Sheen step into spring
Emmas crafty cards Butterflies
My Mum's Craft shop Easter or Easter colours
Allsorts Spring has sprung #201
Cheery Lynn challenge Anything goes #75 GD
Pan Pastel use a stamped image #14
Lexi's #87 use punches or dies
Bunny Zoe favourite colour combination my favourite colour combo is blue with green and a touch of yellow so spring like:0) GD

Penny Black and More blossom and bows
Papertake Weekly Bingo my line is the middle one;  punches, free (image), ribbons
Bearly Mine anything goes #81
Simon Says Stamp April showers and /or spring flowers
Ribbon Girl add flowers
Divas by Design Flowers
I love Promarkers Embossing Mine is heat embossing. I made the backing paper which you can just see peeping out. I used blue distress ink on crushed white card. I then stamped a floral stamp with versamark and added green embossing powder which I heat embossed.  Sadly though most of my hard work is covered up by the image but you can see parts of the embossing above Blossom's hair and to the side.


I am noticing lots of cheery spring posts and photos on everyone's blogs, it's so lovely to see.
On Saturday I have tickets for the Big Stamp show at Alexander Palace in London...I am so excited. I have written a long list and will treat myself to some things but it will be great to see others in the flesh. I can add them to my every increasing wish list. I have birthdays and Christmas covered for so many years!.

Have a lovely weekend when we get there and enjoy this warmer weather. If you live in parts of the world where spring wakes up even  later than it has here then I am sending you sunny thoughts.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

********Remember that you only have until 4pm (GMT) this Sunday to enter my giveaway here. You could win one of my handmade summer shell necklaces or one of my bag charms. There are also details in my side bar. To enter you need to leave your comments on that original post. Good luck everyone*********

Messy play with shaving cream

Now to some of my crafty friends that title will mean something and they will have an idea about what this post is about. However if you were like me a few weeks ago you would never have known what fun you can have with a can of shaving foam and some food colouring.

I admit that I watch very little TV. I would always rather craft than sit watching something on the television in the living room. In fact we tend to record films etc and then watch them at our convenience, often on a Friday or Saturday night if we are at home. However we do have a small TV in the kitchen which I often switch on to catch the news whilst I am cooking the evening meal. A few weeks ago I happened to look up a craft site called Create and Craft as I had read that there is a lady called Sue who demonstrates on there using Spellbinders Dies. As you will remember I am a recent owner of a Sizzix Big Shot die cutter and I just love playing with my dies. I thought I would see what she made. On that  particular programme she mentioned a technique of  colouring  card using shaving foam. I was intrigued and she said she would demo that too. Well...I was really amazed at the results and over the Easter break, as I could not get out into my garden, I decided to have a "Messy Play" session in doors and try the technique myself. My dear Hb was replying to some of his work emails at the time and he looked at me sideways when I started getting my "ingredients" together. I think he wondered what on earth I was doing with his shaving foam in the kitchen.

If you have never tried this is it such great fun for kids (including me) of all ages ;0)

You will need;

• A shallow flat bottomed dish big enough to lie a piece of card on.
• Shaving foam not shaving gel, do get one with a nice smell. Mine was just ordinary Gillette which my Hb shaves with each morning.
• A spatula for smoothing.
• An old ruler
• White card, not too thin.
• A skewer/stick
• Food colouring

On TV they used  Distress Inks for the colouring  but as I don't own any I decided to see what happened if I used the food colouring I use to dye my cake icing. I only have paste colours so I added a little water and made some into droppable colours.

Shake the can of foam and squirt it into the dish. Start smoothing it out to about 1" depth. I used a silicone cake spatula for this. You need to make the foam area big enough for your sheet of card to lie on.

Add drops of food colouring in a randomly over the surface. I experimented using 2 and 3 colours. Both results come out really well.

Use the skewer to swirl through the colours..

Next lay the piece of card on top. It is very important to pat the card down on top of the foam so that it really is in full contact with the colours.
Then carefully peel the card off.







Don't panic when you peel the card off and it looks like this....I really thought there was no way I could have any kind of pattern left. It just looked like a total foamy mess.

Place the card upright onto some newspaper.

Grab the ruler and carefully scrape off the foam, starting at one side and moving over to the other.
Just look what appears underneath...magic isn't it.

Even my Hb was so incredulous that he came over to watch. I tried several colourways.  You can reuse the foam several times before it becomes too muddy. Just smooth it out between goes with the spatula and add some new colours.

I rather liked this pattern with just the green and the blue. It looked very spring like to me.


Leave the paper to dry for a few hours and then flatten over night. The end results are your own sweet smelling marbled papers to craft with. (The smell does fade with time)

Here are a few more of my patterns.

After they had dried I decided I would also see how they behaved with heat embossing.

I used a large heart stamp and Versamark ink. I then used Black Detail embossing power to emboss with. I was really pleased with my final backing cards.

The ideas are just limitless...

Today's card challenge card is a very simple card I made with the above piece of hand made card with the heart embossing. I love the spring feel to it. I decided that it looked great by itself  and I did not want to use a coloured focal image. I just used my "Happy Birthday" rubber stamp sentiment  which I then heat embossed with the same black embossing powder. I cut a floral oval to mount the sentiment on and used some lovely spring green card to matt with.

It's a very "unlike me" card but I rather like it for it's simplicity and it will be great for a male birthday card as those are ones I always struggle with making.

Here is a close up of my fabby hand made backing card and yes it smells really good too.

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

Visible Image Get stamping
Papertake Weekly Anything Goes
Stampacular Sunday Spring Fever #209
Pretty Little Ribbon Spring #21
My Mum's Craft Shop Easter or Easter colours
Allsorts Challenge Spring has sprung #201
2 Sisters anything goes #138

I really hope that you might one day have a try with this. I understand that it is a really old technique. Although shaving foam was not used years ago, people made wonderful marbled papers for book covers.

Enjoy some messy play...I certainly did.

Remember that I have a giveaway here on my blog which runs until 14 April, all the details are here. There is also a link in my side bar.
You could win one of these necklaces and the runner up wins a gab charm. Everyone is welcome, do pop over and leave a comment there.

The sun has finally made an appearance here today.There are clear blue skies, the bitter cold wind has dropped and my washing is drying on the line out in the garden. I am just about to go and wake up my dear garden studio...woop woop. Spring seems to be nearly here at last. I shall have a hoover and a dust and get ready to be able to finally craft outside again really soon.

Enjoy your weekend and sending you all some sunshine,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Lots of Thank Yous

Welcome to April everyone. I had a fab birthday yesterday, thank you all for your birthday wishes you left me. I was very spoilt  My love of pigs is known by my family and friends and my beloved piggies features in my gorgeous presents. This is just a small selection of my goodies ;0) what a very lucky girl I am, thank you to my dear family and friends.

We had a delicious meal at the same hotel we have celebrated the last 2 of my birthdays at.

This was the choice of starters....we had 3 glorious courses of food in a private room off the main restaurant and even the coffee and teas came with goodies.

I would also like to take this opportunity  to thank 2 ladies whom I was very lucky to be one of their lucky winners in their recent giveaways. My parcels arrived just before Easter. My dear Finish Friend Mia of Handmade by Mia sent me this gorgeous package.

Inside this amazing egg was

My dear little Heffalump pin which she made especially for me. Thank you dear Mia, I just love him (as I do all your work).


Here he is in close up, don't you just love that heart tail?
Do visit Mia's wonderful blog and Etsy shop here. She has such talent and constantly comes up with new designs.

My next wonderful package arrived from Anne of A bit of this and that from Plum Creek
I have known Anne for some years via Mia and she has visited my blog for some time. She eventually bit the blogging bullet and started her own lovely blog very recently. Anne also makes beautiful hair pins with antique cabochons. Do have a look at her Etsy shop too which you will find here. She even has a nearly spring sale on. Just look what Anne sent me.

These are a really lovely size and I use them to clip my hair back when I am out in my garden or when eventually summer arrives and I need to keep cool ( I wonder if that will ever happen again, this weather has just been soooo cold it is hard to remember a really hot sunny day). Thank you dear Anne, you are so kind and thoughtful.

 I think that today's card needs be a card to celebrate. I have used Martini Nikki by Ladybug crafts ink as I really like to think this is me (in my dreams) with my gin and tonic in hand yesterday celebrating my birthday.

I used my Spellbinders Floral oval frame using the lovely sunny yellow card. The image is coloured with my trusty Promarkers and highlighted with my Prismacolor pencils. The tag sentiments are LOTV. This card is for sale in my Etsy Shop here I am sorry to say to my overseas buyers that Royal Mail have decided to hike their postage charges up again. For UK buyers, for the moment, the postage remains the same. It's such a shame that they seem to want to celebrate bigger profits.

To help ease this increase I have decided to add a 20% off coupon code for you to use for the next 2 weeks in my  Etsy Shop. Just enter the code BIRTHDAY2013 at the checkout. This does not apply to the postage which I charge at cost, I do not charge for my packaging or envelopes. It is my thank you to all of you.

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

Ladybug Crafts Ink anything goes
Forever Friends Fortnight challenge Girlie
Sweet Stampin Oh so girlie
Lexi's card challenge  #87 use punches or dies
Papertake Weekly anything goes
Make it Monday linky party #134

*****Don't forget that I have a fab free jewellery giveaway running on my blog...take a look here. You can get up to 3 entries and 1 is by simply by leaving a comment there. Do join the fun, everyone is welcome and I will post world wide. It closes on 14 April ****

So I just want to add one last thank you to this post and that is to all of you out there who take the time to visit me here and leave such kind comments.

The sun is finally shining here and it may be warming up next week, fingers crossed.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x