A mild start to March

Yesterday was glorious and I had some time after work to have some inky play. There was a lot of signs of spring to influence and inspire me.

 I snapped these shots on my way home

Easter is also fast approaching so I decided to start some Easter themed projects and also enter some of my favourite challenges including A Vintage Journey where the theme is anything goes Tim Holtz. To me Tim is the King of tags so I decided to make a tag. I also wanted to make a GD piece for Ignacio of Nicecrane Designs using his great butterfly digi sheet which is available here

I got out my Distress inks and chose some of the sunny colours which had inspired me and blended them together with his ink blending tool
I also spritzed on some water and also allowed the inks to flow a little

I had previously made some very cool butterflies using crackle paste and my new texture fade butterfly which I won for my 12 tags of Christmas over at Frilly and Funkie. Here they are when wet

and here is one dry...I love crackle paste so much.

You will also see some feathers I made, but more of those another time....

I added some depth with some leaf stamping with distress ink and then used my favourite Bronte verse script stamp by Visible Image.
Once I had this background I then put on my creative hat to put together my tag.
Here it is.

I got out my round nose pliers and made some antenna out of wire.

I fussy cut out 2 of my Nicecrane butterflies and added them too.

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

A Vintage Journey anything Tim
Simon Says stamp Wednesday special lady/girlie
Country View Crafts anything goes
Papertake weekly anything goes
The Artistic Stamper spring is coming
Stamp and create is it spring yet?
Flonzecraft Olde Worlde my tag has olde worlde writing as the script stamp and the butterflies look out of a Darwin catalogue.
The mirror crack'd wings
Crafty boots anything but a card
Creative Inspiration something old my old is my lattice die which I have had for over 3 year now and I still love it!
Allsorts spring is in the air


We are in Southampton today and the weather looks so lovely. The sun is shining and the birds are singing their hearts out. Tomorrow I may even be able to get out to the garden for a tidy up.

Spring certainly is in the air. Have a lovely weekend everyone and thanks as always for visiting me here,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

March card for the 12 tags of 2015

Spring is in the air over at Tim Holt's as his tag for March is very spring like and features bright colours and a gorgeous masked butterfly. This is his tag for the month.

He has also used a gorgeous enamelling technique over texture paste. To see his full tutorial and join the fun please visit his page here.

I decided that my card version would be for my dear Mum for Mother's day as here in the UK that is just around the corner on 15th March.

I don't have many distress paints so I got out my brightest colours to make my backing card.

I added tissue tape as Tim did and used his marbling technique.
Next for the masking I also wanted to use a butterfly but I don't have his set yet so I used my gorgeous large Visible Image butterfly stamp. I love these stamps.

I stamped and embossed 3 on my card and then made a mask of the butterfly

Next I used Tim's honeycomb stencil and spread some texture paste through it and then added gold embossing powder.

I then removed the masks and heated the powder.








How cool is this technique ...thanks Tim I will used this again.

I wanted to add some flowers for Mother's Day so I inked up some tattered floral strip die cuts.

and then it was time to put my creative hat on and put my design together.










Here is my version as a card

 and some close ups of my flowers

 the sentiment is LOTV

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

Tim Holtz 12 tags of 2015 March

Dream Valley Mother's Day

Simon Says stamp special lady/girlie

Country View Crafts anything goes

Inspiration Journal spring blooms

Frilly and Funkie it's time for a vacation this is another project where I have taken myself away to a hot spring day in rural England with the bees humming and the butterflies fluttering....Oh bliss I can't wait.

Papertake weekly anything goes

Allsorts use brads my flower centres are all brads

Sweet stampin all or nothing layers

Pan Pastel stencil it

I loved making this card and I hope my Mum will like it when she opens it with her altered Domino book on Mother's Day. They were certainly made with lots of love.

The temperature looks set to rise in the UK over the next 4 or 5 days, we may even reach the balmy heights of 16c in the south at the weekend. It would be lovely as we are off to see Daisy and her Mummy and Daddy on Saturday. We hope to get out for a walk and enjoy the countryside in the sunshine and spot the many signs of spring growth everywhere.

Thanks for visiting me today and thanks also for the lovely comments you left on my last post. Enjoy the end of the week.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Playing with dominoes

There are some fun challenges around at the moment and I decided challenge myself to make something very different. The challenge over at Paperartsy is "miniature art".  As I read Leandra's brilliant blog post one suggestion really stood out to me....altered dominoes. Do have a look at her post here I went upstairs to see if we had any, but I think ours from years ago were wooden and I wanted the white plastic ones. I couldn't find them anyway.  After a lot of searching I managed to find a set in a local toy shop.

For my non inky blogging friends who may not have seen this before, it is the plain side which gets altered. Some people turn these pieces into fridge magnets or pendants or even swap them. I decided I would like to turn mine into a little accordion book. Leandra gave a great link to a tut here. My dominoes were a slightly different size to the ones in the tutorial so I adapted my page sizes.

I decided that I would try using my alcohol inks to give a base colour. I had a practise run first and this lovely pattern emerged.

I used this piece to practise stamping, sealing, colouring etc and once I was happy I made  2 backing dominoes for my book. I love the way the colours blend and mottle, it's a fun technique.

Next I used some small stamps.

I also added some T Holtz remnant rubs and added some colouring which you will see later in my finished piece.

To make the accordion pages I blended some distress ink and added some flicks of water.

I have a great mini calligraphy stamp I won in the Artistic stamper challenge last year and it was the perfect mini size for my book pages.

I decided my little book would be for my dear Mum for Mother's day so I had a sort through some spring like stamps and also used some apt Tim chit chat words. My Mum loves trips to country houses and gardens so I wanted to incorporate this.


It was then time to put everything together......................................here is my finished project.

 These are the front and back dominoes

 Here is the little book all tied up with ribbon, this is the same ribbon I used for my Mum's 80th a couple of years ago so this makes it even more special for her.

 Shall we pull the ribbon and open up..............?

 This is the inside stamped up with some lovely English country garden images and appropriate chit chat words. She enjoys days out and holidays seeing our lovely countryside.

 Our Mum's are so very special

 as is the world we live in

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

PaperArtsy Topic 4; miniature art Thanks Leandra for the amazing inspiration you gave for this challenge.
The Artistic Stamper spring is coming I get 2 entries as I used their great mini calligraphy stamp
Frilly and Funkie vacation time mine is a representation of a mini break to an English country garden on a warm spring day...sounds perfect..even if we have a few more weeks to wait.
Simon says stamp Wednesdays anything goes
Simon says Work it Wednesdays
We do doobadoo spring greens
Natalie and Amy Flowers
That Craft Place Mother's day/anything goes
Country View crafts anything goes
Penny Black and More blossoms and bows


I think my Hb is looking at our box games in the cupboard out of the corner of his eye now, wondering if the Scrabble or Rummikub pieces are safe.............now there's a thought! I also found a tiny box which  a perfume sample came in.....hmmm...lots of ideas. I do love miniature things, as does my dear Mum. I hope she likes her little book, it was made with lots of love.

Happy 1st March everyone, what lovely times are ahead of us, nature is waking up and it is indeed a beautiful world.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x