Colour me bright

I went over to see my parents yesterday and we went to our favourite garden centre for lunch. It was so good to see so many colourful plants for sale. I love yellows and blues at this time of the year but I was also drawn to the bright pinks and oranges.

 Over at Paperartsy this fortnight that is the theme ...I looked for other pinks and oranges and found these

and mmm...yes...chocolate...these sentiments made me smile.

Darnell for her NBUS #9 challenge has an optional theme of hidden words using raised die cuts. So when I got home this is where I went with my challenge card.

I chose some pink and orange based Infusions to create an inky base

I added water until I was happy.

Once dried I took my orange and pink distress inks and my heart stencil to add hearts to the card...such bright bold colours.

I then used my inky card to die cut a Cheery Lynn heart.

I decided just to infill my sentiment with pink card as I don't have any foam to raise it with.

Then it was time to put on my creative hat and I came up with this card. Very "un" me colours but great to cheer up a cold winter's day. I also have some spare inky card to make some other projects with.

My card was made for the following challenges;

Paperartsy pink and orange

Darnell's NBUS challenge 1/3  #9

my never before use stuff is my very bright pink ribbon and the embossing folder which was another of my advent buys in the Country View Crafts sale.

                         Creative artiste anything goes mixed media anything goes mixed media

Uniko anything goes

Simon says work it Wednesday January 1/3 something new my new is my embossing folder.

Thanks for stopping by again today. Keep warm...during the day yesterday we hovered around +1c ....brrr it really was cold. Enjoy the weekend ahead. 

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

A second flourish

I recently shared some photos of my amaryllis I planted and its spectacular blooms. If you missed that post you can read about it here. I cut off the finished flower stalk and was amazed to see a second budding stalk pushing up.

Over the next week or so it grew and the buds started to emerge again

another 4 gorgeous blooms.

 These beauties appeared...wow I've certainly had my money's worth from 1 bulb.

I also had a squeal moment yesterday as I witnessed the blooming of my first daffodil of 2017. I picked up a pot of tete a tete daffodils in the supermarket last Thursday and the little buds just shot up on my sunny kitchen side. 

This sight greeted me on Sunday morning...

oh how this makes my heart sing....

daffodils are my favourite spring flowers and just looking of them reminds me that spring is on its way...despite the freezing temperatures we have had over the last week. 

Thoughts of spring inspired my card today. I made an inky backing using some spring coloured distress inks. I die cut an oval in my card and flowers using my new Tim Holtz Greenery leaves from snippets of inky card. The sentiment was stamped with Versafine and a little gem added to the centre of the daisy. 

This one will be heading down to Dotty's Tea House on Saturday to sell. 

My card was made for the following challenges;

Pixie's snippets playground #265/6

Creative artiste anything goes mixed media anything goes mixed media

Allsorts daisy daisy daisy daisy there is a daisy on my sentiment stamp

Uniko anything goesanything goes

Darnell's NBUS challenge 1/3  #9

My never before used stuff is the leaf die...a new Tim greenery die I bought in the Country View advent sale. You will be seeing this lots...the die cuts from this set are gorgeous. 

Thanks for all your lovely comments you left on my last post and the best wishes you sent to my Hb. We did have the best of times celebrating his special birthday. He was quite rightly very spoilt by the family; precious memories.  Thanks for stopping by again today. Keep warm.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Celebrations

We are enjoying a very special weekend celebrating my darling Hb's 60th birthday. How time flies...I cannot believe how he has reached this milestone...I am sure that we are still in our twenties..aren't we? 😊
We went up to London yesterday to enjoy a celebratory birthday lunch and we are being joined today by our dear family to continue with the celebrations.

London yesterday was so beautiful in the cold winter sunshine.

Just look at that sky...

 and our meal at Gymkhana in Mayfair was delicious.

Pink gin was a new one for us but a firm favourite now!

We're not huge fans of icing so I made a topper for his Victoria sponge birthday cake which I baked this morning.
I had already made this topper last week. I bought a couple of patterned mini rolling pins at a show some years ago but had never used them.

I had a practice and really liked this flourish pattern.

So I used it on my topper icing base. I crimped the edge

I piped and painted the border and made some cut out stars.










Here it is sitting on the table ready for everyone to arrive..

Would you like a virtual slice 😉
So my card today is of course his birthday card.

He loves grungy cards so I made him one for a very "special delivery". The background was made with distress paints. I had already added some remnant rubs as a resist. I played with lots of circles, buttons and embossing folders for some texture for the focal. The book page is from "A tale of two cities" one of his favourite novels. The stamped birthday sentiment is Clearly Besotted.

My card was made for these challenges;

Darnells' NBUS surprise challenge #8

Darnell is having an amazing giveaway celebrating her 5 years blogging. For this challenge I have used Kraft card as a blank and also as part of my focal.  Instead of colouring it with pencils I used it as part of my tied focal, the first time I have tried this. My never before used stuff is the type key embossing folder and the grey button from a set hidden away in my stash.

A vintage journey going round in circles I have circles in my embossing folder piece, my button and the 0 of my die cut 60!

Creative Moments something new my new is the grey button, from a never yet used set!

Paper Creator anything goes

Scrapbook and cardmaking,  Bastel-truam friendship/love this card was made with lots of love for my soul mate x

Right the family are due to arrive in the next half and hour so I must dash. Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone and thanks as always for your kind comments and also for the lovely birthday wishes you left for my Hb on Thursday.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x