February, the love month

Hello and welcome to February, the month of love and time for our next challenge over at Country View. I spotted this display up in London recently..such gorgeous heart boxes...ready to fill....

Our theme this time is a timed challenge. The brief is to make a project in 30 minutes or under. For this I decided to make a card. I could never make an art journal page in that sort of time! I think a lot of time is spent on design so I will confess that I already had a plan but in minutes to make it really did take less than 30 minutes. There are no limitations to the number of other challenges or the number times you can enter. You have the chance to win a £20 voucher too so it's win win in my books! All the details can be seen here. 

So this is what I got up to. We all have a bag of inky left over snippets in our stash don't we? Us crafters never throw anything away.

 I dug out the piece below. I had made it for the background for a Christmas card but when I added silver embossing paste I got a pink tinge, from the sparkly spray underneath. At the time I really didn't like it. However for a background to a Valentine card it was perfect. I just quickly distressed the edges. Time taken; 1 minute

 To make it more "Valentiney" is that a word??...I added some red archival ink through my heart stencil, sprinkled on some red geranium embossing powder

 and heat embossed the hearts. I also added a little to the edges. Time taken 5 minutes.

I have a little stash of digi images all cut with my stitched rectangle die and chose this one which is a free Graphics Fairy image.  I always have spare frames cut so I just tucked a rectangular Joy frame behind it.

Next I got out some of my inky mop up scraps and die cut lots of hearts. I added some script stamping to some of them using my Visible Image Bronte border. Time taken 10 minutes

I found these old paper doilies in a drawer I was clearing out after Christmas

so I stamped the same script onto one of these.

Then it was just a case of sticking everything together.

with a couple of close ups

Time taken; 9 minutes 

Total time = 25 minutes.....so 5 minutes to spare!

So using scraps is a really quick way of putting a card together...and remember never throw away those rejected backgrounds. There will always be a day that you can put it to use 😊


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

Darnell's NBUS challenge #10

NBUS stands for never used stuff...of which I have plenty. My never before use for this project was my paper doilies which had been sitting in a drawer for probably 15 years...yes seriously!!

Crafty Catz 1/3 anything goes with a twist of a ladies' card

Allsorts let's celebrate

Crafty Card makers 1/3 love, love, love

Love to create 2/2 anything creative/ mixed media


Thanks for visiting today and for all you kind comments that you take the time to leave me. I so appreciate them.
Happy February everyone....share the love 💓💖💓

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

January came and went

Goodness me where on earth did January go....one blink after Christmas and here we are at the last day of the month. It's been a busy but fun month for me especially celebrating my Hb's recent milestone birthday.  As a family we now have birthdays right through til June...one a month and the one in May is our 2nd grand baby's actual birth day (due 6th May) so my darling girl is nearly 6 months pregnant already.

There are already signs of the wildlife on the ponds getting ready to make nests and deliver the next generation. I spotted this handsome mallard duck preening himself and obviously getting ready to make an impression on the ladies 😉

He flipped and turned in the water

and had a good shake

a bit more preening

 Then it was time to meet up with the ladies

My waterfall shot today shows all the goings on down there...it's like Piccadilly Circus. Lots of meeting and greeting going on between the fowl.

Today's card is a revisit for me of one of my Tim Tag cards I made last year. I wanted to make something which features lots of wildlife.  This is my original post here and you can see how I made it. I made 4 bases at the time and I had one left which I have never made into a card. If you weren't aware, Tim decided to stop his monthly tags. I know he had been doing it for 10 years but I really miss it. So I decided to revisit my own cards I made over the 3 years that I had been a part of the fun and made something new. I hope to do this on a regular basis.

I had this base made...lots of lovely pinks and oranges again, I must admit I quite like this combo. I added just a bit of green to make it a little more wildlife friendly.

 I die cut some flowers using off cuts of pink and orange based inky scraps and a butterfly and here is my finished card.

My card was made for the following challenges;

                                                           Paperartsy pink and orange

Crafting from the heart anything goes

                                                         Paper Creator anything goes

                                                 Let's craft and create things with wings

Creative moments anything goes

Crafty Catz 1/3 anything goes with a twist of a ladies' card

Addicted to stamps and more anything goes

Simon says Wednesday anything goes
We love to create 1/2 anything mixed media
As you like it favourite flower and why..mine is the good old daisy I made amongst my little bunch on my card...as this is my darling granddaughter's name.

I will be back bright and early in the morning with my DT card for Country View as we greet the arrival of another new month.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bye for now,

Jane x

4 seasons in one day

Yesterday was the most freaky weather here...this was the view from my back door first thing...yes pleasant sunshine and quite mild.

We took Bear out for a walk and enjoyed seeing the sunshine on the ponds. We did notice some clouds coming over.....

and within 10 minutes of getting home this happened....

Yes an incredible hail storm...the noise on our kitchen Velux window sounded like stones hitting them. Much bigger and I think they would have dented our car.

These are some of them melting on the patio...magical aren't they!

It then cooled down and rained for a few hours...true British weather...4 seasons in one day.

My card today is a fairy one...a little bit of magic to cheer us in darkest winter. I had a commission to make some fairy cards for a lady in the USA via my Etsy shop..and this is one of them. The stamps are Lavinia and I made the inky background with my distress ink.

This little fairy says that the clouds are lined with silver...I think ours were lined with hail yesterday!

If you are interested in my fairy cards there are a couple of new ones up for sale in my Etsy shop here and here. As well as making new stock for Dotty's Tea House I am trying to get my little Etsy shop restocked too...the shelves there recently have been very bare.

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

Craft heaven winter blues

Paper Creator anything goes

Penny Black and More 2/3 anything goes

Let's craft and create things with wings

Pile it on quoteable I was inspired by the little stamped quote I used on my card.

 Uniko anything goes

                                                        

Simon says stamp Monday spread your wings

Creative moments anything goes

Crafty Catz 1/3 anything goes with a twist of a ladies' card

Addicted to stamps and more anything goes

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday...whatever the weather 😄. Thanks for popping by and for your kind comments. Stay snug and Carry on Crafting.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x