The January blues

Hello blogging friends. I hope you are all keeping well? Here in the UK the pandemic is taking a turn for the worse and cases are rises exponentially . The vaccine is thankfully being rolled out very quickly and let's really hope that this surge can soon be controlled.  My daughter (an NHS doctor) has had her first jab and my parents who are in their late 80s are hoping to be called up very soon. My Hb continues to work from home and I have now moved indoors again from my garden studio to craft so we are cozied up indoors for now with Billy our dear cat.  I get out for my daily walks and most days go to see my sweet dino ducks who never cease to make me smile. 

I thought I would share a few recent photos of the lovely blue skies we have enjoyed recently despite the cold and show some photos taken in the week of my sweet dinos.

and as the sun went down it shone beautifully through the willow tree. 

Dotty's Teahouse, where I sell my cards has now had to shut for any takeaways so I have had some crafting time to experiment, which is always fun.  It's not me but my crafting which has taken on "The blues" for the last week. I take part in a monthly artist trading card and coins swap and this was the theme. I made my cards and coins with the same theme and then my imagination took over and I decided to make a tag with "the blues".

I have already posted these on Instagram where I just celebrated my 1,000 post. If you would like to find me this is the link 

I made some winter blues artist trading cards using Lavinia stamps

a "Blue starry tree" tag with an oxide galaxy background with Tim Holtz dies

and some "Playing the blues" coins using Visible Image stamps

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

Allsorts favourite colour no guess as to mine...blue of course!

Crafty friends 1/3 anything goes

Creative fingers 1/3 anything goes

Cute card Thursday 1/3 anything goes

Stamping sensations 1/3 favourite stamps these Visible Image Jazz it up stamps are one of my very favoruite male sets. 

I have been keeping very busy with my crafting with some secret, for now projects, too which I will share as soon as I can. 

Stay safe, stay indoors and stay positive.  Please take great care. Keep mindful, things will improve in the coming months, we just need to get through these difficult weeks ahead. 

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Sweets for January's STAMPlorations theme and photo prompt challenge

Hello this is my 2nd post on new year's day as of course it is also time for our first challenge of 2021 over at STAMPlorations.

This is the theme and photo prompt for January.

I worked with the following awesome products and have added live links to them in my post. Remember if you also use my unique code STAMPGIRLJANE at the check out you can get an additional 20% off on top of any existing discounts! Shery ships internationally at very low cost too.

You can work with the theme, the photo prompt or both as I always love to do. 

I now have affiliate links in my STAMP posts which simply means that if you click on any of the links here and buy something from the STAMP store I will receive a small commission at no cost whatsoever to you 😊I also offer a very special extra treat if you use my code, details at the end of this post.

You can enter up to a maximum of 3 entries. There are awesome prizes up for grabs; A $20 prize code for the winner, as well as $7 prize codes awarded to 3 randomly selected entries. Please remember to add our challenge logo to your post if you would like to be in with a chance of winning. Full details can be found here.

I used 2 sentiments from  Party time

the awesome

Cupcake builder 2 die. 

This is one of my favourite dies ever and I use it lots. 

Plus the sweet word die.

This is what I got up to;

I made a background using Paperartsy infusions

I stamped the sentiments in black ink at the top and bottom and clear embossed them. 

I then made an assortment of cupcakes and put them together. 

Here is my finished bake  make 😋

and another shot

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

I hope I may have inspired you to join our new January challenge. Remember all the details can be found  here.

Remember that if you order more than $15 of product from the website (after discounts and before shipping) and quote my unique code STAMPGIRLJANE at checkout not only can you get 20% off your order you can also choose a product for FREE up to the value of $7! Here is a link to the website.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. I will be back with my 2nd DT project on 15th of this month.

Bye for now,

Jane x 

A new year and new hopes

Happy New year all. 2021...here's to a much better year and that life might finally start to return to some kind of normality. This is my first of 2 posts today as of course there are new challenges to be shared. First up is my design team post for Country View where our first challenge theme is "use one or more squares". As always there is a fab £20 voucher up for grabs for one lucky randomly selected winner to spend on the website. What a cool pre Christmas treat that would be. You can find all the details of the challenge and more examples made by my talented teamies here.

I decided to make a new year card and used several  awesome Visible Image sets (some of which are out of stock at the moment). Susan will be restocking her Visible Image range very soon so do add you email address on the website to anything out of stock and she will contact you when they are in.  Susan keeps a good range on the website here .

  This is what I got up to;

I made a distress ink background using crackling campfire and speckled egg distress inks. I love these 2 new colours and with the rustic wilderness green released in November they were a great trilogy for 2020. Susan has a lot of distress products on the website here .

I added some background stamping using the Visible Image Ahead of time set

I also stamped some flashes from the "Rays of light set" which you will see in my final photos.  For my "squares" I stamped the numbers onto scraps of spare background using alphabetical There is a great square in this set too which I stamped to frame the numbers.  I then cut out 4 white slightly bigger squares and layered on the numbers.

I used the sentiment from "Destination unknown" and the happy new year from the "Go to Christmas" words set. I also stamped and cut out the door from the "Ahead of time" set to allow the year to "tumble out". I then put everything together and for a finishing touch added some die cut stars.

Here is my finished card.

with some close ups

and one final shot.

We would love to see you join in with our January challenge. 

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

Allsorts sparkle and shine

Simon says stamp Wednesday sparkle and shine

The house that stamps built 2/3 anything goes 

Simon says stamp Monday celebrate 

I hope I may have inspired you to join in with our January "use 1 more squares" challenge. You can use any stamps/products, the choice is yours. 

You can enter our challenge as many times as you like and combine with other challenges. There is also a £20 crafting voucher up for grabs to the lucky randomly selected winner to spend over on the Country View Crafts on line store. Remember that UK postage and packing from CVC is free on all orders over £7.50! Once again all the details for the January challenge can be found here.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Take care and stay safe. I will be sharing my 2nd design team project for our squares challenge on the 13th of January.

Back again in a couple of hours!

Bye for now

Jane x