More nature inspired inky play

Thank you all for the amazing comments you left for me when I shared my first pages from my small art journal. If you missed the post this is the link here.

I am enjoying just playing with inks and paints when I have a spare minute. Making art for art's sake! Last week I spotted some more pretty spring flowers at the garden centre I visited with my parents.

Gorgeous hellebores

 witch hazel in flower

and these purple beauties, cyclamen. I loved the contrast of the green leaves...stunning colours from Mother Nature.

I was not too sure about the fairy statues, this one, in my opinion, seemed more suited to a graveyard!

but I thought the one below was rather sweet peeping out amongst the primroses.

This was perfect inspiration for my art journal pages. Brenda over at Bumblebees and butterflies  is suggesting we all link up our art pages just for fun and sharing creativity. I thought the purple and green of the cyclamen was gorgeous. I still love using fairies in my crafting (yes I have a very varied crafting style and I love fairies as much as grunge)I had also received my newest Tim Distress Ink, Cracked Pistachio

so I knew I needed to have a play with this new colour. It is gorgeous! I'm now waiting to order his Forgotten Coral when it comes out, his names are brilliant aren't they.

I first prepped my pages with some gesso and added some book pages and corrugated card for texture.

I pressed texture paste through my TH stencil and left it to dry. I also pressed some paste through my dot fade stencil

I made up my own distress spray using Seedless Preserves re-inker and added some squirts to my pages. Sorry this photo is really dark, the light is not good enough yet without my light box.






I added some more stencilling using archival ink through my wood grain stencil.

I blended on my new Cracked Pistachio DI...it's such a gorgeous retro green and complemented my purple so well. I also added some Pumice Stone DI ink which Tim recommended as a good colour combo.
I kept adding, swirling and dripping inks until I was happy with my papers. Then it was time to start thinking about my embellies.

I wanted to use my Lavinia fairy stamps so I added them using the tissue paper stamping technique. The little quote is very sweet.  I wanted to create a secret magical fairy glen in my journal so I also inked up lots of butterfly dies and punches. I added a touch of fairy magic bling with a lace Cheery Lynn border using purple glitter card,

Here are my finished pages aka my fairy glen ;0)

My Lavinia fairy is sprinkling some magical stars; I stamped the star ball under her fingers. I stood her on a die cut branch and included some other black die cuts as I felt they complemented the silhouette image.

Below you can see the Joy! butterfly die as well as a Joanna sheen ivy leaf. Most of the other leaves and flowers are all Cheery Lynn.

The large butterflies are Cheery Lynn, the small are Tim Holtz and an MS punch. The glitter card Cheery Lynn lace border gives a touch of fairy magic. I love the way the book pages are visible under the coloured textured stencilling.

and I added a shiny rhinestone to the centre of my Cheery Lynn flower. Lots of texture here.

and here is the sweet fairy in close up sprinkling some love

I would like to enter my journal pages into the following challenges;

Lavinia bright and beautiful
Simon Says stamp a piece of paradise I have enjoyed playing in my imaginary fairy paradise
Noor!design UK spring #3
That Craft Place film inspired my film is Disney's Fantasia
Pile it on butterflies
Not just cards anything goes
Country View drips and drops
Penny Black and More anything goes except a digi
Stamping sensations anything goes
Art with heart projects to love
Emerald Faeries all you need is love
Stamp and Create all you need is love
Party time Tuesday anything goes
Inspiration Journal love is in the air
Craft stamper Take it make it stencilling
Bunny Zoe for the girls
Top Tip Tuesday use rubber stamps only I have only used Lavinia rubber stamps in my pages. My Top tip for the challenge today is how to add rubber stamps to textured journal pages. If you try stamping directly parts of the  stamp will often will have no contact and be missing from the image. To solve this use archival ink and stamp the image on tissue paper. Roughly tear around the image, don't cut or you will just have harsh edges. You can then add the image by carefully spreading glue (I use matt medium) to the back and then apply the stamped image with a paintbrush smoothing it in place with a little more glue. It melts into the background like magic. I used this method for all the stamps I used in my pages above.

I have a very rare free Thursday this week so I hope to have a chance for some more inky play. We had a wonderful Sunday with Daisy and Co and even managed a walk by the sea. I hope to make a Moment of our day and also share some sunny photos at the end of the week...fingers crossed.


Enjoy your week,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

A very happy Spider day

We had a lovely Valentine's day and I even had a couple of hours for some crafty play. The snowdrops are looking so pretty outside but I noticed that morning as we were going out the absence of spiders' webs.

I honestly love garden spiders and find them fascinating and for most of the year I am able to marvel at the webs they weave. Obviously at this time of the year it is far to cold for them, so they must be tucked away somewhere keeping snug.

I bought my Hb a box of chocolates for a token present but I also thought that in my few hours free I could make a little gift for him. I could also join in the challenge of "paint" over at PaperArtsy as well as a couple of other great challenges I wanted to enter.

My Hb wears a suit to work and all his shirts have removable bones in the collar. To give an idea of size I have put a pound coin in the photo.
The other day he asked me if we had a small jar that he could keep them in as they lie loose in his bedside table and he is forever searching for them.

I decided that not only did I have a little jar but that I could make it into a gift for him. This jar contained olive pate which we bought years ago in Rhodes.It is one of those things which has sat in the cupboard and never seen the light of day again. I emptied out the contents...the sell by date was 2010...LOL. I threw away the lid and washed the jar thoroughly.





Over at PaperArtsy the theme for this fortnight is paint and I watched Leandra's video. I was amazed to hear that it is possible to paint straight onto glass with acrylic paint with no prep at all. I decided to get out the few colours of Fresco paints I own and have a go.

I chose Vanilla as my base and gave the jar 2 coats.

The paints went on really easily and dried quickly. At this point I had no idea at all what I was going to use as decoration..it is so hard to make things for men. I had already used hearts for my Hb's Valentine's card...then I remembered the lovely green of the snowdrops and the lack of spiders from the morning. I remembered that one of his favourite stamps of mine is a sweet spider and spider's web which were the first ever stamps I bought in 1993.


I decided to add some Toad Hall green paint by dabbing it through some hessian as a stencil, my shop bought stencils would have been too fiddly.

I then added my stamping using Archival inks. First I added some random text using Wendy Vecchi's lovely yellow version.

It was very tricky as I had to roll the stamps around the jar but the end result was fun.
Any spider features which were not clear I just neatened up with a black permanent marker. Some only had 4 legs so I made them up to 8! A spider is only a spider if he has 8 isn't he.

So here is the finished spider jar, I glued some hessian to the rim to finish it off. 

My Hb loves it and it was made with love for him on Valentine's day...or should it now be called Spider Day?

I would like to enter my painted/stamped jar into the following challenges;

PaperArtsy paint;Topic 3 I was also inspired by Anneke showing that you only need a couple of colours to made something striking.
Stamping Sensations anything goes
That Craft Place Film inspired yes you guessed it...Spider Man!
Simon Says stamp Wednesday all creatures great and small my spider is tiny ;0)
Rhedd's Creative spirit anything goes
Our Creative Corner tic tac toe I have used the middle horizontal line; paint, stamps, stencil (I used the hessian as mine)
Craft Stamper Take it Make it stenciling I hope to have shown that you can use anything, even hessian as a stencil
The Ribbon Girl Ivory/cream
Art with heart projects to love

I hope you all enjoyed your own Spider(Valentine) days and have a lovely restful Sunday. We're off to Southampton in the next hour to catch up with Daisy and her Mummy and Daddy. Thanks for all you kind visits and comments and can I extend a very warm welcome to my latest followers, it's so good to see you here following my creative journey.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Things to love about February

There are lots of reasons why I love February.....

 The sun is getting higher in the sky making the hours of daylight longer every single day...

and there is some definite warmth when the sun shines.

 Nests are beginning to appear in the bare trees....but wait a minute

the trees are not so bare now,  buds are starting to appear

 with the promise of new life contained within.

New growth is starting everywhere with gorgeous vibrant greens

 and the alpine plants in my garden are in flower,

as well as some crocuses.

Even Old Choc is sprouting out some new green growth

but one place that is still too cold for the moment is my beloved Studio which still has the blinds down and no one is home......perhaps another 6 weeks and I can venture out....roll on spring.

But two of the best things I love about February are two celebrations, my son's birthday on the 24th and of course Valentine's Day on Saturday. I am proud to admit that I am a soppy romantic and yes my Hb and I send and receive cards and token gifts and enjoy the day together. It is also 35 years ago on Saturday since we got engaged...wow where did that time go?

My card challenge for today is the Valentine Card I will be giving him on Saturday morning. together with some heart truffles.

I decided to try some stamping on hessian...a new thing for me and I rather liked the effect. I used the free stamp from the February Craft Stamper magazine.

I also added some heart stenciling using acrylic paint through my Tim Holtz heart stencil.
The base of my focal used corrugated card, distress inks and stains, book pages for texture and the tiny hearts left over from my Feb TH tag

and shhh, here is the final card

with a close up of the focal and my sentiment xox

I made another of my crunchy distress glitter hearts using my Cheery Lynn heart die, the inter linked hearts are by Memory box.

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

Craft Stamper take it make it stencilling
Mixed Media Think Pink I have some pink ink on my focal shown above, not too much as this is a male card but just enough to show some love ;0)
Natalie and Amy all about the love
Art with Heart projects to love
Our Creative Corner tic tac toe I have used the middle horizontal line; Paints (white acrylic) stamps (Clearly Besotted sentiments) and stencils (TH heart)
That Craft Place anything goes
Simon Says Stamp Mondays red or pink I like to use both
Papertake weekly hearts and/or flowers
Stamping sensations anything goes
Penny Black and More Anything goes
Jellypark love is in the air
Emerald Faeries all you need is love
The Artistic stamper love
Stamp and Create all you need is love
Party time Tuesdays anything goes
Inspiration Journal at Inspiration Emporium love is in the air
Artistic Inspirations anything goes with an option of a heart
Sweet stamping add a heart
Allsorts love is all around
Bunny Zoe for the girls
Fussy and Fancy it's all about love
Country View Drips and drops I have lots of drips and drops within my focal

I hope you are all loving February too and that you are seeing a few signs of Mother Nature waking up. If not I hope my sunny photos give a peep of things to come.

Happy Valentine's Day on Saturday everyone and can I send you a little love even if you can't or don't participate in the celebrations xox

Enjoy the upcoming weekend, we are seeing darling Daisy and her Mummy and Daddy on Sunday, she is growing so quickly and has even started using crayons and feeding herself with a spoon....and yes we are loving seeing her grow into such a sweet little person.

She even copies her Daddy and Nanna playing the piano

Don't you just love the hair slide ;0)

And finally a quote I love from George Herbert;

"A gentle heart is tied with an easy thread"

Go gently through the rest of February.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x