Autumn leaf inspiration

The weather has finally turned very chilly and the leaves are beginning to fall now. I took these photos last week to show the awesome autumnal leaves I have witnessed this year. I am so very lucky where I live, just 10 miles from London but in a very pretty suburb. The local lake glowed with the colours. 

I still visit my dino ducks (Egyptian geese) regularly and feed them. They are just a total delight.

 who can resist this face?

Inspired by these colours around me I made my November artist trading coins for the swap I take part in.
I make 5; 3 for the swap, 1 for Daisy and 1 to keep for reference.
I made some quick inky backgrounds

and stamped the small Visible Image Erika's Maple leaf onto some inky mop up card. Some I added some texture to with a little crackle and some little dew drops of sparkle using Glossy Accents. I also added some of the tiny leaves to the coins and a sentiment.
Here they are;

 with a couple in close up.

The style of the type face with this stamp set is just perfect for creating leafy scenes.

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

Mix it up 5/5 anything goes
Addicted to stamps and more make your mark
Cupcake inspirations 1/3 colour challenge; red orange and yellow
The house that stamps built 1/3 tic tac toe I have gone for the right vertical line; watercolour, anything but a card and sparkle/shimmer
Fab n funky 1/3 add some sparkle
Through the craft room door 1/2 anything goes
Crafty sentiments 1/3 anything goes

Thanks so much for stopping by.

I am back tomorrow with my 2nd DT post for STAMPlorations.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Christmas stamping for our November challenge over at Country View

It is time for my to share my 2nd design team make for our current challenge over at Country View Crafts. 

November has finally turned chilly and it does feel more like the count down to Christmas. I spotted this lovely decoration in a shop recently, it will soon be time to decorate our trees. 

The theme this month is to hand stamp the focal of your card, so no digis, dies etc please but you can use these in the background, as long as we can see stamping as the main focus of your card. All the details can be found here.

My first project was a transition tag from Halloween to All Saints day which if you missed it you can see it here. 

This make is a Christmas card using stamps by Visible Image. Remember that Susan of Country View Crafts offers FREE UK postage on everything with no minimum order. I used the Christmas Eve set (sadly completely sold out for this year) with the super cute Snowman Jack

 and a sentiment from Sentimental Christmas  

This is what I got up to;

I added Paperartsy sleight blue infusions to watercolour paper and spritzed with water.

I then masked a moon and added pumice stone and chipped sapphire oxides.

 I stamped Snowman Jack and paper pieced his hat and scarf. I coloured his features with watercolour pens. 

 I stamped Santa and the sentiment into the sky adding some gold stars from the same set.

 I created some snow drifts ready for Snowman Jack by adding some more pumice stone ink.

Here is my finished card.

with a couple of close ups

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

Sweet stampin 3/3 Make your own background

Addicted to stamps 3/3 anything goes

Mix it up 4/5 anything goes
Addicted to stamps and more anything goes
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas challenge anything goes
Penny Black and more 1/3 Christmas
Try it on Tuesday 1/3 Cold, cold, cold

I hope I may have inspired you to join in with our 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 is absolutely FREE! All the details for the November challenge can be found here.

I hope your card making (or buying) is on track. I still love to send and receive cards every year. E cards just don't quite tick the box do they!

Thanks so much for stopping by,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Now she is 6

My sweetest granddaughter Daisy was 6 yesterday and we celebrated in style at the weekend.

She chose to have a swimming party which was followed by a birthday tea at the leisure centre.

 It really was a fab day and she and everyone enjoyed every minute.

I promised I would share my cake and card but before I do so I must share some brilliant new accessories I bought from Homepride. I have always used their flour and collected their tokens.

I added a brilliant large mixing bowl, mug and tea towel to my little collection of Homepride treasures.
The tea towel artist is the same as the guy who draws for The Great British Bake Off.

The mug is made by Emma Bridgewater.

 The large mixing bowl is made by Mason and it was perfect for mixing the cake in.

 There are Homepride men in relief around the edge! It's awesome. 

So I christened my products making Daisy's cake!

as always I make a raspberry jam Victoria sponge.
I made Daisy fondant icing candle holders 

and a kaleidoscope (yes that's the correct word!) of fondant icing butterflies. I added extra details using powder colours. The extras were used to decorate the cup cakes my daughter made.

For those of you who are cake makers for the first time I used a new fondant icing to cover the cake called Couture made by cakestuff.com and I could not recommend it more highly (and no they did not ask me to say this).  It gave the smoothest coating to the cake which was blemish free and very easy to apply. The only problem is the smallest quantity to buy at the moment is 2.5kg so I had a LOT spare.
I covered the cake and piped a yellow border. 

So finally here is the finished cake.

with some close ups

and here is the birthday girl blowing out her candles

I can also now reveal her card. She loves fairies and I combined that with butterflies and the colours of her cake.
The stamps are all by Visible Image and I die cut Daisy's name and a glittery number 6. The background is brushos and I coloured her dress with a gel pen.

You can just see the glitter of her wings here

 and the shine of the bubbles using Glossy Accents.

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

Pixie's snippets playground #365

Sweet stampin 2/3 Make your own background

Addicted to stamps 2/3 anything goes

Mix it up 3/5 anything goes
Addicted to stamps and more anything goes
Crafty Calendar 3/3 cute and girly

Craft Stamper take it make it 3/3 November anything goes

So now she is 6... and just the sweetest girl. I am one very blessed Nanna.

Thanks for stopping by,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x