T is for...........

The weather today is beautiful.
This was my garden this morning, gorgeous hot sunshine

Today I am sharing my newest art journal page made for the Craft Barn dictionary challenge where the letter is T and also for some other great challenges where the themes are summer/floral/ things with wings etc. Just up my street.

My daughter and SIL have been to 2 weddings 2 weeks in a row so I was feeling in quite a wedding mood.  I thought I would create a summer wedding page when I came across a great word in my vintage dictionary....

tintinnabulation.......

tintin what I hear you say (and if you have heard of it you get a brownie point) I certainly hadn't.

Yes tintinnabulation.

My clever Hb knew its definition  and we agreed it would be the perfect word to use.

 I can often hear the local church bells ring when there is a wedding.
Out came my summery TH stamps and I stamped in various archival inks.

I added some other stamps too and then started dabbing on white, gold and bronze acrylic paints until I was happy with the background.

My bells were altered with tissue and coloured with distress stains. I added a sprinkle of

golden glitter.

I added sparkle medium through stencils to the bells and to the page to get  a real bridal feel.

Then I just got too carried away to take any more process photos!

Here is my finished piece. I added some wide lace to give the appearance of a brides veil hiding the texture and fabric of her beautiful dress.
The dragonfly gives the feel of a hot June day.

The bells are ringing...tintinnabulation...LOLOL!

 To see how I made the dragonfly you will have to come back to see my June Tim card post. I will share this soon.

 The lovely pink ribbon is from my own daughter's christening cake I made in June 1986...30 years ago. The church bells rang then too.

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

The Craft Barn t is for tintinnabulation
A Vintage Journey use texture/embossing paste
Creative Carte Blanche things with wings
Pixie's snippets playground #232 I used snippets of card for my flowers
Allsorts the great outdoors
Frilly and Funkie let the words do the talking
Noor summer
Stamps and stencils floral frenzy

I am heading straight back out to the sunny garden now, time to put on the kettle or it may even be Pimm's O'Clock soon ..who knows. Enjoy your Sunday too. Don't forget to listen for the tintinnabulation, especially if there is a wedding taking place. I think I will just sit and listen to the bees today....bliss.

Thanks as always for your kind visits and sweet comments you take the time to leave.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

A crafty bank holiday

I'm back today to share my promised photos from the bank holiday when we had our little Daisy to stay again. The weather last weekend was wonderful; hot sunny days and it really did feel like summer was just around the corner. Unlike this week, which has been cold and wet. My digitalis is in flower, such spectacular flowers

 and the bees are busy gathering their nectar.

I have planted up my pots and Daisy helped me with the watering.

The next day she was desperate to get out to my studio. Here is my little crafter all ready to play.

She wanted to use the same Penny Black stamp which she had used the previous weekend so I got it out for her. This time she wanted to stamp it in different colours

 ........what was so funny is she asked me to hold up her work whilst she took the photo. She really is becoming quite the budding photographer too. The photo below was taken by her,...

She spotted my tin of gems and I offered for her to add a gem to each of the flowers. This she did...choosing a different colour for each one.

We also had some fun messy play which involved drawing round our hands.

Here is Daisy's finished work, not bad for a  2 1/2  year old is it!

We had time down the swings too.....there is nothing like being a Nanna. I really cherish our time together.

For my card today I thought I would share a very summery one.

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

As you like it 1/3 favourite food or drink mine is of course tea as shown by my cup and saucer. The reason why is it is so quick to make and tastes divine....even better if served in a cup and saucer!
Creative moments 2/3 anything goes
Artistic Inspirations 2/3 anything goes
Crafting from the heart  2/3 anything goes
Addicted to stamps and More 2/3  anything goes
Emerald Faeries 2/3  anything goes
Allsorts in the pink
Crafting for all seasons make it girlie

Crafty Boots 2/3  butterflies and/or bees

Our hot sunshine is promised to make a return on Sunday......we were spoilt last weekend and I will be glad to see it back.  It's Friday already so it's time to wish you an enjoyable weekend; I hope to get back to some more gardening.

Thanks as always for your kind visits and sweet comments you take the time to leave.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

June DT post for Country View Challenges, use crackle

Hello everyone and welcome to flaming (we hope) June. Unbelievably we are half way through 2016...gosh time really is flying. The weather has been very kind and my beloved local ponds are looking so lush.

 Everywhere is looking so lush

As it is the first of the month I am sharing my DT project with you for Country View Challenges. For June the theme is to "Use Crackle" in your work. So it is time to get out the crackle pastes, paint, stamps, textures and anything else which could be used to add some crackle texture or even faux crackle texture to your work. Please pop over to our challenge here to find out all the details and join in with the fun. You could even be lucky enough to win a £20 gift voucher from our sponsor, Country View Crafts.

As June is the month in which we celebrate Father's day on 19th I decided to make Dad cards for both my inspirational pieces. The first one I am sharing today is the card I have made for my own Dad for Father's Day.

I use the grey board back of a used pad of mixed media card and cut it into 4 pieces.

I took one piece and added some Fresco paints in random splodges.

I then spread a layer of weathered wood over the paints and after leaving it to dry applied the crackle paint

I love this stuff! Just look at the amazing crackles.......

I didn't take the next photo but to finish it off I added a wash of DecoArt acrylics.

Now that I had my base finished it was time to think about my card design.
I have some fun childhood photos which I love to use so I printed off this one of me....I was probably around 3 years old in it, in our garden in Peckham, London where we lived until 1979.

I stuck it under the brilliant Cheery Lynn film set die cut.












I got together some snippets of TH papers and some old vintage book pages and die cuts and made my embellishments.

Here is my finished card

The crackle texture is brilliant, it's a shame you can't feel it!

Here are some close ups....yummy crackle

and cheeky faced me ;0)

I would  like to link my card up with these fun challenges;

Cheery Lynn lots of layers
Anything but cute celebrate your style.....I LOVE adding texture to my work so this piece really celebrates my style!
Simon Says stamp Wednesday anything goes
Creative moments anything goes
Artistic Inspirations anything goes
Crafting from the heart anything goes
Addicted to stamps and More 1/3  anything goes
Emerald Faeries 1/3  anything goes


My 2nd DT post for Country View Challenges will be on 27th June so if you would like to see the 2nd Dad crackle card I made do pop back.. A little hint is that for the 2nd one I used a faux crackle effect....it looks very realistic.

Thanks for visiting me today and for all the kind comments you take the time to leave me.

I will be back soon with my promised bank holiday Daisy photos.

Bye for now,

Jane x