A Daisy necklace

First of all can I thank you all so much for all the lovely comments and best wishes you left on my blog and Facebook on Friday wishing me well with my Designer news for Visible Image. I was so touched by the kindness expressed. I am still buzzing with excitement and looking forward to creating for the Create and Craft shows on TV later this year. Visible Image are also launching on USA Create and Craft this week. If you missed my post you find it here.

We had the pleasure of a visit from Daisy and Co this weekend. As we still have Bear (our son's dog) staying they came up to us on Saturday afternoon. I'm not sure Bear would have been very comfy our car for an hour and a half.

 When I last saw my DD she told me that Daisy keeps putting on her necklaces.  I have made my DD lots of lovely lampwork glass bead necklaces over the years and she was concerned they might get broken. I offered to make Daisy something suitable for a 2 3/4 year old and that's what I planned to have ready for Daisy's visit yesterday.

I have already made Daisy a silver daisy necklace for when she is older so I needed something "beady".
I had lots of different ideas I  knew that it needed to be a long one, 22" to be precise so that it was like Daisy's Mummy's. Also it needed go over her head. I looked a "child" beads like fish, stars etc on Ebay and found some rather nice bright coloured acrylic hearts, which I bought.

I decided not to use the orange...is it just me or is orange a rather odd colour??

I set up these colours and they sat on my workbench for a few days whilst I played with different spacer beads but I really didn't get anywhere...until I took Bear out for a walk. I saw a little girl of about 4 walking to a party with her Mummy. She had a sweet dress on and a pearl necklace. That was it! My daughter has lots of necklaces with pearls in and if Daisy's was like her Mummy's she would also be more like to wear it. In my stash I have some good "faux" pearls and I got them out.

Rather than a fiddly clasp I used one of the fixed clasps I had made in my silversmithing class a while back for my jewellery stash.

I used the round one on the right.

I found 3 beads worked well between the pearls

and here it is

So the real test was would Daisy like it and wear it instead of her Mummy's necklaces...?

I think the cheesy grin says it all. She wore it all the time she was here, even down to my studio.

However she decided to keep it safe whilst she crafted and she put it in its little organza bag next to her.

Just look what she made

Yes we were in Halloween mode...LOL. She got out some brown distress inks too.

When Daisy and Co went home I decided to continue crafting in the same autumnal colours Daisy had got out.  I made a fairy card using my Lavinia stamps I won in the summer. I also wanted to enter some fun challenges which started in September. I created the monochromatic background by blending my Distress inks and made a moon by masking as I blended. I love the sentiment.

This will be making its way down to Dotty's this week as my fairy cards seem to go down well there. I am also starting to change my colour palette as I am so inspired by the changing seasons. So it will soon be out with the summer cards and in with my autumnal inspiration.

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

That's Crafty 1/3 all square my card is 5 1/2 by 5 1/2 " square
Crafty Catz 1/3 anything goes with an autumnal twist
Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes
Simon says stamp work it Wednesdays 2/3 stamping
Mod squad foliage
Ribbon girl 1/3 September card challenge
Card Mania 1/3 earth tones
Time out 1/3 trees/leaves
The Artistic Stamper 1/3 Monochrommatic
The Emerald faeries monchrommatic
Penny Black and more add a sentiment

Thanks for your kind visits to me today. I hope you enjoyed your weekend? We finally had some well needed rain overnight. My garden welcomed it as the lawn was getting quite parched. The sunshine is due to return again mid week so it appears that we are still hanging onto summer for the moment.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Some very exciting news....................

Today I am finally able to share with you some very exciting news. I am going to be a Guest Designer for the wonderful Visible Image UK stamp company. I have bought their stamps from their very earliest day and I have been delighted to witness their meteoric rise in the very competitive crafting world. Recently they have appeared on TV on Create and Craft here in the UK but from 9 September they are breaking into the USA market too via Create and Craft USA! I will be designing and making samples for their TV shows as well as other bits and bobs as needed.

I decided that this post should be a celebration of my Visible Image work up til now. I have many of their wonderful stamps and use them a lot in my crafting, as you will have seen here on my blog.
The first stamp I ever bought from them was a little snow scene, many (?10) years ago on Ebay. In fact it was the first "clear" stamp I owned as up til then rubber stamps were "rubber" stamps.  Over the years they have brought out so many brilliant designs. Mark and Helen Alexander own the company and I met them in person a few years back at Alexandra Palace stamping show. They really are such a delightful couple; hardworking and passionate about their stamps. Their so deserve their success.

Looking through my photo archive I have made so many projects using their stamps that it was hard to choose just a few.  Obviously some of these stamps are now discontinued. My cards, using their stamps, also sell well down at Dotty's Tea Rooms, including the one below...such a brilliant camera stamp. The sentiment and butterfly stamps are VI too.

 I love using their stamps for my "Moments" I make for my journal as they allow me full rein with my creativity. I have linked a few of my projects to the original blog post in case you have not seen it before. This one was from our visit to the Shard in January..and I used my favourite of their current stamps, the amazing eye; Vision INKognito

 and the Moment below was inspired by our Bombay Sapphire Distillery visit.

I love their dragonfly and butterflies...

and the Bronte Verse and Moment stamp which I used in my Sicily journal last year.

Below is an old Christmas sentiment of theirs

I had fun altering a puzzle piece...

and loved using their butterflies in a mixed media card.

This was a wedding card.....

and a Christmas card featuring the very first stamp of theirs I owned (long discontinued)

And some of their trees used on a pink Christmas card...very "un" me!

 and the last piece is one of my favourite ever Christmas cards I have made, using their Vision INKognito stamp. You can see the creative process here.

So to commemorate my exciting news I decided to make a new "Moment" for Jane's Journal. I wanted to use my favourite VI stamp, the eye from the Vision INKognito. I also wanted to share some love, so hearts featured too. I also had the idea of my heart "soaring" with excitement for the days ahead. Here is what I came up with.

I added my hearts using texture paste through my TH heart stencil. I used red and blue Gelatos for my inky background. My heart die cuts are Memory Box. 

Like my favourite Christmas card, where I made the hair from something very different (pine leaf die cuts)  I used the wings from their awesome butterflies as eyelashes and also to "fly" my soaring heart

The sentiment is from an old set of theirs but it is so apt.........

I really hope I can inspire people with my art and my cards. This is another very exciting path that I am taking on my crafting journey. Thank you Helen and Mark for letting me join your awesome team and to everyone for visiting me again today.

I would like also like to link up my Moment with the following challenges;

ABC O is for open..anything goes
Rubber Dance 2nd anniversary, chose a mood board I have chosen the one for Nov/Dec 2015
Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes
Simon says stamp work it Wednesdays 1/3 stamping
More mixed media anything goes


If you would like to read my introduction over at their blog...have a peep here and there is also a link over on their Facebook page here

Exciting times lie ahead.....whoop whoop!

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Travel essentials for September

Happy September everyone.Our lodger, Bear and I have enjoyed lots of long walks. The sunny weather has been so helpful when looking after a rather large dog!

 Being the first of the month it's time for my first DT piece for our new challenge over at Country View. The theme for September is "Travel". I decided to make vintage travel themed cards...one for a man and one for a woman. It's a very open theme and I hope lots of you will be inspired to join in the fun which runs until 30 September. You can enter any craft, any genre, any other challenges and as many time as you like. It's my kind of challenge. Here is the link.

I made a master board to use as the backing for both cards. For continuity with the travel theme I made it look a bit like a map.

I used PaperArtsy Fresco acrylics and brayered on my colours.

I sorted lots of travel themed stamps from my stash which I added, using different colours of archival ink.

Below is my finished master board which I then cut up for two 7X5" cards (with a few snippets left over, which were perfect to use for other cards).

Today I am sharing my man's card. I looked through my stamp stash and chose a stamp very apt for travel...a camera....a travel essential in my book. I love this Visible Image stamp. I heat embossed it in black and then fussy cut it out.

I used an embossing folder to add some "tyre" texture to some metallic blue card which I then die cut twice to make a frame for the camera.

I then added my focal and a Clearly Besotted stamped sentiment.

Here  is my finished card

I would also love to link up with the following challenges;

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes
Simon says stamp work it Wednesdays 1/3 stamping
Allsorts 3/3 use at least 2 dies I used a stitched die and then die cut inside it using a Labels die. The CB stamped sentiment is also die cut

I will be using the other 7X5" piece of master board for my "female" 2nd  DT version. I will be sharing this on 29 September.

Thanks for visiting me here today and for all your kind comments. Let's hope this lovely spell of sunshine last a little longer and we enjoy an "Indian summer". Fingers crossed.

I have another post coming up tomorrow as I have some very exiting news to share with you all...stay tuned.....

Bye for now,

Jane x