Real winter weather

Finally we seem to have some real winter weather, you know the sort when there is an icy frost when you wake up and gorgeous low milky sunshine. If you wrap up warm it's a joy to get out in the sharp crisp air. I love it. On Saturday we went down to Southampton to visit my daughter and her fiance for the day. There was a really deep frost when we woke up.

All my plants had a dusting of frost over their leaves.











We arrived by 11am and spent until 2pm just chatting, catching up and being treated to Tom's wonderful cooking....sea food fried rice with extra prawn and squid and a dipping soy sauce...mmmm! Later in the afternoon the sky had clouded over and the temperature had risen and we thought that it would be a perfect time to try a walk down by the coast.

There was little wind and we were well wrapped up so it was really delightful to stroll along the cliff path. The sea looked so cold beneath us. There was no one around.

As time wore on the skies really clouded up and it looked as though a storm would break.....

It was spectacular the way the sunshine was shining through the thick clouds in huge shafts of light. It was almost like a scene from the film "Independence Day".
The coast line we looked out to is none other than  the Isle of Wight, one of my favourite places to visit in the UK and home of many happy holidays we took our children on when they were tiny. Through binoculars we could even see Osborne House and it's gardens.

No storm broke and we were able to continue our walk down to the shore line.

We took the countryside route for our return  and saw the sky changing all the time.

We even walked past a super thatched cottage.

Until by the time we got back for a welcome cup of tea the icy blue winter sky was back again! I do love it when we get this crisp cold winter weather. There has been more of the same again today and I even dug out my hat to wear for the first time this weekend.



I hope you all enjoyed your weekend and if it's been cold that you have been able to wrap up warm and get out for a bracing walk?

Here is my card challenge for today. I was able to make some new cards on Sunday as cold weather is also a good excuse for some extra crafting!

I have used a super cute Penny Black hedgehog stamp which I have had in my stash for years and decided to ink him up again to see the light of day!

Here he is in close up. I coloured him with my trusty ProMarkers. I highlighted the coloured image with my Prismacolor pencils. I added glossy accents and glitter to the parcel to make it stand out.

I used the same heart papers and red embossed heart card that I used for my recent cat card. We card makers never waste a scrap of anything! I finished everything off with a polka dot red button and a prima flower.
The little sentiment is a shrink plastic one I made. Shrink plastic is something else I have not played with until recently and is really great fun.
I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;
 Penny Black Saturday challenge 184 anything goes
Winter wonderland Birthday wishes
Stamping for the weekend Use old stash my old stash is my PB hedgehog stamp and my shrink plastic.
I love Promarkers Cute and cuddly 2nd entry
Joanna Sheen Celebrations
Squirrel and the Fox Critters challenge 9
Whimsy Stamps challenge blog  Happy Birthday #21
Dream Valley Anything goes 3rd entry

I have popped him up for sale in my Etsy Shop here

So here we are on a cold Monday evening. It's Tango again for us tonight. It was great fun last week, a really low dance with no rise and fall...our teacher told us all to keep low enough to get splinters in our legs!  We will need to wrap up warm and I hope any real hedgehogs out there are fast asleep in their winter hibernation nests. We may even light our fire in the front room tomorrow evening...we have not had a real fire yet this winter. Now that is another winter favourite of mine......

Have a great week,

Bye for now,

Jane x