Last December days

Hello, I have emerged from the other side of Christmas, such a wonderful family time. We ate, drank and made merry with lots of laughter and games around the table. We have not played Cludo for years and forgot just how much fun it is.  The last of our family went home yesterday and I now have some time to sort out my crafting plans for the new year.

Before I say goodbye to 2017 I wanted to look back at some of my seasonal photos from my garden or local surroundings from the year and look at how Mother Nature influenced my crafting palette.

I chose 4 photos from each season.....

Spring 

 Summer

 Autumn

Winter

I have made over 300 cards, 12 calendar pages, 20 Moments, some mixed media 3d pieces and dozens of tags in 2017 so I would find it impossible to share my favourites, as there are far too many to go through.

As you well know I love playing with styles and techniques so I thought I would just share a collage of some of the pieces I made this year.

My last card challenge entry for this year is a card I made for a new baby who arrived on 20 December..just in time for winter and she is most appropriately called Winter! I used stamps and stencils by STAMPlorations and even managed to mask off and use her  name from one of their fab stamps.

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

Pixies's snippets playground #313/14 I used lots of little snippets for this card.
Double D 3/3 baby it's cold outside/ Winter
That's Crafty 2/3 anything goes
Die cut divas 2/3 winter time
Emerald Creek Dares anything goes
Fashionable stamping 1/3 celebrate

We will be seeing the new year in with Daisy and Co and I just wanted to close with this photo of me and my darling grandbabies taken just before they went home yesterday..precious memories were made.

I will be back bright and breezy on New Year's day with my DT card for our 1st challenge of the year for Country View....you might need sunglasses for it if you have enjoyed a heavy Old Year's night 😂. Thanks so much for stopping by and for all you visits and comments you left here during 2017. I hope you are enjoying some down time post Christmas and looking forward to what lies ahead in the new year.

Bye for now,

Jane x

A paper anniversary

My daughter and son-in-law recently celebrated their first wedding anniversary. It is incredible how quickly that year has flown by. I shared many posts with you during the pre wedding build up last year of all  the jewellery I created, the card etc. I had lots of "bit and pieces" of memorabilia from both the build up to and the actual wedding day. I had a whole bag full and was not sure what to do with it until one day another of those light bulb moments occurred in my little brain. I would put them all together in an album. I decided to create a "Smash"album which I could give to them as a present for their  first wedding anniversary as that is traditionally a "paper" anniversary.

For those of you not in the know a Smash album is a sort of scrap book but with the advantage that the pages inside are all  themed. The idea is to "Smash" in everything and add to it as you go along.I bought the Wedding version and ordered some copies of the photos I took at the wedding so that I could create a memory album that could be treasured and perhaps even shown to their children one day.

It took me a long time to work out an order for the album and eventually I decided to start the album with photos of when they first met, their engagement, the buying of the dress, the hen party  etc and I would end it with photos of the actual day, 28 July 2012. I used all the little bits and pieces I had kept; ribbons, receipts, menus etc etc.

I had a trial laying out of everything and then I stuck everything in. I cut lots of themed die cuts and I also added some text in my own handwriting as I thought that would make it very personal.


Here are just a few of the many pages I made;

This page is their engagement showing the cake I made and the silver pendant.  I had kept a piece of the ribbon from the cake so I added that.

 This is the wedding jewellery I made for my girlie, her bridesmaids and me.

The dress fitting and the receipts .

Our fun cheesecake testing day and hair practice in the May, on a very hot sunny day.

Their wedding card; I had kept some of the embellishments which I stuck in around the photos

The day before the wedding when we had the day together, just Mum and Daughter in a beautiful hotel in Midhurst, near to the wedding venue. This was the morning of the wedding.

The moment she arrived....a moment that still makes my eyes prickle ;0)

and joyful celebrations for the newly weds

I had kept the ribbon and the pins from her beautiful bouquet as she gave me her flowers. I carefully fixed them in place in the album.

I also decided that I would make some special wrapping paper and a tag to present it in. My daughter adores strawberries so this was the theme, as was their strawberry anniversary card which I have shown you all previously. I hand stamped the paper.  Brown paper is always the perfect medium for this and gives a really great hand made effect. I use it a lot for wrapping very special parcels and the hand stamped images made it really one of a kind. It is also so much cheaper than gift wrap....a £1 roll wraps many many pressies.

I also made a little strawberry gift tag to match and my made with love 1st anniversary present was complete.

and here it is all wrapped up. My daughter and son-in-law absolutely loved it and I got such a sweet teary text from my girlie on the morning of her wedding anniversary...it went down a treat and is much loved ;0)

I would like to enter my tag (and even my smash book and wrapping paper if they qualify ;0) into the following challenges;

Crafting for all Seasons tags
Whimsy Clean and simple
Papertake weekly flower power
Emma's Cards floral
Rhedd and Rosie use red
Divas by design use some twine
Pile it On No designer paper
Papercrafting Journey anything goes
Make it Monday Linky party
Heck of a challenge summer holidays
A little bit crafty summer sun

It is the bank holiday weekend here in the UK, the last one before Christmas no less (123 days to go). Enjoy it and I hope you get some crafting time as well as time to relax. We finally got a real soaking of rain this morning to water my very parched lawn.  We are planning some quiet time at home but on Tuesday I am off to a card class run by my blogging friend Brenda Brown in Hampshire. I am hoping to learn some more about distress inks, which she is the Queen of. As it is near to my daughter (76 days until our grandbaby is due ;0) I shall be carrying on afterwards to visit her and my son-in-law. My Hb is taking the train down after work and we will enjoy an evening meal with them both before driving home. I also have Wednesday off work for our monthly ladies' lunch/mother and daughter day which I am really looking forward to, a real double day bonus in my eyes. Take care everyone and thanks as always for visiting me here and reading my Journal.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

21 days til............................

In recent years there has been some debate about sending Christmas cards. At my work place for the last 3 years some people have decided to give to charity instead of giving cards. That is their personal choice and I do respect that. However I chose to do both because I so enjoy giving and receiving Christmas cards. I hang the cards we are sent on  foil strings from the banisters in my hallway. It is always such a cheerful display to greet  us when we come home.
I enjoy the hearing the sound of cards plopping through my letter box, delivered by my trusty postman. Even the stamps issued by the Royal Mail this year are cheerful.  They are the delightful Wallace and gromit. I am not sure if my overseas readers know of these fun characters? Cards also allow me to hear from friends who now live far away and sadly I rarely see. It gives me a great pleasure reading their messages. I have one friend, who is another Jane, and usually hers is the very first to arrive. However due to all the snow we have had our mail has been seriously disrupted and we have not had a delivery since Tuesday! I am sure Jane will not disappoint me. These have been the scenes around here this week, it's not really that surprising my post has not been delivered! You can click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

It's hard to believe this is Surrey not Lapland! Real picture postcard scenery...I still think it is quite stunning and just so appropriate to this time of the year.

I always enjoy making some of my Christmas cards. As I just don't have the time to make them for everyone I tend to give the handmade ones to my nearest and dearest. This year I tried starting early and I did manage to get some finished in October but as always time has run away and I must now buy a few to complete my list.
I showed a couple my handmade cards on my footsteps in the snow post recently and I just thought I would share a few more.

I bought these brilliant fimo snowmen at a craft fair last year, after I had finished making my cards. So I  put them away to use  this year. I love the snowman image and he is a favourite theme of mine at this time of the year.

I have used other colourways of these sweet snowmen to make some variations. It is always interesting how differently cards turn out even when the same theme is used. Just a change in backing paper or embellishments makes them look completely different.






One really fun card I wanted to share with you is the one I have just made for my dear Hb. You may already be aware that I love pigs. As I could never have the joy of keeping a real one, the nearest I have ever got to this is owning guinea pigs. When I was small, and then also when our children were young, we kept these wonderful feisty little creatures. Wilbur, Fern, Raisins, Roger and Dennis all spent many happy years with us. My husband also fell in love with these very dear creatures, we have such fond memories of keeping them.

When I spotted Zoe on Etsy, who paints the most true to character guinea pigs, I just knew I had to commission her to paint me this little fellow for Christmas to use for my Hb's card.

He very much resembles our Roger who was one of the cheekiest guineas we every owned!
I decided to use him as the centre piece for the card.
I used some green holly embossed card to make a "parcel" cross and added glitter snowflake stick ons. I cut out a matching green tag which I attached with snowy ribbon and here it is......

 Inside I used some fun peel offs and made a holly border with a green strip underneath to highlight the cut outs.





This shows the inside where I will write my Christmas greeting to him ♥

So as you can see I often have very random themes for my cards but I think it makes them even more special and after all ....just how many guinea pig Christmas cards can you find on the shelves of the shops at the moment........................................................??!! ;0)

I suppose I must crack on with finishing writing my Christmas cards now and get them all in the post so that they can be delivered in plenty of time.

As I cannot send all my blogging friends real cards I hope you have enjoyed looking at these and if I was to put a verse inside to send one to you all .....this would be my choice.

There's more, much more, to Christmas Than candlelight and cheer;

It's the spirit of sweet friendship That brightens all year.

It's thoughtfulness and kindness, It's hope reborn again,

 For peace, for understanding, And for goodwill to men!    (Anon)

.......and women of course ;0)

Bye for now,

Jane x