A alternative 75th VE day celebration, Mindful Moments 7

Hello again I am back with my 7th Mindful Moments post.

If you did not see my first post and wonder what these are do check it out here. Thank you to everyone who has been reading them. I can see from my stats that these are getting at least twice the usual traffic of my other posts, which has really inspired me to keep trying to get them written weekly if I can. I really hope you are finding them a moment to make you smile and stay mindful during these very turbulent times.

This is a long post so grab a large cuppa or even a mug!
Today is the 75th anniversary of VE day and time for us to remember victory in Europe in 1945. I love seeing the old BBC footage of everyone celebrating back then. My dear parents and their parents were a part of that historical day. I think it is also helpful to keep in mind that we will be able to look back at this pandemic one day as another piece of history.  There will not be 1 single day we can celebrate this but a time will come when we can acknowledge that this invisible enemy has been beaten.

I have been thrilled to see how many people have thought of alternative ways of celebrating today and I decided to get into the swing too. People in our road are going to sit in their front gardens for afternoon tea later so I got cake baking and printed out some posters of my Union Jack cards I recently made and put them into my downstairs windows.
How apt are my STAMPlorations stamps I used here!

Today also made me think of one person who would have really celebrated the 75th anniversary of VE day big time. That person is Rebecca, the owner of Dotty's Teahouse in Carshalton and Tea Garden in Coulsdon in Surrey. Her vintage cafes celebrate all things 1940s and I know the bunting would be out there today if she could.
I made and sent her this card to let her know how much I miss her and the Dotty family but that one day we will be back sharing a cup of tea with friends.

Who would have known in 1945 that 75 years later we would be fighting a different and very invisible enemy ie Covid 19. So many businesses have shut that it is hard to stay positive for the future but we must be. I thought that today I would also share a "virtual" celebration for Dotty's Teahouse's 4th birthday which is next week. If you are not aware this is a family run tea house which opened in Carshalton High Street, Surrey in May 2016. I replied to an advert in the March to sell my handmade cards there and met Rebecca the owner. She loved what I made and I loved what Dotty's was to become. Well, the rest is history and during these 4 years I have sold over 1,000 cards from my shelves there.

Throughout this lock down obviously both Dotty's Teahouse and her brand new Tea Garden, which opened last September, have been shut.  I really do miss Rebecca and her lovely team. I usually walk down to the Teahouse with my latest cards to put up for sale on my shelves on a Monday and Friday.

 She is managing some home deliveries though and

this is the great sign on the door at the moment.

Rebecca,  loves all things vintage and would have had a huge VE celebration today if she was open. Instead she is delivering a VE Celebration tea...what a fab idea. 

 I thought I would have a little reminisce of the last 4 years and how things have grown at Dotty's.

She opened with a grand opening in May 2016 with the Mayor cutting the ribbon.

We celebrated her 1st and 2nd birthdays in style with 40s music and dress. 

We had fun hosting a little Christmas market 2 years ago and last year I enjoyed hosting my first Meet the Maker event in the shop. 

Here I am with Rebecca.

 We celebrated last Christmas with a staff party at the new Tea Garden in Coulsdon

This is one of her displays from her new tea garden, always such fun!

Her afternoon teas are legendary and delicious. I so hope her doors are able to open very soon. 

So inspired by all this  I decided to get baking myself. I decided that in 1945 I am sure the cake of choice would have been fairy cakes if rations allowed (and perhaps dried egg too) and found that I had just enough ingredients to bake some. The cake cases are from years ago and I thought looked very retro!

I also spotted something else vintage right in front of me as I made my cakes, my scales.

These were once used at the labs where my Dad worked many moons ago in Bermondsey, South London. The firm he worked for closed down in the 1980s and was demolished and he brought them home and gave them to me. I use them for all my weighing and they are in pounds and ounces, just as I like it.  I looked up the firm, Hunt and Co. They were founded in 1861and have long ceased trading but these scales would certainly have been around in 1945. So many things would have been weighed in these, a real piece of history.

While I was looking at the scales I had a little light bulb thought that it would be really fun to serve my fairy cakes on one of my Nan's plates which were handed down to me. I mostly use at Christmas or for family celebrations. My Nan was born in 1904 and probably was bought this as part of a dinner service as a wedding present when she married in 1928.

I love the pretty pattern on it.
Here  are my cakes, just out of the oven.

I wanted to make a retro glace icing topping with hundreds and thousands on.  Luckily I had just enough icing sugar left and found these hundreds and thousands in my cupboard.

So here are my cakes all ready for my Hb and I to enjoy at our afternoon tea in our front garden at 4pm.

If my Nan was still alive she would have been so thrilled to see this and the wonderful memories evoked as I made my fairy cakes

There is surely only one quote I could share today as we remember all those who gave their lives for our freedom, it has to be these immortal words

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” » Winston Churchill

Thanks so much for stopping by and for the kind comments you have taken the time to leave me, they are so appreciated.

Please keep safe, keep mindful, keep washing those hands.

For those of you in the UK enjoy all the VE day celebrations. Us Brits have a habit of making do and keeping up our spirits whatever is going on around us. We may well be hearing of some gentle easing of Lockdown on Sunday..fingers crossed we may be over the worst.  I hope so.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

With love, Jane x

The conker hunt 2018

On Sunday it was our annual family conker hunt. The weather all day Saturday and Sunday morning was rain, rain and more rain and if we could we probably would have tried to reschedule. But armed with wet weather waterproofs we walked down to our local park and could not believe that as we arrived the clouds started to part and out came the sunshine!

Daisy had her basket and was keen to get going.

She was not disappointed.  just look, the ground was completely covered with conker treasure.

Lots were still in their shells as they had been blown down by the strong winds the day before.  Daisy gleefully pulled them out, doubles like below, are especially treasured.

Bear came too and kept herding us up and keeping an eye on us all, including Jack

who had his own little bucket this year.

He delighted in putting his own conker treasures in it.

helped by his Daddy.

So many beauties to find. 

What a wonderful family time we enjoyed and the sunshine was so unexpected. I think the Conker god was smiling down on us 😏

My card today was inspired by the autumnal colours and is a new birthday card just taken down to Dotty's Teahouse to sell.  I used my Visible Image time tunnel stencil and also their elemental stamp to create an inky sheet which I die cut with my Tim Holtz world die and then mounted on some embossed brown card. The little birthday tag is an old Lili of the Valley stamp. The stars are Tim's and the starburst in an old Noor die.

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

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes
The house that stamps built 1/3 anything goes
Creative moments 1/3 anything goes
The male room 1/3 the great outdoors
Addicted to stamps and more 1/3 anything goes
Die cutting divas 1/3 fall colours my world and stars die is Tim Holtz and the star cascade is Noor.
Crafty sentiments 1/3 anything goes
Lil patch of crafty friends 1/3 anything goes
Sparkles monthly 1/3 dies or punches

I have just got back from the south coast as I was baby sitting Daisy and Jack yesterday. This glorious weather persists and today is wall to wall blue skies and sunshine...just look at this as we had a walk along the beach this morning. My daughter and I walked Daisy to school and then enjoyed a coffee, chat and walk which little Jack snoozed away in his pushchair.

Oh my it was just glorious.

Sending sunshine your way if you need some.
Thanks so much for stopping by today.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Tove Jansson and the Moomins

In January I went to see a really super exhibition with my Mum and Dad at Dulwich Picture Gallery in South East London. I have waited until now to share this post as I made something from it for a very dear blogging friend'a birthday and I wanted her to have received it first. It was a very wet miserable January day when we visited but the poster advert really cheered everything up.

 Until I was 18 I lived in nearby Peckham and some of my good friends lived in Dulwich so I have visited the gallery many times in years gone by. In recent years it has undergone extensive renovation and it really is a little gem tucked away in South East London. If you are ever nearby it really is worth a visit.

and yes it even has an old London telephone box in its grounds.

 Who out there remembers Press button A and then Button B?

Gosh it took me back to my childhood. 

Photos are allowed inside but not for the visiting exhibitions. There are some gorgeous artworks housed there permanently.

I loved these Moomins stickers that were also part of the advertising

We had such a lovely morning and even spotted these lovely flowers in the Village Florist when we walked to lunch.

Now I have a dear Finnish blogging friend Mia who I met on line about 9 years ago through our mutual delight in all things Moomins. Mia makes delightful handmade things and over the years I have owned lots of her gorgeous work. Although Mia does not blog as she did years ago, she is more an Instagram girl, we still have a very close friendship and are in regular contact. Her birthday in March I knew just what I would do with the sweet Moomin Programme.

Yes....I would use it to make her birthday card. What was perfect is that she is such a "pink" girl that I had the colourway already there.

I got out my matching distress inks

and made a watercolour background adding some star stencilling in grey. 

I wanted to use the window idea from the programme so I die cut my own in black and white card to layer them up.

I decided my Moomin would be looking out from the window to a moon lit starry night so I die cut a man in the moon and some stars using my Tim Holz bigz die.

and then it was time to put on my creative hat and put my ideas together. 

Here is Mia's finished birthday card.

The sentiment is by Visible Image. 

Here are a few close ups

and one last shot

I really had fun making this and I am so delighted that Mia loved it when she opened it on Sunday morning. 

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

Pixie's snippets playground #321 I really went to town with my snippets with this card......cutting up the programme and all the rest of my die cuts were snippets too!

Allsorts 3/3 ladies only
Simon says stamp girl power Tove Jansson was the epitome of girl power in the 1930s and 40s..very ahead of her time!
Creative Inspirations 1/3 any occasion mine is birthday

let's craft and create 1/3 anything goes
Get Creative 1/3 fantasy
As you like it 1/3 single or multiple layers Mine is multiple as I love the  more realistic 3d effect you can achieve

Another week has whizzed by and we are looking forward to catching up with our babies tomorrow. Enjoy your weekend and I will be back bright and breezy on Monday morning.

Bye for now,

Jane x