New life on the ponds

I really love my walks down to Dotty's. I take my new card creations to sell and it involves no transport costs and no air miles! Every season is so different at the ponds and over the last few weeks I have been watching all the nest sitting by the ducks and moorhens. Mr and Mrs Swan are nowhere to be seen but no doubt will be back at some point, with or without their brood.

I said good morning to Mr Heron...who was basking in the sunshine...

Last week I noticed that one of the coot nests was empty.

I then heard that family cheeping of a Mother coot keeping her brood close to her .....and I spotted these sweeties.

How cute they are with their little red heads. 

I also walked over to the other pond and found some slightly older chicks with their Mum swimming in the sunshine.

As I took some photos I spotted something in the rushes....Oh wow a Mummy Moorhen with her babies. They are much more shy that coots.

As I walked home I witnessed the newest family feeding their babies...

The weather has been just amazing and I find my walks make me appreciate life and enable me to recharge my batteries and find great peace with Mother Nature. I am blessed and Mother Nature has a good way of reminding me.

My card today is a baby card...for a Christening.. which I was commissioned to make.I sell a lot of baby cards in Dotty's . I used a Lili of the Valley Simply Print image. The lady asked me to just add an initial..something I have never been asked to do before..for the baby, who was called Florence. The papers are ancient from my stash and the sentiment is a hand stamped Lili of the Valley fave.

I would like to enter it into the following challenges.

The ribbon girl 1/3  use any image
Let's Craft and Create 1/3 girls girls girls
Noor summer
Deep Ocean die cuts, chipboards and/or punches
Try it on Tuesday 1/3 letters numbers or both I have the letter F on my card

Simon Says stamp Wednesday use patterned paper
Crafty Hazelnut patterned paper challenge June
Simon says work it Wednesday's 1/3 summer icons I think there is nothing more iconic in the  summer than a hammock, roses and bunting..all on 1 card!
Shopping our stash think pink

Thanks for stopping by today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave me. I was thrilled to see how much love there was for Billy's summer garden I shared in my last post and the monolith I made, thanks so much!  Enjoy the rest of your week.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Swanning around with my feathery friend

Down at the ponds I regularly visit the swan pair. I have shown them in some of my previous posts but recently I noticed that Mrs Swan appears to have flown away again. I'm not worried as she has come and gone in the past and even appeared with their 2 nearly fully grown cygnets last year.

What I have noticed is how friendly he has become. Now I say he but of course who am I to know which one has gone on holiday? For the purposes of this post I shall call him a he 😄

He has become quite tame and when you call to him he comes over.

I was also most surprised to hear that he makes a sort of low honking sound....I always thought that swans were mute? He most certainly isn't.

 Far from the old wives' tale about them flapping wings and breaking arms ( have you ever honestly known anyone who that has happened to?)

 he is really friendly.

"Good morning Jane" (or at least  I think he said that to me) "would you like me to pose for some photos."

He even showed me the drops of water on his gorgeous feathers

He took a bow

 and then off he sailed again

I thought his gorgeous feathers deserved to feature on my challenge card...a CAS Valentine's card I have made for Dotty's tearooms, which has sold well. The image is a digi from the Graphic Fairy. The stamped sentiment is an old Simon's Says stamp. The die cuts are Memory Box and Whimsy.

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

Noor have a heart

Memory Box It's all about love;clean and simple the stitched frame and heart are both MB

Simon Says Stamp Monday young at heart

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday cute

Craft Heaven 3/3 love is all around

                             Uniko anything goes I have also gone for the optional love twist.
                                                        

Paper creator love is in the air  

Creative Moments anything goes

Deep Ocean hearts

 Ribbon Girl 1/3 any card

Happy Little stampers anything goes with a die

Allsorts 1/3 hearts and/or flowers

Pile it On 1/3 Hearts on fire

Tomorrow is the Day of Love and yes I am a soppy romantic, I make no apologies for it. I am meeting my Hb when he finishes work, for a meal and we will be also celebrating 37 years of the day we got engaged. Gosh where did those years go...I'm still only 20 something aren't I?  Also in the context of celebrations I thought you would all like to know that my dear friend Karen's Mum is making a slow but steady improvement. She defied all the predictions at the hospital and hung on to life. Such wonderful news. Karen and I would like to thank for you all the lovely good wishes you left on my post last week.

Enjoy the new week ahead, the sunshine is back here this morning after such a cold, dreary weekend's weather. I'm taking some more cards down to Dotty's later and I will say hello to Mr Swan as I pass.

Thanks so much for stopping by and for all you kind, supportive comments.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

January came and went

Goodness me where on earth did January go....one blink after Christmas and here we are at the last day of the month. It's been a busy but fun month for me especially celebrating my Hb's recent milestone birthday.  As a family we now have birthdays right through til June...one a month and the one in May is our 2nd grand baby's actual birth day (due 6th May) so my darling girl is nearly 6 months pregnant already.

There are already signs of the wildlife on the ponds getting ready to make nests and deliver the next generation. I spotted this handsome mallard duck preening himself and obviously getting ready to make an impression on the ladies 😉

He flipped and turned in the water

and had a good shake

a bit more preening

 Then it was time to meet up with the ladies

My waterfall shot today shows all the goings on down there...it's like Piccadilly Circus. Lots of meeting and greeting going on between the fowl.

Today's card is a revisit for me of one of my Tim Tag cards I made last year. I wanted to make something which features lots of wildlife.  This is my original post here and you can see how I made it. I made 4 bases at the time and I had one left which I have never made into a card. If you weren't aware, Tim decided to stop his monthly tags. I know he had been doing it for 10 years but I really miss it. So I decided to revisit my own cards I made over the 3 years that I had been a part of the fun and made something new. I hope to do this on a regular basis.

I had this base made...lots of lovely pinks and oranges again, I must admit I quite like this combo. I added just a bit of green to make it a little more wildlife friendly.

 I die cut some flowers using off cuts of pink and orange based inky scraps and a butterfly and here is my finished card.

My card was made for the following challenges;

                                                           Paperartsy pink and orange

Crafting from the heart anything goes

                                                         Paper Creator anything goes

                                                 Let's craft and create things with wings

Creative moments anything goes

Crafty Catz 1/3 anything goes with a twist of a ladies' card

Addicted to stamps and more anything goes

Simon says Wednesday anything goes
We love to create 1/2 anything mixed media
As you like it favourite flower and why..mine is the good old daisy I made amongst my little bunch on my card...as this is my darling granddaughter's name.

I will be back bright and early in the morning with my DT card for Country View as we greet the arrival of another new month.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Late autumn walking

On Sunday I took Bear out for a few walks as we were minding him for the weekend. Luckily for him I love walking so I took my camera and set off for the park, where a couple of months ago we went collecting conkers with Daisy Jane. If you missed that post you can read it here

The trees look so different now that they have dropped all but the last stragglers of their leaves. They are still so beautiful. Silent giants.

 The dropped leaves provide lots of good nutrients to the soil, Mother Nature has a few million years on us re recycling!

I also noticed that very near to my house on the local green they have put up a few little Christmas lights.....I am delighted. Occasionally we have them down at the ponds but never so near...they must know that I am Mrs. Christmas

and speaking of my beloved ponds we spied a lone swan. I loved the shadows of the branches in the water. 

We had some lovely walks.

So my card today is a Christmas card based on a walk to Church but a more vintage walk....I found this great digi on the Graphic Fairy's web site and made it into a festive card with lots of branches, all laden with snow...............

 I've added lots of "greenery" with various leaf die cuts and some snowtex and Glamour dust for extra sparkle. The deer is Memory box,

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

Memory Box glitter
Pixies' snippets playground 3/3  #204 I used lots of snippets of card for my die cute and a tiny snippet of twine too,
 The Craft Barn snowflakes there are snowflakes on my glitter die cut sentiment.
Noor UK anything goes
Rudolph day's anything Christmas
Simon Says stamp Wednesday anything goes
Simon says stamps work it Wednesday 1/3 holiday/Christmas 
Papertake Weekly take your pick I chose the technique theme, glitter it up
Country View the colour blue I have used the colour blue for my backing paper


Now this card also gives a clue as to where I am heading for the weekend...it involves deer and woods and Christmas and who knows there could even be snow..even if it's the pretend stuff. Daisy also has an appointment with the man in the red suit too.........I will be back on next week to share it with you ;0)

Have a wonderful weekend and remember to write those lists.....Christmas is only 4 weeks away today....I can smell that turkey cooking now.............mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Bye for now,

Jane x