9 more advent calendar doors to open

I love my vintage advent calendars and have quite a selection to choose from each year. I still buy all the children big and small, advent calendars and no they don't feature chocolate!

This is the one I am using this year. I forgot to take photos of the kids ones this time!

It hangs by the side of bed and I see it sparkling in the darkness when I wake each morning.

The pictures inside the doors are so pretty.

Such sweet vintage angels.

I shall be opening my Number 15 up this morning.

I thought my card today should feature an angel. It's another vintage style Christmas card I made and is for sale down at Dotty's Teahouse, Carshalton

High St, SM5 2AE

I made an inky blue background using distress inks and then added an embossed blue panel. The lovely angel digi is from Graphic Fairy. The die cuts are by Tim Holtz, Memory Box and J Sheen. 

The silent night stamped sentiment is an old one from Lili of the Valley.

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

That's Crafty 1/3 anything goes

Crafty Calendar 2/3 It's Christmas time

Fussy and Fancy 1/3 Christmas

Cute Card Thursday 1/3 embossing I have embossed the pale blue sheet of card under the angel

Moving along with the time 1/3 anything Christmas

Crafty Catz 1/3 anything goes

Allsorts 1/3 Christmas trees

Card mania 4/5 Christmas

Have a great weekend. I hope you are getting those Christmas odds and ends sorted out. There are just 10 days until the Big Day. Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by here today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave me. 

I'm back again on Monday with my final DT post for 2018 for STAMPlorations.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Golden days

Welcome back, yes it's a second post from me today. If you are looking for my October Country View Crafts post you can find it here.

It's the 1st of October and a Monday so of course that means it's also my day for sharing my Monday design team make for Visible Image. The fabulous new release stamps are out this Friday and if you want to guarantee your set you can still preorder over on the website here.

Today I am sharing for the first time on my blog a card I made using the brilliant One kind word set.

Now don't tell anyone but this is my favourite. I have honestly been looking for a vintage typewriter stamp where I could actually stamp words on the paper for years. Well now I can. It is such a clever set and I am sure is going to be a best seller. It works for so many occasions and for card making, journalling etc etc. 

I had a lovely Friday and Saturday creating in my garden studio. There was wall to wall blue skies and sunshine and I loved being outside. I have noticed the signs of autumn though all around me.

My potted acers are taking on their autumnal hues.

We are starting a new challenge today over on our Visible Image customer Facebook page here. The theme is "autumn colours". So dig out your brown, yellow, orange, gold, mauve, red and other autumnal colours and your Visible Image stamps. We would love for your to join in. The winner is randomly selected so whether you are a novice or experienced stamper you have a chance of winning the £40 voucher to spend over on the website. 

My card was made in shades of browns to hopefully give some inspiration for our new "autumn colours" challenge, I also wanted to create a vintage feel to it.

I was very taken by one of the 2 sentiments in this set "time to write a new chapter" and I had a light bulb moment when I was sitting in my studio. I had decided to include my much used vintage book pages from "A tale of 2 cities" donated by my Hb.

As I was thinking of how I would use them in my design I thought that I could actually find a page that was the end of a chapter, ready to start a new one. I found a suitable page and stamped the sentiment and the letters flourish in brown ink. I also cut out the paper part and stamped the words, "You are loved" in brown ink. I put some foam under the top of this and glued down the base to add some dimension.

I made a "book" with my vintage book pages and aged them using vintage photo distress ink plus a little tearing and peeling here and there.

I stamped,embossed and fussy cut out my typewriter and stamped the small and large hearts and matted up my card.

Here it is;

With a couple of close ups.

All the Visible Image links are here;

Visible Image group page on Facebook. Our friendly Group is here ...it would be lovely to see you. There is a monthly challenge for you to share your creations made with Visible Image stamps. One randomly chosen winner each month wins a £40 coupon to spend on the website. The theme for October is "autumn colours".

The main Visible Image Facebook page is here; where you can find all the latest information and news including giveaways...open world wide.

And the shop web site is here; where all their gorgeous stamps and stencils can be purchased. 

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

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes

Crafty Catz 2/3 anything goes

Love to create 1/3 anything mixed media
Pixie's snippets playground #336 I used lots of snippets of book pages!

Frilly and Funkie just my type

Thanks so much for stopping by today and have a very happy October, the year is just racing by now.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

September stalks in

Good morning I see that September has stalked in today. Autumn is just around the corner now but I should be grateful as this summer has been so delightful. I cannot remember such a good summer since that of 1976.
However I do have so much to look forward to with Mother Nature..the acorns are ripe

and it will soon be conker time!

It is also the start of our next challenge over at Country View Challenges and for this month the theme is "Planes, trains and automobiles". All the details can be seen here. 

So back to the theme.. I will confess initially it had me really stuck as I own very little of any of these. I had a good root around and found some suitable stamps.  So for my first Design team project today I used a real oldie Tim Holtz clear Visual artistry stamp set (I don't know if Stampers anonymous even sell these clear stamps these days). 

The stamps are of a truck and an old vintage American car

I stamped them out using watering can archival ink. I also found some tiny Tim (!) stamps to use. I inked up some card and also die cut one of my fave dies...the world die.

I made any inky background, just playing with different distress ink washes and also some stencilling through Tim's clockwork stencil. My colour palette now has a more autumnal feel to it.

I also added some alphabet stencilling.

I then added some random plane and automobile stamping (and a few clocks)

 I also die cut and altered some cogs.

Then it was time to put my card design together. You can see that I distressed the edges and mounted it on a Kraft card blank. The sentiment is by Lili of the Valley and it is up for sale in Dotty's Teahouse.

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

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes
Simon says stamp Monday Fall/autumn
Simon says stamp Work it Wednesday 1/3 stamping/celebrations
Creative Moments 3/3 anything goes
Try it on Tuesdays 1/3 take a ride
The crafty addicts 1/3 all about boys/men

We hope to see lots of you joining in with the planes, trains and automobiles challenge this month. Why not have a dig through your own stash and see what you have there to use and then share it with us? 

The details again can be found here.

Thanks for stopping by and for your kind comments,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Keeping up with my 12 cards of Christmas

Good morning and for those of you in the UK, I hope you enjoyed your extra hour in bed? 

I had some inky playtime in the week and I have managed to get my 5th Funkie Junkie Christmas card under my belt, making for a few other fun challenges too.

We had a lovely day yesterday and took Daisy to the New Forest, I will share some photos soon but this is the glorious countryside we enjoyed and we met some of the wonderful New Forest ponies.

We spotted some awesome toadstalls too and Daisy had such fun exploring outside with us.

 So back to my card.

If you would like to play along with Linda's challenge you can see all the rules here. There are some great prizes for the winners too. The challenge is generously sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique Linda shares a tag each week and you just have to take something from it and make something Christmas themed. I have always chosen to make cards and it's a great way to make 12 very unique cards for Christmas.

You can also combine it with any other challenges...so that is just what I did.

This is her card for week 4 here
I decided to use her idea of post mark stamps, vintage Santa red, gingham ribbon and glossy greenery for my inspiration.

This is what I got up to;

I recently acquired some more D'Oxide colours in my DT package from Susan of Country View Crafts and I wanted to play with 2 of my new colours. I also used my Tim Holtz vintage Santa stamp as it has post card written on the side and adds to the "post" theme of my card

 These are my old Lili of the Valley post mark stamps

This is my background I made, the new Oxide colours are amazing! I stamped lots of my post mark stamps on top.

It was time to put on my creative hat and put together my card.

 Here it is.

This will be heading down to Dotty's Tearooms for sale soon.

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

The Funkie Junkie 12 tags of Christmas #5

Christmas at sweet stampin 2/3 anything goes

Happy little stampers anything goes with dies October

Happy little stamps water colour challenge October

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday anything goes

I also wanted to share some exciting news....I have been in print again...

Check out the latest edition (Issue 49) of Creative Stamping...

 On page 47 is my card made for Visible Image stamps..I can only give a sneak peek at the moment but at some point I will be able to give a full reveal. 2 of my teamies Pauline and Veerle also have project for our Face It! Autumnal feature.

It's so exciting to be in print again.

I am back tomorrow with my latest DT post for Visible Image and to give you a heads up a certain pussy cat called Billy might be writing it for me..tee hee 😻

Thanks so much for stopping by and for the kind comments you take the time to leave. Enjoy a mellow Sunday, we have a Strictly date on the sofa later to catch up with last night's Halloween spectacular.

See you in the morning,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Dotty's Teahouse turns 1

Yesterday was the 1st birthday for Dotty's Teahouse, the vintage tearooms in Carshalton, where I sell my cards. I cannot believe that a whole year has gone by. I joined Dotty's as a seller on day 1 and I numbered up card 405 recently so gulp I have made and sold a lot of cards in 1 year.
As always the window display looked delightful and was in the style of WW2 as Dotty's was also supporting Dame Vera Lynn's charity for the day.

 Rebecca and her lovely team were all dressed up and looked ab fab...here is Rebecca on the right with Lesley her right hand rock and roll woman 😁

These ladies are all so lovely, always smiling...

A quick peep at my cards....

There was live entertainment...........

Such a fun atmosphere

Even the original Dotty, the vintage caravan made an appearance

I love being a small part of Dotty's and if you are ever near to Carshalton High Street do stop by. It is the most wonderful place to enjoy tea and cake..and lunch too!

You may have spotted in my very first photo today that there were 2 birthday cards in the window.  I made them both 😊.m.

The one on the right I gave to Rebecca and her team. You will see that one on my blog in detail tomorrow so I will share my " Dotty is 1" birthday card today.
Here she is;

The girls from Dotty's commissioned me to make this card. They wanted something tea related and pink for Rebecca. This digi is one of  Lili of the Valley's simply print images and was perfect. I even die cut a pink cup with a stripey saucer! The papers  were a great find in my ancient paper stash....

Yes surely "everything stops for tea" 😉

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

Allsorts birthday it was also their birthday yesterday, but they were 8.. Dotty has some catching up to do!

Crafty Catz anything goes with a twist of more than 2 layers I have at last 5 on my card!

Creative Inspirations 3/3 anything goes

The Ribbon Girls 1/3 use any image

I am back tomorrow morning with my weekly Visible Image inspiration where I will share details of my other Dotty's birthday card.

Thanks so much for stopping by today and can I extend a very warm welcome to my newest followers. Thank you for joining me on my creative journey here at Jane's Journal.

The sun is up and I am heading out to the garden to sort out my summer pots.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Spring 2017 at Dotty's Teahouse

Last Thursday I took my parents down to Dotty's where we enjoyed a lovely lunch. They loved the tearooms and its wonderful vintage feel.
The window was dressed all ready for Easter.

Inside was busy and there is always such a great atmosphere. Rebecca and her staff were busting around serving everyone with a smile.

After my sandwiches I just had to try a piece of delicious moist carrot cake...

well it would be rude not to wouldn't it 😉

I could see from our table that my cards I sell there were neat and tidy. There has been a rush on my wedding and new baby boy cards recently so I stocked those up with a couple of new designs.

 If you are ever near Carshalton in Surrey do pop in. Dotty's is at 108 High Street, SM5 3AE and is open most days.

So my card for challenges today is a new baby one. Our own new grandbaby is due very soon now. We do not know the sex and today's card is for a new baby boy from the shelves of Dotty's Tea House.

I have used a digi from Lili of the Valley. The backing paper is First Edition. Dies are by Memory Box , The Works and Cheery Lynn.

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

The ribbon girl 1/3 use any image
Simon Says stamp Wednesday 3/5 spring colour inspiration
Crafty calendar April showers/ spring
Crafty friends animals or birds
The Cutie Pies challenge bunnies or chicks
Artistic Inspirations 1/3 anything goes
Crafting from the heart 1/3 anything goes
Lil patch of crafty friends 1/3 anything goes
Sparkles Monthly 1/3 fave colour combo I use blues and green so much!
Noor flowers

Thanks for stopping by today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave me. They are much appreciated.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x