Guest Designing for the November Craft Stamper take it make it challenge

Good morning.

Today I am delighted to be the Guest Designer for the Craft Stamper Magazine take it make it blog challenge. I love winning challenges and I won their September challenge. This was extra special to me as they choose the winner on merit not randomly. As part of my prize I was invited to feature with them today.

Below is my winning card.

made with Visible Image's "You are not alone" stamp set. If you would like to see my original post with a step by step of how I made it you can find it here

The November "Take it make it" challenge is up and running and as always the theme is anything goes so please jump right in and join us. You can use any projects as long as there is some stamping on them.
All the details are here

I decided that as we are now into November that for my GD post today I would create a Christmas card. I had a winners profile on the blog there in October and it is no secret that I adore Christmas...I really love everything about this wonderful time of the year. I also need to get my Christmas card stock made for Dotty's Teahouse in Carshalton, where I sell my cards,  very soon.  Instead of making a distress ink oxide background this time I used regular distress ink to create a Christmas inspired background. The stamp set I am using is called Peace, hope and Love by Visible Image stamps. 

This is what I got up to;

I used some classic Christmas distress ink colours; Pine needles, Candied apple and  Evergreen bough on watercolour card to create my festive background. I then stamped and white embossed the star from the stamp set.

I then embossed the "bauble" from the set in gold sparkle and some snowflakes in white. I also stamped and white embossed one of my Visible Image Christmas sentiments. 

I then added a satin ribbon bow and matted and layered up my card in coordinating colours.

Here it is.

with a couple of close ups

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

Simon says stamp Monday make your own background

Christmas at sweet stampin 3/3 anything goes

Dragonfly dreams 2/3 anything goes

Happy little stampers Christmas 2/3 anything goes

That's Crafty 1/3 Winter wonderland
ABC Christmas challenge 1/3 W + X mine is W for wishes and X for Christmas 
Crimbo crackers 1/3 anything goes
CRAFT 1/2 Christmas present

So yes my favourite time of the year is just around the corner and I hope that you too can believe in the magic of Christmas.

Thanks so much for stopping by and thanks again to Trish and her team over at Craft Stamper magazine and blog. I was thrilled to be chosen as their winner and for inviting me to Guest Design for them today. You can see mine and all the rest of the current DTs inspiration for the November challenge over on their page here. The theme is always anything goes so as long as you feature some stamping you can enter with any project. It would be great to see you join in. 

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Lady Luck returns for a second weekend

Last week I posted about our lovely, long lucky weekend and that Mr Random Number thingy came up with my  name on the Penny Black Saturday Card Challenge.

Well I could not quite believe my eyes yesterday when I checked my blog reader for this week and found I was the winner again!  Take a look here. I did a little dance up and down and I have a lovely stamp winging it's way to my card stash. This will join the prize from I-2-3 Stitch, an american craft site who are sending me $20 of crafting goodies from last week's entry.
This was my winning card

Well  this afternoon we lit the fire for the first time this year and settled down to have a lazy late afternoon. I started up my Hb's laptop to check my blog reader. As I read through the recently launched posts from the blogs I follow I had to look twice.... I saw one of my recent cards that I made using Kerry's lovely Ladybug Craft Ink stamps staring back at me! This was not a random number challenge winner but my card was being featured as none other than the "Daily Talent Spot"

Here is the link. Now that really does give me such a buzz as it is recognition of my little cards. I did a little jig and showed my Hb.

So this weekend has proved to be not just another visit from Lady Luck but a little feature of one of my cards......I have a big smile on my face and wanted to share it with you all. I have been talking about luck with a great blogging friend Linda over the last few days. She posted on Friday about luck/coincidence/fate and we were joking about buying Lotto tickets....now perhaps I really should make sure I have one ;0)

I don't think I dare enter Penny Black's Saturday challenge this week, to come out 3 weeks in a row as the random number winner would surely start mutterings of ,"Fix" LOL!!

I will be back soon with my lastest card as I so love making them and there are so many birthday's coming up. I have also added a few more in my Etsy Shop here.

Enjoy your Sunday evening. Keep snug - a lot of my blogging friends aboad are having a lot of snow and really cold temperatures.....brrr. Time for crafting and chocolate, always the best combination!

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

A lovely lucky long weekend

We really enjoyed taking the day off work on Friday to celebrate my Hb's birthday. We had booked a table at Brown's in Mayfair for lunch

I decided to take my trusty camera with me so that you could join us. As you know my Hb works in London and we were both born and raised there and even now we only live about a 30 minute  train journey from central London. It is my favourite city in the world and even after all these years there are still parts of it that I have not noticed/visited before.
Friday was a pretty murky day but we wrapped up warmly and took the train to Victoria Station and the tube to Green Park.

Green Park was looking very forlorn and bare. Parts  had been roped off to allow areas of  grass to be re seeded, ready for everyone to enjoy in the warmer months.

There are some rather lovely buildings in the area including the world famous Ritz Hotel. This is a really grand building even from the outside.

There are also some beautiful cafes and very expensive shops around....including....

There is also the very beautiful old Burlington Arcade which has just been fully restored to it's former grandeur. This included re laying the marble
floors.

After window shopping in all these wonderful shops we arrived at Brown's for lunch. It was delicious. We shared a box of warmed Camembert for starters.

For main course my Hb had fish cakes and I chose Thai prawns and then for pudding he had sticky toffee pudding and I had Brown's Eton Mess. Mmmmm just the memory still makes my mouth water!
This was all washed down with a Bellini and a few cocktails.
After lunch we had a last look in the shops before we headed home. So do you think we came home empty handed.........

Well of course not. After all my Hb only has a birthday once a year and inside this bag is a wonderful new shirt I treated him to. Happy Birthday M.










Well it is Sunday evening already and I have one other exciting piece of news I was desperate to share with you all. After all these months of entering card challenges....lady luck was on my side and guess what.......yes I won....... take a look here  It is pure luck as all the names are put into the random number things....how lucky is that for me.
I could not believe it when I checked the Penny Black Saturday Challenge blog yesterday and there was my recent hedgehog card blinking back at me. I have won a  voucher to spend at the generous sponsor's on line store, so more lovely card making stash for lucky me.

Now as I seem to be on a roll (things are supposed to run in threes aren't they?) I am going to enter another card for some challenges today.

Now this is a really different colourway for me. As you know I am not normally a pink girl but I do think it works really well with the blue. I used another coloured image from the stamps I won from Kerry's giveaway.

Here she is in close up. I coloured her using my trusty promarkers and I added some glamour dust to the cake to give some real sparkle.

I have machined around the backing paper in blue thread and added a lovely pink die cut frame together with some blue ribbon and paper prima flowers. I have popped in a polka dot brad to the flower centres.
I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Ribbon Girl blue and pink challenge
Papertake Weekly buttons, bows, bling and blooms
Joanna Sheen Celebrations
Party Time Tuesdays Happy Birthday
I love Promarkers Anything goes
Secret crafter Food and drink

I am also submitting this as an entry to the Quick Cards Made Easy "Make a card for a celeb". I chose to made it for Alex Jones the One Show Host as I felt she did so well on Strictly this year and is such a self effacing lady. I also think she suits the pink/ blue combo being not too "girlie" a celeb!


Now if I think I am on a winning roll and things really do go in 3s.....where is that lottery ticket ;0)

Have a great week everyone,

Bye for now,

Jane x

And the winner is.............

Thank you for joining in the fun for my Wimbledon Tennis Giveaway.
The 11 names were put into my hat this afternoon...a summer straw hat of course

And my Hb pulled out a winner, the name was read out by Billy......(who also oversaw the draw)

And the winner is....

Well done Robin! I shall be in contact with you re your address and  I shall post your unique keyring out on Monday. A little bit of Wimbledon will be on it's way to the USA!

For those of you who didn't win don't be too disappointed. I have another giveaway coming up on 26th July, a very special day, as it will be by 1st  Bloggerversary. The prize involves a couple of the lovely  alabaster  beads I bought in Volterra, Tuscany. Keep watching!

I will be back in a few days with my final Tales from Tuscany, see you all then.

Bye for now,

Jane x