Disney's Winter Wonderland

It's 25th November which means that it's exactly 1 month until Christmas. I have been a little awol this week...with good reason...I've been in Disneyland Paris! My Hb and I took darling Daisy on a 5 day trip. It was am-az-zing and the whole resort was decked out for Christmas. It truly was Winter Wonderland.

I have over 300 photos to sort through and I will share some posts but today here are just a couple..

On Main Street it even snows! My card today just had to feature snow. We were so lucky with the weather, 2 days with crisp blue skies and the rest of the time was dry!
 I  took some Broken China oxide and built u p some layers on some watercolour card which I then embossed using a snowy folder.

I  dry brushed on some gesso which brought out the pretty snowflake pattern

I die cut some Tim Holtz snowflakes and then added more gesso and glitter and stamped his great retro Merry Christmas sentiment.

I then put on my creative hat to make my card

My card was made for the following challenges;

 The Funkie Junkie 12 tags of Christmas #8
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 8 here. I took the snowflake embossed background, the large die cut snowflake and flag style sentiment to use for some of the inspiration in my design.

Dies R Us 2/3 snow

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas challenge 1/3 #361

Allsorts 1/3 Inspired by winter song/carol Mine is In the bleak mid winter

Sweet stampin  fave Christmas colours I love using blues with kraft

Crimbo Crackers 1/3 #146

Noor winter

Card Mania 5/5 anything goes



Thanks for stopping by and for taking the time to leave your very kind comments.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

A weekend in the woods

I am back with some last photos from our recent Winter Wonderland Centre Parcs' visit. We went with our children, their partners, Daisy and Bear, my son's dog. If you have never been, there are sweet wooden villas dotted all around the Parc. It's a huge area set around a giant lake with a central plaza and so many activities. We stayed up in the Firs, in 2 nearby villas. It's just like living in the woods but with the luxury of central heating, a dishwasher and every other mod con. It doesn't look much from the outside but it's like a tardis inside and so cosy.

Bear loved sitting by the log burning fire.

And our villas were close enough that Daisy could pop over for her dinner.

 From our patio we could see a little duck pond and most mornings we saw them waddling around.

You can either walk, cycle or get the train around the Parc. No cars are allowed on site after you have unpacked on the Friday night. For the Festive season the train was decked out for Christmas

We enjoyed the challenge of archery.

My son actually came 3rd in the tournament, not bad for someone who has never picked up a bow before!

 He was rewarded with a certificate.....such fun!

We held a little party for my son in law's birthday on the Friday night...lots of chat and family laughter..and of course birthday cake. My son took on the role of bar tender ;0)

We enjoyed the winter wonderland, pottery painting, swimming and also a lovely evening out on the Saturday. Daisy had a babysitter.

I love this photo of Daisy my sweet granddaughter standing on the ice bench. Her coat with the mittens is so cute.

Our Saturday night meal out in Cafe Rouge.

On the Sunday our son in law cooked a delicious roast. We had such a brilliant time together. When it was time to go home this was our decorated chalk board we left behind in our villa. (Every villa has one on the wall and chalks are supplied) .Over the weekend we had added to it. I snapped a photo of it as we left.

Such  perfect family time and memories. It was really special as we will not all be together for Christmas at the same time this year.
I decided to make a Moment for my journal using the photo of my little Daisy above standing on the ice bench.
One of my favourite challenge blogs, Scrap Across the World are sadly closing this month and I decided to use their inspirational photo to make my Centre Parcs Moment.

This is their photo


For my inspiration I used the gold lettering, the gold glitter, the greens of the leaves in the flowers and the gorgeous rich pink/purple/red colours.  The mood of the board is a celebration of life and I took that mood to create my journal page. I cut down a very large rectangular paper from my stash to make a 9 1/2 X 9 1/2" square keeping the mistletoe bough in the centre above the photo of Daisy. This represents all the love and kisses we shared during that holiday. It is so hard to show the real shine that this has...IRL it sparkles and shines so well.

Here are some close ups
I stamped my Tim Holtz trees using shades of distress inks to represent the woods and added Frantage for a Christmas effect.

I stencilled a gold Christmas border using Wendy Vecchi's amazing gold embossing paste and added a pearl in the centre. The chippie is part of a Dusty attic one which I gold embossed. I could only use that word couldn't I? The photo was die cut using my Memory box stitched border.

The eagle eyed will spot that I used the left side of a recent master board I made recently was used to layer up my photo. 

I cut some strips and added them using foam to give some depth. I added various foliage die cuts and a CL icicle, 

I matched Daisy's gloves with my Memory box precious mittens die cut using glitter card and put some tiny red hearts on them for love.
I went round the edge of the paper with Treasure Gold to add even more shine and golden glow!

Here is my Moment once more in all its entirety, there is a lot of sparkle and shine here including the smile on Daisy's face.

I would like to enter my Moment into the following challenges; the future is certainly bright with Daisy and my wonderful family in my life.

Scrap Across the World December and grand finale mood board thanks guys and I wish you all the very best. I will really miss this challenge and wish I had found it earlier than this summer!

Simon says stamp Wednesday die crazy
The Craft Barn Trees
Memory Box season's greetings I have used the stitched rectangle to cut my photo and the precious mittens die.
Love to create anything creative/mixed media #25
Visions of Sugarplums 2015 Christmas/Winter

Inspiration Emporium 'tis the season

Noor Winter wonderland

Pixie's snippets playground #207 I was able to use snippets of card and even a chippie for my Moment.
Bunny Zoe 2/3 Sparkle
Country View create a scene
Wow Winter my sentiment and decorative edge are both heat embossed with Wow embossing glitter powder and I have also used some embossing for snow on my trees

I am off today to meet my dear friend Karen for our last lunch before Christmas. I also hope to finish the very last of my shopping...fingers crossed as there are just 8 days to go now............are you ready?
Thanks for visiting me today.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Winter Wonderland

Last weekend we spent 4 days at Centre Parcs, Longleat celebrating my SIL's 30th birthday. It really was such a fun time. We had never visited a Centre Parcs before although my daughter has a few times. The special thing at this time of the year is that it has a Winter Wonderland in the Village Square complete with Santa's Workshop and real reindeer. Well I was just in Christmas heaven.

 There was a postbox to post letters to Father Christmas. Everything was so well done, even the fake snow was really realistic,

 I love this photo, yes this is a real reindeer, he looks like a Disney one!

The trees were lit up with lights

 and there was a fun snowmans' sofa ;0)

Even the land train was decked in festive finery.

Daisy saw Santa.......so sweet, she had her little letter all ready. I was as excited as she was.

and this was her wonderful present, isn't he cute. Daisy loves giraffes, like her Uncle M

The forest surroundings are all so beautiful, the morning mist over the lake was spectacular.

I also enjoyed 2 sessions of pottery painting, I will hopefully share some photos of that soon. The tropical swimming dome was great fun with a slide which went outside...yes seriously! I also
hope to make a Moment of our wonderful break.

My card today has to have a really festive feel to it. It features a Father Christmas just as I think he should be. This lovely image is by Nicecrane and is available here. There are several others in the set which are perfect for vintage style Christmas cards.

My photo is not the clearest as like everyone else I am really struggling with the lack of light at this time of the year. Here are a couple of close ups

The round sentiment is Lili of the Valley. The naughty or nice are Whimsy stamps. The candle die is Marianne to which I added some distress ink and some glamour dust for a touch of sparkle. The snow flakes and the icicle border (I just love this die) are both Cheery Lynn. . The backing papers are ancient from my stash.

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

Frilly and funkie A vintage holiday
Country View Crafts nostalgic Christmas
Noor! Design UK Merry Christmas
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper anything goes
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Santa is on his way
Emerald Faeries red and green
Whimsy Inspirations anything goes
Simon says stamp Monday  Holiday cards
Simon says stamp Wednesday Christmas/ holidays
We do doobadoo get festive

I would really like to stop time now...there are just 22 days until Father Christmas will be on his rounds...I wonder who has been naughty or nice...?
We hope to buy our tree at the weekend and I am also working on my Funkie Junkie #10 project as well as shopping, card writing, cracker making and working. Fun, fun fun!

Take care and keep warm everyone. Some of my American buddies are under feet of snow and over here in the UK it turned very cold today. Brrrrrrrrrrrr

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x