The Man in the Moon

My Mum loves the Man in the Moon and I must admit so do I. There is nothing more special than seeing a full moon in a clear starlit sky with  his face grinning down. For my Mum's  recent birthday at the end of November I thought I would commission another little ACEO from the very talented Vita . If you remember she painted a beautiful mermaid picture for when my daughter's boyfriend went to sea. (News on that front is that after after 3 long months he  finally came home last Friday).

I thought you would like to see the wonderful moon ACEO that Vita painted for me....

I used the little painting to feature in the birthday card I made for my Mum.
I framed it with a card die cut frame using  little jewels at the edge and then mounted it on a deep blue/purple card. I also used some other die cut frosty card borders and finished it off with a Happy Birthday banner and some silver peel offs to read MUM.










This was the finished card and I was pleased with how it turned
out. My Mum loved it and when she has finished with the card
she is going to take out the little painting and frame it.

Also keeping with the Moon theme for my Mum's birthday I managed to commission  a wonderful Man in the Moon lampwork glass bead by a very talented English lampworker called Emma. She had never made a man in the moon before but felt it would be a great challenge and she managed to create the most wonderful bead.

I decided that he would look best on a vintage style brass chain and this is the finished piece that I gave my Mum for her birthday present.

As always I had my trusty camera assistant at hand-

Billy does like to get in on the action!

I was so inspired by this wonderful bead that I commissioned Emma to make me a "Blue Moon" and here is mine.

                                                           Stunning! I love wearing him.

Whilst I am on the subject of the moon I wanted to tell you about a recent  phenomenon which occurred this year, during the Autumn Equinox. It was the appearance of a Harvest Moon. This is a little know event which rarely occurs.  There is a very interesting article about it here

On that night, 22nd September we were lucky enough to have a fairly clear sky here in Surrey. Most of the UK that night was covered in cloud so the Harvest Moon was only visible in some area. I managed to take the following photos out of my bedroom window.

The sky had the most wonderful glow to it and clearly visible to the left and below the moon was none other than Jupiter shining brightly.

It really was a sight to see and I am glad I did not miss out in this once in every 20 years or so phenomenon.

How lucky we are to have a sky to look up into and watch the stars twinkling and on occasions the Man in the Moon smiling down on us .... or is it just me who sees him ?? ;0)

(Remember to have a peep at my ** days til....... posts we really are well into the countdown to Christmas now!)

Bye for now,

Jane x

21 days til............................

In recent years there has been some debate about sending Christmas cards. At my work place for the last 3 years some people have decided to give to charity instead of giving cards. That is their personal choice and I do respect that. However I chose to do both because I so enjoy giving and receiving Christmas cards. I hang the cards we are sent on  foil strings from the banisters in my hallway. It is always such a cheerful display to greet  us when we come home.
I enjoy the hearing the sound of cards plopping through my letter box, delivered by my trusty postman. Even the stamps issued by the Royal Mail this year are cheerful.  They are the delightful Wallace and gromit. I am not sure if my overseas readers know of these fun characters? Cards also allow me to hear from friends who now live far away and sadly I rarely see. It gives me a great pleasure reading their messages. I have one friend, who is another Jane, and usually hers is the very first to arrive. However due to all the snow we have had our mail has been seriously disrupted and we have not had a delivery since Tuesday! I am sure Jane will not disappoint me. These have been the scenes around here this week, it's not really that surprising my post has not been delivered! You can click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

It's hard to believe this is Surrey not Lapland! Real picture postcard scenery...I still think it is quite stunning and just so appropriate to this time of the year.

I always enjoy making some of my Christmas cards. As I just don't have the time to make them for everyone I tend to give the handmade ones to my nearest and dearest. This year I tried starting early and I did manage to get some finished in October but as always time has run away and I must now buy a few to complete my list.
I showed a couple my handmade cards on my footsteps in the snow post recently and I just thought I would share a few more.

I bought these brilliant fimo snowmen at a craft fair last year, after I had finished making my cards. So I  put them away to use  this year. I love the snowman image and he is a favourite theme of mine at this time of the year.

I have used other colourways of these sweet snowmen to make some variations. It is always interesting how differently cards turn out even when the same theme is used. Just a change in backing paper or embellishments makes them look completely different.






One really fun card I wanted to share with you is the one I have just made for my dear Hb. You may already be aware that I love pigs. As I could never have the joy of keeping a real one, the nearest I have ever got to this is owning guinea pigs. When I was small, and then also when our children were young, we kept these wonderful feisty little creatures. Wilbur, Fern, Raisins, Roger and Dennis all spent many happy years with us. My husband also fell in love with these very dear creatures, we have such fond memories of keeping them.

When I spotted Zoe on Etsy, who paints the most true to character guinea pigs, I just knew I had to commission her to paint me this little fellow for Christmas to use for my Hb's card.

He very much resembles our Roger who was one of the cheekiest guineas we every owned!
I decided to use him as the centre piece for the card.
I used some green holly embossed card to make a "parcel" cross and added glitter snowflake stick ons. I cut out a matching green tag which I attached with snowy ribbon and here it is......

 Inside I used some fun peel offs and made a holly border with a green strip underneath to highlight the cut outs.





This shows the inside where I will write my Christmas greeting to him ♥

So as you can see I often have very random themes for my cards but I think it makes them even more special and after all ....just how many guinea pig Christmas cards can you find on the shelves of the shops at the moment........................................................??!! ;0)

I suppose I must crack on with finishing writing my Christmas cards now and get them all in the post so that they can be delivered in plenty of time.

As I cannot send all my blogging friends real cards I hope you have enjoyed looking at these and if I was to put a verse inside to send one to you all .....this would be my choice.

There's more, much more, to Christmas Than candlelight and cheer;

It's the spirit of sweet friendship That brightens all year.

It's thoughtfulness and kindness, It's hope reborn again,

 For peace, for understanding, And for goodwill to men!    (Anon)

.......and women of course ;0)

Bye for now,

Jane x

Footsteps in the snow...

Well here in the UK the big freeze continues and this was the view which greeted me this morning when I opened my back door. Brrrrr it is SO cold but Billy did venture outside for the first time in a few days.

We have had heavy over night snow again and my palm tree is drooping under the weight of the snow. It is pretty hardy and survived all the snow and ice we had earlier this year so I hope he keeps holding on out there!

All my pots are covered with at least 6" of snow and my bulbs will be snoozing away until they wake up in the Spring. I am always amazed how nature battles on.

.

I spotted a few birds up in the trees, let's hope the snow does slow soon as it must be difficult to find food, mind you there are lots of berries in the bushes too

Luckily it is my day off from work so I shall be staying put for most of the day, trying to finish some of my cards....here is a sneaky peek....

These are a couple I have finished, I will try to show some more in another post.

Wherever you are today, even in the 30oc of sunshine they have had this week in Crete, Billy and I send you our very warm wishes. Keep safe and enjoy our Winter (although officially it's still autumn!) wonderland!

PS Don't worry Billy is back in the warm, snoozing on his chair.

Bye for now,

Jane x

(Keep following my ** days to Christmas posts, the next one is coming up at the week end!)