Let it Snow..... in October? LOTV Challenge 115

Apologies to my dear friend Vivienne but the reason I am writing this post is that I have decided to start entering an occasional card challenge. For those who are not card makers there are many, many card making  blogs out there who set card making challenges with a theme (and sometimes there are even prizes ;0). Everyone who enters goes into a draw. I am a HUGE fan of Lili of the Valley (LOTV) stamps and I use these a lot in my card making.

I just could not resist entering this week's challenge as the theme is "Let It Snow".  I recently bought some of the new release Christmas stamps made by LOTV, including the "Let is Snow" sentiment, so I decided to use it for making my card.I  also used the wonderful" Milly Winter Window" stamp. I thought the name is so apt as it's my daughter's family name (she is really an Emily). As you all know I am a HUGE Christmas fan and this is rubbing off on my girlie too ;0)

I hand coloured my image with Promarkers and accented the shading with Prismacolour pencils.

My backing paper is a Forever Friends Christmas paper. I also added some lovely mulberry flowers. I could not think how I could make them appear more festive so I cut some snowflakes and popped the flowers on top.

I also attached a ribbon on top of another snowflake and added plenty of glitter including some wonderful Glamour Dust around Milly's hat and top...lots of shine there!

I am entering this in this week's LOTV Let it Snow challenge 115 There are some technical problems with linking at the moment so sadly all the entries added so far are only showing as "pending" not as little thumb nails but I hope they can  fix this really soon.

I hope you like my card and thanks for looking. To all my Jane's Journal regular readers thanks for putting up with this early "C" indulgance (I hope you still found it interesting!)

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Studio news

I know that this post is very long overdue. I promised some weeks ago that I would show you how the interior of my studio is coming along. Well, here I am today to shown you the first project, which was the installation of my work bench. I cannot believe how much I love my new outdoor space. It means that I no longer need to tidy away my current project indoors just to lay the table for dinner.

We have fully weatherproofed the outside of my studio with a very durable exterior stain which actually shows off the natural grain of the wood very well. I do not like painting  wood unless I have to. I love the grain of all woods and I don't like covering them over with paint.

Just after the studio was installed my Dad came over and installed my work bench with my dear Hb as his assistant.  My Dad is quite amazing with the skills he possesses. Before his retirement 14 years ago he was an Chemist in Industry but his handyman skills are to be envied.Since I was a little girl I have watched him make guinea pig hutches, build walls, make fish ponds, re plumb and much much more.

 He already had some pieces of teak in his shed at home, which many years ago were his work benches. When his firm relocated from South London in the early 1980s the old labs were knocked down and he thought at the time that the wood could be useful ,so he brought some home. Everything else at his old workplace was thrown away. I already have a shelf he made for our television in the front room and he thought my workbench could also be made in the same teak.

He took several measurement inside my studio and set to in his own workshop to create my tailor made workbench.

Here is the top of my workbench, you can see that it is a really hefty piece of teak. He cut it to size and bevelled the front edge.

He also put in very strong supports as I need to sometimes need to hammer on my bench with my jewellery making

Here you can see how substantial the support is...this just shows the front support under the window. It is also made of teak.







and after a day at my house with my Hb helping...

 here is the ta-dah moment!

Just look..................

What I love about my work bench is that it has a "history" and a previous useful life, complete with scorch marks, scratches, bottle marks where chemicals were used etc. It was part of my dad's working life many year's ago. I absolutely treasure it. It is the very best type of recycling.

A couple of coats of teak oil and just look at this beauty.

 I have a swivel working chair on order until then I  have made do with a folding chair. I was just too excited to wait. I wanted to get out there to work immediately.

And my very first project I have been working on...................

Yes I have been making bag charms!










So that is the story of my wonderful work bench, designed, made and installed by my dearest Dad....

My Dad hates fuss so I sneaked a photo of him hard at work here .....he has since been back and has partially installed the lighting and power in my studio at the weekend. He celebrated his 79th Birthday a few weeks ago, unbelievable isn't it....I am just amazed that  he just never ever seems to age, nor his skills diminish.  Bless you Dad, I am one very very happy daughter and thank you for my unique, one of a kind, very much loved, work bench.

I shall be back with more Studio news really soon!

Bye for now,

Jane x

Jane and a ***sewing machine*** (is this a dream?..no it's fairy magic)

Years ago, in the days when it really could be cheaper to make your own I actually did make my own clothes.( I also knitted, but that's a story for another day!) I made skirts, dresses, tops and I even made my own bridesmaids' dresses.

My parents bought me a sewing machine to use when I started needlework lessons at school. In those days machines were so heavy I used to have to work out just to lift the machine onto the table. I made clothes right up until my early 20s and then the machine started gathering dust and was put into the loft at my parents' home.  That was until I had a new mission....

In 1986, when I was pregnant with my daughter I decided I would make the covers, bumpers, bedding etc for her moses basket. So out came the machine, I waved my magic wand (aka sat and stitched at the table) and made a whole set of items with frills etc.  For the first 3 months of her life my sweet girl slumbered away amongst the covers I had lovingly made for her.

The machine then again gathered dust for 3 years until I was pregnant with my son. My daughter had a very special dolly at the time called "Katie". To help introduce the new baby idea to my daughter and ease my son's arrival I decided that I would make a doll's size replica of all the covers I had on the moses basket so that my daughter would be able to have her own matching set of covers for Katie. I was even able to match the fabric. The stitching fairy (or rather me) would stitch away at night so as to keep everything a surprise.

  On the day M was born I presented my daughter with a replica moses basket with all the accessories for her dolly Katie. It went down a treat as she thought she also had her own baby to care for and their bedding even matched. I think we told her that everything came from the same Cabbage patch her baby brother had appeared from ! All was well and she did everything with Katie her dolly that I did with M. It really was so sweet to see. When M was put into his Moses basket to sleep she would copy me and put Katie to bed too. She would even tell us to be quiet as Katie was trying to sleep. Sweet, sweet memories :0)

Over the years the machine again got moth balled and I think eventually ended up being given away.

So what you may ask is this...............................?

Well as you know I do love making cards and recently I had noticed a lot of card makers had taken to stitching the borders of their backing paper with real machine stitching.

I no longer had a machine and could not justify buying a machine just for that so I simply admired the technique from afar.

However my dear Mum recently bought a "mini" sewing machine just to do some tiny bits of sewing to save her hand stitching. It occurred to me that I could "borrow" her machine to stitch some cards with. I recently did so and ***joy*** what fun I had. I had forgotten the noise of a machine whirring along. Such fun!

You can see some of my stitching in a close up below.

 It's been 22 years since I stitched anything so I confess the lines are not perfect but I actually think this adds to the handmade appeal of the card. 

I had such fun stitching background papers, I even did some in preparation (Vivienne look away now) for my Christmas cards.

I thought I would show you  a couple of cards I made which also used my new skill of colouring stamped images..and now my new machine stitched borders.

Remember this...

With a touch of pixie dust she turned into 

and this cutie

became...

and with one last abracadabra

I waved my magic wand and whirred the machine and out came.....

So do you now believe in sewing magic?

And if you would like a fairy of your own there is even one for sale here in my Etsy Shop ( you don't even need to go looking for one at the bottom of your garden ;0) ******EDIT 4.10.11 I have sold this card, if you are  interested in something similar just convo via Esty. Thanks Jx***********

We have had the most incredible record breaking  weather for the first weekend in October, nearly 30oc each day and the sun shone from dawn to dusk. My daughter and I had a brilliant time at the Bridal Fair in London and got lots of great ideas including an "alternative" wedding cake. I will fill you in soon. My Dad and my husband also sweltered in the heat and put the power and lighting in my studio. It still needs some more work but I now have lighting and 3 power points......it is such such a great work space. 

Thank you all for your lovely kind comments on my last post about my new bag charms. They seem to be going down very well and as promised I have made a knitting themed one called  "Knitting Queen". Here is a photo shown below and I have put it in my little Etsy shop here

Also as I have sold my first Sewing Queen, Knitting Queen and Tea for Two bags charms (thank you so much peeps!) I have made new versions of these

New blue Sewing Queen for sale here

and finally my New Tea for Two for sale in my Etsy shop here

Have a great week everyone. Here in the UK I  really think that we really have had our bonus Indian Summer and our friend Autumn is finally on it's way.

Bye for now,

Jane x