Boxing Day

No I have not gone mad in this freezing cold weather. I do know it's not yet Christmas despite having the right weather.  I shall reveal all later in my post.  The big chill continues here and we have had a little more snow. What falls has trouble melting as it is sooooo cold. Last night as we drove home the car registered -4c and it did get down to -7c....oowwch!

This was the view late this afternoon at the ponds. The ponds and river very rarely freeze but they certainly have at the moment.

Even the heron did not want to dip his toes into the icy water.

Just the graceful swan decided to brave the waters!

Other than a quick walk this afternoon we have spent the day in the warm. So now I will reveal why I have called today Boxing Day.....(just in case some of my blogging friends don't get the pun, Boxing Day here in the UK is December 26th). Well recently I bought a new piece of craft kit shown here on the right.


Swooooon, now if you are not a card maker this will not mean much to you so I shall explain. This is none other than a Martha Stewart Scoring Board. It was very difficult to get in this county as apparently it infringes one of the UK scoring boards patents. In the end I had to buy it and pay quite a lot of postage as obviously the supplier shipped it in from the States.
Now the first thing that a decent scoring board does is to make really good neat folds in cards. You just place the paper on the boards, run the tool down the groove and hey presto neat folds.



One of the main reasons I bought this (it was part of my treat to myself with my Christmas bonus from work)
was to try making boxes. As you know a lot of my cards have gorgeous mulberry paper flowers on and you cannot put them in an envelope. I looked at buying card boxes and they cost a fortune. So I decided I would make my own.

Ta-dah!

What do you think? I had loads of practises and decided what looked really cool was to have a plain white bottom of the box and make a lid out of patterned paper/thin card.
This was the card I showed you last week and it looks really cute in its box.

***EDIT ADDED SUN 12.2.12*** There is a lot of happy dancing going on here as I just found I have won my very first "Top 5" award for this card. This is not a win as in coming out of Mr Random Number but actually for the design and making of my card. I am THRILLED take a look here. I have a new blinkie in my side bar which I am proudly displaying :0)

Here is the lid in detail.








I played with lots of other designs including some for Christmas (well it is the weather isn't it?)

I also made a card for my challenges and decided I needed something very cheerful for this cold weather.

I inked up my first Tilda stamp I have ever used and loved the strawberry theme (yes I know I have a thing about strawberries).

Here she is coloured using my trusty Promarkers and highlighted with my Prismacolor pencils.





I added little gems to the strawberry centres to make them sparkle.

The backing paper features sweet hearts (yes it's nearly that time of year) and I added a strawberry button and some sparkly gems to the corners of the card.


I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;
Ladybird Craft Inks Loves me loves me not
Papertake Weekly Anything Goes
Divas by Design Love
Whimsey Stamps challenge blog Love themed
Joanna Sheen Love is in the air
Sundays's with Crissy  Birthdays
Scrapbook Sisters #70 Anything Goes
I love Promarkers Love is in the air
Stamp, scrap and doodle Saturdays red white and pink
Simon Says Stamp Love is in the air


So a Happy Boxing day it has been. My new scoring board opens up all sorts of new card possibilities. I hope you are all keeping snug wherever you are in the world? It's nearly time for dinner here...with a G+T with ice and a slice me thinks. Cheers everyone, thanks for visiting me here and for all the lovely comments you take the trouble to leave. At the request of most of the card challenge blogs I have turned off my comment moderation to make it quicker and easier for everyone to leave a comment. I will try it for a month and see.....?

 Meanwhile Billy as usual has the right idea in this weather,

Enjoy  your Boxing Day evening ;0)

Bye for now,

Jane x

The best kind of snow

For once the weather forecasters were absolutely spot on with their predictions. We were promised that snow would arrive on Saturday evening between 6 and 9pm, that it would snow all night and stop by early Sunday morning. Well it did just that. At 6.45pm the first flakes arrived and soon it was snowing quite heavily. By the time we went to bed this was the scene outside our window.

The snow was the type where the flakes are very small and sparkly, not like the large flakes we had last year.
The snow formed like a crust and sparkled in the night.





When we woke up on Sunday morning  we found a decent layer of snow greeted Billy at the back door.

Now our Billy is such a fair weather cat and dislikes even rain. He was quite confused by the snow.

What was so funny was that he tried to tread in the footprints of another cat (or fox) which had already walked on the path.

Needless to say he did not stay out long at all and was soon back inside in the warm.

I think he was just a little more comfy here, back on the sofa!








We went out for a short walk on Sunday in the snow. It was fun to see everyone out enjoying themselves but even by the afternoon the snow was beginning to melt. When we woke up for work yesterday morning we were really relieved to see that the roads were fairly clear and the trains running on time. Bliss, that is my sort of snow. The kind which falls over the weekend, when we had nothing planned, and was gone by the rush  hour on Monday morning. All fun and no aggravation.

Although there is no more snow forecast for the moment it has turned bitterly cold and we are not due to get much above freezing all this week. So I decided that my card for today would be one with some lovely spring colours to cheer us all up. I went for really bright Spring colours, this card has quite a zing to it!

I have used a new stamp that I have not inked up before from my favourite stamp makers, Lili of the Valley. She is called "Never too old for cupcake".How I agree!

Isn't she a real cutie? I coloured her using my trusty Promakers and highlighted her with my Prismacolor pencils. I had fun adding some Diamond Dust to her wings, which is make of real glass. I also added some Stickles glitter to the icing of the cake.

I used some Mulberry paper flowers which I glitzed up with some glitter but I also make some of my own flowers....

I added little gems to their centres and also made some leaves for them.

I also added a bright yellow ribbon and a hand stamped sentiment.


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

Lili of the Valley week 5 spring colours
Joanna Sheen Feb challenge Love is in the air
Sundays with Chrissy Happy Birthday
Divas by design #20 Anything Goes
The Crafty Pad Fresh Spring colours
Paper Crafting Journey #2 Fairies or angels
Creative card crew #3 Fantasy creatures
I love Promarkers Photo inspiration; bright buttons
Cupcake inspiration Photo inspiration, bright colours
Pan Pastel challenge Happy birthday

It's been my silversmithing day today but I am now home with Billy. Any guesses where he is?

It's tough being a cat isn't it. Today has been gloriously sunny, clear blue skies but freeeezing cold. Enjoy your evening and I think Billy has got the right idea ;0)

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Keeping snug

The weather has turned bitterly cold for the last few days and for the first time this winter we lit our open fire.
Normally with our central heating running  it never really gets chilly enough to light the fire but the wintry weather gave us a great excuse to do so.

There is nothing like a real fire. It is so mesmerising to watch the flames. When we moved into our 1930s terraced house in 1983 I really had no real interest in these style of houses. It was just a good house, at a good price in a good location and we bought it. In the front room still stood the original 1930s tiled fire place and if I am really honest I didn't like it and fully intended that when we decorated it would be removed.

The front room when we bought out house was just about the only room which did not need redecorating. We decided just to buy new carpet and it was a very livable room for many years. As we are such slow decorators it took us years until the time arrived to decorate it. As the years passed by I became more and more interested in the style of our house. When we replaced the windows (horrible picture windows with louvres put in during the 1970s by the previous owners) we even went back to the original style with individual panes.

So when the time came to re decorate the front room I was really pleased that the original fire place still stood. It is one of the few left in our road which have not been pulled out. I love it and of course it suits the room as that is what it was made for it. I often think of what it must have been like when the house was built in 1935, in those days open fires were  the only form of heating.


The other project we undertook to restore the appearance of our house to that of the 1930s was to find a talented stained glass maker who reproduced for us the number window which every house would have had in their porch. There are only 2 remaining in our road and those owners kindly allowed us to photograph and measure up. We did slightly add to the design but it is pretty faithful to the original.

This is taken in the evening from inside the hall (and obviously the number is visible the correct way round from outside) but you can see how well the light streams through. On a sunny day the light dances about in colours on the walls and carpet.

And here is a close up showing the individual pieces of glass and the lovely colours. We spent a long time choosing them, even the clear glass is faithful to that used in the 1930s.

So this lovely new window see the house through may be another 100 years. The old has become "new!"




Now with that fortunate link I can show you my card challenge for today. It is actually for a New Baby. No there are no babies arriving yet in our family but I am often asked if I make these cards.  Up until I few weeks ago I did not own any New Baby Stamps but I decided to buy this very sweet set from my friend Kerry. They are really lovely and I had a play with some colouring...

I have also bought some sweet baby boy and baby girl papers. I decided to make my first card as a Baby Girl card and here she is

Rather than keeping to just pastel pink I decided to go for more bold colours, red and pink.  The backing paper also  has browns in it. I also added some "celebrate" worded paper which I matted with pink card.

I coloured the stamped image using my trusty Promarkers and added a little gem in the centre of the bow on the pram for a little bling.

I finished off my card with a  piece of shiny brown satin polka dot ribbon, a red polka dot button and some red pearls.

I rather like this different colour way.

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

Passion for Promarkers Challenge 134 New Beginnings
Cupcake Craftroom Feb Challenge New Beginnings
Really Reasonable Ribbon challenge 41 pink and red
Divas by Design challenge 20, anything goes
Party Time Tuesday's challenge 53 anything goes
Just Tracey's Crafts Something for a female
Joanna Sheen's Feb challenge  Love is in the air



I am still on a lovely roll with my cards and found I won another challenge last week...have a look here. I really am doing a lot of happy dancing here. I will show you my winnings for my stash when they have all  arrived.

So it's fingers crossed for some Lady Luck again this week for my cards ;0) Thank you so much for all the lovely comments you leave about my cards. I am sure it is all your good wishes that have stirred the ether and made my cards into winners. I am proudly wearing my winner badges in my side bar of my blog.

The forecaster are saying we may well have snow here over the weekend but even if we do it should be short lived. We shall definitely be lighting our fire again. Keep snug wherever you are and have a lovely weekend.
If it snows then it is crafting and chocolate for me...!


Bye for now,

Jane x