A Snowman day with Daisy

Last week my daughter was on a course so Nanna (aka me) took the day off work and went down to spend the whole day with Darling Daisy. What a wonderful day it was. Daisy has discovered "The Snowman" on DVD and it was love at first sight.

"Hey Nanna this is wonderful cartoon and it's much better watched in my reindeer boots" ;0)

After lunch we ventured down to the local shops as Nanna wanted to find a wreath for her door. We wrapped up warm and off we went to Waitrose.

Daisy had water and rice cakes and Nanna had a cappuccino with cinnamon and chocolate sprinkle...mmmm, 

I managed to find a beautiful wreath and here is in on my front door.

 The Snowman is a real favourite with our family and this is my son's advent calendar this year.

Whilst we were shopping we spotted The Snowman and Snowdog DVD, which just had to come home with us. So now Daisy has both the original Snowman and the sequel which was first shown last year. Just perfect.

I also made her Mummy and Daddy a snowman accordion card this year.

These stamps are sooo cute. 

I coloured them with my Promarkers and fussy cut them out. 

Here are some close ups

 The icicle die is Cheery Lynn and the star Memory Box

 I also added some bling to a wooden snowflake from my stash and lots of frantage for sparkle.

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

I love Promarkers mega Christmas bingo challenge my line is the middle line ;die cut, free (I have used stamped images) glitter

The Ribbon Girl anything goes

Coffee, chocolate and cards use a charm I used a holly charm

Stamp and Create anything Christmas

Craft Hoarders Anonymous Celebrate the season my papers are ancient, my stamps are from last year.

Live and love crafts With love

Fashionable stamping winter wonderland

Natalie and Amy cute and cuddly Christmas

Stamping Sensations winter wonderland

Loves rubberstamps winter or Christmas

It is now just 16 days away from the Big Day. We managed to get the trees decorated yesterday so the house is really starting to look very festive. I hope you are all managing to tick things off that ever lengthening list!

In the UK we are being threatened by the weather forecasters with a weather bomb....whatever it is it sounds pretty dire so hold on to your hats everyone!

Take care,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

The Funkie Junkie's 12 tags of Christmas 2014, Jane's Journal style week 10

I have just been able to keep my head above water and on course making my cards for Linda's fabulous Christmas challenge. We have reached #10. Her tag this week is one of my favourites and it features lots of holly. Do have a look at her tag here

Everyone is welcome to join in with The Funkie Junkie 12 tags of Christmas challenge. It closes on 21st December by which time you need to have submitted all 12 creations using Linda's tags for inspiration. You can make anything at all. The full rules are over on her blog here . Linda offers 3 very generous prizes of gift vouchers to spend in her terrific on line shop, The Funkie Junkie Boutique. Do have a look at the link here . I am choosing to make 12 Christmas cards instead of tags.

I was inspired this week by the holly....I love holly, it really is the most festive of plants. I thought that the grungy/Gothic effect Linda created using extra embossing was great so I decided to add that to my card. I also love the little bit of red she used and decided to try to incorporate that too. She also used vellum again and that was my choice to mount my sentiment on.

I know you all enjoy seeing my process so here goes. First I blended some festive coloured Distress inks onto my backing card. I am still just managing to work in my garden studio so the photos are a little dark as they were taken on my work bench.

I also added a swoosh of antiqued bronze DP and sprayed with water.

Next I got out my Holly Bough stencil

 and added Pine needles DI through it

I used my Gothic stencil again to add some texture

 I mixed the bronze DP into the paste

 and was left with this cool effect

I also loved the lattice Linda used so I decided to gold emboss some using my spellbinders die and also some Cheery Lynn holly leaves which I die cut. These are my favourite holly leaves as you get so many different sizes and they give a lovely deep vein too.

I also added some bronze DP to the leaves and trellis

So then it was time to put on my creative hat...................and this is what I came up with.

You can see that I added some red Stickles to the leaves and trellis and just added a pop of red to the baubles on the sentiment.
The sentiment is Lili of the Valley and I mounted it on a piece of the vellum I made for my #9 Funkie Junkie card. I also edged the card with bronze DP...this is so much more sparkling in real life. Here is a close up of all those textures.

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

The Funkie Junkie 12 tags of Christmas #10
Frilly and funkie A vintage holiday
Country View Crafts nostalgic Christmas to me holly is such a nostalgic part of my Christmas, I always have some in my house.
Noor! Design UK Merry Christmas
Whimsy Inspirations anything goes
Simon says stamp Monday  Holiday cards
Simon says stamp Wednesday Christmas/ holidays
We do doobadoo get festive
Penny Black and More Special occasions mine is of course...Christmas
Cheery Lynn red and green

I hope you all enjoying your weekend? The countdown to Christmas is ticking along now.........just
18 days to go. Our tree was delivered yesterday and we really hope to get the chance today to get it inside and decorated.

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