Counting down to Christmas guest designing for the Cardathon from Scrap rendez-vous

Now that Guy Fawkes night is over it really is the race to Christmas, which is just 49 days away.
Recently I went to Harrods with my Mum to see the Christmas decorations, our annual jaunt.

 Harrods is my favourite shop in the world!

 It was great to see all the Christmas displays

Today I am thrilled to be a part of the Christmas cardathon over at Scrap Rendez-vous an event being organised by a dear blogging friend of mine Alex of Art scrap and More and her friends.

The concept behind the CARDATHON is to feature a different card-maker every single day during the month of November. The guest designer shares an original sketch + card on the theme of Christmas / the Winter Holidays. The idea is to encourage and inspire ScrapRDV's readers to create their own cards while getting to know other accomplished card-makers...Just use the link here

I have designed a sketch and a card for the event.
Today I  can only give you a little sneak peek of my card on my blog so you need to click on the link above to see my card and sketch. But tomorrow, if you would like to pop back, I will be showing a full reveal and a tutorial of how I made my card.

Here is my sneak peek

Until tomorrow...............


Jane x

Pannage in the New Forest

Two weeks ago we enjoyed a wonderful day out with our DD, SIL and Daisy in the New Forest. They live nearby and we love to see the different seasons and colours there. It is a truly unique landscape and is only maintained that way by the effect of the grazing of the New Forest Ponies and cattle.

They keep the heath land open. There is also the wonderful forest full of many different trees but especially oaks.

The colours were beautiful

The leaves seemed almost alight as they glowed showing off every shade of gold, red, brown and yellow.

Obviously the oak trees drop their acorns in autumn and in quantities these are poisonous to the ponies.
There is an ancient remedy to clear up the acorns which is called Pannage and it involves a wonderful natural hoover.....none other than............

yes seriously....pigs.
Every year sows and piglets are released by their farmer owners who pay a small token fee to allow them to roam free for 6-12 weeks, depending on the acorn harvest. As you know I adore pigs and although we have been aware of the annual pannage, the pigs are very elusive and many people never see them.

Well our luck was in. We drove to an area where my daughter had researched that pigs had been seen at the day before. Amazingly this girl trotted out across the road, followed by.

 her piglet who stopped next to where we were standing and had a good scratch!

They were joined by another sow...how apt it that sign...as the ancient saying goes a pig won't be druv!
They let us pat them as they wandered up the lane munching acorns as they moved on.

Daisy loved them. I was just ecstatic!

I could not believe that we had actually witnessed Pannage in person and we watched the pigs until they disappeared out of sight up the lane.

 We thought that would be our one and only sighting that day.

However as we walked toward Burley....there was some noise in the undergrowth and we spotted......

yes another group of piglets...Oh my I could not believe our luck.

It was just the best day and I want to thank my darling daughter for doing the research the day before which allowed us this glimpse of the annual Pannage which is seen by few people.

Now of course to remember this day I just had to make a Moment. I wanted it to be a thankful moment and I decided to use this photo of me.....I rarely use my own photos but I just though the sheer joy on my face summed up that day.

I used the same greens, oranges and browns from the forest. I wanted to try to capture the memory of the light shining through the tree canopy and also the gorgeous colours of the leaves.

I created  my inky background 

 I die cut some trees and also gave them the lovely mossy effect on the trunks I had seen by using a wash of colour and dipped them in.

 I added texture with my VI stamp. I also used my Bronte verse stamp which you will see later.

 I also added green leaves to the background using archival through my flourish stencil

 I added some texture by embossing some card

 and added clear embossing powder to the wet ink for this lovely glossy effect.

It was then time to put on my creative hat and put my design together.

So this is the thankful Moment I made for Jane's Journal

Here are some of the details in close up.........how apt is this quote!

 and I can really feel those crunching leaves under my feet.

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

Faber-Castelle take the challenge  with thanks.
Papertake Weekly 1/5 anything goes
We love to create anything creative/mixed media #22
Frilly and Funkie 1/3 Let there be light I have used different shades of ink to reproduce the wonderful light in the forest and the colours of the leaves there. I also used clear embossing powder and clear rock candy crackle to add to the feel of shining light.
Simon Says stamp Monday So Glossy I have used clear embossing powder over my embossed leaf card to give a lovely shine and also clear rock candy crackle to give a shine to some of my die cut leaves.
Simon Says stamp Wednesday Thanks/thanksgiving
Noor UK anything goes
Dies R Us fall
Creative Inspirations 1/3 sparkle my sparkle is the clear embossing powder on the embossed  card and clear rock candy crackle on my leaves..they both give such a lovely sparkle.
Inspiration Journal mission embossoble. I have used wet and dry embossing on my Moment.

I really do "give thanks" for such special times I spend with my family and especially being able to find the pigs during the annual autumn pannage...such joy.

I'm back on Friday with just a sneak peek of a Christmas guest design project I have been involved in...the big reveal is over here on Saturday.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

The Funkie Junkie's 12 tags of Christmas 2015 #4

Happy November everyone and I hope you had a lovely weekend, I certainly did. I'm still trying to get ahead with my Funkie Junkie cards so this is my week 4 entry.

For those of you who are new to Linda's challenge you can read all the rules of it here. In a nutshell you use her weekly tag for inspiration and you can create anything crafty and as long as all 12 projects are completed by 22 Dec. You also have a chance to win one of her generous prizes. I was lucky enough to win $25 dollars last year  to spend in her wonderful on line boutique which sponsors the challenge. Do have a look here at her shop, her stock is enormous and her prices really keen.

I choose to use the challenge to create 12 special Christmas cards.

Linda's tag can be seen here

I was inspired by the plaid she created as I knew in my stash I had a lovely plaid ribbon I wanted to use. I was also inspired by the very traditional Christmas greens and reds she used, the holly leaves and the bell hanging from the twine.

However I made something very different as I wanted to use a lovely holly wreath embossing folder I bought last year and have not yet used.

I took some green card and embossed this lovely design but I felt it looked a little flat so I sat with it for a couple of days to have a think about what I would do with it.

I wanted to use this lovely  paper too. 

To show up the leaves I decided to rub on some gilding wax.

I love the effect this gives

I added red gems for berries

and tied little bells with twine to my plaid ribbon

I then put on my creative hat and came up with this card; I stamped a LOTV sentiment as a focal

I would like to enter my into the following challenges;

The Funkie Junkie's 12 tags of Christmas 2015 #4
Winter Wonderland anything Christmas
Noor! UK anything goes
Our creative corner 1/3 topsy turvey my card is topsy turvey as I thought I would use my embossed wreath as it was and then had the idea to add gilding wax to lift it and add gem berries too.
Stamping sensations Festive florals
Allsorts 1/3 Anything Christmas
Pixie's Snippets 1/3 Playground #201I used a snippet of twine.
Sweet stampin 1/3 dies and/or punches I used a die for my stamped sentiment surround
Flonzcraft Vintage Traditional Christmas

I am just finishing off a Moment I made from our visit to the New Forest last week and will be back in a couple of days to share it. I also have a Guest Design post coming up at the end of the week for Scrap-Rendezvous....lots to share here.

Thanks for visiting me and taking the time to leave a comment, I love reading them all.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x