Found....in the loft

I don't know about you but sometimes I find things that get put in the loft seem to "vanish". Our loft is not too cluttered and over the years my Hb and I have tended to get stuff out and throw it away or freecycle it rather than put more up there. When my Hb was putting away the Christmas decs this year he made a discovery......

Yes my very old sewing machine, bought for me when I was 12 and making clothes at school in my needlework lessons. In those days I made lots of my own clothes, skirts, trousers....it was a way of being ahead in the fashion league when I had little money.

I made my own bridesmaids dresses for our wedding, I made the moses basket covers for my daughter (nearly 30 years ago), curtains...and so it went on...until life got far too busy. We  thought that we got rid of the machine many years ago, it is ridiculously heavy. However it had been put out of sight in the loft and I have now decided to hang on to it while it is working.

Last week whilst having lunch with my DD and Daisy my daughter mentioned that it is World Book Day soon at Daisy's nursery and the children have been invited to dress up as a book character. Daisy immediately wanted to be the Witch from Room on the Broom (thank goodness she didn't choose Stick Man...LOL). We had a look in the shops for witch outfits but as it is months away from Halloween witch outfits are thin on the ground. The fancy dress ones for children were huge. My daughter then thought that she could buy some black fabric and cut some holes to thread in some ribbon to make a cape. As we chose the ribbon and material I remembered the sewing machine and offered to make the cape for Daisy. Now my daughter is a girl who is pretty challenged when it comes to needlework ;0) My darling girl buys stick in name tapes and iron on letters rather than sew anything. Handicrafts are not quite her thing, I think it has skipped a generation to my Daisy.

Saturday was such a dismal day I decided that I would see what I could put together. It was tricky as I  had to roughly guess the size.

I was delighted to find that the machine still worked and even the light switched on.
I found some very old but unused needles in the bottom and put a new one it.

Also there was my trusty needle threader..no longer used for speed but for the fact my eyes can't see the hole any more!
The light was awful so please excuse the poor photos.

I remembered my very first lessons at secondary school when we made a skirt...so I gathered up an edge with 2 rows of stitches.

I also made a collar which I stitched on. I laughed to myself as I could hear our old needlework teacher, Miss Thompson  preaching to us "Pin, tack then stitch girls". I could never be bothered with tacking and whenever I was out of school just stitched over the pins. There is a lovely sound when you whizz along using a machine, and like riding a bike and playing the piano you never forget how to do it!
I spent a few hours fiddling around and came up with this...the black makes it very hard to photograph...the ribbon ties at the stand up collar.

I need to see how it fits on Daisy and I hope to be able to attach the cloak clasp too

I really hope it fits and she can use it...fingers crossed. My daughter is going to cover a piece of dowel with tape and add a star for a wand and try to find a little witch's hat on Ebay.

My card today was inspired by the black of the cape...but with some flowers like my sweet Daisy. I used my Camellia stamp from Rubber dance again.

It's quite CAS for me and the background was made with my Visible image Bronte verse stamp

 I coloured the stamp with distress inks and added some punched butterflies and a die cut sentiment

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

Pixie's snippets playground  1/3  #216  I used a snippet of card for my butterflies and die cut

Noor UK  love
The Artistic stamper  love 
Deep Ocean  hearts

Stamping Sensations 3/3 anything goes

Country View make your own background

Creative Inspirations 3/3 hugs and kisses 

Crafting for all seasons  2/3 love is in the air
Penny Black and More 2/3 anything goes with a stamp and a die
Simon says stamp Wednesday One layer
Cute Card Thursday 1/3 sweet Valentine's
Ribbon Girl 1/3 any image card challenge
Where the HeArt is 1/3 love

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend. Saturday was a wash out but Sunday was sunny if very chilly.We managed a lovely long walk before our M&S Valentine dine in for 2 meal which was yummy.

Have a lovely week and thanks for visiting today.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

F is for floral and my garden love.

I love my garden, yes I really do love it and at this time of the year I really miss not being out there tending it. My pots look empty, in the summer they are full of gorgeous colourful flowers but for the moment I am just waiting for my spring bulbs to come up.

Recently I visited a garden centre and spotted lots of colour there.

and these great pots....

Back at my parents' house they had some lovely colour already in their pots.

But below is my rather forlorn garden yesterday morning when we woke up to quite  a heavy frost

However I do have some colour as there are some pretty daffs out in my front garden.

 My very favourite flowers, I just adore these sweet yellow bonnets.

For the dictionary challenge over at the Craft Barn we have been given the letter F and we also have include a heart. I also wanted to join in with some other super challenges so I pooled some of the challenge themes and decided that inspired by the colours around me at the moment my art journal pages would be F for Floral.

There is also a "wax" challenge over at PaperArty so I decided to use these for my theme.

I used my PaperArtsy  tulip stamps and my new Wendy Vecchi SISI flower and stamped lots of images on to book pages. 

 I got out my long neglected  Gelatos and used them to colour my images.

 and then fussy cut them all out.

I added some floral/ garden texture using texture paste 

and chose these distress inks for my floral palette. 

I added some colour to my pages

and a VI sentiment

and added some flicks and drips of water and some more stencilling using my heart stencil

 I also made my own "terracotta" pots out of packaging.

I wanted my love of my garden to shine out of my pages and also to remind me that my pots will soon be full of colour. So I put on my creative hat and had a play over a couple of days with my design. 

This is the double page spread I made;

 Here is my antique dictionary definition of floral, "pertaining to flowers" what a lovely way of saying it. I put it into a Cheery Lynn die cut heart frame. I also added the PA bloom sentiment as this is so apt.

 there is some text stamping using my VI bronte verse stamp.

I would like to enter my art journal pages into the following challenges;

The Craft Barn alpha/dictionary challenge F with a heart
PaperArtsy  #3 wax As suggested by Leandra in the intro video I dug out my gelatos and had fun colouring with them .

Noor UK  love
The Artistic stamper  love 
Deep Ocean  hearts

Stamping Sensations 2/3 anything goes

Country View make your own background

Simon says stamp spritz and spray
Winter Wonderland 1/3 have a heart
Natalie and Amy 1/3 hearts and flowers
Creative Inspirations 2/3 hugs and kisses there are plenty of hugs and kisses to my garden in these pages

Noor UK  love
Pixie's snippets playground  3/3 #215  I used snippets of packaging for my pots
That's crafty 3/3 love
Vintage stamping splatters and drips
Crafting for all seasons 1/3 love is in the air
Emerald Creek Dares blogger scramble/anything goes

So we have reached the weekend of love ;0) My hubby and I plan to get an M+S dine in for 2 and celebrate together at home on Sunday. I will be sharing his card next week as it is a guest design card plus I need him to see it first.

I hope you share your weekend with someone or something you love...even your garden....I do love mine so much. I just need it to warm up before I can get out there to start a tidy up and plan for the coming season. It's bitterly cold this afternoon....there may even be a nip of snow in the air....brrr.
Keep snug and carry on crafting....I am planning to sew a Witch's cape for Daisy as it is World Book Day soon at her nursery and she wants to go as the witch from Room on the Broom. Time to get the sewing machine out the loft....yes we found the one which I thought we had given away!

Thanks for visiting me today and taking the time to leave a comment.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

The colour red

With only a few days left until Valentine's day I found it interesting to look around at the way red appears in every day life, as well as its use to represent love and passion.

Pillar boxes painted are red so that we can spot where to post our mail. I do love the old ones like this one I pass on my way to work.

Red is used in road signs for warnings

Even instructions on the back of doors

and for old fashioned phone boxes, nowadays mobiles have taken over so there are few of these around. This one is actually at a garden centre.

In Mother Nature red can signify danger to us in poisonous berries

but also can produce some beautiful blooms.

The sweet robin also has a red breast.

So for my card today I thought of my favourite colour combination with red which is black.
It is a general with love card for sale here in my Etsy shop

It features my great Visible Ink lips stamp and also I used their rose stamp to glitter emboss a border. There is plenty of sparkle and shine here.

I never get bored using embossing powders....they are such great fun. I finished my card off with my fave with love die cut sentiment and a red bow.

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

Noor UK  love
The Artistic stamper  love 
Creative Inspirations  hugs and kisses
Creative Corner  2/3 Valentine's/love
That's Crafty  3/3 love
Pixie's snippets playground  2/3 #215
Deep Ocean  hearts
The Ribbon girl 1/3 anything goes for a card
Papercreator must be love
Card Mania 1/5 add some red
Penny Black and More 1/3 anything goes with a stamp and a die
Stamping Sensations 1/3 anything goes
Crafty Boots 3/3 love is in the air
Simon says stamp Wednesday 1/5 one layer

After surviving the gales on Monday we are now being advised we might get a covering of snow next week....brrrr. I do know that for many of my son's birthday's we have had snow..and that's not until 24 February,so we could still get a very cold snap before spring finally surfaces. It's been the most bizarre winter here in South East England, up until now we really have not had anything that cold other than the odd day. However the same can't be said about the rain,......especially for the poor souls up north, they certainly don't need any more for the moment.

I hope you enjoyed your pancakes last night...I very nearly forgot until I saw something on TV whilst I was cooking. Luckily I had the ingredients, including a lemon. Well in our house we do need to be prepared for the occasional G+T don't we ;0)

Thanks for visiting today, keep snug and carry on crafting.

Bye for now,

Jane x