Festive frosts

The first few days of December have been very chilly and the frosts have been deep and crisp, with clear blue skies too. It's perfect festive weather for me. I love seeing the frost on the leaves in my garden

and my pots. The violas are such plucky plants and their little heads were bowed over. They will perk right up despite the weather. Underneath my bulbs are sleeping away. 

My primula should be fine too

 My studio has been shut up for the winter now and my crafting continues indoors. 

I am hoping all the hedgehogs are fast asleep unlike the one on my card for today.

I wanted to create a snowy scene with my Lavinia stamps and it features one of their lovely fairies and a sweet hedgehog.

I decided that it could be snowing stars instead of snow in my little magical scene.

The background is distress oxides.

I would like to enter it into the following challenges;

Try it on Tuesdays Inspired by a song or carol mine is In the Bleak Mid winter

Simon says stamp Monday let's sparkle

The Artistic stamper 1/3 Christmas is coming

Love to craft 1/3 anything goes

Sparkles 1/3 winter wonderland

Stamping sensations 1/3 anything goes

Happy little stampers watercolour anything goes

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas #466

It is for sale down at Dotty's Tea House, Carshalton High Street. 

Just to give a little heads up; if you live near Coulsdon in Surrey, Dotty's has opening a 2nd venue called Dotty's Tea Garden.

..and yes my cards will be for sale there too. I am hoping to visit the Tea Garden very soon and will share some photos when I do. Exciting times!

Thanks so much for stopping by, particularly at this very busy time of the year.

Keep warm,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Christmas stamping with STAMPlorations

Hello, I am back with my 2nd design team post of the day, this one is for the lovely STAMPlorations. Our last challenge of the year for the theme and photo prompt challenge is called Stamps and Holidays. This can be any holiday eg Easter etc but for me, as I am Mrs Christmas, this just had to be Christmas.

You can choose to go with the holiday theme or chose to go with something from the photo; perhaps the colours or images..or as I always love to challenge myself to do...both! If it is not obvious just let us know on your post. All the details are here

I used the winter coffee stamp from coffee for all seasons

with the little words from Homespun Christmas

and the snowflakes from Reindeer Christmas

This is what I got up to. 

 I made a background using alcohol inks.

I cut it down and added some stamping using all the 3 sets mentioned above. I embossed in white, green, pink and yellow as per the photo prompt. I also stamped to match the pattern too.

I added some glitter to coffee cup.

I them matted it up using pink card and mounted it onto a white square card blank.
Here it is finished.

It would be great to see you joining in with the fun and perhaps you might even be one of the winner.  You can go with the theme, the sketch or both, the choice is yours. There are some fab prizes to be won; $15 gift certificate to the winner and $10 for the runner up, chosen by a DT member. There are also $5 gift certificates given to each of 3 randomly drawn players. Once again this is the link to the challenge with all the info you need.

Thanks so much for stopping by today,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

And December came

Oh wow here we are, 1st December and time to open the first window of my vintage advent calendar and start the real count down to Christmas.
I have chosen this one from my stash for this year.

How nostalgic I find these images..I am transported right back to my 1960's childhood Christmases.

This is my absolute favourite time of the year and I love everything about it. Everywhere looks so festive.

It is also time for my first  December design time post for Country View challenges. Our theme this month is a lovely one...stars. So obviously we would like to see all your crafting projects featuring stars. All the details can be found here.

I use lots of stars in my card making and next to hearts and sequins they are my most used embellishment to add to the cards I sell at Dotty's Teahouse.

I decided to make a starry card using the wonderful Night owl by Visible Image.

 I gave a sneak peek of this over on the post I wrote in November  for CVC showcasing the autumn release here

He makes such a big impact on cards.

To make my starry background I used alcohol inks. 

I then my Tim Holtz  Tim swirling stars die to cut out some stars

I then mounted this onto a sheet of gold card so that the stars could twinkle through.

I also used his hocus pocus stars stencil to add some white ink which you can see top right of the photo below.

I also used a Visible Image sentiment from their So much stronger set which I stamped onto the same gold card I used under the stars. I also die cut some extra stars in gold and glitter card. 

I stamped and watercoloured the owl using Zig pens and put together my card.

A couple of close ups;

and one last shot

 I hope I may have inspired you to join in with our challenge. You can use any stamps/products, the choice is yours. 

You can enter our challenge as many times as you like and combine with other challenges. There is also a £20 crafting voucher up for grabs to the lucky randomly selected winner to spend over on the Country View Crafts on line store. Remember that UK postage and packing is absolutely FREE! Once again all the details for the December challenge can be found here.

I will be back with some more stars inspiration for CVC on 11th December with a festive starry Christmas card.

Thanks so much for stopping by, I am back in an hour and a half with my 2nd post of the day....the 1st of the month is busy busy!! 

Bye for now,

Jane x