A new year and new hopes

Happy New year all. 2021...here's to a much better year and that life might finally start to return to some kind of normality. This is my first of 2 posts today as of course there are new challenges to be shared. First up is my design team post for Country View where our first challenge theme is "use one or more squares". As always there is a fab £20 voucher up for grabs for one lucky randomly selected winner to spend on the website. What a cool pre Christmas treat that would be. You can find all the details of the challenge and more examples made by my talented teamies here.

I decided to make a new year card and used several  awesome Visible Image sets (some of which are out of stock at the moment). Susan will be restocking her Visible Image range very soon so do add you email address on the website to anything out of stock and she will contact you when they are in.  Susan keeps a good range on the website here .

  This is what I got up to;

I made a distress ink background using crackling campfire and speckled egg distress inks. I love these 2 new colours and with the rustic wilderness green released in November they were a great trilogy for 2020. Susan has a lot of distress products on the website here .

I added some background stamping using the Visible Image Ahead of time set

I also stamped some flashes from the "Rays of light set" which you will see in my final photos.  For my "squares" I stamped the numbers onto scraps of spare background using alphabetical There is a great square in this set too which I stamped to frame the numbers.  I then cut out 4 white slightly bigger squares and layered on the numbers.

I used the sentiment from "Destination unknown" and the happy new year from the "Go to Christmas" words set. I also stamped and cut out the door from the "Ahead of time" set to allow the year to "tumble out". I then put everything together and for a finishing touch added some die cut stars.

Here is my finished card.

with some close ups

and one final shot.

We would love to see you join in with our January challenge. 

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

Allsorts sparkle and shine

Simon says stamp Wednesday sparkle and shine

The house that stamps built 2/3 anything goes 

Simon says stamp Monday celebrate 

I hope I may have inspired you to join in with our January "use 1 more squares" 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 from CVC is free on all orders over £7.50! Once again all the details for the January challenge can be found here.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Take care and stay safe. I will be sharing my 2nd design team project for our squares challenge on the 13th of January.

Back again in a couple of hours!

Bye for now

Jane x

My crafting review 2020

On Monday I shared my favourite photos from this year. I am back today, on this last day of 2020, with a review of my crafting.  I regard my crafting as one of the key things which has kept me positive, motivated and sane. It is a hobby in which I can completely immerse myself and I have spent many many hours in my studio creating a huge number of projects this year.

I learnt how to "zoom" craft with Daisy during the first Lockdown which was an amazing way of keeping in touch with her during those awful early months when we were separated. 

I continued as a design team member for Country View, Visible Image, STAMPlorations and Creative stamping Magazine.  I enjoyed spending many hours creating over 100 makes for them this year. I want to thank them all for their support of my work this year and every year.

 Dotty's Teahouse in Carshalton High Street, where I sell my cards endured a very challenging year with Lockdowns and endless restrictions.  Sadly the Tea Garden which was to have enjoyed its inaugural year remained shut. Rebecca, Dotty's owner always remains so positive and she branched out into home deliveries and cake-away takeaways and kept going no matter what. As I did not need to make as many cards as usual I also diversified my makes. I made lots of artist trading cards and coins, some of which I swapped and some Daisy and I made and sent to one another.

 The other person I have to thank this year is the ever amazing Tim Holtz who has managed to inspire not just me but thousands of crafter worldwide during 2020. He gave a whole serious of live demos over on Facebook. What I loved about Tim's Facebook lives was that he gave his time completely free and everything was available to everyone.  His enthusiasm for crafting is so infectious and in my humble opinion he remains the most inspiring crafter in the industry. New distress colours were also released which further fired my creativity. 

The makes I am sharing are not a "top 9" but my personal favourite 9 I have made for my design teams, for Daisy and my Tim Holtz makes. I made a collage for each.  I have already shared these over the last few days on Instagram. You can check me out/follow me here. 

Here they are;

Country View

Visible Image

STAMPlorations

Creative stamping magazine.

(Included in this collage I some of my previously unshared "practice"/spare makes).

 Some of my mindful moments artist trading card and coin swaps with Daisy.

We were able luckily to craft together in the summer and at Halloween. We made drippy candles which were such fun. Sadly I have not been able to see her again since the latest Lockdown which began in early November, just before her 7th birthday. 

and finally 9 of my favourite Tim Holtz makes

I must admit I even surprise myself at how much I make each year. This is just a fraction of my total output!! 

For today I have also made a special card to see out 2020 and to look forward to a brighter, Covid free, safer and kinder 2021.

The perfect stamp to use was of course my Phoenix rising set by Visible Image.

I adapted this design from one I made as a sample when it was released in November.

The background was blended using my beloved Distress inks.

a couple of close ups;

and one final shot

The other sentiment in this set is the word "HOPE". How appropriate that is on the last day of 2020.  The vaccines are looking very promising and together with all the other measures we hope to bring Covid19 to its knees. 

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

Allsorts sparkle and shine

Simon says stamp Wednesday sparkle and shine

Die cut divas 1/3 anything goes my numbers are Tim Holtz thinlets dies

The house that stamps built 1/3 anything goes 

Simon says stamp Monday celebrate 

I will close Jane's Journal for 2020 with these following words. 

“And when all that was left was ashes, she would again clothe herself in flame. Rising from the dust of her past to rekindle the spark of her future. She was a Phoenix, her own salvation; rebirthed, renewed, resurrected.” — LaRhonda Toreson

Let's hope we can get our lives back in 2021 and finally rise like the phoenix from this terrible pandemic which has caused so much darkness. 

Happy new year,

Take care and stay safe.

I will be back in the morning with my first 2 design team posts of 2021.

Jane x

My photographic review of 2020

Hi friends I thought I would pop in between Christmas with my annual review of 2020 in photos. I have written Jane's Journal for over 10 years now and I also write my journal as a personal record too. It really has been a year like no other, Covid19 hit the news after Christmas last year and by late February the situation was looking dire. Just after the first day of spring the UK was plunged into its first Lockdown on 24th March.

It was really hard to select just 16 photographs from the 100s I took. I made them into 4 seasonal photo collages.

Spring

We were so fortunate that in January we had our tiny garden landscaped as a gift from my dear parents.  We had no idea at the time what lay ahead. What a blessing my garden has been this year.

I sewed seeds, planted new plants and mowed my new lawn. We spent many many happy hours out there this year.  One event that I have to include, despite the sadness we still feel, is the death of darling Bear, our son's dog. He was such a big part of our family. A huge dog with a huge heart who was loved so much by everyone. He loved our newly landscaped garden and I am so glad that he was able to see it and enjoy the magnolia in flower. The one thing I will also always remember of the spring of 2020 was the incredible weather we enjoyed in South East England. The skies really were azure and the sun shone for weeks on end.  I also wrote a series of 10 Mindful Moments which I shared here on my blog. If you missed them, click here for number 1 and you can search for the other by putting them in my search bar on the side bar of my blog.

Summer

I love walking and I walk almost every day. Despite the lockdown restrictions we were allowed to walk locally and my sweet dino ducks brought me so much cheer. I saw the latest clutches of fluffy ducklings grow into the gorgeous adults they are now. We stayed at home and I crafted, gardened, baked and clapped for the NHS. We even enjoyed a socially distanced street party on VE day on 8th May to celebrate its 75th year. 

In August we actually made it to Italy with our family and had a week of bliss in a secluded villa in the vineyards of Tuscany. Summer was a brief respite from the restrictions imposed by the pandemic. We enjoyed long hot sunny days and saw our family again. I'm so glad we did as sadly in the autumn things were to change yet again.

Autumn

We enjoyed visiting our favourite public gardens RHS Wisley all through the year. At every visit there was always something new to see and admire. We witnessed the pumpkins growing and saw their gorgeous display when they were harvested.  The colours of autumn this year in South East England were quite extraordinary. The mostly fine weather continued and we saw golds, reds and oranges in the autumnal leaves which took my breath away. My dino ducks made such lovely scrunching noises as they waddled through them to see me on my regular visits. 

Sadly new restrictions were imposed again on 5th November and once again we could no longer see family. I had even started Daisy's birthday cake but everything was of course cancelled. Luckily I sent the decorations I had made and her Mummy made a cake and put them on. As with most events this year we celebrated via Watts App. Thank goodness for modern technology.

Winter/Christmas 

We saw the stunning Christmas Glow display at Wisely on a cold but gorgeous night in December and for a while thought that we would actually celebrate a small family gathering on Christmas day. Sadly just 6 days before Christmas that was all cancelled. Of course Christmas day still went ahead, in a very different way indeed. I still celebrated my favourite time of the year and made some new memories.

The one bonus of this year has been that our darling Billy cat has had our company constantly. My husband has worked from home since the first Lockdown and is his company is not rushing them back to their City of London office for the foreseeable future.

This was my Christmas place setting this year. I made these "emergency" crackers at the last minute.

I will keep the "real" ones I made 

for when we get to celebrate Christmas with our family at some point next year. Even if it's the hottest day of the year it will be worth waiting for. All the presents are ready and waiting until we can be together again.

As we approach the end of 2020 it is time for me reflect on this extraordinary year. I am incredibly grateful that my family has stayed safe and well so far. My daughter is one of the thousands of heroic NHS doctors we are blessed to have working for us. Their work this year has been phenomenal but so difficult and stressful. They truly are such selfless souls. My son has worked tirelessly and often 7 days a week to successfully move his golfing business completely online. Thank goodness golf was one of the sports allowed to continue from the earliest days of the Lockdown. I am so proud of the way my family has worked and kept going whatever challenges they faced. I personally know a lot of families have not been so lucky and my heart really breaks for them. Let's hope 2021 brings hope of a more normal life returning. 

I will be back on new year's eve with my crafting highlights of 2020. What an amazing year that has been! Despite Dotty's having to close for some of the time (and she has had to close again) my crafting has been incredibly productive. Together with my garden and Mother Nature it has been just the best of distractions for me. 

I will close with one of my favourite poems written nearly 100 years ago, way before our modern life and all is complexities. How important  Mother Nature is to still keeping us all mindful....

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

William Henry Davies          

                      

Take care and stay safe.

Try to find the time to stand and stare, amongst all this chaos. We will get there. 

Back on the 31st. 

Jane x