The Grand Opening of Dotty's Teahouse

I have been teasing you all for some time on my blog. Now I can finally share some photos of this exciting new business which is opening in our High Street and will be selling my unique one of a kind handmade cards.

Welcome to Dotty's Teahouse...........

The owner, Rebecca and her team have been working incredibly hard over the last few months to transform the old Art Shop in Carshalton High Street into a wonderful vintage tea house. The big reveal was on Wednesday night at the grand opening, which my Hb and I attended.
If you like vintage 40s/50s/60s you will love Dotty's....the inside is such fun with lots of wonderful quirky, retro details.

The opening was attended by the Mayor and our local MP. I love this photo...I sneaked behind the official photographer at the balloon launch.

We were entertained by this super Trio who sung and danced their hearts out.

I took lots of photos. Below is a small selection.

Rebecca, looking very glam,  with my cards. I am selling a variety of my styles...from cute to shabby chic. I have also created a very limited "spring colour" run of my own "tea room cards"...you can spot those on the far right and 2 on the left. They have my Crafty Individuals tea birds on vintage cups and this batch are spring green. I plan to make these in different colourways during the year. For my first freshly baked  made batch of 45 one of a kind cards I have birthday, general, new baby, wedding and "Dad" cards (Father's day is in June) up for sale.

I will also be making cards to order so I had some business cards printed up...coincidentally they match Dotty's interior really well!

My Hb took this shot of us.

A fab evening was had by all..............

and yes of course cake had to feature ;0)

I would like to wish Rebecca all the very best for her wonderful new business adventure and if you are near to Carshalton...do pop in . Dotty's opens this afternoon but is having a "slow" first few weeks to find the "flow". If you would like further details and opening time do have a look at Dotty's Facebook page here

My card challenge card for today is the one I made especially for Rebecca to celebrate her new venture. I wanted to create a Tearoom scene for her. Carshalton is very beautiful and my  beloved ponds are full of wildlife. I used this as my inspiration.

 These views are a 1 minute stroll from Dotty's.

 I chose to make an easel card using Kraft card as the base as this felt very vintage. 

The stamped image is Take a little Time for Tea (very appropriate) by Crafty Individuals. I embossed it with clear powder and hand painted it with distress inks. The window and bird die cuts are Tim Holtz. 

Below is a close up of the inside. The papers are from Craft Consortium. I was lucky enough to win a pad earlier this year. 

 The card "stands" on a bouquet of paper roses and a little tea cup and saucer (of course) charm. I added a piece of vintage lace and of course a Dotty button!

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

Crafty Individuals anything goes
The Ribbon Girl  3/3 any image
Noor spring flowers
Seven Hills Crafts Embossing I used Hero Arts clear embossing powder for embossing my image before I painted it.
WOW  embossing powders May challenge. The image has been heat embossed
Artistic Inspirations 3/3 Anything goes/use a die cut 

Stamping sensations 3/3anything goes
Memory Box For the birds My daisy leaves and music score are MB

Cutie Pie 3/3 escape to the country

Crafty friends 3/3 in the garden

Paper Creator 3/3 anything goes
Fussy and Fancy  1/3 dies and/or punches
Bunny Zoe lovely layers
Deep Ocean shabby chic/vintage

So cheers to Dotty's and I look forward to my cards being a small part of this exciting new adventure.

Thanks as always for your kind visits and for the sweet comments you take the time to leave me. If you are a first time visitor here it is lovely for you to stop by. I will be baking  making my next batch of cards soon....if you are passing Dotty's do pop in. Whilst you are waiting for your tea to brew you can have a browse. There are lots of lovely handmade crafts for sale and my fresh bakes  makes will be there too.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Yippee for Yupo

Apologies to anyone who caught a quick glimpse of my GD post yesterday. I had to put it back to draft as the challenge owner had given me the wrong date! It will be shown next week instead ;0)

Earlier this year I was watching Tim Holtz on You Tube demoing some of the new Ranger Products when he showed Yupo paper. Now interestingly I had bought some of this a long time ago and it had sat in my stash. A few weeks ago I was looking at playing with some new techniques and I watched some more You Tube Videos on alcohol inks and saw Yupo paper again. I completely forgot that I had a pad in my own stash and ordered a Ranger pad. Whilst waiting for it to arrive I then found my own pad!  Never mind at least I was able to have a play.

I first tried dripping the inks on....and I loved this effect.

Next I dripped on the inks and then added blending solution ...a different effect which again I really liked.

I really this one too...................

I can see a sea card waiting to be created with it :0

The third method I tried was putting inks onto felt and dabbing this on the paper.....this was probably my least favourite but the backing paper I made was still very interesting.

So I ended up with 4 really cool backgrounds. The only inks which don't "float" are the metallics but as you can see in the bottom right piece they still add an interesting effect when dabbed on,

I also had a play with trying out some stamping and techniques on a sheet. This sheet was a reject as I bodged the stamping of the eye but I carried on playing and I actually ended up quite liking it!

My challenge card today is one I have made using the bright zingy background for my lovely blogging friend Di (it's in the post ;0) I made a thank you card as I won a lovely stamp and sentiment on Sunday from her Playground challenge (thanks again Di x). I stamped one of my Rubber dance beach scenes onto a piece of card which I had added bister to and created a retro glam grunge card with a very 60s feel to it. I hope she likes it.

I love playing with bister too

I would like to enter my card into these challenges;

Pixie's Snippets Playground #229 I used a snippet of orange card for the die cut thanks and photo corners.
Anything but Cute celebrate your style yes I have several styles, all of which I love to play with...this is another of mine...here is my more retro style ;0)
The Ribbon Girl 2/3 any image
Artistic Inspirations 2/3 Anything goes/use a die cut 
Penny Black and More 3/3 anything goes with stamping
Stamping sensations 2/3anything goes
Mixed media world glam grunge
Fashionable stamping blots and splotches
Happy little stampers shine it's hard to capture the shine with my photo but it really does shine out like sunshine!
Sweet stampin thank you

I now have some really fun backgrounds to play with....it's a brilliant technique and really quite addictive ;0) The Yupo card as a 5"x7" pad is quite expensive but I have sourced some A4 at a much cheaper price which I am waiting to be delivered. Also there is absolutely no difference between the Ranger and other brands, it's all Yupo. So a real yippee for Yupo!

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

So here we are at the day of the Grand Opening of the Tea Rooms where I will be selling my cards.
It takes place tonight and I cannot share any photos of the interior as it is all hush hush, but believe me if you like 50/60s vintage you will love it!

Just to give you a very small sneak peek. I took this photo yesterday as I went down to set up my little card area.

The mayor is coming and there is a VIP guest list which extends to about 70

people. My Hb and I will be there and yes of course I will take my camera.

I will get back with a grand reveal post on Friday.
I am so excited to be a little part of this new adventure. Wish me luck!

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Cast a clout the May be out!

Yes the May is in full bloom on the Hawthorn trees and if the old English saying, "Ne'er cast a clout till May be out" is correct it's time to get rid of those outer coats and clothes (clout) and look forward to warm days and nights. Hopefully we will have seen the last of any frosts here in Southern England until the autumn.

I love the Hawthorn, it has such spectacular flowers which although usually white, can have tinges of pink right through to being pure pink.
I snapped lots of hawthorn flowers whilst out and about this week.

here is the lovely pink version.

Fairy folklore was associated with the Hawthorn too. It was known as the "Faerie Tree"and May Queens were decorated with Hawthorn. It's also known as the bread and cheese tree as the blooms, leaves and berries can all be used to make wines and jellies.

I also noticed that the cherry trees are losing their blossom now and it is flying about like fairy confetti in the air.

These cherry trees looked so pretty standing in a pool of pink fluffy blossom.

So yes trees, fairies. blossom and blue skies were the inspiration for my card I am sharing here today. I won some fabulous stamps from Lavinia in April and got them out to play with. I made a card. I have entered it over on their Facebook challenge here. If you remember in April I asked my lovely Blogging friends to go over and "Like" me there. Getting into the top 20 is necessary to get through to the final DT judging. Can I ask you to follow this link here and like me over there. If you want to share my card, please do....but I only get votes if peeps come back and like me on the original  Lavinia page. Thanks so much in advance x

The background was created with distress inks. I embossed all the images. The die cuts are Tim Holtz wild flowers (my favourite flower die of the moment) as is the sentiment.

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

Simon says stamp Wednesday flowers
Anything but Cute celebrate your style yes I have several styles, all of which I love to play with...this is another of mine...and I do love fairies (and mermaids, and Christmas and...LOLOL)
The Ribbon Girl 1/3 any image

Crafty friends 2/3 in the garden

Paper Creator 2/3 anything goes

Fussy and Fancy 2/3 birthdays

Noor spring flowers
Bastel-traum Fantasy
Seven Hills Crafts Embossing I used Hero Arts clear embossing powder for all my stamp embossing.
WOW  embossing powders May challenge

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. Ours was lovely, sunny and warm in our sheltered garden. I have been really busy making cards in my studio. I also bought some lovely bedding plants from our local nursery and will be potting them up once I have hardened them up outside for a few days.

I am back again tomorrow with a GD post for the lovely ladies over at Try it on Tuesday. It would be lovely if you can stop by again and see what I made...here's a clue.....birdsong was my inspiration ;0)

Bye for now,

Jane x