A Dotty's Teahouse update

On Monday my dear crafting and blogging friend Brenda of Bumblebees and Butterflies came up to see me. We had discussed some time ago that it would be lovely for me to show her Dotty's Teahouse and have lunch. I could also show her my cards that are for sale there.

I know that  a lot of you have also been asking to see some more photos of Dotty's so I took my camera with me to document our lunch.

Monday was the most glorious autumn day with clear blue skies and wall to wall sunshine.

 We walked down via my beloved ponds

 and our table, which I had booked, was ready and waiting for us.

I love that the tea is served in vintage china and is loose leaf, in a teapot, complete with a tea strainer.

Even at 11am on a Monday a lot of the tables were occupied and there was a warm, chatty atmosphere.

I love the decor at Dotty's,..especially the window display which is changed regularly.

and the quirky chandeliers

Here is Brenda

and here are the both of us.

Rebecca on the left (Dotty's owner) and Lesley, one of her lovely staff.

Our sandwiches,made with bread from the Village Bakers (where I too buy my bread) was delicious

but the cake......oh  my goodness......

was absolutely out of this world. I was so impressed.

I thought that you would like to see my current display of cards which are for sale. I made a Halloween card last week which quickly sold  so I made 3 more which I took down with me.

Here is a close up of 2 of them.......boo!

After our delightful lunch we walked back through the park and home to mine. It really was the most enjoyable day together.

There is also a heads up I would like to give you today.  If you are in the Carshalton, Surrey area Dotty's will be open on Friday 2 December from 9am - 9pm for a special Christmas event. There will be lots of sellers of handmade goodies, including me with my cards and my jewellery. Once I have a flyer of the event I will post it on my blog but if you live nearby do put the date in your diary and come and say hello to me. It would be lovely to see you.

My card today is one of the Halloween cards in the shop

I made a very inky background with distress inks and they used lots of stencils to add some depth. My image is an old Nicecrane digi. I stamped a TH skull on a piece of mop up inky card and fussy cut it out. The haunted house is a Cheery Lynn die cut, the pumpkins are Spellbinders and there is also a MB crow there if you look closely. I also added some remnant rubs for extra spookiness! These cards fit a 6X6" frame and they have been bought as pictures for Halloween as well as for sending as a card.

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

A vintage journey make it spooky
PaperArtsy die cuts
Frilly and Funkie author author My book is actually a child's book and is my granddaughter's favourite. It's "Room on the Broom" by Julia Donaldson. I wanted to make my card not too scary so I had this very sweet book in my mind as I made it.
More mixed media anything goes
Cheery Lynn 2/2 anything goes
Let's Craft and Create autumn/Halloween
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Halloween Inspiration
Cute Card Thursday (does not need to be "cute" Anything goes


It's a week of wonderful tea taking for me as I had another hot date yesterday.......afternoon tea at the Ritz in London with my Mum and DD as birthday celebration for my Mum. All very exciting, photos to follow very soon.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

It's that wonderful time of the year

No I'm not talking about Christmas day but that one of my favourite Christmas challenges is back for 2016.  I was so delighted to see that Linda of The Funkie Junkie blog has started off her wonderful annual 12 tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie style.  I have played along with this Christmas challenge for the last 3 years and it really is such a fun.  You can make anything crafty as long as it is Christmas themed and I use it to create 12 very unique Christmas cards. This year I though I  may even be making variations of my originals to sell in Dotty's Tearooms as I need an awful lot of my handmade cards.

If you would like to play along please check out her post here which gives all the details of the challenge requirements. You can also see her first tag. The challenge is sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique and you could even win one of the prize vouchers if you enter every week and complete all 12 tasks.

It certainly doesn't feel much like Christmas yet as we are still enjoying all the colours of Autumn at my beloved local ponds.

There is certainly a golden hue everywhere.

Linda's debut tag is gorgeous. I chose for my inspiration from it, the golden background stars, the music and the pine trees.

I know that in past years you have enjoyed seeing my process of how I make these cards so here goes. I chose to play with my Visible Image Winter wonderland set of stamps. This is such a great set for creating Winter scenes.
I decided to use Wendy Vecchi gold embossing paste and my Tim Holtz star stencil for creating my starry sky.

 I masked off a moon and started blending distress inks for my night sky.

 To add the music element I added Chipped Sapphire distress ink through my new Tim Holtz music stencil. I then stamped and embossed Santa and put him flying across the moon..........ready to delivery his presents.

I forgot to photograph the next part but I used green DIs to create a forest floor at the bottom of the card. I then stamped 2 of the largest Visible Image trees in the background.

I stamped a third tree using 2 colours of green archival ink and vaguely fussy cut it out.

 So then it was time to put everything together.

Below here is my finished card.  You can see that I added the Visible Image Go to Christmas words "from our home to yours" which I also embossed. I added a couple of Cheery Lynn snowflakes to finish everything off. I mounted my piece on a gold card blank, all ready for Dotty's. I am making these in 2s and I will share my other version at some point.

Ho Ho Ho!!

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

12 tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie style  week 1
Cheery Lynn 1/2 anything goes I have used CL snowflakes
Pixie's Snippets playground #249 I used snippets of card for my snowflakes and for my fussy cut tree.
The Ribbon Girl 1/3 October any card
Simon Says stamp Wednesday anything goes
Christmas at Sweet stampin Christmas die cuts my snowflakes are die cuts.
Christmas card challenges #43

Thanks for visiting today and for the kind comments you take the time to leave. Sending you some of this lovely sunshine in case you are not getting any!

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

All things spooky

Yes here we are, it's the first of October with Halloween just around the corner. It is time for a new challenge over at Country View and the theme this month is "All things Spooky" chosen by the lovely Corrie. I really hope that lots of you can join us. You can enter anything crafty with no limitations to other challenges or the number times you can enter. You can win a £20 voucher too so it's win win in my books! You can find out all the details here

I spotted this crow in the park...he looked very spooky to me ;0)

Until my granddaughter Daisy was born I really did nothing for Halloween as celebrating it was unheard of in my own childrens' days. However I now find it great fun and I enter into the spirit by making up a little parcel of goodies for all my babies, big and small. Daisy still does not like sweets or chocolate (yes seriously) so I buy her a token present but my big babies and their partners get a little parcel of Halloween sweet goodies.

I will share what I buy in my 2nd DT post which comes up on 11 October. For these little token gifts I always make Halloween tags so my inspiration pieces will be 2 of the tags I have made.  Today's tag started off like this.

I chose 4 autumnal coloured distress inks and added some water.

I dragged my card through the inks, drying between layers.

Next I used my new TH stencil and added gold embossing paste through it,














I loved the result.

Next I wanted to "Spook" the background up a little so I added some blood....no only joking it was red ink but when it got into my finger nail it really did look like blood!

 I created a crackled sentiment

and made a little "gem" from one of my Nicecrane Halloween images.
The it was time to put everything together...and this is what I came up with...

BOO!!

 a couple of spooky close ups with the dripping blood  ink ;0)

I would like to enter my spooky tag into the following challenges;

Simon Says Stamp Monday powder powder I used embossing powder on my sentiment.
Simon Says Wednesday anything goes
Deep Ocean anything goes
Artistic Inspirations anything goes
That's Crafty 1/3 all of a sparkle
Rubber Dance 1/3 October mood board My base distress inks were orange, brown and yellow
I would also like to link up with my great friend Brenda's Halloween giveaway here.

Thanks for visiting and for the kind comments you take the time to leave. I would also like to warmly welcome my newest followers.  Thanks for joining me on my creative journey here at Jane's Journal.

Back soon, I'm going to be in the festive spirit...watch this space ;-)

Bye for now,

Jane x