Lots of little robins

I have a confession to make - the stamp set I used for this is one I'd totally forgotten I owned. Last year I bought several sets of Lili of the Valley Christmas stamps and I've used them all many times over, or at least I thought I had. Until I found this one, with the pack still sealed, feelong lost and unloved and yearning to see some ink.

Aren't those robins sweet? I can't understand why I'd not used this before. I coloured them to co-ordinate with the papers from the Tonic Studios Winter Wonderland pad and added a die cut wavy edged square behind each image.

I'm sharing this with

52 Christmas Card Throwdown - Sketch 


Creative With Stamps - Use a bird stamp

Oh Christmas Tree

I'm busy making Christmas cards to be sold at the local Christmas Market on a stall raising funds for the Food Bank, where Mark and I volunteer, so I've been trying to make some quick and easy ones that they won't need to charge too much for. Here is one that took just a few minutes:

The colours have come out all wrong in the photo! The background card, gems and colouring on the letters are actually all the same shade of purple! The tree is a magazine freebie stamp from a few years ago, and the words from Lili of the Valley, both stamped and heat-embossed in gold.

I am sharing this with

Less is More - Purple and Gold
Mod Squad - Go for the gold!

Vintage at Ooh La La Creations

The new challenge has just started at Ooh La La Creations Challenge, and  this time our theme is Vintage.

I've used an image and papers from the beautiful selection on the CD Yesterday's Memories, available from the Ooh La La Creations Shop and I've gone very retro with the style of the card, too - in fact I took a look at my old Photobucket account, from about 16 years ago when I fist started to share craft photos online, for some inspiration for the layout. Hence lots of layers and peel offs - and I chose peel offs in a classic Glasgow Rose style to fit the period of the fashions.

I particularly like the hand-tinted photo look of the main image, so very typical of the period.

Poppies for remembrance

Here in the UK at the moment there is a lot of controversy about two of our national football teams being told they cannot wear poppies for a match they are playing against each other. I won't bore you with the details, but to me the poppy is an international symbol of remembrance that transcends all political, cultural and religious boundaries and is particularly important at this time of year.

This stamp, an unmounted one I've had for years, always gets several outings at this time of year.

Because I wanted to stamp it directly on to the front of the card, I didn't want to use Promarkers to colour it as they can show through on the back, so I stamped it in Versafine ink and heat embossed it with clear powder before colouring with water based markers.

The sentiment is a pre-printed one from an old Hot Off The Press kit, I thought it would make an ideal card for someone mourning the loss of a loved one or perhaps at this time of year remembering somebody lost long ago. I die cut it and added a tiny acrylic heart.

I am sharing this with

Fantasy Stampers - Poppy Appeal
Perfectly Created Chaos - Heat Embossing
Sweet Stampin' - Red for remembrance
CAS on Sunday - Flowers
Just us Girls - Encouragement  
 

A special Thank You card

If you read about my night in the New Forest, you'll understand why I wanted to make a special thank you card for the hotel staff. The hotel was called The White Buck, and the autumn colours in the new Forest were absolutely beautiful, so I brought the two ideas together into this very quick and CAS card.

The white buck is cut with a die from a docrafts Build-a-Scene set, the paper is from DCWV Stack 9 12 x 12 pad and the sentiment is stamped with an old Funstamps stamp.

I an sharing this with
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge - November
AAA  cards - Thanks/Thanksgiving

Howls in Hats

Howls? It's the word I've used for owls ever since a holiday in Mexico about 12 years ago.... it's a long story.....

 

Anyway, after our lovely meal on Friday night my sleep must have been affected, because I had some very vivid crafting dreams, and in the morning I said to Mark "I need to get  a die set of an owl on a tree branch".

We set off for our drive around the New Forest and when we stopped to look around Lyndhurst there was a lovely craft shop. Naturally I had to go in and it was like entering an Aladdin's Cave - I've never seen such a huge range of stock in one small shop. What I didn't realise at the time is that it's the shop belonging to Emerald Crafts, so their shop must hold the huge assortment of stuff on sale on their website. I didn't like to spend too long (or too much!) in there with Mark waiting for me, but when I spotted this Yvonne Creations die set called Magnificent Christmas I reckoned it was just there waiting for me to come in the shop! It would have been rude not to buy it....

The owls can be used with or without hats, making this a versatile year round set, and are a great way to use up a handful of snippets. Rather than trying to inlay all those tiny pieces, I drew around the owl dies onto deep yellow card and then cut slightly inside the lines and glued the pieces to the backs of  the die cuts. The branch is cut from a snippet of wood grain effect paper and the sentiment is a Studio G stamp.

I'm sharing this with Pixie's Snippets Playground week 254 and Crafting Musketeers - Christmas Wishes

A night in the New Forest

I've been away again! Yes, I know I always seem to be gadding about at the moment - we've been on some lovely trips since Mark retired (and one not so lovely one but that's another story).

This trip was as the result of a competition I won on the blog Wanderlust Chloe. The prize was a night at a hotel in the New Forest, as part of the New Forest Food & Drink Festival, and as well as the stay it included two places at the "Steak and Pie" evening at our hotel, The White Buck.

The drive to the New Forest yesterday was pretty miserable, in pouring rain, with me sitting in the passenger seat whingeing because I couldn't see properly, having just had my annual digital retinal eye exam, and Mark must have felt like turning back. But when we reached the hotel and walked into the cosy reception area, equipped with armchairs and a blazing log fire, all the stress drained away.

We were shown to our "cosy" room, tiny but comfortable and well appointed (and extra brownie points for the flask of fresh milk provided for our tea) and had chance to relax and change (and for my sight to return to normal) before dinner.

Here is the menu - notice that the dishes were paired with beers rather than wines.

And here are the dishes. You'll have to excuse the quality of the photos - I was snapping them on  my phone in flickering candlelight, and was far too eager to get on and eat to concentrate on taking good pictures!

Parsnip and Honey Veloute, Blue Vinney beignets

The soup was delicious, as was the beignet - I think a big bowl of this soup and a mound of beignets would make a wonderful lunch after a winter morning's walk!

Venison carpaccio, blackberry compote, sourdough crouton

The carpaccio looked beautiful when it arrived, but I forgot to take a photo until it was half eaten! There was a lovely hint of caraway in the compote.

Salt baked Romsey rainbow trout, crab tartare, beetroot purée, watercress

This was my favourite dish of the whole meal - so much so that I wolfed it down before I had chance to take a photo, and they had to bring me the spare from the kitchen to take a picture of. The trout and crab were light, delicate and delicious and a perfect pairing with the beetroot and watercress.

Fillet steak, Golden Pride braised ox cheek pie, rosemary fondant potato, pumpkin purée, girolles, bordelaise sauce

And this was Mark's favourite, for me only slightly beaten by the fish course. The steak was really delicious - fillet can sometimes be a little tasteless compared to fattier cuts, but not this one! And the pie was perfection with thin, crisp pastry enclosing unctuous mouthwateringly tender meat.

Apple and quince frangipane tart, Lemon and polenta sponge, Dark chocolate and kirsch delice with cherry granita

Yes, THREE puddings! As a diabetic I don't normally eat dessert, but I couldn't resist tasting all three, and somehow the chocolate delice magically disappeared. Can you imagine how wonderful it was to somebody who hasn't eaten dessert for over 5 years?

We were offered far more beers than those listed on the menu - in fact over the course of the meal we sampled ELEVEN different beers! We could, had we been big beer drinkers, have demolished all this lot between the two of us:

In fact although we sampled them all, we probably  actually drank a total of around a pint each all evening, out of which Mark has discovered a new favourite and we've made some plans for our Christmas shopping.

The evening was accompanied by music from the FB Pocket Orchestra, a talented trio who play a mixture of jazz and ragtime music, and had brought a couple of excellent dancers with them to entertain us. The style and volume of the music were just right to encourage a relaxed evening without drowning out conversation.

You might think that after eating all that, we wouldn't have wanted any breakfast the next morning - but you'd be wrong! This was just TOO delicious to resist

This morning the weather was totally different, the New Forest looked beautiful in the autumn sunshine and we had a lovely drive around, stopping in Brockenhurst and Lyndhurst to look at the ponies (for my non UK friends, the New Forest is famous for having hundreds of ponies wandering free around the area, totally unphased by the tourists who crowd around to see them.)

It's been a wonderful mini break, it feels as if we've had a whole holiday, and perhaps now we really won't need to eat for a week!