There's a wee nip in the air....

Happy Tuesday all, and brrrr..... are you feeling a bit of a chill where you are?  There's a smell of Autumn in the air which I love but it feels a bit too soon for it to arrive.  I do love this time of year because it gives me the chance to go foraging for 'Free Food'.  I seriously believe it is (wo)man's natural instinct to gather and preserve food for the winter months as soon as the temperature begins to drop.  This week I have gathered Blackberries and Cob nuts, along with Elderberries.  The blackberries, I have noticed, are not as good quality this year for some reason.  There have been a lot of grubs among them too which has been a bit off-putting.  But I have begun the process of preserving as for the first time ever I made Chilli Jam.  OMG, why have I never done this before?  I LOVE chilli jam with a nice chunk of cheddar cheese and freshly baked crusty bread - mmmmm comfort food at it's best.  So began the process.  I followed Nigella's recipe online and it was so unbelievably simple that I cursed myself for not having made it sooner.

I need to experiment with different chilli's now.  These were just standard red chilli's from Morrisons, but I think I need to seek out other types and see what happens.  Also this week I have made and bottled crystalised rose petals, and dried other rose petals (they shrink so much!!) for cake decoration.  I am also trying to get hold of some damsons, as I used to be pretty adept at making pickled damsons and I have a penchant to do it again.  I have also promised my boys that I will make my own tomato ketchup. Oh yes, I am looking forward to the autumn!

However, the coming of autumn does mean saying goodbye to the summer, and that's why there was a tinge of sadness in my heart as I made this piece for the current Midweek Magnolias challenge, which is to decorate a gift bag or box.  I chose to make a Pocketful of Memories of Summer 2014:

Friends/colleagues beware because I feel a few more of these coming on to give away as end of term gifts as they can be adapted for each season.  I created the pocket not really knowing where I was going with this.  I knew I wanted to not do a standard bag or box, but certainly something that held a gift.  After a rummage through my box of images that I've coloured up but not used yet, the idea suddenly came to me.  I made the entire project using my Silhouette (my BFF!!).  Once the pocket had been created and decorated I had the idea to make a tag saying "A souvenir of my holiday" but as we haven't been away this summer it seemed a little sad.  However, it has been an eventful summer and I suddenly hit upon the idea of creating journal cards so I could remember the details of my summer and smile about them once the frost begins to fall!

Here is the project in it's entirety - I think it's really cute and I'm going to go and make a couple of Christmas one's now!  My frugality has extended to Christmas cards and I have gotten into the habit of buying mine in the post-Christmas sales, so there will be very few handmade cards from me, but I do intend to make as many gifts myself as possible.

I am sharing this also with Stamp and Create with Magnolia for their For a Teacher challenge as a copy of this and future ones will be given to my colleagues at school.

Enjoy the rest of the week and thank you for stopping by! xxx

A birthday card

Just a quick pop in here to share my card with you for the Less is More challenge which this month was a colour themed challenge.

I actually stumbled upon this blog by accident on my travels yesterday while I was looking for a 'proper' challenge, and not just a theme.  These are not colours that I would normally work with - I would go so far as to say probably never work with, so for me this was a 'proper' challenge.  I had to make a card for a friend's birthday so I chose this challenge as my inspiration.  Here is the card:

Clean and simple is also something that I tend to struggle with and as much as I love it when others do it, that huge white area is screaming to me "FILL ME!!"  It's possible my friend will never receive this card in it's current state! LOL!

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy the sunshine! :o) xx

Post Early for Christmas!

Well lookie here, 2 cards for one challenge - there's a first for me!  I am just loving the summer holidays, even though I'm not going to get away this year (violins out!!).  Any day now I am going to start doing what I'm meant to be doing - having a clearout and makeover and NOT sit with paper, glue and scissors!!  I have been feeling a little Christmassy this last few days though.  It always happens to me during the summer holidays, I get the urge to start Christmas Crafting.  So I've chosen Midweek Magnolias Easel Card theme again to get me in the mood.  I saw a card in cyberland that had used some of a Nitwitville collection and immediately this idea sprang to mind

The card in my head was just chocca with embellishments though, but once I'd begun assembling, I found it didn't really need anything more than the gorgeous pieces that came with the digi kit!  And Edwin sporting his parcel was just the most perfect thing to take to my Post Office!

You can't really tell from my photography, but the ground that Edwin is walking on is actually a photograph of real footprints in the snow.  I used one that I'd taken along the footpath that runs alongside my house and cropped it down to size.  The sign above the door did say Nitwitville Post Office and I wasn't too keen on that, so I made my own.  Unfortunately, the glossy accents I used hadn't quite set when I began pressing out the seams and posing it, hence the bleurgh! in the middle of the word! T'uh!!!

That's me done for today.  Thanks for stopping by and have a great week! xx