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