Christmas Dinner with the family.

Are you all organised?

Have you finished shopping? 

Will the turkey fit in the oven? 

Have you forgotten anyone?.......... are you sure?

If you're hosting the Christmas Dinner don't forget that......

Sophie is allergic to nuts, 

Uncle Tom only drinks malt whiskey, 

Aunt May only likes the white meat and Aunty Anna likes the dark, 

or is that the other way around? 

Cousin Charlie will feed his sprouts to the dog under the table, 

Little Jimmy will pinch Uncle Tom's whiskey when nobody is looking,

Grandma doesn't like parsnip, Granddad will say “I'll have hers” 

Sophie won't eat Christmas pudding, 

Aunt May will only want a little bit, 

Aunty Anna will want second helpings, 

Little Jimmy is after Uncle Toms whiskey again, 

Sophie wants cheesecake, 

Cousin Charlie wants apple pie and custard, 

Grandma wants her Christmas pud with fresh cream, 

Granddad wants his with Brandy butter, 

Little Jimmy will fall off his chair. 

Don't forget the cheese and biscuits?

However you spend your Christmas I wish you a very happy and enjoyable one and may your 2014 be all you wish it to be.

Best Wishes to All

Jan x

I'm popping over to Handmade Harbour's Linky Party, you're welcome to join me.

I Love You to the Moon & Back, Hanging Hearts and Snowy Scenes

Hello all, another busy week, whether it's shopping, baking organising or making. I'm sure you've all been busy too.

One of my jobs this week has been painting a few Hearts, these are all 15cm x 15cm or if you prefer imperial measurements it's 6x6inches and have a ribbon for hanging up.

I Love You to the Moon and Back has continued to be a popular saying, these Hanging Hearts were ordered as a gift for sisters, They have slight differences in the placing of the stars and the colours, one being dark blue the other a deep purple.

I Love You to the Moon & Back

Hanging Hearts with Moon & Stars

I usually leave the backs of the Hearts plain but I decided to paint stars on the back of these, I know if they are hanging against a door or wall nobody will see the backs anyway but if they are hanging in a window or somewhere they can spin around I thought it would be a nice touch.

I've also been painting snowy scenes on Hearts.....

A Snowy Scene on a Hanging Heart

Houses in the Snow Hanging Heart

Hand Painted Hanging Hearts

Wishing you all a great week and don't forget to pop over to this weeks Handmade Monday Link up.

Jan x

Gingerbread Houses and Doors for Santa's Elves & Winter Fairies

Gosh, it's the first day of December already, the day you can start to open the doors of your Advent Calender.

This week I've been busy with Gingerbread Houses. 

Gingerbread has a long history, I read that Gingerbread was brought to Europe in 992ad by an Armenian Monk and from there the love of Gingerbread spread across Europe to Britain and America.

It's believed that Gingerbread Houses became popular after the story of Hansel & Gretel by The Brothers Grimm was published. 

These Christmas Tree Decorations are painted individually so are all slightly different and in different colours. 

Gingerbread House Tree Decoration

Handpainted Gingerbread House Tree Decoration

Gingerbread House with a Candy Cane

I've also painted a little Gingerbread Man for a Tree Decoration.

Watch out here comes the history snippet.. 

The popularity of the Gingerbread Man has been attributed to Queen Elisabeth 1. (1533-1603) It is said that she had the gingerbread figures made and presented in the likeness of some of her important guests and courtiers.

Gingerbread Man Christmas Tree Decoration

Christmas Fairy & Elf Doors have been a hit this year too, they are great for weaving a story around, they are a way for Santa's helpers to pop in from the North Pole to see how the children are behaving or as an alternative to a Santa Key. If you are going away from home for the festivities you can take the Door with you and Santa will know where to leave any presents.

I have traditional Reds and Greens,

Christmas Elf Doors in Red & Green

lovely Blues

Christmas Elf & Winter Fairy Doors in Blues

and even Pretty Pinks..

Pink Christmas Doors for the Winter Fairy

Don't forget that if you'd like to purchase any of these items (or similar) please contact me.

I hope you all have a great week and don't eat all the advent chocolates before the first week is out!!

This post is linked to  Handmade Harbours Linky Party

Jan x

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer & Christmas Tree Decorations

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer has been a favourite character since his creation by Robert L. May in 1939. He was first commissioned, drawn and appeared in a colouring book. Did you know that Robert May considered naming the reindeer "Rollo" and "Reginald" before deciding upon using the name "Rudolph"?

Here are some of my Rudolph influenced Christmas Tree Decorations...

Red Nosed Reindeer

Christmas Tree Hanging Decoration

Reindeer Christmas Tree Decoration

Rudolph has been immortalised on the big screen, his first appearance was in 1944 and there have been many short films and movies made since.

The well known Rudolph song was first published in 1949 and sung by Gene Autry, it became the Christmas Number 1 in that year and has been sung by countless children since....

A Herd of Reindeer

These Decorations are available through my online shops (links in side bar) or you can contact me through this blog :)

Don't forget to pop over to Handmade Monday.

Regards

Jan x

A Classic VW Beetle for Handmade Monday

Gosh the weeks are rattling around really quickly, it's been a really busy week for me again, I'm certainly not complaining, I love doing what I do.

One of the things I've done this week was a Plaque for a Beetle fan, no, not the creepy crawly insect kind and not the sing song band but the VW Classic Car kind.

I painted the plaque from a couple of photo's I was sent, it's a lovely car and a beautiful colour, this is what I came up with. (the plaque has the registration plate painted on but I've pixelated it out for on here)

VW Beetle Work in Progress

The finished VW Beetle Plaque

Yellow 'Classic' VW Beetle Painted onto Wood

I was very pleased with the final result and more importantly the customer and the 'Birthday Boy' were really pleased. I got some great feedback, here is a snippet....

It's arrived! :) He loves it (and so do I)!!

Packing was lovely too.

Thanks so much!

It's Handmade Monday once again, a time to relax and have a mooch around lots of other great blogs, so follow the link and pop over, enjoy and have a great week.

Jan X

 

Cupcake Plaques for Gifts

My Cupcake Plaques have once again been a very popular choice for gifts this year. I enjoy painting the different combinations of colours, fruits and swizzle sticks. 

Cafe Crème Cupcake with Swizzle Stick

A Blue Cupcake Plaque for Teresa's Pantry

A Yummy Strawberry Cupcake for Mum's Pantry

A Strawberry and a Sprinkling of Sparkle

Similar to these can be ordered through my Wow Thank You shop using the multi choice drop down box or if you want a different colour, fruit or topping that's not listed please ask as I'm always happy to help.

Jan x 

Santa's Magic Keys and his Reindeer

This week has been a bit about the run up to Christmas, I went to La Hogue Farm Shop Tasting Day, while I was there I met....

Santa's Reindeer

I had a taste of scrumptious cheeses, meats and wines as well as honey and fudges, I can't show you all that I bought, I find that this time of year we often turn into Secret Agents, (cue Bond Music) but I can show you these lovely jams I enjoyed tasting, they're delicious. They are Wild Mirabelle which is a plum and Strawberry & Gooseberry which is an unusual combination but works well.

Yummy Jams from La Hogue Farm Shop

and this 11.2% beer, the percentage means nothing to me but apparently it's very strong.... I've no idea if it tastes good but I'm sure my son will give it a go.

Insanely Bad Elf Beer

I've also been making Santa's Magic Keys....

 

A Magic Key for Santa

The Keys are Tibetan Silver and these are available through my Facebook Page or my Folksy Shop

or you can always contact me through this blog.

Jan x

This post is linked to The Handmade Harbour blog hop I hope you can pop over.

Having Fun

Last week was busy and lots of fun, we had family to stay, we went to the park....

Climbing in the Park

We went to the Pumpkin Patch, this time I was there as a visitor and not as a stall holder.....

In the Maize Maze

We went for walks and met the cows....

Moo cow Moo cow how do you do

I managed to make a start in setting up a new (2nd) Wow Thank You shop, ok it's not 'live' yet, I'm in the process of uploading and tweaking but hey the cows and play time come first.

I've been painting houses, these houses.....

I can't show you the finished pieces yet, I'll do that in a future post when they have all been safely delivered. Meanwhile, I'm going to grab myself a coffee and mosey on over to the Handmade Monday blog 

Wishing you all a great week

Jan x

The Pumpkin Patch continued....

I've just finished the second week end of my Pumpkin Patch Craft Fair and if you remember, last week I put in a request for a dry week end and I can report that Saturday was a lovely sunny, mild day, it stayed dry except for one very short spell of rain. Sunday was another matter, started wet, then dried and brightened up, ended wet, but we still had a good day.

The craft area was in a large marque......

The Pumpkin Patch

Let me introduce you to some of the other stalls.........

The Hungry Hippie, what a great name and so much more than just sewing.... 

Hungry Hippie Bunting, Doorstops, Pumpkins & more...

A great selection from Laura, check her out at Creative Ideas blogspot

Laura & her Creative Ideas

The lovely Annette and her donkeys from Gate and West Donkeys.co.uk

Annette, Wayne & William

A few of my bits..... 
 

Witches, Sculls & Pumpkins

The wonderful Adam Strange, Magician & Balloonist, if ever you need an entertainer for a party then this is the guy to call...

Magic with Balloons

Handmade Indoor & Outdoor Ceramics by Embar Pottery

Vases, Pumpkins and a Ghostie

I also had a visit from a fellow blogger, it was lovely to meet the writer of Knit 'n' Run 4 Sanity, she regularly takes part in the Handmade Monday Blog Hop.

To finish off here are the last couple of pictures of the Pumpkin Event  

Pumpkin Patch Wreath Display

Inside the Marque

Bye for now

Jan x

The Pumpkin Patch Craft Fair

As some of you may know, every year in October I take part in a local Pumpkin Patch Week End Craft Fair, (check out the link to the 1st one I attended), this year I'm attending 2 week ends, this being my first one. It is held in a large marque in a huge field.  It was extremely wet and muddy and not as many visitors as there usually are but it was great to see friends and the other regular stall holders, some of whom I only see at this yearly event. It was also great to meet new faces and new stalls.  

This year I decided to have a carved pumpkin as a decoration for my table, here is the one I chose

My Perfect Pumpkin

 No traditional Jack 'O' Lantern for me........

Pumpkin Carving

I carved a Fairy Door and swirly grass, (and a couple of toadstools around the other side).....

Carving a Fairy Door in a Pumpkin

I'm going to pop over and visit Handmade Harbours linky party so I'll leave you with a newly painted House with a Halloween theme...

A Halloween House

I've put in a request for dry week, I'd especially love a dry couple of days at the week end of my next Pumpkin Fair, so fingers crossed..... I'll report more next week so for now I'm wishing you all a great week..

Jan x

Pumpkins & Toadstools on Fairy Doors

What a lovely sunny weekend we've just had, well it was sunny in Suffolk, I hope it was sunny for you too.

It's the time of year for chilly nights and bright days, the last of the flowers in the garden are hanging on and there is an abundance of mushrooms growing in the fields and gardens.

This week I've started painting mushrooms and toadstools on lots of new doors for my Pumpkin Patch Week End Fair....

Fairy Doors for the Pumpkin Fair

These Fairy Doors are a Work In Progress, I've still got a few last touches to do and they need to be glitterfied, (I know that is not a real word but it should be).

I thought I'd finish with a few pics I took this week, for no other reason than I like them. I've put a new picture for my header too!

 

A peep into Fairy Land

 

 

Purple Aster

A pretty White Flower

I've linked this post to Handmade Harbour, do pop over and have a lookee at what everyone else has been up to.

Jan x

How to put photo's on the Folksy Forum?

UPDATE... Here is the post for the UPDATED instructions for putting photo's on the Folksy Forum. 

how to put a clickable picture on the Folksy Forum

 

I have a Folksy Shop and I used to find it really difficult to put a photo from my shop onto the forum, lots of other people have problems with this too. There have been posts written about it but it always sound so complicated, hopefully, one day, the process will be improved and we won't have to deal with all the palaver of 'codes' and copying not only the shop url but also the chosen picture url. I'm going to try and explain how I do it..... wish me luck. I've used highlights to make it easier to see where I'm talking about.

1. Firstly this is the code you need to use...

<a href="http://folksy.com/shops/myshop"><img height="200" src="http://image.code.JPG"></a>

This code has 3 sets of speech marks with 'instructions' inside each set..... 




<a href="http://folksy.com/shops/myshop"><img height="200" src="http://image.code.JPG"></a>

Set 1 - Your shop URL

Set 2 - The size of the photo

Set 3 - Your picture URL

 Put the code into the 'Reply to Topic' box on the Folksy Forum

2. Replace where it says myshop with your own shop name, so mine will be

<a href="http://folksy.com/shops/handcraftedbypicto"><img height="200" src="http://image.code.JPG"></a>

3. Next you need to choose the image from your shop

Go to the image you want. right click and choose 'copy image location'

Click on Copy Image Location




The following is the the type of code you will get for this an image, the code is different for each picture

http://images.folksy.com/aXRlbXMvMjQ4MTg1LzIwMTMwOTMwLzk1NjE3NTgxNjIx-N/main

4. then paste the code into the RED section so it looks like this..

<a href="http://folksy.com/shops/handcraftedbypicto"><img height="200" src="http://images.folksy.com/aXRlbXMvMjQ4MTg1LzIwMTMwOTMwLzk1NjE3NTgxNjIx-N/main"></a>

It's important to paste inside the speech marks “ “ and make sure you don't remove them or leave a space.

The code in the 'Reply to Topic' box on the Forum

Hit the 'Save Reply' Button and your photo will then be on the forum.

 

My photo on the Forum

*****************************

5. You can decide how big you want your photo to look on the forum by changing the 200 in the code to either 300 or even 400 so if you decide you want a bigger picture go to 'edit post', change the 200 to 300 then click 'Save Reply'

 **********************************

I keep a copy of the code as it's written out in number 2 in 'My Documents' that way I just copy and paste from there to the forum and I just have to add the image code. I find this is easier for me as I always have 'Word' open anyway and I have 2 tabs open, one for my shop and one for the forum.

And did you know???
You can use the same code to put pics on the Folksy Forum from your blog by putting your blog URL between the first lot of speech marks and the image URL between the third set of speech marks. 

I hope this makes sense to you, let me know if you have any questions and I'll try and help in any way I can. 

 UPDATE... Here is the post for the UPDATED instructions for putting photo's on the Folksy Forum. 
how to put clickable picture on the Folksy Forum

Jan X