Goodbye little Scamp... why I haven't blogged in a while.

I don't know if anyone will have really noticed my absence, and some of you are connected to me via facebook and instagram so will already know, but the reason I haven't blogged in so long is because my beautiful Scamp got very poorly toward the end of last year, and died on November 12th.

I really had no  motivation and nothing to write for a long time - first I had a really eventful Summer and just didn't have the time, then as the warmth started to fade away, so did my little chap. We found out that he had very advanced liver disease, he'd been keeping his pain well hidden from us. He went through a couple of months of scans, antibiotic and steroid treatments, and was placed on a special diet food, but he continued to lose weight and become more listless and uncomfortable, until in the end it would have been unkind to prolong his suffering any more.

My business and personal life have also suffered, hence I'm skint so I've not had any fun purchases to share with you all, and have been under a lot of stress with finances. I'm also currently in the process of finding a new place to live with Paul, in a different city and a better house where I can have a home studio to welcome dressmaking and millinery clients. I'm rebuilding the Kalandra Jane Designs website from scratch (literally - I'm going to be teaching myself to code from the ground up), it's going to be a difficult journey but hopefully things will be progressing soon!

I'll ease back into blogging gently and hopefully soon it'll once more be a productive creative outlet for me, and a source of interest and entertainment for you. Anyway, I've got a couple of fun things to look forward to in the next couple of weeks and it's my birthday on the 31st, so I promise more cheerful blogging to come!

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Alternative Women's Institute Charity Tea Party

A few weeks ago I went to Nelson in Lancashire for the Alternative Women's Institute annual tea party, which was raising funds for Derian House children's hospice. I had a stall there alongside some other lovely traders, including sparkly jewellery made by my friend's mum, and Bits from Ditz cute jewellery and pretty vintage teacup candles made by my friend Marianne in aid of B-eat eating disorder charity.


Here I am with my sister Ginny, take a look at her sewing blog Buttons and Bobbins! Her outfit is entirely self-sewn and features the 1950s draped top I've been working on, she lent me the pattern after making it for herself. She also crocheted her own snood! My hat and outfit are also self-made, apart from the sweater which was knitted by our mum.


Some of the spread! The AWI ladies worked very hard to create a massive selection of glorious cakes, sandwiches and finger foods, including some special vegan ones for me! Everyone got their own trio of vintage china to use on the day, and a little goodie bag with recipes. Over £1000 was raised for the hospice!


These photographs were taken by the incredibly talented Donna from ClickClickBang Photography, her work is beautiful and her wedding and model shots are something very special indeed.


Here I am with my friend Alison, we've known each other since we were eleven and I love being able to see her, even though it's only a couple of times a year. I can't wait for next year's tea party!

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Oh, Kitschmas Tree!

This weekend, I put up my Christmas tree. In our house growing up, despite being atheists and the tree actually being a totemic emblem of Europe's pagan past, oddly religious rules were adhered to in that the tree was never put up until Christmas eve, was to be decorated tastefully in red and gold, and was generally low-key.

The trees I remember most from my childhood however, were my paternal grandparents'. They always had a real fir tree which immediately started to turn brown and drop needles all over the carpet, and was covered in amazing 1950s decorations in bright jewel colours. Little glass birds with long tails, baubles like gleaming Fabergé eggs, crackers and nets of chocolate coins hidden inside the tree, and my favourite thing of all - bubble lights! These were apparently America's biggest selling Christmas lights from the 1930s - 1980s, but were and still are very rare in the UK. I was always amazed by the glowing tubes of colourful liquid, bubbling away dangerously among the branches like a mad scientist's test tubes.


So, seeing as my dad has lain claim to my grandparents' set, I purchased some from US eBay and bought a transformer so they wouldn't explode when exposed to UK voltages.


Atop my tree sit a small red flocked deer, and a bizarre long-legged elf from the 1940s. These were my nanna's on my mum's side.


The other decorations are a mixture of shiny blown glass B-movie style robots, this lovely crocodile which I bought at the German Christmas market a few years ago, multicoloured mini baubles and a generous sprinkling of glittery and metallic deer!

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A Beautiful Box

I went to my mum's this week, and came home with this lovely old trinket box which was my Nanna's, and was either made by her or a friend. It is made from postcards covered in acetate and crocheted together with faded pink thread, I remember there being one made from seaside postcards too. She would have been ninety this month, I like to keep a lot of her things out on display in my home.



It holds memories for me too because when I was little I always called her Nanna Roses, she had a garden full of them and had lots of Capodimonte style rose ornaments, she also used to give me bags of leftover sugarcraft roses to eat from the beautiful cakes she used to make.

My favourite thing about it is the gloves motif on the front, and when my mirror is finally put up I shall keep this box on my dressing table.

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