Is it really Thursday already?

This week is flying, , by quicker than I can think. On Monday and Tuesday it was extremely hot - the temps went up to 37°, and then yesterday morning after rain and storms it was cool 15°. I never know what to put on - summery cropped trousers or pullover and jeans. What a summer.
But on Tuesday a wonder happened. I went to the post office to send off my altered spoon swap, of course, in a nice mail art envelope. There was a young man behind the counter this time. And what did he say ? *Wow, how lovely! This must have taken hours to make, I love it!* I was really in a state of shock as I left the office. Was he real, or was I having hallucinations? I hope the first one.
Yesterday I visited my friend for our old ladies' gossip and game day. We have breakfast together - I buy fresh rolls on the way there - and then chat, play skipbo, eat lunch, chat, drink coffee, play skipbo etc till it's time to go home.
Anyway, I didn't have too much time for crafting, but managed to get 2 tags done. One for the *Dragon's Dream Tag it on*, and one for *Simon Says Stamp and Show* - a word. Hels has a similar theme with words, so I am entering the words tag into her challenge at *Sunday Stampers* too.

The dragon this week is Zoe, and she is dreaming of being by the sea-side. I made a distressed and gessoed cardboard tag, and painted the sea and the beach with structure paints, which I then heated and bubbled to give it texture. Then I added a little captain, some shells and birds, and a TH ticket. And a bit of glass glitter for sand. That was it!

For the *word* tag, I gessoed a distressed tag, and added some torn strips from an ancient book - words! Then I distressed the tag with TH inks in tumbled glass, wild honey, Victorian velvet and forest moss. I pasted another page onto a piece of mountboard, and die cut the word *Live*. It has also been distressed and stamped with flourishes, as has the tag background. I used some TH type pieces to make the word *word*, which I tied on with some string. Of course, I had to put a leopard on the tag, too.

And I die cut and punched some birds from some scraps of alcohol inked paper, that was toooooo wild to use for what I was intending it!

And in the evening, my neighbour rang and brought me an envelope that had arrived while I was out. It was my swap from Mary,I will show the pics tomorrow, Blogger is very problematic again today!
Well, that was it again. More tomorrow! Have a great day, thanks for looking and take care!

A Mixed Bag

Yesterday I spent most of the day painting again, and On Friday all will be revealed for *Paint Party Friday*.
But I couldn't resist doing a bit of crafting. I am visiting a friend today, and she gets a page each month for the calendar I gave her for Christmas. As it's holiday time, I made another *bathing beauty* tag, and fixed it to some striped paper, which was lying about on my working space. Added a bit of golden glass glitter as sand and a shell, and it was finished. The shell is not a real one, I used *mold and pour* to make a mould, pressed a shell into it and filled it with some modelling plaster. The good thing about the home made ones is that you can paint them any colour you need, and as the reverse is flat, they are easy to stick onto paper or card. A quick and easy page this month.

Then I made a summer tag for the *Blog Challenge Garden* , where Rebecca wants to see summer this week. Hope you soon feel better Rebecca, and enjoy your break! I used corrugated cardboard, painted with gold acrylic paint and distressed with TH inks. I added some music paper, a transparency with flowers, and some German scrap images with roses and a little girl.

And then I saw the three little angel heads and thought of the sketch for *Less is More*
But this is definately the last one for this week!

And VERY IMPORTANT! June at Dezinaworld is celebrating her 500th follower soon. So hop on over to her blog and see what wonderful blog candy she is offering!

Okay, that was it for today. Have a great day, take care, and thanks for stopping by!

Challenges at *The Cheerful Stamp Pad* and *Less is More*

Good morning you all, seems like we are in for another hot day. Yesterday the temps climbed to over 30°, after only 11° on Saturday, a big difference. But it should cool down again tomorrow, and then we will see if the summer is over before it has begun!
Yesterday - and at the weekend, I did a lot of painting, but don't want to share the pics till they are finished.
For my DT piece over at *The cheerful stamp pad* - where the theme for this challenge is *my favourite background*, I did one of my 5S pieces - splodge, smudge, smear, spray and scratch, which is always fun! Especially the heating and bubbling afterwards. This was the result:

Then I distressed the edges with TH stormy skies and forest moss, stamped some floral images along the bottom, added a few small black flowers, a black bird (Sizzix sparrow die) and a TH branch tree in front of a setting sun made of a scrap of gauze material. Then I added the leopard on the left, and that was it. There's still plenty of time to enter the challenge, so hop on over and have a look!

And I made another card for *Less is More* , taking care to follow the sketch again. This time I placed a strip of green- blue paper across the card, cut some clouds from scrap paper, and punched out three cows. The sentiment has been computer generated.

So, that was it for today. Thanks to all who left such nice comments on my paintings yesterday and Sunday, I very much appreciate it. Have a nice day you all, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Summer of Colour & Less is More

Good morning you all. After days of rain, cold and wind, it seems to be a really hot and sunny day out there. On Staurday we were freezing with just 11°, today it's already 24° and it's still early. Today is Monday, and is time for the *Summer of Colour* again, hosted by Kristin. This weeks *task* was to use pink in all its variations. I painted 3 pictures in all, one of which I showed on Friday for *Paint Party Friday*
The first one was inspired by a Beatle's song again, *Let it me*, so I painted a pink madonna complete with the text of the song, which is a song I like very much.

The second picture is another pink lady, who forms the right part of the triptych.

And here are all three pictures together.

I used a mixture of tempera, acrylic and metallic paints, and I think I have now painted enough pink to last for a while....

And as I had some time yesterday I made a card for the *Less is More* challenge, in the hope that I have followed the sketch this week correctly and will not have to sit on the naughty step again....

So, that was it for today! Have a great day, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Sunday Sketches and Dragon's Dreams....

Today is Sketch Sunday over at Sophia's *Blue Chair Diary* , so there will be lots of sketches to see if you follow the link. I am sharing a sketch - WIP that I made while watching TV yesterday evening. It has been drawn with black ink and water colour pencils. I have called it *Autumn Fairy*, I think I will do it again with paint and other media, this is just a sketch, an idea that came while watching people walk through the autumn leaves in a film....

And I made 2 tags for the *Dragon's Dream Tag it on*
This week the dragon wants to see us facing it. I used the same stamp - a Da Vinci drawing - for both tags. The first tag has been made from cardboard, gesssoed, and then distressed with Th inks in tumbled glass, Victorian velvet, wild honey and forest moss, using the TH clock template. The lady has been stamped with Stazon black onto a transparency, and placed over the clock. The sentiment has been printed with a Brother P-Touch, and the lovely button was sent to me by June of Dezina World.

The second tag has been stamped with music notes (LaBlanche) and then with the face, using Archival black. I coloured the image with water colour pencils, and then stamped over the tag with a Sakura Glue pad before clear embossing it. The sentiment has been made with the P-touch again - every so often I remember that I have it! and I added a red bow and a music note charm (also from June!).

Both tags were fun to make, as was the sketch. Hope you have a great day, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Paint Party Friday again!

Today is Friday - big surprise! - which means it is Paint Party Friday , hosted by Eva & Kristin.
The weather looks cool and grey outside, so good weather to stay home and paint. Actually, all weather is good to paint. If it's hot I can paint on my balcony, if it's cold I sit next to the radiator in the kitchen - so there's no time that's a bad time. Just for H*******k! Ssssssssssssssh! I said it very quietly!
At the moment I am doing a lot of painting, thanks to different groups and challenges - Blue Chair Diary, Summer of Colour, PPF, the Sketchbook Project, Postcard Art, Mail art and all the little challenges and actions which take place every day. The days do not have enough hours to do all the things I would like to, but I manage to spend a lot of time painting and crafting, and it does me good.
Today I want to show you one of the pink paintings which I have prepared for *Summer of Colour* on Monday. Together they build a tryptich. Today I am just showing one of the three, the rest will be saved for Monday.

The paintings have all been based on a stylised self portrait, perhaps the *wish-me*. Although I must admit to having a wild main with streaks of pink hair in the 70s and 80s! I have used a mixture of tempera and metallic acrylic paints, so was able to bubble and burn some texture into it- The background has been stamped with *love* in different languages with silver ink, but it does not show up so well on the photos. But it is a picture I like, I think she looks like someone who is having fun!

And I also made 2 pieces for challenges, a metal tag for *Simon says stamp and show*
and an altered canvas for *Just for Fun* who want to see something with steampunk.

The metal tag has been made from cardboard from a cereal box, covered with aluminium tape, embossed and distressed with Stazon in olive green. The TH tree has been made from the same materials, embossed with a wood pattern and distressed with Stazon in green and brown. The metal flowers have been cut with TH tattered florals, using the aluminium seal from a biscuite tin. The owl and the frog are scrap images.

The canvas has been coasted with white structure paste, and then coloured with Inka Gold in gun-metal grey. I cut a gear out of a piece of brass foil, and used different images from my stash, from CI and from Dezina World. The pocket watches were stamped with a freebie from Craft Stamper, and the other bits and bobs are from an old alarm clock which I recently found in a skip on the street, along with several other interesting finds!

OK, that was all for today. Have a good day you all, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Challenges and Zentangles.

Good morning you all. Had a longer sleep than usual today, so that was good, Today is a public holiday again, so all the shops and post are closed.
Yesterday I was painting pink again, but now I have my pink works finished. One will be shown tomorrow for Paint Party Friday, and the others are for the *Week of Colour* on Monday.
But I did do some other bits and pieces yesterday, I made tags for 2 challenges and did 2 more cat cards just so.

The first tag is for the *Three Muses Challenge* who want to see something whimsical, quirky or humorous. Not easy, given how I feel just now, but I have put together an owl and a pussy cat....

The second tag is for the Blog Challenge Garden , where Rebecca wants to see something with a 7 or with 7 of something on it, so I found this pretty image of a girl with 6 roses. I KNOW!! 6 is one short of 7. I put the seventh one in her hair!

And then I dug out 2 more of my zentangle pictures, so I will torture you with those, too!

Hands and faces are things which fascinate me, and which I very often dream of, which is why they find their way onto so many of my pics.
And here the 2 little pussies I doodled last night whilst watching TV:

OK, that was enough for today, hope you all have a good day, take care, and thanks a lot for visiting!

Two challenges and a joke from Narda....

Good morning you all! See be another grey day here. I managed to prise myself out of bed and stagger to the coffee maker, once I get the first wafts of the aroma I know I'm alive. Isn't there a saying like that? When you wake up in the morning, and nothing hurts, you're in heaven??
Yesterday I spent the day painting pink, but I can't show it yet as it's for the week of colour next Monday. But I did manage two challenges yesterday. The first is for *Less is More* , where the ladies want to see a monogram. As I don't have any monograms to stamp, I drew this one:

I hope the message comes over CAS - CAT!

And at Gingersnaps they are still busy shopping at the Mall all month so GC 107 is about bags and tags. The bags I have here are mostly from the discounter for groceries, and I am NOT going to show my shopping tags so you see I have bought the things which have already been reduced 7 times, but I found a small paper bag from the chemist's to alter. At my age I am more there than at the mall! I painted it with metallic paints, bubbled it, and then stamped the corners using my fave fourish stamp. I added som floral rub ons, butterflies and flowers - the malls are all highly decorated these days! and a TH dress form dressed in half a lace doiley. That was about it!

This was after the bubbling, this was the best part for me!

And here is the finished result.
And just for my good measure, another zendoodle portrait I made a while back:

I think I wasn't in a very good mood on that day, either!


Well, after that, I think we could all do with another one of Narda's funnies, so here it is:


A Florida senior citizen drove his brand new Corvette convertible out of the dealership. Taking off down the road, he floored it to 80 mph, enjoying the wind blowing through what little hair he had left.

"Amazing!" he thought as he flew down I-75, pushing the pedal to the metal even more. Looking in his rear view mirror, he saw the highway patrol behind him, blue lights flashing and siren blaring. "I can get away from him. No problem!" thought the elderly gent as he floored it to 100 mph, then 110, then 120 mph.

Suddenly, he thought, "What on earth am I doing? I'm too old for this nonsense and pulled over to the side of the road and waited for the trooper to catch up.

Pulling in behind him, the trooper walked up to the driver's side of
the Corvette, looked at his watch and said, "Sir, my shift ends in 30 minutes. Today is Friday. If you can give me a good reason why you were speeding that I've never heard before, I'll let you go."

The man, looking very seriously at the trooper, said, "Years ago, my wife ran off with a Florida State Trooper. I thought you were bringing her back."

"Have a good day, sir," said the Trooper and left.

Wish you all a happy day too, free from aches and pains. Take care of yourselves, and thanks for visiting!

Summer or not?

Well, yesterday the sunshine was a right swindle. I had just finished writing about it when it disappeared, and rained all day. And it was cold. Today it's June 21st, the day where it stays light for the longest time in the year, it's officially the first day of summer here, and we are all shivering. All you can do is stay home and paint sunny pictures in the hope that the sun remembers what it should be doing!
Yesterday I had a nice time painting pink, ready for next weeks summer of colour. Pink is more relaxing to piant with than green, so I will do more of it today. But I did manage to finish a canvas. This piece of canvas was left over from another project, and I had it on my table for several days, using a bit of mod podge and gesso here and there and some faces, and bit by bit it grew. And yesterday evening I realised there is so much on it that it's a bit too much, so will probably paint over some parts with gesso again. Or perhaps not. Anyway, here it is,

And I had a piece of wood, the same size, which has been flying around for ages, but now I need it to mount the canvas, it has disappeared. Perhaps it's gone on holiday with the sun. Perhaps I can use it as covers for a journal, we shall see.
I took my 2 envelopes to the postoffice yesterday, the lady was polite, said *Guten Tag* and *Auf Wiedersehen*, so I feel we are slowly getting somewhere. No rude remarks, just normal. How nice!
And this is the alterered notebook I made, the others have all showed theirs so I will too!

The notebook was jsut a plain red one, and I hope my swap partner will like it now it has been prettified.

These are two of the little wooden tags I got in my swap parcel from June, so I made them into *Things with wings* for the challenge over at *The cheerful stamp pad*. There 's still time to enter if you want to make a winged creation, so have a look!

The tags have been covered with paper, gessoed, distressed with wild honey and then I fixed some tiny scap images on to them, before glazing them with rock crackle cnady. they have lots of birds, as well as their own wings.


So that was all for today, I am off to paint pink again. Have a nice day, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Sunny Monday and Sommer of Colour.....

Today looks promising. The wind has stopped howling - probably worn out, poor thing, after howling 2 days and night non stop, and the sun has come out to play. My bruises and bumps and still there, but getting better, so things seem to be going in the right way.
Monday is the the begin of a new *week of Colour* over at *Twinkle Twinkle the Summer of Colour* so it's time to show our green paintings. I was a bit stumped when I heard green, but then I remembered that lovely Beatle's song again *I want to be, under the sea, in an octopus's garden in the shade,* and my green picture was already born in my head. Then I panted it, added some shells, fish, silver sand and some glass dewdrops for bubbles, and here it is:

I did another of my stylized self-portraits, with sea-weed for hair. I think my astonished look is because it looks like I am bout to swallow a fish - OK, it would be worse if the fish were about to swallow me! The octopus looks quite happy dancing away in the corner. The day after I painted it, I dreamed that My Mother was the octopus,gulp!

Next week we can paint with pink, so that should be less dramatic!
I also made 2 mailart envelopes to send off my postcards for Kat's swap and an altered notebook for Tee's swap, so all in all quite a busy weekend.

Okay, that was enough for today. The notebook will be shown when it has reached its destination. Have a nice day, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Today is another cold and blustery day, it sounded like the wicked wolf from the fairy tale was running round trying to huff and puff and blow the house down, but it looks like he didn't succeed. I still have a lot of aches and pains from my fall on Friday, but time should heal them.
Today is *Sunday Sketch Day* over at *Blue Chair Diary* and I am showing a picture I made some time back.

This is a sort of Zentangle picture, I used to make dozens of them, but stopped as it was really addictive. But I think this face fits into the other self-portraits I've been trying to make in recent weeks. I hope you notice that I used to have my hair in plaits!
It has been drawn in coloured pencils. I am also entering this into the *Just for Fun* Zentangle challenge. (Thanks for the reminder, Zoe!)

The second thing I want to show you today is a cardboard tryptich for *Postmark Paris* over at the *Three Muses Challenge Blog*

I have tried to show memories of Paris, of course the famous sights, but also torn apart pictures, for even in Paris, love does not hold forever.
I think that was the part they got wrong in all the fairy tales!
So that was it for today. Have a good day, take care and thanks for visiting.