Challenges

Hi everybody!

I am happy to say that I have my internet back, which is just great. I feel back in touch now!

I was pleased to see this morning that I won the Craftroom challenge 'Vintage Stamping' .

Today I am sharing a piece I will be using as cover on a journal I have started to make. The background has been made from cardboard, partly peeled and painted with gesso. For the matting I used various paper scraps with script and a piece of cream coloured jute. The right side has been embossed by stamping into molten Utee.  The focal image has been stamped onto a piece of handwritten paper from 1840. The page is part of a study book where the owner wrote his notes on the sides between the texts, with a very fine handwriting. The book is unfortunately disintegrating, and I am using the parts that haven't fallen apart in my work. I stamped over the writing with an image of Leda (Lost Coast designs), stamped with Adirondack espresso. I added some lace, string, and 2 of my home-made paper beads as embellishments.

 

I am linking to Fashionable Stamping Challenges (Script/books/pages/print) and

Craftroom Challenge - heat embossing.

Have a good day you all, take care, and thanks a lot for coming by!

New Challenge at try it on Tuesday - Collage 'Zachor'

Hi everybody!

I have given this collage the title of 'Zachor' - remember, which is the word written in Hebrew letters.

The lady shown here is Erika, the same lady who was shown on my collage from Sunday when she  was a child.

As this photo was taken she was living in South America - her family were forced by the Nazis to 'sell' their house and business and leave Germany - the alternative would have been concentration camp. They were allowed to buy their tickets and take 10 Marks each, the rest of the money was confiscated.  But they were still thankful to find a safe land, even if they did have to start from scratch there. Later in her life she lived in Israel, before coming back to Germany, which she always regarded as her home.

I know these are things we often do not want to think about, but I think it is important not to forget.

I used some carboard, partly peeled, then painted and stamped for the background, lots of scraps, some stamped paper strips, lace and netting. And some pieces of old passports and letters. The beads have been made from rolled up strips of dictionary paper.

This is My DT piece for Try It On Tuesday. The challenge runs for 2 weeks, so you have plenty of time to try a collage with script on it.

Thanks for looking, have a great day, and take care!

From scraps to collage part 2

Hi you all!

Yesterday it cooled off a bit outside, but it is still very hot inside. It looks like the big heat will be back with us by Wednesday, so this is just a break. Germany was the hottest spot in Europe over the weekend, and in many places there were heavy storms with tennis ball sized hail-stones.  I tried sitting out on the balcony in the  afternoon, as the temperature was pleasant, but there were swarms of mosquitoes and wasps determined to keep me company, so I decided it was safer to stay indoors.

Today I am sharing the second 'night-time' collage - there are 5 altogether! It was better trying to create something than tossing and turning in bed trying to sleep. This time I used a photo taken in 1950, which shows me at 3 1/2 years old together with my brother and sister. I have very few photos taken with my family. I used scraps of paper and jute for the background, and the 'lace' has been cut from a doily. The beads are two of those I showed on Saturday.

Have a great day, take care, and thanks a lot for coming by!

Turning scraps into collage

Hi everybody!
It is still extremely hot here, the temps in my apartment are unbelievably high, and although we have had some storms it still hasn't cooled off as the weather-men predicted. Sigh!
I have had several nights where I couldn't sleep, so I got up and played with some of the many scraps flying about my table, and made a collage from them. The background has been made from a mix of paper and lace scraps, fixed to a partly peeled, painted and stamped square of corrugated cardboard. I have used a photo of Erika, a distant relation, who I looked after in the old people's home in the years before she died. It is a photo taken when she was a child, wearing a wonderful fur- trimmed winter outfit. It looks rather green here, which it is not, I think it must be the reflections from the glass casing of the frame. The buttons I have used were from her sewing box - which I still have, and the piece of broken jewelry was hers, too.

I have made some more collages which I will be showing in the course of the week.
Have a good Sunday, take care, and thanks a lot for coming by.

Paper Beads for Paper Saturday

Hi everybody.
I am having internet problems just now, the connection is not working. I am using a rather unreliable USB internet stick, which is more stuck than stick just now, so if I don't visit your blogs , it is not that I don't want to, I just can't!

It was so hot and humid here yesterday that I decided to occupy myself making something small, so decided to make some paper beads, which I like to use to hang onto tags or wall hangings etc.

To make the beads, you start with a rectangle of thin paper, I used 1"x8", and cut it diagonally to make long triangles, which should look like this:

Roll the paper over a knitting needle, starting with the wide end, and add a spot of glue on the last inch. Press lightly till it adheres. Remove finished bead from needle. I gave all my beads a coat of paper varnish to make them more stable.

These ones have been made of strips cut from ads in glossy magazines, which make firm and heavy beads. I threaded some with some other  beads to show the effect.

These ones have been made from handmade Indian paper, and decorated with some gold wire, except for the 2 dark blue ones for which I used some fibres.

This batch has been dipped in cheap school glue, and coated with glass glitter or fibres. They need to be dried on a kebab stick for a few minutes (Not to recommend for people who don't like getting very sticky fingers!)

And here they are altogether for a family photo.

Have fun if you give it a try!

Linking to Paper Saturdays

Have a good weekend, take care, and thanks for coming by.

Paint Party Friday and more....

Hi everybody, another hot week has sizzled by and it's time for Paint Party Friday, hosted as always by Eva and Kristin - thanks girls! Summer of Colour is now over, but it was a fun time, so thanks to Kristin at Twinkle Twinkle, too!

I have repurposed another old canvas this week. I had to add some patches, as it was a bit torn, but that gives a bit more texture. I used a CWS stencil with some structure paste to add the squares and oblongs, and painted it with purple,  turquoise, green and gold metallic paints. I added a layer of cheap glue along the bottom and poured on seed beads and some gold glass glitter. Then I added the 2 little paper houses and varnished them, before adding a few more embellishments in form of stars, dew drops and stickles.  I like how it has turned out, and have it hanging on the wall above my desk.

 

For the challenge at Simon's Monday Blog  I have made a journal page, 'celebrate'.

I painted and sprayed the background, stenciled the chevrons with a stencil cut for me by friend Diane, and added motives in white ink and the lovely die-cuts, also made by Diane- THANK YOU!!! I enjoyed making this journal page. I was not in a good mood to start with, but working on something happy seems to help!

Have a great weekend, take care, and thanks a lot for coming by!

Cards and happy mail

Hi everybody!

Here it is still hot, hot, hot.

The challenge at OOAH this week is 'patchwork'.

I made my patchwork by stamping shades of green and brown with the ink-pads, letting the colours overlap. I added some faux stitching to give the impression of patchwork, before adding my sentiment and some punched butterflies. This is my last piece as guest DT, it was a fun four weeks!

The second card is a birthday card I made for a friend here, with lots of lovely cup-cakes, some of which I fussy-cut and popped up with foam pads.

And the STAR of the show today is the beautiful card I got from Diane this week, together with a big packet of wonderful filigree die cuts she made for me with her cutting machine, one lovelier than the other. Thanks a lot Diane! You will see them bit by bit when I use them in my projects, the first ones will make their debut tomorrow! She also cut me 2 wonderful stencils with chevrons, bliss!

That's all for today, it's still too hot to sit at the computer! I am not visiting as much as I usually do, normal service will be resumed when the temps drop!
Take care, have fun and thanks for coming by!

A mixed media journal page for AJJ Architecture.

Hi everybody!

Just a quick post before I melt completely.

At AJJ the theme is still architecture, so I have made a mixed media piece, using up a lot of scraps that were flying around my table. Most of the images used are from Gecko Galz. I have layered many things one over the other, as I like to have some 'hidden' stuff in the background. Colour has been added with pastels.

 

I was happy to see I was spotlighted at Simon Says last week, that was good.

Sorry, it's too hot to write more just now!

Take care, have a good day and thanks for coming by!

Fish(y) at Tag Tuesday

Hi everybody!

The theme this week is 'fish'.

My first thought was to make a fish-and-chips tag, but then I had a strange fishy dream Friday night which inspired this rather surreal picture for my tag. In my dream I was looking through windows and watching the people inside, who all seemed to be underwater, and there were fishes and various bits and bobs floating around it, like it was some giant aquarium. 

The background picture is from Gecko Galz, and I added the fish digitally. I printed it once on paper and once on transparent foil. I layered the pictures over each other, making sure that the images were not exactly aligned, which gives an unfocused look, as though you are looking through water. I added a fish and a shell 'outside', and mounted it onto some dark grey mirri-board before adding an eyelet for the ribbon and a fish charm.