Happy Mail

Hi everybody!

We have had some pleasant, Autumn weather the past few days - cold nights (bed-sock cold), frost and mist in the morning, and perfect weather for walking during the day.

I love the sky in the early morning just before sunrise, it looked like it had been freshly washed.

 

And these guys were really friendly and came over to the fence to say hello.

 

And on Saturday, when I went down to my mail-box, I found a giant parcel from Donna in it, all the way from Mexico. Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaank you! She seems somehow to know that I like Halloween! I wonder what my neighbours thought of all my squeaking and screaming as these lovely things came out of the parcel one by one?

Halloween stamps - yummy!

 

loads of Halloween papers, one lovelier than the other....

 

A wall hanging made by Miz Donna personally, which is already hanging in my arty kitchen....

(love those pumpkins, especially the bad tempered looking ones!)

 

Lots of creative scraps - delicious!

 

And I couldn't stop grinning and squeaking when I saw these spiders and skulls with wobbly eyes - just fantastic!

 

And some large postcards . these will make wonderful covers for mini-books!

 

Lots of gorgeous stamps to play with!

 

A packet full of die cuts waiting to be used, and the 'wastes', which I love to use as templates.

Cards printed with Donna's wonderful paintings:

 

And a packet of mixed pieces for collage.

Now, this parcel made me very happy, and I am looking forward to playing with it, so I'll sign off now and get to work!

Thanks again Donna, you are sooooooo kind!

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

A Moo, a journal page and a tag.

Hi everybody!

It's Saturday again, so time to link up to Manon's 'Paper Saturdays'.

 The challenge at Moo-Mania is travel, and at AJJ it's 'less is more', so I made a travel moo and fitted it onto a journal page. Not very original, but my brain seems to be programmed just for autumn at the moment.... But I do like the quote from Anais Nin.

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And I made another Autumn tag, using more of my home made painted, die-cut and crackled leaves. The sentiment has been prnted onto a transparency. I made a whole pile of them last year, and discovered them in one of my numerous bit-boxes, so decided to use one. The background has been  distressed with rusty screw, wild honey and peeled paint and then spritzed with water. The leaves were stamped with a Lavinia leaf set, and the vintage scrap is from my stash. I gave it a coat of crackle varnish.

 

I am linking the tag to Tag Along Challenge #5, Autumn glory and to FSC - colours of autumn

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

Autumn

Hello everybody!

My theme this week is once again Autumn, which I see all around me every time I go out.  I made another journal page, which I painted with brown and red acrylics and treasure gold gilding wachs. I do not mix the colours, just dip the brush into them and cover the page to give an uneven mix of colours. The leaves were stamped using a three part stamp from Lavinia, using the colours peeled paint, rusty screw and aged mahogany, and then outlined with a brown gel-pen. The Da Vinci lady, Leda, has been stamped with aged mahogany onto speciality stamping paper, distressed with wild honey and antique linen, and fussy cut. The leaves are part of the batch I cut from painted and crackled paper a few weeks back. I added the vintage fruit scrap and some lace, and a verse from Robert Frost.

 

I am linking to Paint Party Friday, hosted, as always, by Eva and Kristin, and to FSC, 'autumn colours' and to Simon Monday Blog - use a Simon Says product (Paints and gilding wax), AJJ - less is more,

and  to Sugar Creek Hollow - Fall is in the air.

The tag has been made from corrugated card that was round a pack of biscuits, painted and distressed. I used stuff from my table to embellish it - old book paper, hessian, more of my leaves and another vintage scrap. Some thin ribbons, some beads and one of my hand-made beads were used to finish it.

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

Double Tuesday

Hi everybody!

Double Tuesday means it's time for a tag at Tag Tuesday, and the start of a new challenge over at  

Try it on Tuesday.

The theme is 'going dotty' -dots and circles. You have 2 weeks time to join us in going dotty!

I made a journal page, and it really did almost drive me dotty, so I had to do it bit by bit over several days. I used some templates to draw the figures, which I left white, and then just drew the little circles all around them. Then I thought of bubbles, so I coloured some of them with prismalos, and added the sentiment.

I am also linking to AJJ - less is more.

 

At Tag Tuesday our theme is  'Egypt'. I cut a triangular tag from corrugated card, which I distressed and painted with acrylic in black with some touches of blue, and added some fairy dust while the paint was still wet. I chose Bastet as the subject of my tag.She was a cat-goddess in old Egypt, and is sometimes portrayed as a women with a cat head. She was associated with war, and the sun, but also was regarded as goddess of women, fertility. music  and dance, and had to guard the sun by night so that the mice didn't steal it! I have put my tag in front of a statue of Bastet, and added the sacred Ibis, wearing the double crown.

That's all for today, take care, have fun and thanks for coming by!

Happy mail and some photos.

Hi everybody!

I got a wonderful surprise in the post this week, a parcel from Debbie (Craftymoose) in America.

It was totally unexpected, as she didn't say anything, so I hurried into the kitchen, cleared some space on the table and started to unpack. It was full of wonderful goodies - some hand-made pieces from Debbie, and lots of embellishments for crafting. THANK YOU!!

She made this wonderful pen, which has been wrapped with silk thread, and has one of her beautiful beaded flowers on it:

And these beads are not made from paper, but from clay - so beautiful! I will have fun with them!

And this baeutiful ATC accompanied the parcel

Here is a collage of all the other things - tassels,  flowers, lace, ribbon, yarn, fibres, leather strips, studs, beads, little wooden pieces, a doily and embellishments:

 

This was a great kindness, Debbie, thanks a bunch, and it did so much to cheer me up. 

I have been doing a lot of walking thses past days, and have a few photos from my walks to share.

This is more or less opposite where I live - perhaps they should add a 'keep out' sign?

 

Horses in the old moat

 

Keeping watch

 

Doors and courtyards - I love all the different textures of the stones and bricks and cobbles

 

The leaning tower - I wonder if Rapunzel lives up there?

 

The wall on the right belongs to the hospital:

Stylish living behind bars:

 

And a wonderful, brass bell-pull

 

 Hope you enjoyed this little walk!

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