Another Double Tuesday

Hi everybody!

I have a hospital appointment today for a little operation on my right arm, so will not be able to get round and visit your blogs today, and perhaps for a couple of days. I don't know how I will feel afterwards, and how sore my arm will be, so I will catch up with you all when I am fit.

Today is another double Tuesday, that means new challenges at Try it on Tuesday and and at Tag Tuesday. At TIOT our theme is animals, and you have 2 weeks to create something, so hope lots of you will join in.

I made a large hanging, using an image of the 'Bremer Stadt Musikanten' (The Bremen Town Musicians, a German fairy tale). I printed the image onto some printed linen, and fringed the edges. I painted some scrap cardboard with rust Vivacolor and embossed the corners with Frantage aged gold. I sewed the linen to the cardboard, and sewed on a strip of braided string to hang it up. The beaded embellishment was once on a T-shirt many, many years ago, and has been recycled here. 

I am also linking to Art Journal Journey, living beings, as today is the last day of the challenge, which has been great fun.

At Tag Tuesday our theme is 'opposites'. I used my favourite quote from Ecclesiastes chapter 3, as it is full of all the opposites we have to deal with in our lives.  I had to leave out a few sentences as it was too long for my tags, so here is the complete text:

To every thing there is a season,

and a time to every purpose under heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die;

A time to plant, and a time to harvest;

A time to kill, and a time to heal;

A time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

A time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose;A time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew;

A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate;

A time of war, and a time of peace.

And here some impressions from my walk today:

Not ripe tomatoes, but ripe belladonna - deadly nightshade - which is related to tomatoes and potatoes:

This lonely leaf was suspended in the air, stuck to a fine cobweb thread.

Here's wishing you all a great day, take care,  

and thanks a lot for coming by!

A real sun day Sunday

Hi everybody!

I'm happy to say that we had another wonderful day, a real sun day Sunday.

I spent a lot of time outdoors, walking around, and enjoying the scenery, sunshine and the good air. 

Yesterday I bought a packet of scarf-wool at the discounter's, and knitted it while I watched TV with my feet up in the evening. It was a special wool, with all the bobbles and fancy bits already in it. I just had to cast on 80 stitches and knit 10 rows in garter stitch and cast off, and my autumn scarf was finished.

Miss Plas-Tick, who hangs in my hall, wanted to try it, too:

In the afternoon I started making some tags, and botched twice.  I painted a tag and put it face down on some newspaper to dry, and then screwed up a piece of lovely craft paper by mistake, so I combined them to a new piece. I glued the crumpled craft paper onto the botched up tag, and painted it with some metallics in blue, green and rust, adding a bit of copper embossing powder from Frantage over some stamped swirls.
I am linking to Moo Mania and More, autumnal colouring

Then I sewed it to a corrugated cardboard tag, and sewed the lace and burlap on too. I used some of my embossed, sparkly leaves and seed pods, and a butterfly as embellishments. The photos are not good, it was getting dark and I had to use flash, sorry.

The little path along the stream gets narrower and more overgrown every day:

I went down to the lake, and spent some time there, just enjoying the peace, birdsong, and the sun sparkling on the water.

Then I met some horses on a meadow. The were busy grazing - what else?

At Schloss Kalkum the trees in the park are changing colour:

This duck spent his time chasing all other males away from his harem!

And the wonderful sky this evening wowed me with the beautiful colours, and made a fitting end to a lovely day.

Have a great day you all, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Owls, chickens, cows and a feather

Hi everybody!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend. It started out cool and misty here on Saturday, but got better and better as the morning progressed, so I peeled off my jacket and tied it round my middle while I was walking, and it was good to feel the sun on my back again.

I have been having fun playing with cardboard and old linen again. The background (A4 size) was partly peeled and then painted with terracotta acrylics, and embossed while still wet with Frantage aged gold and copper EPs. I fringed the edges of the linen and printed the owl image, from Gecko Galz (owling for you) directly onto it. Then I sewed it onto the cardboard. I added some leaves, beads, berries and fibres as trim. To hang it up I added a TH ball chain with a muse token. This was a fun piece, I love playing around with everything for autumn and Halloween. I am linking to Art Journal Journey, living beings.

On my Saturday walk I noticed that a piece of a meadow has been fenced off as home for some chickens, who were happily picking and clucking around. They have a very noble, mobile hen-house, and it's good to see chickens living a good life outdoors instead of being cooped up inside.

I carried on down the path towards the Rhine:

The white cattle were all grazing happily, too. The calves have grown a lot.

This ship on the Rhine looked like a swimming mountain range, I don't know what it is that was heaped to mountains, but it looked  very interesting.

And I love this feather that I saw on the path under the trees, still glistening with dew-drops.

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Harlequin men, happy mail and a walk.

Hi everybody!

We had a chilly and grey day here, it's Autumn. I am enjoying  the changing colours of the leaves, and I love the sound and feel of crunching through the fallen leaves. It's a great time of year!

The time is flying by again, I have the feeling that the time between getting up and going to bed is always shrinking. But there was still time today for 2 nice walks, time to cook a tasty veggie stir-fry - and to eat it,  time to put my feet up and read a bit, and time for painting, crafting and playing with leaves. I am so happy I don't need to go to work anymore!

I finished a mixed media canvas today. I re-used an old 15x12" one that I was tired of seeing. It had plenty of texture, so I gave it a coat of gesso and added  some beige and brown spray colours while it was still wet. Then I used a diamond stencil with Viva rust paint to fill in the diamonds. The 'man' stencils are some home made ones created using some ads from a magazine some time back. I made 2 outlines with black and brown pastel-chalks, and added 2 printed figures, which I varnished with paper-glaze. I added more patterning with some scraps of paper napkins left over from other projects, a few scraps of my old letters, and some more colours with pastel-chalks. I tried to make it look as though they are standing in water. I have called it 'Harlequin'.

 I am linking to following challenges:

Simon Monday (stamps and stencils)

Moo Mania and more ( autumnal colouring)

Art Journal Journey (living beings)

Paint Party Friday, hosted as always by Eva and Kristin.

The parcel postman got me out of bed this morning, and brought a little parcel from Jeannette - a Halloween bag, with a beautiful card in it, a scary scull candle for some dark hours and lots of crafty things to make me happy. Thanks, Jeannette, you are a sweetie, and this was a lovely surprise!

The sun did try to fight a way through the clouds today, but didn't really succeed.

The heron and ducks were busy fishing:

And there were not many people about in 'town'

The market stall down at the Rhine did not have many customers today

I love the way the little dog on the right is looking at his master and hoping for a bite!

The horses are in the old moat at the moment and seem to be enjoying the grass there, too.

Have a great day, whatever you are up to! 

Take good care of yourselves, and thanks a lot for coming by!