Paint Party Friday

Hi Everybody!

Hope you are all doing well.

Today I am sharing a rather grungy collage I made some weeks back using everything I found on my table and flying about in my kitchen - so I called it
'Everything but the kitchen sink'. I suppose it's a therapeutic way of changing my mess to an ordered mess which can be filed away!

I just went mad on an A3 sheet of craft paper and pasted and pasted till it was all covered.  Once  the background was covered with pieces of old newspapers, images and envelopes I started on the second layer, adding some washi tapes, a doodled feather, an Easter bunny, a scrap of floral decoupage paper, a scrap of vintage linen, and a photo of the 'unknown girl from the Seine', a girl who drowned herself in the 19th century, and whose beautiful face inspired many pictures and stories. You can read more about it here. It is poignant story and well worth perusing. And in the middle I put a photo of me taken when I was about 10 and had just had mumps. The numerals were from an old sheet of rub-ons, with a price tag of 1 DM, so they are probably from the 1990s. I finished it off by rubbing some gold wax here and there and then adding  some messy sewing. I was asked recently if I couldn't sew straight lines....Yes, I can. I used to sew all of the clothes for my family and taught sewing and textile art for many years, but on my journal pages I just want to have fun! Straight lines can be very boring! I am linking to Paint Party Friday, and to AJJ, Mia's flowers challenge as there are roses on it:

Last week the gates to the castle ruins were opened again, which made me very happy, and so I dived in and took lots of photos. The ruins are home to many birds, plants and rodents these days:

I love to see the plants sprouting from the stones - nature taking over her territory:

This was taken from half way up the stairs:

There's  a wonderful view from the windows, the castle dwellers were able to see every ship that passed by and authorized to collect taxes (The rich and powerful taking from the poor -some things never change!)

Here I'm right at the top:

And looking down:

The watchman:

Castle inhabitants:

This staircase is kept locked, pity!

I will show more  next time.

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!