Art Journal April and a Shadow Box

Hi you all, another nice day weather-wise here, hope you are also enjoying some sunshine.
I was busy again yesterday, and got 2 projects finished – my art journal for April and a shadow box.
The backgrounds of the art journal pages have been painted with water colours this time, which was then stamped after drying. I did it all a bit differently, used a stamped frame from Hein design for the days instead of paper squares, and also wrote the title and week days by hand. The stamped images have all been coloured in using water colours and a fine black ink pen. I very much enjoyed doing this rather child like picture, and am entering my pages into *Paint Party Friday* and Kathryn Wheel Blog

I took pictures while I was working this time. The first one shows the colour wash of blues, red and green on the pages, and then the consecutive build up of different layers of stamping and colouring.

The shadow box is a recycled salt and pepper set box. I covered it with paper strips and mod-podge, and then painted it with pink metallic structure paste, to which I added some gold glass glitter while the paint was still tacky. I wanted to do something really spring like while the sun is shining here. I filled the box with lots of flowers in pink and white, and used a hot glue gun to fix them in place. The head has been made in a mould and polished with inka gold. I hung a bird cage in front of the head and left the bird to sing on the roof.

I am entering the shadow box into the *Alter it monthly*challenge with the theme spring, which can be interpreted as the season or as a coiled spring.
Both pieces were, as usual, great fun to make. Thanks for looking, and have a great day!

Sunshine, Daisies and an altered Mirror

Good morning to you all. We have great weather here today, warm and sunny, and you can almost watch the leaves growing bigger and greener from minute to minute. Spring is just lovely!
I woke up early after having a nasty dream that the whole room was buzzing with bees and wasps, and wanted to look for an insect spray, but it was just a dream, although a nasty one. Now I am sitting on my balcony, enjoying the sunshine and the song of the birds, and drinking a large latte, so I feel good.
Yesterday I altered one of the mirrors that I bought at IKEA. I am entering it into the *Try it on Tuesday* Challenge, which is to alter a frame. The challenge there is being sponsored by *The Craft Barn*

The frame has been painted with gesso & covered with strips of ancient magazines. After it was dry I added some TH Tissue Tape and stamped some motives with archival black on it. Then I added some Prima flowers and a butterfly with the heat gun. And I didn't burn myself this time, wonders will never cease! I was planning on making a present of the mirror, but I like it, so i have decided to put it onto the wall in my arty kitchen. Errr, this does not mean that I ususally only give away things I don't like! I think I had better not say anything more on this topic!
And yesterday I made a card, which I am entering into the *Sunday Stampers* over at Hels' lovely blog, and into the April challenge on Daring Cardmakers, which is Daisies and sweet peas as flowers of the month. The only peas I have are the green variety, deep-frozen, so I decided to stick to daisies.

Hels' challenge was to use texture fades or dry embossing, so I used my dotty folder, which I am going dotty over, to make the background. I distressed the edges with some spun sugar, and then cut some daisies out of white paper. Hels has also put a great tutorial on her blog about dipping flowers into molten Utee to give them a face lift, which I decided to try. Mine turned out to be a tiny, tiny bit different. In fact, at first they looked awful. I used tweezers to hold them into the melting pan, but the tweezers kept untweezing themselves and letting go of the flowers. Then the tweezers fell into the melting pot, and I had to dig them out with a spatula....Well, several blisters, stuck-together-with-utee-fingers and swear words later, I had managed half a dozen reasonable daisies, into which I stuck some mini lilac daisies. And one of them has found its way onto the card, together with a die cut fence from TH's alterations. I stuck the fence on so that it curves forwards. The sentiment is really original, I think the fight with the tweezers and the blisters addled my brains. And then I stuck a butterfly onto it, which I don't like, but the glue was dry and it refused to budge! Here it is:

Okay, enough said for today, except to wish you all a happy weekend. Take care of yourselves, and thanks for looking!

IKEA, Vintage Images to download, and good news!

Good morning you all! First of all, the image is not a photo of my friend and me getting ready to go to IKEA!
Now the good news: This month I will be playing at Gingersnaps as a Visiting Artist, hope I manage to do the themes justice. The focus will be on the orient this month, so watch out there for lots of great ideas from the DT!
Here the sun is trying to force its way though the clouds again, still looking a bit watery, but the birds are singing with all their might and it looks like it will be a nice day, which means I will be able to take a good walk along the Rhine again. The hedgerows and trees are all turning green, the cherry trees, magnolias and forsythe bushes are all blossoming, so it looks really pretty. We had a great day out at IKEA yesterday. It's about half an hour's drive from here, the journey was uneventful, and we enjoyed looking at all their stuff. I bought 2 or 3 (or 4 or 5 or 6? - maths was never my strong subject! -)frames to alter and paint, and a few mirrors to alter, as they make nice presents. It's my friend's birthday next week, and she chose some storage jars and tins for her kitchen, which I paid for as a present for her. And there were quite a few little things in the basket by the time we got to the checkout, pity my memory is sooooooo bad today or I would tell you what!
After the checkout I found the giant rolls of packing paper - lovely stuff for crafting! - and I packed it very carefully. I even used my jacket to wrap up the wrapping paper so that the rain didn't touch it, how's that for crazy? Then we strengthened ourselves with coke and Daim before heading for the car. On the way back home our road led us past a Turkish take-away,(What a coincidence!) so we bought ourselves kebabs from the lovely people there. It's just a small snack-bar, but with a wonderful service, they are always so friendly, and make you feel like you are really someone special. And the food is good!!
So, all in all a great day, and goodies to gloat over in the evening.

Some people asked about the images I used yesterday on my LO. So here they are, and a few more, please feel free to download and use them. Enjoy!

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

IKEA and Steampunk

Good morning you all from damp and rather dismal Düsseldorf. The sun has hidden today, and the weather frogs have predicted rain, but then the weekend should be warm and sunny again, so let's hope they are right!
Today I am up early - even before the postman - as a friend of mine is coming to breakfast, and then we want to go to IKEA and have a look round. I would like NEED some frames and perhaps a mirror or 2 to alter, and it's always fun going round there and seeing lots of new ideas. But the best part for me is AFTER the check out. You get to that place where you can pack up your goodies. Giant rolls of brown paper. String. And you know how necessary it is to make sure things are packed well before transporting them don't you?? I think my weekend will be busy with lots of mod podge and gesso and things to alter, which will give me the possibilty to really mess up my place before tidying up again. That somehow makes it more worthwhile.
Here is a LO I made yesterday, which I am entering into the *Steampunkerie* Challenge over at Three Muses blog.

The middle part has been made with a virtual collage, which I then stamped with different steampunky images in archival black. The small images round about have been taken from a German Ladies magazine from 1899. I have tried to show the fashions and some of the latest technical things of the time. I have mounted them as they are to try to give the feel of movement, then this was an age when inventions and discoveries were moving really fast, taking people into a technical future. The paper used is from my stash, don't know the manufacturer anymore, and the stamps used are from Tim Holtz, Paper Artsy and Stamper Magazine. The digital images were from Lindsay's Stamp Stuff and Dezinaworld.
So, time to get breakfast ready!
Have a great day, take care, and thanks for looking!

When the postman rings twice & other tales & pictures….

Well, this seems to be my lucky week. On Monday I got a parcel full of goodies from Dawn. Yesterday was a warm, sunny day; I was able to go walking along the Rhine, and saw some pirates getting ready to fire their guns onto our little township! You don’t believe it?
Here!

And today the postie rang again. He was holding a big padded envelope from England, and looking at me….I knew what he wanted to ask – if he could have the stamps! No problem; that made 2 happy people. I dived into my kitchen and opened the envelope from Susie J, which was full of lovely surprises – a card, a tag, a wonderful ATC and an even more wonderful mixed media piece, all made by Sue. Thank you soooooooooooooo much!! More lovely things for my arty kitchen. I want to get the whole wall filled bit by bit with things I have made, and which some of my lovely friends have made for me. I spend a lot of time in my kitchen, as I do all my crafting there, and it is good to be surrounded by so much creativity. And some *toys* for me were also in the envelope – a round tin with a concertina album in it, a little key chain house album, and some images from Crafty Individuals. Yoohoo, more excuses not to do more than the absolute bare necessities of h*******k. (Sorry for the swear-word!)

And this is the canvas I am entering into the challenge on *Paint Friday*, a mixed media piece which I have been making over the past couple of weeks, using pictures of my family, and some of me as a little girl – can you spot them? The canvas has been painted with white gesso, covered with strips of ancient magazines, and the pictures have been added partly with transfer medium from Ranger, partly with gesso. I then put more gesso over everything, and wiped some parts clean to highlight the pictures. The text, from one of Bob Dylan's wonderful songs - has been printed onto vellum.

And before I shut up for today, here is a little reminder for you. Tee is organizing a vintage egg challenge. Well, the eggs don’t have to be vintage, they can be made of plastic or whatever, but they should look it when you are finished with them. Tee is also offering a prize to the winner, so ladies, start laying those eggs – pardon me, I meant, start playing those eggs, get eggcited and get your eggcelent eggs over to Tee’s eggceptionally lovely blog!

Thanks for looking, big thanks to all who take the time to leave a comment, and have a great day whatever you are up to!

Flying parcels full of goodies and more cards....

Yesterday my nice postman brought me a little parcel which had flown all the way here from Dawn in England. Dawn did a draw on her blog some time back, and I was lucky to win a prize again.
Firstly, there was a beautiful handmade card, 2 ATCs with Tim Holtz motives, an altered tag, an altered matchbox with a spring flower hidden inside it, and a little wall hanging, which will be hung on my arty wall in my crafty kitchen.

But no, that was not everything. There was a brush and pencil stand, big enough to take all my brushes, some distress embossing powder in soot black, some copper metallic sentiment stickers and a beautiful, large wooden stamp of a little girl holding a present.

Of course, I had to try the stamp out straightaway, and made this pretty card with it, which I am also entering into the *less is more* challenge.

And while I was playing around in the kitchen, I tried out some more of the stamps I bought at the Creativa, including this lovely little Penny Black stamp which I made into a mini card.

And lastly I made a steampunk card, just for fun. I stamped the background with my fave script stamp before overstamping with the optician's glasses from TH. The image is from Dezinaworld, and has been mounted on a scrap of card covered with metal tape, embossed and distressed. I added 2 cogs to finish it off.

So, as you can see, I had a good day yesterday, thanks again to Dawn for sending those lovely things. And thanks to all who take time to drop in here, and hope you all have a great day!

Another try at less is more....

Good morning you all. Here the sun is shining again, which makes it much easier to get up in the morning. The post man helped me out of my bed this morning, too - not that you get the wrong idea, he just rang the bell to leave a parcel for a neighbour.
Yesterday I tried a card for the *less is more* challenge again. We had a sketch to follow this time, & it had to be a long narrow card. I made the first one in white, with a dotty embossed front panel, a pink ribbon and a pink flower. The edges have been very lightly inked in grey to give a bit of definition.

The 2 small ones have been cut from the left-overs to use as gift cards.

But my grunge loving heart needed to try something else. I took a piece of scrap card from a cereal packet, and covered it with 2 strips of aluminium tape from the DIY store before embossing it. Then I distressed it with inka gold *gunmetal* and archival black, and love the effect. Much cheaper than using metal foil, and lighter for a card, which makes the postage less, too. This time I used a dark grey velvet ribbon and a red rose, and I like the card a lot, although I'm afraid it is more grunge and simple than clean and simple. But at least the first card fits the bill!

So, here's wishing you all a great Monday, and lots of sunshine. Thanks for looking!