Sketch Sunday.....

Good morning everbody! Well, it is half past ten here and I have just rolled out of my bed. Slept for nearly 12 hours, so I must have needed it, and I do feel better for it. Had a lazy day yesterday, just made an egg for an egg-swap I am taking part in, but this is really different, more a three dimensional canvas with an egg....you will see it soon, once it has arrived at its destination!
Today is Sketch Sunday over on sophia's *Blue Chair Diary*, so I have some sketches to show you, and then please look at the others who post their art their, it's really worth taking a peek.
I have gor 4 sketches out of a series which I called *Looking for a Hiding Place* to show you. They have all been drawn with wax crayons fron Caran-D'ache, a swiss firm who manufacture wonderful drawing and writing things.

I know these pictures do not conjure up a happy atmosphere, but they were made at a time when I was trying to think about some of the the things that had happened to me as a child, and how I felt then. And painting seems to have a very therepeutic working, at least for me.
On a happer note I played around with some pins and beads. I wanted to buy some decorative stick pins, but they are always so expensive, so I made some myself with some of the left-overs from album making. Here they are:

My table now looks a lot tidier, and I have a litttle supply of pretty pins for my next cards and albums.
So, here's wishing you all a great Sunday, hopefully together with your families and friends. Take care, and thanks for looking in!

Another mini-book

Good morning everybody! Hope you all slept better than I did and that you also feel more human than I do this morning, got a head like a bear, feet like lead and everything in between not quite to describe....But to look on the positive side - it can only get better!
I have been working on another mini book. I know I didn't really intend to, but there were still so many bits and pieces over from all the other *jobs* I did this week, and I just NEEDED to use them up. So here it is:

I used 2 coordinating papers from the Anna Griffin *Sasha* Stack, which has a nice, distressed look to it, and further distressed all the edges with TH inks in Forest Moss and Victorian Velvet. The covers have been made from corrugated card from a box; the edges have been painted with acrylic paint in metallic pink before covering it with the same paper. I have used a miscellany of images - photos, scraps, CI images, rub ons etc, and tried to create a mini collage on each page, which I then decorated with some remnants of lace, beads etc. Added a few ribbons, some fibres and a hand made charm, and that was it. There's a photo of me inside it, too, taken when I was four.

Okay, that was it for today. Thanks for looking, and thanks for all the comments left yesterday, I had fun reading them. Have a great day, and ake care!

The Naked Facts of Paint Party Friday!

Good morning you all, another week has exceeded the speed limit and flashed by, and here we are again at Paint Party Friday!
Today I am showing you some naked facts. One sketched in red chalk at a drawing class, and the other painted just for fun - which is the way I like it best. Here they are:

The second painting has been done with tempera colours, and has been hanging over my couch for some time now. I had a phase where I loved these very bold colours - still do! - and painted a lot in blue and orange.

And I have another mini book to show you. I made this one for a friend who doesn't like embellishments or *bought bits*, and it should be simple etc. Might be easier just to give a blank notebook! But I have tried. The covers have been made from fibre board scraps, covered with some paper from an ancient book from 1763 that is literally falling apart at the seams, so I am using what is usable. I recently made an altered book using some parts of it, too. Anyway, I painted the covers with gesso after covering them, and then distressed and stamped the front cover. My theme is *winged things*, so I have added some quotes about wings, flying, angels etc. The images have all been stamped with Stazon black and then partly coloured with watercolours. I distressed the pages with TH inks in antique linen and Victorian velvet. The quotes have been written by hand, The only *bought bits* were the rings, ribbons and roses on the front cover. I was trying to get the effect of those pretty old books with water-coloured wood-cut illustrations. I am entering this into *Sunday Stampers* too, as this is about wings this week. I have ordered some smaller rings as these are a bit large; hope the postie brings them today!

OK, that was it for today! Have a great day, stay creative, and thanks for looking in!

Play Day!

Good morning from Kaiserswerth. It's cool and damp today, 11°, after having temps of 24° at the weekend it feels really chilly. But perhaps it's just as well that it's not too hot - the famer put manure on his field again yesterday, three cart loads of it, so I think the *perfume* in the air would be worse if it hadn't rained in the night!
My car passed its TÜV check-up with no problems. Not that I was expecting any, it's a reliable little Panda. The only shock was the price. I had an oil change done, and the official test - 154,76€! I can't remember it costing that much last time, the prices must have gone up a lot! Anyway, I had to have it done, if you don't do it, your car loses it's certificate of road-worthiness and you mustn't drive it. They used to have something like it in the bad old days, too, but they called them *pirates* or *highway robbers* or *bandits* then. Times change.
But I did enjoy the rest of the day. Got my bottle-caps, key rings, old chains and spoons out and just had fun. I put some white pearls on the bottle cap I made yesterday, didn't even get a pic of it, a neighbour came for a visit and fell in love with it. So glad I didn't show her the others!
I made 2 more using the photo of my Great Aunt, another one with my Great Grandma, and one with no photo. And I did another spoon with a distant relation. Here are some pics:

This time I painted the bottle caps with acrylic paints before decorating them.

The pearls on the first two were on an old bracelet that fell apart some time ago, the little beads and metallic roses are from my stash.

The chain on the third one is the old chain from my bath tub plug, I knew it would come in handy some day!

The fourth one has been decorated with a small piece of ball chain, 2 roses and a key.










And now for spoon number 2!

For this spoon I used a similar colour scheme to the one yesterday. Here I used some cut glass beads from an old necklace, and other bits and bobs from my stash.

And here's the family photo of the day's haul together. I had fun making them, but I think I would like to get back to doing some painting and paper crafting now!
I am entering the bottle caps into the challenge at *Spotlight* again.

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

GC 100 - Red and Gold at Gingersnaps & other Little Things

Good Morning you all. It's cool and overcast here today, looks like we will have rain later, which nature badly needs. At 11 a.m. I have to take my car to the TÜV, and will come back on the tram. Today will be another alterations play-day, I need to practise.
First of all the cards I made for Gingersnaps. It is my last week as Visiting Artist, so red-gold is a nice theme for a final:

I found it a bit difficult to work with these colours, as I don't use them that much, but decided to go for 2 bold cards, once again using circles and squares as colour fields.

Then I cleared out my kitchen drawer, and decided to alter some of the many tea spoons that I never use . It is the first time I have tried this, and it has not turned out quite like I would have liked it, but I will practise today and see if it doesn't get better. I think it is too frilly and babyish, but OK, there's a photo of my Mum and me as a baby on it. Here it is:

And then I tried making some altered bottle-caps. I am not sure that this is the right occupation for me. I hit my thumb while trying to flatten them with a hammer, and kept getting stuck to the glossy accents as I was impatient with the drying, but in the end I managed 2 which are half-ways OK, although I still need to put soething on the second one. Any ideas?

The first one has been distressed with distress black embossing powder - thanks Dawn - and has had a small blue cameo added. I am entering this into the *Spotlight - Bottle Caps Challenge*The second one has an image of my Great Auntie in it, but I think it still needs something, perhaps some tiny pearls?





OK, I need to start getting ready to take my freshly washed car for its check up. And the lady at the post office was not amused with my decorated box yesterday. Said I would be confusing the postman....Lucky she didn't see all the other envelopes!
Have a great day you all, take care, and thanks a lot for looking, and even more thanks to those who take the time to leave a comment! .

A bit of this and a bit of that....

Good morning everybody, it's still fine and sunny here, although the weather frogs have said we can expect a change - let's just wait and see! Had a nice, lazy day yesterday, just lazed around, did some light crafting, got all my letters ready to post, and had a pleasant day.

I don't even need to frighten the lady at the post office with them, as I printed out the stanps at home and can pop them into the box in front of our house.
Then I made a card for the *Less is more* challenge, which has to be off centred but have perfect balance. Everything I tried looked wrong, or it was too much, so in the end I settled on this one, which is definately less, but that's about it. It has been stamped with Stazon black using stamps from Artemio and LaBlanche, and coloured with water colours.

And I finished another 2 bookmark dolls, which are already packed in their envelopes and ready to set out on their journey into the world.

This time I used some hand-made Indian paper that I discovered in my bottomless pit AKA Hall closet while searching recently for lino colours.
I enjoyed making them again, it is strange that they are all made from one pattern, but all look different when they are finished.
Today I need to be take my car to get washed, it is covered with a layer of yellow pollen, and looks awful, and tomorrow I have an appointment at the TÜV - the people who do the compulsory car check every 2 years to check if they are still safe and road worthy, so I want to make a good impression. It has been washed a couple of times in the past 2 years, but not toooooooooooo often - don't want it to shrink!
And I made another smile box with some pictures from Kaiserswerth taken at different times of the year, enjoy!

Digital scrapbook generated with Smilebox

So, that was it for today. Have a good day, take care and thanks for visiting!

A Mini Book and sunny days

I am almost ashamed to say *good morning* as it is getting on for midday here! Went to bed late, read even later, and then slept and slept and slept....I am sure it does me good, mostly I get too little sleep, but somehow I always have a bad conscience when I sleep so late!
Had a nice day yesterday. Had breakfast with Inge, then we played skipbo for an hour or two, and then we went to B's, where we were invited to an Easter Sunday Coffee Party. The weather was great, so we were able to help ourselves from a table groaning under the weight of piles of home-baked cakes, Rabbit biscuits and Strawberries and cream, and then sit outside in the garden, eating, chatting and drinkin loads of coffee - always my fave!
When I came home I had to get some work done on some secret projects, which cannot yet be shown, and then I made another little album from one sheet of 12x12 paper. I have used *Rye* from Seven Gypsies.

I love the warm greeny-browny colour of the paper, and have just stamped some flourishes onto each page in Stazon black to deepen the pattern a bit. Then I threw all the bits and pieces I could find in the muddle on my table at it, layering pictures over each other and putting together things which do not really belong together, but I love this eclectic mix and the rather surreal effect it gives. The album has been sewn together with black ribbon, as one side of the paper is black. I have arranged the pages so that I always have 2 of the same together, and have just put a small flower on each of the black ones, so that the recipient will have some space for own notes or pictures. I made the charm for the front cover from beads hung onto a swivel pin with jump rings, and that was it.

Had a fun time making the little book, as always, but now I need do something rather sad - I have to go into my arty kitchen, and put all my mini-book *ingredients* back into their boxes, and then put them away into the *Bottomless pit*, which will then be sealed with a magic charm like the Chamber of Secrets in Harry Potter. The charm is necessary to prevent it all jumping out at me every time I open the door....

Have a nice Easter Monday, happy crafting, painting and happy whatever, take care, and thanks for dropping in today!