Well, another day has passed and gone, and another sunny but cold day is waiting for me. Yesterday I posted 2 parcels off to the USA, and had to brave the post-lady once more.

The post lady made her ususal speech. Bla, bla, bla and she can't understand why anyone would want to make or get anything like *that* as she thumped the stamps onto it. And she was extra annoyed because I asked her for some pretty stamps this time. She only had to put them on one package, because I had stamped the other one at home, but even that was evidently tooooooo much for her! I think I will try another post office next time, even if it does mean a longer journey - they can't all be that bad.
Anyway, I had a mail from Lenna of Lenna's creative swaps, who has received the mini books I sent to her, and she was delighted with her mail art package, and has put a photo of it on her daily photo journal, so that's something! http://www.blipfoto.com/view.php?id=1128177&month=5&year=2011
In one of the packages I sent was a mini book for a swap, pictures will follow in a few days. And in the other one was my *egg-swap* organised my Tee. I had to send to a lady in the south of the USA, and as I did not fancy making another egg, and Easter is over, I used half an egg to make an altered canvas. The lady I have to send my swap to has a blog called *The Cranky Queen*, so I took that as my prompt and made this:

I hope she will like it, I had great fun making it. The egg has been stuck into some structure paste, with which I coated the 4x4" canvas. I painted it in royal blue, before doing the queen's make-up, using acrylic paints and felt-tips. Her hair has been made with fairy hair, used by florists - and by me - and her crown is an old brooch. Then she got some rose earrings, a lace collar and a pearl necklace, and her majesty was finished. I think I was still under the influence of the royal wedding! I really enjoyed making this, so hope that the Crank Queen will like it too. I have told her that I am blogging it today, so she has the choice to look now or wait and see it later as a surprise when it arrives.

And the rest of the day I spent playing about. I read on several blogs about friendly plastic, and especially Zoe made a lot of pretty things with it. So I ordered a little bag of pellets, and tried it out. They are easy to soften in hot water, and to start off I decided to try squashing it into a mould, which I did. The first few I made looked awful, but the good thing is, that you can throw it back into the pot to warm it again and start anew. At the end I had five more or less successful hearts. Two have been coloured with Inka gold in silver and gunmetal grey, 2 in gold and grey, and one in bronze and grey. I used the heat gun to glue a large glass pearl onto each of them, which can be used to thread a wire or ribbon through them. They will make lovely embellies for paper work, and can perhaps be used as pendants or key rings - I will continue playing!

So, once again this post is longer than I intended, but never mind. Hope you all have a great day, take care, and thanks for dropping in to visit!

It's Monday again!

Hi you all. Good morning from sunny but very windy Kaiserswerth. I wonder why the birds don't fall out of the trees when it's sooooo windy? I have not got any big plans for today, just want to take it easy again and do some painting.
Yesterday I painted my journal for May. I have done it differently. I have painted a scene, not of anything in particular, just something where you can look into the distance and see the sky and hills in the background. Then I have stamped some gothic windows on the hill top, so there's a place to look out, added a few others stamps, words and sayings, and the rest will be filled in in the course of the month.

The first 2 show the double pages before and after stamping.

I plan to write something each day, as before, but just where I want to; perhaps I will add more pictures, or sayings, I don't know yet. I just don't want it to be so regulated as last time. The stars are there to accompany the saying *Follow your star*. I will take another pic at the end of the month when it is finished. I am entering my journal into the challenge on the 'Kathryn Wheel* Blog
And I altered a tin. It is a small round tin which had a scented candle in it. I peeled off the label on the top, painted it with Viva-decor metallic structure paint in raspberry, and then added wings painted in lilac to match the cameo, and some pearls. The bottom half has been covered with some silver paper cake band, cut down to fit. This will go in my collection of little tins holding family trinkets. I am entering this into *Try it on Tuesday* who are being sponsored by the *craft Barn*.

OK, that was it for today. I have some more pictures to show you, but they will have to wait till tomorrow! Have a great day, take care, and thanks for dropping in!

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! .