Sketch Sunday, Less is More and Mothering Sunday

First of all Happy Mothering Sunday to all Mothers. I know this is celebrated on a different day in England, but I am sure all mothers everywhere deserve to be praised and valued for what they do. And a special greeting to all mothers who are alone today, who have lost their children through illness, accidents, wars, or whatever, and to those who have just been forgotten by their families, as I know how this hurts.
It's a sunny and very warm day here, a few days ago we were shivering with icy temperatures and today it's summer. I'm sitting on my balcony, typing, drinking my coffee, and listening to the Church bells ring. A jay and a magpie are trying to get the last remnants of bird food out of my winter feeder - one sits here, pecking frantically, while the other is on a branch, hopping anxiously from one leg to the other and hoping that the other will leave something over....
Today is Sketch Sunday over on Blue Chair Diary.
I have 3 pictures to show. One is a card I made for my Mum back in 1951 - the date is on the back - when I was 4 years old:

The second picture is one also made many years ago, at school, when I was in the fourth year at grammar school. It is a simple pencil drawing of a still life.

And the last one is a sketch I made 2 years back while in Noordwijk in Holland. I bought myself a drawing pad and a black felt tip pen and sketched the view while sitting in the dunes looking down at the beach early one morning.

And now to *Less is More*. The challenge this week is white on white. Sigh! White cards do look elegant, but they are not really my thing. Anyway, I have tried, and made 2 cards, both with an embossed dotty background, white ribbon and some dimensional elements in the form of a rose and butterflies. I did add some embellies - two pearls on one, and some tiny beads on the other; I hope I will be forgiven for these excesses!

Okay, that was it for today. Thanks for looking, take care of yourself and have a great day!

And the winners are....

Hi Everybody, it's another bright and sunny day here, and I woke up very early, but it is nice to be woken by sunshine and birdsong. After drinking enough coffee to get my eyes open, I wrote down all the names of those who left a comment on my blog, and followers got written down twice - which was nearly everybody. Then the names all came into a plastic bucket which had once held popcorn. Things are done in style around here! At least the bucket was clean. Then I persuaded my rather grumpy neighbour to pull out five names, which he rather grudgingly did. Okay, it was only 7.45 and he was still in his PJs, but heck, who wants to sleep too long when it's such great weather? Well, evidently he had wanted to sleep longer.... Oooooooops!
Anyway, the winners are:
Julie of Sesenarts in far away Australia - has won a set of tags
Alex of My Serendipity in Corfu - who has won a set of tags
Lynne of Adorn up in bonny Scotland has won a set of tags
Annabelle of The woods are lovely, dark and deep in Canada, who has won a mini book and
Vicki of The Cheerful Stamp pad in the USA - who has won a mini-book
Congrats Ladies! Nice to see that the winners are nicely spread out over different continents, which is a reminder that bloggers really are an international community, who *visit* and support each other.
I want to say a big thank you once again to ALL the people who have supported me in the past year, and that it is really great to find so many blogger buddies.

I have 5 mail art envelopes ready, one I showed 2 days back, and the others are here. Sorry for the very grotty photos this morning, I got up toooooo early!

As you can see, I need addresses to ship them!
Have great day you all, thanks for playing, thanks for visiting, and take care!

Woohoo! Paint Party Friday and Giveaway!

Good morning you all. Welcome to another Paint Party Friday! And of course to my giveaway. I am celebrating 100 followers and nearly 50,000 visitors to my blog. So, what am I giving away? Here's the answer:

A set of three butterfly tags.

A set of bee tags:

The set of 3 London Tags, and the set of 3 Paris tags that were on my blog yesterday are also in the giveaway.

This means 3 winners will each get one tag out of each of the sets, a total of four altogether.
And there are 2 mini-books to be had, too.

You can see more pictures of this one here

You can see more pics of this one here














If you would like to be one of the winners of a set of four different tags, or a mini book, please leave a comment, and how I can contact you. If there are more comments than prizes, the names will be drawn.
If you are a follower of my blog, you get 2 chances. Everything easy peasy!
I will be drawing the names tomorrow morning, and will put the names of the winners on my blog. I will send the prizes out in mail art envelopes, and put a few surprises into each envelope,too. So, here's wishing you good luck!
Now to Paint Party Friday
I am showing a set of pictures, done with water colour pencils, which I made a couple of years ago. I was trying to capture the images of a strange dream I had with ducks, beetles, faces and flowers all floating about. It wasn't scary either, just strange!

Okay, this has been a long post again. So, good luck in the draw, enjoy PPF, and have a great day whatever you are up to. Thanks for visiting!

City tags and mail art

Good morning everybody. The sun is shining, and the birds are probably singing, but they can't be heard because somebody outside is working with a pneumatic drill....how I hate that noise. But the weather frogs have promised us that it will be getting warmer, with early summer-like temperatures over the weekend. After freezing our butts off all week, that should make a nice change.
And today it's *Cinco de Mayo*, a day which is celebrated in many countires and towns, and especially n Mexico, where Donna lives. She is holding a big earring giveaway today, so hop on over to her blog in sunny Mexico and read all about it here
Yesterday I had a lazy day, just made some tags and another mail art envelope.

First the envelope!

I very much enjoyed making this collage of printed and stamped elements, even if it means another trip to the post office....
I have made the tags using craft paper. Each tag has been distressed with TH inks in stormy skies, Victorian velvet, wild honey and forest moss. The backgrounds have then been stamped with script in forst green. Then I made a stamped collage on each one, three with a Paris theme and three for my home town, London. I have kept the embellishments to be a minimum this time, as they will all be sent with the post, but more about that tomorrow....Here they are.

I like the muted colours caused by the craft paper, which gives them a vintags look which reminds me of old coloured postcards. Hope you like them, too!
And Lenna has now put my mini-books for her swap on her swap blog, which you can find here
OK Ladies, that was it for today. Have a great day, take care, thanks for visiting and come back tomorrow because it will be surprise Friday on Bastelmania....

Less is More and a Mini Book.

Hi everybody, good morning from very cold and sunny Rhineland. In some parts of Germany there was even snow yesterday, so I'm not complaining, I suppose it could be worse....
Today I want to show you one of the albums I made for a swap. I have 2 on their way just now so I won't say who is getting this one so that it will still be a surprise when it gets there.

The covers have been made from white mountboard, which has been embossed and distressed with TH Victorian velvet. I added a cameo and some velvet leaves from Prima. The pages have been made from Basic Grey Capella, the edges have been distressed with antique linen and Victorian Velvet, and stamped with my fave flourishes and script in Forest Moss. I added layers to the pages with rub-ons, images, flowers etc, and of course lace, beads and ribbons. I left 2 pockets between pages for tags. Need I say I had fun making it?
And yesterday I made a card for *Less is More*. The theme this week has to be *thank you* or *congratulations*. Apart from that, it must, of course be clean and simple. Well, I tried, and here it is.

OK, that was it for today. Have a great day you all, thanks for visiting, and take care!

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!