Summer or not?

Well, yesterday the sunshine was a right swindle. I had just finished writing about it when it disappeared, and rained all day. And it was cold. Today it's June 21st, the day where it stays light for the longest time in the year, it's officially the first day of summer here, and we are all shivering. All you can do is stay home and paint sunny pictures in the hope that the sun remembers what it should be doing!
Yesterday I had a nice time painting pink, ready for next weeks summer of colour. Pink is more relaxing to piant with than green, so I will do more of it today. But I did manage to finish a canvas. This piece of canvas was left over from another project, and I had it on my table for several days, using a bit of mod podge and gesso here and there and some faces, and bit by bit it grew. And yesterday evening I realised there is so much on it that it's a bit too much, so will probably paint over some parts with gesso again. Or perhaps not. Anyway, here it is,

And I had a piece of wood, the same size, which has been flying around for ages, but now I need it to mount the canvas, it has disappeared. Perhaps it's gone on holiday with the sun. Perhaps I can use it as covers for a journal, we shall see.
I took my 2 envelopes to the postoffice yesterday, the lady was polite, said *Guten Tag* and *Auf Wiedersehen*, so I feel we are slowly getting somewhere. No rude remarks, just normal. How nice!
And this is the alterered notebook I made, the others have all showed theirs so I will too!

The notebook was jsut a plain red one, and I hope my swap partner will like it now it has been prettified.

These are two of the little wooden tags I got in my swap parcel from June, so I made them into *Things with wings* for the challenge over at *The cheerful stamp pad*. There 's still time to enter if you want to make a winged creation, so have a look!

The tags have been covered with paper, gessoed, distressed with wild honey and then I fixed some tiny scap images on to them, before glazing them with rock crackle cnady. they have lots of birds, as well as their own wings.


So that was all for today, I am off to paint pink again. Have a nice day, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Sunny Monday and Sommer of Colour.....

Today looks promising. The wind has stopped howling - probably worn out, poor thing, after howling 2 days and night non stop, and the sun has come out to play. My bruises and bumps and still there, but getting better, so things seem to be going in the right way.
Monday is the the begin of a new *week of Colour* over at *Twinkle Twinkle the Summer of Colour* so it's time to show our green paintings. I was a bit stumped when I heard green, but then I remembered that lovely Beatle's song again *I want to be, under the sea, in an octopus's garden in the shade,* and my green picture was already born in my head. Then I panted it, added some shells, fish, silver sand and some glass dewdrops for bubbles, and here it is:

I did another of my stylized self-portraits, with sea-weed for hair. I think my astonished look is because it looks like I am bout to swallow a fish - OK, it would be worse if the fish were about to swallow me! The octopus looks quite happy dancing away in the corner. The day after I painted it, I dreamed that My Mother was the octopus,gulp!

Next week we can paint with pink, so that should be less dramatic!
I also made 2 mailart envelopes to send off my postcards for Kat's swap and an altered notebook for Tee's swap, so all in all quite a busy weekend.

Okay, that was enough for today. The notebook will be shown when it has reached its destination. Have a nice day, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Today is another cold and blustery day, it sounded like the wicked wolf from the fairy tale was running round trying to huff and puff and blow the house down, but it looks like he didn't succeed. I still have a lot of aches and pains from my fall on Friday, but time should heal them.
Today is *Sunday Sketch Day* over at *Blue Chair Diary* and I am showing a picture I made some time back.

This is a sort of Zentangle picture, I used to make dozens of them, but stopped as it was really addictive. But I think this face fits into the other self-portraits I've been trying to make in recent weeks. I hope you notice that I used to have my hair in plaits!
It has been drawn in coloured pencils. I am also entering this into the *Just for Fun* Zentangle challenge. (Thanks for the reminder, Zoe!)

The second thing I want to show you today is a cardboard tryptich for *Postmark Paris* over at the *Three Muses Challenge Blog*

I have tried to show memories of Paris, of course the famous sights, but also torn apart pictures, for even in Paris, love does not hold forever.
I think that was the part they got wrong in all the fairy tales!
So that was it for today. Have a good day, take care and thanks for visiting.

Saturday, cold and windy!

Good morning you all, I am def. not feeling good today. Tripped over a bump on the car park while I was getting my shopping yesterday, and had a nasty fall. Several men stopped to look, an elderly lady came over and helped me gather my bits and pieces together, packed them into my bag for me, and helped me to my car. I was very shaken, but I thought I didn't have more than I few bumps and bruises, but in the course of the day and night everything started hurting, my back is stiff and my hands and feet are swollen. So Ladies, take my advice - If you want to fall onto thr floor, wait till they've laid a red carpet for you. And ask for lots of ladies to be in the audience, the men seem to be there just for decoration.

I would like to show you the lovely things i got from Gaby Bee, a blog buddy here in Germany. I sent her a mail art envelope with some things a few weeks back, and yesterday it was my turn for *postman's knock*

First, their was this wonderful enveope, which we will hanging on the wall in my arty kitchen as soon as I can swing the hammer again

And then ll these lovely goodies - ephemera, paper, embellishments, a wonderful crd, Atc and a home made levender cushion. And those ephemera are really ancient - old photos, cigarette cards etc. Thanks sooooooooooo much Gany, I will put the things to very good use!

So I hope you are not drooling over your key boards out there, that was a wonderful packet,
And I just have 3 little tags to show you, wasn't up too much after crashing onto the asphalt yesterday:

I just made three tags with children's themes, as the sumer holidays are rapdily approaching here.
Have a nice day you all, take care, don't fall over bumps in the asphalt, and thanks for visiting!

Paint Party Friday and the sun is shining!

Good morning you all. We had another stormy evening and night here, wet, wild and windy! Lots of thunder and lightning, too. But now the sun is shining, probably specially for Paint Party Friday!

Yesterday I had a lovely surprise in the post, a mail art envelope filled with goodies, and I will show the pictures tomorrow, as today is Party time. I have been painting a lot this week; it seems to do me good just now. Kristin and Eva are hosting PPF as usual, so go on over if you can and see what people are up to.
I have painted another one of my blue self portraits, I have called it *Self dialogue with poetry*. I don’t know why I keep wanting to paint these stylized portraits just now, but I think in art it is good to do what you feel is right, and this feels right for me just now. Here it is.

In the dialogue I am talking to myself, or reading poetry to myself, something I often do, as there’s nobody else to talk to. But at least I get halfways intelligent answers, so that’s something. And I only get to hear poetry or books I like! There are some of my favourite authors there – Heinrich Heine, Paul Celan, Annette von Droste Hülshoff, Nelly Sachs and Rose Ausländer, to name just a few. Being surrounded with words and music I like to hear is very important, and I often listen to music or poetry from CDs while I am painting. And I have taken a photo of all three *blue ladies* togther. Had to put them onto to the floor for that, ans make sure my toes weren't on the picture.

This is the first time I have put them all together, so I think I will try to make a frame big enough to fit them all.
Then I did a lot of green painting yesterday, which has to be kept secret till Monday, for thr *Summer of Colour*. I have never painted with green before - just green, and I'm not sure if I will do it again!


In the afternoon I made a tag for the *Grungy Monday* Challenge over at Studio L3. You have to use a technique of Tim Holtz, which can be found on the
Tim Holtz Blog, January 2008
Technique Challenge

I made the skull using this technique, and then made it into a little fairy-tale collage tag. As I love using all these elements, it was. as always, fun to make!

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

More challenges and playing with dolls.....

Good morning everybody, Mrs Grumpy here again today, after another bad night. I suppose, to see it positively, having a bad night makes you want to get up, so that's some thing anyway.
Yesterday I got some work done on 2 challenges, for the *Dragons Dream*, where the dragon is dreaming of numbers, and for The Craft Room Challenge , where the ladies are playing with dolls.
For the dragon I made a tag with a collage of numbers:

And for the Craft Room girls I dug out some old dressing up dollies which were cut out of a magazine in Israel in the 60s I think, perhaps earlier. They are very tatty, and have been played with a lot, one has a sewn on head, and the other a sewn on knee!! I have put the dolls onto a simple cardboard background, reminsicent of sandy beaches, sun and sea, with a very simple decoration, so as not to distract from the dolls. I think they are actually meant to be boy and girl, but I have just clothed them with the pieces I still have....

Here they are *as they are*

And here in their trouser suits....

This looks like summer dresses for playing....

And these were the last 2 things I found, pajamas and dressing gown, and some sort of winter clothes.
The tabs which hold the clothes onto the dollies are mostly torn, as is one of the trouser legs, but I will mend them before putting them away again.

And some of you may remember Tee's well traveled torso? Well, not Tee, but the one she sent me. Any way, she had a few days rest, so I got around to dressing her yesterday.
First I mod-podged her and stuck a layer of crumpled tissue all over for *undies*. Then I dolled her up with some pink paper from India, a piece of hand made silk from Julie in Australia, lace and a flower from June, some ribbon and roses out of my stash, and some music sheets printed from a freebie. And her belt was tied round a bottle of bubble bath! And here she is. I have called her Mrs T. Orso:

I hope you like her. If you have any suggestions, let me hear them! I wanted to give her a nice feather, too, but have to find one first....


And last but not least, as a contrast programme, I made another card for *less is More*, as I at last found my embossing folder with the frame....

Okay, that was it for today. Now I am going to start painting something green....Have a nice day, take care, and thanks for looking!

The postie came.....

Good morning you all, hope you all feel fit and well. Ask me how I feel when I have drunk my three cups of coffee, I'm still on number one....
Yesterday the postman came and brought me a big envelope from June of *Dezinaworld*. We were both in a RAK swap over at Tee's blog - Tee is a great gal who is organising fun swaps, so go over and have a look at what she's up to! And here are all the goodies I got in my envelope:


Stop drooling, you all, it's mine!! Thanks again June, and thanks Tee for organising theis great swap around the world!

Yesterday I had another Tag day, I made some challenge tags and some tags just for fun.
First I made 2 butterfly tags for the challenge at Tag Tuesday.

I have used white tags - ran out of cardboard! which have been distressed with TH inks, and then stamped with script and flourishes. I have decorated them with scrap images, flowers, butterflies, a little metal butterfly in addition on each one (which were in my parcel from June), some blue beading and ribbons to finish them off. I reall enjoyed making these pretty tags.




And then I made 2 bird tags for the *Blog Challenge garden*

The first tag is with Red Riding Hood and a tree and pretty birds from German Scrap. The background was distressed as for the butterfly tags. The second tag is cardboard again, got another 6 cardboard tags cut and peeled, and the bird here has been painted. I used some gold and purple paints that were left over, squished them together on a postcard, bubbled it dry and then die cut the bird, great fun! The background has been gessoed and distressed, and has some of the nice flowers and a tiny piece of the lace that June sent me.
And then I made a pink tag for *crazy Amigos* whose theme this week is pink.

And the last tag was just for fun, a boy out fishing.

So that was it for today! It was actually meant to be a short post but then.... Have a great day, take care of yourselves, and thanks a lot for visiting!