Sunday, Sunday sketches, a fairy tale and no sun!

Sunday is not living up to it's name here, cool, windy and wet! And there's a park Fête going on near here, which I wanted to visit, but not if the weather doesn't get better!
Yesterday I had a fun day with B. We each set a challenge for the other one, a pile of different papers and embellies which had to be made into something. We both made mini books, but different ones. I got a sheet of wood grain paper, a sheet of paper with greeny-blue flourishes, some matching fringed fibres and a few white flowers. The book is finished, but not yet decorated, so I will share in another day.
Today is time for Sunday sketches over at Sophia's *Blue Chair Diary*. I am sharing 2 more of the roller paintings I made this week. They are a bit wild, but I just did what I felt like! Sometimes it does good just to let go and splodge and smear, and this week has been one of those times! And sending lots of hugs and sparkles for Sophia and her Dad, who is due to undergo surgery again.

And I would like to share with you a little fairy tale book I made some years back. I wrote the poem, and used some pages from the *Fairy Tale Stack* to write them down, and bound it with my old office binder, that was before I got a BIA. I wrote a part of the text by hand on each page, but the whole poem is on the first page, neatly typed, so it might be easier on your eyes to read that!

So, that was it for today! Here's wishing you all a great Sunday, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Saturday , the weekend is here!

Good morning everybody, or good whatever it is where you live! This post has to be shorter today, I am going to a friend's to scrap and play.
Yesterday I did more painting - in red - but it can't be revealed till Monday! and I made a pocket-book and a book-mark to take to B. today. The pocket book idea I have copied from Lesley of Harmony Road Studio. She recently sent me one of these beautiful little books with pockets to hold photos or ATCs or whatever, and I loved it so much that I decided to make one for my friend. I used double sided papers from the Sasha Collection again, as they have the right thickness. I decorated my book differently, using my fave owl stamp, stamped with perfect pearls medium and embossed with gold perfect pearls. The gold doesn't show up too well on the photos, in real ife it looks nicer. And I made a matching book-mark from a strip of left over cover materials, also stamped with perfect pearls, this time using a script stamp. For the covers I have used papers from the fairy tale Stack by DCKW, and I love the effect of stamping with gold onto the brown patterned paper.

So, that was all for today. Hope to *see* you all again tomorrow. Havea good day, take care and thanks for visiting!

It's Paint Party Friday again!

Good morning everybody! It's Friday, and that means *Paint Party Friday* , hosted by Eva and Kristin.
I did a lot of painting this week, and really enjoyed myself, just splodging about with colours, watching them run and change, and not trying to do anything in particular. Here is one of my paintings. I don't know yet if I will leave it as it is, use it as a background for something else, or turn it into die-cuts; I just know I had fun making it.

The second picture was made using rubber paint rollers. It's not supposed to be anything, it was just fun. I think paintings like this are what my art teacher used to call *a waste of time and resources*, but I never did agree with her!

And the next painting started off as a nice, tidy townscape in blues and greens. But it somehow looked boring on its clean, white background, so I decided to alter it. I cut it out, and fixed it onto another sheet, which I had pasted with strips of old magazines from 1900, painted with wax crayons, and sprayed with different spray mists in blues, yellow and green. And then I threw more or less everything that was flying about on my working space at it, and made it into a dream collage. Was great fun, and now I like it!

And I made my tag for the Dragon's Dream TIO, who this week wants to see a tag with something from Tim Holtz on it. No problem, I have enough of his stuff here. I used cardboard for the tag, which was gessoed, distressed and stamped with various stamps from TH and LaBlanche to make the background. I added a piece of film strip, a die-cut bird-cage, and a feathery bird. I used a piece of chain - another remnant from my old bathroom plug-chain - to hang a *soar* ticket at the bottom. And that was it.

And that was it for today, too. Have a great day, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Tim Holtz distressed!

Today seems to be another cold and dismal day. The weather here is totally crazy; we get 1 or 2 days when the temperatures soar,followed by thunder and lightning and rain, and it feels like autumn again. I'm sitting here wrapped in a blanket this morning, feels strange in the middle of July,
Today I got another friendly letter from the Town authorities, with a small - and very bad! black and white photo. Apparently I was exiting the tunnel by the Rhine and must have been driving a bit too fast. The strange thing, is that I drive through this tunnel every Monday, on the way to my Doc's, and then again on the way back. It is always full, stop and go traffic, driving slower than a snail walks. On one day, there was no traffic jam. And I was evidently so happy that I exceeded the speed limit. So I will have to make another donation to the town funds! Why don't they give me a rebate for all the times when I had to crawl through there? Life is sometimes unfair....
Anyway, today I did not drive through the tunnel, and spent my time crafting and painting. And I did some H*******k. It was probably the shock from the speeding fine!
At the *Three Muses* challenge blog, they want to see famous people steampunked. Hmmmm! I was rather at a loss whose picture I should use. Then I remembered a photo of me taken with Tim Holtz, when he visited our little craft shop last year. Well, I'm not exactly famous, but Tim is definitely famous, at least in the blogging and crafting world, so I decided to distress Tim! I printed the photo onto a transparency in black and white (no coloured ink in the printer, I think it drinks it at night when I'm asleep!). Then I distressed some water-colour paper, using the clock and cogs templates, and a home made spray using vintage photo ink and perfect pearls. I die-cut more cogs using the *gadget gears* die, and cut a few pieces out of a Dezinaworld Steampunk sheet, and pushed them all around till I liked it. Then I added a TH branch tree, and a die cut of a winged lady that I got from a friend. And finally, I gave Tim a game-spinner. The King of distress has been distressed!

And on the *Blog Challenge Garden* Rebecca wants to see tags with a black and orange colour combo. Not really my fave, but what to do? I found a white tag on which I recently stuck two printed strips before painting it with gesso and leaving it in the kitchen. So, I distressed it with wild honey, rusty hinge, and a bit of black, and then stamped butterflies in black all over it. Caroline recently sent me a giant, die cut butterfly - in black! Predestined for this tag! And I have had an orange, acrylic flower in my stash, waiting to be used.....And here it is! I'm not sure if I really like it, I think I need to cut the wire stem off the flower!

And I was a busy bee yesterday. I made a little book for the Craft Room challenge. The ladies there want to see butterflies this time. I used 2 sheets of paper from the *Sasha* stack from Anna Griffin. One sheet has been cut to make the pages, and then I cut butterflies out of the second sheet. The paper is pale blue with flocked butterflies in different sizes on one side, and the reverse is plain blue. The first page was cut into 6 equal pieces, and I arranged them so that 2 matching pages always came together. The book is bound very simply, with two holes through the middle of the pages and a contrasting ribbon pulled through it. I have only decorated the plain pages, and still need to find some butterfly sayings to write into it, but here are some of the pictures:

Oh dear, this has turned out much longer than I intended again, sorry! Wish you all a lovely day, take care, and thanks for visiting!

It's cold again!

Good morning you all, hope you are all fit and well. Yesterday was extremely hot here, but very humid, and in the late afternoon we had some storms and rain, which cooled it off a bit. It thundered and rained all night, and now we have a cool 15°c, so just half of what it was yesterday. Crazy weather! I went to my friend Inge yesterday, she rang up and asked if I wanted to go over for a few hours, so I hopped into the car and went. We absolved our usual programme - drinking coffee, snacking, eating, chatting and playing cards.
Yesterday evening I managed to do some crafting, today I have reserved for painting, just don't know what yet.
I managed 2 tags, a card and a gift box, then spent the rest of the evening with my feet up watching TV.
The first tag is for Grungy Monday over at Studio L3. This time we had to use the Techniques of Tim Holtz from Day 7 of the 12 days of Christmas from 2007
I used a cardboard tag, painted with gesso, and then distressed with Victorian velvet before clear embossing. Then I rubbed over the background with forest moss. I stamped over the background with a script stamp, and then decorated with some mini envelopes, tied into a bundle like love letters, an image from CI, and a fountain pen and ink bottle, which have been stamped in several colours and then cut out and fixed with foam pads. I added a scrap of forget-me-nots and printed the title with my Brother P-touch.

The second tag is for the *Try it on Tuesday* Challenge Their theme is *birds and bees*, so I made a tag, distressed it, added a TH branch tree, and then lots of flowers and birds. And 2 fairy mushrooms, just because I like them.

The card has been made from a kit which I got ages ago in a blog candy, and it always comes out when I need a quick,feminine card. The little present box will be hiding a voucher as a present.

I hope you all have a good and safe day. Thanks for visiting!

Challenges and this and that

Well, the first challenge of today is going to be getting my coffee maker to work. A strange light has lit up that I never noticed before, and it's gone on strike. Yesterday the coffee was still being made perfectly; today -NOTHING! How can a day that starts out like this turn out good? The story will be continued.....
I managed to do my challenge for the *Three Muses* yesterday, I even made 2 things - a tag, and a card. The card has been made using a wedding photo taken in the twenties, with my Mum as bridesmaid. They are all wearing typical 1920's clothes - although I'm not sure about the spats the bridegroom is wearing! so I have used it to make an anniversary card for some neighbours. Even the bride is wearing a short dress!

And I made a flapper tag - or tried to! using a TH sewing room die cut, some fringing and some beads....

And while I had the family photos out, I madea card using a nice picture of my Great Grandma and 2 of her daughters:

They were all ladies witha sense of humour, so I think they would have liked their card!

That was all for today, short and not even sweet, I need to see to my coffee maker!
Have a great day you all, thanks for looking, and take care!

STOP PRESS STOP PRESS STOP PRESS!!!!!!

The coffee maker is working again - you have to fill the water container! Ouch, that hurt!

Summer of Color and the Age of Chivalry

Today is once again time for the *Summer of Color* hosted by Kristin. This week the color of choice is brown, not my favourite, I did think of painting chocolate bars, but I was worried about how many I would eat during the process, so I decided on something else. I have a nice, sepia photo of my great aunt taken when she was 18, and tried to paint her, I did lots of sketches and tries, but none of them were right. I chose this one, not because it is a good likeness, bur because it's the expression she had when she was cross with us as kids, when I had forgotten to do the shopping for here, or not thought of her favourite newspaper. She was a very kind lady, and usually very smiley, but this expression must have impressed me!

I used tempera and water colours, and distressed the background afterwards with Tim Holtz distress ink in rusty hinge and vintage photo, to try to imitate the brown curtain at the photographer's. And I added a little gold and amethyst earring for something of a different colour.

After that I needed to do something more fun, so did one of my stylized self-portraits in dialogue with my non-existent twin sister....

I am sure you can guess which one I would rather be!

The double tag I have made is for 2 challenges - Just for fun wants to see plastic or acetate, and The Dragon's TIO is all about the age of chivalry.
I cut a double tag from a page from the WRMK *Fairy-Tale* Stack, and stamped my only suitable stamp on the left hand side - a rather daft looking prince, gazing up to see if his beloved is at home, or wondering if he can climb up the briar roses without tearing his nice, new cloak....
The other pictures have been printed onto acetate - St George having a go at the dragon, with 2 knights waiting right and left if they can be chivalrous and help him, or perhaps if he will kill the dragon for them so that they can go on their respective ways....who knows? The age of chivalry was a long, long time ago, when stories always had happy endings.

OOps, I am adding another card now as I just realized that the closing date is this evening, not tomorrow. I hve made this for the summer birthdays challenge over at the Craftroom. I would have been my Mum's birthday this month, she would have been 98, and the photo shows her with me when I was about 1 year old.

This is a short post today, as I have to be early at the doc's for some examination - yuck!

Thanks for looking, take care, be careful if you meet any dragons, and have a great Monday.