Paint Party Friday 36 and a Story

Another week has sped by and it's Friday already, which means it's time for Paint Party Friday, hosted by Eva and Kristin. If you have time, please hop over and take a look at what the others have been up to,
It's my turn to carry on the *Never-ending-story* over at Amy's Blog this week, so I wrote a rather short continuation of the story, and painted a picture to go with it. You can read the rest on Amy's blog under *Once upon a time* if you feel like it.
My illustration is a mixed media piece. I painted the background with 2 shades of blue and a spot of yellow using a wide foam brush. The waves have been painted with the same colours, using paint a bit thicker. The flying horse has been stamped onto a page from an old lexicon, cut out, and coloured with water-colour pencils. The wings have been cut with a Sizzix die-cut out of the same paper. I drew the red-haired girl on a scrap of card, coloured her with water-colour pencils again, and used lots of ice-stickles to give some glitter. For the horse's mane I used some reflex pearls embedded in glossy accents to give more texture. After sticking it all together, and nearly getting stuck to the paper myself, I added a few gold stars, a moon, and more stickles for glitter and shine, and then it was done.
This is my part of the story:


What had happened?
The blue horse held his breath, his heart beat faster, and he was afraid, more afraid than he had ever been in all his life. Where had the beautiful red-haired girl disappeared to? The mist swirled round him, blinding him, and suddenly, he was falling – down, down, down. He whinnied in fright, but at that moment he landed softly on something that felt like a huge cloud, and then he felt a hand touching his mane….
It was the red haired girl, who sobbed with relief that they had found each other again.

They looked at each other, and she held him tight till she could stand without shaking. Then they looked around to see where they were. It seemed to be a big cavern, with an enormous pile of white feathers in the middle, from which a long, narrow passageway led.

Without speaking they went towards it, although it was dark and cold. She held tight to his curly, blue mane. They walked for many, many hours. They were both hungry and exhausted. Suddenly they both stopped in their tracks. They could see a tiny light ahead of them. This gave them new strength, and they started to run as fast as they could, towards the ever-growing light, till they were free.

They were standing on a pebbly beach, looking at a seemingly endless sea. The moon and stars were shining brightly in the sky, and reflecting on the waves like little diamonds.

“Climb onto my back,” said Blue Pegasus. I will fly you home….”

While I was looking through the old lexicon, I found a bank note to the value of 500 million marks!! printed at the time of the great inflation in 1923, and at the time probably not worth the paper it was printed on. But interesting to find, and still in mint condition after nearly 90 years!

I am linking again to AEDM at Creative Every Day.

Well, this post has almost become the never-ending-story, so I'd better stop. Here's wishing you all great day, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Another cold and frosty day.

Yesterday morning when I got up the sun was just rising, and the frost was sparkling on the fields; it was so lovely I had to run out onto my balcony - in my pajamas! - and take some pictures of the start of a wintry day:

I needed to do a bit of shopping yesterday, but I waited till the sun had melted the ice on my windscreen; I HATE having to scrape the ice off before I can get going! And I spent most of the rest of the day in my arty kitchen, painting my journal pages, making cards and drinking coffee. This time I have changed from geese to turkeys in my journal pages, as I am sure a lot of them will not be looking forward to Thanksgiving! I am linking again to AEDM at Creative Every Day

I am hoping the weather will be just as nice today, so that I can go for a walk along the Rhine. Here's hoping you all have a great day. Take care, and thanks a lot for visiting!

Frosty Wednesday.

Hi everyone! It's another cold and frosty day here, lovely weather for crafting and painting.
I had a good, crafty day yesterday, making cards for my neighbour who needs a batch of Xmas ones, and playing in my journal, which will soon be full.

For the journal pages I stayed by my theme of the poor geese getting fattened up ready for holiday dinners. This time I sprayed the background with blue, and painted the geese with acrylics, adding the details with felt-tips. I am linking again to AEDM at Creative every day

The cards are all about 7" square, and I used background papers from the DCWV Christmas stack. I think I prefer my little tags for myself, but if I am making things for others it's best to make what they want! I have used vintage German scrap for the images. I still need to do a few more, so will get to work on them later.

Hope you all have a great day. Take care, and thanks for dropping by!

Bright and cold Tuesday

Good morning everybody, hope you are all feeling well and fit today. It's still very cold and frosty here, the fields outside are all sparkling with the frost, but the sun is shining, and it looks very pretty! I had a nice walk along the Rhine yesterday, and through our shopping street, although I didn't buy anything. But as soon as the sun goes down, the temps drop again, and it's back to deep freezing!

I spent the rest of the day sitting next to the radiator in my kitchen and playing with paper, paint, glue and pictures, as usual. The cold weather inspired me to use some serviettes left over from last winter for my journal pages. The goose was a picture out of my stash. I expect a lot of geese and turkeys in various parts of the world will not be looking forward to the holiday as much as some people are....I am linking again to AEDM at Creative every day

And I got some more tags done, more or less like those from Sunday, just different Santas each time. Out stationery shop has a lovely selection of vintage Xmas images - angels, trees, Santas etc, I think I have bought half of their stock in the past few days....I tried to vary the background colours of the tags, which doesn't show up so well as I had to photograph them using electric light, as it is getting dark very early now.

Oh dear, I wanted this to be just a short post today, but somehow they just seem to grow once I get started. Hope you all have a great day, take care, and thanks for dropping by!

A lazy weekend...

Hi everybody. I am posting much later than usual; I stayed over night at my friends, and then we needed to have breakfast and drink coffee and have biscuits and chat before I came home! I don't have much to show either, as I didn't get much done.
I made a tag from a recycled coffee packet, which I am entering into Simon Says Stamp and Show, where you have to re- or upcycle something. I have made a Xmas tag as it really is a time to get started! The background has been distressed and stamped, and then embossed with a texture fade folder, where I put the colour directly into the folder. Then it was coated with stickles, and I added the vintage Santa.

The postcard has been made for Dragon's Dream TIO, I hope I won't be punished for making a postcard instead of a tag, or perhaps we can regard it as a large, straight sided tag! Our theme this week is *Juliet's letters*. It shows Romeo looking hopefully up to see if his beloved is waiting for him, and a pile of the letters he has sent. I used vintage photo and ancient linen to distress the background, and stamped with adirondack espresso. A few of the flowers and leaves have been coloured in to give a hint of colour.

The next postcard was more or less an experiment, I wanted to do something completely monochrome, and have just used shades of ancient linen, vintage photo etc. I quite like the results, too. I am entering this into JFF *My favourite colours*, although there are a lot of other colours which are also my faves!

I am linking again to AEDM over at Creative Every Day
Okay, that was all for today. Hope to have some journal pages ready for tomorrow, and perhaps some Xmas cards.
Have a great day, thanks for visiting, and take good care of yourselves!

The weekend is here!

Hi everybody, it's weekend already. I will be with my friend today, so probably won't get much crafting or painting done. But sometime it's good to have a little break!

I didn't get much done yesterday either, just my journal pages. This time I used more subdued colours, but I think I will be working with pinks and greens again soon as it was fun. This time my theme was self-portraits. I started off with 2 old postcards with portraits from Paula Modersohn-Becker and Else Lasker-Schüler, and then I went a bit mad again, and added some pictures of me taken in a photo-booth many, many years ago.... I am linking again to AEDM at Creative every day

We had lovely weather here again; it was rather windy at the Rhine, but the sun was shining, so I had a nice walk which blew all my cobwebs away. The weather should stay nice for the next few days too, so hope to get more fresh air.

Here's wishing you all a great weekend. Look after yourselves, and thanks for visiting!

Thursday already.....

Well, the postman came again yesterday, and brought me something - a bill! I suppose it would be too much to expect nice surprises every day! But I had a good day anyway. My friend B came with her little dog, and we had a crafty day. Well, the dog just watched, she hasn't started crafting yet! We were busy with an Advent Calendar for her Mom, we made her one last year, which she liked very much, so we decided to make another one. We used a Sizzix die to cut 24 envelopes from different, coordinating papers, and then glued them together, put numbers on them, and made the tags to go inside. The tags have to be decorated, and we each make 12 with quotes and / or vouchers and little treats to go in the envelopes. When it's finished, we mount them all on a wall hanging, and then the surprise will be finished.
Here are 3 of the envelopes to give you an idea.

And after B had gone home, I finished my journal pages that I started yesterday morning. I painted the pages with gesso, and then used a wide brush to slop on two different blues, some white and some yellow. When it was dry I started drawing some stars, and they somehow turned into sea-stars, so after doodling them, I put in the rest of the under-water scenery, using water colour pencils, vintage scrap, and some cut-outs. The text has been printed onto acetate. I used *Ariel's Song* from the Tempest, as it is a poem I like very much. And I wrote a Beatles verse along the side - *I want to be, under the sea, in an octopus's garden in the shade*; The Beatles and Shakespeare go well together. It was great fun to make, and I am always astonished that I start off with a brush and some colours and it just turns into something without being planned. I am linking again to AEDM at Creative every day

And I got another good joke from Narda. Here it is:

This is the story of the poor blonde flying in a two-seater airplane with just the pilot.
He has a heart attack and dies. She frantically calls a May Day:

"May Day! May Day! Help me! Help me! My pilot had a heart attack and is dead. And I don't know how to fly. Help me! Please help me!"

All of a sudden she hears a voice over the radio saying:

"The is ATC. I have received your message and I will talk you through it. I've had a lot of experience with this kind of problem. Now, just relax. Everything will be fine! Now give me your height and position."

She says, "I'm 5'4" and I'm in the front seat."
O.K." says the voice from the tower. "Repeat after me: Our Father. . . Who art in Heaven. . . .."


Have a good day you all, take care, and thanks for visiting!