More journal pages

Hi everybody, hope you are all fit! It's under three weeks to Christmas now, so hope you are all well on the way with your preparations. I took all my letters to the post office yesterday. There is a new lady there, friendly, helpful and always admiring what I have made....wonders never cease! She is evidently from a different planet than the last one was!

I started making some more postcards, which I haven't finished yet, but I did finish my journal pages; once again with moon and stars, which seem to be fascinating me just now. I did the background with water soluble oil pastels, painted the moon and the silhouettes with acryl paints, and used pastel chalks to do the shading on the moon and round the moon dancers.

Have a great day you all, whatever you are up to; take care and thanks for dropping by!

Postcards

Good morning you all. It's another cold and wild day here, good weather to stay at home! Tomorrow I have to be out nearly all day, so I will make the most of my *at home* time today. I stayed from Monday till yesterday afternoon with my friend Inge, she's not feeling so good just now, but we still had a good time chatting, eating, playing and drinking coffee as always. Oh, and not to forget the biscuits we always nibble!

Yesterday I spent some time curled up on my recliner, just reading and relaxing, and then I heard the call from the kitchen to get in there and do something, so I did. I made 3 vintage postcards, using scraps of photos, letters, pieces of old books and some die-cuts that were still flying around. I applied the pieces in layers. The first one has squares of an antique book as a base. I then applied a gel transfer which didn't really work, it just left a faint, ghostly layer, so I just put the next gel-transfer - my first-day-of-school photo - on top. Then I inked it all a little bit with vintage photo, antique linen and Victorian velvet. It now really looks like a very ancient photo, and I have called it *60 years ago*.

The second one has a base layer of images stamped with vintage photo ink, and then I have added various dry gel-transfers one on top of each other. If you look carefully, you will see lots of hidden things. I have called this one *Macabre dance*, I am sure you will be able to guess why.

The third one again has many layers placed over each other. I have used scraps from an old ledger, from letters, from an antique book, a piece cut out of a picture, and various print outs and photos applied as dry gel-transfers. Here there is also a lot to look at in the different layers, see what you can find. I have called this one *Faces*.

That was all for today. I had an early night yesterday, so did not get as much done as on some days.
Have a nice day you all, hope the sun is shining for you! Take care, and thanks for visiting!

What was left of the day - err, week or 2 or 3....

Good morning everybody. First of all, I want to thank all of you who left kind comments yesterday. There are so many important events that we must not forget. This was one of those made very real for me by the contact I had to survivors. Your support means a great deal to me!

My journal pages were ones I made on Friday and Saturday after clearing my table - once again- of the huge heaps of stuff that was on it. My new journal is twice as large as the old one, so I need more space to work, and will - sob, sob - have to clear up more often. Or buy my next journal in inchie format!

And here the Christmas card I made for the DT at *The Cheerful Stamp pad*, where the challenge this week is to put the sentiment as the focal point. You still have 2 weeks to enter!

I had another rather unpleasant session with my Dentist yesterday, but only one more visit and it will be over and done with! I am lucky that I have such a kind and gentle doctor, or it would be really awful!

Today I have at last got all my Xmas post ready for posting, so it can be sent off tomorrow; a little bit later than I was hoping, but a lot earlier than last year, so that's something!

Hope you all have a great day. Take care of yourselves, and thanks a lot for visiting!

Journal pages

On Saturday evening I started off painting some journal pages red, black,and white, with a few flecks of gold ink. I was intending to use some templates to put some dancing figures on to it, but then the colours reminded me of fire and blood,and somehow it changed to a spread about concentration camps. I haven't named them, I think everybody knows those awful names, but I have used pictures of the gates which bore the same message at every camp - *Arbeit macht frei*. *Work sets you free*. This was a terrible, cynical motto, meaning that the people should work themselves to death, when they would be free. The average *stay* in a camp was about 6 months, for those who were young and strong, although some survived much longer in spite of inhuman conditions and hardships. I don't want to go into more details. During my time working at the old people's home here, I got to know many survivors. Some had survived over several years, often being moved from one camp to another. One of the ladies said; *My name is Chaya, and that means life in Hebrew, so I told myself every day that I would survive*. She died at over 90, and one can only admire such an indomitable spirit.

In my journal spread I have used many photos of children and others who died.Many children, women and older men were killed straightaway, so as not to waste precious time and rations on them. The images are mostly ripped and unclear, which I have done to show that their lives, too, were ripped and destroyed. The picture of the girl on the left hand page shows Ann Frank, who died in Bergen Belsen shortly before the war ended. On the right side I have written a poem from Nelly Sachs, which I am printing completely here, as I know my writing is mostly hard to read.

*O the night of the weeping children!
O the night of the children branded for death!
Sleep may not enter here.
Terrible nursemaids/ Have usurped the place of mothers,
Have tautened their tendons with the false death,
Sow it on to the walls and into the beams—
Everywhere it is hatched in the nests of horror.
Instead of mother's milk, panic suckles those little ones.
Yesterday Mother still drew
Sleep toward them like a white moon,
There was the doll with cheeks derouged by kisses
In one arm,
The stuffed pet, already
Brought to life by love,
In the other—
Now blows the wind of dying,
Blows the shifts over the hair/ That no one will comb again.*

The little spots of gold ink in the pages represent for me light and hope, especially the hope that things like this will never happen again.

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

A Crafty Day

Yesterday the weather was bad, and that was the signal for me to put on my warm slippers, and settle down in my arty-crafty kitchen to play. I started off by making some little note books for presents. I used some hand painted ATCs I made some time back to decorate the covers. The black ones have pictures just on the front, and the others have pictures on the front and back. Then I made a pocket-book using some pretty coordinating papers for the pockets, and some printed acetate for the covers. I used water-colour paper to make the pages.

These are the black ones:

The inside of each one is the same:

And these are the double ones from the front and then the back:

And this is the pocket-book:

Then I made some Christmas cards:

And a little wooden bird, which has been painted gold, stamped and decorated:

It was rather difficult taking the photos today, as it was really dark and dismal, and the pages in the pocket book look like they are green striped, although they are blue....Sorry!

Today I am planning on finishing the journal pages I started, with a collection of all the things I found on my table while clearing up and sorting out, and apart from that, I think I would like a nice, lazy day.

Here's wishing you all a good Sunday, whatever you are up to. Take good care of yourselves, and thanks for visiting!

What the Postie Brought....

Good morning from wild, wet and windy Rhineland!

Today I want to share with you the lovely things I received yesterday and today from Blogger friends. I am always astonished at the friendliness and generosity of the Blogger Community, and it is a great feeling to know that there are real people out there, and really nice people at that.

In addition to the parcels yesterday from Jeanie, Stephanie and Susie, I got another one today from April. So here are the pictures I managed to take today.

The first photo shows the cardboard tag which I won on April's blog, and the embellishments and *bits and bobs* she sent with them:

Jeanie sent me a beautiful card, lots of embellishments and stamped images, and a wonderful array of tags she made, one more beautiful than the other!

Susie sent me one of June's gorgeous treasure bags, filled with heaps of ephemera and embellisments, lace, ribbon, and different materials, as well as a lovely, hand-made tag. There is so much lace in all colours and widths, my imagination started running riot thinking about all the nice things I could make with it! And the envelope is also beautifully stamped, thanks Susie!

And last but not least, the lovely things I received from Stephanie - an altered board-book, some beautiful cards with her art work, and an altered tin, which is now holding my silk rose-buds. And another, beautifully decorated envelope!

And while I was busy clearing up and putting all my goodies into the appropriate boxes, B dropped in and brought me an Advent calendar that she made for me. This was a lovely surprise, which I was not expecting, and it is lovely to have it hanging in my arty kitchen. Thanks B!

Well, as you can all see, this has been a great mail and present week for me, and I feel quite overwhelmed by so much kindness. Thanks a lot you guys!

Have a great day you all, take good care of yourself, and thanks for stopping by!

Calendar Challenge and more post....

Today is the first of December, the last month of the year. The year has flown by so quickly, I can hardly believe it. It's time for the December Calendar Challenge over at Kate's *Kathryn Wheel*, to which I am linking. I painted the background of the pages with blue, white and gold, and then added the penguins, which I cut from paper napkins and glued with golden gel. The snowballs have been cut from white drawing paper - by hand, as I couldn't find my circle punch! I inked the edges with stormy skies to give them more depth, and spread some blue ice stickles over them, which I also used on the snow and penguins to give some glitter. The snowflakes were in the mail I got from Sandi yesterday. I will definitely be carrying on my calendar journal in the new year, as it has been fun planning a new theme each month, and seeing what other people have made.

Yesterday I had to get up very early to go to the dentist. It was still pitch-black night when I got up, but just before I left the sky was beginning to show the first streaks of colour. I made 2 snapshots, which are not very good quality, as I have to take my photos with my cell-phone camera. But I rather like the grainy look of the sky to the east, and the second one shows the lights of the Düsseldorf airport twinkling in the distance.

I won't bore you with the gory details of my session with the dentist, suffice to say that after 4 injections and 2 1/2 hours being *treated* I was feeling rather groggy and very happy to get home again....and I have to pay for it to boot!

Today is the first day of Advent, so B & I *broke in* to her Mum's house yesterday afternoon to hang up the advent calendar we made for her. (We did have a key, though!) Now she has lots of little presents to open each day till Christmas. The finished calendar is just over 1 meter long.

And last but not least, here are the pretty things Cindy sent to me - a crystal bracelet in a pretty blue bag, and a beautiful tag and card, both with my initial on them. Thanks a lot Cindy, I very much appreciate your kindness.

And while I was at the dentist's, the postman came, and as I wasn't home, he left me a notification that 2 enveopes are waiting for me at the post office, so I will go and collect them this morning.

Hope you all have a good day, take care, and thanks for dropping by!