Postcard Challenge & Paint Party Friday

Hi you all, it's time for our weekly parties again. At Paint Party Friday, hosted as always by Kristin and Eva, it's week 7 of year 2, and Darcy's Postcard Challenge has reached week 18. Our participants are visiting New Zealand this week; well, that's the plan....
On the home front I am still struggling. I dug out some old summer spandex ballerina-shoes yesterday, which I just about managed to pull over my poor toe. They were just the thing for a shopping trip in the rain, but better than nothing. I felt rather like Cinderella's ugly sister trying to squash my foot inside the shoe! As I was concentrating on foot wear, I forgot that I was wearing my baggy old work-out trousers, colourfully splashed and smeared with paint, gesso and co. Getting down the stairs was much worse than coming back up, but I made it. I must have looked like a bag-lady, limping behind my shopping cart and trying to avoid the puddles. But at least I didn't see anyone I knew, and managed to get back home safely, with my shopping, and even got a parking space in front of the door - how's that for luck? And I'm happy to say that I didn't notice the toothpaste dribble on my tee-shirt till I was back home - good thing, it might have demoralised me completely! Today I woke up with a sticky eye, and seem to have an oozing stye on the lid of my left eye. But it evens things out - right foot, left eye - these things are sent to try us. And to be quite honest, I feel VERY tried just now!

But now to Cissie and Jason:

Cissie is happy to be back with Jason and Thelma after her trip to Norway. They all enjoy going out for their usual fish-and-chip dinners, which Cissie declares to be much healthier than the Norwegian fish, because in England they fry all the fat out of it....!!! Jason seems to have recovered from his *flight* to Romania, Cissie just notices that his eyes seem to be rather red lately, and he keeps saying he fancies a big, rare steak; something he never used to want. He has been looking forward to flying to New Zealand, and meeting up with Sandie, an old friend from his Australian days. But then Cissie notices that his neck looks all swollen, and he says he wants to go to bed early.
Hallo, Jason wants to go to bed early?
This can’t be good. Cissie tells him he should sleep on her sofa, gives him some pyjamas from her dear departed husband, and sends for the doctor.
Dr Murks arrives and examines Jason, while clucking his tongue and shaking the dandruff off his head. *He’s got mumps!* he then proclaims. *Mumps is very serious in adults. He could develop complications, he could even get impotent!* Jason pales further at this announcement, and is so shocked he fortunately doesn’t hear that Cissie tells Thelma that that wouldn’t be a bad thing with Jason! Dr Murks says he cannot fly to New Zealand, and that he needs bed rest and light nourishment, which Cissie promises to provide him with. Jason is very down, stays in bed, and lets Cissie take his temperature and fuss over him like a mother duck with withdrawal symptoms. He cheers up a bit when he gets a parcel from Sandie some days later, with a huge flag of New Zealand, some felt sheep and a Maori mask. Jason begs Cissie to stick the sheep onto the flag, and then has his photo taken in front of it to send to Sandie, although he is not happy that his neck looks so swollen and lumpy. He also has a photo taken of himself wearing the mask. Cissie says, *This mugshot is enough to frighten the pants of anybody! Don’t dare to show it in public, they might lock you up!

Poor Jason!He doesn't get to see the wonderful beaches, Milford Sound, the kiwis or the beautiful sheep, of which he is so fond....

(Pictures by courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

Here is the postcard he sends, not to Cissie, but to Sandie in New Zealand:

And here is Jason, hiding his mumps behind his precious Maori mask:

I sometimes think Cissie is a little harsh to the poor boy....


For Paint Party Friday I have re-purposed another canvas, once again using acrylics in purple and green shades. I have called it *Purple moon-walk*. The canvas is 15x15". I used my fave squares stencil and structure paste to do the background, before painting and adding Stickles, the moon and the umbrella men. The raised squares have been embossed with embossing powder and perfect pearls.

Congrats to all who struggled through to the end! Have a great day, take care of yourselves, and thanks for visiting!

A Tag and a Bookmark

Hi you all! The good news first: I didn't manage to break anything else yesterday! My toe is still sore, probably will be for a few days (weeks??), but I will have to try to get a shoe on later, as I need some shopping. I am not quite sure how I am going to get down the stairs and drive to the supermarket, but I am sure I have solved worse problems before....
I did some painting - which will be revealed on Friday - and a bit of crafting yesterday, and spent the rest of the day lounging around, reading on my Kindle and watching old *Inspector Barnaby* DVDs, so made the most of my day of rest.

The tag is a very simple one. The background colours have been stamped directly from the stamp pads, using wild honey and 2 shades of green, and the clocks (LaBlanche) have been stamped with Archival olive and then embossed. I added a little square of left over stamped card, and 2 flowers. I am linking to *Artful Times*, where the theme is *time*.

The bookmark has been made with a chipboard cat from my stash, inked with Archival Olive and embossed with my *Dirty-Mix* embossing powder - different powders which have got mixed, with some perfect pearls in different colours, and probably some dust from the floor; something like home-made factory-floor sweepings. I hate to waste leftovers.... I fixed a striped ribbon to it with ds tape, and sandwiched the other end of the ribbon into a card cut-off, which I stamped with different friendship quotes.

I'll be back tomorrow with the latest news of Cissie and Jason, so hope to see you then! Have a good day, take care, and thanks for coming by!

May Calendar Challenge

Hi you all, hello from a very grumpy me this morning. Last night I was stupid enough to run against the kitchen door-jamb, and break my little toe. I have had it treated, but it still hurts a lot, and I can't get into any shoes today, not even sandals, so guess I will be staying home till it is a bit more manageable! I am just cross with myself for doing something so daft just now!
I have more or less finished my May calendar; I will add some more when I get round to it. I painted the background with gesso mixed with some pink and green-grey colours - leftovers from another job - and added tags for the days, and some roses. *Tag* is a pun, as the word for *day* in German is *Tag*. I am linking to the Kathryn Wheel.

Okay, that's all for today, I'm off to put my feet up....Take care, have a good day and thanks for coming by!

Tuesday tags on Tag Tuesday

Hi everybody, here's wishing you all a happy May 1st. The sun is shining here, so looks like it will be a nice day! I am happy to say that I have my tags for Tag Tuesday ready already! The theme this week is sewing, which is not really my thing, as I can't see enough to thread the needle, but I have managed a few large stitches, with which I tacked the sack-cloth and book-paper to the tag. The tag itself was made from some packaging, which I stamped with a random-crackle stamp in forest moss and vintage photo. Then I added a TH dress form, which I clothed with a leaf, cut from a scrap of ribbon, and 2 buttons. I have put a mini-thimble where the head should be. The sewing machine and scissors are freebies from Free Vintage stamps, which have been fussy cut and decoupaged. I placed another ribbon scrap 'under the needle' of the machine. A bow made of stitched ribbon completes the tag.

The second tag has been made from a collage from the same vintage blog, and I added the queen's head. I decoupaged some accessories, and added MOP buttons. I did some false stitching round the tag using my pokey tool and a black pen.

The photos of the flowering rape-seed fields were taken yesterday in a lane near here. They not only looked gorgeous, but the whole area was filled with their wonderfully sweet perfume.

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

Monday again....

Hi everybody! A lot of people here have the day off today, as tomorrow is a bank holiday, and this way it makes a nice, long weekend. I have been busy doing (more or less) nothing; spending time on my recliner and reading. But I did do a bit of fussy cutting, cutting out images for future projects. Then I threw some of them away when I crumpled up the cut outs instead of the waste - grrrr! But a few survived, so I was able to do my tags for Tag Tuesday and The Cheerful Stamp Pad. So here's my DT piece for *Tea Time with the Queen*

The Royal crest has been cut out of an old book-cover that was torn, and the queen cut out of a prospect. The teacup is from the Graphics Fairy. I rolled it round a glue tube and then stuck down just the edges,letting the middle bulge (like mine!) to make it dimensional. The tea-bag has been cut from a paper scrap, and the thread was taken from a real tea-bag! I wonder what the Queen would say to this? Probably, *We are not amused*.... You still have a week to enter the challenge if you would like to do so!

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

Postcard Challenge and Paint Party Friday

Hi you all, It's Friday again and that means time for partying - it's Darcy's Postcard Challenge Numer 17, where our participants are off to Norway, and Paint Party Friday Year 2, week 7. I was worried that I would not get my stuff finished this week, as I was not feeling so good, but I managed it, and now I will have a good rest over the weekend.

Cissie has not been feeling well, as she is worrying about Jason and what really happened when he disappeared for those few days. She is more than alarmed when Thelma brings her a newspaper cutting from the local Gazette:

Here is the text again in case the print is too small:
Our local reporter, Jake Grabbit, brings us some startling news of a break-in in the Funeral Parlour
‘Long Shadows’ last Friday evening. Neighbours were disturbed by the sounds of revelling and loud music, but nobody suspected at the time that it was coming from Mr. Deepdown’s Parlour. He told Jake that his ‘Gothic Crypt’ room of rest, tastefully decorated with black wallpaper and antique statues, had been misappropriated for an illegal party. ‘It looks awful!’ he said. ’Empty red wine and vodka bottles everywhere on the coffins, tomato sauce on the black carpet, fish and chip papers everywhere and one coffin stolen – just like that! I am shocked and disturbed at what has happened! It has really taken the fun out of my work!’
One neighbour, Ms Ima Noseyass, said she saw some black-caped figures carrying a coffin away in the early hours of the morning. ‘But that’s nothing strange with a business like that!’ she said.
The police spokesperson, Less Nollidge, said that they have no clue at all, but that they would undertake to find the persons responsible.
Our reporter will keep digging to bring you up to date with any new developments in this field.

Cissie considers cancelling her 5 day Norwegian Fjord Cruise, which she won for being first through the door when a bargain shop opened in her neighbourhood, where she had really pulled – or was it pushed? - her weight to get in first, heedless of the fallen and trampled in her wake. (The lady who was second is reported to have called Cissie ‘The battering ram from Brickwall Lane’.) But Thelma promises, with some trepidation, to keep an eye on Jason, and so they bring Cissie and her 4 cases to the airport. After the usual quibbling at the check-in, Jason foots the excess-baggage bill, and off Cissie goes, hoping that there are really no more Vikings in Norway....

They fly to Oslo, where they enjoy some sightseeing, and then board the coach taking them to Bergen, where they board their ship. They visit Voss, Stalheim, Gudvangen, Aurland, Flam and Myrdal before returning again to Oslo for the flight home.

(Photos from Wikipedia Commons)

The fresh sea air gives her an incredibly good appetite, and she enjoys huge meals of salmon, herrings, cod, cheeses and cream cakes, all washed down with copious amounts of tea. Here is the postcard she sends Jason and Thelma. I used a map of Norway and its environs, on which I coloured the Norwegian Flag, adding Cissie in a fetching norwegian knit pullover:

By the way, Cissie has asked me to tell you that although she gives her hair a colour rinse now and again, she does not perm her hair, as she has natural waves and curls.

For PPF I have another re-purposed canvas to show you, which has a re-cycled clock in it, so double recycling today. I used acrylic paints, which I heated to give texture, adding some small glass beads in before heating. Then I smeared on some Stickles and some perfect pearls for some more colour and shine, before fitting in the clock. The clock has been painted in the same fashion, just using a lighter background shade. I added the last remnants of my Prima flowers, and that was it. The last photo shows the 4 of the canvases made in the past few weeks together.

Here's wishing you all a great weekend,take care, and thanks for visiting!

Tag Tuesday on Thursday

Hi everybody. At last I have managed to get the tags photographed and uploaded. I am still having a lot of dizzy spells, and the blood pressure is still high, although lower than at the beginning of the week, so that's good.

I have made 2 tags, with all the lilac/lavender/purple bits and bobs that I still had flying about on my working space. I am not too happy with them, but i don't have the energy to do anything else just now. Linking to Tag Tuesday

Have a good day you all, take care, and thanks for looking in. I'll be back tomorrow with the latest episode of Cissie and Jason!