Cissie on tour and PPF

It's Friday again, and that means it's party time. At Paint Party Friday it's Year 2, Week 9, and Darcy's Postcard Challenge has reached week 19 already, and our participants are off to Bulgaria.

Jason had a hard time of it with his mumps, but is now on the way to recovery. He has decided it’s time he gets back to his own flat and his antique shop. Cissie and Thelma are planning a week in Bulgaria, first visiting a spa in Velingrad, and then a few days by the Black Sea at Sunny Beach. One afternoon they are all sitting together in Cissie’s living room, enjoying their afternoon snack of smoked salmon sandwiches, stuffed tomatoes, Danish pastries which Thelma brought, and the usual mountain of cream cakes *To keep up the boy’s strength*, as Cissie says while stuffing a large Éclair sideways into her mouth.
Cissie is still a bit worried about Jason going back to his flat, and she and Thelma are hoping to find him a new shop and flat a bit nearer, where she can keep an eye on him. She does not want a repeat of Jason’s Twilight Saga at Mr Deepdown’s. But Jason doesn't know of these plans yet.
Cissie says: ‘Jason, we’ve been thinking. You know there have been burglaries near here the past few weeks. I would like you to stay here for another couple of weeks, while we are away. Shannon – Thelma’s daughter – will pop in every day to keep you company, and you two could go to the shop a couple of times and get it cleaned up. What do you think about that?’
‘Yeah, well, not bad really’, answers Jason. ‘Can she cook?’
‘Don’t be so bloody cheeky, you!’ Hisses Thelma. ‘You are sometimes very ungrateful. And anyway, you can go the the take-away for lunch every day!’
‘Well, I only asked ‘cause she’s such a scrawny moo’ explains Jason.
‘Don’t dare to call my Shannon a scrawny moo!’ thunders Thelma.
‘Well YOU always call her scrawny old moo!’ says Jason.
‘That’s different,’ spits Thelma, ‘She’s my daughter!’
‘Have some more cakes’ says Cissie. There’s nothing like a bit of good food to soothe the nerves!’

Jason and Shannon bring Thelma and Cissie to the Coach Station at Victoria 2 days later. For a *scrawny moo*, Jason has to acknowledge that she is as strong as a horse, and has less problems heaving their humongous cases into the coach than he does. After waving them off, they drive back to their fave chippie for a meal, and make a plan of what they can do to pass the time....
As Cissie and Thelma drive off, Thelma says: ‘I just hope your Jason doesn’t take advantage of her while we’re gone!’ Cissie says, ‘You don’t need to worry, they can take care of themselves’, whilst thinking that it would be a miracle if he didn’t at least try it....

They are on the road for three days, stopping at hotels in Eastern Europe along the way, where the beds are bad but the food is good. They arrive tired and travel worn at the beautiful spa of Velingrad, where the first evening is spent being massaged, floating in the beautiful pool, and stocking up on calories. They have a luxurious room, the town is wonderful, and they much enjoy the treatments and wellness, and of course the good food, which reminds them of the cuisine in Greece and Turkey. In any case, plenty of everything, so they are happy.

Velingrad

Maslen Nos on the Black Sea

(Both photos from Wikipedia Commons)

After three days they move on to Sunny Beach on the Black Sea. The food and their hotel are both good, but Cissie is annoyed by the crowds of young men and women with red, sunburnt skins who lounge about all day drinking. ‘They must be Germans!’ she says, ‘They are always so loud and drink too much!’ ‘Strange’ says Thelma, they’re all talking English, listen!’ ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ says Cissie. ‘British people would never behave like that in public! Anyway, the Germans are known for being good at languages!’
They fly home from Burgas Airport, and Thelma smiles slyly when she sees that the 'Germans' are flying to London, too! Cissie and Thelma are happy to see Jason and Shannon waiting for them, arm in arm, at Gatwick.

Here is the postcard they send to the *kids* back home. Cissie especially wanted me to show a close up of her new shirt and her dangly earrings.

For Paint Party Friday I have one of my masks and a WIP to show you, both painted in tempera paints. I just get the urge to do these masks every so often, and I hope the WIP will be going somewhere sooner or later, although at th moment I think it will be the bin....

Here's wishing you all a good weekend. Take care, have fun and thanks for coming by!

More Grungy Cards

Hi you all! I had a great surprise at the post-office yesterday. I went to a different one, as it's usually less busy there, and the lady was so friendly I could hardly believe it. She loved all the mail art envelopes, and especially the 2 postcards (2 of those I showed yesterday) which I was sending off. She spent a long time looking at them, reading the quotes, looking for pretty stamps, and even got out the hand stamp and stamped each one individually! Remember that song, *For the times, they are a changing!* Wonders never cease....

I finished off some more cards yesterday, and found 2 of them in time to take photos - the rest are under a big heap on the kitchen table, which I will clear up tomorrow - or the day after....and then I will post them.

I had fun making these masculine cards. In the second one, the left hand image is a gel transfer, the right one a fussy cut image glued on. I like how the transfer is a bit paler. The image is from Free Vintage digital stamps.

Yesterday it was quite warm here, but rainy, and we had thunder storms. Tomorrow should be dry but it will be cold, and by Friday it should be freezing again, as we have fresh air zooming down from the North Pole to keep us on our toes!

Take care, have a good day, and thanks for visiting!

Wednesday

Hi everybody, hope you are all fit today. I had a lazy day again yesterday, just here at home with lots of reading and crafting. And somebody must have eaten loads of chocolate again, the packet's empty! I hope I can soon get out and about again! My foot feels almost normal as long as I don't wear shoes, but today I hope to get out to the post office at least, as I want to post off the postcards I made for the Inspiration Avenue swap. I have made some mail-art envelopes for them:

And I finished off some more vintage postcards. I made more than the five I needed for the swap, so have a few extra for sending to other people. They have turned out very grungy this time, but I like them that way! Three more are still in progress, I hope to finish them today.

And here are the 'backsides':

I have crafted and/or painted several things lately using stencils from the Crafter's Workshop. It says on the packaging to send a mail and show what you have made with their products, which I did, and had some things showcased on their blog this week. Here is the link if you want to see: The Crafter's Workshop Blog
Have a good day you all, take care, and thanks for dropping in!

Tag Tuesday and some Vintage Images

Good morning. It's tag Tuesday again, and I have a tag of sorts ready. Yesterday was really cool here, but the weather men have promised that the weather is going to warm up from today - but before we get excited, it's going to pour as well. But it will be warm rain. And it should get cold again in time for the weekend - lovely prospects!
I went out yesterday, as I had an appt at the doctor's. I found some very ancient shoes it my cupboard, which I managed to squash my feet into to, so didn't have to go in my old slippers. But it was still painful, although when not squashed into a shoe, it does feel better. But the best thing was the wonderful feeling of relief when I got home and kicked my shoes into the corner....
At Tag Tuesday the theme this week is baking. I leafed through one of my old volumes of the 'Housewife's Magazine' from 1899 and found some nice adverts and images. I chose a very serious one from Dr Oetker's Baking Powder - still on sale today! The ad has a black frame round it, which reminds me of the cards they send here when somebody has died. I glued the image to a piece of scrap card, and framed it with some golden paper lace usually used to put round cakes. As the husband is sitting there reading instead of praising his wifey for baking him such a nice 'Rodon' cake, I added a text to show what she is thinking, 'If I'd have known he'd be reading I'd have burnt the cake, burnt the cake, burnt the cake....' The German text underneath the ad says that Dr Oetker baking powder only costs 10 Pfennigs and can be used instead of yeast, and gives an unbeatable flavour. And if you only use this brand, your cakes will always be successful. You can get free recipes from good firms and from the chemist too! I suppose it used to be a commodity which was sold at the chemist's.

The following images are all food related, and you are very welcome to download and use them.

Nestle's baby milk;

Albert's cakes:

Suchard cocoa:

Müller's invalid stout - especially recommended for people who are sick, reconvalescent and nursing mothers....

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

Manic Monday and a Tag Challenge

Hi everybody, hope you have all had a good weekend. I stayed home - weather was bad - and as I still can't wear shoes it's a bit difficult with going out!
But I used my time to do lots of reading, writing and crafting. I am taking part in a postcard challenge, and got my postcards done. I can't show them yet, I want to wait till they reach their destinations. But I had a really sticky, messy and inky time playing with paper, gel, images, gesso, inks and stamps.

A new challenge is starting over at The Cheerful Stamp Pad, this time tags are being asked for. I used a vintage image from *Free Vintage digital stamps* - see link on my sidebar. I made a triptych tag, using some black card from an old calendar for the base, some scrapbook paper from Webster's pages, and added some school embellishments. I made holes in the sides and tied the pieces together with some silk twine. It was fun to make, and is now standing on my printer. The challenge will be running for two weeks, so plenty of time to have a go! You can make a tag, or something to do with tags - like a tag book, for example.

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

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!