Postcard Challenge and PPF

Another week has sped by and it is once again time for Paint Party Friday, week 13 of year 2, hosted as always by Kristin and Eva, and Darcy's Postcard Challenge, week 23.

Jason and Shannon are having a few peaceful days just for themselves, and can squabble a much as they like without Cissie or Thelma butting in, as they have gone to Warsaw for a few days to visit some very distant relations. The *Kids* are staying in Cissie’s flat, looking after her Budgies, and enjoying not having the *old girls* around. Azhar comes over and tells them all about the wonderful *life experiences* he had in Thailand. Jason looks envious, so Shannon digs him in the ribs and reminds him that he had a good time at home, too, which he can’t deny.

They have the usual problems of getting the exhaustive luggage of the two into the car and to the airport. Thelma keeps shouting at Jason to drive more slowly, Cissie keeps exhorting him to hurry up, and Shannon telling them all to shut up. After the usual haggling at the check in with the excess baggage, they wave happily as the two waddle through flight control to board their plane. They luckily get a row of three seats just for themselves, so nobody has to suffer being squeezed in between them, as Thelma always insists on sitting on the gangway side, and Cissie at the window....

In Warsaw they stay with Cissie’s cousin- twice- removed, Lydia, who makes them very welcome. They love the Polish food, which is good, rich in calories and in abundant measure....mounds of sausages, wonderful soups and stews, pieroggi filled with potatoes, mushrooms and meat, chlodnik - cold beet soup made of soured milk, young beet leaves, beets, cucumbers and chopped fresh dill, and one of Cissie’s favourites, kapuśniak - Cabbage soup with chicken and carrot. Of course, we must not forget all the wonderful sweet dishes and cakes - Makowiec, Pączek, Pierniki, Sernik, mazurek , Chałka, Krówki, Ptasie, Mleczko, Kisiel, Budyń, and many, many more. Her fave is Makowiec- Sweet poppy seed-swirl cake, with raisins and walnuts. They buy some Polish beer to take back home for the Budgie-sitters.

While they are there they visit lots of relatives, the old city centre,the Kazienki Palace, and a part of the wall belonging to the Ghetto, which brings back lots of sad memories of the terrible things that happened during WWII, and the murder and deportation of thousands of Jews.

They find lots of shops and cafés, too, and enjoy their visit, which flies by very quickly. They take a different route home. They go by coach to Lviv, (Lemberg) on the Polish/Ukrainian border, and see the preparations being made for the European Football Cup. Lviv was a major centre of Polish culture for hundreds of years, before being made part of the Soviet Union after the German-Russian invasion in 1939, and being integrated into the Ukraine by the Treaty of Yalta in 1944.

They fly home from Lviv, before all the football fans arrive. They buy T-shirts for the Kids with the Lviv town motto:

(All photos courtesy of Wikipedia)

This is the card that they send to Jason and Shannon from Warsaw:

The card shows the flag and emblem of the town of Warsaw. Warsaw's name in the Polish language, Warszawa (also formerly spelled Warszewa and Warszowa), means "belonging to Warsz", Warsz being a shortened form of the masculine name of Slavic origin Warcisław. Folk etymology attributes the city name to a fisherman Wars and his wife Sawa. According to legend, Sawa was a mermaid living in the Vistula River with whom Wars fell in love. The card has been made by collaging the red and yellow stripes with the emblem and the usual photo of Cissie, who is wearing her new red-and-yellow outfit - very daring!


On the way home, Cissie says she is very much looking forward to getting home and going out for some good food. *Good food?* warbles Thelma, *We haven’t stopped eating all week!* *True*, says Cissie. *But we didn’t have any fish and chips! And the tea was just not the same as back home!*

For Paint Party Friday I am sharing another old nude, once painted in 1991, using tempera colours on water colour paper:

That's all for today, have a good day you all, take care, and thanks a lot for visiting!

Some Thursday Tags

Hi you all! We had a very wet and windy day yesterday, so I was pleased I didn't need to go anywhere. I stayed home, read, and did some crafting. I even did some H*******K - well, I switched on the dishwasher and put everything back into the cupboards again afterwards!

Here are my tags:

The first one is for the *Texture* Challenge at *Simon says stamp and show*. The tag has been made from a cardboard remnant covered with a piece of patterned paper, which I embossed with TH's clocks folder and distressed with vintage photo. The clock (LaBlanche) has been stamped onto a scrap of K&Co paper; the wings and flower have been made from cardboard using TH dies. The flower has been embossed with my *dirty-mix* EP, and tied together with some twine and glass bead. I added a TH stamped ticket, but altered the text on it, and tied on a *time* charm. The lovely glass flowers I have used on both tags were sent to me last week by Diane

The second tag I am entering into the *Frilly and Funky* Challenge, where this week the ladies want to see twine and craft paper. The background has been covered with some printed paper, which has been distressed and stamped in vintage photo and forest moss. I used TH's Sewing Room Die to cut the cardboard pieces, which I distressed using the same colours as before. I added twine to the *lady*, the button and the cotton reel. Before sticking them down I added some lace and some hessian to soften the background a bit. I used a mini-clothes-pin to add a ticket, and used some more of Diane's lovely glass flowers to give it more structure and depth.

Blogger has been playing up the past few days, putting the photos on the left of the column instead of in the middle, why I do not know....Hope you all have a good day, take care and thanks for coming by!

A postcard from Canada & some cards

Hi you all. Yesterday I found an envelope from Canada waiting for me when I got home. It's from Nicole, who was one of my partners in the Inspiration Avenue Swap. I loved the stamp to start with, and the very pretty postcard with a lovely and funny story on the back of it:

Thanks a lot Nicole, this will be treasured!

These are some cards I made on Monday. A neighbour wanted a quick birthday card in blue and white with a bird and flowers. I asked *How Quick?* Answer, *We need it in an hour!* No problem! The background paper is from the Sasha Paper Stack, the die cuts from TH. The flowers, pearls and skeleton leaves - in the bird-cage, rather hard to see - were from my stash. I am entering this into the Make My Monday *Pearls* Challenge.

And here are 2 simple cards with Hebrew lettering, which say *Mazal Tov* - good luck! I have kept them simple so they can be sent in a normal envelope,to keep postage costs down, and tried to give texture and variety by using different papers and my crimper. I have decorated the envelopes to match.

Here's wishing you all a happy day, take care and thanks for visiting!

Tag Tuesday

Hi you all, Tuesday already and i don't know where yesterday went. I had my acupuncture appointment yesterday morning, and after she had pulled out the needles at the end, I got up, and felt something on my forehead, and saw that blood was dripping down - yuck. One needle gets put into the top of the head - I call it the antenna, and for some reason it started bleeding. And then I got dizzy again, so had to rest while she mopped up the blood. She brought me a glass of water, and then I felt fine again, and could go home. I did some shopping on the way home, and bought a basket of strawberries from a farmer - there is a little hut by the field where they sell them. That will be my supper tonight, yummy!

In the afternoon I made my tag Tuesday tags, the theme this week is *Diamond Jubilee* - what else? I made three matching tags, using some pretty paper with crowns on it, and backed with some hologram card that I have had for years, it has a nice diamond pattern in it. Sooner or later you can use everything!

And this is the card I made for *The sweet life* over at the Cheerful Stamp Pad. You still have a week to enter if you want. The card was made under difficult circumstances on Sunday - the power kept disappearing, something I hate. And what is the use of having a drawer full of candles if you don't have any matches....

Have a good day, take care, have fun and thanks for visiting!

Monday again....

Hi you all, just a short post today, we kept having power cuts yesterday, so was too frustrated to write more! I made a sort of shadow box on Saturday in vintage / steampunk style, here it is:

The shadow box has been made from a cardboard box that had candles in it. The head has been molded and coloured with Inka Gold in copper. The hat and pen nibs are cut out of paper, and rolled round a knitting needle to give them some form. I used a little tag from Graphics 45 for his body. The background photo is one of mine, printed onto acetate. The cogs have been cut from cardboard and sprayed and embossed with my *dirty Mix* of EP leftovers, AKA kitchen-floor sweepings.The large flower has been cut from vintage book paper and dipped in melted,clear EP. The other bits and bobs are from my stash. I am linking to the Pan Pastel Vintage Challenge and to Anything Goes part of the Recycle, Re-Purpose & Re-Invent challenge at Doodleartifacts


Just seen that I am featured on The Crafter's Workshop Blog today! Have a good day you all, take care and thanks for visiting!

Happy Mail galore and more....

Hi everybody, hope you are enjoying your weekend. Had a quiet day yesterday, crafting a bit of this and that, but not really getting started on the things I wanted to do - but the main thing is, that it was fun! I also cleaned out the fridge, because while I was searching for the margarine, which I later discovered on my working space, surrounded by crafty bits and pieces, I discovered lots of UFOs - unidentifiable fouling objects. And strangely enough,2 pencils and my well chilled scissors, which should have been in the drawer of the table....Somebody must have muddled things up again, darn those fairies!
And I have had a great post week. Apart from the lovely goodies from Diane that I have already shown, I got 2 cards from the Inspiration Avenue Postcard Swap, one from Terrie and the other one from Gemma. Terrie made a pretty mail-art envelope, too.

Thanks both of you for the beautiful postcards, they will be treasured!

And I won a stamp from Blockheads (link on my sidebar), who do a draw each week, and last Sunday I was lucky!

Yesterday I couldn't resist the temptation and made some more grungy postcards, with blended paper backgrounds, vintage images and image transfers, and some stamping.

Here are the *backsides*:

And last but not least I did another double page in my journal. This time my prompt was London, so had to put a little Queen and Union Jack into it for the celebrations. I have painted the Thames, and tried to put in a few landmarks, which have been stamped and/or printed onto acetate, and a few little pictures I got from the local paper here. I just pulled the next prompt while I was thinking about it, and I don't believe it - Marx and Lenin!!! Well, I had better start knitting a thinking cap to get some inspiration for this one! But now, here is London:

That's all for today. Hope to see you again tomorrow, thanks for dropping in and take care!

Big Mixed Bag for Friday

Hi everybody, there 's a lot going on today, so this will be quite a long post. It's Friday, which means it's time for Paint Party Friday, week 12, year 2, hosted by Eva and Kristin, and Darcy's Postcard Challenge, week 22. This week our participants are off to Thailand. And as it is also June 1st, it's time for the Calendar Challenge at the Kathryn Wheel, hosted by Kate.

So, I will start with Jason and Cissie....

Jason is in the dog house. Shannon is furious. Thelma is cross with both of them. And Cissie is in despair.
Jason had planned a holiday in Thailand with some of his mates, a sort of *last fling* but Shannon is dead set against it.
They are all in their fave fish-and-chip shop, having a loud argument while eating their double portions. Jason says: ‘This will be the last time I go away without you, Shannon!’ ‘If you go away without me, it will be the last time you ever see me!’ hisses Shannon. ‘Well, what can happen to him in Thailand?’ asks Cissie, ‘They are all so friendly and kind!’ ‘That’s what I’m afraid of’ says Shannon, ‘Some of them might be too kind to him! I know what his idea of all inclusive is, and he ain’t going nowhere without me!’ shouts Shannon. Cissie and Thelma do not know what to do or say. Cissie does not like to say ‘no’ to her dear Jason, and Thelma would like to have him out of the way for a few days, so she can have some time with Shannon, but she doesn’t know how to broach the subject without getting everybody furious.
Then Latif, the proprietor of the Chippie, comes over, coughs apologetically, and says, ‘Well, I don’t like to interrupt, but….’ ‘Then don’t!’ The four say simultaneously. Latif remains friendly, and says, ‘I think I might have a solution for you!’ ‘What?’ they all demand. ‘Well, you see, my oldest son Azhar will be 18 soon, and we would like him to have a nice holiday where he can – err – gain some experience of life before he settles down and gets married.’ ‘See!’ says Jason, ‘’E’s got the right idea, ain’t ‘e!?’ ‘If you can tell me one experience of life you haven’t yet sampled, apart from staying sober three nights in a row, I’ll marry you myself!’ says Thelma. Shannon is horrified, and Jason decides it would be better not to answer. Cissie says to Latif, ‘Well, if you buy the tickets off Jason, I am sure none of us will be against it, will we now?’ Shannon grins from ear to ear, Thelma smirks, and Jason looks rather shattered, but says bravely, 'Okay!’ He knows when he's fighting a lost cause! Case closed. They get up to go home for their tea and cream cakes, and Latif says that their meals are on the house to celebrate the occasion. Cissie thanks him, but says, once she thinks that they are out of earshot, ‘If I’d have known that, I’d have had another portion!’ Latif says to his wife, ‘And that is exactly why I didn’t say it earlier! I am not stupid!’

Azhar is very happy to be off with a group of mates instead of with his family, and flies happily to Thailand. They spend three days in Bangkok, before doing a sightseeing tour and visiting some of the famous beaches.

Bangkok

WatChiwatthanaram

Beach at Chiweng

(Images courtesy of Wikipedia)

This is the postcard he sends to Jason:

For the flag I added some strips of glossy paper in blue and white, and topped it with the Thai Emblem, the Garuda. This is a figure from both Buddhist and Hindu mythology. In Thailand, this figure is used as a symbol of the royal family and authority. This version of the figure is referred to as Khrut Pha, meaning "garuḍa, the vehicle (of Vishnu)." The National Emblem is also the Emblem of the King of Thailand.

For my June Calendar I have made a snakes and ladders game, symbolic for life's ups and downs. The background has been sprayed with wild honey and spiced marmalade. In real life the colour is a bit darker than it seems to be here; it has not photographed well. The snakes have been doodled free hand onto some patterned paper and cut out, before accenting the eyes a little.

And for PPF I have pulled a piece out of the 'Oldie Box', painted in 1992, using tempera colours. I have found a whole box full of naked ladies, I might show some more of them from time to time!

Okay, enough for today. I got some more post from the USA today, a postcard and a stamp, but will show them in my next post. Have a good day you all, thanks for coming by, and take care!