Cissie on the Isle of Man

Friday is Party Time, so welcome to Paint Party Friday, week 17 0f year 2, hosted by Eva and Kristin, and Darcy's postcard challenge, week 27. Our participants are off to the Isle of Man this week.

Last time Jason and Shannon were exploring Illinois along Route 66.
Jason can’t believe his eyes when he sees his Mum sitting at the table with Cissie and Thelma when they get home. Being Jason, he says ‘Bloody 'ell, Mum, what you doin’ ‘ere?’ But he- and Shannon- are very happy that Queenie is there, and Jason spends a lot of time sitting with his Mum, catching up on what’s been going on in their lives. Shannon is a bit put out that he wants to be alone with his Mum for a couple of hours. Thelma says, ‘Give the boy a bit of time. Just think of all the time we’ve spent together!’ ‘Rather not’, hisses Shannon, it was 28 years too long, if you ask me!’
But she cheers up when the ladies tell her that they are off to the Isle of Man for a long weekend, and she will have 4 lovely days with Jason all to herself….
The Isle of Man is another of Cissie’s special missions. Queenie has told her that Jason’s dad was planning to go there when ‘he b*ggered off and left her sitting with the baby!’
The three ladies pack their cases. Queenie can’t believe that Cissie and Thelma are taking so much stuff. She just takes a shoulder bag with jeans, shorts and few t-shirts. Jason and Shannon bring them to the station, and they take the train to Liverpool, and then the ferry, operated by the Isle of Man Steamship Company, to Douglas. The weather is good, and the ladies are hungry after the long train journey, where they just had an outside hamper of snacks to keep them going. After finding their hotel, they go out to look for a restaurant, and Cissie is really happy to see several fish-and-chip shops, where they enjoy double portions of everything before going to a café for their tea and cakes.
On the next day they do some sightseeing, and visit Peel Castle and other sights of the Island. They take a coach, and manage to see all the famous sights in one day, as the island is not exactly large.

 The escutcheon

 Peel Castle

The Calf of Man seen from the Cragneash

The Braaid, in the central Isle of Man, with remnants of a Celtic-Norse roundhouse and two longhouses, ca. 650-950 AD

The Triskelion Sculpture

Manx Loaghtan Sheep

(All photos courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

In the evening they meet up with a private detective, who has been making enquiries about Henry, Jason’s Dad. He says he doesn’t have good news, as Henry got killed a pub brawl some years back, and offers to show them where he is buried. Queenie does not really want to go, but decides in the end to tag along. At the graveyard, Cissie and Thelma are very sad, Queenie not. ‘I only came to make sure he really is here!’ she says. Thelma whispers to Cissie, ‘Now I know where Jason gets it from!’
Queenie says she doesn’t want to talk about it again, and they all go to the pub for the rest of the evening….
Cissie says to Thelma, ‘She can’t help being like that, she’s had a hard life! At least we tried!’

On the journey home, Queenie is a lot more cheerful than she was on the way there, and is happy to be getting back to London.

Here is the postcard they send Jason and Shannon. I have superimposed a statue of the Triskelion over Peel Castle, and the heads show Cissie, Thelma (with the blond perm) and the red headed Queenie. The triskele or Triskelion is an ancient symbol, consisting of three branches or legs, that radiate from a centre. The symbol is found on the Isle of Man, and earlier on Sicily.The Manx triskelion is known in the Manx language as Ny Tree Cassyn ("The Three Legs"). The symbol has been associated with the island since at least the 13th century.

For Paint Party Friday I have re-used an old canvas. It originally had a clock in it, which was broken. It has been over-painted to give it more colour, sprayed, and partly varnished and then heat-bubbled to give texture. I added a photo of my Great Aunt in 1918, which has been cut with a TH cabinet card die, and then varnished and aged, before being mounted onto the frame in the middle.

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

More cards

Hi you all! I can hardly believe it, we've had sunshine 3 days in a row - a wonder! But the weather men have warned us that storms are on their way, and it is very humid. But after so much rain and grey skies it is just lovely to feel the sun! I visited my friend yesterday, and we spend the day as usual, playing card, drinking coffee, eating, drinking coffee and nattering. And in the evening I made 2 more quick cards, done with my free downloads from Crafts you print. The only part that is fiddly is cutting out the small pieces.

 I have added a bit to the first one - some liquid pearls for the spots on the toadstools and the little girl's hair-band, and some litter flocking powder on the bunny and the little lady's skirt. I've had the flocking powder in my drawer for years, so it was good to at last be able to use it for something!

For the second card, I just added a hat pin, some ribbon to the handbag, and used some clear varnish on some of the objects to give them more shine.

Tomorrow I shall be back with the latest episode of Cissie's travels, and  - I hope - something for Paint Party Friday. Have a good day, take care, and thanks for coming by!

Wednesday

Hi you all, it's Wednesday already, and yesterday we had sunshine here and it felt like summer....Perhaps that's why I made a lot of summery things. At *Out of a Hat Creations* the team want to see work with the theme summertime. I have made a tag, inspired by a corn field where lots of poppies were growing, which I saw on Monday.  When I see things like that, I know it's summer! The tag has been distressed with tumbled glass and wild honey, and stamped repeatedly and rather randomly with a poppy stamp from the €uro shop, and then coloured with water-colour pencils. the beads have been made from some remnants of ribbon, rolled up and bound with gold wire.

The next card  is for a little boy who wants to be a pirate when he grows up....I haven't gone mad with the spelling - *ahoy* is *ahoi* in German! The background paper is cut from a 12x12" sheet, and the boy and the bird have been fussy cut and decoupaged.

The next two cards have been made with free downloads from CÜP. I printed them out onto glossy paper, and then cut out all those little squares and stacked them neatly I think the card looks quite nice, and was quick and easy to make, I just added the bow made of seam-binding and the glass leaves.

This one has poppies on it again, and was fast and easy to make. I think this is one way to get a quick card when time is short and ideas are dwindling....

 And I have another of Narda's jokes for you:

TODAY'S SMILE!

My daughter's third-grade teacher had assigned the children
To write a story titled "My Biggest Surprise."

Not until the end of the school year did we see Marina's
Work. It read: "I got up this morning and I ran into Mommy
And Daddy's bed and hopped in. But it wasn't Mommy at all.
It was Mrs. Del Campo!"

What her essay neglected to say was that we had called Mrs.
Del Campo late at night to stay with our children while I
Took my wife to the hospital to have our third child.

Hope the sun is shining for you today! Take care, have a good day, and thanks for dropping in!

Tag Tuesday

It's Tuesday already and that means it's Tag Tuesday again. Our theme this week is * seaside*. I have made 2 tags, I'm not really happy with either of them, but didn't have the energy yesterday to do more than read and rest.

The first tag has been made using an image from one of my old German magazines from 1898, showing a trip to the seaside! I have printed the tag onto photo paper, and mounted it on a piece of hand painted paper. I have added 2 of my hand-made beads, and 2 others from a necklace that broke last week. I wanted to use some shells, but the box with the shells and other fishy things has gone AWOL; I will probably find it at Xmas when I am looking for the Easter eggs, or something like that!

The second tag has been distressed with tumbled glass and wild honey. The stamps are from an American company that stopped producing last year, but I've forgotten the name! Update - it was Scrollswork! I added some gold glass glitter for sand. The fibres were from a hat I kintted for someone.

So, that's all for today. Have a good day, take care, and thanks for visiting.

Jason in the USA and PPF

It's Friday, and that means it's time for Darcy's Postcard Challenge, week 26,  and Paint Party Friday, where it's week 16 of year 2. Our postcard characters are off to the USA this week.


Since Cissie disappeared in Australia more than three weeks have passed.  Cissie and Thelma are sitting in the kitchen, eating breakfast. Cissie is happy to be home after her outback adventure. Queenie is in the spare-room, still asleep. She needs lots of time to get acclimatized to  London. The *Kids* are in America, having their last, wild fling before they get married.
What happened to Cissie in Australia?
Cissie and Dougie got the address of a nature reserve where Queenie was supposed to be living as a sort of Therapy to cure her of her Crocodile obsession. The therapist thought that if she lived and worked in a place like that, she would get better. And she had been getting better, till one night she had heard strange noises outside her hut. Panic! She could hear something moving around outside, and she heard it saying her name!
Queenie just knows that she never wants to be attacked again, so she grabs her shotgun, opens the window, and fires blindly into the night. Then she hears a branch crashing down, and a scream. Then silence. She calls for help, and when a ranger comes, they investigate. No crocodile. No wild animals, just 2 strangers – a young man and a stout, elderly lady lying unconscious. An ambulance is called and they get taken to hospital. Nobody knows who they are, as their papers and passports are locked in their car. They are both badly concussed, and spend several days in hospital, until they are well enough to explain who they are and what they were doing. Queenie is called to the hospital, looks at Cissie, and says, *She's never my sister! I’ve never seen her before!* Cissie says, *Queenie, you’re my little sister! Don’t you recognise me?* *Nope! My sister is 30 years younger, tall and slim!* Cissie is very sad when she hears this, and says, *But that was a long, long time ago. You’ve changed, too! I’ve come to take you home for Jason’s wedding!*
When Queenie hears that, she looks hard at Cissie, and realises who she is. They are both too overjoyed to speak. (Quite an event by those ladies!)
Cissie still needs a few days to recover, and Queenie gets her things packed for a trip back to England. Cissie rings Thelma, to tell her what has happened, and tells her to book a last-minute journey for Jason and Shannon, to get them out of the way for a couple of weeks, as she is bringing Queenie home. Thelma books them a ticket to Chicago, they are completely delighted, and head for the airport, kissing and cuddling non-stop, and don’t even bother to think about why Thelma has suddenly become so generous….

They arrive safely in Chicago, and just love the town – there is so much to see and do, great places to eat, discos to dance away the night, and a wonderful atmosphere. Their fave eatery is Mitchell’s, where they spend a lot of their time and Thelma’s money.
They take a coach tour to see the sights:

 After seeing Chicago, they decide to hire an old Chevy and drive down the Route 66 through Illinois, and then fly back from St Louis.

They love the little town of Joliet, where they visit the historical museum and learn all about Route 66. Museums are not usually on Jason’s plan, but Shannon insists!

 In Pontiac they visit the Route 66 Hall of Fame and museum, where they have their photo taken for the card they send home. They have heard that Cissie is safely back, but do not yet know what wonderful surprise she has brought with her!

 They see lots of historic gas stations and diners, old stretches of road, and quaint bridges on their route. They want to visit Narda, a friend of Valerie’s, who lives in Percy, but discover that she is on holiday.

(All images courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

 From there it is just a short drive to St Louis, where they give back the car, do some shopping for souvenirs, and then go to the airport to fly home. Shannon asks Jason, *What did you like best about the tour?* *You!* he says.

Here is the postcard they send home:

I am sure you all want to see Shannon's face, but you have to wait till the wedding....

For Paint Party Friday I have more or less finished the heads I started last week. I cut them out, and glued them to the cardboard from the back of a sketchbook, which I first painted with black gesso. I used a picture of the galaxy taken from a magazine and added some numerals with a CWS stencil.  Then I collaged different bits and bobs to fit with the idea of *dreams*.

So, that was enough for today. Hope you all have a good day, and a great weekend. Take care, and thanks for coming by!

Seaside and Mini-Books

Hi everybody, hope you are all well and fit. We even had sunshine here yesterday, but we have been promised bad weather again - rain, wind, storms etc from tomorrow, so looks like it will be back to our summer like a *green painted winter*, as Heinrich Heine said. (He was a great German Poet, who was born in Düsseldorf at the end of the 18th century)

Yesterday I made a card for the challenge over at the Artful Times Blog, where the theme this week is *I do like to be beside the seaside*. I painted the background in a watery blue-green, stamped some shells, and added gold-glitter for sand. The wave has been fussy cut from some designer paper. I added 3 images from CI, and put some blue and green stickles on the waves. I mounted it onto a piece of greeny-blue paper, with some blue fibres, and added a little dolphin for fun.

And I finished my matchboxes, here they are, all four in a row. The first one I showed yesterday.

I have used scraps of designer paper to make the cover-side of the *books*, and have used the same text on the reverse of  all three. It is a quote from Ecclesiastes III, *To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.....*. It is quite addictive once you start on these little things, and anyway, there were 4 matchboxes in the packet....

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

Tag Tuesday & a Matchbox Mini-book

Hi you all, it's time for another Tag Tuesday. Our theme this week is *Tales of the Riverbank*. I sat here, storming my poor brain, and wondering what to do, and then I remembered that I live round the corner from the Rhine, and there is a stream directly next to the house here - duh! Problem solved! I made a collage of photos taken along the riverbanks - the ruins of the castle, the shore, the houses, boats and the ferry. The background is a photo of the stream next door, complete with the ducks swimming round. I mounted the photo onto a piece of hand-painted paper in watery green-blue, and added a ribbon made from some matching gauzy material strips, and a little shell, from the shore of the Rhine. 

I have included the original collage, too, as the colours in the tag seem to be a bit changed .  The photo underneath shows the colours better.

And I decided to make some more mini-books.this time accordion books in matchbox cases. The matchbox has been covered with scraps of designer paper, inked and varnished to give an aged look. The little book has been made from a strip of waste paper, distressed with DIs in Antique linen and forest moss, and stamped with various small motives and quotes.

It was fun to make, and I have another three nearly finished, which I will show sooner or later. I am linking again to Out of a hat creations.

Have a good day, take care, and thanks for looking!