Halloween is coming nearer....

I love October! Halloween is coming nearer from day to day, and soon it will be the witching time again.... I found two of these lovely chipboard boxes in the old paper container recently, and have discovered that they make wonderful, spooky witch dwellings.

First I gave the box a thin spray with black paint, so it still looked patchy and shabby, and used some TH Halloween paper for the wallpaper. The die-cuts used for the owl, hat, skeletons, skulls and ghosts are from Sizzix. The lovely curtains were made from remnants out of my bit-bag. The little book 'upstairs' has been made from ancient paper from the 18th century, and the skull was once on some sneakers. The bottles have been altered, with some red spray for 'Poison'. The witch was given to me by a neighbour (should I be worried when people give me things like this?!) I just turned her broom so she could sit on the floor more comfortably.

I wonder whose hand is creeping round the curtains?

An ancestral portrait....

Bon Appetit!

Well, I really had fun putting this together. I am entering into 2 challenges:

The Craft Room challenge 'Alter it' and 

'Halloween and no bones about it' at Re-cycle, re-purpose and re-invent

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

Tag Tuesday and more

Hi you all, the week has flown by again and it's a new Tuesday in a new month. Our theme this week is Autumn leaves, acorns and conkers. I embossed a craft tag using a TH texture folder with wood grain, and embossed it with forest moss and rusty hinge. I stamped the acorns and the squirrel, coloured them with prismalos and cut them out before fixing them to the tag with foam squares. The little owl up in the tree should have been on my tag 2 weeks ago, but hid himself in one of my boxes, so I stuck him up on the branch together with the bird. I added some leaves, a toadstool, a hedgehog, and a little ghost hiding behind a pumpkin.

The theme this week at Artful Times is to make a 6x4 postcard, using letters or script. I used a scrap of Designer Paper for the background, onto which I stuck some text pieces from one of my old German newspapers from 1899. I added a strip of tissue tape, and gave it  a bit of colour with some green and yellow metallic paints. The bird image is from Gecko Galz. A little piece of lace rounded it off.

This is the first page I made in my new 3 ring journal that I made last week. The quote I have used is one that Donna always uses on her mails; I have seen it so many times now, and thought I just had to use it. I scraped some gesso and blue over the background, added a text strip from an old book, and cut the paper doll out of some Designer Paper scraps.

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

October Calendar Challenge at the Kathryn Wheel

Hi everybody. It's the beginning of the month so it's time for the Calendar Challenge over at 'The Kathryn Wheel'.  It's always fun to see the different takes people have on their calendars. I have stuck to my rhyme of the month, and therefore I have a pheasant on my page. The fields are reminiscent of Autumn, the sky is blue, as it has been here today. The little door for October 31st is hiding a secret. But I can't tell you what it is, otherwise it wouldn't be a secret any more.Suffice it to say, that some bad characters are waiting behind there till it's time for them to come out and play! You will surely get to see them when the next calendar is due!

Don't peek too close, they might just get irritated.....

And this strange picture is the full moon, snapped last night with my cell phone. I just loved the halo around it, even if the photo is very grainy!

Have a great day you all, take care, and hope that the new month will be a good one for you!

Altered bottles - Hatters' Challenge

Hi you all! Hope you are all enjoying your weekend, whatever you are up to. Here we are having some chilly, but pleasant Autumn weather, so perhaps I will go for a walk later.  The challenge over at 'Out of a Hat' this week is to alter a bottle or a jar. The DT there made some wonderful examples to inspire us. I have used a bottle which already had a hole cut in the back of it, which I made use of. I covered the bottle with mid-podge and mulberry paper. I made holes in the cork to take the wires of the birds - bought from a floristic shop - and added a sunflower on top for the birds to pick at. My birds are not as nice as Florence's floating bee-swarm, but I pinched the idea from her. I tied different ribbons, beads and embellishments round the top, and let them hang down over the bottle. I used a mini set of Xmas lights, which I pushed carefully into the bottle, tried it out - and it works! So now I have an Autumn light bottle.

The second bottle is more dark than light, but is a welcome addition to my Halloween decorations.  The bottle once held cough-drops. I used a label from my stash, and a skeleton which had unfortunately lost it arms to another altered bottle. I wrapped it up in some fashionable tatty grey cheesecloth, and manged to find a little roll of foam to make the bridge between the bottle and the butt of the skeleton. Don't ask for details, use your imagination!! I gave him/her/it some googly eyes, and a flying bat as head-wear over the silver curls. Added a dead rat and a toadstool, and that was it. Sorry about the rather blurry photo, he/she/it wouldn't keep still!

Here's wishing you all a great day! Take care, and thanks a lot for coming by! 

Cissie in Prague and Paint Party Friday

Hi everybody, it's time for Paint Party Friday, hosted by Eva and Kristin, and Darcy's postcard Challenge again. My crafty time was a bit reduced this week, as I had to take some time out, thanks to a nasty cold which sneaked in, uninvited, and reduced me to a fevery, shivering, sniffing, sneezing ,tea-drinking, red-nosed wreck. Thanks to all those who left good wishes on my blog, your concern cheered me up no end!  I feel somewhat better now, still sniffy, but the fever has gone, and that's the main thing!

This week Cissie and Thelma are travelling to Prague for a long weekend, as the granddaughter of a distant cousin of Thelma is getting married, and they have been invited. Thelma’s knees are still hurting, but Cissie persuades her to go.
‘You knees won’t hurt less if you stay here. You can sit down at the wedding, and even if we do a tour with the sightseeing bus, you won’t be driving!’ say Cissie.
‘True’, sighs Thelma, ‘But what about Jason and Shannon? Who’ll keep an eye on them when we’re away?’
‘They’re not babies; they can look after themselves for 5 days! Shannon’s expecting, but she’s not ill, and she’s not helpless!’ says Cissie.
‘Anyway, I’m here’ says Queenie. ‘I’ll stay at your place, look after the birds, and keep both eyes on the kids! That’s settled.’
Jason brings them on Thursday evening to Heathrow, along with three large suitcases. ‘Blimey, you’ll be back on Monday! You got enough shmattes in here for 6 weeks!’
‘We are going to a WEDDING’ says Cissie. We need to dress properly, and we have the wedding presents in there, too!’
Jason knows better than to argue, so he pays for the excess baggage, and watches them waddle off with their furs round their shoulders, looking for all the world like two dressed up circus bears.
The flight is uneventful, and they reach their hotel without problems. Of course, they are very hungry after the negligible snack they had on the plane, so they go for a good meal in the hotel restaurant, where the waiter is astonished at the amount these 2 ladies can eat. They wash it all down with the wonderful Czech beer, and toddle off happily to bed afterwards.
On Friday they take a sightseeing bus to visit all the famous places, and do a spot of shopping, as Prague has many, wonderful shops. They are fascinated by the old buildings and bridges, especially the Charles bridge, with its many baroque statues and crucifix. And they see the The John Lennon Wall. Once a normal wall, since the 1980s it has been filled with John Lennon-inspired graffiti and pieces of lyrics from Beatles songs. The wall continuously undergoes change and the original portrait of Lennon is long lost under layers of new paint. Even when the wall was repainted by some authorities, on the second day it was again full of poems and flowers. Today, the wall represents a symbol of youth ideals such as love and peace.The wall is owned by the Knights of Malta, who allowed the graffiti to continue on the wall, and is located at Velkopřevorské náměstí(Grand Priory Square), Malá Strana.

Panorama of Hradcany with Prague Castle and Charles Bridge

Left 1: Queen Anne's Villa

Left 2: Valdstejn Palace

Left3: Wencesals Squate by night

Middle 1: St Vitus Cathedral

Middle 2: Municipal House

Right 1: The Dancing House from Architect Gehry

Right 2: Star Villa

Bottom:Panorama of the old Town Square

The Visehrad Fortress

The National Museum by night, behind the statue of St. Wenceslas

Bridges over the Vltava River

The famous astronomical clock from 1410

The Charles Bridge

The Lennon Wall

(Photos courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

They take a photo of the wall to send home:

The wedding is magnificent, which for Cissie and Thelma means that the food is fantastic. They enjoy seeing their relations, and the bride is a dream in white.
‘But Shannon looked much prettier’ whispers Thelma.
They spend the rest of the weekend eating, relaxing in the hotel spa and bar, and just enjoying themselves. ‘But I’m still looking forward to going home’, says Thelma. ‘There’s no place like home, and the tea here is just terrible.’ ‘But you’ve been drinking beer all the time!’ points out Cissie. 'You haven't even tried the tea!' ‘Exactly!’ answers Thelma!

For Paint Party Friday I have done some more work on last week's WIP. I didn't get round to painting much, as I didn't want to paint in bed!
I painted over the tree, changed the colours a bit, and added some more texture squares at the top left, which I think gives it more balance. I still need to do the sides of the canvas, but first when I am feeling really better.

So, that was all for today. Hope you all have a happy weekend. Take care, and thanks a lot for visiting!

Sniff,sniff, cough, sneeze....

Hi everybody, hope to be back to business as usual tomorrow. A nasty cold has moved in with me, without being invited, and I am having a day in bed and hope to get rid of it with plenty of hot tea, rest,aspirins, etc.

Take care and stay healthy!

Tag(s) Tuesday

Hi everybody, it's another Tag Day here. Our theme over at Tag Tuesday is 'Clocks', a theme I like. I started making a tag, and before I knew what had happened, my tag had turned into a clock, which is now ticking away merrily on my kitchen wall. I now have a whole battery of clocks there. (No pun intended!) I cut a tag using TH's Cabinet card day, embossed it in a TH texture fade folder, distressed it, and then mounted it onto an old calendar page, which I cut just a tiny bit bigger than the cabinet card to give it a frame. Then I added one of my 1€ clockworks,  a hanger, some wings and a quote,and that was it!

And as the weather was very reminiscent of Autumn today, with rapid changes from sun to rain to wind to thunder and lightning and then back again, I made some more Autumn tags. For both tags I have used TH's branch tree, and the background has been sponged with various DIs through a CWS stencil. Here I added some deer with a rub on (which needed an enormous effort till it had rubbed off the paper and onto the tag!), and the tree has been distressed and then embossed with hologram EP

I am linking to Simon Says Stamp and Show 'For the Love of Sparkle'

While making the second one I remembered that song 'Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree', so I did just that. The hedgehog seems to have found a big stash of berries, too. Both trees have been cut from corrugated card from an old box.

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