Hang about!

The current challenge at Out of a Hat Creations is 'Hang about'. I made my hanging (24x11cms) using cardboard. It was, as usual, partly peeled, painted, sprayed and then embossed with Utee gold. The tag itself has been cut from my old calendar, which gave me a lovely supply of shiny, black paper.  I stamped the background using my fave stamps and my new Fresco chalk ink from Gaby. Leonardo's lovely lady is a stamp from lost coast designs, and has been stamped with archival black onto the back of a biscuit packet. After fussy cutting, I distressed her with Victorian Velvet DI. I added some scraps of ancient book paper and dp, and a strip of lace. I used string to tie it all together, and added 2 black eyelets at the top to thread the ribbon through. I used some flowers, seam binding, a butterfly charm and some beads as embellishments.

We are still waiting for the spring here. Other places in Germany have already had sunshine, we just got grey skies - but the weather man have promised that tomorrow spring will be here - I wonder!

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

The lion, the horse and the clock

Hi you all, hope you are enjoying your weekend, and finding time to relax and be creative. I am still waiting for spring here, the weather men keep telling us that it's gonna get warm, but we are waiting for the sun to come out and stay out!

My prize from Gaby's giveaway arrived in my mailbox today - a lovely card and tag, and two  beautiful packages, which were filled with goodies.

Lots of embellishments, charms, beads and lace....

And some little stamps, and a fresco ink pad. Thanks Gaby, your goodies have a good new home with me, and will be well used!

The challenge over at Try it on Tuesday is 'Time flies', so once again, I decided to make a clock. This time I used a box, covered with paper strips, gessoed, and then with bands of tape. I also used the tape that Gaby had used on the package she sent me, as I wanted to make a Paris themed clock - time flies especially quickly there! I bored a hole for the clock, put the battery into the work, and it is ticking merrily away on my desk right now. I added some wings, some roses, and a little skull as a symbol of mortality. On the right side I hung some of the charms that Gaby sent, as one of them is an Eiffel Tower. I now have so many clocks in my apartment that I sometimes wonder if I tick properly!

The second piece is for the challenge at Fashionable Stamping, where we have to use the colours brown, red and black. I stamped the horse scene and the lion onto speciality stamping paper with Adirondack Espresso. a rich brown. I cut the horse scene into 9 equal pieces and mounted them onto a piece of red miri card. I fussy cut  the lion and placed him at the front with foam squares.  I added a triangle at the top of the 'window' with a stamped angel. The red roses are a glitter rub on. The stamps are from LaBlanche. I mounted it all onto black card shaped like a house. Then I decided to use it as my May calendar page, so I used some red ribbon and cord and  fixed it to the page. Miri card is always hard to photograph because of the reflections.

Well, I think that is enough for today. Have a good day, have fun and thanks for coming by!

Moo, Moo, Moo

Hi you all! I had a fun day yesterday and the day before mooing. No, not mooing like a cow, just making moo cards - little cards sized  1.1x2.8". The challenge at Moo Mania is asking for something made with three moos, or a set of 3 this time. I love making these little things, and it is rather addictive. Getting started was easy; stopping was very hard!

The first 3 sets have been made with some scraps of marbled paper. Marbling is also something that is good, messy fun, and I had lots of narrow strips left from my last action. For this set, I have doodled round some of the splodges, and added a stamped image to the middle one. And believe me, believing in yourself is important, especially when you don't manage to get the stamp straight!

Here I have stamped the images on another piece of card, cut them out and stuck them on, more or less straight. I added a bit of colour to the stamped images with gel pens, and coloured in a few patches in the splodges to match.

Here I have stamped once onto the card and once separately, and put them on at different angles. This time intentionally!

And then I felt mooved by the word moo....this was really moovellous fun, udderly delightful.

Black and white is dominant here. The eyes have been emphasized with a drop of glossy accents.

I had great fun with these, and don't groan - there are more to come soon.

I am linking again to Simon Says stamp and show.

Have a good weekend, take care, and have fun.

Thanks for visiting, too!

Friday is party time

Hi you all, once again it's time for Paint Party Friday, hosted, as always, by Eva and Kristin. Today I am sharing a little water-colour picture I made  many years ago in Israel. I painted it from an old postcard of Rachel's Tomb, near Bethlehem. It is very small, as I didn't have many paints or much paper in those days, and I could not see well enough today to paint such a lot of detail on such a small scale (3x2"). I discovered a few such pics whilst clearing up, so perhaps it is quite good to have a sort out here and then!

The second piece is for the alpha challenge, letter 'H' over at The craft Barn. I chose Hedgehog as my word, and have once again let Mrs Tiggy-Winkle be the star. I printed her onto tissue paper, which I mod-podged onto my page, after giving it a quick coat of gesso. When it was dry, I coloured the image and surroundings using prismalo water-colour pencils and a water pen. The hedge-kids have been stamped with a LaBlanche stamp, one that I like very much, but never use....The eyes have been highlighted with glossy accents. This was fun to make, it takes me back many years!

I am also linking to Simon Says Stamp and Show, who want to see a stamp we don't much use.

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

Edible art

Hi you all! Hope you are all well, fit and creative, and not wasting time with things like H*******K! I had to do a little of it today,  so decided to bake a cake as a consolation prize. I made a French lemon cake; it has no butter in it, just cream and eggs and sugar and other little things. I am sure it doesn't have too many calories, and if it does, I don't really care! I took a piece to my neighbour, so hope he enjoyed it, too.

And I made myself a mug of cappuccino, with lots of foamy milk to go with it, and enjoyed my afternoon.

Hope you all had a good day, too! Take care, and thanks for coming by!

Altered Matchboxes & hearts

Hi you all! Another cold and grey day here, but not as cold as it was.

Got a nice surprise yesterday evening, though - I won the challenge at Fashionable stamping, that nice random number generator chose me! This is a good week, as I also won a prize in Gaby's giveaway.

The matchboxes have been made for the 'out of a hat' challenge'. The I added a chipboard tag to the first one, after covering the box with paper and painting the tray inside black.  I added the lady, a feather and a flower to decorate it. Inside there is a heart and a key. The second one has been covered and lined with scraps of script paper. The pen-nibs have been cut out, rolled and glazed to make them look real. Inside the box is an old letter. The pen behind the box has been stamped, rolled and glazed.

The hearts were made as a Christmas decoration....I just found them again as I was looking for the box with eggs to decorate.... I hope I find them at the right time next time I want to use them. They have been made with sequins pinned onto foam hearts.

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

Tag Tuesday

Where does the time go? Today is Monday, which means tomorrow is Tuesday, and time for another Tag Tuesday Tag. We have arrived at 'H' in our ABC tags, and I chose H for Hedgehog, and for me that means none other than Beatrix Potter's Mrs Tiggy-Winkle. She is busy hanging out the washing - a woman's work is never done - and sees that one of her littl'uns is trying to scarper off to play with his friends. I don't think he will get far!

This is a little book (A5) I made recently. The covers have been made from the back of a sketch block, cut in two, painted first in terracotta and then in cream, before adding a layer of crackle medium. I did some background stamping on the covers before adding the photo of Erika, an old lady whom I cared for till she died 4 years ago. No matter how old she was, she always had to be properly dressed, her hair set and her nails long and red! She loved lace and jewelry and everything that was pretty, so I put some lace around her picture. The images were printed onto canvas, which gives a nice texture.

This shows the reverse.

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