A Blast from the past and more....

Hi you all from the German Deep Freeze - brrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I think we might have to make brightly coloured Easter eggs this year so that we can spot them hiding in the snow....

While I was clearing out I discovered this 'art-work' from my early days. I think it must have been made in the early 1950s. Cutting things out and sticking them into a scrap book was evidently a hobby then, too, although I think my fussy-cutting is better now!

But the back of the page is the real hammer! No comment....

And now to my day's crafting. I made a giant tag from cardboard, which has been partly peeled and then gessoed. I had some paper printed with eggs which I applied to the wet gesso to make the background. When it was dry, I rubbed the backing paper off the transfer to show the eggs. I painted over the background using some diluted metallic paints, and  then built up layers using rub ons and cut outs, then fussy cut eggs, glazed and rolled over a needle to make them look round, and fixed with foam squares. I added two stamped and fussy cut birds (TH), and some flowers, a wooden bird from crafty embellies and a butterfly from my stash, fixed down with foam squares of various thicknesses to give depth. I added the adage ticket and some beads to finish it off. I am linking to Inspiration journal, where we have to add some pop to our work, for example with foam squares.

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

Steampunk Cuck-owl clock

Hi you all. It's a very cold, windy and frosty evening, not how I would like it to be! Roll on spring!

Today I made a steampunk cuckooowl clock for the challenge at SanDee and Amelie's Steampunk blog.

I managed to resist the temptation to put a real clock-work into it, as I think if any more clocks start ticking in my kitchen I will really go round the twist! I used a cardboard box, covered with some coordinating DCWV papers, and trimmed with washi measuring tape, to measure the hours. I added lots of clockwork and other parts from an old clock, some flowers inside, a rusty owl'face, and a clock with a top hat throning on top. There is another owl holding an hour-glass, can you see it? 

I had fun making it, got very sticky, and never burnt any fingers with the hot glue gun, so that's something!

Have a good day you all, take care,  and keep warm - or cool, as the case may be! And thanks a lot for coming by!

A card and a satchel

Hi you all, hope you have had a restful weekend. The spring has disappeared for the time being, and we are once again in the grip of winter - not what I need! But when the weather's bad outside, there's always plenty to do inside, like clearing out drawers and tidying up! I am so happy that I have got this done at last, and tomorrow I will be carrying a big sack of shredded paper, garbage etc to the container. I found lots of old friends that had gone missing in action  - glue runners, sellotape, scissors, brads, pens & pencils, rulers, pencil sharpeners, photos and much, much more! And now I can open my drawers easily and see what is in them!

This card has been made for the 'Time flies' challenge at Try it on Tuesdays. I worked on a piece of card from some packaging, and mounted it onto dark brown and bronze matting. The photos in the film strip are from My great Auntie Fanny, My Mum as a kid, and My Mum with me. The stamps used are from LaBlanche, all other embellies were from my stash.

The second piece has been on the go for about three years. I made one of these little satchels for  a friend's baby, and as I still had plenty of the paper, I started a second one. I found it a couple of weeks back in one of my many boxes, and decided to finish it, which I did. In the meantime I have filled it with a pretty album and sent it to a friend in England, and it has already arrived. It has been made from cardboard, covered with paper from the 'Sascha' collection, and clear varnished.

I am glad that I got it finished, I don't like having half finished projects hanging around for too long!

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

Playing with cardboard

Hi you all! Today I am sharing a cardboard piece, made with a stamped image from Crafty Individuals; I got the stamp  as a present. The cardboard was partly peeled, sprayed with my homemade red ink, and sprinkled with perfect pearls before being heat dried. I did a bit of random background stamping using my fave love-script and diamond stamps. The image has been stamped with archival black, distressed with fired brick DI and matted with black and red papers. I added some scraps of DP in red, brown and black tones to the cardboard, before adding my focal image. I finished off with some brown lace - from my old dressing gown! And some red and brown flowers. The sentiment was in my stash.

I am linking to the red, brown and black challenge at Fashionable Stamping, and the the Friends challenge at Out of a Hat Creations, as these two dancers look like they are good friends at the very least....And this will also be a present for a good friend of mine!

Have a good weekend, take care and thanks a lot for coming by!

Friday again!

Hi you all! It's Friday again, so it's time for Paint Party Friday, hosted as always by Kristin and Eva. Today I am sharing another of the water-colours I made in Israel many years back, and a mixed media piece made for another challenge.

The next piece has been made with mixed media techniques.

It is for the Alpha Challenge at the Craft Barn. This time we had to choose a word between ma & me! I chose Mezuza. I painted the page with gesso, and then gave it a thin coat of yellow and blue acrylics before spraying with some home made inks in green and blue and letting it drip. I printed the text of the Mezuzah and some of the pics onto tissue, and added them to the page. Other pics were cut out and fixed with foam pads. The little rolled up parchment is how the parchment goes into the casing. I added some random Hebrew alphas and some background stamping. The handwriting is a bit hard to decipher, sorry! I wrote Mezuzah in Hebrew with gold lettering for the title.

Here's wishing you all a relaxing weekend. 

Take care, have fun, and thanks a lot for coming by!

Creation

Hi you all! Greetings from SUNNY Rhineland, it's almost warm today, so lovely! BUT - we have Arctic winds waiting to swoop down to us at the weekend, so I'm trying to enjoy it as long as I can!

This journal page sort of evolved. I started by painting with gesso and some thinned down acrylics, and then sprayed with home made inks in blue, purple and green and let drip. This was followed by some doodle dripping or drip doodling whilst watching TV last night. Somehow it all reminded me of something not yet formed, so I hit on the idea of creation. I drew a semicircle with pencil - using a tray as template - and wrote the Hebrew words for  'At the beginning God created the heavens and the earth' ( B'reshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve et ha'aretz) I had a space at the end, so I added two words - 'Baruch Huh' - May he be blessed. I filled the space underneath with stars, swirls, sun, moon and planets, using some home made stencils, and added numerals with a CWS stencil. I added more Hebrew letters and numerals from a sheet of stickers, to represent all the words and numbers not yet formulated. I found the little blue flowers in my stash, and used some of them. Then I added the animals and fish, all in peaceful harmony with each other. I added some random stamping, dusted off with some perfect pearls, in the corners. I had great fun making this one - no plans, just letting it happen!

I am linking to Simon Says Stamp and Show, where the theme this week is 'numbers',

and Dawn's Journal Journeys  'animals'

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

Precious Memories Journal Page/ Tag Tuesday

Hi you all, hope your week has started well. We had sunshine today - at last - and it was great to see a blue sky again. I went for a little walk, but the wind was very strong and cold and I came back home quickly. Tomorrow should be sunny too, what a treat!

The journal pages have been made for the challenge at Art Journal Journey, where the theme this time is 'precious moments'. I started off with a layer of gesso, and then some watered down metallic paint in green and blue. Then I had fun spraying with my home made inks, turning the page this way and that and letting it drip and run. I sprinkled some perfect pearls onto the wet pages, and then heat dried them. The perfect pearls bubbles and gives a nice texture. I have used a photo of my sister Cynthia with her youngest son Michael. She died some years back, far too young, which was very sad, but this photo is one of my precious moments in time. I printed it onto tissue, cut it out, and glued it to the page. I did a bit of drip-doodling, added some lace, and a rose, stamped with Archival black and coloured with sparkling H2Os. (Stamp is from LaBlanche) The rose has been fussy cut and glued to the page to give more depth. I also added some floral rub ons, which are hard to see here, as they are almost the same shade of blue as I have used for the background. The text has been added with a template in a dark greeny-blue and edged with gold.

I am also linking to the Challenge at Just add water silly.

At Tag Tuesday we have arrived at the letter 'I'. So I chose Ice-cream. The little girl is a paper dress up doll. She is holding a giant ice. I made the cone from cardboard, and cut four circles for the ice, which I coated with glitter flocking. I hope that we will sooner or later get some weather where it will be fun to eat ice!

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