Going travelling.

Hi you all! No, I am not planning on going off on a journey - wish I was! I have just been working on something for some challenges. Over at Out of a Hat creations the theme this week is travel / suitcase. I decided to make a weekend travel bag from some leather-look paper I have. Here you can see my Fräulein Holzbein (Miss Woodenleg) carrying it. The bag is 7 cms wide, and has lots of travel stickers on it.

The handles were made from long strips stuck with dst and fixed on with brads. The metal corners have been treated with Frantaj patina.

Inside it is lined with script patterned paper and has pockets front and back for tickets, cards etc.

And as you may have seen, there is a bunch of charms hanging from the handle. I made these for the challenge at Artful Times. I made some tiny tags, laid them back to back to make them more stable, and laminated them. The little book (1,5cm x 1cm) has a cover made out of the same 'leather' as the bag, pages  made from 18th century book pages, and it has been sewed together with some gold wire. The charms have been fixed to a TH clip, which I shortened to fit the tiny bag.

And inside the bag is a tag book. I never go anywhere without a book, or my Kindle - which is lighter to carry) and my family used to laugh at me because I always had books in my bag, even as a small child. I have made various tags, some made from old book paper again, some from dp, and some stamped with a travel stamp. I think it was from Tattered Angels, but I can't remember.

Here are the fronts

And the backs....

I made the tag book - and the mini book on the charm-holder - for the challenge at the 'Craft Room', which is 'In the library'. Also linking to Manon's Paper Saturdays

Thanks for visiting, take care, and have a great day!

Spring fashion challenge at Crafty Individuals

Hi you all.Now, I don't want to say this too loud, but the SUN has been shining today. And it was cold, but not freezing. 'They' have told us that spring is on the way. Well,we're expecting another frosty night, and some rain and snow showers, but then it will be getting warmer!! I sooooo hope so!

I was not sure how to get this challenge done. I have lots of CI stamps, but none with fashions. So I decided to design my  own fashions using other stamps. I used THs dress form as basis, and cut some dresses using it as a template, and then stamped them with various CI stamps before decorating them. As I had started off by making more than enough for the tag I actually wanted to do, I decided to turn it all into a CI fashion shop with a spring fashion show.

Here is the whole panorama  of Madam Cissie's boutique. (You can't see Madam Cissie because she's gone out back for a smoke!)

Her husband sits by the door and greets the customers. He knows that he is the boss. All other decisions are made by his wife!

There are lots of dresses hanging on dressforms, and accessories galore, too.

TH coat-hangers are good for hanging dresses on the screen in front of the changing rooms.

This is the star dress of the show, with lace and beads and fancy trims, bet it will be expensive!

And Mr Cissie sits patiently in his corner, the boss must always be dignified.

That's all for today. I am linking to Crafty Individuals Challenge Blog

and to Avenue Create   (spring fever) and

Johanna Sheen Challenge (Spring into Spring)

and Simon Says Stamp and Show (anything goes)

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

I'm in pieces....

Hi you all, hope you are well and fit and that your weather is better than ours! I have been playing around this week with images taken with my old Motorola mobile phone. They are always very small, and only suitable for close-ups. I took pics of some bits of me, and then played around with them. Some I drew from the photos, and then digitalised,  and others are just digitalised photos. Can you tell which ones are which?  It was fun to play, and a good way of changing eye and hair colour in the blink of an eye!

Hope you all have fun today! Take care, and thanks a lot for coming by!

Ancient and Modern

Hi you all. It's time for Paint Party Friday already, time flies! PPF is hosted, as always, by Eva and Kristin.

I have been rummaging in my bottomless pit, AKA hall closet again. I still haven't found what I was looking for, but I did find a bundle of water-colours from the year 1995. I was at a clinic in Bad Saulgau in the south of Germany after breaking my arm in several places, and painting was a good therapy to strengthen it again. I spent a lot of time wandering around, and painting - mostly in the rain! Nothing exciting, but I was pleased to see them again!

And this is not quite finished. I am calling it 'Blind mirror'. I have used gouache. At the moment I can't stop using green and blue, I think I am longing for green leaves and blue skies - spring!

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

Happy Mail and my Tag Tuesday Tag

Hi you all, hope you are all well and fit. I received some happy mail today, and one was also a yummy mail!

I won a giveaway over at Linda K's blog, and she sent me three beautiful ATCs from faraway America, with stitching, and beautiful colours and images that make me yearn for spring! And they were packed into this wonderful envelope made from a gelli-plate print. What a lovely idea! Thanks a lot Linda.

And from Suze Bain in not so faraway Bonnie Scotland I got a bonnie wee parcel, with yummy contents. Suze knows how I love  chocolate and Horlicks, especially when it is one of the brands I so enjoyed in my youth! It was packed into two pretty packages, dolled up with ribbon and an Easter card.

Yummy - Cadbury's chocolate bunnies filled with caramel - and a Malteser bunny - and Horlicks!

And the first bunny has already been eaten....soooo yummy!

Thanks a lot, Suze!

For Tag Tuesday I chose the word  Mezuzah, the little box affixed to the door in a Jewish home, containing the words of the 'Shema Israel' beginning with the phrase: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One" , taken from the book of Deuteronomy. The parchment, written by hand from a trained scribe (Hebrew -'Sofer Stam' ) in indelible ink is rolled to fit into the casing. which is mostly decorated.

The Hebrew letters on the casing – spell “Shaddai” – the Almighty.

I have made a 3-dimensional tag. I made a little paper mezuzah case, and glued it together after colouring and decorating the outside. I put a copy of the Hebrew parchment into it, and mounted it with screw brads onto my tag. The mezuzah is always mounted at an angle on the right side of the door post.

That's all for today! Be back soon for Paint Party Friday, this week is flying by!

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Paper Piecing card

Hi you all! The theme at Fashionable Stamping Challenges is paper-piecing. Not something I am really fond of, but challenges are always good for trying things out. For my card I used stamps from Chocolate Baroque, except for the small millinery ad which is from TH. The background has been shaded with antique linen, Victorian velvet and vintage photo DI. I randomly stamped various images with vintage photo. The focal images have been stamped with Adirondack espresso. For the paper piecing I stamped the two corsets onto scraps of DP, embossed them with white EP and mounted them over the 'normal' stamped images. After a lot of fussy cutting I pushed all the images around till I liked it, and added some pins to the pincushion and yarn to the rolls. To finish it I added some paper lace, ribbon and some buttons.

I am not really fond of corsets either -  as someone whose waist has long wasted and morphed into a convex form, they are not really my thing. Those were the days!

I am also linking to the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp and Show - anything goes 'Strict' challenge

Pan Pastels - anything goes

Crafty emblies - anything goes

Wild Life in Rhineland

Good morning you all, Happy Easter Monday! Today I want to show you some feathered Moos I have made for the challenge  over at Moo-Mania. The pictures show  the feathered German Easter Bunny, a rare specimen found only in Rhineland. These are sometimes called cuckoo bunnies, as their mothers put them into egg shells and leave them to be brought up by chicks, who care for them devotedly. In the third picture you can see their typical head-feather still adhering to an egg shell. But back to the rabbits! Their Latin name is Hase Falsa Rhenania, and they unfortunately have a very short life, as they get hunted on Easter Sunday and mostly eaten because they taste just like chocolate.

This is one of the even rarer domesticated examples (Hase Falsa Rhenania Domesticata)....

Very few attain this age and are able to enter domestic service. Some restaurants even use human bunny-girls as a rather ridiculous and completely inadequate substitute!

And here a wild one.... 

A chick looking at her 'brother', who has just hatched. Unfortunately, he moo-ved so fast that I did not get him on the photo.

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