Dancing into spring

Hi everybody! Hope you are enjoying your weekend. It has been quite cold here, but the sun shone all day,  starting again with a wonderful sunrise.It was just the right weather for walking along the stream and through the fields, enjoying the fresh, intensive greens and the budding flowers.

Here I was standing under the bridge, and loved the contrast between the shadow and the bright light on the other side.

There were lots of forget-me-nots pushing their way through the grass.

And this little chap was sunbathing on the path. I think it might be a peacock butterfly, but if anyone knows, please tell me!

And the couple on my card are dancing their way into the spring. I made a blind card, but used some silver material for the little blind instead of paper, and it can be pulled up and down with the ribbons. I used an aperture card, which I stamped with a stone pattern (Kaisercraft) using Archival black. The couple (CI) have been stamped using the same ink onto a separate piece of card, and fixed behind the aperture.

I am linking to Rhedd and Rosie's challenge blog (monochrome) and

Try it on Tuesday (spring/something that moves)

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

Something moving for spring

Hi you all! The current challenge over at Try it on Tuesdays  is to make something with a spring theme which should have something moving on it. I have tried a waterfall tag. I stamped the background with my  script stamp and some leaves in forest moss after distressing in gradient, spring-like colours. I made my 'waterfall' using images from CI; 2 with happy faces and 2 with flowers - all things that remind me of spring. The strip at the back, to which the pics are fixed, has been hand-painted. When you pull the strip the pictures turn themselves over and the word 'spring' can be read on the pull-strip. This was my first try with a waterfall, so I hope the next one will be a bit better. But at least it works!

The second card with something that moves has 2 tags, one of which has been made exactly as the previous one. I added some hearts and a sheep. The farmer (some of you might know him from Shaun the Sheep) has been mounted onto a strip of clear plastic, which is tucked into another strip to hold it. By pulling the plastic the farmer moves across the card, and can also be moved a bit up and down. This is also a 'first try', which I will try to improve. The card is for a little girl who will be 4; I have made her one of these sheep cards with a big pink bow each year for her birthday, as she loves 'seep'  and 'pnink' as she calls them.

I am also linking to Manon's 'Paper Saturdays', a fun place to link up any paper creations you have made.

And I have some 'Happy Mail' to share:

The pretty card and the bookmark, made of polymer clay came from Debbie, AKA Craftymoose. Debbie makes the most wonderful fantastic creatures from this clay, and hand-beaded flowers. Her blog is well worth a visit, so if you don't know it yet, pop over!

I received a hand-painted envelope stuffed full of goodies from Katie at the Red Tin.  Katie makes beautiful stuff from felt &  fabrics, such as bags and journal covers, and even made tiny books out of silk cocoons.  This is another blog well worth looking at if you don't already know it.

 

 Have a good weekend you all! Take care, and thanks for coming by.

It gets greener day by day....

Hi you all! It hardly seems possible that another week has passed and it's time for Paint Party Friday, hosted,  as always, by Eva and Kristin.

I published a photo on my blog yesterday that showed the first green leaves on the tree in front of my window. Today when I got up, everything was green - I could hardly believe my eyes. I am so glad that we have spring!

I am sharing a painting this week that I did a couple of weeks back, using an old canvas that I found in the paper recycling bin. It had different bits of paper and some cardboard circles clinging to it. I decided not to remove the bits, but just to paint over them. I used lots of layers of paint, scraping some of them off, stamping into them, heating and bubbling the paint in some parts -just experimenting to give a grungy look. I wanted it to look like old walls where frescoes are still visible under many layers of more modern stuff. It didn't turn out quite as I would have liked it, but this is the result.

I certainly had fun with it, especially as it was a canvas 'sent' to me for nothing, so to say. 

I also got some happy mail today - 2 postcards from 'Liberate Your Art', which I will blog when I have received them all, and some nice post from Katie and Debbie, which I will share tomorrow.

Till then, have a good day, take care and thanks a lot for visiting!

Can you see what I see?

Hi you all! Last week there were no leaves on the trees, which wasn't surprising considering how cold it was. But today I saw them - little green leaves shooting on the branches, a wonderful sight after such a long winter!

I have made some more journal pages. The background has been painted with blue and gold metallics, and then sprayed with some blue and green inks. When it was dry, I stamped the background using my fave script stamp in blue, and embossed it with perfect pearls gold. You need the light on it to see it, but it is there. It gives a lovely shimmery and rather floaty look to the background. I also used my diamond stamp to add some patterning along the sides.

Then I used a stencil to ink in the ivy leaves with forest moss. For the main image I chose a 'photo' of a little girl, stamped with a scrollswork image onto glossy, cream coloured paper to make it look like a real photo. I matted the photo with scraps of old book pages and hand-written pieces. I added some vintage floral scraps and some lace, and then some blue rub-ons to frame the image. The text has been written using a 'stencil' made from the waste of a sheet of alphas - I like this size. I used a grey-blue felt-tip and edged it with a gold gel-pen.

I am linking to the following challenges:

Fashionable stamping, (journalling) Simon Says Stamp and Show (background stamping)

and the Craftroom Challenge (text, sentiment) and  Artful Times (masks and stencils)

And here is another sneak-peek at my WIP....more to follow.

Nearly forgot - I was chosen for the Top 5 for the recycling challenge at TIOT - woohoo!

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

Happy Mail and a sneaky sneak-peak

Hi you all. When I got home yesterday I had some happy mail waiting for me. The first packet was from Really Reasonable Ribbon. I won a voucher at Try it on Tuesday to spend, there, so ordered lots of ribbon. I now have a wonderful supply of different sorts of ribbon and jute band, seam binding and twine etc., so will be able to use them in my crafting soon. First I need a few days just to gloat over them.... Aren't they all pretty?

The second letter was from Carolyn, who makes beautiful digital and 'real' crafting, and she sent me some of her oriental stamps, which made me very happy. My 'oriental' department has always been rather non-existent, so I am looking forward to inking the stamps up and playing. Thanks a lot, Carolyn, your kindness is much appreciated. And the beautiful card is also made by her.

And this is a sneaky sneak-peek of what I have been working on the past couple of days. I will show more as it progresses!

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

This and that and the neighbour's cat

Hi you all! Today I am sharing the altered paper-clips I made for the challenge over at Out of a Hat Creations. The typewriter is from crafty emblies, and the hearts are made from embossed die-cuts (thanks Carolyn!) and will make a nice book-mark for people who like romantic stories. The wooden floral heart is also from C.E. and has been treated with Inka gold; the bow is from a chocolate box. And of course, I needed to put an umbrella man in my collection - one side painted and stamped, the reverse plain white.

And as it's time for Tag Tuesday already, here my tags. Our letter this week is 'O', so I chose o for owl. The tag has been made from cardstock covered with craft paper. The owl is from LaBlanche, and the other bits and bobs from my stash.

The second tag shows a drawing I made of the Lesser Spotted Owl, (Strix Spottica Minor) a bird often seen here in Rhineland. There is also a Greater Spotted Owl, (Strix Spottica Major) which is, of course,  larger, and  has bigger spots. It also has a jazzy head feather, brown-white in males and pink-white with sparkles in females.

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

PS: The neighbour hasn't got a cat, but it rhymed so nicely with 'this and that'

Moos on Mo(o)nday and other stuff

Hi you all! Over at Moo-Mania the theme is numbers. When I was standing in my bathroom this morning, I saw the little perfume bottles on the shelf - all empty, unfortunately - and decided to take my inspiration from Chanel, a perfume I love and which I would love to be able to buy again. I used some of the old advertisements, and my perfume bottles as props.  My printer is not behaving itself just now, and printing everything with stripes, sorry about that. 

Chanel No 19

Chanel No 5

Chanel Love Potion No 5

And sometimes Carolyn sends out an 'art-spark' - a little piece of a painting to play with. Here is what she sent out:

I turned it and doodled on it and this is what came out:

The colour difference is probably because of printing it out and taking a new photo.

Have a sweet-smelling day, take care, and thanks for coming by!