April showers....

Another week has been and gone, and here we are again at Paint Party Friday, hosted, as always, by Eva and Kristin. I have made some journal pages, which didn't turn out quite as I would have liked, but I think I can leave them as they are. I painted the background with gesso, and then used some left over blue and pale yellow paints, and when it was dry, added the trees with a CWS stencil, and outlined the branches with a black fine liner to give more definition. We have had 2 days of lovely weather here, but for tomorrow rain has been forecast, perhaps the inspiration for my quote. I cut the clouds from floral patterned paper, which was supposed to be self adhesive. Well, it stuck to everything, just not to the page. Thanks God for glue-sticks! Same with the alphas, I had to fight to get them off the backing paper, but the only one that stuck voluntarily and immediately was the one that fell onto my jeans. But I won in the end! I outlined the letters with a blue gel pen. The rainrops were drawn with black ink and filled with glossy accents. The umbrella man has been made out of green leaf-and-grass paper. The fence and bike were rescued from an old birthday card, and look good here. I added some floral rub-ons in blue, and some pale blue lace to the clouds.

I am linking to Simon Says Stamp and Show, 'Colours' and to Art Journal Journey, the landscape within me.

Yesterday evening the weather was really good, so I sat outside on my balcony, drank a little glass of wine,  and watched the moon, a lovely end to the day.

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

Inventors and inventions

Hi you all! It's been a gorgeous day, with lots of sun and really warm, and I enjoyed my walk along the Rhine - everything looks so much nicer when the sun shines!

Over at Try it on Tuesday the challenge is inventions, inventors and /or steampunk. I made a concertina album. The cover has been made using structure paste with various objects pressed into it, sprayed silver, and toned down a bit with Inka Gold gun-metal polish.  All the things on the cover are everyday objects which somebody invented at some time or other - even humble things like buttons and coins, which we always take for granted, were invented by somebody.

I stamped the pages with various background stamps using London fog, just to give a faint impression. The images are vintage cigarette cards from the 1930s, and show different inventions which have influenced the life of people through the centuries. I have written a short description for each image, and have used the inserts to write lists of inventions and inventors. Some inventions - like writing, books, medicine, methods of communication, radio and television have altered our lives in a good sense. Others, like weapons and methods of mass destruction, are not things we like thinking about, but they are, unfortunately, a part of our lives too.

I have room to add more notes on the pages. I am not showing them all so as not to make the post tooooooo long!

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

Circus at OOAH

Hi you all! The theme over at Out of a Hat Creations this week is 'Circus'. Hmm, not really something I like. As a kid I hated the circus, and found the clowns terrifying. I still find clowns scary, and would never go to a circus voluntarily. But back to the challenge! I found a half sheet of Graphics 45 circus paper in my stash, and decided to use it. I altered a little notebook, and as I had a few tiny scraps left over from that, made a mini-book as well. Both pieces have been given a coat of matte varnish to make them more durable

Here Fräulein Holzbein is holding them for the photo.

The finished piece is 11 x 7 cms. I cut out one clown and fixed him to the front with foam pads.

I added some stickles to his clothes.

Inside the cover there is a little pocket with 2 matching tags.

The little book is 5 x 3 1/2 cms. I had some scraps of wood left over from another project, and used them for the covers. They were covered with paper inside and out. The edges have been inked with rusty hinge DI. The pages have been cut from some left over strips of drawing paper. I never throw them away when I cut things to size, sooner or later they come in useful.

I tore the paper against a ruler to give rough edges.

I used my BIA to bind it. The o-wires were on an old notebook that had been used up, so I took them out carefully, cut them to size and re-used them here. I like recycling where it is possible.

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

Another Album

Hello everybody. The sun is shining and the birds are singing, although it's still really cold - 5°. But that's not so bad if the sun is shining, and the trees are getting greener by the hour. The magnolia tree in front of the neighbour's house has burst into flower over night, it looks so pretty.

This is the album of which I showed some sneak-peeks last week. It has been made from chipboard, and coated with grainy structure paste before I pressed the different articles into it. After drying it was sprayed with black paint, and the some parts were polished with Inka Gold copper. I gave it all 2 coats of Inka Gold varnish to seal it. The oblong in the middle of the cover was already cut out. I painted the inside of the covers glossy black, and the back cover has been painted to match.

The wings and head are on the second, inside cover. I used the back of a water-colour block, and painted it glossy black from both sides, before edging it with some IG copper. I stamped it with my script stamp using embossing ink, and embossed with copper perfect pearls, before adding my winged creature so that it just fits through the aperture on the front cover.

I added 75 sheet of creamy, semi-gloss paper to complete the album.

I am linking to Simon Says Stamp and Show colour challenge.

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

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!