A Walk through Kaiserswerth

Hi everybody!
On Saturday we had ideal weather for taking a long walk - not too hot and not too cold, just perfect. I went down to the Rhine, along the towpath and past the castle, and then through our little town, with its quaint old houses and alleyways.

In front of one of the old  houses, a few steps from the river, are some little brass plaques let into the pavement. They are called 'Stolpersteine' - Stumbling Stones, and are the idea of a German artist, Gunter Demnig, to show where people who got deported and murdered by the Nazis, used to live. The Nazis took away even the identities of the people by just giving them numbers. This art project is to give  back the names and places where they lived to these victims. The stones can be found in many towns in Germany, and are funded by donations. They serve as a constant warning neither to forget the awful things that happened, nor the people who lost everything, even their names.

The oldest thing in Kaiserswerth is a standing stone, or monolith dating back to prehistoric times. Every time I pass it I wonder what this stone could tell us if it could talk. I can see a face on the right-hand side, can you?

Perhaps you can see it better in this close-up:

Kaiserswerth itself is celebrating its 1300th birthday this year, and is well worth a visit. After strolling through the little town, I walked through the fields, and a little wood, and back home along the stream, and saw a lot of beautiful wild flowers, rusty old gates, a sign telling me I was in a frog protection area, birds and a stray cat that hissed and swore at me. I have put the pictures together into a little video. Please watch, and enjoy part of Mozart's Horn Concerto in E-flat major.

I am linking to Ayala's 'show me yours' link-up, to share the places where we live.
Have a great day, take care, and thanks a lot for coming by!

Happy Mail and a Journal Page

 Hi everybody, hope you are enjoying your weekend, whatever you are up to.

I got some nice post this week, a parcel from Mexico and another one from Canada.

Christine in Canada sent me a wonderful surprise - 2 beautiful blocks of card-stock, with wonderful colours and patterns, some fantastic embellishments, and a lovely card and an ACEO which she painted herself. The ACEO shows a moose in silhouette, just beautiful.

 Thanks a lot Christine, I will have great fun playing with my new stash, and the picture will be hung in my arty kitchen, so I can see it when I work.

 Donna, a very dear friend,  sent me a parcel of Mexican cotton remnants, with typical, and very colourful Mexican motives. I admired the ones she was using some time back, and now I have my own! Some have Day of the Dead motives, some with Frida pictures, and others just colourful and fun motives. Aren't they gorgeous???

 

 

I know I am going to have lots of fun with them, in fact, I have already started having fun!

This beautiful postcard showing one of Donna's paintings came too, and it will also be hung in my arty kitchen. Thanks a lot Donna, you have given me lots of happy hours here!

Last week I started a journal page with Frida Kahlo, an artist whom I much admire for her energy and wonderful work, and all the magic she put into her paintings, in spite of being so ill. I was looking for some ideas to fill the space at the bottom of both pages, and then my Mexican parcel arrived. I used some of the Frida  scraps, and fussy cut some of the motives, which were from the same painting I had used for my Journal pages - Self portrait with monkey. The background for the journal spread was another smear and wipe sheet, to which I added some stamping. I painted the leaves behind Frida's head - which was cut from a postcard - and covered them with some netting, to look like vines. I added the flowers and the leaves, and the quote. The other images are all cut from the fabric.

 

I had fun making this spread, and it was such a happy coincidence that the parcel arrived just on time. I am linking to Artists in Blogland 'colour this quote':

"The sun is shining...That is the Magic. The flowers are growing--the roots are stirring. That is the Magic. Being alive is the Magic--being strong is the Magic. The Magic is in me--the Magic is in me. ...It's in every one of us." 

 For me, Frida was a person who showed so much magic, and growth, and was so unbelievably alive in spite of all her problems, and I think this quote from the Secret Garden fits her very well.

Thanks for coming by, take care, and have a great day!

Paper Saturdays - More Word Birds

Hi everybody. 

It's Saturday, so time to link up with Paper Saturdays.

I have another flock of birds to share with you today.

'Birds of a feather flock together'

Have a great day, and a good weekend!

Take care, and thanks for coming by.

Paint Party Friday, Summer of Colour and more....

Hi you all!

Another week has gone, and it's party time again. I don't really feel much like partying, this has been a very hard week for many reasons, but perhaps the party will do me good!

For PPF, hosted as always by Eva and Kristin,  I have re-purposed an old 6x6" canvas.  I treated it to a portion of moulding paste slapped on here and there, some metallic colours, and some home made sprays. When it was dry I gave it a coat of cheap, clear glue and threw on lots of little beads and stars. Then I used the hot glue gun to fix an old Venetian glass necklace that belonged to my Mum, and have a canvas full of texture and sparkle.

 

The challenge at Journal journeys is to use hats. I have made a page for my calendar journal - an old calendar that I am re-using as a journal . I have used my steampunk lady again, and one of the lovely birds from Paper Artsy, to whom I gave a new hat. The 'sun' has been stamped with a clock and hands, and I added a clock and rusty key as embellishments. I am also entering this into the Steampunk challenge at ABAC and the Architecture Challenge at Art Journal Journey

 

SOC  was very difficult for me this week, I just did not want to work with yellow and red, and ended up making another calendar page using various stencils.   Not exciting, but all I could manage!

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

Rain at OOAH

Hi everybody!

This is my second week as guest designer at OOAH and our theme this week is rain. Well, this should have been quite easy, as we have had a lot of rain this summer, but I still had to think what to do, as I did not want to bring out Mr Umbrella Man again. So I chose a big, fat, green frog, enjoying the rain while sheltering under his red 'umbrella'. I have used an image from Gecko Galz, which I coloured with prismalos and gel pens. I took a sheet of pretty DP, and fussy cut around the flowers on the left, making a sort of slit to fit the frog into, and  a frame for my image, which I mounted onto a piece of black paper beforehand. I added a few gem-stones and a dragonfly as decoration.

 

And before I forget, here is my 'Italy' tag from Tag Tuesday. Mr Umbrella man has smuggled himself into the picture again!

I was pleased to see I had been chosen for the top 3 at  the Rogue Rebel Blog for my Moo card which I entered into their 'Slender Bender' Challenge.

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

Altered matchboxes

Hi everybody!  

I discovered some large and small matchboxes in my bottomless pit, so decided to alter some.

I am entering the large matchbox into the 'Mail' challenge at FSC

and into Simon Says Stamp and Show

'a little stamping'  and
Anything but a card - steampunk and
Craft-Room Challenge - Vintage Stamping

The stamps used are from Paper Artsy and Scrollswork. I covered the box and the tray inside with some scraps of railway-ticket DP, and added some stamping to the sides using mail stamps from Chocolate Baroque. The pen has been fussy cut, varnished and rolled to give it more dimension. The little letter with the sentiment has been made from an ancient envelope. The paper artsy figures and the train have all been stamped with archival black and  fussy cut. The train is the mail train, of course!

 

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