Alpha challenge and Moos

Hi everybody!

It has cooled off a little bit here, at least outside, but here in my apartment it is still extremely hot. It will take time for it to cool down again, providing, of course, that it doesn't heat up outside once more....

My arty kitchen and my laptop are the two absolute hotspots, the coolest place is the bathroom, but there's not enough room to be crafting there! Yesterday my glue stick melted, something I have not experienced before.

For the alpha challenge, letter 't', at the Craft Barn, I chose the word T-shirt. Not very original, but the heat seems to affect my brain, too. I printed a T-shirt onto white paper and added the definition from Webster's online thesaurus. I glued it to a dictionary page using some of my melted glue, and cut round it again, before fixing it to a sheet of DCWV paper. I fussy cut the tulips, and glued on an arrow to point to the definition. I added a tag with 'T' as a 'price' tag.

At Moo-Mania the challenge is to make a Moo with the sun - bad timing, girls! It is too hot to think about the sun! I made 2 not very inspired moos using scraps of hand-painted paper and mounted them onto some ink-smooched cards.

That's all for today! Take care of yourselves, keep cool, and thanks a lot for coming by!

Ode to Summer

Hi you all!
Phew, what a heat wave we are having here again. These past days have been  really unbearable, it was scorching outside and so hot in my little apartment that I didn't have energy to do  much.
I made this bookmark  for the 'ode to summer' challenge at Simon's Monday blog. I didn't feel like doing anything with sunshine, as we have rather too much of it just now, so I made this bookmark in cool, summery colours, which remind me of sparkling sea water. The images are from Gecko Galz. The paper beads are from a batch I made this week from the front cover of a glossy magazine. I made a mix of glue and gold ink to varnish them. I threaded them on some coordinating ribbon together with some beads from a broken necklace.

I am also linking to Manon's Paper Saturdays.
Have a great weekend, take care, and thanks a lot for visiting.

Paint Party Friday

Hi everybody!

We had two days cooler weather this week, but it is scorching again, with warm winds from the south heating us up. I don't mind it being hot outside, but I would like to have my apartment a few degrees cooler - sigh!

But, come rain or shine, it is time for Paint Party Friday, hosted, as always by Eva and kristin.

I have re-purposed another 8x8" canvas this week, adding texture with moulding paste and CWS stencils, and having fun with colours and Stickles. The lady and flowers have been printed onto transparent paper, fussy cut, and glued on. I did another layer of flowers at the beginning, but painted over it, which gave a nice texture. The little words have been cut from an ancient book and placed on the rectangles.

The wooden and wire embellishment has been flying around in my stash for ages, and has found a home at last.

The collaged journal page is another result of the hot nights and ensuing sleeplessness! The background has been printed, and then painted with gesso, before doing some stamping and stenciling.

I have used various images from my bit box, and combined them with text and part of a serviette. The floral clock is from a Gecko Galz image sheet, the other clocks from one of my photos printed onto transparent paper.

 

 I made a 'rusty' tag as background for the sentiment.

The little girl, clock and butterfly have been crackled  and distressed. 

(Sounds like my face, but by me it just happened!)

 

I am also linking the journal page to addicted to stamps and more, anything goes

I did an enormous amount of collage this week, less sleep means more crafty time!

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

Challenges

Hi everybody!

I am happy to say that I have my internet back, which is just great. I feel back in touch now!

I was pleased to see this morning that I won the Craftroom challenge 'Vintage Stamping' .

Today I am sharing a piece I will be using as cover on a journal I have started to make. The background has been made from cardboard, partly peeled and painted with gesso. For the matting I used various paper scraps with script and a piece of cream coloured jute. The right side has been embossed by stamping into molten Utee.  The focal image has been stamped onto a piece of handwritten paper from 1840. The page is part of a study book where the owner wrote his notes on the sides between the texts, with a very fine handwriting. The book is unfortunately disintegrating, and I am using the parts that haven't fallen apart in my work. I stamped over the writing with an image of Leda (Lost Coast designs), stamped with Adirondack espresso. I added some lace, string, and 2 of my home-made paper beads as embellishments.

 

I am linking to Fashionable Stamping Challenges (Script/books/pages/print) and

Craftroom Challenge - heat embossing.

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

New Challenge at try it on Tuesday - Collage 'Zachor'

Hi everybody!

I have given this collage the title of 'Zachor' - remember, which is the word written in Hebrew letters.

The lady shown here is Erika, the same lady who was shown on my collage from Sunday when she  was a child.

As this photo was taken she was living in South America - her family were forced by the Nazis to 'sell' their house and business and leave Germany - the alternative would have been concentration camp. They were allowed to buy their tickets and take 10 Marks each, the rest of the money was confiscated.  But they were still thankful to find a safe land, even if they did have to start from scratch there. Later in her life she lived in Israel, before coming back to Germany, which she always regarded as her home.

I know these are things we often do not want to think about, but I think it is important not to forget.

I used some carboard, partly peeled, then painted and stamped for the background, lots of scraps, some stamped paper strips, lace and netting. And some pieces of old passports and letters. The beads have been made from rolled up strips of dictionary paper.

This is My DT piece for Try It On Tuesday. The challenge runs for 2 weeks, so you have plenty of time to try a collage with script on it.

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

From scraps to collage part 2

Hi you all!

Yesterday it cooled off a bit outside, but it is still very hot inside. It looks like the big heat will be back with us by Wednesday, so this is just a break. Germany was the hottest spot in Europe over the weekend, and in many places there were heavy storms with tennis ball sized hail-stones.  I tried sitting out on the balcony in the  afternoon, as the temperature was pleasant, but there were swarms of mosquitoes and wasps determined to keep me company, so I decided it was safer to stay indoors.

Today I am sharing the second 'night-time' collage - there are 5 altogether! It was better trying to create something than tossing and turning in bed trying to sleep. This time I used a photo taken in 1950, which shows me at 3 1/2 years old together with my brother and sister. I have very few photos taken with my family. I used scraps of paper and jute for the background, and the 'lace' has been cut from a doily. The beads are two of those I showed on Saturday.

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

Turning scraps into collage

Hi everybody!
It is still extremely hot here, the temps in my apartment are unbelievably high, and although we have had some storms it still hasn't cooled off as the weather-men predicted. Sigh!
I have had several nights where I couldn't sleep, so I got up and played with some of the many scraps flying about my table, and made a collage from them. The background has been made from a mix of paper and lace scraps, fixed to a partly peeled, painted and stamped square of corrugated cardboard. I have used a photo of Erika, a distant relation, who I looked after in the old people's home in the years before she died. It is a photo taken when she was a child, wearing a wonderful fur- trimmed winter outfit. It looks rather green here, which it is not, I think it must be the reflections from the glass casing of the frame. The buttons I have used were from her sewing box - which I still have, and the piece of broken jewelry was hers, too.

I have made some more collages which I will be showing in the course of the week.
Have a good Sunday, take care, and thanks a lot for coming by.