Tag for Tag Tuesday

Hi everybody!

Over at Tag Tuesday our theme this week is 'wings'- I did another edition of my fave Umbrella Man, and gave him wings to let him fly. I know Mary Poppins managed it just with her umbrella, but I thought Mr U.M. might need help. All parts have been cut twice, once from card and once from book paper/written paper.

I am also linking to ABAC - Hit the books.

I won a giveaway at Petra's blog a couple of weeks back, and at the weekend this beautiful armband she made arrived in my mail-box, and the pretty lace and charms, too. Thanks Petra, it is a treasure!

The weather has been cold, wet and windy since the weekend, so I decided I needed a nice soup, and made this one with pumpkin, carrots and tomatoes, crowned with sour cream - yummy!

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

Autumn

Hi everybody!

Thanks for the good wishes for my hand, it is healing slowly. Apart from that, my life is very complicated just now, and not in a positive sense, but I hope that it will sooner or later get back to normal.

I have made another little book, (15x13cm) with an autumn theme, using, as always recycled cardboard to make the covers.

After partly peeling the cardboard, I painted the covers inside and out using a mix of terracotta and gold acrylics.

The leaves were die cut from painted paper which was glazed and crackled.

(The dirty thumb is mine)

The back cover, which has been stamped, and has an added, symbolic 'last leaf'

 

The inside back-cover, stamped with leaves and embossed with copper EP

The front cover, to which I added lace, jute ribbon, more of my die-cut leaves, some beads for berries and some string tied with home made paper beads.

Inside the fron cover, once again stamped and embossed with copper EP.

Details of the front cover:

  

I punched holes and bound the book together using ribbon and string, which gives a soft binding, which allows the book to be opened flat.

Inside there are 24 pages of white drawing-paper, an envelope front and back to take bits and pieces, 8 sheets of kraft paper and eight sheets of transparent paper

This was another fun make, which I am linking to the following challenges:

Simons Monday Challenge - Embossing

ABAC - Hit the books

The Artistic Stamper - Autumn

Country view Crafts - Layers
Rogue Redhead - colours of autumn

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

Paper Saturday

Hi you all!

Today I am sharing a piece I made as one of my Guest-DT jobs at Gecko Galz.

Here I have recycled a large matchbox. I cut the sleeve open through the middle, folded the 'wings' right and left, and fixed the drawer in place. I painted it all with black acrylic paint, sprinkled with a little fairy dust. The images in the background and wings are from the Gecko Galz Collage sheet 'Witchy women'- For the roof I die cut a Sizzix spooky house from some spidery paper and mounted it behind the box. The little book has been made from  some vintage book pages, cut to size and sewn into the black cover. The potion jars at the front have been fussy cut from DCWV 'Fairy Stack' paper. The hair round the skull is NOT mine! The bat is a Sizzix die-cut, the cat was cut for me by Diane. I had fun playing with these witchy 'sistahs'.

I am linking to Manon's Paper Saturdays.

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

This and that

Hi everybody!

Hope your week has been better than mine, life is not much fun here just now. And to add to it all, I cut my hand on a piece of glass that I oversaw in the dishwasher, and now have stitches in my right hand, so am not even able to make a decent mess with paint and glue just now.

The first piece is a journal page, which is my entry for Paint Party Friday, hosted, as always, by Eva and Kristin, and which I am also linking to Art Journal Journey - Less is more, and Journal Journeys - Childhood.

The pictures I have used so rather bleak images of children, so I have painted the pages using mostly sombre grays and black. I just added a little blue and yellow, in the hope that those children saw some blue sky and sunshine in their lives, too. Both pictures were taken in the East end of London, the first one at the beginning of the 2oth century, and the second one is from 1963. The quote I have used on the right side is from Agatha Christie. We so often think of the happy side of childhood, and this is good so, but I think it is important to remember all the less unfortunate children, from past days and today.

(images courtesy of Wikipedia)

The autumn / Halloween hanging was made as part of my Guest DT work for Gecko Galz this month. I started, as so often, with corrugated card, which has been partly peeled, and painted with white gesso. The harvest hymn and the owl are both GG images. The owl has been printed onto canvas and the edges frayed. The right side has been embossed with gold Utee, into which I stamped with a flourish stamp and a script stamp - both stamps belong to those which I use over and over again.. For embellishments I used the usual eclectic mix of flowers, leaves, beads as berries, and bats, which Diane cut for me with her Zing. The branches have been cut from a TH branch tree die. I added the brown lace, string and some home made paper beads to tie it all together, and two coloured eyelets to match the embellies.

 I am also linking to  Craftroom Challenge - leaves/trees, and Simon's Monday Challenge - Embossing.

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

All the Tuesdays

Hi everybody. 

Today it's time for Try it on Tuesday and Tag Tuesday, so I have 2 pieces to share with you.

At Tag Tuesday our theme is 'Mother and child' .

I chose a photo of my mother and sister taken in 1940. It was wartime in London, the Blitz, nightly bombings and terror, not always enough to eat, a hard time for all, and I have tried to capture the feeling of austerity and bleakness in the tag. I fussy cut the sepia print, and glued it directly onto the corrugated card, which has been partly peeled and painted. The ribs of the cardboard remind me of the bombed and broken houses, with which I grew up. I just added a bit of fairy dust and the contrasting turquoise band to soften it a bit.

At Try it on Tuesday the theme for the next fortnight is 'Home-made flowers', and you have 2 weeks to join in this challenge.

I started with a styropore (plastic foam) ring that I found in the recycling bin, wonderful source of most of my art materials. I painted it with terracotta acrylic and sprinkled it with fairy dust.

The leaves and flowers have all been made from magazine pages, painted with left-over colours, except for some of the red flowers, for which I used some paper scraps. I cut them with the tattered florals die, the leaves were cut with a Sizzix leaf die. The green berries are also from the recycling bin, I found them last January when people threw out their holiday decorations. The leaves and flowers have all been glazed, the leaves were also crackled.

The checkered ribbon was on a biscuit box, the brown bead is one of my hand made paper ones, and the skull just wormed it's way onto my autumn wreath.

This was a fun make, which cost almost nothing, and will look good on my door when it is time for the Autumn decorations. I am also linking to the Craftroom Challenge leaves/trees

The pictures were taken on Saturday evening. The day started out really hot, but the weather broke in the afternoon and we had storms. In the evening the sky cleared, and just before it got dark I saw a rainbow and the moon in the lilac sky. I didn't have time to do the night setting on the camera, so the photos are very grainy.  I have never before seen a rainbow when it was almost dark, so was happy to get the pics. The rainbow formed a perfect arch over the trees and moon, it was so pretty, and a tiny bit spooky.

 Well, I think that was more than enough for today.
Take care, have fun and thanks a lot for coming by.

Challenges

Hi everybody!

Today I have a few things to share. The first is a piece I made for the SOARTFUL challenge, where my blog buddy Sheila has joined the DT and chosen the theme, 'A single flower with a minimalist design'. Now, this is not my thing, I seem to prefer maxi design and embellies, but as Sheila's a lovely lady, I gave it a try, and was able to use stuff that was already on my table waiting to be used. I picked and painted a pile of corrugated cardboard recently, good to do while watching TV, keeps your fingers busy, and is cheaper than crisps or peanuts. The flower is one of a batch of leaves and flowers I made last week, using magazine pages painted with leftovers from all the colours that pass through my fingers. I cut the flower with TH's tattered florals, and layered it together. A piece of knotted green ribbon became the stem, and I took some off-cuts from a printed canvas for the text. Then I declared it finished and minimalist, at least for me!

At AJJ the challenge is once again to do something 'Less is more'- Grrrrr!

And Conny at Mix it Monthly wants to see  feathers, Leonardo, pink, grey and mint green. The colours are not quite right either, but I have to paint with what I have, and at the moment there's not too much choice. So I tried to combine all of this to make a journal page, at least a page that will go into my journal when I make a new one. I used the feathers stencil from CWS, my Leda stamp from Lost Coast designs, some scraps of ancient handwriting, and a quote from Leonardo. I copied his signature, too. I am also linking to Colour this quote over at Artists in Blogland, where the quote is ' There are no shortcuts to any place worth going'. I was reading how long Leonardo studied and tried till he got things as he wanted them to be, and this is a small tribute to a wonderful artist, scientist, and man of great vision.

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