Friday, 25 October 2013

A Card and some Photos

Hi everybody!
Thanks for all the good wishes for my nasty cold - I will be happy when it leaves me!
I have some more pictures taken this week on my walks.
I love the colours of the sky here:



Shadows always fascinate me:


The burning bush?


Fairy toadstools everywhere:


I love these old, rusty gates leading to a rather overgrown park, which is a great place to walk:





This card has been made for the 'make a card' challenge at FSC.
The background has been distressed with DI in tumbled glass, wild honey, forest moss and stormy skies. The fairy tree is a stamp from Lavinia, as is the foliage. I stamped it in archival black, and embossed it with clear EP and copper perfect pearls, although it is hard to see here. The vine has been doodled, and the fairy is a vintage scrap. 'Wish' has been cut from some hand-coloured paper using a Sizzix die. I overlayed the card with a piece of printed perspex, which I recycled from an old birthday card, and matted it onto more of the hand-coloured green paper. The lace down the side has been lightly distressed (thanks for the lace Yvonne), and tied over with a sage green ribbon and two of my handrolled paper beads.
I am also linking to Manon's 'Paper Saturdays'
and  Rogue Redheads - die cut divas








That's all for now- Have a great weekend, I will be stopping home and resting in the hope of getting rid of this silly cold.
Take care, and thanks a lot for visiting!

Thursday, 24 October 2013

Paint Party Friday and more

Hi everybody, 
hope you are all well and fit. I stayed home today, as I have a nasty cold with all the trimmings - a nose that runs faster than I can, sore throat, earache and cough - apart from that, everything is fine!
This did give me time to finish off two journal pages. One I started at least 2 years ago, and the other one 2 weeks ago, but now they are done. At Mix it Monthly Connie asked us to use orange, yellow and royal blue, put a crowd onto it and to use some texture - that's all! I painted the background with acrylics, and then threw everything on it that I could find on my table, which I was trying to clear up. The unicorn has been stamped onto transparent paper and cut in two. The three ladies in black are my Great Grandmother Rachel, and her 2 daughters, Sady and Fannie. The five ladies sitting in the bottom row all have something to do with literature - perhaps you can guess who they are. The other images were just used because they needed to get off my table. The texture has been added with 2 strips of trimming which were in my parcel from Yvonne this week. I had fun making this page, it's always good when you don't know where you are going and still get a result that you like.










And these are the pages started many moons ago. I think I showed them as a WIP - well, I am proud to say that they are now finished! The background has been painted, inked and sprayed. the alphas have been doodled, and the images were from the large selection on my table. I used various stencils to give the background more interest,






I am linking to Paint Party Friday, hosted as always by Eva and Kristin.

By the way, my table is now empty, recognisabe as a table, and is made of  pine. Funny, I haven't seen it for so long I had forgotten.

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

Tuesday, 22 October 2013

Halloween, Autumn and Happy Mail

Hi everybody,
we had a wonderful day here yesterday, warm and sunny, what a great gift. So, of course I went for a walk, and enjoyed the wonderful colours of Autumn:





And last week I got a surprise package from Yvonne. I am sure I woke the neighbours up with my squeals of delight again!
This beautiful little book - which was her DT piece for TIOT - is now mine! I love little books, and especially Halloween ones, I wonder how she knew it?!  You can see some of the pages here, and you can see the others on her blog if you follow the link.



Now, isn't it gorgeous?! Thanks a lot, Yvonne, it will be treasured!

And it didn't come alone - look at these beautiful fabrics - I see some wonderful Christmas projects coming on with them!


And London fabric - I think my squeals here were of the sort that can probably only be heard by bats....
I just LOVE this celebration of my home town!


And lovely lace....

And trimmings and tags:


Thanks Yvonne!

And this crazy owl card came together from various flying bits and bobs this evening while I was trying to clear up my table.





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

All the Tuesdays again.

Hi everybody! 
Today is challenge time at Try it on Tuesday. The theme for the next 2 weeks is 'Halloween', so all you ghouls  girls have plenty of time to come out with some bewitching ideas.
I made a set of ATCs with travelling case. The skellies, shoe and hat have been cut with a Sizzix die, the heads were sent to me by Donna, as was the lovely spider, and the background paper. I have been very lucky this year that Donna and Diane both sent me oodles of Halloween goodies, and I have had great fun using them, so thanks again, Ladies.





 The inside of the case is TH Halloween paper.


The paper for the outside was again from Donna.

At Tag Tuesday our theme this week is Autumn. I have used one of the photos I took at the Rhine on Saturday, and mounted it onto mats in brown and corn yellow. I added some embellies, and some coordinating ribbons, stamped the sentiment, and it was finished - 15 minutes from start to finish. My feet were hurting and I wanted to rest!




This tag is for the Tag Along Challenge, where the theme this week is haunted house.
Nearly all of the die cuts came from Donna again, except for the tree, which was from Diane.
I had fun making this crazy haunted house anyway. I cut the fence wider than the tag and bent it round, so that the tag can stand on its own.



I am also linking to Make My Monday - Halloween and
Simons Monday Challenge

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

Sunday, 20 October 2013

Getting ready for winter....

Hi everybody!
Hope you have had a good weekend.
I am busy knitting my winter accessories just now. Here I have combined two pieces that I made. I started by painting a 1,80 meter crepe-de-chine scarf with silk colours in green and brown tones.


Then I knitted a scarf in the same length, using a fine sock yarn in wool and polyamide.




Then I sewed them together - by hand. I wanted to use the machine, but it did not want to work with these materials.


And I made a cosy loop scarf, which winds twice round my neck, doesn't slip about, and will keep me warm on cold days. Here Miss Red is modelling it for me:


And here it is wound round my neck, I had to take the photo myself and somehow couldn't manage to get my head onto it....


It feels really good, the silky part is good to wear next to my skin, and the double layers are really warm.
And last year I knitted a hat from the same wool, and hope to find it before it gets really cold!

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