The first Christmas tags....

Hi everybody!

Hope you have had a good and restful weekend.

The weather here has got a lot colder, and windier. Yesterday way grey and dismal, and it drizzled all day, but today it was so windy that the clouds got moved away before they could rain on us.

Yesterday I walked around the restaurant / galerie next to the castle ruins, they always have strange stuff standing around there as 'art' exhibitions-this is the same place where the Elvis Presley cadillac is rusting among the ivy.

The cars are  right in the beer garden, which has a good view to the Rhine.

And these exhibits were in the hallway to welcome peopleif they dared to go in:

(Well, it was Halloween)

There are some quite normal places around here, too....

Today I wanted to walk to the bridge which is often in the background of my photos, you can just see the large triangles built on it.

Well, it was farther than I thought. I walked and walked and walked along a narrow and muddy dirt track, being buffetted by the wind all the time

making my clean trainers very dirty....

And slowly, the bridge got nearer, till I could see the cars passing over it:

 Then I had to walk through the fields to get back up to the Rhine damn

The bridge was starting to shrink again, so I knew I was getting nearer home....

And after two and a half hours of being blown by the wind I was almost home, and passed this crossroads/roundabout art work, that someone had decorated for Halloween:

And the best was yet to come - creamed cauliflower soup to warm me up again.

(This pic is specially for Sandy!)

And here are the first Christmas tags, which are for a swap. I am not happy with them, but need to get them off, I think I must get into the mood of the Christmas season, my spirit is still flying around like a bat on the wind....

Well done if you managed it to the end - take ten points and go to the top of the class!

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

This and that again

Hi everybody, another week has flown by, it's nearly the end of the week, and time for another Paint Party Friday - well it will be tomorrow! I have made a journal page. I painted it with gesso, then used some remnants of sprays to give some colour, which I intensified with pastels. The sky is blue like it has been here today, and I have collaged various photos of people and places. I added the numerals and alphas with stencils. At the moment I am having fun with bright colours. I am linking to Piarom's 'Mix it monthly' , where we need to use orange and yellow and blue, a crowd, and texture, which is unfortunately not really visible here, but it is there! And, of course, to Paint Party Friday, hosted, as always, by Eva and Kristin, and to Simon Says Monday Challenge - anything goes

Yesterday I walked to the Discounter's to get my shopping, and saw some interesting things along the way. This is the Flintstones' car. It was built by Michael Fröhlich, a car fanatic, who also has a large place selling brands rather out of my reach - Jaguar, Bentley, Rolls etc. But of course, great for all the rich people, who are saved having to go into town to buy their exclusive cars. He also builds fantasy cars like this one. The sun rays must have come from the glass wall of the car showroom at the back. As far as I know, it really works, too, but I have not yet seen it action.

And this one is mounted on a column in front of his business:

This  little chapel is more or less opposite the car show rooms. It used to be kept open, but in the meantime has to be kept locked because of vandalism. No comment.

This pretty horse is in front of an old house where they sell exclusive - and probably very expensive - children's fashions.

The headless couple reside in the garden of a cafe:

And planes fly overhead every few seconds, as it is directly under the flight path of the planes.

Hope you enjoyed your walk!

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

A tag and a castle

Hi you all, hope you are all well and fit!

This is another of the tags which I made from the stuff piled on my table before clearing it all away. The tag had already been painted with red and yellow. I used a strip of lace (thanks Yvonne), some more of my painted and crackled leaves, some leaves printed onto transparent paper and fussy cut, and a heart made in a mould (mold for those of you on the other side of the big Pond) from candle wax leftovers, melted in the melting pot, and rubbed with Inka Gold in gunmetal. The wired beads were from Debbie (thanks!)

 

Here are some pictures of Schloss Kalkum (Kalkum Palace), a moated castle about 20 minutes walk from here. It is set in a beautiful, wooded park, with duck ponds and a stream - a wonderful place for a peaceful walk. Unfortunately, the powers that be are letting it decay - and are even thinking of selling it, which probably means it will end up as a luxury gated property for those with plenty of money of spare - sad!

Lions keep watch at the bridge over the moat:

 

You can see what a bad state of repair it is in:

 

And here are some of the present inhabitants. The photo is not quite sharp, but it reminds me of an impressionist painting:

 

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

Tag Tuesday Tag Set

Hi everybody!

Hope you are all well and fit. Thanks for all your good wishes - my cold is getting slowly better. My toe is broken, it will need a couple of weeks before it stops hurting, but I try not to think about it too much, and have some old but comfortable shoes I can run around in. We had very stormy weather today, the dust-bins were rolling around on the road, and branches and twigs were everywhere. I heard the sirens of the fire brigade all day, I guess they had a lot to do. Some places it was really bad, causing enormous damage, and in a town near here 2 people got killed when a tree fell onto a car - a father and his child. So sad. And this evening, after the storm had blown over here, the sky was beautiful again:

Our theme this week at Tag Tuesday is 'Halloween', and I have made my last Halloween piece for this season- now I have no excuse more not to start on the Christmas cards....

I made a tag trio. The background paper is from TH, the witch and pumpkins have been cut out of a sheet of My Mind's Eye paper, and the witches' hats have been die cut with a Sizzix die. I decorated the hats with autumn leaves and a feather, and gave the little witch a pretty green necklace.

These three tags are up for grabs, if you would like the set, please leave a comment by Friday, November 1st, and I will pull a name out of the hat at 8 AM German time.

That's all for today!

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

Morning and Evening....

Hi everybody!
The weather was so beautiful yesterday that I decided to go out for a walk in spite of my coughs and sniffles, and I was glad I did. It was really mild for the end of October, 19°, and blue sky - too good to stay home!
I took the photos at the Rhine at 11 AM, and was very surprised to see the moon as well as the sun - can you see it, too?

No moon on this one:

A small plane was having fun cruising around and drawing on the sky....

Here the moon is visible again:

And this was the evening sky, taken between sun-set and dusk:

I did some crafting in the afternoon, and used up the last remnants of autumn leaves, which had been rescued from  my table last week. The tags were also under many layers of stuff, I just needed to assemble them.
The first one is made of cardboard, which was painted, and embossed with molten gold Utee, into which I stamped with a flourish. I heated it a little again, and changed the colour by brushing on some perfect pearls in copper and green. The pretty wired beads were given to me by Craftymoose - thanks again, Debbie! I will show the other tag next time.

And another little catastrophe  happened - I slipped a bit on the floor, probably because I was wearing socks with no stoppers under them, and crashed my toe - the second smallest one - against the kitchen cabinet. The cabinet won! My toe now has a form something like a cross between a banana and a pear, and the colour of ripe plums. I am sure it is broken. As if I didn't have enough to contend with just now!

Anyway, enough for today! 

Take care, have a great day, and thanks a lot for comng by.