Apple pie & slippers

Hi everybody, hope you are enjoying your Sunday.

It's a cold and rather misty day here, but my apartment is filled with the aroma of freshly baked apple pie, yummy!
 I tried a different recipe this time, using white and wholemeal flour mixed, and adding ground almonds to the pastry. I used soft brown sugar and cinamon to flavour the apples, and it has oozed out at the sides making a disgustingly delicious toffee crust, sigh! Here it is, fresh out of the oven:

And with the first slice taken out:

I didn't know who wanted cream and who wanted custard, so help yourselves and enjoy it with whatever you prefer:

And to go from the sublime to the ridiculous, here are some little slippers I knitted last week. They were quick to knit, and I have put stoppers under the soles (they were included with the packet of wool, buttons and needles) and they are warm and comfortable for lounging around at home.

At So Artful the challenge is to create a tree using orange and one other colour. Here I have used a photo I took on my walk along the Rhine yesterday, along the path leading down to the old ferry.

I played around and made several digitally altered variations.

With scratched and textured edges:

 

Kaleidoscope:

 

Tunnel vision?

 

Tiles:

And I saw this lovely bike on my way out yesterday, so pretty:

 

I'm off for a walk now, need to use up those apple pie calories!

Have a great day, whatever you are up to, take care, and thanks for coming by!

White Night Owl

Hi everybody!

It's weekend, so hope you all have time to relax now,

I have some good news to start with today - I am joining the Gecko Galz DT for 2014. I was Guest Artist there in September, and I love their products, so am looking forward to this very much. And my best buddy Diane has also been accepted, so that's great, too.

Woohoo!

I have a lot of birthdays in November and December, and have made this card for a friend. Here in Germany we call people who like being up late  'Nachteule' - a night owl, and this is fitting for her.  At FSC the challenge is to stamp without using ink. I chose the owl stamp from My Tattered Angels and used gesso to stamp with, as I didn't have any white acrylic paint (somebody left the jar open and it dried out....). I stamped on black card from an old calendar, and embossed with white EP. The image was then fussy cut (very fussy cut) and mounted on matting in various shades of blue and black, including some blue miri card. I used some fibers and home made paper beads as embellishments.

I am also linking to the Rogue Redhead Challenge. They are celebrating their third birthday - congratulations!

The challenge is to make a birthday card.

And as it is Saturday, I am linking to Manon's Paper saturdays.

And lastly I have a few more photos from my Wednesday walk to share. It was a sunny day, and it was wonderful to see the light slanting through the trees, and shimmering on the water of the moat and stream at the old castle.

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

Journal pages etc

Hi everybody!

The week is flying by again, sometimes I don't know where the time goes. Yesterday I had a long walk and then was pleased to be able to sit down at home and do somecrafting. These journal pages have been made in my giant journal, and I am ashamed to say I started them 2 years agao - and finished them today!

The background has been painted with brown and yellow acrylics, and the other colours were added with pastels - I like making a mess. The Michelangelo image is from a paper napkin, and I used tiny scraps of fancy papers to make the mosaic frame around it. I have also hidden 2 moos on the left page, hope you can find them. The theme there is also hands, so they fit well.

The colours look strange here because the flash went off - sorry.

I made this journal page for the 'doors' theme at AJJ, and it started out quite seriously with the door and arches from Darkroom Door stamped with archival black. Then it just grew, and things started flying onto the page, and now it's hard to see the door. Anyway, it is as it is!

 When I got up this yesterday morning it was still misty, and I was able to watch the sun rising through the mist, which was beautiful.

And as the weather was so good I decided to walk to Schloss Kalkum again, and had a fun time taking photos of the trees and the reflections in the moat - it all looks different each time I am there.

This was my fave photo :

And last, but not least, a photo of me and my shadow taking a detour through the fields

And I am so pleased I had that great walk yesterday, as today is wet and cold, with sleet coming down. I needed some shopping, so went to the market, which was not as crowded as usual, perhaps because of the weather. I got all these lovely things for 4€ - 2 kilos of cox apples, over a kilo of huge tomatoes, which even smell and taste like tomatoes, and a pound of gorgeous grapes:

And the nice chap gave me 4 speckled bananas as a present to top it all - Tomato salad is on the menu this evening, and I think an apple pie would be good for the weekend!

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

Art Journal Journey, and Moo Mania, hosted by our sweet Susi.

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

Cards, soup and this and that

Hi everybody!

Hope you are having a good day.

I had a busy day today, with laundry, chopping veggies and cooking. While the first machine was washing I went out for an hour's power walking with Nordic walking sticks along the Rhine, and got back just in time to race up the stairs and get the second bundle of laundry to be washed. I sometimes wonder who gets it all dirty, surely it can't just be me?

I chopped the veggies while the second lot of laundry was washing,and made a card while my one-pot was cooking.

I used another of the lovely Gecko Galz collage sheets (owling for you), and printed my image onto canvas again. I matted it onto some leather-look paper, then a piece of dark brown miri-card, and a sheet of designer  paper. I added a strip of white sacking tied with some thin brown ribbon,  a Prima flower and 2 beads rolled from the leather paper. The leaves were die cut, stamped and embossed. This will be another male birthday card.

  Here I have made 2 very simple one layer cards for the 'trees' chalenge at So Artful. We are to use orange and one other colour. I used a CWS stencil for the trees.

And last but not least, the cabbage I showed yesterday joined some leeks, carrots, tomatoes, celery root and  red peppers in a delicious veggie one-pot, which I served with sour cream and crusty bread:

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

Tag Tuesday, Moos, and more

Hi everybody!

Tuesday means that it's time for Tag Tuesday, and our theme this week is 'all stitched up'

The lovely image I have used is from Gecko Galz 'sew and sew' collage sheet, and has been printed onto canvas. I distressed the edges before sewing it onto the partly stripped and painted corrugated card from an old box.

I actually sewed it onto the card! As I don't see well, I needed a long time to get the needle threaded, but then it worked. And I hope that I will be able to see better after the eye operation at the beginning of next year. For the bow I used some very shabby seam binding, fixed on with a pin.

I made the cat  moos  for the last challenge at Moo-Mania, but I somehow forgot to show them, and 'hands' is the current challenge. For the cats I used some scraps of painted paper, and for the hands various tiny scraps.

The Rhine is carrying a lot of water just now, the 'beach' on our side has disappeared and a lot of the trees are getting wet feet. Not so the birds -I hope all these gulls are not waiting for the pleasure boat, as far as I know the next one doesn't come till spring....

And this beautiful Savoy cabbage was on special offer at the supermarket for 59 cents, so I brought it home with me, and tomorrow it will be turned into a veggie 'one-pot', with cabbage, tomatoes, onions and various other veggies.

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