Ducks and Dance

Hi everybody! 

Another week has sped by, and the days flow along like the Rhine - sometimes sunny, sometimes grey, but always different and interesting.

Today I visited some of 'my' ducks again, and then walked for a while along the Rhine before going to our little market to do my weekend shopping.

Cloud s and blue sky chased each other all day, but it stayed dry, and I managed good 15.000 steps, which made just over 7 miles.

 

Back home there was plenty of time to turn my tidy kitchen into a creative chaos scene, which I will have to clear up before I go to bed this evening. I have made this hanging for the 'monochrome' challenge at Country View Crafts, for which I chose shades of  reddish-brown wth black and white. I peeled and distressed my cardboard, and partly painted it with aged mahogony, onto which I sprinkled some gold perfect pearls for highlights. I added some background stamping using the same colour of distress ink. The image is from Crafty Individuals, and has been stamped with archival black onto speciality stamping paper and distressed with a mix of fired brick and aged mahogony. I mounted onto some scraps of black and dark red card, which I then matted with some hand-painted paper, a piece of vintage book paper and some dark red card. I used a Martha Stewart punch on the edges. I carried on the colour theme with some red flowers, silk buttons and fibres.

I am also linking to Paper Saturdays

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

More Silence

Hi everybody!

Wednesday started off with another wonderful sunrise, but soon became very cloudy and drizzly. I still enjoyed my walk, even thought I 'only' managed 15.000 steps, but I think that's okay really. I got my shopping on the way home, and even managed to do a little of the dreaded H*******K when I got home. But really just a little, a sort of surface make-up.

 

This is the second page I made using my Buddha-head image, and one of Buddha's quotes about silence.

I painted the background with various blues, greys purple and gold ink, which I spraed with water to mix and move the colours a bit. The head on the photo was fussy cut, and then coated with crackle varnish and distressed to make it a bit different to the first edition. The Gold 'light' around the head was once again made with Inka Gold, using gunmetal as a base and gold on top. I drew the pattern for the flourishes on the sides, and cut it out to make a template, which I coloured with gold gel pen and edged with white highlighter.

I enjoyed making both of the Buddha pages, it was really something different for me.

I am linking to Paint Party Friday, hosted by Eva and Kristin, AJJ, Silence and to Simon's Monday Challenge, anything goes.

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

The Green Giant

Hi everybody!

I think I can remember, that we used to get tinned veggies which were from 'Green Giant' brand.

Today I seem to have turned into a green giant myself:

 

 We had wonderful weather again, cold and frosty, with sun this morning, and dark clouds interspersed with sun this afternoon, and it was just beautiful. I am always so thankful for these lovely days where I can get out for long walks. Today my pedometer tells me that I managed just under 19.000 steps, which made nearly 9 miles.

  I love this photo taken from the fields and looking up to the embankment, which is very important here to prevent flooding.

But my faves today are the afternoon photos, taken shortly before sundown.

 

I made this wall hanging as one of my DT pieces for GeckoGalz this month. By the way, they still have a 2 for 1 offer there, as well as challenges, with prizes to win, so hop over and see what's going on.

I used corrugated cardboard for the background, partly peeled and painted white. The image, from the Winter Garden 1 collage sheet, has been printed on to canvas and the edges  distressed. I used blue mirri-board to mount it. On the right side is a strip of lace, which is hardly visible here because of the fibres. I used teazles and twigs which I gathered on my walks as embellishments. The teazles were sprayed silver, and the twigs sprayed with 'snow'. I like using natural embellies if I have them, they cost nothing and are always unique.

I am linking to Simon's Monday Challenge, 'Anything goes'

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

Ice Art and a tag

Hi everybody!

We had a nice and frosty weekend here, with lots of sun, so I was able to enjoy long walks on both days. Both days started off with morning mist and frost on the fields, and I love looking at the frozen leaves and grass.

This was my favourite photo from my walk on Sunday, I love the way the water in the puddle has frozen - even puddles can be beautiful!

And a blue sky makes it just perfect.

I took this photo on the way home, this is a little street round the corner from here, and it looks like those horses were waiting to get on the tram! Perhaps they wanted more horsepower?

This was taken Sunday just before dusk....

And this was Monday evening.

 I do love to see the moon when it is still light!

At Tag Tuesday our theme this week is Capital cities. But I made the mistake of  preparing  a tag for the theme decay, which is not due for 2 weeks,so had to shake out a very quick tag for this week. I chose New York. At least I now have one tag ready in advance. And I know it's NOT the capital of the States, but it's the capital city for me!

I used a scrap of painted paper, which I stamped and white embossed, and then added the Statue of Liberty. Can you see what I changed on her? The other embellies were in my stash.

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

Silence is golden

Hi everybody!

It ws much colder here today, but the sun was shining, and I was able to have a good, long walk, which I enjoyed very much.

This photo was taken from the park, and my shadow was in the fields on the other side of the road!

I made another journal page for the 'silence' theme at AJJ.

I have used a photo of a Buddha head that I used to have. I painted the background with grey and black, and then sprayed some purple and green inks onto it, added a few drips of gold ink and some glitter, and sprayed it all with water to make the colours move. I stamped into the background using various background stamps without ink while it was still wet. I printed the photo out and fussy cut it before glueing it to the background. Then I added some metallic accents round the head with Inka Gold in gold and gunmetal grey. I outlined the head with a gold gel pen, and wrote the Buddha quote with a white pen. I like the way it has turned out

This week I got another Christmas present from Diane - she sent it off in good time, the German customs evidently held it up for nearly 3 weeks - thanks guys! 

This beautiful card was in an envelope with a matching envie liner. It is a gate-fold care, with a wonderful hologram snowflake,  just gorgeous.

The snow queen is inside:

And this is my WONDERFUL pedometer - what fun I am having running around with this! Tonight it is showing that I did 17,901 steps today, so that was good! I have been wanting a toy like this for a long time - thanks Diane!

And lots of lovely goodies - CDs full of ideas, tips and tricks, shiny materal, little cards with dried flowers, wooden frames, super earrings, and a whole pile of stencils that she cut with her Zing - wow!

Thanks again for your kindness and thoughtfulness!

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

From dawn till dusk

Hi everybody!

Today (Friday) was a wonderful day, which started with a beautiful sky just before sunrise, continued with crisp, cool and sunny weather, with a wind that was fresh but not too aggressive, and made us a present of a lovely sunset over the Rhine, perfect! I was out for three walks, it was just too nice to stay home and do the planned H*******K, and I felt that I needed a relaxing day after my hospital eye-examination marathon yesterday, where I got 5 hours of exams and tests. I have a date for the cataract OP, February 24th, and will only have to stay one or two nights in hospital. It's a bit complicated as I have already had a lot of eye OPs, but I am sure it will go well.

So today really was a gift, and I made the most of it, who knows how the weather will be tomorrow?

My shadow was so long, it was on both sides of the stream!

The clouds were racing along, wonderful to watch, they seemed so full of energy!

And the Rhine was illuminated by the sunset.

This card is one of my DT pieces for Gecko Galz.  I used an image from the Winter Garden 2 Collage Sheet. If you buy images this month, you buy one and get one free, so hop over and have a look!

I painted some corrugated card with white emulsion paint and glitter. I mounted the image, which was printed onto matte photo paper onto bronze mirri-board and grey card, to pick out some of the colours from the image. For embellishments I used some half pearls, brown lace, and a golden ribbon. I added the photo of Erika, a distant relation who I cared for for years, as I thought she looked so much like the little girl in the image - their clothing is similar, too. Erika's photo was taken in 1916.

(Material list: cardboard, paint, ribbon, lace, image, paper for matting, embellishments)

I am linking to Paper Saturdays

Have a great day, take care, keep warm or cool as the case may be, and thanks a lot for coming by!