Birds, blossoms and bark

Hi everybody,

I wish you all a good start in the new week.

Today I am showing another DT card I made for Gecko Galz, this time for the cross promotion with Jodie Lee, who is offering a beautiful set of papers, 'Nature's Garden'.

I have combined it with an image from the Shabby Chic Gardens Collage Sheet 1. The image and the background paper have been matted with dark brown mirri-card, and mounted onto a 6x6" white card blank. I see that I used the BG paper upside down, but it still looks good - I made the card before the eye OP! I wanted to keep this card simple and in neutral tones.

My material list: white card blank, mirri-card, image, BG paper from Nature's Garden number 6, and the die-cut swirls.

 

The fields behind the house where I live have bushes along one side, and at the moment they are all blossoming - so pretty:

 

The tree bark fascinated me, it has such wonderful colours and textures:

 

And this is something I have never seen before - a nettle growing in a hollow tree:

 

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

Purple Rain

Hi everybody!

Hope you are all enjoying your weekend!

Here the day started off cool and misty again, and sunshine, clouds, wind and showers chased each other all day. But in between there were enough dry phases to enjoy some walks in the fresh air.

Recntly I woke up and had the song 'Purple Rain' going round in my head, which is why it has worked itself into my journal pages. I can't remember what I was dreaming about, and I always wonder how and why such things sneak themselves into our subconscious during the night.

The pages were painted with some left over silver metallic some time back, and I went over it with some blues and purples, and let the silver shine through a bit here and there. I stamped the background with various BG stamps while it was wet, which gives some nice texture and patterns. The diamonds and peacock feather were stenciled with clear embossing ink and white embossed, as were Ryn's lovely bubbles. I used gel-pens to add more colour to the bubbles. The lady in the hat is a picture from a magazine,  which I digitally altered and coloured with gel-pens and oil pastels. She looks like she's dreaming of purple rain, too. Once again many things have mixed themselves here  - a feather and butterflies are in the purple water, and the lady seems to be underwater without getting wet. I think this is a fantasy story with an open end. I am linking to AJJ - fantasy scenes.

And here are some impressions from today. 

I love walking past the lakes in the afternoon:

The other side of the Rhine was  still misty:

And I love this little lane, and the beautiful old wall:

 

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

A Vintage Tag

Hi everybody!

Hope the snow in the States  will soon leave you, you really are all having a bad winter. Hope that the spring and summer will make up for it! We had another nice day here, but have been promised cold winds and plenty of rain over the next days.

I have made a tag using lots of Tim Holtz stuff for the challenge over at 'A Vintage Journey', where the ladies of the DT made lots of wonderful examples.

I started by distressing my super-large tag with dried marigold, wild honey and crushed olive, and then swiped it through water to mix the colours before drying with the heat tool. I repeated the procedure three times till the colours were as I wanted them to be, and then did some background stamping with a script stamp from TH stamped randomly in different directions with Adirondack Espresso. I used the diamond stencil with crushed olive to add some patterning. Then I decided to cut out the umbrella man with my die, as I wanted to take up  the theme of the quote, *art is a shadow of what a person is thinking*. (I got this stamp from Terry this week!) I cut a second tag from corrugated cardboard which I peeled, distressed with the same colours as the top tag, and sprinkled with Frantage EP to add more texture to the cardboard. I fixed the top tag to the bottom one with a knob and screw. I added 2 bits of tissue tape to give more interest to the background, and stamped the cut out umbrella man repeatedly with my 'art is a shadow' stamp in Archival black and clear embossed it. I fixed my shadow man to the tag with foam squares. Finally I stamped and distressed a ticket and fussy cut it, and put my message on that too. (Thanks again Terry). I fixed a paper clip to it, and joined it up with a ball chain.

Here the Umbrella man is throwing another shadow!

 

I am also linking to Simon Monday Challenge, d for distress; FSC, water inspired (Umbrella man needs water, and water was used to smooch the colours); and Manon's Paper Saturdays

And here are a few impressions from today:

To watch the sun rising through the mist is always a wonderful experience.

The beautiful colours of lichen on the trees:

 

Somebody playing around with her shadow again:

The gardens at Schloss Kalkum, carpeted with flowers:

Happy Ducks:

 

A place to sit, relax and dream:

 

That's all for today. Take care, have a great day, and thanks a lot for coming by!

Happy Mail, a birthday and a journal page

Hi everybody!

So sorry that a lot of you in the States and Canada got another load of snow, it really is hard on you, and I wish I could send you some Sunshine and spring flowers.

I made another mixed media piece using paints, inks, stamping, collage etc. The background has been painted with acrylics, and was the other half of the piece I showed earlier this week. Here in my journal page the world has gone a bit crazy - butterflies and fish are practising peaceful coexistence, and the moon is standing on its head to see the clock. One leopard is chasing another across the page, and the raindrops are falling - or are they bubbles floating up? 

Here are both pages together:

 I am linking to Paint Party Friday, hosted as always by Eva and Kristin, and to AJJ, Fantasy scene, hosted by Susi. Paint Party Friday is celebrating their 3rd birthday this Friday, so happy birthday from me!

Yesterday I got some happy mail from Terry. I won the stamp-set in a giveaway on her blog some weeks back, and I am pleased that it got here safely.  It took 2 days for them to get from the States to Germany, and nearly 4 weeks to be cleared by the customs! I think they couldn't work much slower if they tried! This beautiful tag came, too. Thanks a lot Terry, the stamps will be well used and the tag is hanging already in my arty kitchen. It has such a gorgeous, golden shimmer, really beautiful.

The night was cold and frosty, and I watched the sun rise through the mist this morning, which was beautiful.

Today I was looking at walls on my walk. I love how the sun is shining through the windows of the castle ruins.

I often sit on one of these benches, and watch the Rhine, the gulls and the ducks, which is very relaxing.

I love all the colours and textures in the old town walls, which kept the town safe in the old days and still make it very special today.

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

Another card

Hi everybody!

Today started off cold and misty, but the sun soon came through and it was warm and sunny again. It should stay nice for the next few days, and then we will be getting strong winds bringing us fresh air from the North Pole, good that my warm coat and boots have not been put away!

The card is another of my DT pieces for Gecko Galz.  I used an image from the Bookmarks 2 collage sheet, and background paper from the Solarium pack, 'sunlight', which was also used to make the stopper.  I used some dark green, embossed card for matting the images. The easel card has been made from a 6x6" card blank. I kept the embellishments simple - a small bow and some green gem stones.

I enjoyed another walk through the sculpture park and along the Rhine. Although the mist had cleared, there was still a remnant hanging over the river and trying to hide the other side. A farmer was driving around in his little tractor down at the Rhine, and from the embankment it looked almost like a toy.

Have a great day, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by!