Memories

Hi everybody!

Today was a cool and windy day, but good weather again for walking, and it's always good to come home and warm up with a hot coffee before doing some painting and crafting.

I have made a little memory frame for the childhood challenge at Moo Mania and More.

I used a childhood photo of Erika, a distant relation who I cared for for some years before she died. I love this photo of her in her winter coat and muff, and have used it in many projects. It must have been taken in winter 1916. I made several of these frames some time back, but always gave them away, so this time this one if going to hang on my memory wall and stay with me. I added a TH swivel pin with chain, and a token.

 The reverse shows part of an old family document from the early 18th century.

Yesterday I showed this picture of a little path I discovered on my walk. I somehow hadn't noticed it before, and when I saw it was called Max Clarenbach Weg (Weg = path, lane) I wanted to explore it. Max Clarenbach was a German painter, (1880 - 1952) who studied and was later a professor at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf, and was famous for his expressionistic paintings of the Rhine and its landscapes. He was born in Neuss, and lived and died in Wittlaer, the next little village along the Rhine from here.

The path leads down to the Rhine, with tall hedges and walls screening some large and elegant villas on the right, and fields on the left.

Once again, I found some very interesting walls:

 The hedges were really huge:

 

 This mossy wall had lots of little recesses - I wonder what they were used for?

At the end of the path I turned into a little lane next to a pub, and saw this relief of the artist on the wall, so this was evidently where he lived, and the pub is one which he often visited.

The lane leading to the Church:

The 'Schwarzbach' , the stream flowing into the Rhine:

The landsape with trees which is so typical for here:

Looking back to the village from the tow-path along the river:

A painting of Max Clarenbach,looking towards Kaiserswerth, and showing that the landscape has not altered much:

 You can see more of his paintings  here

Hope you enjoyed our walk today!  

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

Double Tuesday again

Hi everybody!

Today is the beginning of a new challenge at Try it on Tuesday, and the theme is music. You have 2 weeks to get your creative juices flowing and make something for our challenge. At Tag Tuesday our theme this week is spring flowers.

For TIOT I made an easel card. I used some speciality stamping paper from LaBlanche, and distressed it with gradient colours using tumbled glass, Victorian velvet, wild honey and forest moss. I stamped it with a music stamp (LaBlanche), and then printed a digi-stamp 'music of love' from Gecko Galz over it. I matted it with black card from an old calendar, mounted it onto a pale yellow card and added some ribbon and a flower as embellishments. I added the sentiment to the stopper (sorry, don't know from which firm the stamp is)

I made a tag for Tag Tuesday last week, and then couldn't find it when as I wanted to take a photo of it. So I made  a second tag, and as I was rummaging on my table to find the ribbon, I found the first tag. Now I have 2!

The first tag has been made from scrap card from the recycling bin, which has been distressed with tumbled glass, faded jeans, dried marigold, wild honey and crushed olive. (The scrap card has been distressed, not the recycling bin!) I smooched it through some water, dried it, and repeated the procedure till the colours were right. I stamped it in layers, using the palest colours in the background and the darkest ones at the front to give depth. I started by stamping some foliage from a tree stamp (LaBlanche) along the sides and bottom edge with crushed olive. Then I stamped a layer of plants from a Stampendous TH set with Archival olive, and then did the top layer, with more stamps from the TH set using Archival black which I clear embossed. The flourish at the top, the butterflies and the quote were also done with black. I added a bit of colour with some gel-pens, some textile flowers, a beaded stem and a butterfly as embellishments.

 The second tag has a background of peeled and painted cardboard. The BG paper is one of Astrid's lovely Freebies which she generously offers from time to time. I added a vintage image, a TH bird, stamped and fussy cut, with a beady eye,  and lots of flowers. Here everything is flowering just now, even roses, it is really unbelievable, but lovely, and my tag is a tribute to it.

The full moon beguiled me last night, and I couldn't sleep, and watched an ancient movie, 'The Mummy', with Boris Karloff. I have seen it before, but I love these old films!

This is a little path I discovered  and explored on my walk today, I will tell and show 

you more about it tomorrow.

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

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!