Circles, cattle, ducks and geese

Hi everybody!

We had ground frost in the night, and when I got up this morning it was just 2°, but wonderfully sunny. It warmed up to 7° by the time I went out, and I spent some pleasant hours wandering around, visiting my favourite corners and enjoying the beautiful nature around me.

At AJJ the theme this month is circles, and this is my first interpretation of the theme. For me it is important to try to incorporate words - journalling - into the page, and this time I have tried to write them in circles. The background has been painted with acrylics in blues, greens and purple, and then stamped with various BG stamps. I used a CWS stencil and gesso to make the circle / cog patterns, which I then partly outlined with green gel-pen. The lady has been cut from a magazine, and the the circle images are from the Gecko Galz vintage visions circle sheet. I then started drawing the little circles with white gel-pen and had trouble stopping....In the end I did, wrote the circle-texts and then it was done.
I am also linking to Take a word - circles.

And here are some impressions from my walk today:

The cattle appeared on the meadow overnight, it was lovely to watch them, and to know that not all animals are shut into cowsheds all the time:

At Schloss Kalkum the park was full of light and shadow, the water lilies are starting to bloom, and the ducks and geese were all swimming lazily. I love how the reflections make it hard to see what is above and what underneath:

Here's wishing you lots of light and sunshine on your journeys!
Take care, have a good day, and thanks a lot for coming by!

This and that and the neighbour's cat

Hi everybody!

Hope you are having a great day whatever you are up to.

Here it was cold, 8°, but the sun shone all day, and I spent 7 hours outside walking around and visiting all my favourite places, sitting at the Rhine, watching the ships and reading on my Kindle - a lovely day!

This card is one of my DT pieces for Gecko Galz this month, and  my piece for the cross-promotion with 'Vintage for me', who are offering some beautiful vintage images and papers, available from GG this month. I combined the image with some paper from the GG set '-Floral symphony'.

I used some blue cardstock for matting, and some self adhesive paper lace. I added some flowers and net matting in coordinating colours.

Material list : 6" card blank, paper for matting, image from Vintage for me, BG paper floral symphony, flowers, netting and ribbon as embellishments.

Perhaps you remember this snail I photographed last week?

It must have inspired me, as I doodled this while watching a boring TV programme yesterday, and gave it a bit of colour with prismalos and gel pens.

This huge puddle got in my way today, we did have a lot of rain this week:

Is that a ghost?

The park at Schloss Kalkum was beautiful, as always:

I love the sharp contrasts between the light and the shadows:

And the neighbour's cat? 

Well, the neighbour a few doors down doesn't have a cat, but this lovely horse, who gives therapeutic riding lessons for the handicapped.

 That's enough for today. Have a good one, take care, and thanks a lot for coming by!

Memories, roses and trees

Hi everybody!

I am sure a lot of you are looking forward to the weekend - I wish you a good one!
Here we had a cold, wet and windy day, but some places it was much stormier, so I'm glad it wasn't worse here.

I have made another piece for my Memory wall, using a photo of my great auntie Fanny, taken back in 1918, when she was 18 years old. I have used this photo a lot, I just love it. I printed it onto photo-paper and cut it with TH's cabinet card die.
For the background I used a piece of thick card, almost like chipboard, that one of my nice neighbours put into the paper recycling bin. It is A4 size, so just what I wanted. I covered it with printed papers, gave it a coat of gesso, and then stencilled various patterns with embossing paste. I gave it a coat of thinned down blue-grey acrylic paint. Then I collaged various papers onto it. I decided that the stencilled parts were not visible enough, so laid the stencils on again and put more paste over the top of some of the stencilled motives. When it was dry, I embossed some parts with Frantage EP, or added some fairy-dust. I used the same EP to emboss some of the 'seams' of the collaged paper, before adding the photo and the clock. The clock is from the Gecko Galz 'Time Flies' collage sheet. Then I added some roses (rub-ons), some lace, and a little posy of textile roses. I coloured the edges of the white roses with Victorian velvet DI using a water brush to give just a hint of colour. The sentiment has been written by hand onto a ticket (stamp by TH), stamped with Archival black and fussy cut.
I am linking to a Vintage Journey ,fond memories, and my TH inspiration here is the use of  the techniques with stencilling, distressing, stamping and die cuts to make a vintage style.  

I am also linking to Craftroom challenge, roses and romance,
 Paint Party Friday, and Manon's 'Paper Saturdays'

The ducks were wandering about on Market Street today, and a little robin, too.

The entrance to the orthopedic hospital:

Flowering trees:

and lush green everywhere.

This is the rare white mulberry tree; I showed a photo of it in winter, and here it is with leaves. The tree is propped up on brick supports to stop it falling down.

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

A canvas, spring green and a squirrel

Hi everybody!

My computer is not behaving itself at all today, one crash after the other, it is rather frustrating!

I have made a canvas (12x9") using an image from Gecko Galz  'Between the pages' collage sheet. This is my first DT piece using the new images for May.  The canvas was painted with acrylics using pink,  cream and green to complement the colours of the image. I added lots of texture, with stamping, heating and bubbling, lots of Frantage EP in various colours sprinkled directly onto the wet paint, and some German glass glitter. I added a frame made of cardboard, painted, stamped and also embossed.

I love the different colours and textures:

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

I took part in a pay it forward art swap with Marji, and received her lovely accordion book , which I posted on Sunday. My piece to her is now on its way, here is a sneak peek:

And the box it is travelling in:

Today started out cool and misty, and I love to watch the mist slowly dissolving to reveal some of the landscape:

I noticed the lion under the font in the church;

And can you see the little squirrel running up the tree? I didn't dare to go nearer. He was watching me and you can see the glint in his eye.

One of the horses was wearing a strange head-cover - wonder why?

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