Friday 6 June 2014

Memories, blue skies and sunshine

Hi everybody!

We had a great day here, sunshine and blue skies, and for the next few days we have been promised temperatures up to 35°.

I made another piece for my memory wall. I used corrugated cardboard for the backing, which I painted with a mix of acrylics in terracotta, dark brown and gold. I drizzled Utee gold all down the right side, and added some patches of gilding flakes, and some scraps of old letters, which I pressed into the folds of the cardboard. The photo shows my Mother and my eldest sister, probably taken in 1940. I fussy cut the figures, and added some white burlap, lace, a button a bow, some feathers and a flower. I made the tie with some pretty fibres. I still have the brooch my mum is wearing there.





I am linking to Paint Party Friday, Paper Saturdays (sorry, Manon, I forgot last week!) and Moo Mania and more, feathers.

Here I watched a big mobile home driving onto the ferry.


The horses were happy, as always:


The castle ruins were full of birds swooping about:


The skies were wonderfully blue:




And the moon was visible at 4 in the afternoon.


I hope the sun will shine for you over the weekend!
Have a good one, take care, and thanks a lot for coming by!

Tuesday 3 June 2014

Tags and Trees

Hi everybody!

We had another warm and sunny day here, great for walking. Tomorrow will be cooler and probably wet, we've got bad weather coming to us from the British Isles! I can understand my countrymen not wanting to keep the weather there, but please, folks, send it in a different direction next time, okay?
I have to go for a day of examinations at the local hospital tomorrow, so I will be round to visit your blogs when I get back.

I made these tags over the weekend. I used scrap card and covered it with a paper napkin showing a detail from Michelangelo's  'The creation of Adam' from the Sistine Chapel. I divided it into two pieces, which I matted with blue and brown cardstock. I added some fragments of old letters, and used my diamond stencil to texture the sides. I used a mix of embossing paste, bead gel and terracotta paint. (I can't recommend this mixture, it was way too sticky!) When it was dry I added some gilding flakes in between (I am totally addicted to them) and glittered the embossed parts with stickles in blue and cinnamon. I added the text by hand. I punched eyelets into the top and threaded some fibres through, using beads from broken jewelry to pick out some of the colours. The tags are each 8" high.








Today I was fascinated by the size and fullness of the trees, they are just magnificent. This one looks like it has three legs:



The hay is drying on the meadows by the Rhine:



And this little guy was kind enough to land right at my feet for a photo:


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

Roses at Tag Tuesday

Hi everybody!

Another week has flown by, and it's once again time for a new theme at Tag Tuesday. I used corrugated card again as a base. The card was partly peeled, painted with white gesso and then given a sprinkling of glitter. If I may give you some good advice, please try NOT to sneeze while sprinkling glitter, although the kitchen floor looks beautifully sparkly just now.
The image I have used is one of Astrid's wonderful freebies, which she very generously offers on her blog. I distressed the edges with vintage photo DI, and added some bobble trim, white burlap and some roses and flowers. This was a quick and easy tag. I am also linking to Moo Mania and More, corrugated cardboard.





I just love all the front gardens along the road at the moment, and am always most impressed how much time and effort people put into them to make them so beautiful.




And the hedgerows along the fields and the Rhine are lovely too, full of wild flowers and grasses.



I have captured some of the wild-flowers in this collage.
I am linking to MiFoc, colourful.


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

Sunday 1 June 2014

Colourful

Hi everybody!

We had another sunny day here, for which I am thankful. I always go out walking, whatever the weather, but it is definitely more pleasant when the sun is shining....

Today's tag is one of my DT pieces for Gecko Galz for June. I had a lot of problems, as my printer decided never to work again just after I started printing the items I needed. I now have a 'new' second-hand printer, which was an enormous bargain at 15€ including cartridges, so am back in business again!
But for these pieces I had to make do with the few things already printed and some older images.

I have used an 8" tag, onto which I glued the masked beauty paper from the carnival paper pack, which is full of wonderful designs, which can be printed out at any size. The leopard is from my stash, and the steam punk lady is a Digi stamp from GG. The text was written using a stencil, and outlined with pink gel-pen, as were the figures.  I fixed the tag onto a slightly larger one cut from black cardstock, and put a  metal eyelet through them both, fixing some recycled clock hands under it.
(Material list: tags, images, BG paper, metal eyelet, clock hands gel-pens)





The new MiFoc challenge at Manus Mikrokosmos, which starts tomorrow,  is 'Colourful', and I found some nice graffiti on my walk today which fit this challenge very well.




And here are some more pictures from my walk today:


  
I just love this house with the red geraniums:


And Saint Swidbert looks freshly painted:


Here's wishing you all a good start in the new week!
Take care, and thanks a lot for coming by!

Saturday 31 May 2014

Hats and more

Hi everybody!
Hope you are enjoying your weekend.
Today we had sunshine, so it was good to be outside enjoying  nature.

At the Three Muses Challenge the theme is 'get ahead, get a hat'. I am also linking to Moo Mania and More, corrugated cardboard.
 I made these tags last week, but didn't get round to posting them till today. The first one has been made from cardboard, partly peeled, painted with gesso, and collaged with letter fragments and gilding flakes. The image is from a magazine ad, and has been fancy cut, and crackle glazed. Now the lady has wrinkles! I gave here a hat - with hat needle - and embellished her with lace and little roses to complement her flowery hair style. 





The second hat tag was an 8"one on which I had tried out some stamping and collaging, which I didn't like. I ripped off what I could, painted over the rest, and added some paper napkin scraps using mod podge. The lady was a magazine cut out, which I varnished and collaged. The hat with the watering-can she is wearing is a brooch which I have had since I was a kid. The needle has been missing for years. I will put this tag on my memory wall, as it is a souvenir from past times.




Yesterday I walked down to the lake near here, a lovely peaceful corner - at least when no kids are playing there!







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