Houses or homes?

Hi everybody!

The weekend is nearly here, and I am sure all those of you who work all week will be feeling happy to greet the weekend.

I can't write too much just now, I have a splint on my thumb, which is very painful, and the splint keeps making mistakes while I am typing!

Some weeks back when my old printer was getting really cranky, it printed out some images much too large, and they were extremely distorted. But I still somehow liked this one, so used it as a background for a journal page, which I am linking to AJJ - houses, and Mix it Monthly, home. I drew the houses with a stencil, and added more colour to the background with oil pastels and prismalos. The strong lady is one of a whole pile I made last year and put away for future use. I found them yesterday by chance, and have let one of them hold up the row of houses. It is simple, but I think, quite effective.

I am also linking to PPF and Paper Saturdays.

Here are a few more impressions from my walk this afternoon, flowers found along the wayside or in people's front gardens. and one of my fave paths between the lakes.

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Colours and tastes of summer

Hi everybody!

Hope you have all had a good day. We had nice weather here, not hot, not cold, with sun and some clouds - I enjoyed walking along the Rhine, seeing and smelling the flowers, and throwing stones from the 'beach' into the water.

At SOC the colours this week are teal, coral and a splash of white. My piece is for SOC and Paint Party Friday, hosted as always by Eva and Kristin. I started off with an ad from a magazine, which I traced. I scanned the trace into the computer, and printed it out onto a printed page from an old school dictionary. I used Water colours to do a colour wash on the background. I used Portfolio oil pastels to draw the lines and add the shading. Where I wanted the colour thinner, I used a wet brush to take the colour directly from the crayons. This was a fun way to work, and using a good outline is a great way of learning to draw better. The sentiment is in German, and means " 'Just living is not enough', said the butterfly Sunshine - 'one needs freedom and a little flower, too.'" I was inspired to use this quote because today I saw that a lot of the meadows along the Rhine have been mowed to make hay, and I saw the butterflies flying around looking for the flowers.
I am also linking to Simon's Monday challenge, anything goes.

And here some edible art.

I made a batch of very special apricot jam yesterday. One jar has already gone to a neighbour. Instead of using cognac to 'disinfect' the fruits, I added a jar of rum raisins that I discovered in my store cupboard, and the usual mix of spices and chopped ginger. The result is a jam that is too delicious, it will have a short shelf life and  probably belongs to a species threatened by extinction....

Some impressions from along the Rhine:

And the meadows where the butterflies were looking for their flowers....

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

More this and that

Hi everybody!

Another day has sped by. I had my usual walks, and had to go into Düsseldorf by tram to collect something. There is still a lot of devastation to see, and teams of people were busy working everywhere cutting down branches, digging out giant tree-roots, repairing roofs etc. The trees all look very straggly where they have had to lop off so many branches to make them safe. The trams are running again, with some difficulties, but it will still take a long time till things get back to normal. This afternoon I made some more jam, as apricots are on offer this week, I will show pictures when they have cooled off and been labeled.

Today I am showing 2 cards I made as part of my DT projects for Gecko Galz.

For the background I used masked beauty  from the carnival paper pack. The image of the little girl was from a GG freebie sheet - I had to use stuff I had, as that was the time my printer gave up the ghost. I matted both the image and the BG paper with black card and glued them onto a 6x4" card blank. I used a flower and a leaf as embellishments.

(Material list: card-blank, image, BG paper, black card for matting, embellishments)

The second card has been made using the same paper. The good thing about the paper sets is that they can be printed out in any size. The image is from the vintage dominoes collage sheet, and printed onto tissue.

 I matted both the image and the BG paper with black card and glued them onto a 6x4" card blank. I added a bow and a charm as embellishments.

(Material list: card blank, image, BG paper, black card for matting, embellishments.

Linking to Simon's Monday challenge, anything goes.

As always, a few pictures taken in the past days. The first one shows the street where I live, and I must praise all the garden owners who have their gardens clean and tidy again after the storm - it must have been a lot of work.

The view from my balcony yesterday evening:

The horses do not seem to be worried about the wrecked trees, they just keep on grazing as always....

Have a great day, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Birds, wings, feathers and flowers

Hi you all,
hope you have had a good start in the new week.

It's time for Tag Tuesday again, and our theme is 'tag on tag'.
I have made a tag on tag on tag this time.
The top layer has been made with speciality stamping card from LaBlanche. I distressed the background with DIs in tumbled glass, Victorian velvet and wild honey. The background stamps are from TH, as is the large bird, which I stamped on an extra piece of card and fussy cut. I used archival black which I clear embossed. The small birds have been made with a Martha Stewart punch. I gave the bird a collar made of fibres, and a bell saved from an Easter bunny. (I only buy them to get the bells, and then have to sacrifice myself and eat the chocolate so as not to be wasteful!)
I mounted the top tag onto a slightly larger one cut from black card. The background card has been cut from an old box, painted with gesso, and then smeared with Utee gold into which I stamped. I made a matching tie out of the rest of the pretty fibres, and added some gem stones, pearls and a feather as embellishments.
I am linking to Fashionable Stamping Challenges, birds and bees, and to
Moo Mania and More, feathers.

I enjoyed looking at flowers on my walk today, some in front gardens, and others on the meadows or by the wayside:

Here's wishing you all a great day, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Feathers, birds and doors

Hi Everybody!

The weekend is nearly over, time is flying by as always.

I have made a little black and white tag for the challenge at SoArtful, where the theme this month is black and white.  Yesterday I found a beautiful magpie feather when I was out, and that inspired my tag.  Magpies  always look as if they are dressed for a celebration with their beautiful feathers.  The magpie stamp is from LaBlanche. I made 2 mats, from black card and from black and white star-print DP. I am also linking to Moo Mania and more, feathers.

Today we had to vote for a new mayor, so I walked through town to get to the school. Here are some photos from some of my fave places:

Manu's theme at Mifoc this week is 'door', so I made a collage of a few of he beautiful doors I have photographed in the past months, here and in Linz, another beautiful little town on the Rhine.

That's all for today! Have a great day, take care, 

thanks a lot for coming by.