summer of colour and happy mail.

Hi everybody!

Hope your weather is better than ours has been these past days - it has rained non-stop, and I now have no more dry shoes to wear, so am hoping it will be better tomorrow.

The colours for SOC this week did not make me feel happy either, but I am sure it is sometimes good to use colours we don't like so much.

I used another of the nudes drawn in 1995, a small pencil sketch that never got finished. I scanned it, changed the line colour to blue and printed it onto a dictionary page (I still have at least 300 pages in that dictionary to use up!). I drew and coloured her using oil pastels in dark and light blue. I was rather stumped for using red, so decided to stick on some poppies I got gifted from Donna, ( a wonderful and VERY talented artist!) and I like the overall effect now that it is finished. I did it all with my left hand again, but am hoping very much that the plaster cast will be removed when I go back to the doctor tomorrow!

I am also linking to Art Journal Journey, flower power, and Paint Party Friday, hosted as always by Eva and Kristin.

 This is the second piece using the SOC colours.  I used the same scan that I used a few weeks back, just with different colours. I made rather a mess with the stencil and red ink, but I tried!

I got a lovely surprise in the post today. My dear friend Chrissie sent me a gorgeous card she made for our colours of summer challenge at TIOT, and placed it in this beautifully decorated envelope. It evidently got wet, so looks rather smudged here, but it is still gorgeous!

And here is the wonderful card with felt flowers. Thanks Chrissie, you are so kind!

 Last but not least, I took photos of 2 of the windows in the Basilica here, as they fit very nicely to the SOC challenge this week too!

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

Double Tuesday again

Hi everybody!

Today it's time for new challenges at Tag Tuesday and Try it on Tuesday.

At Tag Tuesday our theme this week is 'Japan'. I was not able to make a new tag this week, tags are hard to make with the left hand. I have used a tag I made some time back, which has been restored, as it was looking rather tatty after languishing in a box for a long time. I glued some parts down again, inked the edges, and gave it a new background.

At Try it on Tuesday our theme is 'colours of summer'.

I had part of this done before I got 'plastered', so only had to add the pink edges, the rub-ons and the Stickles to the wings. The main image is from Gecko Galz, and is a single digi-stamp 'garden fantasy', which I printed out in A4 size onto some Prima DP. I intensified the colours of some of the leaves and flowers with oil pastels. The small white flowers have been doodled with a white highlighter, with which I also outlined the fairy and the mushrooms, and gave them some spots.

I am also linking to Art Journal Journey, Flower power.

The evening skies yesterday:

And some photos taken along the Rhine. I can manage my camera quite well with my left hand if I use my plaster cast to support it.

These flowers were totally full of butterflies, which refused to stop fluttering for the photos!

Have a great day, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Flowers, birds and leftist tendencies

Hi everybody!

We are having some very changeable weather here - hot and humid one minute, and torrential downpours the next. I managed my walks in

between the heavy showers, but don't want to be caught out in one just now.

Today I did my first left handed journal page, and it took much longer that it would have taken with the right hand. I sprayed the background with some leftover drops  of spray inks, and printed the image onto the page when it was dry. The image is from Gecko Galz. It is called 'femme funk' and is available as a single digi stamp.

I coloured parts of the flowers with oil pastels, painted over with a water brush, and gel pens and a white highlighter. It is much harder to do more or less accurate lines with my left hand, but I am sure it is good practice. I used lots of diamond Stickles on the peacock. The white flowers are some rub-ons from my wonderful bit-box.  The quote has been computer generated, and I have forgotten from whom it is, sorry.

I am linking to Art Journal Journey, flower power.

And believe me, when it rains -

it rains!

I told you in a previous post that it is Schützen Fest - 'marksmen's festival' here, and the 'big' festivities take place here, just opposite the meadow where the horses are.

You can still see the heap of cut wood left over from the big storm.

My fave is this vintage carousel - and no, I did not go for a ride on it!

At Manus Mikrokosmos the photo challenge this week is in the  garden. I don't have a garden, just a little balcony, which is still a pleasant place to sit and drink coffee and watch the birds. My bird is a movement alarm, and sings merrily every time another bird or fly or bee comes near him, and the real birds often answer, too funny! And I enjoy watching the birds who visit to get food, and a squirrel who is partial to hazelnuts!

That's all for today. Take care, have a good one, 

and thanks for coming by!

Things with wings, arches and horses

Hi everybody!

Thanks for all the good wishes for my poor thumb. The doc gave me cortisone injections into the joints, and now I have a plaster cast almost up to my elbow, so that the joints will all be rested. I hope it will be taken off in a week, but that will depend if it is better or not. In the meantime I am learning one-finger left handed typing, and trying to see the positive side of it - I can't do any h*******k,  dish washing, dusting, cleaning etc. Now that is something! And as I can't wash my own hair, I went to the hairdresser's and came out with a nice, new cut and style.

Today I am sharing one of my DT pieces for Gecko Galz, which were luckily made a couple of weeks back, as I can't do anything this week.

The journal page has been made using paper from the Isla Bonita collection, and digi-images from the Free Spirit set from 'with wild abandon'. Gecko Galz is having a cross promotion with this firm to show how well they fit to the GG products. The images were printed, fussy cut, coloured, varnished and partly Stickled. I added more colour to the background paper using oil pastels, and doodled some circles with gel pens. The sentiment has been written with white highlighter.

I am linking to Manon's Paper Saturdays.

And some more photos of the new sculpture in the castle ruins, the more I see it, the more I like it. These were taken BPC - before plaster cast!

And last but not least, more pictures of my cheeky friend:

Have a great weekend, and happy July Fourth to all of you in the States!

Take care, and thanks a lot for coming by!