Tuesday, 9 September 2014

Dragonflies revisited

Hi everybody!

Where did the day go? I hardly managed to get anything done, and it's already almost time to go to bed! Does this happen to others, too?

Today I made a journal page for Art Journal Journey, living beings.
Some time back I made some large (8") tags with dragonflies, which I found yesterday when I was looking for Halloween die-cuts. I decided to use them to make a journal page. I glued the tags onto my page, and then stitched round it with zig-zag stitch. The machine even worked today, which is a wonder. I stamped more dragonflies round the edges, and then added some blue water-colour and stickles to their wings. Sorry about the poor quality of the photos, it got dark before I noticed. The flash has reflected on the stickles in the first one. The quote on the right tag is from Leonardo da Vinci. I am also linking to the
Three Muses - Two (two tags)









The moon was beautiful again last night, very fascinating. It glowed really orange.



Today I spent a long time just watching the water fowl and the horses, something I find very calming. Perhaps that's where so much time went?







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



Tag Tuesday and more

Hi everybody!

Hope you have all had a good start in the week!
We had a nice day here, sunny but with a bit of a chill in the air - autumn is coming!

Today we have a new challenge at Tag Tuesday - Fairy Tales. I chose Little Red Riding Hood. I used a CWS stencil and distress inks to make the forest and sunset  background, Little Miss Red and the big bad Mr Wolf are just arriving at Grandma's house. Olly the Owl has seen what's going on, and is planning to fly away and alarm the Hunter, so he can save silly little Red.
I am linking to Artekarten - stencils





At Mix it monthly the theme is trees, and at Art Journal Journey,  Living beings, so I hope this journal page, made from another old calendar page, will cover both themes.
The large tree is a stencil from CWS. I distressed the background with DIs and drew around the tree with a black fine liner. The tree fairy has been made from textile leaves in various sizes, partly distressed with DI and crackle varnish. Her dress has been made from 2 layers of paper and trimmed with leaves and fibres. The dogs and birds have been stamped, and the other beings are vintage scraps. I drew her face and legs.






Yesterday evening we had a beautiful moon



And I was able to watch the sunrise while drinking my morning coffee.


Have a lovely day, take care of yourselves,
and thanks a lot for coming by!

Sunday, 7 September 2014

More living beings....

Hi everybody!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Today I have made another, and perhaps a rather strange piece for 'living beings'. I painted the background on pages from the old calendars I recently discovered in the paper container here, which has given me a huge stock of wonderful, large sheets of paper to use. I used water colours, (a present from Chrissie), oil pastels- (sent to me by dear Sandy), and prismalos. The background was supposed to show the Lake District where Beatrix Potter lived, but has evidently been influenced a bit by Vincent van Gogh, as I love his swirls which bring so much movement into the sky. Then I lined up my characters, with some farm animals and Farmer McGregor, and some of BP's characters. Peter Rabbit is probably running away from the farmer, as he knows that his father had an 'accident' in Mr McGreggor's garden and ended up in a pie....Pigling Bland is  exploring the world, and the mouse is helping with the harvest. In the meantime, the 7 dwarves have left their woods to have an outing, and are sneaking over the hills and hoping nobody will see them....

I am linking to Art Journal Journey, living beings, and to Craftroom challenge,
something old, something new. New are my oil-pastels and water-colours, both sent to me by kind friends,  and the rest was in my stash










And now, back to reality....

I had a long walk this morning. I woke up feeling achy and bad tempered, and the walk definitely made me feel a lot better.

The plants are growing along the road near here: 


The cows were all on the other side of the meadow, so only got a distant shot of them today. But I could imagine Beatrix Potter's little creatures running around here:








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

Saturday, 6 September 2014

Saturday this and that

Hi everybody!

I Hope you are enjoying your weekend.
The day started off a bit misty again, but it got better in the course of the morning.  I had a wonderful walk along the shore, over sand and shingle, enjoying the water birds, the ships and the beautiful scenery.

This card is one of my DT projects for Gecko Galz this month. I used an owl image from the collage sheet 'owling for you', printed onto paper, fussy cut and varnished. The BG paper is from the fairy tale stack from DCWV, mounted onto a 6x6" card with a gold edge from LaBlanche. The owl trim has been punched. As embellishments I used a scrap of white burlap, some leaves and flowers, and a little skull button. I made a spooky envelope to go with it.
(Material list:  Card blank, BG paper, punched owl strip, leaves and flowers, mini skull, owl image from GG)






I caught the sun this morning as it rose over the horizon


The leaves are beginning to turn, and there is a breath of autumn in the air



This morning the cormorants and gulls were predominant along the Rhine:


Enjoying their sun-bath:


The swan swam really close to where I was standing today, and I enjoyed watching her very much




And the horses were, as always, happy grazing.


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