Dina Wakley Stencils for Tag Tuesday and Recycling for TIOT

Hi everybody!

It's Double Tuesday again, which means new challenges at Tag Tuesday and at Try it on Tuesday.

At Tag Tuesday our theme is stencils, and I have used the lovely stencil from Dina Wakley again, 'moon faces'. I used a piece of recycled card from an old calendar, and used a small diamond stencil sprayed with blue and brown to make the background layer. Then I added some numerals and alphas with a CWS stencil. The Moon faces were added with Viva Rust and lightly sprinkled with fairy dust. I machine-stitched some fibres for hair, and then sewed the tag with zig-zag stitch to a corrugated card background. I still had the feeling that it needed something, so I cut a little roof out of the same cardboard and stitched it on. The little window face has been made with shrink plastic. I had fun making this one!

For Try it on Tuesday I have used only materials which had been used on other projects. The brown paper bag was punched with my owl punch to make the fancy top. It would also be possible to use a little sandwich bag. The tags and pockets were all on old Halloween projects which I dismantled and re-used  -  make new from old! The black card is from an old calendar. Inside the bag there is plenty of room for scary little presents or treats. This pretty bag was not my idea. Sandy recently sent me one like this, which inspired me to make some of my own for Halloween , and I think it is a really neat design - thanks Sandy!

And last but not least, some photos of the wonderful sky this morning at 7 AM.

Here's wishing you all a great day. 

Take care, and thanks a lot for coming by!

Heavy metal, sunshine and stencil play.

Hi everybody!

Had another busy but happy day here. It started off cool and very misty, but the sun came out and dispelled the mist, leaving us with good weather. There was a festival in our little town today, with an arts and crafts market, a book market along the main street leading down to the river, and loads of stalls selling foods and snacks wafting tempting aromas under my nose. But I stayed strong and just had a coffee at the baker's. In the grounds of the 'Diakonie', a large church based social, welfare and health-care company, there was a huge party, with loads of stalls selling goodies, more food and drink, live music, and fun and games for the kids. I spent quite a long time talking to an artist called Michael Laux, who works with oil drums, old farm implements and scrap metal to make wonderful objects, and with plastic bottles to make creations like tropical underwater plants. You can see more of his work on his web page.

The mask was my fave:

And I got this as a present. It's A4 size, and will look wonderful with a light or candle burning behind it. There are so many colours in the burnt metal, it is fantastic.

And meantime, down at the Rhine, the swan was swanning:

The ferry was ferrying visitors across the water:

And this charming man was playing the violin for the swan, ducks and all who pass by, as he does every Sunday:

Yesterday, when I got back from the craft fair, I needed to go for a walk, and picked some leaves and ferns on my way home. I used them as masks and stamps, spraying them with blue and brown, using a sheet of paper I had already used as underground while stamping and distressing.

When it was dry I just  had to try out the new stencils I got from Dinah Wakley, and kept to a reduced colour palette - black for the birds and rust (Viva) for the moon faces.

I added some white doodling, music notes and a quote:

This is something different to usual, but it was fun making it! 

I am linking to Art Journal Journey, living beings; Mix it Monthly, trees; Artekarten, Stencils and Moo Mania, Music is in the air - and my music is literally in the air!

Have a great day, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Beatrix Potter, an altered notebook and more

Hi everybody!

I just got back from the 'Stempel Mekka' craft fair in Hagen, and had a good day out. I wasn't really intending to buy stuff, but some stamps and stencils just jumped at me, and then I had to take them home. I met some blogging buddies from Germany, Silvia (Barnies Baustelle) and Ulrike (Ulkau), as well as some others I have met there a lot of times, including the lovely Linda from Lost Coast Designs.

And I was pleased to see this evening that I am in the designer spotlight at Simon Monday challenge this week, for the textured autumn canvas I made a week back.

This journal page has first been water-coloured and distressed, and then I used a fussy cut photo of Beatrix Potter printed out in Sepia to soften it. I added some tissue tape, and lots of  her little creations, also fussy cut. The rabbits have been stamped with the Alice Palace Stamp from CI, and the little birds and the vine are part of a set from Kaiserkraft.

I am linking to Art Journal Journey, living beings

This little back to school notebook is one of my DT pieces for Gecko Galz. I cut a piece of 2 sided cardstock, 4 1/4 x 7" and rounded the corners. I scored 3 1/8" from each end to make the spine. A small note pad, 4 1/8" x 3" was glued onto the right side of the folder. I made a pocket from scraps, 3x2",  rounded the top corners, and fixed it with DS tape. I made 2 small tags out of left-over card into tags. For the front cover I used the image SD11 from the schooldays stamp set. The image was fussy cut and glued to some vintage ledger paper from 1924. I varnished it to make it more durable.

We have a 'new' market square here on the other side of the tram lines, and this statue and fountain are in the middle. It's not a statue I like, but recently someone had decorated it, which looked quite funny.

And my fave horse has the last word again....

Have a great Sunday, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by.

Trees, ducks, horses and stones

Hi everybody!

It's weekend, so hope you all have a restful and creative time.
We had cool but nice weather here today, so I enjoyed my walks, and it was a bit warmer in the afternoon.

I still seem to be on my autumn/trees/leaves/ little beings trip, so here is the next offering, a journal page. I sprayed an A3 page with home made blue and green inks, and then used just under half of it for this painting. I daubed the water-colours (thanks again Chrissie)  directly onto the paper, using orange, brown and yellow, and a liberal portion of fairy dust. I used some of the super bronze gilding flakes that Sandy recently sent me to make the little leaves on the tree and fluttering down. The little elf is from the autumn flower fairies, and the rabbit, of course, from Beatrix Potter. The little birds were stamped with scraps of brown paper from an old envelope using a Martha Stewart punch. I have forgotten from whom the quote is, if anyone knows, please tell me! I am linking to Art Journal journey, living beings; Mix it Monthly, trees and Craftroom Challenge, something old, something new. (New paints and gilding flakes, old images and recycled paper)

The ducks came waddling up to see if I had any food, so I shared some bread with them.

The horses were calm and contented as always.

The sun was sparkling on the lake this afternoon.

And I love this large, rusty rose on the old gates to the hospital park:

There are a lot of stones and huge pieces of brick and mortar walls down on the shore underneath the castle. There were a lot of battles to take control of the castle in the course of history, and  the walls were breached with cannons.

Some of these stones were evidently cut, so were perhaps part of door frames or arches:

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