Harlequin men, happy mail and a walk.

Hi everybody!

We had a chilly and grey day here, it's Autumn. I am enjoying  the changing colours of the leaves, and I love the sound and feel of crunching through the fallen leaves. It's a great time of year!

The time is flying by again, I have the feeling that the time between getting up and going to bed is always shrinking. But there was still time today for 2 nice walks, time to cook a tasty veggie stir-fry - and to eat it,  time to put my feet up and read a bit, and time for painting, crafting and playing with leaves. I am so happy I don't need to go to work anymore!

I finished a mixed media canvas today. I re-used an old 15x12" one that I was tired of seeing. It had plenty of texture, so I gave it a coat of gesso and added  some beige and brown spray colours while it was still wet. Then I used a diamond stencil with Viva rust paint to fill in the diamonds. The 'man' stencils are some home made ones created using some ads from a magazine some time back. I made 2 outlines with black and brown pastel-chalks, and added 2 printed figures, which I varnished with paper-glaze. I added more patterning with some scraps of paper napkins left over from other projects, a few scraps of my old letters, and some more colours with pastel-chalks. I tried to make it look as though they are standing in water. I have called it 'Harlequin'.

 I am linking to following challenges:

Simon Monday (stamps and stencils)

Moo Mania and more ( autumnal colouring)

Art Journal Journey (living beings)

Paint Party Friday, hosted as always by Eva and Kristin.

The parcel postman got me out of bed this morning, and brought a little parcel from Jeannette - a Halloween bag, with a beautiful card in it, a scary scull candle for some dark hours and lots of crafty things to make me happy. Thanks, Jeannette, you are a sweetie, and this was a lovely surprise!

The sun did try to fight a way through the clouds today, but didn't really succeed.

The heron and ducks were busy fishing:

And there were not many people about in 'town'

The market stall down at the Rhine did not have many customers today

I love the way the little dog on the right is looking at his master and hoping for a bite!

The horses are in the old moat at the moment and seem to be enjoying the grass there, too.

Have a great day, whatever you are up to! 

Take good care of yourselves, and thanks a lot for coming by!

Dangerous times and more moon faces

Hi everybody!

Hope you have had a good day

Here it was a cool,  windy  day with a big nip of autumn in the air, and the wind chased the clouds across the sky, presenting us with rain showers, sunshine and blue skies one after the other. I enjoyed wearing a warm pullover and thick, cosy socks again! 

Today  it's time for a new theme at Tag Tuesday. Our theme is danger - yikes!

Anyway, I had to lengthen the theme a bit to be able to make something, so I've called it 'Danger, the witching time is coming nearer!' I distressed the background with vintage photo, spiced marmalade and old mahogany, mixing the colours on my craft mat and swishing the tag through till it had the right colours. I used a background stamp to bring some depth and movement. I stamped the witch and cat ('Wicked' from Close to my Heart) with archival black and embossed with black EP extra fine. The witch at the top, hiding behind the leaves, has been printed onto transparent foil and fussy cut. The leaves and seed pods are some of those which I embossed with EP yesterday. I added some witch's 'hair' and a little broom as embellishments.

This is another journal page made from my smear, clean and blot page from last week. I added a few bits which were flying around my table, some tissue tape, and stamped the birds, hearts, crown and wings (TH) with archival black. The Dina Wakley heads were the 'second prints' made when I cleaned the stencils with a baby wipe, and there was always enough colour to make a new face.

This is a digitally altered version:

  I am linking to Simon Monday Challenge, stamps and stencils and to 

Art Journal Journey, living beings.

I saw this flowering tree in a front garden when I was out walking today, the flowers are really huge:

Everything was as usual on the horse meadow:

And I stood and watched the Rhine here, I love this corner.

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Autumn tag

Hi everybody!

The weather here was mixed again, but mostly grey and a lot cooler. Autumn is on its way! I enjoyed walking around, picking up leaves and twigs, and thinking about what I could do with them.

Some of the leaves I used as masks to make some sprayed backgrounds, others were turned into 'heavy metal' leaves with Embossing powders. I had fun playing, and have some nice decorations to use in crafting.

Today I made an autumn tag. I used an 8" tag, which I distressed with vintage photo, spiced marmalade and rust DIs using the seamless distress method. I did this twice till it had the colour I wanted. When it was dry, I stamped the background with a swirl stamp using archival black. Then I sewed the scraps of coloured burlap onto the tag, and the tag onto some partly peeled corrugated cardboard, which I had inked with rusty screw or something and then embossed around the edges with copper and white EP.

The leaves were rubbed with embossing ink and dipped into Frantage old gold and vintage copper and embossed. It was fun watching them bubbling, and I do love using natural materials and not just bought ones as embellishments. I also embossed some seed pods as 'flowers', and love how they look. I used some fibres, two horn buttons, a few beads and a straw bow to finish it off.

I am linking to  A vintage Journey, colours of autumn, where the dear ladies want to see work inspired and influenced  by Tim Holtz. I have used many of his techniques and products here, but still tried to make an original tag in my style. I am also linking to the ePlay challenge at eclectic paperie - fall

Here are some of the leaves I embossed today, using metallic and hologram EPs.

My thumb nail has become fittingly glittered:

The leaves look good in a vintage glass bowl in leaf form until I use them on my projects.

We had massive towers of cloud yesterday evening:

Have a great day you all, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by!

A fairy tale forest

Hi everybody!

The weather here has been very changeable today, from black clouds, rain and thunder to sunny intervals, a bit of everything. I was lucky to stay dry for my walk, so that was good - my new wellies still need to be inaugurated!

I have used another of my water-colour backgrounds today. It was painted with green and blue, and then sprayed with blue, green and purple. I sprayed in many layers, always with the same method - spray, let it drip, let it dry, and then the next layer. Then I turned it upside down, and outlined most of the drips with metallic gel pens. It reminded me of strange trees, so my magical forest was born. I added some purple birds (Dina Wakley), a unicorn (cut from a DP pad), and the TH branch trees in purple and green. Hänsel and Gretel are a copy from the frontispiece of one of my ancient books. The angels are watching over them to make sure they get home safely....

I am linking to Art Journal Journey, living beings, and Mix it monthly, trees, and Simon Monday challenge, rock the techniques.

I enjoyed making this, there is something very satisfying in just  playing about and picking up childhood themes again.

Clouds were frequent today:

The ducks were having a great time swimming round in circles and chasing away a gull who evidently wanted to join in:

The cormorant was sitting on the pole again, looking a bit like a statue.

The Rhine was grey and the landscape dissolved into the mist:

Have a lovely day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!