Trees, coffee and cake

Hi Everybody!

Today I am sharing the tag I made for Tag Tuesday, where our theme this week is 'trees'. I used an 8" tag, distressed the background with a mix of DIs - wild honey, rusty hinge and shabby shutters. Then I used a CWS trees stencil and TH's spider's web, and went over them with rusty hinge. My 'trees' have been made from some oak-leaves and twigs picked up outside our house and dried in my giant Webster's dictionary. I glued them on with a hot glue gun, and am proud to say I did not burn my fingers this time. In October, trees are places for Halloween fun, so I added my witch and some bat die-cuts. I cut the fence wider than the tag, and glued it so that it gives a 3 D effect. The cat seems to have drunk some engorging potion and is probably wondering how he will fit through the cat flap when he goes home. The toadstools were in my stash.

On Sunday when I was out with my neighbour in the forest, the sun sometimes shone though the trees, making a wonderful and almost surreal atmosphere.

Inside the  grounds of Landsberg Castle were several fountains, but this was my favourite.

I enjoyed seeing the plants and flowers, too:

Love the figure on the wind-vane:

Today is also Elisabeth's T stands for Tuesday, so a big welcome to her and the T gang. My neighbour gifted me a 'Stollen', a German Christmas cake. Alas and alack, it will not last that long! Anyway, help yourselves to a slice or two!

And my drink is, of course, coffee with foamy milk and chocolate sprinkles - what else?

I wrote this 'ode to coffee' some time back, and am repeating it here for those who don't yet know it.

Give me coffee, but not tea,

Tea is not the drink for me.

Coffee, frothy, brown and hot,

I can always drink a lot.

Coffee topped with whipped up cream -

This with joy will make me scream.

Café au lait with chocolate sprinkles,

Makes me happy, stops my wrinkles.

And if the point you have not seen - 

A day without coffee makes me mean!

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

Architecture

Hi Everybody!
Hope you had a good weekend!

For Art Journal Journey, architecture; 49 Faces and Kim Dellow's show your face I have another A3 Journal page. The face was drawn, coloured with water colours, and stamped with some architectural stamps from LaBlanche. I added the diamonds, squares, flourishes, birds and flowers with various stencils.
I am also linking to Moo Mania and more, show patterns

I played around and made 2 digitally altered versions:

This morning it was not raining, and the sun was peeping through the clouds here and there, so my neighbour suggested we went for a drive, and we visited Schloss Landsberg (Landsberg castle), which is in the middle of a forest. The castle dates back to the 13th century, but was rebuilt at the beginning of the 20th century.

The huge gates at the entry looked rather forbidding, but we marched through and along the drive:

Steps led to this gate leading into the bowels of the castle - perhaps the dungeons?

We went up more steps:

through a gate:

and through a tunnel:

Then we were in the park, and the sun was shining.

The buildings are all rather huge and overpowering:

This tower reminded me of Rapunzel, but her knight in shining armour did not come along and ask her to let down her hair:

Visitors can walk through the gardens, park and forest, but are not allowed into the castle.

I took a lot of photos, so will be showing them in the course of the week.

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Sunday this and that

Hi Everybody!

For Art Journal Journey, architecture, I made an A3 mixed media page which reminds us of the problems in many large cities today - tenants are evicted,  and houses are left to decay, so they can be pulled down and replaced with luxury buildings of flats or offices, and the local people, who can't afford to buy or rent, are driven out of areas which have been their homes for generations. The picture shows typical houses, probably in London, which are waiting for 're-development'. 

I overlaid the photo with a  stencil (Stencilry.org) called 'fallen angel'

Today was once again wet and cold. I risked a walk along the Rhine, well wrapped up. Some of the trees, like here on the avenue behind the castle, still have a lot of green leaves, others look more colourful.

The new railing along the Rhine is still being worked on, but one part is finished:

The benches are not yet back in place, and the railings are so high

that nobody can fall in the river - not that anybody ever did.

And a few yards further the railings come to an end, so anyone who wants to fall in just has  a short way to walk:

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!