A map, a face, flowers and more

Hi Everybody!

We had another wet day here - I'm sure it's keeping the ducks happy!

Anyway, it was good weather for an afternoon nap!

Thanks to those who told me the name of the tree I asked about yesterday, it's a chitalpa summer bells tree.

For Art Journal Journey, maps, I made a hybrid piece with a map background and a face I drew. The lady has a map shining in her eyes, too.

For my travels this week I didn't need a map, as I kept near home on ways that I know. The grass islands at the crossing here have been planted with a wonderful summer flower mix, and made some bright and happy spots between the roads and cars:

This beauty has developed a long stem and was peeking through the hedge of a neighbour. It has a thick and scaly stem, but I have no idea what it is:

The bike path is being refurbished and painted red, perhaps so that motorists can't say they parked there because they didn't notice it was a bike path....

Roses can even make garbage bins beautiful. We have to separate our garbage here, and the yellow ones are for packaging made of plastic and tin:

Time to sit and do nothing:

And the horses I passed on my way to the stores:

Have a great day you all, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Storms, rust and a dragonfly

Hi Everybody!

We had a couple of storms yesterday which were really scary,

I nearly fell off my chair because the thunder was so loud! It rained very heavily, and even my balcony, which has a roof and usually stays dry, got soaked,

and my living room windows got wet for the first time in 10 years (except for when I occasionally clean them!) The Rhine is still very full, and no end to the bad weather yet - thank goodness for waterproof coats and wellies!

I am taking part in a swap with a group of lovely people, one of whom is my dear Elizabeth. Her chosen theme was rust, and as the pages have arrived I can show the ones I made for her. The dark rust on the backgrounds was given to me by dear Susi, as she had rust paint and mine had dried out! Thanks a million for helping!

The first one is a 'portrait' of Elizabeth with her cats, Bleubeard and Squiggles:

After finishing this page I heat dried the paint on the reverse,

which made the cat's head swell up and bubble - aaaaaargh, it looked awful. So I made a second head and fixed it over the first, and covered other strange bubbles with the metal ornaments. It was not as I intended, but that's life....

Here I used some rusted old linen:

I sent the tags to accompany the pages:

And for Art Journal Journey, maps, I have another dragonfly piece, using stamping on a map background:

I am also linking to Paint Party Friday, hosted as always by Eva and Kristin

I discovered this tree in our little town last week. The flowers are gorgeous,  and smell wonderful - does anybody know what it is called?

Sorry, this post is a trifle looooooooooooooong......

Have a great day, take care, 

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Wednesday Mixed Bag

Hi Everybody!

Our theme at Tag Tuesday this week is

'Whatever the weather'. 

For my tag I used a piece of the paper I painted last week. The lady

is a home-made stencil and has been airbrushed.

And we are beginning a new challenge at

Moo Mania and More -

Be inspired by the photo collage.

 Be inspired by one of the photos or colours in your project. As always, projects of all formats are allowed, and you have 2 weeks to link your work.

I combined my piece with a vintage map (courtesy of Wikipedia). The map is a hand-drawn one from the 15th century, but was re-drawn from one made in the 13th century, so gives us a medieval view of the world as people then knew it.

I am linking to Art Journal Journey, maps.

The Rhine is still very full, the heavy rains are keeping it well filled.

I spent a lot of time just watching the ships, large and small, and letting the world float by:

Some are really huge:

And as always, I was drawn to this little corner with the wonderful hollyhocks:

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!