T stands for Tag Tuesday and a Trip to RaTingen

Hi Everybody!

Hope your weekend was good. We had some bad weather here - strong winds blew huge towers of clouds across the sky and we had patches of sunshine interspersed with rain, sleet, snow and hailstones in quick succession. Some places got 10" of snow and ice, which caused havoc on the roads. Here we were still able to get out for walks, with some hail-stone dodging in between, and well wrapped in multiple layers, caps and waterproof jackets.

On Tuesday we are starting a new challenge at Tag Tuesday, and this time our dear Wendy is hosting with her theme of 'sea-world'. All things relating to the sea are welcome, as are tags of all formats, and as always you have 2 weeks to join us.  I made a hybrid tag with a background which was painted, stamped and embossed using a stamp from Ryn Tanaka. The other elements are from Serif and Mischief circus:

It's also time for Elizabeth's T stands for Tuesday, so here a warm welcome to all of the nice ladies of the T gang. On Saturday we visited the neighbouring town of Ratingen, and found a beautiful cafe in an old and beautifully restored house for  our break:

Loved this huge cutlery on the wall:

There has been a bakery here for well over 100 years:

During the week I often had a coffee at 'my' ice parlour, too:

And this shop window is full of beautiful cups and mugs:

Clouds on Saturday morning:

In Ratingen:

Fun pillow-cases etc:

Beautiful, old houses:

The maypole at the market square:

The 'James Joyce' is a restaurant:

These photos were taken on an evening walk on Wednesday.

Nelya and Harry:

Here we had the evening sun shining in our faces:

And some hailstones picked up from my balcony on Saturday evening:

On the right-hand side of the tree the hail stones came down:

On the left-hand side we had blue skies. Both pics were taken at the same time:

We also visited a wonderful castle near Ratingen, but the pics will have to wait for another day.

Have  a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Mixed media, a snail and counting sheep

Hi Everybody!

It's weekend - enjoy! We are expecting some bad weather this weekend, so that might mean less opportunity to go walking and more time spent at home to catch up on some tasks here. I have been taking my long walks every day and making the most of the dry weather.

On the 5th of each month we start a new challenge at More Mixed Media.

As always, our challenges are anything mixed media goes, this time with optional pink. I made this A3 mixed media page back in March, and am glad I worked in advance as I still having problems using my fingers:

I started off with a painted background with some added scraps - a piece of painted, heated and bubbled tyvek, a piece of hand coloured silk, some pink sequined cloth and a piece of silver gauzy stuff, which were sewn on:

Then I collaged lots of tissues, mostly from Jane Davenport, and some painted blobs, before finally doing some more sewing :

The challenge runs for a whole month, and there are prizes to win, so it would be great to see you joining in.

And some photos from an evening walk by the Rhine:

This snail oozed across my path:

The sheep have been grazing here the past few days. Sorry for the poor quality of the pics, they were taken with my cellphone which is not so good these days after taking a dip in the toilet:

Have a great weekend, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!