A Tag Book and a giveaway

Hi Everybody!

Hope your day is going well. It's nearly weekend for all you working folks, so have a good one. As a pensioner I have weekend all year round, but I still look forward to the 'real' one - old habits die hard!

Today I am sharing a book made from one of the pieces I painted at Art Group. This is a long post even by my standards!

After painting the squares onto an A3 sheet with acrylics I outlined them with a black Edding and added some napkin transfers. Then I gave it a coat of clear varnish to seal it: 

Here I have folded the part for the spine and sewed around it:

 It wasn't standing straight here so I flattened it under some heavy tomes for a couple of weeks:

I added large eyelets to the spine using a hammer, this time without damaging myself:

I made 2 signatures and sewed them in:

Then I filled the book with tags:

 Some are recent, some older, all needed a home:

I am giving this book of tags away, so if you would like a chance to win it, please say so in your comment. I will send anywhere in the world! I will announce the winner next Wednesday.

I am linking to Paint Party Friday

And a few photos from a recent visit to Südpark. There are a lot more but I need to sort them:

 I always love to watch the goats:

Have a great weekend, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!

Midweek post

Hi Everybody!

Hope your day is going well. We had a beautiful day here in Rhineland - sun, a few clouds, a nice breeze, no rain and warm but not hot - just perfect for me!

So I spent a long time outside walking, and visited some places which I haven't seen for ages and really enjoyed myself. My feet are still smoking, but it was worth it!

I have another tag for Wendy's 'apples and pears' challenge at Tag Tuesday, perhaps representing the goddess of plenty smiling on the beautiful fruits of the season. The background was painted, stamped and glittered. The fruit is from Free Vintage Clip-art:

And I have a WIP. Last week at art-group I once again used up my left-over paints to make an A2 (24" x 17") background. I scraped the paints in various directions using a palette knife:

Then I started to work on it to turn it into a new book-cover. Here I have folded in the edges after fixing recycled cardboard (from paper blocks) to strengthen the spine and covers:

The front was stamped using the huge stamp I carved 2 years back:

After crazy-sewing the edges I lined the inside with some designer paper:

The outside of the covers:

The back of the book:

Some more views:

I still need to make the signatures and sew them in. I am linking to Paint Party Friday and to Simon Monday challenge, use a stamp.

These are some of my pics from Sunday and Monday, I still need to organise those I took today:

 This huge bronze relief is on the town walls here and shows how boats used to be pulled along the Rhine - that's Kaiserswerth in the background:

Lovely skies on Sunday:

These ducks had different colours to their usual ones:

The old water mill in Kalkum:

Beautiful houses and gardens in Kalkum:

On Monday I went with Nathalie for a coffee in Oberkassel - this is a great place to people-watch:

On the way back to the car we saw these fun windows:

And this is one of my fave views (as you might have noticed by now....):

Have a great day, take care,

and thanks a lot for coming by!