Wednesday 11 April 2012

A Tag a Day....

Hi everybody, hope you are all well and fit. It's still cold, windy and wet here - it can only get better! (I hope!)
I visited a friend yesterday, so didn't get much crafting done, just one tag. I used a TH cabinet card die, but cut it a bit narrower. The background has been stamped with resist ink, using a bg stamp from LaBlanche, and then coloured with Victorian velvet and Memento London Fog. I stamped the text and the image - both stamps from LaBlanche - with Stazon brown before clear embossing. The trimmings are all from my stash. I am linking again to Artful Times


Have a good day you all, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Tuesday 10 April 2012

Tag Tuesday on Tag Tuesday, wow!

Hi you all, it's Tag Tuesday today and I have actually got my tag ready! The theme this week is *Spring Cleaning*, not really my ticket. But the reason why I just got one little tag done yesterday, was that I cleared out, tided and re-sorted all my stash drawers. Made lots of rediscoveries, met up with lots of old friends. Discovered that I now have 4 (yes FOUR) hot-glue guns, although mostly I haven't been able to find one....
The background of the tag has been stamped with resist ink, using a bg stamp from LaBlanche, and then coloured with crushed olive distress ink, before stamping the lady with Stazon olive green and clear embossing her. I added a few beads for a necklace. The fairy image is from LaBlanche, the flowers from my stash.



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

Monday 9 April 2012

Challenges

Hi everybody, hope you are all enjoying your Easter break! Here it has been very cold, really freezing, but we have had some sun, so that was at least something!

I made a tag and a card this weekend. The tag is for the new Artful Times Blog, where the challenge is to make a tag. My tag has been cut from the cardboard packaging of some Prima flowers; as it is already printed, I just needed to ink the edges. I stamped the Leonardo da Vinci lady (Lost Coast Stamps) with olive green Stazon and clear embossed it. Then I added some pieces of gold chain from a broken bracelet and a scrap of lace to give her a collar. The flowers are from Prima, and the fibres and ribbon were in my scrap bag. The quote says, *May the dreams of your past be the reality of your future*. The tag was quick and easy to make, with the exception of threading the beads onto the fibres....


The card is my DT piece for the challenge at The Cheerful Stamp Pad, where the theme for the next 2 weeks is *From the Past*, sponsored by *Altered Pages*.
I have used speciality stamping paper from LaBlanche, distressed with Victorian velvet and crushed sage DIs. The background has been stamped with a script stamp and some flourishes (both from LaBlanche). I added some paper lace, rub-ons, prima-flowers and an image from my stash. The cameo is one of a boxful I bought years back from EBAY. I have tried to give the feeling of past times with the soft colours and floral images.


Have a good day you all, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Sunday 8 April 2012

Happy Easter & some freebies to download

Here's wishing all those who celebrate Easter a Happy and blessed holiday with your families and friends!
I have chosen some pictures from one of my old German Newspapers from 1899; please feel free to download and use them if you want to!




Have a good day you all, take care, and thanks for visiting!

Friday 6 April 2012

Postcard Challenge, PPF & Calendar Challenge

It's Friday again, and that means party time. Over at PPF, hosted as always by Katrin and Eva, we have already arrived at week 4 of the second year. Darcy's Postcard Challenge has been running since the beginning of the year, and this week Singapore is our goal. And I am a few days late with my April Calendar for *The Kathryn Wheel*, but now it is finished.

After their long weekend in Istanbul Cissie and Helga are pleased to have a few quiet weeks back in their corner of London, visiting their fave restaurants to keep their strength up, shopping and playing card-games. Jason often joins them for a *light lunch* - fish and chips, cream cakes and pots of hot, sweet tea. Jason has been invited to a business holiday in Singapore, where he is meeting other antique shop owners to talk shop, make plans, and have a good time. Cissie thinks they could hold their meeting in London instead of flying so far away, but Jason tells her that they need a change of air to get their brainstorming going. Cissie wonders how people who are so brainless and gormless as Jason and his buddies are going to find anything to storm….But Jason is determined to fly, and so he packs his case. Cissie gives him some good advice, as always. *Take some decent clothes, not the shmattes (Yiddish for rags!) you always wear! Behave when you are there! In Singapore they are very strict, so don’t throw any litter onto the street and do everything people tell you! Don’t buy any drugs!*
Jason says, *Who bought those funny cigarettes in Holland? You or me??*
Cissie asks him to bring her a few yards of silk for a new dress. Jason says he will, whilst thinking, *Blimey, she’ll need a few miles, not yards!*
The flight is long, but pleasant. Singapore airlines is famed for it’s good food, service and beautiful hostesses, and Jason’s expectations are in no way disappointed.


(Picture Collage from Wikipedia)

In Singapore they do a sightseeing tour on their first day, enjoy seeing the clean streets, the stylish metropolis, the Lion of Singapore, the parks and the Island of Samosa. But for Jason, and most of his buddies, the clubs, restaurants and exceptionally beautiful girls are the preferred sights, as always. Shopping and food seem to be the main occupations of the people, and Jason is glad to enjoy their hobbies, too. He buys a bale of lilac silk for Cissie, and is sure she will love it. He manages to spend the whole five days with no greater catastrophes than getting drunk every night and running after each and every pretty girl he sees.

The postcard shows Jason in front of the flag, flanked by the lions, the symbols of Singapore. He looks rather bleary eyed, wonder what he was up to the night before?



The calendar page is my entry for the Kathryn Wheel Challenge. I painted the background with three different shades of blue, using a credit card to spread the paint. Then I added a bit more colour with some colourwash sprays. The *days* are made to look like egg halves. I cut ovals with a Sizzix die, and cut them apart by hand. The chickens have been cut from serviettes and fixed with golden gel.


For PPF I am sharing a picture I made back in 1992, which I *discovered* whilst clearing up my bedroom last weekend. Perhaps this is a sign to clear up more often!? I have used black ink and coloured pencils.


So, that was it for today. Have a great day you all, take care, and thanks for looking by! Happy Easter!






Thursday 5 April 2012

Thursday, cold and stormy

Good morning! It's freezin' cold here, brrrrrr, and I'm sitting here with all my winter woolies on. There's a German saying, "April, April, macht was er will" - April, April, does what it wants. Yes!
Just got a joke to share with you today, from Narda, as always!


Women drivers!

This morning on the Interstate, I looked over to my left and there was a woman in a brand new Cadillac drivng 65 mph with her face up next to her rear view mirror putting on her eyeliner. I looked away for a couple seconds...to continue shaving and when I looked back she was halfway over in my lane, still working on that makeup. As a man, I don't scare easily but she scared me so much I dropped my electric shaver which knocked the donut out of my other hand. In all the confusion of trying to straighten out the car using my knees against the steering wheel, it knocked my cell phone away
from my ear which fell into the coffee between my legs! Splashed and burned Big Jim and the twins, ruined the cell phone, soaked my new trousers, and disconnected an important call.
Damn women drivers!

Okay, that's all for today. Take care, have a good day, and thanks for looking in!

Wednesday 4 April 2012

Tag Tuesday Tags for Wednesday

Hi everybody, here are my belated tags for Tag Tuesday. The backgrounds have been water-coloured, the images are from Heartfelt Creations, and the egg-stamp and embellishments from my stash.



It's freezing cold here, snow and ice is forecasted for the Easter Weekend, with a greater probability of a white Easter than we had for a White Christmas - crazy weather!

Take care, keep warm or cool as the case may be, and thanks for visiting!