Old Book Pages

Hi everybody!
Hope not too many of you are still suffering under snow, floods and other natural disasters. This winter has been really hard for many people. We have been extremely lucky here and had a mild winter, and spring seems to be on its way.

The challenge at Moo Mania is to use old book pages, and at Artful Times it is 'boxing clever', so I have combined both challenges in this piece. I have used another of my Bresso cheese boxes - good that I eat lots of cheese! I covered the box with strips of torn paper, including some illustrated pages, using the strips in different directions. When it was dry I gave it a coat of diluted gesso, and then a coat of modpodge to seal it. I added some TH tissue tape with butterflies and music notes. I punched out 2 butterflies from black cardboard and book paper and layered them, adding some bead trim for their bodies and antennas. I added a strip of beading all round the rim to finish it off. The box has been photographed on an old Art Nouveau dictionary with a beautiful binding and endpapers.

Today the weather stayed dry again, so I was able to get out for my 2 walks again, and clocked up just under 16.000 steps. The picture here is showing a bronze relief on the town walls just opposite the little pier where the boats stop. It shows how the towpath and town used to look. The houses haven't changed that much, but the ships, and of course, today they do not need to be towed by horses, although there are still a lot of horses here.

Here's wishing you all a good day, whatever you are up to. Take care, and thanks a lot for coming by!

Double Tuesday

Hi everybody!

Today is double Tuesday again, which means for me that's it's time for a tag at Tag Tuesday and for a new challenge at Try it on Tuesday.

At Tag Tuesday our theme this week is insects - not my fave creatures, as I always think of little things creeping, flying and crawling around, but I do know how important many insects are for us, and some are really beautiful. I love watching dragonflies and butterflies, with their varied colours and shimmering wings, so I have them on my tags. I made 2 large tags, which belong together. The beaded dragonfly is one that Donna sent me from Mexico, and it made a nice decoration here.

The tags were distressed with DI in crushed olive, dried marigold and tumbled glass and then spritzed with water and dried. I stamped some little swirls in the bakground, but they are here hardly visible. The flower and dragonfly stamps I have used are from a set by Laurence and Morgan, and have been stamped in Archival black. I did a bit of colouring with prismalos and gel pens, and gave the wings some shine with Viva glitter liner. The large dragonfly is a diecut from TH, and has been made with hand-painted paper, the smaller one on the left is one that Diane made and sent me some time back, and fits here perfectly. The leaf and flower are from Prima. The lovely quote on the right tag is from Leonardo da Vinci.

I am aslo linking to FSC, build it up challenge, and have used 6 different stamps.

 At Try it on Tuesday our theme for the next 2 weeks is 'handmade', and must have some handwriting on it. I painted a large tag, and sprinkled it with fairy dust. The clouds, moon and houses were drawn with gel-pen, using a stencil that Sue sent me. The text has been written by hand, and the beads are also handmade.

The background has also been stamped and embossed with gold perfect pearls.

 I was able to enjoy 2 nice walks by surprisingly mild weather today, and clocked up 17000+ steps on my little gadget. When I walk along the towpath by the Rhine I love looking up at the little houses hidden behind the walls. But can you see what's on the wall?

Yes, it's a little canon, a reminder of the good old days when strangers were not always welcome!

I can't remember it being used recently!

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

Star signs and clouds

Hi everybody!

The weekend here went by very quickly. We had another great day, very windy, but sunny and quite mild, so I enjoyed my walks. This afternoon was crafting time, I need to get my Dt projects for next month done now before I go for my eye OP, as I will have to take a break after it for a few days at least.

This is a journal page I made last week for the 'Zodiac Signs' challenge at AJJ. This didn't turn out as I was hoping, but that's nothing new, and I think it's something we all often have to cope with. I painted the background with metallic colours, which look good, but are always hard to photograph. I drew the constellation for Sagittarius and wrote all the negative and positive attributes. A lot of them seem to fit me well, especially the negative ones! The large stras have been stamped and white embossed, the rest has been drawn with a white gel-pen.

The day started off with a wonderful morning sky:

 

People were once again out for walks, with their kids and horses....

 

The Rhine ships always take their cars for a cruise:

 

And the clouds were once again magnificent. I like how the rays of the sun are shining through under the dark clouds:

 

The park is full of crocuses:

 

And the evening sky rounded off a beautiful day.

 

Hope you all had a good weekend, too!

 Take care, and thanks a lot for coming by!

Looking to the skies

Hi everybody!

Hope you are all safe and warm, and that those who are snowed in at home are finding time for crafting and doing nice things. It has been a strange day here - after a night of heavy rain and howling winds, today was very blustery, but mild and dry. This morning we had 15°, this evening at 6pm it was 17°, quite astonishing for the middle of February, so I was out walking a lot, enjoying being blown by the wind and warmed by the sun at the same time. I managed 16000 steps, so that was fine.

At Moo Mania the theme is old book paper. I have made a rather grungy mini key-ring book. The covers have been cut from corrugated card covered with book paper, the images inside are all printed onto paper, and are are from Gecko Galz. I cut the inside pages exactly to Moo size and the covers a little bit wider. I glued 2 pages back to back each time to give them more stability. I finished them off with some TH metal embellishments.

The sky was really wonderful, the clouds were racing over the sky, and really fascinating:

There are clumps of snowdrops and crocuses everywhere, they have opened up overnight.

 

And I found some more strange fungus growths:

I have never found one like this before, the colours were just wonderful. I climbed up a mossy bank to get the picture, and a little boy passing by with his Mum asked, 'Mum, what's she doing up there?' Mum answered, 'We don't want to know!' Well, at least you all now know what I was up to!

Stay curious, stay safe, have a great day, and thanks a lot for coming by!

And another collage....

Hi everybody!

Hope you are all keeping warm and safe; I know there have been more floods in England, and snow-storms in the States - hope your weather will soon be better. I got soaked going out yesterday as we had quite a downpour here, so I sat in the kitchen and made another collage to dry off and warm up. I used the same painted and embossed background as in yesterday's collage, and more magazine cut-outs. I get the magazines from a neighbour, who gets them from a friend, and as I am at the end of the row I can cut them up afterwards, and they give me a good supply of material for collages. The image at the bottom right is a Gecko Galz one, it fitted nicely.  I wanted to show how women in different parts of the world live different lives, and sometimes I think it's a pity that we don't always take enough interest in others, but just concentrate on our own pleasures and problems. I used some rub-ons as embellishments, and some self-adhesive alphas and leaves.

Here you can see the double spread with the collages from yesterday and today - they were not made to match each other, but still seem to complement each other well.

Today it was dry, and cloudy/sunny, so I was able to enjoy 2 good walks, with a total of 17000 steps. Right now the wind is howling, and will probably be blowing more rain clouds along.

I am linking to Paper Saturdays and Paint Party Friday

This lovely chap really posed for me - I paid him in bread and salad!

More budding hedges:

The sky was wonderful again:

And I loved the growths on this tree trunk, they look like shells:

Have a great day, whatever you are up to, take care, and thanks a lot for coming by!

And they called it puppy love....

Hi everybody!

Today the weather looks dismal, and  'they' have threatened us with rain, storms, sleet and snow showers, but tomorrow should be better, and on Saturday we will be getting warm winds from the south. Nothing like a bit of change, is there? Sorry about all those in England and France, where there has been severe flooding, and in the States, where the snow storms continue to disrupt life.

Yesterday was the usual wild/cloudy/ windy weather, but it was good to walk about in. We started off with a beautiful morning sky and sunrise, which never ceases to fascinate me.

In the afternoon I was not in a good mood - I dropped the milk, broke a cup, and could find nothing that I wanted on my table as it is was so full of clutter. So I worked on one of my brush-wipe pages with some background stamping and embossing, and then threw on a lot of the mess I found - various images, magazine cut-outs, rub-ons, a little photo frame and some vintage scraps, and made it into a collage, which I have given the grand title of 'And they called it puppy love....'. I am linking to Conny's 'Mix it Monthly' - pets challenge, although the colours are not quite as she was expecting, and to Paint Party Friday, hosted, as always, by Eva and Kristin. I still have enough on my table to collage all the walls in my apartment, perhaps I should do it!

When I had finished I went for another walk round our little town, and came home to a nice cup of cappuccino and a slice of cake, which I think I deserved after completing more than 14000 steps. The clouds were being chased across the sky again, I love to watch them.

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