Extraordinary Lives

One thing that really lightens up a dark winter day is bird watching. Now that all around them is just white, it´s easy to watch the smallest birds from larger distances - so much fun!

CCC: Scribble Stain Distress

Here´s my card for Linda´s latest Compendium of Curiosities Challenge themed Scribble Stain Distress.

In Standby Position

Only a few days left before Christmas - the sleigh is waiting, the reindeer calling. This is my entry for this week´s SPA challenge themed "Santa".

Snow

Have you tried to take a photo of all that snow around you? Well, I did, and I thought that pictures can´t show what you see - so I played a bit with Photoshop until the mystery of the real environment showed up.

Totally Striped

With all that snowy white outside my window and that b/w calendar I have to make, it was a pleasure to see some colours in the evenings when knitting this set as a Christmas gift for myself.

It´s that time of the year again ...

... to write the calendar for my mother - not much time for other projects right now. Here´s the March page in progress with the ink not dried and the photo not glued down. Nine more months to do!

The Beauty Inside

This bookmark is a small gift for someone who loves to read as well as to travel.

Famous Last Words

This candle is for a lover of German literature, and while the front shows a portrait of Goethe, the back gives his famous last words: More Light!

The candle will be accompanied by a bookmark with some of Goethe´s words: You should take things as they are, but you also should make things the way you want them to take.

Everything That Grows

This is my entry for the Paper Whimsy ATC lottery in December. The theme is "All the World´s a Stage", and as a Shakespeare lover of course I couldn´t resist to incorporate him and verses from one of his sonnets.

CCC: Rock Candy Distress Stickles

This week´s Compendium of Curiosities Challenge is about using the Tim Holtz Rock Candy Distress Stickles. I´ve made another Christmas card using the distress ink colours wild honey, rusty hinge, and broken china. The scan doesn´t show the sparkling Stickles, so I´ve taken a photo of a detail to show it - I think this festive sparkle is perfect for the Three Wise Men scene!

Warning ...

... this is SO addictive! You should buy enough candles before trying this technique!

Stamped Candle

Today I tried a technique that I´ve seen in a Stampington video some time ago - it makes decorating a candle really quick and easy. I´m very pleased with the result, a lovely little gift.

Toys

This Christmas card is my entry for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed "Toys". The German book scrap says "that they could hardly wait until the evening came" - the perfect expression of the excitement probably most of us have felt at Christmas when we were children.

I Heard the Bells

Somehow everything turns into a Christmas card now ...

but that´s a good opportunity to combine making Christmas cards and playing with challenge themes. This way Mary Green´s monthly collage images found their way onto this very large (5,9 x 8,3 inches) Christmas card.

From Above

"Heavenly Creatures" is this week´s Wednesday Stamper´s challenge theme, and I thought it would be appropriate to make another Christmas card with my favourite angel stamp from Marks of Distinction. Text from Magnolia, star from Art Impressions.

Time for Christmas Cards

It´s time to make Christmas cards now!
I´ve made some this afternoon, and these are my favourites so far.
The one on the left has an angel from a Raphael painting, a book page scrap and two stamps from Flamingo Art and Magnolia.

Stampington´s Three Kings stamp was overpainted with Glimmer Glam "Hay Ride" and then sprayed with three colours of Glimmer Mist. The Hay Ride Glimmer masks the stamped image.

The last card has the Magnolia text stamp and the Flamingo Art border again, combined with a stone angel (from Kelly Burton) as an inkjet transfer made with Transfer Ink (if you don´t know that product, please have a look at my Youtube videos).

Anything Can Happen

I have just received the new issue of "Just Stamps", the German stamping magazine. You´ll find these two ATCs on Page 16, and as always, you´ll find many interesting articles and projects in it.

A Promise

This is my entry for the Paper Whimsy November ATC challenge themed "Doors". I like the image of this girl because of the doubt shown in her face - I think it must be a big promise that may convince her to open the door ...
Images by Paper Whimsy of course.

Baby, it´s getting cold outside!

In case you´ve missed me and my blog posts during the last ten days - the reason is that even for a good multi-tasker it´s not possible to knit while making mixed-media projects :-)
Did I already mention that I always give some Christmas gifts to myself? Not all of these shown above, of course.

Father and Son

Postage Stamps are this week´s TMTA theme, and I couldn´t resist making another Postage People ATC, using a stamp from Lost Aussie Design here.

CCC: Perfect Distress

Perfect Distress is this week´s Tim Holtz technique for Linda´s Compendium of Curiosities challenge.
I have used wild honey, broken china, and dusty concord for the background and stamped with aged mahogany and chipped sapphire, then used Perfect Pearls in Rust and Blue Patina - what a pity that the scan doesn´t show the shimmer!

Who Needs Legs ...

Here´s my 4 x 6 entry for this week´s Wednesday Stamper´s challenge themed Legs.

Headdresses

Three ATCs I´ve made for a swap that my sister is hosting.

A House for my ATCs

Maybe you remember that I´ve decorated a chipboard house to store my Gothic arches in it? Well, that box came in a set of three, and last weekend I´ve finally decorated the second one to store some of my ATCs in it.

CCC: Extreme Masking

It´s time for another CCC technique again, and the theme for this week is Extreme Masking. As suggested, I left out step 5 here, so it isn´t that extreme :-)

The Witch´s One-Time-One!

If you´re a regular visitor of my blog, you won´t be surprised to see verses from Goethe´s "Faust" as my entry for this week´s SPA challenge themed "Witches". I imagine the man on the right could be Goethe himself, reading from his drama, but maybe it´s just a second witch or a magician ... I can´t tell! But here´s the spell:

"This you must ken! From one make ten, and two let be, make even three, then rich you´ll be. Skip o´er the four! From five to six, the witch´s tricks, make seven and eight, ´tis finished straight; and nine is one, and ten is none, that is the witch´s one-time-one!"

(This translation is very close to the German original: "Du mußt versteh´n, aus Eins mach Zehn. Die Zwei laß geh´n und Drei mach gleich, so bist du reich. Verlier die Vier! Aus Fünf und Sechs, so sagt die Hex, mach Sieben und Acht, so ist´s vollbracht: Und Neun ist Eins, und Zehn ist keins. Das ist das Hexen-Einmaleins!")

A Heart needs a Home

I´ve had fun with my book page yesterday, so I´ve made another page today plus the cover for my book.
Do you know the song "A Heart needs a Home" by Richard Thompson? "The world´s no place when you´re on your own/ A heart needs a home", it says, and that´s oh so true. If you don´t know that song, maybe you´d like to take a moment and watch a video from 1975 here.
This page is my second entry for this week´s Wednesday Stamper´s challenge themed Hearts.

And on the right you can see the book cover with this page lurking through the window.

Home is where the Heart is

If you´re reading my blog from the beginning, you might remember that once I hated hearts - really! Well, today I own some lovely heart stamps and like to use a heart brad from time to time, so it´s obvious that your likes and dislikes don´t have to be carved in stone ...
This week´s theme for the Wednesday Stamper´s challenge is Hearts, and I´ve made a chipboard book page (about 4 x 7,6 ") here using some favourite stamps from Stampington, Darkroom Door, Paper Artsy and Stampers Anonymous.

Steampunk

It was a surprise to find out that Steampunk and Zetti have one thing in common: when I start making ATCs for a swap I don´t need any ideas in my head but just play with the things I have and get results I´d never had thought of in the beginning. These Steampunk ATCs were made for a group swap.

A is for Architecture

It´s been a while since I´ve posted the last spread in my own Alphabet Discovery Altered Book. Here´s my letter A spread illustrating not only the word architecture - the German words mean "I do not know my town any more", and this is the feeling that I know too well and that inspired these pages. Have you ever moved to another town and found that you´ve lost contact to what and whom you´ve left behind? Have you come back after years and years to find out that you don´t even remember the names of the streets in the quarter where you´ve lived? Have you ever mixed up streets or buildings or shops of the cities where you lived? (Well, this didn´t happen to me yet, but my mother does this all the time, so I´m sure it will happen to me when I´m over 80 ...) Did you ever walk along a street you believed to know well and then discovered that something had changed, but you couldn´t name it? You´ll find some places of my life in this spread - a map of Bremen on the right, a few silhouettes and a faux postage stamp of Cologne - but where is the home that I´ve posted in the left corner? Did I leave it behind somewhere or is it where I live now? Maybe it got lost on my way, or I´ll find it one day, or it´s just in my mind.

Alone with Trees

Again, I have tried to illustrate a text by Rainer Maria Rilke that I like very much, not only because I have lived near the place that he wrote about for ten years ... this is from his book about Worpswede:
"For let it be confessed: landscape is foreign to us, and we are fearfully alone amongst trees that blossom and by streams that flow. Alone with a corpse one is not nearly so defenceless as when alone with trees. For however mysterious death may be, life that is not our life is far more mysterious, life that is not concerned with us, and which, without seeing us, celebrates its festivals, as it were, at which we look on with a certain embarassment, like chance guests who speak another language."
I have written these words on the back of my 4 x 6 postcard and hope my swap partner will like them though they may seem strange for many people who like trees and maybe even feel familiar with them.

Two Bookmarks

I´ve made two bookmarks for swaps in one of my groups, one with a Zetti theme and the other one (front and back shown here) with the theme "Hot Air Balloons".

This post is for you, Bonnie!

I´ve had several comments on my blog during the last years asking where to buy or get appropriate postage stamps for making postage people. Most people commenting don´t leave their e-mail addy, so I´m not able to answer elsewhere than in the comments. But as I doubt that readers come back to find an answer to their questions there, I´ve decided to make an extra blog post.
I´ve received most of my stamps on envelopes from swap returns or as ephemera with swaps. But sometimes I´ve purchased some great stamps in the department store.
When I sent out the returns from my own Postage People blog swap, I sent a little bag with head stamps to everyone. I´ll do that for you, Bonnie, and other people who told me that they´re not able to find the right stamps. Please send me an e-mail with your address, and I´ll send a few stamps to you; just click on the "e-mail me" link in the sidebar of my blog.

School Days - the finished book

So here it is, my finished tip-in book themed School Days. Many thanks to all artists who have participated: Lorna, Jeannie, Beckie, Janne, Letha, Debra, Connie, Colette, and Sharron.
Many of you have included personal memories into your pages, and some have sent some personal ephemera from their own school days.

School Days

Do you remember my tip-in project themed School Days? After I have received the pages from the other participants and have showed my covers here, I´ve finally made my own spread tonight. I´ll show you the finished book in the next days.

My school days have been from 1970 to 1983, so you will remember that there were NO stylish satchels or clothes as pupils have nowadays. The building you see here was my actual school from the 5th to the 13th year. It had closed a few years after I´ve left school, but I´m happy to hear that it will soon be used as a school again! Isn´t it a lovely building? It was built in 1905, and it has been so nice to learn in such an old building and not in one of those new ones where each floor looks like all the others.

The boy on the right is one of my favourite photos from my family album, but I don´t know the girls on the left - this image just spoke to me, and the reason why I painted their cardigans in blue for the younger girl and red for the older girl is because during my first years at school I had to wear the same sweater design in blue first (which I got from my five years older sister) and then in red again three years later (from my eight years older sister) ... do I have to mention that it always had been out of fashion when I got the first one? Well, I´ve been an ugly child, and these clothes made it even worse. I´m happy to say that things like that didn´t really matter in those old times.

The words "Don´t do this and don´t do that" are from a song of my school days, Supertramp´s "School" from 1974. Whenever I hear that song or that LP (not CD of course!), it reminds me of my own school days.