Spring - Is It Just Around The Corner?

NO!  "Don't be silly" I can hear you say.

Following on the success of Zoe's challenge last week on JFF which was Winter, she has now decided to take us to another Season - namely Spring.  Every time I hear that word my mind goes to a cute little stamp I have of a chicken popping out of a plant pot saying "is it Spring yet?"  But, we all know "we don't do cute on here" so I had to think of something else and put my little chicken firmly back in his box.

Right, Spring.  Apart from the boing, boing springs (as in your bed or settee or even Zebedee from The Magic Roundabout) ) it makes me think of rebirth, leaves starting to sprout on the trees, flowers pushing their way up to greet the early sunshine.  Crocus, Daffodils, all those early flowers that make us look eagerly towards the better weather that heralds the fact that summer is on its way.  (That is, of course, unless you live in England where the summers are often wet, and sunny days are few and far between.)

But let's not dwell on that - let's fill our minds with all the lovely colours of Spring, enjoy the early morning light streaming through our windows, the pale sunshine that makes you want to get up and create.  Let's all think of that and enter JFF's Challenge with renewed gusto at the chance to do something other than the "C" cards we have all been so diligently creating.  Here's my attempt:

Daffodils, the flowers that always remind me of my mum, stamped and coloured in with my Twinkling H2o's and masked, then a couple of Distress Inks used for the background to add colour.  A tiny bow from string that is the same colour as the background has been added to the sentiment "For You".

Looking forward to seeing what you make for Spring.

WOYWW 131 and More Munich

Well, since I came  home on Thursday night/Friday morning I have been totally lax about crafting.  Friday was spent in a comatosed state, with my bones aching, my feet sore (I had rubbed a huge blister on my right heel and stubbed my big toe which now was like a balloon) and final prep for the Big Party at Vicky Stampers.

The party went really well and everyone had a great time, I won't post any photos on here for fear of repercussions from a certain blogger friend who seemed to think I would blackmail her with a photo I had of her woofing to the tune of Jingle Bells.  I say no more!

I was totally tired on Sunday, Monday was spent looking at Christmas decorations and deciding what was going to go up and yesterday I went to the Christmas Market in Manchester with my lovely friend Paul.  I am pleased to say that prices were much more reasonable in Manchester than they had been in Munich for hats and decorations but it was a tad more expensive for the compulsory Bratwurst.

Anyway, this is my room - as it has been since I got home on Saturday (includes aftermath of card making pre-Munich)

This is normally at least a tiny space to craft in

Did you all get a copy of Woman's Weekly a month or so ago?  Great supplement inside - mine came via Alison (CB) who collected several for members of Vicky Stampers.

Anyway, for those of you who have been following my three day trip to Munich here are a few more pictures.

Day two saw us making our way through the Rindermarkt on our way to the Viktualmarkt which wasn't a Christmas market but a daily one throughout the year.  But more of that later - here is a stall on the Rindermarkt

and the Gluhwein stand

As I said previously, Viktualmarkt is the normal daily produce market but I do enjoy seeing food in supermarkets, market stalls etc when abroad and this was no exception.  In fact it probably was my favourite of all the markets.

These two characters greeted us as we entered the market - they were outside of this pub which had a Christmas tree hanging with nothing other than fir cones on ribbon - it looked lovely!  Maybe I will collect them from now on for our big tree which is in our back garden.

This was one of the many statues dotted around the market - the only one spewing water though.  See someone has given him a rose.

Not a clue who this lady is but she certainly kept the ground clean - no litter here.  I love statues like these.

Although this was not a Christmas market you can see it had lots of stalls with Christmas things on.  The stalls selling Christmas wreaths and garlands for the home were many.

I regret not having brought one of these lavender hangers home.

I could have spent a small fortune here.

The produce stalls were fascinating

Obviously they take great pride in setting out their wares

and the cheeses smelled delicious

I'll leave you with this photo

So many I would love to show you but too much photo overload for today, I'll carry on tomorrow as we visited so many markets and I haven't shown you the Medieval one yet ... and then there is Tollwood.

Right, if you have persevered and got right down here I suggest you go and visit Ms Julia and her WOYWW blog.  You might see something other than a market - in fact I am darned sure you will see some crafting.

Apologies if I did not visit you last week - my slightly shortened but busy week went by too quickly - I will try my best to remedy this this week - honestly.

So How Was Munich?

Expensive!

Think that about sums it up.  I know I don't go out much but I could not believe the cost of things, how much prices have risen over the last twelve months.  Suffice to say we did not buy much but we did manage to spend our euros on Reibekuchen, Bratwursts and Gluhwein as we walked around the various markets.  And what lovely markets there were to wander around.

Clothes-wise I had taken lots to wrap up in but it was like Spring - honestly I never had my coat fastened up during the day.  Never wore a hat or gloves and absolutely sweltered with my coat on just over a thermal (thinnish) t-shirt.    Because it was so sunny, and the time of year, my photos came out very dark at the bottom but here are a couple from that first day:

This was a Gluhwein stall with the two towers of the Frauenkirch on the top which is an iconic symbol for Munich, and is featured on various posters around the city and, this is the post office where little children go to post a card to Baby Jesus (Christkind).

Waiting for people to go from photos was an impossible task

I gave up!

This is one of the twin towers, the other one (behind) was shrouded in plastic as there must have been some repair work going on.  We did go inside and I took a photograph of the devil's footprint.

The New Town Hall, Marianplatz Market

Spencer had his hood up - it was a bit cooler in the evening - but I still did not need a hat on.  Mind you the Gluhwein helped throw out some heat.

A fruit and veg stall

The Manger Market

Lots of figures for your own crib - and this market had the most gorgeous crib scenes you could wish to see - too expensive for me to buy though.

We loved watching the changing colours on this building

Then it was back to the hotel for a shower for Spencer before he went to bed.  I really don't know how he gets so dirty in a day - must have been when he went exploring the plane on the way over.

More tomorrow, if you are not bored.

ps Happy Birthday Andrew - today is my son's birthday and although I know he doesn't read my blog I am wishing him a Happy Birthday on here before I ring him when he gets home from work.

Happy Birthday Mary

Today it is the Birthday of a lady who is very special to the hearts of lots of us on Katy's Corner - aunty Mary, or Smart Mary as she is known universally.

I had to make a card before I left for my short trip to Germany and so I decided to make her some "inchies" and use them on a card.

The card I used was a prefolded one with four apertures, just perfect for the inchies so I set too and made five of them.  Everyone makes an extra one for errors don't they?  No, that was not the reason, I could not decide which faces to use from the ones on the Crafty Individuals set I had but I knew I was not using the young girls ones.

First of all I coloured some mountboard with Broken China, Rusty Hinge and a touch of Bundled Sage.  Then I stamped the images with black Archival Ink and cut them out.  Tough mountboard!  Took a while.  Then I went around the edges with Rusty Hinge to finish them off, mounted them on a scalloped square (Spellbinders of course) and that was that.  The extra one got placed in the bottom corner and so I made another one and stamped the birthday greeting on it.

Happy Birthday Mary - an atc is on its way, didn't forget, just ran out of time.

A Bit of Naughty

I had to do two cards for two friends and, so unlike me, I did them both the same.

Here's one of them

And here it is viewed slightly from the side so you can see the effect of the screen.  The extra "leg" is a reflection from the acetate.

I thought it rather a clever idea to make the screen from acetate and then have it curved around the figure.  Here is how I did it:  (saves you thinking)

First of all I stamped, in Stazon, the screen (Non Sequitur) on a piece of acetate.  You have to be so careful with this as the stamp can slip and also the ink can lift off in places.  Left it to dry naturally overnight.

Then I cut the screen out but left two tabs, one at either side (hope you can see these).

Next I stamped my lady (Non Sequitur again), coloured her skin tone in and her shoes and stamped an Art Nouveau image (from Tanda) down the side.

Next I marked up on my lady image where the tabs would be - you need to curve the screen whilst you do so (as in my second picture)  - and mark top and bottom of each tab width.

Then you cut between your lines to allow the tabs to sit in later.

It is now ready to assemble.  Entirely up to you what kind of card you make this into but as you can see I made mine into an easel card which I think is probably an easy one to do, particularly with the next stage - sticking it down.

Push one tab in and crease well on the back side so that it lies nice and flat.  You could use a bit of sticky tape to hold it down but I didn't bother.

Next tape the left hand side and across the bottom - it will hold well in place without any other sticking.  This will allow the recipient room enough to handle the card and push in the tab on the right hand side when they display it.

There all done!  An easy card but a tiny bit different.  You could, of course, colour in the screen but I chose to leave mine as it was to display the lady more.

Here is the other one, just a different piece at the base (both bases are Tanda).

Am sure both ladies will cope with sticking the tabs in - I did put a note on the back of each card.  Hope so anyway.

One of them was Diane who had a birthday on Wednesday and the other Ann who has a Special Birthday today - so Happy Birthday to both of you!

Winter? Of Course It Is.

Thank goodness I still had my Christmas stamps out and could manage to do something to fit in with this theme of Zoe's.

What does "winter" conjure up for you?  "Chestnuts roasting on an Open Fire, Jack Frost Nipping at Your Nose".   Are you all singing along?  Cold, crisp mornings, pretty frosty patterns on leaves and plants, bare trees prettying up the landscape, warm fires and hot drinks.

In my case, as I am in Munich at the moment, (oh so clever being able to blog from there without my laptop - just kidding this is a scheduled post) I need to add Gluhwein, hot steaming cups "mitt Rhum".  Oh what a different woman I become when out of my own country, knocking back those steaming alcoholic drinks.  I can vouch I will be having two or three of these per day, along with Reibekuchen, Bratwursts and anything else that takes my fancy.  But is Munich ready for me and my new boots and my stripey socks?

Trendy or Wot?  (one son thinks NOT)

But I digress as I sit dreaming of my few days away visiting the Christmas Markets in Germany the weekend before I go.  But to the task in hand.

I did not want not make another Christmas Card and so I thought of bare trees as a landscape but to be honest I did not want to even make another card.  So I turned to my dies and a current favourite - Spellbinders Poinsettia.  Isn't it a gorgeous die?  At the moment that and the Anemone are my two favourites. Had a little bit of paper left over from when I was dem'ing at Leigh for Oyster Stamps (hi Graham and Tracy) which is absolutely gorgeous.  Wish I had had the forethought to buy some.  It is like a parchment type paper, in a sort of smoky blue but one side has this almost greeny yellow iridescence about it.  It's fab - pity it won't show up here in the photo.  Wonder if they still have it at the shop?

Anyway, I cut the poinsettia out and then took a tin from my cupboard, painted it with Snowflake Fresco paint to give it a light base and then put Ice Blue over the top.  When it was dry I dabbed Sky Fresco over it with a piece of crumpled up Cling Film.  It was finished off with Ultramarine Stazon snowflakes.

The Poinsettia was stuck to a circle of silver mirror card and placed in the centre to cover up the clear middle that said "National Trust".  All I have to do now is make something to go inside it and I have a gift for someone.

This photo does not do the die justice.

Rightio - now to see what Zoe has said in her intro to this month's themes on JFF - hope to see lots of entries.