Stripes

Here´s my striped card for this week´s Wednesday Stamper´s challenge.

Technique Sunday

I´ve had fun trying some new stamping techniques with my sister this afternoon.

The first card is my favourite: It´s an emboss resist technique on mulberry paper, then painted with watercolour (a technique I´ve seen in one of Nancy Curry´s books).

The second one is a swirl stamped with Gesso and sprayed with two colours of Glimmer Mist, then added a few stamped elements.

And the third one is a combination of different techniques, stamping with water-soluble wax crayons, then with a regular stamp pad, finished with Distress Inks.

Moo Cards Girls

This week´s Make a Moo or Two theme is Girls.

Untold Story of a Boy´s Dream

This week´s Wednesday Stamper´s theme is not only Insects but the feeling you have when you´re thinking of insects. This little boy always wanted to know why he was born with butterfly wings and has found a way to reach the world of his dreams in which he´s not the only winged one ...

Skinny Book - Y is for Yearning

This week´s challenge for our Skinny Alphabet Book was to use a mask and limiting our image to the masked area wheras the outer space could be decorated in any other way.

Remember my book´s theme is "In the Mood", so I´ve transferred a copy of Feuerbach´s painting to the masked circle to illustrate "Yearning".

TMTA - Water sprites and Mermaids

My entry for this week´s TMTA challenge - probably the first mermaid piece I´ve ever done. That´s what challenges are for ...

The Deserted House

is a decorated Chipboard house.

Vintage Moos

This week´s Make a Moo or Two theme is Vintage.

My Doll and Me

... is this week´s theme for the Gothic Arches challenge. Though I´ve never been a doll person this has been fun to make.

Time

Playing around with what I´ve had lying on my desk.

BTW, I now have ATCs from 400 different artists (from 17 countries) in my collection - thanks to you all! I always have some ATCs for trade in my Flickr album, so if you´d like to trade just let me know ...

Alter Me again

My second entry for this week´s Wednesday Stamper.

This time I´ve used the image like a faux cabinet card.

Untold Story of Harry´s Love

Another untold story in my Altered Book. This one is my entry for this week´s Wednesday Stamper´s theme "Alter me".

Untold Story of the Crow

This spread tells its story without my help.

Skinny Book - G is for Gentle

This week´s challenge was to add hand or machine stitching to our letter G page. My book´s theme is "In the Mood", so my G word is gentle.

Untold Story of Love

My second entry in the "Untold Stories" book tells the story of a love - I really hope that some of these words have been spoken before W. H. Auden has lost his lover.
"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone/ Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,/ Silence the pianos and with muffled drum/ Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.// Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead/ Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead./ Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves/ Let the traffic policemen wear black gloves.// He was my North, my South, my East and West,/ My working week and my Sunday rest,/ My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;/ I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.// The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,/ Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,/ Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;/ For nothing now can ever come to any good.

This poem is so beautiful that it doesn´t even lose its beauty when translated to German:
"Anhalten alle Uhren, Telefon abstellen, der Hund mit seinem leckeren Knochen soll nicht bellen; keine Klaviere jetzt; laßt dumpf die Trommel rühren, den Sarg heraus zu begleiten, die Trauergäste zu führen.
Über unseren Köpfen sollen Flugzeuge kreisen und klagen und in den Himmel die Botschaft eintragen: Er ist tot. Den städtischen Tauben legt einen Flor um die weißen Kragen, die Verkehrspolizisten laßt schwarze Handschuhe tragen.
Er war mein Norden, mein Süden, mein Ost und mein West, meine Arbeitswoche, mein Sonntagsfest, mein Mittag, meine Mitternacht, mein Gespräch, mein Gesang; ich meinte, die Liebe daure ein Leben lang; das war falsch.
Die Sterne braucht es jetzt nicht: löscht das Licht ihnen allen; den Mond packt ein und die Sonne laßt fallen; Gießt den Ozean aus und den Wald reißt ein: Von jetzt an kann nichts mehr von Gutem sein." (translation by Hanno Helbling)

Untold Story of the Soldier

This is the first untold story in my Altered Book - What did he see? What made him blind?
So you can see what this book is all about: things that aren´t remembered, that haven´t been seen, that shall be forgotten, that can´t be told, that shall be hidden and so on ...

Untold Stories

This is the cover of my own journal "Untold Stories" I´ll start now.

The book is from 1923 and was printed in prison in Berlin-Moabit. Its original title is "Vorschriften über die Hauswirtschaft in den Gefangenenanstalten der Justizverwaltung in Preußen - Amtliche Ausgabe" which means "Directions on Domestic Economy in the Prisons of the Administration of Justice in Prussia - Official Edition".

Leonardo

"Tied together" and "Anatomy", two Leonardo themed ATCs for Dani.

Moo Cards Women

This week´s theme for the Make a Moo or Two challenge is women.

Broken Home

Some of us like to destroy their own homes, other families get torn and need decades to find together again. These two ATCs titled "Fight your personal enemies" and "Lost Sister" are for Sandra.

Ravens and Crows finished

I´ve made two more ATCs tonight, so my cards for the Ravens and Crows swap are finished.

Skinny Book - K is for Knightly

Oh no, Keron - this week´s challenge for our Skinny Alphabet Book has been too difficult!

Remember that my book´s theme is "In the Mood" and then think of a mood with a K ... hmmmm ... And I can tell you things are getting worse if you have to use insignia on your page! I didn´t want to use any military insignia but couldn´t find any other to fit works like "kind-hearted". So here´s my inevitable knightly knight, and it feels a bit like cheating because though I´m quite a moody person I can´t remember that I´ve ever felt knightly ...

Dancing on top of an arrow

Hope you don´t mind that this one is a little macabre - it´s my entry for this week´s Wednesday Stamper´s theme "Arrow".

Words and arrow by Stampers Anonymous.

Journal "Ancient Cultures"

This entry for Connie´s journal "Ancient Cultures" is too wide again to show it as a whole, so here´s the spread in two parts. When connected, the words are "Celebration of Death in Ancient Egypt".

Tagged again

... by Manja. Don´t want to be a wet blanket, so here are 6 unimportant things about me:
I need some chocolate to be creative.
You´ll never meet me without a book in my bag.
I can´t bear listening to music that I hate - I have to leave the room immediately.
I can´t bear watching people chewing chewing-gum.
It´s hard for me to be creative in the morning.
Movies and music often drive me to tears.
As most of my friends don´t like chain letters I don´t forward this - but if you like to think of some unimportant things about yourself, just let me know about them.

Playing Favorites 2

While I´m away, you can revisit my canvas "Paula" on Seth´s page here. If you want to know more about it and find for example the English translation of that Rilke quote, please have a look here.

Skinny Book - E is for Eccentric

This guy definitely likes eccentric clothes!

Our challenge for the E page was to use a crown/headpiece/tiara.

From tomorrow on I´ll be away for four days, so see you next week!

Skinny Book - J is for Jealous

Our challenge for the J page of our Skinny Alphabet Book was to use a transparency.

Trees

"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 embarrassment, like chance guests who speak another language."
("Denn gestehen wir es nur: die Landschaft ist ein Fremdes für uns und man ist furchtbar allein unter Bäumen, die blühen, und unter Bächen, die vorübergehen. Allein mit einem toten Menschen, ist man lange nicht so preisgegeben wie allein mit Bäumen. Denn so geheimnisvoll der Tod sein mag, geheimnisvoller noch ist ein Leben, das nicht unser Leben ist, das nicht an uns teilnimmt und, gleichsam ohne uns zu sehen, seine Feste feiert, denen wir mit einer gewissen Verlegenheit, wie zufällig kommende Gäste, die eine andere Sprache sprechen, zusehen.")

I have always loved this quote from Rilke´s not so well-known book "Worpswede", and I´ve been very happy to hear it spoken on a stage when I saw Tankred Dorst´s latest play "Künstler" (Artists) in the theatre in Bremen two weeks ago. Rilke is one of Dorst´s charakters, and he only lets him speak original Rilke quotes.
This one may sound strange to many of us who like to find peace and quietness in nature, but for a city person like me it´s true: Of course I like to take a walk from time to time, but pure nature is not able to make me as happy as poems, paintings, music, and other cultural works do.
The card above is my entry for this week´s Wednesday Stamper´s theme "Trees".

Sorry ...

for not having posted new artwork for a while - I´ve been too busy with finishing the Exquisite Corpse pages: making colour copies, mounting them on Bristol board, cutting them in thirds, and decorating and labelling the backs.
What a strange feeling it was to cut my own originals ...