Playing Cool

When you were young, did you belong to the cool people? Or did you stand in the corner watching the others, doing your own thing? I´ve never been cool, I´ve always had the wrong clothes, friends, hobbies, and thoughts, and it was only when I´ve been in my twenties that I´ve learned that there are people who like me nevertheless - or even because of what I am.
This is how my "Funny Animals" card for this week´s  Sunday Postcard Art came together: I wanted to use these funny peeps playing cool, and because I can only think of them as big city kids, they needed a street art surrounding.
I´ve used rubber stamps from Les Ateliers de Karine, Visible Image, Claudine Hellmuth, and Badass Stamp Studio for my card.

Train - another Corona post

I´ll understand if you´re tired of these, but this is another Corona themed post - well, it´s 2020!
This week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge theme is "Train", and as I don´t have a driving license, traveling by train is my usual option (no, I´ve never got on a plane so far).
I´ve only had 6 days off work so far in 2020, so I´ve been looking forward to my September holidays (two weeks, yeah!), and as always, I had planned to visit my sister in Berlin. But after watching some TV news about traveling by train here in Germany, I think I´ll better stay at home. But of course I´m not sure about this - I´d love to see my sister for the first time since Christmas, but don´t want to wear a mask for about 6 to 7 hours. And the Corona status in Berlin is even worse that the one in my home town. Should I stay or should I go? (thinking of The Clash of course! what a great song!)
So my thoughts about my upcoming holidays were the inspiration for my card, using rubber stamps from AALL & Create, Paper Artsy and My Favourite Things.

Summer Fun

We´ve had such a hot day today that getting your feet into water was probably a dream we all had - and it looks like the night won´t be much cooler ...
This digital collage was made with my friend Beth´s new Songbirdy kits "Sandy Toes".

Conversations

You are just jealous because the voices talk only to me -

when I first saw this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge theme "Conversations", my thoughts went the normal route, but tonight I stumbled upon an old gelli print I´ve made with a magazine photo and a rubber plate from Carabelle, and I decided to add a text stamp from Inkadinkado/ PaperArtsy, some more stamps from Visible Image, and some colour, and here it is, my card about conversations in times of Corona ... isolation leads to self conversations, and those aren´t healthy.

Maritime ATCs

These 3 ATCs were made for a swap themed "Maritime". The one on the left is my version of Loreley - not sitting on her rock singing songs this time but as a mermaid causing shipwrecking from below.

Still Life

Usually, I like to make humorous digital collages that make you smile or even laugh, but when I saw the images of Beth´s new Songbirdy kit "Anything Goes", my mind went just the other way, and I thought of recent news like companies closing because of Corona and the Black Lives Matter movement. So here´s a collage reflecting these times ...

I´m Changing

This week´s theme for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge is "Mirror", and as I´m not young anymore, looking into the mirror has become a daily adventure. Sometimes you´re satisfied, and other times you may ask yourself who this person is that scares you so much, We all need to accept that we´re changing and that this does not have to be a bad thing, no matter how it looks at first sight. We all like faces that mirror our lives and experiences, don´t we? We all win or lose our personal fights, and our faces should picture our lives in my opinion.
(For this digital collage, I´ve used elements from Foxeysquirrel, Crystal Rain and Valentina´s Creations.)

For Love

For many of us, the Middle Ages have something romantic about it - the knight in shining armour is still in our minds though we know that these times didn´t smell well, people were poor, and romantic love was a fiction.
I´ve been working on medieval manuscripts for more than four years, and if you´ve ever met them, you´re infected for the rest of your life. Gottfried von Strassburg´s Tristan and Isold has been one of my exam subjects many years ago, and it´s one of the most wonderful books I´ve ever read.
My sister Sabine has chosen "The Middle Ages" as this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge theme, and I couldn´t resist making a card about love in those faraway times.
(I´ve used rubber stamps from VLVS, Hampton, and Stampington for my card.)

Distance

Who would have thought that my card for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge would be Corona themed?? Not me!
Some days, I don´t even like to hear that word, and every day I hate to wear a mask on my way to work, but the only thing that I´m sure that helps against this virus is keeping distance, and that´s what my card is about - how far is distance? how much distance is necessary?
In my opinion, we wouldn´t need germicides and masks if we just kept distance - but most people don´t. That´s my personal experience in the town where I live - what´s yours?
(Don´t worry: where I live, we have 3 persons acually infected, and we have 330.000 inhabitants, so I´m not really worried, but I AM worried about other places on this planet.)

Fish ATCs

I´ve made these three fish themed ATCs for a swap in a German ATC group.

Torn/Broken

I´m not a fan of affirmations but believe in honesty and learning from mistakes - and I´m pretty sure that we all have been damaged and torn apart in our lives but will have to find ways to survive and make the best of what has happened to us.
This is my sample card for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge that I´ve themed "Torn/Broken", and I hope that you´ll share your thoughts about it.
My card has been made using rubber stamps from Visible Image, PaperArtsy and Reprint.

Herr von Ribbeck

Probably most German pupils have to read and/or learn Theodor Fontane´s ballad "Herr von Ribbeck" by heart at school - I remember I did ... and while you usually don´t like what you have to do for school, this poem from 1889 is so lovely that you even like it and remember it if you didn´t choose it yourself. What´s not to love about a poem that´s about a man who likes to give the pears from his favourite tree to children, and when he dies, even cares for them by making sure that there´ll be another pear tree for them after his death? 

I´ve made this card for this week´s Sunday Postcard Art challenge themed "Fruit".

(For my interpretation I´ve used rubber stamps from AALL & Create, Paper Artsy, Oxford Impressions, LaBlanche, Red Lead, Hero Arts and Stempelmine.)

Domestic Goddesses

I hate housework. Period. But I love the new Songbirdy kit "Domesticity" and made two digital collages with it, the one above with a quote from Maya Angelou, the one below with words from Virginia Woolf.

But the best thing about this kit is that it makes a perfect couple with Holliewood Studios´ kit Collage Capers v. 3 Domestic Goddess that comes with printable collage sheets. For my two moleskine journal pages I´ve transferred a background from Songbirdy with Transfer Ink, then collaged with
Hollie´s images and finished with a bit of watercolour -
much more fun than housework!

Frida Art

As this week´s Sunday Postcard Art theme is "Art", this was a good opportunity to use my new Dina Wakley Frida stamp set on a background that´s all about making your marks.

Brecht - Der Liebende nicht geladen

For a typewriter themed postcard challenge, I´ve been waiting for this new typewriter stamp, and it came together with a custom made Bertolt Brecht stamp and several postal stamps. The poem was typed directly on the card with my old typewriter. It has always been one of my favourite poems, and I´ve had it on my wall when I was a teenager. Please click on the image to enlarge it, and you´ll be able to read these timeless words written in the late 1930s.

Lynne Perrella Inspired ATCs

It seems that many people have more time for their hobbies right now, but I haven´t. I´m still working 40 hours a week and more outside my home, and as canteens are closed and there are waiting lines at the supermarket, I don´t have much time left for myself. So I´m really happy when I´m able to make something in my studio aka my kitchen table that is worth to be sent to a swap host or to be posted here on my blog.
I´ve had the lower row of Lynne Perrella themed ATCs shown here finished on my desk for weeks, and I´ve had two of them from the row above almost finished, but I just haven´t had any time left to finish my project that was on short-term for the end of May.
Yesterday I´ve had an extremely busy day at the office and even had to stay there longer, but in the evening I snatched two CDs with new music from my library and sat down at my kitchen table with a glass of wine, and I´ve had a great evening - and in the end, I had this batch of ATCs that I´m quite satisfied with and that goes in the mail tomorrow.
Sometimes it just takes a plan, one spare evening, and some music and wine to make you happy, and "art" always does ...

Distance

All we can do during these unhappy times is try to find something funny in all this and don´t lose our humour. While I´m trying hard doing this in my everyday life and mostly fail, I´m happy to have art and social media to find things that make me smile and maybe put a smile on other people´s faces ...
These digi collages have been made with a new Songbirdy kit from my friend Beth Todd that´s called "Candy Floss".

Talking about Challenges

If you know me just a little bit, you know that I´m not into pastels at all! So when I read this week´s theme for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge, my first thought was "Oh no - see you next week!"
Then I decided to play and learned once more that I can´t make anything that I like when I don´t like the theme ... So last night I decided to put this card away and don´t post it, but this morning I thought that this could be an interesting point to discuss on a blog - and SPA is really about blogging, I think.

So here´s my question for all you challenge bloggers: What do you do when you´ve made a piece you don´t like - do you show it nevertheless and discuss your problems, or do you hide it and only show your successes?

Faux Postage - Under the Sea

Faux Postage is this week´s theme for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge. I´ve stamped my card with rubber from ArtSpecially, Makistamps, Mirkwood, and Darkroom Door.

Castles

This week´s theme for the Sunday Postcard Art challenge is "buildings", and as I always have songs going on in my mind, these words from Freya Ridings´ song inspired me to make this card using rubber stamps from Stampers Anonymous, Visible Image, Paper Artsy, Carabelle and Craft Emotions.