IW #4 Happy making art!

The fourth Inspiration Wednesday. went quite well.

I had to subsitute burnt umber for raw umber but it seems to look ok.

The blueish washi tape on the long thin tag was purchased in Salzburg...so cool to actually use this at last ;)

I don't own any large flower stamps like Donna's...
...I do have my eye on those new flower ones of Tim's though :)
So I made up a little stamped collage element to fill the corner instead.

I had a similar problem to Donna with the quality of words to pick out on the dictionary pages!!! For no particular reason other than they were more interesting than any others, I highlighted...

"weave together"
"knock-out"
"observe with care"
"to have faith"
"fabulous"
"strengthen"
"mental trifle"!!!

What did I learn this time? ;)
1. Ranger Glue and Seal seems to be identical to Ranger matte medium in what it does!
2. You get some interesting effects by removing the colour after you have put it on ;)
3. If you have Golden heavy bodied (thick) acrylic like me (and not the fluid acrylic Donna has) you need to add a LOT of glazing liquid to make it thin enough to make a washy effect....I had to rub like mad to get the colour off because it was so thick ;) lol
4. A very soft pencil can double up as a charcoal one at a pinch....but it won't make a mark on Ranger matte medium!!! I had to outline the highlighted words with a bit of gesso, let it dry, then use the pencil over this and blend!!!

Thanks for looking.

xoxo Sioux

IW #4 First Stage

Having some fun again for the fourth Inspiration Wednesday.
Found some old dictionary book text images on Pinterest and printed out for the background.

Layers of gesso.....some wiped away!
Moulding paste through a stencil and words picked out in the text and emphasised with a soft pencil and smudged.

Now to stamp something and add some colour ;)

Thanks for looking.

xoxo Sioux

Last day of Karneval!

Our last day (Sunday) started with going to the service in the Dom.

It was the only chance of seeing something of the interior!

We kept up with most of the service in German...even managed to sing along to some sections!! No pictures though ;(

No chance of seeing the special three Kings exhibit. We did however get a brief look at some of the interior after the service but they soon hurried everyone out of the place and shut the doors!!!

We went for coffee and cake...can't miss out on coffee and cake can you?

Strolled along the river side and gazed at the Rhine.

This section of houses looks almost ancient but they were all modern rebuilds after the war.

We even walked all the way to the Chocolate factory museum but it was inevitably closed!!

The bonus was seeing his neat sculpture on the way...made out of what looked like old tractor parts :)

Across from there was a mustard museum...really just a glorified shop but hey it was open!

It's situated on Holzmarkt.

(Should you ever want to go)

We got a little concerned to see shops boarding their windows up!!!

Another Kolsch was in order...

...before we saw the main parade of the day..they have large viewing stands all around the route.

...no great photo's as I'm so short and there were so many people in front of me!!! lol

We walked a little way more into town and did find a bit of a gap in the crowds to see the next bit of parade.

The procession participants throw candy to the crowds and the little boy in the red jacket managed to grab most of it...his mum was rolling her eyes at him...lol...although I did manage to get one of the roses they throw too :)

We had a great time even if it did not pan out quite how we expected...we left on Monday (the really important parade happens then) but we were sort of glad we did not have to weave our way through the large crowds that were already pouring into the city on the trains, as we waited for our early train to the airport.
We will just have to go back one day....think it will have to be for the Christmas markets next time :)

Thanks for looking

xoxo Sioux

Karneval 1, sightseeing 0

Valentines day dawned and our breakfast in the Hotel Glockengasse was beyond great...for such a small hotel it's amazing! Great choices, eggs freshly cooked to order...super.

Only about 10 mins from the cathedral so we thought we would start off with that....

....hard to believe that this was hardly damaged during the bombings of WW2 whilst the rest of Cologne was more or less flattened! Such a tragedy.

Also a tragedy that we could not go inside....can you believe it was shut during the day because of carnival! I can sort of understand, with all those people and the fact some of them can get a bit worse for wear shall we say ;) but this was really the main reason we had decided on Cologne as my honeybee is researching why his churches alter is based on the one in Cologne cathedral.

Took plenty of pictures of the church exterior though!

What next?

Well we had wanted to visit some of the art galleries so we walked the short distance to the archaeology museum only to find...

...you guessed it.....closed!!! It turned out that all the galleries were closed during carnival!!!

These beautiful pieces were on show on the outside behind glass so apologies for the reflections.

Went on a long walk about after that and saw some great marching bands...

.

..then stopped off for a few more Kolsch!

The round trays hold the full beer glasses and waiters will come round and replenish your empty ones ;)

Some street food...

Basically rosti potatoes which were delish...

... and a sweet Valentine cake each.

We ended the day with a romantic Italian meal.....we were very lucky to get a table in a nice little place just round the corner from the hotel.

Thanks for looking and I'll share the last day tomorrow.

xoxo Sioux

Valentines Day shared with 250,000 others!

We have spent the Valentines weekend away.

We also spent it surrounded by 250,000 other people! Or what felt like it!

We did know the Karneval was on...

we knew it was popular...

however, nothing quite prepares you for the reality of it!!!

So where do you think we went?

Couple of clues...

...4711?

...Twin spired Gothic church?

We flew to Cologne!

We arrived mid afternoon Friday and were in need of sustenance so we tried to find a restaurant but the ones we fancied...everyone else did....so they were full!

Hey ho....join in with the rest and have a Kolsch! The lager/bier in Cologne is called kolsch NOT bier....you get funny looks if you ask for simply bier! lol Brauhaus Sion was our first kolsch pub....it was packed and we managed to grab a small table for two.

It's served in small .2ltr glasses in the bars and there are quite a lot of bars and I don't know how many different breweries making kolsch!

Everyone does fancy dress....even if it's only a hat....but most do go the whole hog...

or cow! lol

I'll share some more tomorrow.

Thanks for looking

xoxo Sioux

My Valentine ;)

My Valentine card for my honey bee was based on the inspiration tag for Feb from T!m.

I used the blocking technique for the background and sort of some of the feel of his tag...except no stamping at all apart from the date stamp in the top corner!!!

Shocking I know!! LOL

The rest were die cuts and a heart I hand cut from some felt!

Inside was a digital collage of elements from Designer Digitals (love the stuff there).

I've just noticed I can link this to the current That's Crafty Challenge...so that's what I will do :)
Thanks for looking

xoxo Sioux