Last Chance!!

I finally found some time to make one last journal page for Gill's 'Things with Eyes' theme at Art Journal Journey!

I bought a bargain Art Pad today (£3.99) from Aldi and although I brought a smaller journal with me I decided to use this new one.
The paper is very sturdy and I used water colour pencils, distress ink and stencils and lots of doodling to provide the background for the magazine image! I cut off the flowers in her hair and drew in some more using water colour pencils. The words came from the same magazine and the medallion on her necklace! On a whim I opened the Christmas craft box and found the felt and button circle for her nose!!

We have a day of very mixed weather, managed to get caught in the rain once but now we have a clear blue sky and sunshine.

Thanks for looking, Chris
ps I went back and bought another pad this afternoon

I think I'll take you back to Toulouse!

Wow! What a week! Since Monday I have been into town with hubby to see a film (Angel Has Fallen - which could have been reduced by at least half an hour...that said we did enjoy it!!), prepared for and had some fun with my Messy Day Ladies, been on a canal day trip with my family, much fun had there I can tell you, and now we are tucked up in our caravan planning to rest, read and in my case have some crafty time. If the weather is OK we will probably head into Morecambe at some time for Vintage By The Sea. 

The only crafting done was my TIOT piece that you will hopefully get to see next Tuesday!

So...I will take you back to Toulouse.

It really is a city of contrasts....

...from grand buildings...

...to beautiful churches.

I loved these narrow streets..

..and I also loved that so many of the buildings had fabulous sculptured doorways and windows.

We walked past this clock every time we went into the city...and there were balconies to be seen everywhere! 

The Post Neuf Bridge over the Garronne river was a must...

..especially to see this..known as the hidden Devil (but is a boy with donkey ears!!)..but we spotted it straight away!

From very modern to crumbling...I'm sure by now you know my preference!

I hope that it won't be so long until my next post!

Thanks for looking, Chris

T stands for a Tale of Toulouse!

Hello everyone! I've been having some crafting time and some sorting time...nothing too taxing though!
We are at last having some Summer weather! 
I apologise for not getting to visit everyone last week!

Toulouse!!! 
It's a long tale to tell, you may need to grab a drink!!

Our visit to Toulouse started with a train journey from Avignon.We had spotted a cafe in Arles at the station so planned on buying some lunch there - we were due to have a 30 minute stop so thought we might have time for a coffee too! Unfortunately it wasn't open on Sundays...so no coffee and a prospect of no lunch.

The station at Arles has some lovely art work - it was hot so I wet my 'magic' scarf and put it on my head....thanks for that flattering photo dear!!!

I had some nuts and biscuits in my bag and we both had full water bottles but we looked forward to buying some lunch from the buffet carriage...which we soon found was shut! Fortunately there was a trolley that finally got to us at around 2.00pm and we had a welcome, but quite stodgy sandwich.You can also see that I pushed aside my little journal.

The coastal route and on up to Toulouse provided some lovely scenery though! Sorry about the poor quality - the train windows weren't very clean

By the time we arrived in Toulouse we had finished our water but we knew that our apartment was only a 7 minute walk away! We had been told to ring the concierge when we arrived at the station and he would meet us. We rang the number...several times...and got a recorded message! We decided to walk to the apartment - no one there...and it was hot!(Did I tell you it was hot?) The gate was shut and, as it was on the sunny side of the road we crossed over to wait in the shade...of course I continued to ring...nothing! Hubby crossed back over the road and enquired at the cafe next door! The chef said he had seen the owner earlier in the day so he assumed all was well at that point and asked we would like to come and sit down, which we did, and had a cold drink! At last the chef said that the owner had arrived...by this time over 2 hours had passed....and it wasn't the owner, but another apartment owner who had his wife and two people to use his apartment. 
I decided to ring the booking agent but went into a queue ...meanwhile hubby had gone outside to see the other owner who knew our owner and had rung him and passed his phone to hubby! 
At last I got through only to find that hubby was already sorting something out! 
So that should be that...but...he was quite a distance away and could be there in 40 minutes! When he arrived he was very apologetic and told us he had no idea what had happened to his usually reliable concierge and told us to wait until he and his girlfriend had checked the apartment.....
Five minutes later he was back and said there was no way we could use the apartment and would we mind staying in a hotel for one night until he could get the apartment clean! Fortunately the hotel was a short walk away and in a chain we often use! He helped with our luggage and paid the bill.
He was such charming young man and we felt sorry for him that he had been let down.

By the time we got in the hotel three and a half hours had passed! We had a freshen up and at last set off to get ourselves a meal!
Toulouse is a big city and lots of restaurants were open.

It's now time to join Bleubeard and Elizabeth for T Stands For Tuesday.

We both had salads, mine with goats cheese tartines and I think hubby had a Caesar salad. Hubby had a beer while I stuck to water.

The next morning we had a phone call to ask us to collect the keys from the concierge at our apartment at midday....great we thought, except that he was there to clean the apartment and we would not be able to actually move in until 2.30!
So we went for a meal...
Oh! So that's it you're thinking...when we arrived at the apartment we went across to the supermarket and bought basics and some salad for our evening meal. 
I picked up a folding chair and it fell apart...and the socket for the coffee machine kettle could only be accessed by moving the dining table....not a problem, no really, not a problem!!

It was quite a warm night but we managed, then found an electric fan so we could at least have a cool breakfast (hubby had been about 100 yards down the road to the Boulangerie)....NOPE!!! The fan didn't work so we called the concierge who came straight away...couldn't fix it ...rang the owner and we gathered that he was being told to fix it in exactly the same way he had tried to fix it himself...all to no avail and the owner said he would be there at Midday with a new one..which he was..so we were able to go and get a meal

Now, you can see by now that about all we had done was eat, and our cameras show this
Over Sunday and Monday we only have the train photos and these of the view from the hotel room!

 Toulouse is being updated and I hope we can go back and see this area one day

We also have one of the building that housed the Tourist Information centre

Oh! The concierge...he had had a family crisis, didn't ask what, and hadn't got his phone with him! 

Did we we give this place a bad review...no...it was no-ones fault and it is in a lovely area - improvements to the road were made before they started on the Station area and has all the facilities needed...I did however point out the shortcomings to the owner and I am currently updating his booklet as it had quite few things missing or poorly explained! We have spoken on the phone a couple of times.
Yes, we would stay here again! It was close enough to all areas we wanted to visit.

More of the fabulous places we visited another time!!

Thanks for looking, Chris

Sur le Pont and a few other things!

Hi everyone! I have lost my way a bit with tidying my craft room - there is a tree outside my room, very welcome when it's sunny but dark when it's raining!

Not too dark for a bit of crafting though!!

I have made a tag for Tag Tuesday's challenge - Anything Goes.

I started this so long ago I can't remember any details about how I made the background. I added AALLandcreate stamps and some bits of chocolate paper that were on my desk...Ooops! The balloon lady was cut from an ATC that didn't quite look right when I made a few for the WOYWW crop. The sentiment seemed to be just right! 

I also made a journal page for Gill's theme at Art Journal Journey - 'Anything with Eyes'
It's a simple page...

...using an image cut from a booklet about Christmas food!!! 
For most of my childhood we lived in a cottage between two farms(well, one was across the road actually)and I spent a lot of time playing with friends on one of them and 'helping' at the other.
I saw quite a few calves being born too! 

Cows are such gentle creatures and I still can't resist stopping to look if I see some in a field. We like to go to Sizergh Farm shop too and last weekend when we called in the cows were being milked and I couldn't resist breathing in the reminiscent odour!  

I was lucky enough to do some volunteer work at a National Trust farm for a few years not so long ago and it was then that I gave up eating beef.

I used a baby wipe to add some pale blue paint, some stencilling and stamping with AALLandcreate's Tracy Evans's daisy. I found the sentiment separated from it's sheet. I added some inky spatters and coloured in the daisy with the same ink.

Now, back to Avignon and the bridge!
We very nearly didn't make it. I told you that we bought a joint ticket...well, in an effort to make my bag lighter in the heat I removed quite a lot and..yes..the ticket, which I mistook for a used one! We set out in the morning and had walked quite a way when something 'clicked' as we were coming up to a cafe! I would have gone back myself..really..but hubby would have none of it...so after finishing his drink he left me to finish mine and went all the way back to the hotel!

I had spotted a nice looking restaurant that was serving food in the square so when hubby got back he had another drink and we moved over  to the square - the same company owned the restaurant!

 As you can see, not his usual smile so not for T Day!!

As we didn't want to go on the bridge in the middle of the day we went to the Petit Palais museum where there was an amazing Italian art exhibition, which I may get around to showing you one day!

Finally we found our way onto the bridge..or rather half bridge..

 It's rather strange to walk along to the end of a bridge not even halfway across the river!
The views were lovely though!

 We looked up to where we had taken the photo the day before
There was a very good display at the exhibition centre and a very informative film too.

We didn't dance on the bridge though!

Next time I will take you to Toulouse and the disastrous start we had to our stay!

Thanks for looking, Chris
  

TIOT is In My Garden!

Our new theme at Try It On Tuesday is 'In My Garden There Is'
I think the DT must all have such lovely gardens as the inspiration on the TIOT blog today is fabulous!

Many of you may know that the only garden I have is the one at our caravan - it does give me a lot of pleasure, we get birds all year round and over the weekend during the damp weather we enjoyed watching the swallows diving around!

I really didn't know were to start with my journal page as there are so many aspects of the garden that I love so I got out a Garden Journal dedicated to my Dad, a gardener by trade, and chose a page that I liked, then attempted to portray it in a different way!

I decided to use a Crafty Individuals bird stamp as the original page has a Crafty Individuals image from one of their sheets

 Here is the original page in the small journal.

I started by stamping the bird in white onto a piece of gelli printed paper.

Next came my background, some paint from the brayer and some stamping by picking up some of the ink brayered onto my mat, then more random stamping using Crafty Individual stamps

I stamped some CI stems onto white paper and fussy cut them.

I arranged them onto my page and then took a photo.....

...just to see if it was what I wanted!

I found some flowers that I had in a box but no leaves so I drew some and coloured them in and gave the flowers some centres.  
I added butterflies and other insects and a few more white flowers!

Once again I am fascinated by how a page looks when photographed on different coloured backgrounds!

I hope you can join us at TIOT this time  - I would love to see your gardens! The challenge runs for 2 weeks.

I would like to enter this at Funkie Junkie Boutique challenge - Lets Do It Again 

Thanks for looking, Chris

T stands for trying to draw!

Every so often I get the idea that I want to draw faces - I have a little square journal that contains a few but the journal doesn't measure up for Art Journal Journey. A few months ago I bought an A6 journal and didn't use it immediately - one day I picked it up and drew a face - but didn't finish it then a few weeks later drew another face - but didn't finish it! I'm having a bit of a run on finishing some projects so I took the journal away to our caravan and finished them both! Well, I say finished....I still may go back to them as I'm not entirely happy. This one is in a better state than the other!

I used neo-colours II for most of the colouring, I adde some washi tape, coloured paper and a little bit of mark making. 
I am joining in at Art Journal Journey and Gill's 'Anything With Eyes' theme.
I'm also going to join in at Paint Party Friday
It's come around to T Day so quickly again and of course I will be linking to Bleubeard and Elizabeth's 'T Stands for Tuesday'

As promised I am taking you back to Avignon. The photos here were all taken by hubby - I was juggling with a portable guide and couldn't manage my phone camera - even these photos are the best hubby could get as he was also using his camera one handed mainly
We visited the Palais des Papes (Popes Palace)

This fabulous building was the home for the Pope of the time in the  1300s when there was chaos in Rome - you may be better following this link for more information.

The model shows the size of the building

You might know that this was one of my favourite parts - the original floor has been exposed and there are some paintings still showing in parts on the walls.

We kept going up until we were level with this statue and it really was time for a drink...although there were even more steps to get to the cafe!

The views around were wonderful and worth the climb!

We could see the Bridge - we bought joint tickets as it was cheaper - more of the bridge another time!

Hubby had a Fanta I had a lemonade - cold and very refreshing!

I loved the art work on the  windows and in the cleaning area.
Then it was time for the long walk back to ground level!

I will try to get the Bridge photos sorted for my next but one post! I'll be back in a few hours with my Try It On Tuesday post!

Thanks for looking, Chris