SKYSCRAPERS AND SCULPTURES

 An area of Paris I had not been to before is LA DEFENSE. It is the business district and as my husband was in Paris for work it is where we stayed. Alongside all the huge (and some of them spectacular) office buildings there are lots of modern sculptures. Although I generally prefer older stuff  I am a fan of installation art and so found the area fascinating.
Above is LA GRANDE ARCHE......it lines up with ARC de TRIOMPHE and the LOUVRE.

 There is a multi-coloured column.....looked like a huge stick of plasticine!

 A big red metal thing!

 A HUGE THUMB.......sort of spooky somehow!

 And this funky ANGEL.......I liked this a lot.......despite having a face in his groin!

It would seem that.......

.......you don't need to go to PARIS to find strange things on churches, you just have to go to the pub for lunch!

 This strange little bod (not so scary as the others Effie?) sits on St Peters church in Swettenham in Cheshire..........which is across the road from the pub.........

 ....you can just see him to the top right of the arched window.

 Then around the corner above this door is......

this weird thing!!! Apparently it is  a sculpture of an ass's head upon the coronet of a marquess which is the crest of the Mainwaring family.......a local family of some distinction! 

GARGOYLES & GROTESQUES

On my recent visit to PARIS one place I wanted to go was NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL, the main reason being that I LOVE GARGOYLES and some of the most famous are on NOTRE DAME.

 

Now when I looked up GARGOYLES (what would I do without Wikipedia???) I discovered that a GARGOYLE is a carved stone grotesque with a spout designed to convey water away from a roof and that they are usually elongated fantastic creatures while a GROTESQUE is a sculpture that does not work as a waterspout and serves only an ornamental or artistic function.

 So......these are GROTESQUES...........

 and these are GARGOYLES!

 These journal pages do not have any paint on them and the only ink (unless you count printer ink) is a bit of Memories used to stamp some of the words.......they are just a collage of grayscale plain paper printed versions of a couple of my photos (the church itself and the gargoyles) and scanned, printed and cut up postcards (the grotesques)that I bought while there.

PARIS RECOMMENDATION

 When a friend heard that I was going to be in Paris for a few days she recommended that I go and see LA SAINT CHAPELLE...........a gothic chapel on the Ile de la Cite in the very heart of Paris. So on Monday with the day to myself (husband in the office working)  I decided that was where I was going.

 And it was SO worth it. Even having to go through an airport style security check (coat, belt, scarf, bag through an Xray machine) and pay 8euros entrance it was still SO worth it!

 From the stained glass windows in the upper chapel which are gob smacking-ly beautiful.......it was a shame that one end of the chapel was closed for renovation but it was still stunning........

 to the painted columns and facades it was FANTASTIC!

So, my recommendation for if you are lucky enough to be in Paris is LA SAINT CHAPELLE.......I will be going again if I get chance!

GHOST RIDER 13

 This is my entry for the TAKE A WORD challenge this week.......the word is MEN. Yes, I know it's pink, that's just me being what my husband calls perverse! I mean what other colour would you use for MEN?

 I found this picture in my Dads motoring magazine, there was a article on motoring art. Can you see the rider has a skull face? Well, that settled it, just had to be used!

I realised this morning that I have left ALL my white pens in Almaty so I decided to use some gesso on a thin brush around the letters.......I like the ghostly effect!

Will leave you with 3 things I discovered today:
it's not a good idea to take a white wash out of the washing machine after working with black paint...gggrrrrh
if I put the lid back on the gesso pot completely I can't get it off again......gggrrrh
and it's too cold to take pictures outside bbbbrrrhhhh!

Sometimes you don't need

a BIG three star OVERLY COMPLICATED reason to do something

 just do it cos you love it!
So I did! This is the first page in a new journal that I bought while in PARIS over the weekend (more of that later when I have had chance to sort my photos).
I read on KATE CRANES blog......the KATHRYN WHEEL......that she sometimes likes to work in a small journal as it is quicker with less space to fill.........this set me thinking and when I saw this little booklet in MUJI I bought it....it is only the size of a passport!

 When I got home yesterday some MEMORY BOX stamps had arrived from THE STAMP ATTIC so this was another good reason to have a play. They have some gorgeous bird stamps......here I have used DILL PRINT, DISTRESSED CROWS, CROW and BIRD IN FLIGHT

The birds are stamped over a DISTRESS INK background so I am entering this for the SIMON SAYS STAMP AND SHOW challenge where the theme this week is DISTRESS INKS!

SWAN LAKE

 A couple of weeks ago while still in Almaty  I went to see the ballet SWAN LAKE with my husband and another couple. It was a lovely experience and one I hope to repeat many times more.........with different ballets.

 My friend and I were very proud of ourselves in managing to get the tickets. Now this might sound like a minor achievement but I can tell you it is not! In a country where very few people speak English and the Cyrillic alphabet is used just working out what was on when was something!

 So, once we thought we had the date and times sorted we headed to the Opera House to try and buy the tickets.........we asked my friends driver if he would help us.......he did a grand job, bless him, even at one point standing in the foyer of the Opera House flapping his arms to imitate the swan to be sure we had the right show! I have to say that is one of those stories that we have told many times already and will continue to tell............it was soooo funny!

 So, off we went to the show and it all worked out.......we had the right tickets for the right day at the right time! I kept the programme, the English translation and the tickets as I knew I had these ballerina stamps (I think they are from Lost Coast designs) at home that I could use to make these journal pages.
I am now going to be missing for a few days as later today I am flying off to Paris for a long weekend....how lucky am I! My husband is working there for a couple of weeks so it seems silly not to take advantage of cheap Easy Jet flights! Will be back next week with some fab pics to share I am sure......till then.....au revoir!

The moon is a greene cheese?

I always thought the rhyme was something about the moon being made of cream cheese, but when I looked it up I found it was GREEN not cream CHEESE.

 

"The Moon is made of green cheese" was one of the most popular proverbs in 16th and 17th century English literature.

 

It is thought to have originated in 1546, when The Proverbs of John Heywood claimed "the moon is made of a greene cheese." Greene may refer not to the colour, as many now think, but to being new or unaged. I love this stuff I find when looking for blog quotes!

This is one of my favourite stamps........LOVESICK MOON by Sandra Evertson for Stampington, here he is offering the greene cheese moon a bunch of poppy seed heads.......why? I DONT KNOW!!!!......I just liked it!!!
I am entering this for the TAKE A WORD challenge where this weeks word is MOON.

Recipe for a perfect day?

 So I am now back home in the UK. After a busy weekend catching up with family and friends and putting my house back in order (our son stays in it while we are away, enough said!) we decided today to have a fun day out...........so first thing was to go and order the turkey for Christmas lunch from the local farm shop and then we set off into the beautiful Cheshire countryside for a walk........ this is the WHITEGATE WAY near WINSFORD.......an old salt-carrying railway track converted into a pathway, there is still some Autumnal colour out there.

 The walk gave us an appetite so we headed to our favourite pub for lunch......... the DYSART ARMS in BUNBURY.

 Opposite the pub is this lovely church.......ST BONIFACE...........

 ......where I found these cool guys looking down at us!!! GARGOYLES!!

I like GARGOYLES!
To finish off the day we called in at Sainsburys to buy cake and DVDs and then headed home to settle in on the sofa.................PERFECT!!

TsUM

is on the corner of Abylay Han and Zhibek Zholy streets and is the large central department store here in Almaty. Every  post-Soviet city has this store, it consists  of dozens of small shops all under one roof,on the ground floor you'll find more mobile phones for sale than you've ever seen in one place, and the top floor has the best range of kitsch souvenirs and gifts in the country - ornamental swords and horse whips, fur and felt hats, traditional jewellery and miniature yurts, camels and Golden Men.

Soooooooo this is where I went shopping today to get some more of my Christmas shopping sorted before heading home tomorrow!!

 There is no real town centre as such here in Almaty, the shops etc are spread all over so Zhibek Zholy......or the "walking street" as it is also known is as near as you get to a shopping street.
This was it taken in the rain a couple of weeks ago...........it was a nice day today but I didn't get around to taking more pics!!

OK, so there probably won't be anything on here for a few days as I head home and get settled back in, so will catch up after the weekend. TTFN!

STEAMPUNK TAGS

 

 These are a set of tags I made for THE STAMP ATTIC.

 I used GRAPHIC 45 STEAMPUNK DEBUTANTE papers.........

 ....and 7GYPSIES PADDINGTON papers......

and matching PADDINGTON stamps. I also used DISTRESS INK PADS to colour the tags.

TAKE A WORD

is a new challenge blog out there! Each week the prompt is a word for you to do with as you will.......I like challenges that leave things open! This week the word is ANGEL (click to go to the challenge site)
"edit"...it has just been pointed out to me by Sarah (senior designer for THE PLAY DATE CAFE) that the colours of this piece fit their chalenge for this week.........so I am going to enter it for that as well!!

 I have a bit of a soft spot for ANGELS but with my limited resources here I was struggling a little......I have angel stamps at home but not here............................

 then I decided to go with the word itself. Once that decision was made it was easy!

MOVING ON INTO A WINTER WONDERLAND

  This morning I saw that THE SUNDAY STAMPER has WINTER as the theme so it looks like I am moving on into a WINTER WONDERLAND.

 These images are more from the FABULOUS LILY over at OCTOPODE FACTORY. Why the snowman has a pair of scissors in his side I have no idea but I love it! Has anybody read THE SNOWMAN by JO NESBO? This snowman looks like he belongs in that book!

 The trees look like they are standing on tip-toe in ballet shoes!!

The background is a stencil from CRAFTERS WORKSHOP.