A Postcard A Dat - Friday 8 April 2016 - Friday Smiles

Good Morning! It's Friday again!
For those nine to five people: It's nearly weekend!
I'm retired, and I like Fridays because I get to smile even more joining Friday Smiles at A Stitch In Time.

My card this morning arrived earlier this week from China. It had been raining and the postman throws the mail over the gate onto the patio, so it was a bit wet.... I dried it and pressed it and here it is for you to see:

It is a painting by Vincent van Gogh called Wheat Field with a Reaper (1889). When I looked closely I saw that the reaper was a bunny and that the scene only vaguely looked like the original! That made me smile.
The stamps are beautiful:

I had lots to smile about this week. Since the soggy reaping rabbit, DH has put our new postbox up by our front door! The red one! (I have shown this already)

Also this week my desk has been built. The carpenter came Monday to put it in.

I am super happy! This is where i am sitting at this very moment. You can see the socket hanging from the wall. The desk came exactly onto the socket, so DH ripped it out and will put a new socket (or two)  on the wall.

It's spring and many people have started spring cleaning:

This made me smile because I've been known to do that!

And the next photo is not a funny really but I wanted to share it with you nonetheless:

I do try to shop locally and I know many of you do too.

That is it from me today. 
Wishing you a lovely week with many smiles!
Blessings,
Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Friday 11 Dec 2015 - Friday Smiles

Good Morning! It's Friday! (For those of you who work Mon to Fri, it's nearly weekend!)

Hello Friday Smile people! (I'll link up with Annie at A Stitch in Time. and with Virginia at Rocking Your World Friday)

How did my week go? Schplendidly! I'll tell you all about it.

 At the beginning of this week I received some happy mail from Russia. One of my Postcrossing friends sent me a fat beautifully decorated envelope. 

In it were 21 postcards and a handwritten letter. Isn't that kind! 
One of the cards was this one:

Cute Siberian girl.

We have a campervan which needed some maintenance. The place we usually take it to is on the coast, an hour and a half drive from here. We booked it in on Wednesday.

I was very excited about this little trip. Not because of the campervan, but because it is near where Kate Perry (mamapez) lives and we had arranged to meet up. She and her husband kindly came to the campervan place to meet us. We had coffee in a nearby cafe and chatted and got to know each other a bit. After coffee they took us for a drive along the coast and showed us around the area. Then we had lunch at a (very nice) restaurant. This was the first course:

I forgot to take pictures of the other courses but Kate and I did have our photo taken together. Here we are: 

After lunch Kate had to go home to get changed for the choir. So I had the opportunity to see her craft room, and all the beautiful Christmas decorations that she has made.  Thank you Kate, we had a really lovely day.

The other good thing that happened this week is that we have moved into our new bedroom

It's wonderful sleeping in a clean light room and having a toilet within (sleep) walking distance.

I'll leave you with this 'funny':

Have a good week everyone.... and don't forget to smile!

Blessings,
Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Wednesday 9 Dec 2015 - WOYWW 340

Good Morning! 

It's Wednesday! Today is desk-hopping day! Come and join us at Julia's blog Stamping Ground and show what you have been working on (or not).

My desk this week is in the 'craft-mobile', aka our campervan (RV). We have traveled to the coast to have some maintenance work done on the vehicle. As we need to be there early, we are spending the night on a nearby camp site and I have been doing some crafting last night. Here is a quick photo before i have to clear the table to have breakfast.

It's not just Christmas cards, I also made a birthday card for my cousin (Dec 27th), and I still have two more Christmas birthday cards to do.

I'm very excited as today I will be meeting up with a blog friend who lives and hour and a half from here, Kate Perry (aka Mamapez). She and her husband are coming to us at the garage (bless them), as we have no transport while our vehicle is being serviced. (Photos next week)

Our new house is coming on nicely. It's horrible having to live in a house that is in the process of being built, but we are making the most of it. The bedroom is now usable (although the wardrobes are not finished yet). We have slept there for the last two night and it is wonderful to sleep in a clean area.

Sorry I left a pair of socks on the bed. 

 The unfinished wardrobe area.

And a tiny en-suite toilet, as yet without a door but that's not a priority.
We have now been able to make the studio a little bit more livable:

 On the left is my desk where i would normally sit at my computer and do craft stuff. Notice the Ikea trolley? We had bought two and the second one (in the same colour) is now in the bedroom as it matches my 'colour scheme'.

Now we don't need to sleep on the sofabed anymore, we can use it as a sofa. Whoahey!

That's it from me. Sorry for the boring house photos, but many people have asked me for an update, so there.

Have a great week all,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Friday 4 Dec 2015 Friday Smiles

Good Morning! Are you having a good day? Are you smiling today?

I'm linking up with Annie for Friday Smiles, so think of all the positiveness in your life and count your blessings and share them here with us.

I've had a good week. The weather here is still sunny every day although the temperatures are down at night, I can still sit outside in the sun and that makes me happy.

The highlight for me this week was yesterday when I joined a friend from church to make bread. Most people here have land although they live in the town or village. The land usually has a house on it that people use to relax or for holidays and of course when they work the land. My friend's name is Juanita, and in her place in the country she has an old fashioned oven (which is on my wishlist of things I would like) and with two more girls we made 20 loaves of bread.

Here she is building up a fire in the oven to heat it up for the next batch.

And here below she has just made some almond meringue type cup cakes. Very clever as the oven must not be too hot. They turned out perfect. I like a meringue with a bit of chewyness in the middle.

Our new bedroom is nearing completion and we hope to be able to sleep in there on Saturday. The electrician hasn't quite finished and my husband  needs to grout the tiles, and place the toilet.

Also this week my Tangle it! Journal has arrived! (I already wrote this on my Tuesday blog), but here it is:

Then on Wednesday morning my copy of the Flow Book for Paperlovers arrived too! I'm in seventh (paper) heaven!

 Can you read what it says? "More than 300 pages of paper goodies. *mini cards *postman paper doll * pop-up house * glitter postcards *wrapping paper *folding houses *coloring pages *craft paper *posters *stickers *and so much more!"

Here is their website and here is the link for the Youtube flipthrough. Do have a look.

Now for my postcard:

It's from my collection of WW2 motivational posters. During the Second World War people were encouraged in the US as well as in Britain, to make do and mend. There was no manufacturing, so new clothes were not available. 

When Kansas Wheat realized that women were sewing children's clothes out of their old sacks, they started to use sacks with pretty patterns.

Isn't that great! This is a photo from 1939. I found it on the internet. 

That's enough for today. I hope I have made you smile today. 

I'm also linking in with Virginia at Rocking your world Friday.

Have a good positive week,

Blessings,

Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Tuesday 1 Dec 2015 - T for Champagne

Good Morning Bloggers!

It's Tuesday again and I will link up with Elizabeth at T for Tuesday. Please join us. All you have to do is have something drink related in your post (I bet you have a mug on your desk and that will do).

My drink related things are postcards of champagne making. The following postcards are from my grandmother's collection. She traveled a lot in Europe after WW2 and her cards are all from the late nineteen forties to the early sixties. 
This card shows the pressing room at Moet & Chandon.

Moet & Chandon is one of the world's largest champagne producers and a prominent champagne house in Epernay, France.

After primary fermentation and bottling, a second alcoholic fermentation occurs in the bottle. This second fermentation is induced by adding yeast and sugar. During this time the champagne bottle is sealed with a bottle top like the ones used for beer bottles.
The bottles are then placed in racks called 'pulpitres' .

After ageing, the lees (dead yeast and residual particles) must be consolidated for removal. The bottles undergo a process known as 'riddling' (French: remuage). Every two days the bottles are given a slight shake and turn, alternatively on right then left, and dropped back into the pulpitres, with the angle slightly increased. The drop back into the rack causes a slight tap, pushing sediments towards the neck of the bottle. In 8 to 10 weeks the position of bottle is straight down, with the sediment settled in the neck.

Le Remueur (1889), engraving of a man engaged in the laborious daily task of turning each bottle a fraction.

The lees removal process is called 'disgorging'. Modern automated disgorgement is done by freezing a small amount of the liquid in the neck and removing this plug of ice containing the sediment.

I have seen photos on Trip Adviser of the cellars and they don't look any different to these.

On a personal note: our house is coming on fine. We now have a back door:

Since we took the photo we have made a threshold and covered the gap at the top.

This space, now occupied by building materials, will be the car port. The door opens up to a long staircase  down that connects all four floors.
This is what it looks like on the other side:

The back door is not visible on this photo as it's on the other side. We have a magnificent view from our house.

I finally have my Tangle it! Journal. It nearly took a month to arrive but i have it now!

I have started tangling on the first page. This book is going in my handbag when we travel (we're going to Holland on the 21st) as it is ideal to while away waiting time.

That's it from me for today. Have a great T-Day and see you tomorrow for WOYWW.

Blessings,

Lisca

WOYWW 327 - a moan, two kitties and a decorated postcard.

Good morning desk hoppers,

It's Wednesday again and you are here to see everybody's desk. Here is mine:

 It's a bit of a disaster area. I'm participating in the CSI scrapbooking challenge (CSI color, stories, and inspiration)and the color palette was just perfect for my packet of Gelatos Tropical that I had lurking in a drawer and had never used. I watched a tutorial about a resist technique: stamp and emboss (colorless) and then rub some Gelato over the embossing, and rub with a baby wipe. Well, it was an unholy mess! I was not a happy bunny.

This summer while I was in the UK I bought an embossing pad but when I unwrapped it yesterday, it was completely dry. So I had to emboss with colored ink. Then I found a white inkpad and tried that. But I'm not happy. I gave up in the end.... Chucked it all in the bin. (Not the Gelatos, I'll have another go with those). I'm annoyed because I can order another embossing pad online. They cost only a few £s, but then I have to pay £6 postage and packing! Argh!

OK, moan over. Have I got something nice to show you? Oh yes, here are the kitties that live on our top terrace. They are very shy. We feed them and they play on the furniture. We use the terrace for building materials at the moment. There are plenty of places to have shade and to hide and play.

 Most of you know that my other hobby is Postcrossing. I received a lovely postcard from Belgium (with a photo of their royal family). The sender had decorated the address side of the card, which I found more interesting really. It's beautifully done:

 Great isn't it!

That's it from me today. Sorry for the moan...

Have a good week all of you,

Many blessings,
Lisca

I'll add a few photos of the building project for those who are interested:

DH is laying the tiles on the bedroom roof. This is where the (compulsary) solar panels will go.

This is our living area. The electrician is doing the cabling (the black line on the wall). The wood is the ceiling, and on the right is the stairs to the bedroom. The arched windows and patio doors open out to a large terrace. The walls will be rendered and will be white, but the wood will stay as it is, and the stairs will get another coat of black paint when everything is finished.

WOYWW 326 desk and building update

Good morning! 
This week has flown by! We always say that don't we. I think the older you get, the faster time flies!

I'm extra excited today as we are going away in our camper van later in the morning. We will have dinner (at about 2pm) in a nice restaurant on the way. So no cooking for me today.

This is my desk this morning before I prepare stuff to take with me to the camper.

 I had printed out some photos of my grandson and I was experimentally laying them on the 12x12 paper. In the background you can see the provisional shelving. There is a thermos of ice cold drink and the yellow book on the left is my Spanish dictionary which I'm using less and less now that I am more fluent.

By my dictionarey are a few pieces of printed paper left over from the lay out that i finished this weekend:

The piece of Kraft paper sticking out from under the layout is my attempt to a zentangle that I saw on Shoshi's page recently.

The house build is coming on nicely. Here is a photo of our house from a distance. I've tried to annotate it, I hope it's not too small. 

The entrance to the cave house is by the vine. That is a small court yard and the main entrance is there. The cave house itself obviously is not visible as it is built inside the 'mountain'. Where it says 'roof terrace', is the roof of the cave, which has earth so I'm growing plants as you can see. The terrace is also the street level at the back. The apartment at the bottom is not finished. We park our car there at the moment. That apartment is all on one level so that is for when we are old and grey.... The apartment at the top will hopefully be ready at Christmas. That one has an upstairs bedroom. I don't mind at the moment as we are both fit and well, thank the Lord.

I'm linking up with Whats on your workdesk Wednesday, organised by Julia. Want to know more? Go to her blog:http://www.stamping-ground.blogspot.com.es/

Have a good week everyone and I will try to visit as many of you as I can, but I usually take all week to get through the list as I love reading and looking and clicking on what you are all doing.

Blessings,

Lisca

PS... Look what I just found!

Those of you who read my WOYWW post last week will know that I had lost a little birdie. I've just this minute found it! (on my desk, which I have turned upside down... don't ask me...)

WOYWW 325 Envelopes, plasterer and a flown birdie

Hello fellow desk hoppers, 

Hope you are all in fine fettle and ready to do some snooping around each others desks. 
I'm linking in with 'Whats on your workdesk Wednesday'. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, visit our chief desker Julia at Stamping ground.

My desk is quite empty:

 I'm working on a lay out (seen on the right) and one of the embellishments was a little pink bird made of some foam type material. When I got to the point where I was going to glue it in place, I could not find it! I emptied my desk item by item carefully. Looked in the bin, lifted the carpet etc but the birdie has flown and I have not found it! So now I am left with a near empty and quite tidy desk.

This craft room is an improvised space in the new building, which is coming on nicely. Of course this craft room is nowhere near finished but as it is such a large and light space I am using it (even though it is not finished.)

The 'things' on the right are dining room chairs piled on top of each other as we had nowhere else to put them.

We hired a plasterer to do the ceilings as my hubby has a shoulder problem and can't do them.

He did a really good job. 

I've just remembered that i haven't shown you the other decorated envelopes of the July envelope exchange:

Two totally different envelopes, both pretty but both empty, the second one was anonymous so i couldn't even say thank you. Weird that. I'll stick to postcards... 

I think I'll go and have breakfast and later on I'll visit as many as i can, perhaps spread out over a few days like I did last week.

Wishing you all a good week,
blessings,
Lisca