WOYWW 358 - ongoing decoupage and a postcard from Andalucia

Hello lovely people,
You're here on my page again! That's great! Thank you so much for visiting. I really appreciate it.

Today I'm linking up with Whats On Your Workdesk Wednesday. Julia at Stamping Ground organises that. Do have a look and join in if you can.

In my previous posts I have been telling you that I have been fussy cutting. I found some decoupage sheets at the back of my craft supplies and remembered how I enjoyed the cutting. I found it quite relaxing. I took the sheets with me on our Easter holiday and now I have been making cards with the decoupage I have cut.

Here is my desk with a card in the making:

The blue is handmade paper and I want to tear it. I was debating whether to wet it a bit so it tears better...

Here are a few that are practically finished. The square card with the roses will get some bling, the lilies are condolences cards so no bling for those. What am I going to put on the 'male' card with the race car? Most embellishments are too feminine...

I'm off to the gym now and then I will enloy looking at your desks and leaving some comments. But before I leave you I will show you my customary postcard:

It is a not-so-spectacular postcard of La Calahorra, a village a little south of where we live in Andalucia. It has only 800 inhabitants but is famous for its castle on the hill (16th century). The final scenes from David Bowie's film Stardust (1974) were filmed there. Here is a link to some really nice photos on Wikipedia.


That's it from me today. Gotta go, I'm late. These photos took ages to upload! (Don't know why).

Happy WOYWW all of you,
Blessings,
Lisca

A Postcard a Day - Tuesday 12 April 2016 - T for Alhambra and more

Hello lovely friends,

Thank you for visiting me again. Today I'm linking up with Elizabeth at Altered Booklover for T for Tuesday, where we all post something together with a drink related item or subject. My drink related things will come up further down this page.

First my postcard. It is one that I have sent recently:

It is an image of the Alhambra, the beautiful palace of the last Sultan of Granada (13th century). It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is stunningly beautiful. We live about an hour's drive from Granada city, which is of course the capital of our province and we have to go to Granada for administrative reasons sometimes but that is no hardship. It is a lovely city. Not too big. The old center is all walkable.

Lets not forget the drink related item. Here is a funny about making tea:

If you have been following my blog, you will know that we are building a newbuild next to the old cavehouse. The top flat is nearly finished and we have moved in just over a week ago. I have showed you the kitchen already but as my DH is now going to decorate the office/craftroom, my computer needed to come into the living area and I needed a desk. We phoned the carpenter and he came and made me a lovely little desk at the end of the kitchen, all in the same wood. I love it:

I'm pleased a punch as they say. 

I'm also near the teapot (under the tea cozy) and the cups. Ahah! Here is the drink related bit! 

Our cups are proper 'buckets'. I like my mugs big. The clock that you can see hanging up is a real find. It is a clock, yes, but it is also an electronic scales! So handy. In Europe recipes use weight (grams and kilos) not cups. So to bake a cake I need scales. In stead of rattling around in a drawer, my scales are now hanging within reach. So handy! I love it!

I'll leave you with an image and quote that I really liked:

 Have a wonderful Tuesday and a great week,
Blessings,
Lisca

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

WOYWW 357- tada new desk and a naked man

Good morning girls and boy (that would be Arnaldo)!

It's Wednesday again and for me that means getting up that little bit earlier before I go to the gym to post this. A post that shows the world my desk. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, this is a blog hop peeping over people's shoulders to see what they are making/crafting/creating/messing about with. Julia at  Stamping Ground  has all the details).

This is our new living quarters, that we have moved into last week. It is a large kitchen and living room all in one. 

That was the kitchen last week, before my desk was ready. The carpenter put my desk in on Monday and yesterday I moved my computer onto it, and this is what it looks like now: Tada! 

There is nothing on my desk though. All my craft stuff is downstairs and I haven't done much crafting lately. 

You can see we have lit the stove. It is pretty lousy weather here today, excuse my French. It's cold and raining. The rain is a blessing, mind, as it rains so seldom, the farmers are dancing a jig around their plots!

I have been going to art classes so I can show you what I have done there:
(if you take offence at seeing a naked man, then stop right here because there is one coming up in a moment)

I copied this from a statue. She has her arm over her head, which looks a bit weird I guess.

And here is the above mentioned young man:

No, we did not have live models, lol.(Oh what a shame!) Again it was a picture of a statue (Greek?). My teacher liked it very much and wrote "Muy Bien" by the side of it, which means "well done".

I will leave you with a photo taken a few days ago near where we live:

It is the Sierra Nevada with almond trees in the foreground. The Sierra Nevada has a ski resort (just outside Granada). The mountains don't look so high but we live on a high plain (altoplano) at 1200 m altitude (3600 ft), so that is deceiving really.

Have a great week all of you. When I come back from the gym I will start doing a few visits.

Blessings,
Lisca

A Postcard A Day - 5 April 2016

Good Morning! Happy Tuesday!

I hope you've all had a good week. I certainly have. We're in our new kitchen! We have moved upstairs from a grotty cave to a new, light and airy appartment above. My husband has spent more than a year building it, but it is nealry finished and certainly useable. I am a happy bunny.
This is what it looks like:

As I'm going to link up with Elizabeth at Altered Booklover for T For Tuesday, I will add a photo of me drinking something. This is lunch (I made a risotto).

I am drinking plain old boring water, but I'm trying to lose a bit more weight so no wine yet for me.

Now for the postcard. This is one I have sent (rather than received). I buy my postcards in Russia (online) and this is a very popular one:

It is by Russian artist Oxana Zaika, who is famous for painting cats. This has a coffee cup in it so qualifies also for the T for Tuesday...

It is raining here! Which is great by the way as we live in a very arid area and it hardly ever rains. The land needs it desperately. It usually rains in winter but this winter we have had no rain at all. I never thought I'd be ecstatic about rain (having lived in the UK). But there you are.

That's it from me this time. I will visit you all later today.

Happy T-Day and a great week ahead,
Lisca

A Blogpost from 2014 - Second on the second

Hello folks!

I meant to post this on the 2nd of this month but forgot (sorry Elizabeth).

Here is my first contribution for Second on the Second. I have only been blogging since 2014 and the following post was my 8th blogpost. It was posted the first week of April 2014.

My first craft workshop in the village

Hello again! It’s Monday, and although I’m retired it was a super busy day for me. Doctor’s appointment, go to the bank,  church prayer meeting, grocery shopping and a workshop late afternoon.  In between all that, cooking meals had to fit in somewhere..... (and eating them of course).

So today I have started a weekly craft workshop in the village. The idea is to get the ladies here interested in scrapbooking, for which there is no Spanish word as far as I know (Elaine might put me right here). They are all part of a group of mothers who have children with epilepsy. This way I’m doing my bit for the charity too.

It all went very well. I showed them my scrapbook albums and explained about scrapbooking. They definitely want to do that. Great! But today they were going to make paper flowers as arranged. They have a fundraiser in May and want the venue to look pretty so we are concentrating on that for the moment.

Here I am explaining in my best Spanish how to fold the paper to make the petals. 

      

And this was the result: 12 happy ladies with the flowers they have made. I think they had fun. I certainly did!

Bye for now! God bless and..... keep scrapping!

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 1 April 2016

Good Morning folks. It's the first of April, but I'm not going to play a joke on you. 

Instead let's share some smiles!

Lots of nice things happened this week. On Monday we took our campervan to a repair place on the coast where we were staying. Easter Monday is a normal working day here in Spain, so it was open. Our water pump was not doing its job and we had another one fitted. (No photos as water pumps and repair shops are boring).

We were back home on Tuesday and went to eat lunch at our usual restaurant.

The photo is an older one taken before I had my hair cut. But it's just to show you the inside of the restaurant. We chose to eat in the bar rather than the dining area.

Wednesday DH connected the water in my new kitchen and we prepared to move on Thursday. I unplugged the fridge, and on Thursday morning I moved the contents in two coolboxes and one of our younger neighbours came to help move yesterday. The fridge and sofa have been moved and yesterday I cooked my first meal in the new kitchen: roast chicken and roast potatoes with veg.

The new kitchen is operational. I am still in the process of allocating cupboard space to different things. DH hung up those Ikea bars and hooks. So handy. Here is another photo. I apologise for the bad quality.

Anyway, I am a very happy bunny!
Now for the postcard:

Pussycats! It's a watercolor by artist Alena Dergileva, a Moscow artist, who generally paints the streets of Moscow. The painting is called: "Old Zaraysk. Meeting". Zaraysk is a town 150 km from Moscow. It has some old buildings. 

This could well be the house on the painting....

The stamps are really beautiful:

I always try to find out more about the pretty stamps. The bottom one is from the series arts and crafts, but I don't know what it represents. The top one is from the series Culture of Russian People - National Head dress - Middle of XIX Century, Yaroslavl Province.

I will finish with a funny:

 Read it out loud and... laugh out loud! Got it!

Have a great week everyone, wishing you lots of smiles. I'm linking up with Annie at A Stitch in Time who leads our Friday Smiles. And then later I will link up with Virginia who does Rocking Your World Friday.

Blessings,

Lisca