Iceland Partur Tveir (Part Two)

We have been out into the countryside on several trips now, and I am so in love with this beautiful country of Iceland (Island), and its people.  We went on a bus tour to Geysir (Geyser), Gullfoss (where there is a stunning waterfall), and to see where the North American and the European plates meet (mid Atlantic Ridge).  My pictures don't adequately capture the amazing colors and sweeping vistas.  This will be the most photo-intensive blog post I've done, so hang in there with me.

Geysir 2014

 Some of the images remind me of the area near Yellowstone, but with fewer trees

Geysir 2014

Gullfoss 2014

Gullfoss is a stunning waterfall that is multilayered, and is frozen for part of the year.

Gullfoss 2014

Note the professional photographer near the edge.  The lengths some people will go for a photo!

Our new son-in-law's grandfather, Jon Eldon, and his wife Inga Olsen invited us to their home for "coffee", which turned out to be more like a very high tea.  There was an amazing spread of sandwiches, wraps, including traditional things such as smoked salmon and smoked lamb; plus beautiful cakes and a wide variety of things to drink.  Jon has a business building the most incredible custom fireplaces in Iceland.  Inga has a hobby working with the beautiful stones you can find at the seashore.  These are some of the people she has made and painted.  She just sets these out front and they sell themselves.

by Inga Olsen

By Inga Olsen

By Inga Olsen

By Inga Olsen

 I really loved this piece, and she also has some beautiful stacked stone pieces in her yard.  Below is just one of them

by Inga Olsen

Jon and Inga invited us to go on a tour to some lesser know places and backroads.  We had so much fun that it made us wish that we had another week here to travel around with our gracious new friends.

Geothermal area Southwest of Reykjavik

The water in the pools was HOT!  Most of the homes in Iceland use geothermal energy for everything, including the unlimited hot water that they get directly from areas such as this.

Where the lava flows met the sea, Southwest of Reykjavik

I could have spent all day here by the ocean just looking at all of the beautiful rocks, seaweed and other interesting things that the sea has swept in

Since this is not really a travel blog, I'm going to leave you with some Zentangled images that I did right before I came to Iceland.  Upon learning that our son-in-law's little sister loves to draw, I sent her a "Joy of Zentangle" book.  She liked it quite well, so I brought her some more pens, markers, and some tags that I cut out of different papers.  I did small samples to show her what can be done with the different paper types.

By Dianne Johnson

 Using Classic Crest card stock and colored Micron 01 pens

by Dianne Johnson

Using Watercolor paper, Tombow markers for watercolor, and Micron black 01 pen.  I also used the Magenta Swirl Lines stamp on this one (42.126.L).  I love using that stamp to create strings in which to Zentangle.

by Dianne Johnson

Using Kraft paper and a brown (not Sepia) 01 Micron pen

by Dianne Johnson

Using black paper, and a white Pentel Sunburst pen

by Dianne Johnson

 A larger tag that I tangled with a Pentel Sunburst pen.  I also stamped the sentiments with Memento Luxe Wedding Dress ink.

by Dianne Johnson

One last tag:  this was completely out of my comfort zone, since I prefer to work in black and white, but this was for a friend who loves explosions of color.  I used Sakura glaze pens, and stamped with Memento ink in a complementary color.

If you hung in with me all the way to the end of this, you're a real trooper.  Thanks for sharing some of my favorite memories of our incredible trip to Iceland with me.  We have had a wonderful time, and our primary reason for coming, which was our daughter's wedding went beautifully.  Thanks to everyone for all of the good wishes!

Iceland!

I have been absent from the blog for a bit because we have been in Iceland attending our daughter's wedding.  She has married a wonderful young man from Reykjavik, and we couldn't be happier.  A big plus is that we get two weeks in one of the most beautiful countries in the world.  The people are SO nice, and big plus for us, they all speak excellent English.  The food is fabulous, and I will miss the Skyr when we go back.  (Skyr is a yogurt-like product that is actually a non fat cheese, and it's delicious).  Don't want to bore anyone with an extensive slide show, but here are a couple of pictures I snapped.

Everyone walks everywhere, and there is a definite European feel to the city

Reykjavik 2014

Down every cross street at the city center, you can see views like this that take your breath away

Reykjavik 2014

There are fabulous shops along the main street downtown, and lots of wonderful coffee shops.  Here is the seat of a chair in one of our favorite coffee shops ("C is for Cookie").  I loved it...very Zen!

Chair Cover at "C is for Cookie"

Iceland is not mostly ice like some people think; in fact, it's very beautiful here.  It HAS snowed a couple of times since we've been here - beautiful big fat flakes of snow that didn't really stick, but just softly fell on us.  One day it hailed on us - tiny rice-sized hail.  We just ducked into a nearby coffee shop and enjoyed the show.

Tiny Swirling Hail

We are going to do some forays into the countryside this week.  We love it here, and will definitely be back!

Thanks for All You Do!

 Since my baby girl is being married on Wednesday, I'm thinking we will need lots of "Thank You" cards.  I love this new "Thanks for everything you do" stamp from Magenta.  I also used the "To From Bird" stamp designed by Geninne D. Zlatkis for Magenta.  This is such a beautiful stamp!  I didn't need the "To From" part this time, so I simply colored the parts I wanted with Memento markers and stamped.  This is a good way to get more use from your stamps.  I also used Memento markers on another beautiful Magenta spring stamp (Small Flower Branch), and stamped all around an area I masked off for the Thanks stamp.  I added some Stickles at the flower centers, a little clear Wink of Stella on the other flowers, and some bling at the corner.  This is a very simple and mailable card.  Enjoy!

Magenta Stamps used:

  86.006.J  To From Bird

 0679.G  Small Flower Branch

07.837.H  Thanks For All You Do

Other Materials used:

  Memento Ink: Tuxedo Black

Memento Markers:  Bamboo Leaves; Rose Bud; Potters Clay; Rich Cocoa

Magenta Patterned Paper

Hero Arts Mixed Accents - Blush

Stardust Stickles

Clear Wink of Stella

Magenta March Challenge!

March 2014 - Magenta Challenge :

Spring is coming!

Create a Card, a Layout or even an alterned object if you feel like it

and use at least one Magenta product :

papers, stamps, embellishment, Peel Off's, chipboard and more...

You have until March 30th to enter!

You could win this Magenta Prize :

Click here to see what the Design Team has created, and use in linkz to submit your page.  Here's my card:

I took a piece of watercolor paper (140# cold press) and sprayed it with 4 different colors of Radiant Rain mists.  This is very pretty and sparkly in real life.  I let it dry, and put the Magenta Stencil Template TM-43 over the top.  The bird and branch image was lined out with a Micron pen, and leaving the template in place I added additional color to the image using Pan Pastels.  

To get the right color ribbon, a white ribbon was colored using a Copic marker.  The sentiment was added onto a piece of white card stock that was punched out with an EK Success Photo Label punch.  I added some flowers to the sentiment with another Magenta stamp, Small Flower Branch.  

This was actually a very easy card to make, and really fun.  I love how the Radiant Rain mists look, and I will definitely be using them more in the future.  They create a beautiful background, and placing the stencil over the colors and just adding more color is super simple.  Following are details on all the stamps and materials I used.

Magenta Stamps:  07.834.F    Find Your Song

                              0679.G       Small Flower Branch

Magenta Template:  TM-43     Birds Template

Radiant Rain Mists:  Ocean Wave; Ginger Peach; Spanish Moss; Copper

Pan Pastels:  520.3 Ultramarine Blue Shade; 660.3 Chromium Oxide Green Shade; 430.5 Magenta;    911.5 Rich Gold; 931.5 Copper

Memento Markers:  Rose Bud; Olive Grove

Copic Marker:  B14 Light Blue

Watercolor Paper:  Strathmore 140# Cold Press

Matted with blue paper of unknown provenance

EK Success Photo Label punch