A craft using something from a refreshment or its packaging

I mentioned already last week that I am participitating in a Crafts Marathon that In my closet, a greek friend of mine is organising. She is sending us a task every Friday and we have a week from Monday to complete it and post a photo of it. The third week just finished last night and its task was to create something using a refreshment (either the liquid itself or something from its packaging). The idea of the task came from Alleycraft, another interesting blogger.

I was brainstorming about what to create. My mind was stuck at the craft of the second week, where I created sunglasses for our mascot Lukas, using the brown bottle of a common Swiss refreshment. Last week was quite warm in central Europe and I spent quite some time on our roof terrace, enjoying the sun and drinking a lot of water. Until one afternoon I was sitting with my husband, consuming a local refreshment, called Flauder, and we noticed the beautiful label on the bottle!

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  The bottle of Flauder as seen from the front

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  The bottle from the back. You can see that there is something at the back of the label

Flauder is a swiss sparkling water flavoured with elderberry flowers and lemon balm, produced in East Switzerland, in the canton of Appenzell Innerhoden. Its name comes from the local word for butterfly and the special about its label is that it has a nice picture inside, as the sparkling water itself is slightly yellow to transparent. Probably no surprise that I like this sparkling water, as you may have noticed that I like elderberry flowers.

So I decided to cut the cute picture from the label and make it into a postcard, typical of Appenzell!

In the process of creating it

I had a couple of white cartons cut already for postcards and after sticking the part of the label, I thought that it doesn’t look so interesting with the white background. So I complemented the background, trying to follow loosely the label’s scene. I used coloured pencils and sketched a few small details to make it more interesting. I have to admit I am not so good in drawing, but I think the result doesn’t look that bad. It is definitely something new for me, as I avoid drawing.

The finished card

Thank you Alleycraft for the motivation to overcome some personal barriers!

Säntis

During this week a very dear friend of ours from the Netherlands is visiting us in our home in Switzerland. Having visitors is a really nice opportunity to do activities in the country you are living. And since we are living in an area with mountains belonging to the Alps and she is living in the flattest country of Europe, one of the first activities we did was to go up on the most prominent peak of our area, the Säntis.

View from the Säntis

Säntis is a peak 2502 metres above sea level and is shared by three cantons (it would be more correct to say one canton, Saint Gallen, and two semi cantons, Appenzell Innerrhoden and Appenzell Ausserrhoden). It is a peak with high prominence, offering impressive summit views, at least when the weather allows it!

From time to time we could see further down to the valleys

There is a myth connected with Säntis and how nicely spread the villages are around Appenzellerland. Once upon a time there was a giant called Santis or Samtis. He used to live in the area of Schwendibachtal and he was carrying his food in a huge bag made of a thousand goat skins and a hundred bear skins sewed together. He liked so much the numerous cute small houses that were built close to each other in small bunches, and the small people that were running around, that one day he decided he wanted to take some with him, so as to play with them at his ease. He grabbed with his huge hand a few villages with all their people and animals and put them in his bag. A courageous farmer, who noticed the movement of the grass, managed to jump and hide inside a ditch. When the huge hand passed over him, he sprang out, extended his hands as far as he could and sliced the rucksack at its bottom with his scythe. The giant that was used to crazy movements around him, did not pay attention to anything, but threw his bag on his shoulder and started happily towards his house. As he was ascending the mountain his bag was going back and forth and houses were falling all over from the slit. Once he reached his favourite bench, the Alpsigel, he sat down and noticed the loss. Irritated he emptied the remaining houses at his feet and disappeared never to be seen again.

Yesterday, it was not an absolutely clear day. There were several clouds around the summit, so we couldn’t see all of the grandiose views to the six countries around: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein and of course Switzerland. We did manage to get a glimpse of almost all the mountains around in between intervals of the clouds and we succeeded in teaching to our friend the names of the most amazing mountains in Switzerland, according to our subjective point of view: the Churfirsten.

We even managed to get a glimpse of the Churfirsten from the Säntis

This is how the Churfirsten look from our side

Despite the clouds, the visit was amazing. There was a mystery surrounding the peaks around us and our friend was totally happy seeing the tall mountains! And there was a surprise in the gondola that transferred us up and down!

The small cow was checking who was entering the gondola