Back to Iceland Again-And No, I'm not on a Plane

Happy Friday everyone. Another week is winding down, and considering it was a pretty quiet week for me, it still flew right by. I spent a lot of time working in my journals. I worked on pages in my summer journal, and also made a big push in my Iceland journal.  My goal is to finish that before I got back to work at the end of next week.

 I am linking up to several challenges.First of all, I am linking up to Try It On Tuesday. The latest challenge is book pages, and that's what I used as my background to make these two pages here. When I made my journal I used some pages from a  child's book about Iceland and Greenland that I found on eBay.  The left side of the spread in the back soft cover of the children's book. I stitched and then put some gesso inside the stitched part, and than I added this fun postcard of the Reykjavik Cathedral I picked up. Since it is labeled Icelandic punctuality, I added a couple of wrist watch stamps and also the little metal number. 

I also wanted to make a page about all the flowers in bloom.  I had bought this rather big lot of used postage stamps from Iceland (also off of eBay) and I decided all this page needed was for me to attached the stamps in an organized manner. I think the flowers look great on the printed background.

I liked how this worked so much I decided to do it again with some more stamps. This time I painted the page with some light blue paint and then attached some geology related postage stamps.

Iceland is so much about it geology, in fact it wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the separating of 2 large geologic plates. Traveling with 3 other science geeks, you know we had some geology talk. :)

Flowers and geology are both wonders of nature. They are also a really interesting part of the island that is Iceland. So I am linking up to Art Journal Journey. The theme this month is Nature's Wonders chosen by this month's great hostess, Gill.

Finally, I have one more journal page to show you. This is another page done on a book page, and also part of my Iceland travel journal. I wanted to make a page in my journal about some of the unique Icelandic drinks I had that week. I took a few slight liberties on the labels. The first beer-the Einstock- had a gorgeous Viking head, which I could not draw, so I used a Viking stamp I own in place of it. And I had to outline the white letters on the second beer bottle so they would show up better.

Because I painted these I am also going to link up to Paint Party Friday. Thanks Kristen and Eva for hosting.

Stop by all these web pages to check out some interesting art.

And since I showed you a postcard of the Reykjavik Cathedral, let me show you a few photos of this interesting piece of architecture.

 This is the view of the front of the cathedral from across the street.

Here's a couple of close ups. The picture above was taken with my phone and these next 2 with my camera.  I just love the dreamy colors my camera caught.

 These rock like ridges remind me of the Volcanic rocks you see on the island. The building,  given artistic license and in Scandinavian modern style,  resembles the volcanoes on the island.

 Inside the cathedral

 This cathedral is as stark as the Icelandic environment.

 I love the sky color outside the windows here. It  looks painted, doesn't it?

And this is the large set of organ pipes in the back.

 I think the cathedral is interesting architecture and really reflects the Icelandic environment and what I know of the culture. I'm not sure I'm in love with it, but it made me think.  I guess that means the architects were successful in their design.  What do you think?

Hope everyone has a great weekend, and thanks for visiting my blog.