More nature inspired inky play

Thank you all for the amazing comments you left for me when I shared my first pages from my small art journal. If you missed the post this is the link here.

I am enjoying just playing with inks and paints when I have a spare minute. Making art for art's sake! Last week I spotted some more pretty spring flowers at the garden centre I visited with my parents.

Gorgeous hellebores

 witch hazel in flower

and these purple beauties, cyclamen. I loved the contrast of the green leaves...stunning colours from Mother Nature.

I was not too sure about the fairy statues, this one, in my opinion, seemed more suited to a graveyard!

but I thought the one below was rather sweet peeping out amongst the primroses.

This was perfect inspiration for my art journal pages. Brenda over at Bumblebees and butterflies  is suggesting we all link up our art pages just for fun and sharing creativity. I thought the purple and green of the cyclamen was gorgeous. I still love using fairies in my crafting (yes I have a very varied crafting style and I love fairies as much as grunge)I had also received my newest Tim Distress Ink, Cracked Pistachio

so I knew I needed to have a play with this new colour. It is gorgeous! I'm now waiting to order his Forgotten Coral when it comes out, his names are brilliant aren't they.

I first prepped my pages with some gesso and added some book pages and corrugated card for texture.

I pressed texture paste through my TH stencil and left it to dry. I also pressed some paste through my dot fade stencil

I made up my own distress spray using Seedless Preserves re-inker and added some squirts to my pages. Sorry this photo is really dark, the light is not good enough yet without my light box.






I added some more stencilling using archival ink through my wood grain stencil.

I blended on my new Cracked Pistachio DI...it's such a gorgeous retro green and complemented my purple so well. I also added some Pumice Stone DI ink which Tim recommended as a good colour combo.
I kept adding, swirling and dripping inks until I was happy with my papers. Then it was time to start thinking about my embellies.

I wanted to use my Lavinia fairy stamps so I added them using the tissue paper stamping technique. The little quote is very sweet.  I wanted to create a secret magical fairy glen in my journal so I also inked up lots of butterfly dies and punches. I added a touch of fairy magic bling with a lace Cheery Lynn border using purple glitter card,

Here are my finished pages aka my fairy glen ;0)

My Lavinia fairy is sprinkling some magical stars; I stamped the star ball under her fingers. I stood her on a die cut branch and included some other black die cuts as I felt they complemented the silhouette image.

Below you can see the Joy! butterfly die as well as a Joanna sheen ivy leaf. Most of the other leaves and flowers are all Cheery Lynn.

The large butterflies are Cheery Lynn, the small are Tim Holtz and an MS punch. The glitter card Cheery Lynn lace border gives a touch of fairy magic. I love the way the book pages are visible under the coloured textured stencilling.

and I added a shiny rhinestone to the centre of my Cheery Lynn flower. Lots of texture here.

and here is the sweet fairy in close up sprinkling some love

I would like to enter my journal pages into the following challenges;

Lavinia bright and beautiful
Simon Says stamp a piece of paradise I have enjoyed playing in my imaginary fairy paradise
Noor!design UK spring #3
That Craft Place film inspired my film is Disney's Fantasia
Pile it on butterflies
Not just cards anything goes
Country View drips and drops
Penny Black and More anything goes except a digi
Stamping sensations anything goes
Art with heart projects to love
Emerald Faeries all you need is love
Stamp and Create all you need is love
Party time Tuesday anything goes
Inspiration Journal love is in the air
Craft stamper Take it make it stencilling
Bunny Zoe for the girls
Top Tip Tuesday use rubber stamps only I have only used Lavinia rubber stamps in my pages. My Top tip for the challenge today is how to add rubber stamps to textured journal pages. If you try stamping directly parts of the  stamp will often will have no contact and be missing from the image. To solve this use archival ink and stamp the image on tissue paper. Roughly tear around the image, don't cut or you will just have harsh edges. You can then add the image by carefully spreading glue (I use matt medium) to the back and then apply the stamped image with a paintbrush smoothing it in place with a little more glue. It melts into the background like magic. I used this method for all the stamps I used in my pages above.

I have a very rare free Thursday this week so I hope to have a chance for some more inky play. We had a wonderful Sunday with Daisy and Co and even managed a walk by the sea. I hope to make a Moment of our day and also share some sunny photos at the end of the week...fingers crossed.


Enjoy your week,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x