Time for tulips

Last autumn I planted up my pots with some spring bulbs...daffodils and tulips and over the last 2 weeks my parrot tulips have come into flower with a fanfare.

How vibrant and stunning they are and they bring such rich fiery colour to my garden.

 First they pushed up with green naivety, at this stage there is no indication of the flash of colour which will develop. I took this series of photos over 4 or 5 days

 The first hint of colour

 a little more

and finally the fire emerges

These pots are on my patio and I can see them from the kitchen window

and also from my studio

 I had a hour or so creative time and I wanted to enter some challenges so I decided to use them as my inspiration for some journal pages. I also wanted to link up with Brenda of Bumblebees and Butterflies visual journal pages which are here.

I found my faithful tulip stamp (one day I want to find a big daffodil stamp too) and stamped some on some book pages which I then coloured with Distress inks

I also scribbled some flowers and coloured those too.
I got out my distress  ink pads to match the colours of my tulips

 and blended them in my journal pages until I was happy with the colours. I added a little spritz of water for some texture.

Next I reached for 3 different stencils and blended these on too.

I added a Tim Holtz quote and his hedgerow stamp to the corner and then finished off my pages.

Here they are...

I love how vivid and bold they are. I also wanted to keep the memory of these extraordinary flowers preserved not only by the photos here in Jane's Journal but also in my creative journal too.

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

Frilly and Funkie stencil mania
The Artistic Stamper flora and fauna
Inspiration Journal everything goes
Our Creative Corner colour your world
Mixed Media World use bright colours
Fussy and Fancy flowers
Die cut divas in the garden
Stamp and Create anything goes
Love2create anything creative/mixed media
Simon says stamp Monday anything goes

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend? Our weather did cool down so the planned trip to National Trust Gardens turned into a National Trust house but we still had a great time on Sunday. Did you see the last Poldark of the series...what a cliffhanger, I can't wait to see the next series. This has been compulsive Sunday evening viewing for the last 7 weeks, Sunday nights won't be quite the same!

OK must dash, off to dancing..it's the romantic Rumba we're learning for the next 3 weeks, real Poldark dancing then ;0)

Thanks for visiting me here and enjoy the week,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x