April showers bring forth May flowers

Here we are in May and April's sunshine and in fact, lack of showers,has brought on my spring flowers beautifully. Initially my pots were blooming with daffodils and then a few weeks ago my parrot tulips appeared. If you missed my journal pages of these do have a look here. Whilst having a cuppa in the garden with my Hb this lunchtime I noticed that the last of my tulips have popped up in my pots.

Say hello to my raspberry ripple newbies. Now that's not their real name but they remind me of raspberry ripple ice cream, such pretty reds, pinks and whites

I was able to have a couple of hours this afternoon in my garden studio. I decided that I needed to get these wonderful new blooms into my journal so armed with my trusty tulip stamp I opened up my pages and after giving a light cover of gesso I began to create my latest pages.

I never really have a plan with my journal , things really do just happen, that's what I love about it.

The only plan I had is that as we are now in May that I would try to use the end of the saying "March winds, April showers brings forth May flowers". I wanted to incorporate my beautiful new tulips. Also there are also some fun challenges up and running . I really enjoy entering challenges so I looked at their themes too to help with my inspiration.

I started by ripping up some scraps of sunshine/showers and flowers themed paper from my stash and added a die cut.

Next I had fun swooshing my sprays using blue for the sky, yellow for the sunshine and green for the grass and leaves in my garden. I allowed the blue to drip down as this was part of my showers representation. 

I wanted even more sunshine so I added some archival ink through my TH sun rays stencil to the garden side of my pages. 

I used my Ryn water drops stamp to represent the April showers.

I stamped my tulips and edged them with highlighter

and I then got so engrossed that I didnt' t take any more photos! 

So here are my finished Jane's Journal pages from today.

 I added some cloud die cuts which I shaded with Pan Pastel

 I painted over the tulip blooms with acylics using raspberry ripple colours.

 I love the way all the layers show through

What a fun afternoon I had and bless him whilst I was engrossed in my studio  my darling Hb was starting to strip the wallpaper off in the back bedroom. Thanks for tolerating my art M, you are the best!

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

Paperartsy  topic 8 sprays I was very inspired by Leandra's introduction to the topic last Sunday....there are so many sprays and it is great to combine them.
The Artistic stamper journaling your heart out
Our creative corner April showers and/or May flowers
Country View crafts simply scenic this is the scene in little garden at the moment!
Simon Says Stamp work it Wednesday add something yellow
Craft stamper take it make it take a stamp
Noor!UK May flowers
Allsorts April showers bring May flowers
Fussy and Fancy lots of flowers
Simon says stamp Monday anything goes
Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes
That Craft Place No cards
Crafting Musketeers use a die cut
The mixed media monthly challenge May flowers

I hope you are all having some time to relax over the bank holiday. The weather has not been too bad here today and tomorrow we may get a little more sunshine. We hope to go for a walk to see the bluebells in the local woods. I also hope to get some time to make Tim's May tag as he has used one of my favourite backings, hessian, for his latest.

Thanks for taking the time to visit me,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x