Bed in Summer

The nights are still quite light and I always enjoy the long daylight hours in summer. However I am mindful that September starts tomorrow and that the nights will quickly start to draw in. There is a poem which I learnt as a child at primary school about light summer nights but I can never remember the last verse. I decided to look it up and find that missing 3rd verse.

It is called Bed in Summer by R. L Stevenson and it reminds me of those daylight bedtimes you endure as a child in the summer when you think it is far too early to go to bed!

Here it is in its entirety.

Bed in Summer

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candlelight.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree
And hear the grown-up peoples' feet
Still going past me in the street

And does it not seem hard to you
When all the sky is clear and blue
And I should like so much to play
To have to go to bed by day?

I am so glad I found it and I have now learnt the last verse. Inspired by this vintage poem I decided that I would use it for some new art journal pages.
I looked around my garden and decided to use the bright floral colours still proudly showing off from my pots as the base colours.

My lawn has really greened up too with all the recent rain we have had. Off I went to my garden studio and I chose some really bright bold distress inks and made some inky pages;

 I think sun glasses are needed here :0)

I then made the brave decision to try hand writing the poem using a Micron pen and white highlighter.

I also decided to add lots of doodles including a doodle frame inspired by Joanne Fink.

So here are my finished pages.

With some added strawberry stamping, some stencilling, Zenspirational dangles and my doodled frame with some Cheery Lynn die cuts.

These new pages in Jane's Journal will really make my heart sing even when it is cold and dark and winter is at its worst. I will be reminded of  the summer colours of my garden, the warm summer sunshine and the long light evenings....and strawberry Pimm's ;0)........

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

Artistic stamper anything goes

Mixed  media world gorgeous textures

Country View Crafts summertime

Papertake weekly take your pick I have chosen vintage/distressed

Simon says stamp Wednesday anything goes

Pixie's Snippet Playground week 192 here I used some tiny snippets of card to die cut my leaves and flower.

Love to create anything mixed media #18

Cheery Lynn Frame it I drew a frame for my flower and leaves

Anything but a card celebration mine is a celebration of summer

That Craft Place Mixed media, anything goes

The weather was on our side over the weekend and we enjoyed such a fun day out yesterday with our friends. We visited Standen in East Grinstead, West Sussex, such a gorgeous National Trust home. I will share some photos and a post really soon. Today the weather has other ideas and we woke up to heavy rain which has now eased but looks set to fall all day.  However it's bank holiday Monday here in the UK so no work and as it needs to be an indoor kind of day. I am spending time in my garden...in my studio....crafting! Yippee!!  Enjoy your day too.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x