F is for floral and my garden love.

I love my garden, yes I really do love it and at this time of the year I really miss not being out there tending it. My pots look empty, in the summer they are full of gorgeous colourful flowers but for the moment I am just waiting for my spring bulbs to come up.

Recently I visited a garden centre and spotted lots of colour there.

and these great pots....

Back at my parents' house they had some lovely colour already in their pots.

But below is my rather forlorn garden yesterday morning when we woke up to quite  a heavy frost

However I do have some colour as there are some pretty daffs out in my front garden.

 My very favourite flowers, I just adore these sweet yellow bonnets.

For the dictionary challenge over at the Craft Barn we have been given the letter F and we also have include a heart. I also wanted to join in with some other super challenges so I pooled some of the challenge themes and decided that inspired by the colours around me at the moment my art journal pages would be F for Floral.

There is also a "wax" challenge over at PaperArty so I decided to use these for my theme.

I used my PaperArtsy  tulip stamps and my new Wendy Vecchi SISI flower and stamped lots of images on to book pages. 

 I got out my long neglected  Gelatos and used them to colour my images.

 and then fussy cut them all out.

I added some floral/ garden texture using texture paste 

and chose these distress inks for my floral palette. 

I added some colour to my pages

and a VI sentiment

and added some flicks and drips of water and some more stencilling using my heart stencil

 I also made my own "terracotta" pots out of packaging.

I wanted my love of my garden to shine out of my pages and also to remind me that my pots will soon be full of colour. So I put on my creative hat and had a play over a couple of days with my design. 

This is the double page spread I made;

 Here is my antique dictionary definition of floral, "pertaining to flowers" what a lovely way of saying it. I put it into a Cheery Lynn die cut heart frame. I also added the PA bloom sentiment as this is so apt.

 there is some text stamping using my VI bronte verse stamp.

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

The Craft Barn alpha/dictionary challenge F with a heart
PaperArtsy  #3 wax As suggested by Leandra in the intro video I dug out my gelatos and had fun colouring with them .

Noor UK  love
The Artistic stamper  love 
Deep Ocean  hearts

Stamping Sensations 2/3 anything goes

Country View make your own background

Simon says stamp spritz and spray
Winter Wonderland 1/3 have a heart
Natalie and Amy 1/3 hearts and flowers
Creative Inspirations 2/3 hugs and kisses there are plenty of hugs and kisses to my garden in these pages

Noor UK  love
Pixie's snippets playground  3/3 #215  I used snippets of packaging for my pots
That's crafty 3/3 love
Vintage stamping splatters and drips
Crafting for all seasons 1/3 love is in the air
Emerald Creek Dares blogger scramble/anything goes

So we have reached the weekend of love ;0) My hubby and I plan to get an M+S dine in for 2 and celebrate together at home on Sunday. I will be sharing his card next week as it is a guest design card plus I need him to see it first.

I hope you share your weekend with someone or something you love...even your garden....I do love mine so much. I just need it to warm up before I can get out there to start a tidy up and plan for the coming season. It's bitterly cold this afternoon....there may even be a nip of snow in the air....brrr.
Keep snug and carry on crafting....I am planning to sew a Witch's cape for Daisy as it is World Book Day soon at her nursery and she wants to go as the witch from Room on the Broom. Time to get the sewing machine out the loft....yes we found the one which I thought we had given away!

Thanks for visiting me today and taking the time to leave a comment.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x