Cold and frosty January days

Now that Christmas is packed away, Bear has returned home and a routine has returned I decided to have a creative day all to myself. I love it when I can just make art for arts sake...neither for selling at Dotty's teahouse or to fulfil my  DT duties....just for pure enjoyment. I also wanted to get out my acrylic paints, which have not been used for a while.

There are some fun January challenges in blog land and on Facebook a the moment and I decided to look at their requirements and make something suitable. Lots of challenges are also asking us to use something new or a new technique so I got out a brand new stamp I bought. The weather has remained very cold and frosty and I thought a chilly January art journal page would be just the thing to make.

On one of my early morning walks with bear I photographed the colours in the sky as the sun rose.

 There was just a hint of pink in the freezing blue sky

The frost patterns on the leaves were so pretty...almost like snowflakes.

Bear never seemed to mind how cold his toes get!

I decided to use the colours in the sky, the silhouettes of the naked winter trees and the sparkle of the frost as my inspiration for my project.

I recently bought some lovely Clarity stencils and decided to use this one for its first outing

 I used white, blue and pink acrylic paints and roughly splodged them through the stencil to give the hint of a cold winter tree background.

 Next I gave the first inking to my gorgeous new Stampendous stamp I bought. It arrived too late to make any Christmas cards with but was perfect to use for a winter's day scene.

For the Craft Barn challenge I needed to include a wellington boot with a bird on it. This caused me a bit of a problem as I own no boot stamps...so.... I made my own boot which I then coloured green. 

I also die cut some snowflakes using  my new Tim Holtz thinlets...I love this set.

I gave them some texture and sparkle with some crackle paints, distress ink and Glamour dust

I also coloured some die cut birds.

Next I put on my creative hat...and this is my finished January art journal page...

and some close ups...

The bird in a wellington boot

 some white ribbon on this snowflake

Plenty of chilly crackle and sparkle to remind me of those walks which really did make my feet and fingers glow.

My art journal page was made as an entry for the following fun challenges;

The Craft Barn twelve month challenge January . "The Months" poem  by Sara Colleridge is being used for inspiration. For January there is the added twist of including a wellington boot with a bird. The first 2 lines of the poem are included on my art journal page.
Craft stamper take it make it January anything goes
Rubber dance colour inspiration January blue, red and white with optional winter theme
Creative Carte blanche baby it's cold outside
Creative artiste#22 anything goes
Emerald Creek dares 1/3 bring on the new mine are the stencil and stamp
The Artistic stamper 3/3 anything goes
Crafty catz add ribbon
Time out winter
Frilly and funkie  new year's goals inspirations another goal for this year is to try to fit in some "me crafting time". I spend a lot of my crafting time making cards for Dotty's and I really do need to try to have some fun, creative, experimenting time too in my art journal.

Yesterday turned mild again and I think this week it may stay that way but the forecasters say a blast of cold air from the North is heading our way by the end of the week.
Remember the saying...The north wind will blow and we will have snow.....I wonder if we will?
Keep snug and safe. I understand that my Finnish and Amercian buddies are having a really cold time at the moment. We had -8c overnight one night and that was a record for many years. I cannot image what -22c is like.....brrrrrrrr...

Thanks for visiting me today and for your very kind comments.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x