Painshill, an English Country Garden

I am back with my photos from Thursday as promised. If you are just visiting to see my challenge card just scroll on down to the bottom of this post. I met my darling daughter and Daisy at Painshill in Surrey. As the weather forecast was good we try to visit places when we catch up, which are buggy friendly and have a good tea shop. Both essential requirements to us. Although I have lived in Surrey for 31 years I have never visited Painshill....what a mistake that has been. It is the perfect place to picnic and walk and we will definitely be returning there.

We met at 10.30am and as always had a warm drink and a catch up before heading out into the milky sunshine. The paths are very dry and well made,  perfect for Daisy's buggy. Our first "wow" was at all the hundreds of daffodils and snowdrops, there were huge drifts of these beautiful bulbs.

There are several well signposted paths

 and we decided to head towards the lake.

We also headed down towards the bank to show Daisy some of the wonderful wildlife

Some parts of the garden have follies and viewing points and we rested our feet for a moment to take in the glorious views

There is even a working water wheel

We enjoyed a delicious lunch which we were able to eat outside

Followed by one last walk before afternoon tea.

and whilst my daughter and I sipped our afternoon tea my darling Daisy dozed away. It really was a magical day.

I came home so inspired by all that rich lush green grass and spring foliage and decided that I would have some messy play and try a new technique to create some spring inspired backing papers. This is mono printing using an acrylic block and is the Take it Make it Craft Stamper Magazine challenge this month. I have had my eye on buying some acyclic paints and found this great set in The Works for only £2.99
I also wanted to enter the challenge this fortnight for Pan Pastel UK which is to create something with 3 textures, as well as some other great current card challenges.

 I selected 3 very spring like colours....sap green sounded just perfect.

 and squirted some onto my acrylic block

 I pressed this down on some watercolour paper

 and when I peeled it away I was delighted to see not only the pattern it had made but this lovely stippled texture.

 There was enough paint left behind to stamp again and this is the other piece I made.

 The piece above made me think about the trees and the sunshine so I decided to make a simple spring scene as I wanted to show off as much of this gorgeous background as possible. I applied some translucent embossing paste through a branch stencil (I taped off the snowflakes) which when dry I coloured with a Distress Ink pen

And here is my creation all put together

You will also see that I used my new TH air spritzer to add some speckling  to my TH die cut bird and some MS butterflies and punched flowers give a third layer of texture. Here are a couple of close ups.

I really love this technique and I will definitely be using it again.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Craft Stamper Take it Make it Monoprinting with an acrylic block
PanPastel UK Use 3 textures
Country View Crafts Paper Chase
A Vintage Journey anything goes Tim  I think my post explains my Tim inspiration; the bird is TH and I have used his new technique of air spritzing as well as colouring the bird with blends of Distress Inks.I have also used book pages to make the paper for cutting out my butterflies, very much a Tim inspiration!
Sparkles Monthly Easter Parade
Whimsy Stamps Easter
Stamp and Create  ready for spring
Divas that cut paper embossing my branch has been embossed with translucent embossing paste through a stencil
and then coloured with DIs
Frilly and Funkie neglected dies...I'm not sure I have ever shown a card using this TH die!
Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge D is for Distress I have used Distress ink for colouring the bird, the butterflies, air spritzing his speckles and for edging the water colour card.
Stamping for the weekend anything goes
The Squirrel and Fox autumn or spring
The Ribbon Girls Green
My Mum's Craft shop Spring/Easter

Thanks for visiting me and enjoy the rest of the weekend, it has been just glorious again and yesterday I was busy re potting my container grown  hostas in the garden. Billy has been by my side too. Today I hope to get back out to the garden as it is even warmer out but first we are heading up to my son's flat to take tiles and plaster off his bathroom wall....smashing ;0)

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x