A is for.........

Thank you so much for the wonderful supportive messages you left on my last post on the grand opening of Dotty's Tearoom and my card selling adventure. I have passed your good wishes on to Rebecca and I am delighted to say that I have had some early sales. If you would like to read about this here is the link.

Yes the alphabet challenge continues and we have the letter A this fortnight to play with over at the Craft Barn challenge. Luckily no dreaded twists this time like pink or dragonflies, just plain and simple A. I also like to combine these pages with other fun challenges running.

My walks and photos over the last week or so have shown Mother Nature at her very best. I have shared blossom, Hawthorn and new green sap rising in the leaves. I do adore the changing trees and their leaves.
Here are a few photos from the ponds, the green leaves are so full of vitality at this time of the year.

As I went through my vintage dictionary looking for an A to play with.... this word stuck out to me as perfect.

Yes I would create my own arboretum in my art journal! I wrote a post a couple of years ago about Winkworth Arboretum, if you are interested you can read it via the link here.

I went down to my garden studio and found that the only trees stamps I own are by Clarity. All my other tree stamps are Pine Trees for my Christmas cards. The Clarity trees are single and I needed a whole arboretum full so I stamped them in groups onto tissue paper using green and brown archival inks and then tore them out.

I wanted a focal for my page and decided a poem or quote would work well and I  found this lovely poem on the Internet.

I have always felt the living presence of trees

The forest that calls to me as deeply as I breathe,

As though the woods were marrow of my bone

As though I myself were a tree,

A breathing, reaching arc of the larger canopy

Beside a brook bubbling to foam

Like the one deep in these woods,

That calls that whispers home.

Michael S. Glaser

I added texture paste to my page through some TH stencils.

I used lots of different acrylics to build up my background, layering and layering.......


until I was happy.







and then I stuck on my trees to create my arboretum.

Leaves were made from snippets of inky card and some left over hessian paper from die cutting the frame for my poem.

Then it was time to put on my creative hat.

And here is Jane's Journal's arboretum.

with a few close ups

Complete with crackled TH die cut tree

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

The Craft Barn alphabet challenge A
Pixie's snippets playground #230
The Artistic stamper collage
Anything but Cute celebrate your style as everyone knows I love making AJ pages, so here is another of them!
Fussy and Fancy  1/3 dies and/or punches
Bunny Zoe lovely layers
Deep Ocean shabby chic/vintage
ABC H is for heavy embellies
We love to create 1/2 11 anything creative/ mixed media
The Craft Barn weekly challenge 2 different papers I have used tissue paper for my leaves and snippets of inky paper to die cut my leaves.

We have our darling Daisy staying with us this weekend whilst her Mummy and Daddy are at a wedding in Edinburgh....she such a delight and yes wanted to head straight to Nanna's studio when she arrived. The only bit I dislike is her dawn chorus at 6.00am on a Sunday morning! Bless.
She LOVES taking photos and my Hb took this hilarious shot of her taking a photo of me...

her artwork has been very colourful...she's been playing with bister and brushos in my studio.

 Giving it a quick spritz of water

 I'll share the finished piece when it's done. She is staying today and off home tomorrow after lunch.

Thanks as always for your kind visits and for the sweet comments you take the time to leave me. I would also like to give a warm welcome to my newest followers, it is lovely to see you join me on my creative journey.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x