A Walk in the Park

To celebrate my mum’s birthday this month, she chose to go to Stanley Park where there is an Art Deco Café called “Parks” for a light lunch. We had a lovely time and I wanted to capture our visit as well as my mum’s favourite spring flowers namely daffodils, tulips and iris which I always buy and arrange for her as part of her birthday present.

Firstly I added three strips of plasterboard/drywall tape to the page and applied Blueprint Sketch, Twisted Citron and Hickory Smoke Distress Inks with a blending tool. I wanted the tape to act like a stencil so I removed it revealing a white grid pattern. I stamped a tree stamp by Art Impressions using Rich Cocoa Memento Ink and then I used an A6 Docrafts stamp set to stamp a bigger tree onto my page as well as a piece of brown patterned paper from a Design Pad. I cut out the tree from the paper using the stamp outline to guide me and positioned it over the tree I had stamped on the page using a UHU Stic. On the bottom of the page I added the daffodils, iris and tulips that my mum loves so much, I cut the flower shapes from pieces of napkin which then melted into the page when I used Liquitex Matte Gel Medium to stick them down. Next I added the names of the flowers and the month which are rub-on transfers. The wooden frames are from Poundland and I created different pictures to remind me of our day out together. I filled one with the same napkin flowers, another with the logo of the café we visited which is from a leaflet I collected whilst we were there and the last one with a piece of card that I stamped with a recurring “Happy Birthday” using black Archival Ink. I embellished each one with a strip of green ribbon and a mini gel star sticker and stuck the framed picture to the page using Glossy Accents. To finish I covered the tree with cherry blossom flowers and dotted some fallen petals amongst the spring flowers, these are mini gel stickers and depict the lovely pink blossom we saw whilst we were in the park.

As we were “Out and About” celebrating my mum’s birthday, I’m pleased to be able to join Yvonne from Meggy’s Way over at Art Journal Journey.

I thought you may like join in our celebration; this is the view as we walked though Stanley Park which is in Blackpool. Visiting the park brings back many fond memories from my childhood because we use to visit regularly to feed the ducks at the lake, walk the paths to see the different gardens and, possibly my favourite thing in the world when I was young, to jump up and down on the outside trampolines.

This time we went to the Italian Gardens which is situated in the centre of the park and has many flower beds, a large number of benches and a central fountain made from Italian marble which is surround by sea horses.

There are great columns and a number of statues in this garden, this includes a pair beautiful of Medici Lions situated either side of the steps that lead to the café. I used to stand and look at them in awe when I was a child, they are so magnificent!

The “Parks” café overlooks the Italian Gardens and was built in a traditional art deco style. It is an imposing building and a focal point of the park.

The inside of the café is so beautiful; it is such an elegant setting with its original art deco features and palm trees.  The menu of breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea seems a bit pricey to me but the quality of the food is excellent.

We all had the most delicious ham and cheese toastie for lunch and I had a ginger beer whilst my parents both had coffee. As T Stands for Tuesday, I’m saying a big hello to the T Gang and wishing you all a Happy T Day!

These are the flowers I bought for my mum and arranged in a lovely metal jug, she loves the combination of the yellow daffodils, red tulips and blue iris – don’t they look bright and cheery!

Thanks for joining me today! If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear from you.

Here is a list of all the materials used to create this art journal page:

• Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Blueprint Sketch, Twisted Citron, Hickory Smoke)
• Memento Ink (Rick Cocoa)
• Ranger Archival Ink (Jet Black)
• Faber-Castell Big Brush Pitt artist pen (Dark Sepia 175 B)
• Uni Pin Fine Line marker (Black 0.1mm)
• Art Impressions wood mounted rubber stamp (P-1398)
• Docrafts A6 clear stamp set (Build a tree  DCE907130)
• Crafter’s Companion Vintage Floral Collection Acrylic Stamp (Floral Sentiments VF-ST-FSENT)
• Napkin from a café
• Poundland Design Pad (Changing Seasons CRO701/16PL1)
• Parks Art Deco Café leaflet
• 151Adhesives Plasterboard & Drywall Tape
• Home Bargains (Mini Gel Stickers 30287)
• Royal & Langnickel Rub-on Sentiments (Spring Sentiments #ROY-506 Rub-on)
• Poundland A Beautiful Life collection (Wooden Frames LCWDN001)
• Green ribbon
• Ranger Glossy Accents
• Liquitex Matte Gel Medium
• UHU Gluepen
• The Range double-sided tape