Thanks for being my friend

Spending time with good friends is always fun and this weekend was no exception when we went for a bike ride and enjoyed chatting over a cuppa at The Blackbird Café. When I found this sentiment, I thought it was perfect for my friend inspired page.

This page and sentiment applies to all the friendships I have made in blog-land too, for which I am very thankful, and as T Stands for Tuesday this includes the T Gang!

Firstly I painted the background using Topaz and Begonia Spectrum Aqua markers and then I applied a layer of white gesso to push the colours back. I ripped the edges of a napkin and stuck them to the page using Liquitex Matte Gel Medium. Once the gel medium had dried, I used a grey Faber-Castell Big Brush marker and black Uni Pin marker to emphasis the edges of the torn napkin. Next I added the teapot and roses which are all rub-on transfers by Royal & Langnickel. For the quote, I used some grey paper from a Design Pad by Craft Sensations and stamped the wording using black Archival Ink. I then ripped the edges of the paper, added some little rosebuds from the same rub-on transfer set, outlined the edges of the paper using a black Uni Pin marker and attached it to the page using double-sided foam tape. I also used the black Uni Pin marker to add more definition to all of the rub-on transfers, which took quite a bit of time as I used the whole sheet of transfers on this piece. To finish, I added a butterfly tag using double-sided tape and also a couple of picture embellishments, one of which is a birdcage which reminded me of The Blackbird Café.

Here’s a close up of the lovely birds and birdcages that adorn the café.

You may remember the Blackbird Café from a previous post, this time we sat at the table in the window chatting with our friends.

 As T Stands for Tuesday I’m also sharing our drinks, my hubby had a hot chocolate and I had a white hot chocolate, as you can see they came in the most adorable mugs and with a little piece of chocolate each. I suppose this is quite an unusual drink for summer but despite the sunshine there was a cold wind which had chilled us to the bone as we were only wearing shorts and thin tops for our cycle ride and the hot chocolates warmed us up!

We also treated ourselves to a bacon butty to share; we ordered it on brown bread with no butter and the bacon extra crispy – just as we like it, yum!

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:

• Pébéo White Gesso
• Spectrum Aqua Markers (Topaz, Begonia)
• Ranger Archival Ink (Jet Black)
• Uni Pin Fine Line Marker (Black 0.1mm & 0.2mm)
• Dovecraft upper and lower case alphabet stamp set (WDN ALPHA STMP DCVW0050)
• Craft Sensations Design Pad (Authentic Vintage CRO730/R)
• Dunelm Napkins (Grace 30220549)
• Royal & Langnickel Rub-on Transfers (Teapot #FIT-216)
• The Works M&C Boutique (Printed Embellishments)
• Liquitex Matte Gel Medium
• The Range double-sided foam tape