First Signs of Spring at Country View Challenges

I’m so excited and honoured to have joined the wonderfully talented Design Team over at Country View Challenges . It’s such an inspirational blog and being part of this team is a dream come true – thanks so much for your warm and friendly welcome!

At Country View Challenges our challenge for February is First Signs of Spring, which is being hosted this month by the lovely Miriam.

I love celebrating the different seasons and creating this blossom and birdsong art journal page was so uplifting (grin!).

When I thought of birdsong, I knew that I had to use these beautiful images from my new Forest Paper Pad by Stamperia; this included the forest panel on the left hand side of the page, the pretty bird tag and the square nest image. They were cut out and edged with a Dark Sepia marker and/or some Black Soot Distress Ink. To make them look more Spring-like, I added additional colours by painting Distress Inks over parts of the images; it’s important not to add too much water when doing this otherwise you could ruin the image. I used Mowed Lawn and Twisted Citron ink to add more vibrancy to the green areas of the forest panel and to the bird’s feathers, and also to add green leaves to the bare trees and colour the leaves on the nest image. I painted some Mustard Seed ink to add more vibrancy to the yellow feathers of the bird and also to add some colour to the nest. Then finally I painted the eggs using Speckled Egg ink and left them all to dry.

For the background, I coloured the page with splashes and drips of Hickory Smoke, Mowed Lawn and Forest Moss Distress Ink. I did this by stamping the ink pad onto an acrylic block, spritzing with water and pressing the block onto the page.

Then I brayered some white gesso over the top to push the colours into the background more and then splattered the page with white acrylic paint. I stencilled dots vertically down the page using a Halftone Layering Stencil from Tim Holtz and Ranger Crackle Paste; this is the first time I have used this paste and it was so easy to apply with a palette knife – I love the results (grin!).  

Next I stuck the Stamperia paper pieces in place using double-sided tape. Then I created the blossoms and leaves using Tim Holtz Thinlits and some white linen card stock which I had coloured using Distress Inks. The blossoms were coloured with Mustard Seed and Fossilised Amber ink and die cut using a Tattered Florals Thinlit set. The leaves using Mowed Lawn, Twisted Citron and Forest Moss Distress Ink and cut using a Garden Greens Thinlits set. After shaping the flower petals and adding a gold pearl to the centre of each flower, I arranged them onto the page using glue dots. To finish, I added the “blossom” and “birdsong” wording which was created from some Field Notes Ephemera by Tim Holtz, an alphabet stamp set and black Archival Ink.

For more inspiration you’ll find some amazing First Signs of Spring creations from my fellow Design Team members over at Country View Challenges.

I hope you are inspired to join us too, and if you do, you’ll have a chance to win a £20 voucher to use at Country View Crafts (grin!).

The birds in our garden have been very active of late. We’ve even seen the Great Tits that are on my page, but we have noticed that this pair of Coal Tits visit our bird feeders more frequently.

This made me smile, can you think of a good caption for this photo? Maybe the bird is saying “Hello, is anyone there?” or “It’s really dark in here” (grin!).

Hoping that you are all staying safe and well!

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:

• Stamperia – Cristina Radovan – Forest 12×12 Inch Paper Pack
• Ranger Tim Holtz® Distress Ink Pad – Mowed Lawn
• Ranger Tim Holtz® Distress Ink Pad – Forest Moss
• Ranger Tim Holtz® Distress Ink Pad – Black Soot
• Ranger Tim Holtz® Distress Ink Pad – Twisted Citron
• Ranger Tim Holtz® Distress Ink Pad – Mustard Seed
• Ranger Tim Holtz® Distress Ink Pad – Fossilized Amber
• Ranger – Tim Holtz® – Distress Ink Pad – Speckled Egg
• Ranger Roller – Small Brayer 2 1/4
• THS144 Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Layering Stencil – Halftone
• Ranger Texture Paste Opaque Crackle 3.9 Fl Oz (116 Ml)
• 659765 Sizzix Big Shot Starter Kit (White & Gray)
• TH94051 Tim Holtz® Idea-Ology™ – Ephemera Field Notes
• Ranger Archival Ink Pad, Jet Black – 90mm X 62mm
• Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Hickory Smoke)
• Pébéo White Gesso
• DecoArt Crafter’s Acrylic (White)
• Faber-Castell Big Brush Pitt artist pen (Dark Sepia 175B)
• Stix2 double-sided tape and glue dots
• Creative Expressions (Luxury Cardstock with Linen Textured Finish)
• Tim Holtz Sizzix Thinlits (Garden Greens  661206, Mini Tattered Floral 661806)
• Pearl Gemstones
• Dovecraft Essentials Alphabet Stamp Set (WDN ALPHA STMP DCVW0050)

Challenges I’m pleased to join the #136 – Patterns challenge over at Paperbabe Stamps with the stencilled lines of dots that are on my page. I’m joining MIUCB #46 – Anything Goes + Fancy Fold over at the Mix It Up Challenge Blog with all the different techniques I used, including the fun way that I coloured the paper images so they became more Spring-like. I’m also happy to join the Anything Goes challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge with my art journal page too. I also pleased to be able to join in the fun at Love to Craft Challenge Blog and enter my spring blossom and birdsong page in their LTCCB #55 – February Anything Goes challenge.