Bluebells

I've been busy making samples for Crafty Individual's next Hochanda show (which will be on April 2nd) so I'm afraid my blog has been a bit neglected. Will be posting sneak peeks very soon, but in the meantime, here's my first play with their beautiful new Bluebell stamp, which they have just released.

I made the background with Pretty Gets Gritty Explosion Powders, which I discovered only recently and I just love them! They are like Brushos with bling! You can just about see a bit of their gorgeous shimmer in the photo. I also used a Tando Creative mini mask "Flourish" which I thought echoed the curve of the flower petals. I painted the bluebells with Radiant Pearls. Remember those? Hadn't used them for many years and was quite prepared to find out when I opened them that they had dried up, but they were still as good as new! I felt very virtuous about having used some old stash. Don't think I made much of a dent in my stock, though!

Bluebells!

A quick reminder of our May challenge at Stamping Sensations, where our theme is "Say It With Flowers". Full details of the challenge, sponsors and prizes are on the challenge blog. The challenge is open until the 3rd of June, so there is still plenty of time to enter!

My first sample for the challenge (see my previous post) used a beautiful digital image by our lovely DT member Dora, who is one of our sponsors, and for the one shown here I have gone for the lovely bluebells from the "Spring Foliage" set by Chocolate Baroque, our second sponsor for May.

The background is watercoloured and stamped with another stamp from the Spring Foliage set. The butterfly, bee and sentiment are magazine freebies. I coloured the image with Zig Clean Colour pens and die cut it with a die from The Works..

The bluebells around here have been glorious! Another good year for them, I think. We are lucky enough to have some in our garden.

The bees like them too.

Today was the first really dull and damp day we have had in several weeks, but a gorgeous male yellowhammer dropped into the garden to brighten things up.


We have several visiting regularly, and it is a joy to watch them, along with all the other beautiful birds, butterflies and bugs we get here. Even this monster beetle, which scuttled right by my foot in the bathroom yesterday!

Bluebells

This is proving to be an excellent year for bluebells. Indeed, there are some growing on the bank opposite my craft room window.

The photograph was taken one evening last week. The dramatic lighting was accounted for by the fact that the sun, low and bright, was shining over us, but a rainstorm was rapidly approaching.

I was inspired to make a bluebell card for Butterfly Challenge No 7, the theme for which is butterflies and a doily.

I used my Wild Rose Studio bluebell die, and one of the papers from the "Bluebell" paper pack, also by Wild Rose Studio. One of the papers in the pack is a gorgeous all-over bluebell design, which I had thought to use, but it would have overwhelmed the focal elements. Instead I stamped some bluebells and a little butterfly (both Chocolate Baroque) on one of the plainer sheets from the pack, and coloured them with Promarkers. The die-cut butterflies (Cheery Lynn)  and the bluebell diecut were also coloured with Promarkers. The doily is the French Pastry die, again by Cheery Lynn.

I was hoping to give the impression of butterflies fluttering amongst the bluebells, just as they have been doing on the bank outside my window this week, but they are mostly Orange Tips, which I haven't managed to photograph yet as they rarely settle for long. I was able, however, to capture this beautiful song thrush today as it surveyed the garden from its vantage point on the shed roof.