A Nature Journal is Born

Hello everyone!  I  hope you're all enjoying a lovely Easter weekend, however you choose to celebrate it.  

I celebrated with a little Easter Giveaway yesterday, and just want to make sure you don't miss out - click on the link to get your freebie!

Today, I'm here to share a very simple journal page, inspired by some of my eclectic Paperie goodies.

The page uses my much-loved hedgerow flower stamps by Donna Downey at Unity.

If you're tempted by them, you'll find links at the foot of the post to take you straight to them. 

Although this is a simple page, I'm excited about it, because it's made it clear to me which direction this journal is going to go in. 









I'd only done one page in it, and that was months ago, and I was feeling a bit stuck as I didn't want to "spoil" it - I'm sure you know what I mean. But this second page that finally emerged has set up a sort of theme, and for now I'm going to run with it.

That's not to say it won't change as we progress!

But I've decided to find a way to incorporate my Hedgerow Tags I and II into pages of their own, as they'll fit right in.






The journal is made up of kraft pages, so I used Sepia and Coffee Archival inks to stamp the flower stems.  

They're such jumbo stamps that even with this medium sized journal, you still mainly get partial stampings!











Having layered up the flowers, I added a Tim Holtz sentiment stamp.

I blended Vintage Photo DI around the edges to give that gorgeous extra depth of colour to the kraft paper.












And then I had lots of fun flicking white paint around, trying to get decent globules so that there would be lots of dimension.

I love the effect of summer pollen and blossoms and seeds floating in the air around the plants.













You may not remember the first page in this album as it's so long since I've added to it... 

But if I show you this as a reminder (you can see it in more detail here), you'll see the way my thinking is going.

I'm so glad I waited for the right stamps and the right moment with the next page, and allowed it to reveal where it wanted to go.

It turns out it's a nature journal, I think!















I'm going to play with embedding these two hedgerow tags from previous eclectic Paperie posts (Hedgerow Tags I and II if you want to see more) into pages of their own - I'll keep you posted on how I get on - and there's another one coming up which may also get to play a part.

Ooh... and while I'm typing this, I've just had another idea for some pages... yay - time to play!






Thanks so much for stopping by... I hope you enjoy this Easter weekend, however you celebrate, or whatever you're up to, and I look forward to hopping round (Easter bunny-like) to see what's new out there in Craftyblogland.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

And, finally, a poem I love, and which seems just right for a nature post on Easter Sunday.  If you don't know e.e. cummings's work, I promise all the punctuation and spacing (or lack of it) is as it's meant to be:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings

Click on the link to go to the product:




I'd like to enter this in the Sunday Stampers challenge Nature, hosted by Hels over at Ink on my Fingers
And at Art Journal Journey, the theme for April is The Landscape Within Me