Spring Blossom

Hello all!  I hope you're enjoying a gentle Sunday.  Now that we've finally had a taste of springtime here in the UK, I thought I should probably share a couple of the samples from the third of my recent PaperArtsy stamp releases, EAB06 The Spring Edition.  Well, it's not really that recent any longer, but you know what I mean.  And since today is Earth Day, it seems only right to head to the natural world for these...

It's another pair of tags (if you saw No Small Dreams or Lose Sight of the Shore, you'll know I often work in pairs or sets when I'm creating samples).  We're still in the official launch colour palette, and this time I was playing with some of the charming new stamps by Kay Carley.  These delightful springtime trees are from EKC16.







I love tree blossom.  We've got lots of May trees blooming already in our area, but most of the blossom is yet to come.  It may be my favourite form of flower, I think - and part of that beauty comes from its impermanence - it's always with us for far too short a time.

And although white blossom is my favourite, blossom-time is one of the times when pink is also very welcome in my world, so the launch palette worked really well in this case!









The backgrounds of these tags are done in my "soft crackle" technique.  The background layer of paint was one of Seth's new blues, over which I applied PaperArtsy Crackle Glaze as normal.

When the glaze is dry, I then use a natural sponge to apply my top coat - in this case Fresco Chalky Finish in Chalk, a lovely soft white - and let that dry too.  








Then I do another soft sponged coat of paint over the top of that.  This softens the look of the crackle and gives a subtle aged look to the background.

Once the soft crackle was done, I blended on watery washes of the blues to give me spring skies, and then stamped some of the grasses in Venice Blue and in Mushroom.











The trees themselves are stamped in Watering Can Archival and clear embossed, and then I used the Mulberry Fresco paint and a water brush to colour in the blossoms.














It's great to have the two sizes of tree on the one plate.  As you can see, the large on is perfect for a standard size 8 tag in portrait, and the smaller one works beautifully in landscape.














But you could also use them within one scene to create depth, by using the large one in the foreground and smaller ones "further off" in the background.  You could have a whole Chekhovian cherry orchard!











I tried out a few Archival ink colours for the Charles Lanman quote, and in the end I think it was a secondary stamping in Plum Archival which did the trick.















And for the long Mark Twain quote which is the main feature of the landscape tag, it's Vanilla White Wow embossing powder applied with Versamark ink over a Mulberry-painted background.









I've used the whole quote - it's long but so lovely, and oh, how I know the feeling! - but there are plenty of phrases and sections which you could use by themselves.

Some simple white doodled borders frame the tags, and they're finished off with some seam binding dyed with the same Mulberry paint and fastened with white twine.

I hope you're enjoying some spring sunshine and some spring blossom wherever you are today, at least if you're the right side of the planet for that.

And whatever season you're in, I wish you a very happy Earth Day.

It's still pretty quiet here on the blog, but I'm gearing up behind the scenes for a busier May on the crafting front.

I promise there are more good things coming your way in the not too distant future...  Thanks so much for dropping by and I'll see you again soon.

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
Marcel Proust