To live in the country

Hello all!  Yes, I know, I still haven't got around to catching up with the lovely entries for the Summer Countryside theme I'm hosting at Art Journal Journey.  The week just seemed to slip away from me.  But I have just spent my Sunday morning creating another journal page full of countryside peace and calm to add to the entry list.

Ironically, having moved to a village in the Czech countryside, I've found that the agricultural communities are actually very noisy during the summertime... someone is always chopping or mowing or sawing or hammering something!  Ah well, it still hasn't changed the joy of fulfilling my longtime wish to live in the country.

That's the dream the words on this collaged page are celebrating...

The stickers from Tim Holtz's Clippings set came up trumps yet again!

I started with a scraped-on coat of Watercolour Ground - this is a textured paste which converts any substrate to take watercolours and water-based mediums beautifully.  A couple of spritzes of Distress Ink Spray - Speckled Egg, Bundled Sage and Mowed Lawn - gave me a loose impressionistic summer countryside landscape for the background.

And of course I just love the texture all by itself too!

I added rough stampings of the lovely Vines and Roses background stamps (TH again) in combined Olive and Leaf Archival.  No choice but to be rough, given the gritty texture of the paste, but again, I wanted to keep just the impression of rambling roses in the countryside.

The glorious washi tape is by Paper Garden - amazing lilies of the valley and beautiful soft green tones.

It provides the architectural bones for the collaging to come.

That collaging includes some lace and some ephemera from the Field Notes pack as well as the tiny Snippets version.

This gorgeous rose is one of the elements included along with all the amazing little labels and posters and specimen lists.  I think I've mentioned that I love the Field Notes ephemera!

There are some offcuts from the Tim Holtz Wallflower Paper Stash in the mix too, and a couple of snippets of diecut Crochet trims leftover from some tags I made which I've yet to share here (soon, I hope).

I couldn't resist using another of my cabochon clocks marking the summer time...

... and the circular motif is echoed with a bit of Idea-ology mini flair in the shape of this delightful clover.

A few splatters of Speckled Egg Oxide and white acrylic paint finish things off and that's pretty much your lot for this page.  I hope you like it.

I'm going to go and enjoy some actual summer countryside now, while the sun is out, but I'm aiming to pop round to visit the Art Journal Journey Summer Countryside entries very soon... after all, we're nearly at the end of the month!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and I'll see you again soon.  And in the meantime, happy crafting all.

In summer, the song sings itself.
William Carlos Williams

I'd like to share this as a second entry at the Funkie Junkie Boutique Challenge for their Funkie and Frilly theme - lace and flowers again should cover the frills, and I think the clock and the flair are pretty funky!