Sunday 1 May 2011

Layout: Serenaded by Mr.Blackbird

Hello.

Happy May Day. 

Your feet must be aching from all that dancing around the May pole so why not rest awhile and cast your eyes over my latest page:

We have a blackbird [or maybe more than one ... they do all look rather similar] who sits on the TV arial of the house beyond the bottom of our garden.

He perches there singing his heart out, regaling us with his entire repertoire:
I truly love garden birds and their familiar, comforting songs.

And, as you may already know, I have a particular soft spot for the blackbird:
If you're new to Mr.Blackbird [the one in the the foreground] you might like to read the story of how he came to live with me here.

When I spotted the real-life Mr.Blackbird on his perch last week I was struck by how much he resembled his indoor counterpart ... and so I reached for the camera:
The photo came out so much clearer than I could have hoped for ... which is more than I can say for the print out I made of it.

Still, this meant I could experiment with the printed photo and so I sanded it and sprayed it with Shimmerz spritz and water.

[Typically the ink and water didn't have muhc effect when I wanted it too ... yet if I'd sprayed it by accident .. what's the betting it would have made the printed colours bleed or blobbed pigment where I didn't want it?].

I also spritzed the Shimmerz inks through a die-cut paper to create the soft flourishes at the bottom:
And I was so pleased to dig out some old Dymo tape in a blue which matched my Easter Monday blue sky so perfectly!
It's the first page I've made on the Ranger 12x12 Manila cardstock and I liked it a lot.

So much so that I was very restrained in my use of patterned papers over the top of it ... and that doesn't happen every day!
I think even Mr.Blackbird approves!

Here's to spring sunshine, open doors and beautiful yellow-beaked soloists.
Thanks for dropping by.
Julie x

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Page design inspired by Sketch 235 at the Pencil Lines sketch challenge blog.

17 comments:

  1. A fabulous page....and what great photographs!

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  2. I love the layers and the detail on this.

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  3. Fantastic and, as you say, relatively plain for your style Julie but it works beautifully !! Love it !

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  4. This is beautiful! Huge impact!

    Lucy x

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  5. Lovely, lovely, lovely. I too adore blackbirds. We have one (2, 3, more?) who comes each morning to raid the seed feeders. Delightful.

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  6. oh it's gorgeous ... how on earth did you get to be so talented.

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  7. Ohh liking the effect on the photo. V.cool!

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  8. This is another gorgeous one, I really like your style. I find it very fresh and inspiring. Always something interesting going on on your pages...lol!

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  9. Great LO, love the vivid blue and your sanding and spritzing look fab!

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  10. I love this time of the year with the birdies singing. We don't get so many around here - the steel fabricator yard at the bottom of MY garden kinda scares them away I suppose but love hearing them when I do.

    STILL have blackbird envy :P

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  11. The gorgeous blue of your photo matches the blue of your labels so perfectly.

    I love listening to the birds in the garden too and I fell in love with your Mr Blackbird the first time I saw him. I think if he was mine I wouldn't be able to stop looking at him.

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  12. This is a lovely layout with so many cute details! Thanks for playing along with us at Pencil Lines!

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  13. I love all the layers on this and the stitching and outlining of photo work really well.

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  14. That blue colour is so gorgeous, the dymo tape was a good find to match it! And I love the sanding effect on the photo. x

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  15. Wonderful page - love the blue in it.

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  16. Beautiful page. Reminds me I should scrap my Blackbird tale :)

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  17. Great job with the spritzing! and how lovely to capture him singing his heart out. Like the softer look to this - and not come across the manila cardstock.

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