Calendar Pages, Collage and Cards

  With Easter arriving I for one feel like the weather should be warming up by now! Our poor forsythia bushes are a bit behind in blooming (we usually have the flowers beginning St. Pat's day) but there's hope for some blooms next week.

  I received a wonderful pkg. of paints a few days ago. I mentioned quite awhile back that I won a GC for the Fall fearless and Fly challenge hosted by Carolyn Dube and Jessica Sporn. There were a few glitches but Carolyn pursued the issue(thank you!!) and lo and behold I had a $40 GC to spend at  Dreaming in Color! This online store was new to me so  you can just imagine the excitement discovering new products and having the chance to try them out-at no cost to me :):) They have an amazing selection of Twinkling H2Os and Silks among other things. I have H2Os and after reading about the Silks I chose to order 6 jars in some bright colors!

 

  Silks are acrylic glazes with a shimmer that surpasses anything else I've seen!! They remind me of the Twinkling H2Os except that the Silks are paints. Of course I had to immediately open each jar and paint a swatch of the colors onto a card-YUM!!!

  You can somewhat see the shimmer here although it still doesn't do justice to all the reflected light in the colors. I plan on making some time to play with them a bit in the next week. And if any of you own some I'd love to hear what you use them for!

 On to my calendar pages for April-whew-just in time too! I can't believe how quickly March has flown by...

 

  I had a bit of the Sunburst Silks acrylic glaze on my brush so I cleaned it off onto the blank pages. I wanted the feel of "April Showers" so I haphazardly painted Folk Art acrylics in Light Grey, Light Blue and Amish Blue. I like the hints of "sunshine" peeking thru, giving a hint of the sun and flowers to come in May :)

 

 

  My idea for the pretty umbrellas came from a recent blog post at Roses,Lace and Brocante

where Shane posted some really lovely photos of pretty umbrellas hanging from a ceiling. See, you just never know where inspiration may strike, or how :) Merci Shane! I just cut my umbrellas from patterned and solid cardstock. Then I loosely made some budding trees with watercolor, and added buds with the top of two paint brushes and two colors of green. Added butterfly and bird stickers, along with the quote I found online.

 

  And finally, here are the Easter cards I made to send out to a few friends and family:

 

 

  The banner is an image from a digi collage sheet by Retro Café Art and the chicks images are from ARTchix Studio. I used my Grand Calibur die cutting machine with the scalloped squares dies to make the cards and frame. To all who are celebrating I wish you a joyous and happy Easter!!

 

  Linking up to Art Journal Every Day, Creative Every Day,  Kate Crane's 2013 Calendar Project, and  Paint Party Friday. Please go and visit some of these wonderful challenge links. You never know what might inspire you to create something special.

 

" Art is like singing. Some do it better than others, but everyone can and should be doing it for their soul."  Barbara Mason