In a Magpie's Garden

Hello from Magpie Heaven on this Bank Holiday weekend! I have just finished a canvas for the Country View Crafts Challenge, http://www.countryviewcrafts.co.uk/ which this time is on the theme of 'How does your Garden Grow?' I was really inspired by all the wonderful examples created by the Country View Crafts Team and after looking at these, I dashed off to evoke the mood of my Magpie Heaven garden! I really enjoyed combining Magpie treasures to evoke the bright blue skies and subtle peach of my favourite flag irises and roses. No roses out yet in the Magpie's garden, but I look every day for buds and there are irises and pansies that look so vivid when the sun glitters on their dewy petals!

I sponged my canvas with cut and dry foam dipped in Fresco Finish paints: Sky, Bora Bora, Mermaid and South Pacific. For the grass, ferns and leaves, I used Hyde Park, Limelight, Hey Pesto. I stamped a Lynne Perrella stamp LPCO21, available from Country View Crafts along with lots of other beautiful LP images -   I'm completely obsessed with her amazing plates and my dream is to possess them all - onto tissue, painted it and adhered with Satin Glaze. The border of leaves around the Geisha image are stamped on tissue with Versafine Olympia Green. I used a Tim Holtz birdcage die, turning the cage into a hanging basket (there's a vintage one of these hanging in the Magpie Heaven garden) with two Tim Holtz roses of card painted with Butternut and Smoked Paprika. Both the cage, the 'On the Edge' die fence and the bird are painted with Fresco 'Little Black Dress', crackle glazed, painted with Bora Bora and then finished off with Treasure Gold 'Spanish Topaz'. I gave my little bird a sparkling blue gem eye. The butterflies are embossed acetate painted with Adirondack alcohol inks.

Polly Garter in Dylan Thomas' Under Milkwood said, 'Nothing grows in my garden, except babies and washing.' I know what she means about the washing, but the Magpie Brood are all grown now and when I look at my canvas I think of my springtime visitors; the flash of a jay's blue wing, dainty butterflies, the dramatic black and white of the magpie's wings, the bright-eyed blue-tits and the grass - that always wants cutting!!! Thank you for stopping by and have a really relaxing and enjoyable holiday weekend with hopefully some special crafting time.